gulu time.

okay sorry it has been over a week since my last update! things up in gulu have been much much different than kampala...barely any freetime! which is very very good, no complaints at all. okay so i am living in an international house a mile or so outside gulu town with about 10-15 ex-pats from europe and america. the house is so messy, i live on the third bunk, and out of a suitcase, and there is really no hot water, but besides that things are great. one of the girls at the house has a dog, which has been great company as i go through withdrawals from missing my own at home! yea so this past week i jumped right in! my friend george who is the head doctor for joint clinical research center - an hiv testing and counseling center - has taken alissa and i under his wing and allowed us to help him with this clinics in gulu referal hosptal in town. monday - friday are when the clinic is open for patients to come refill their medicine, see the doctor, test and receive counceling. every other week jcrc has clinics in other places around the north - one being pabbo (one of the largest idp camps in the north), and the other hope north (the school i was working at in the fall, which is how i met george). we are headed to both of those places tomorrow and wednesday! friday and saturday last week we had community outreach with the part of the jcrc team and their drama group. it was so amazing to see some of jcrc's patients get together and put on a performace about the dangers of not testing and being hiv+ for a cmmunity and see the response of people who recieved testing afterwards! both days were quite different, even though we did the same thing. friday the community was incredibly welcoming and i was able to interact with everyone, young kids, adults and the elders - which was a major help with my acholi (the most common language spoken in the north). saturday was good as well but for my own personal knowldge in how the testing in carried out because i was able to sit in witht he lab technicians who were drawing the blood and record the test results. as great as that was it was so hard to sit there and have to write a positive on a person's paper and then hand it to a counselor who would then sit them down and talk to them about the next step to receiving treatment, etc. okay sorry time is almost up on the internet...there is much more to come! hope all is well with you all! peace.