Now that our first week is over, we have begun to become more in tune with our surrounds and adapting to our schedules. After our trip to the Nile last week, we came back refreshed and ready to begin our first week of work. On Monday, May 25^th, we began our orientation, meeting at the GHN (U) staff office in Loro. Our orientation was facilitated by Dr. Bob Marley Achura and our project officers, and during this time we discussed intern conduct, our expectations while here in Uganda, and the importance of each project within the local communities. After this discussion, for the next two days we proceeded to visit the local sites where we would be implementing our projects throughout the district. We visited four local schools, four health centers and our three piggery sites. Additionally, we also visited our local government offices. Theses visits, which were referred to as “courtesy visits”, were to make everyone in the community aware of our presence within the district and to familiarize them with the work we will be doing within their community. We found these visits to be extremely important in regards to our relationship with the community. Every place that we visited expressed their excitement and utmost gratitude for our future work, which made us all the more motivated to get to work at our local sites.

Over the next week, we met with the groups we will be working with. We trained them in group dynamics, sanitation and hygiene and financial literacy. Additionally, at our local health centers, we began general health education pertaining to reproductive health and prenatal and maternal health for individuals present at each center. Overall, all groups were very receptive to all information and seemed motivated and interested to learn. We are looking forward to further interaction and the ability to build stronger relationships over the time we are here.