andersonbowen.comBLOG

i was in the field the last 2 days (left 6:30am monday, back at 10pm tuesday, worked 29 hours in 2 days…exhausting) doing my regular supervisory visits of the field staff and program activities. “minnesota” works with a local drama troupe to stage drama shows educating community members on particular health messages. [...]

[Read more →]

english is the official language of uganda, but not really. english is only spoken between two ugandans when there is a native english speaker (read: ex-pat) close by, and the english that is spoken could be a foreign language as far as i can tell. first, it’s british english. second, the accent’s [...]

[Read more →]

supposedly grad school is the place to network, find a job. i networked pretty well, yet somehow i made it through grad school without any idea of the big players on the international public health scene. sure, there was a guest lecturer in my “working in global health” course who had a lot [...]

[Read more →]

one of the biggest benefits of international work is no u.s. taxes, or at least no taxes on the first $80,000 of income. it took me a while to figure it all out, but i think i’ve got it straight now. if you’re interested in the nuts & bolts, read on.**
the best reference [...]

[Read more →]

(thanks go to trish for reminding me that this topic is still interesting to those at home)
a week into living here, the caretaker knocked on our door asking us if we wanted a cleaning lady. we said no. we were aware it was standard practice for ex-pats to have servants, but we hadn’t [...]

[Read more →]

tonight i fly back to minneapolis to join sub zero for the fall ultimate season. so this morning was my last run with peter. about 15 minutes into our run, we were moving along a stretch of road that was full of parked trucks so there wasn’t space along the shoulder. peter was on the [...]

[Read more →]

a few things that i’ve forgotten to relay over the course of my being here.
we flew club world on british air from chicago to heathrow on our way over here. it was ridiculous. and by ridiculous i mean it was amazing. yours for only 8K round trip.
the wireless mouse for my laptop works as a [...]

[Read more →]

exercising has been a bit of an adventure here in kampala but it’s actually been quite a bit more stress-free than i imagined. we have a pool, and although i am the world’s worst swimmer, it didn’t take long before i could put in a half hour of laps. and my knee thanks me for [...]

[Read more →]

phil & i just returned from a weekend trip to fort portal. fort portal’s one of the centers of activity on the western border of uganda. from there you can get to several really good national parks (kibale forest, semliki), semliki wildlife reserve, bigodi wetland sanctuary, the crater lakes region, and the rwenzori [...]

[Read more →]

earlier this week, i met the founder and ceo of a very cool uganda-based NGO: conservation through public health. they work in bwindi impenetrable forest national park promoting conservation and public health by improving primary health care to people and animals in and around protected areas in africa (their mission). (and, their vision) to [...]

[Read more →]