Uganda
Uganda is a lush country with amazing rainfall, soil, and crop diversity. It has deep valleys, is crossed and bordered by stretches of mountains and dotted with a few huge lakes. In fact Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest with 26,000 square miles of surface (Lake Tahoe in Calif. Is 191 square miles of surface!). Uganda’s capital Kampala is a nice small city much safer than Nairobi. Like many other African cities, it has a modern, compact downtown, which spreads out to attractive suburbs, then is surrounded by dirt roads with colorful low buildings in semi-industrial sections with lots of street markets and low-income crowds. Rick and Wendy visited Uganda multiple times on TechnoServe business and on safaris including trekking gorillas and chimps.

Uganda: Ngamba Island Chimp Sanctuary
With their son, daughter and friends the Hubers, Wendy and Rick took a 1.5 hour boat ride on Lake Victoria from near Entebbe to reach Ngamba Island Chimp Sanctuary. Almost as soon as their luggage hit the tent floor*, they were off to view chimps from the platforms...

Uganda: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to Trek Mountain Gorillas
One of the Walleighs’ three most memorable animal adventures in Uganda was trekking the Mountain Gorillas. One of the national parks protecting the last 500 to 700 Mountain Gorillas in the world, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is only one kilometer from the border of the...

Uganda: Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth National Parks
Each of the two national parks Wendy and Rick visited--Murchison Falls northwest of Kampala and Queen Elizabeth near Uganda’s southwestern border—had wonderful animals as seen on the Uganda Animal page. Plus each had unique geographical elements. Along the way to...

Uganda: Modern Capital Kampala to Lush, Mountainous Countryside
Uganda is a lush country with amazing rainfall, soil, and crop diversity. It has deep valleys, is crossed and bordered by stretches of mountains and dotted with a few huge lakes. In fact Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest with 26,000 square miles of surface (Lake...

Uganda: Typical Animals and Birds
Between working on TechnoServe Uganda projects, Rick and Wendy visited two national parks--Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth National Parks--and the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary and Wild Chimp Forest. Landscapes of both parks, the Ngamba Chimp Sanctuary, and trekking...

Uganda Successes: Cotton Gin Improves Surrounding Communities
In April 2012 Rick attended a TechnoServe East Africa regional meeting in Kampala, Uganda, which also involved a field trip to a successful project: a cotton gin. Mutuma Commercial Agencies ltd (MCAL) was established in 1998 by Mr. Amos Mugisha as a ginning...

Uganda Successes: Buikwe Dairy Cooperative
Starting late 2007, TechnoServe Uganda significantly expanded its country projects to include dairy, horticulture, cotton, and women entrepreneurs. In the fall of 2008 Wendy and a couple of TechnoServe business advisors drove 50 kilometers for 1.5 hours over battered...

Uganda Successes: Matooke Banana Farm Co-operatives
In August, 2007, Rick and Wendy learned about the then-main TechnoServe Uganda project underway: organizing farmers of Matooke (ma-TOH-kay) bananas, the country's main staple. These are starch banana which when removed from the still-green skins are cooked, crushed,...
2008 Walleigh Travel Journal: Back to Africa + Perspective on Africa Living
Oct. 10 – 44 Hours Door to Door from Cape Town to Johannesberg to Nairobi to London to SFO! We had a great month in 4 African countries. But it was very tiring: really hard beds, so-so meals in many hotels, and needing to leave the bathroom light on every night...
2007 Walleigh Travel Journal: Living & Working in Nairobi + Traveling Eastern Africa
Dec. 3, 2007 - Still in Emotional & Physical Transit through December 5th Though we landed in California late on Nov. 18th and spent the night at 1050 Fremont, we left again 36 hours later on Nov. 20th morning. We had been warned of culture shock when re-entering...
