Final

Dear All,

with great delay I wrote the last page of this glob. I left Kalongo in the 20th of August and I’m currently in Milan.

It is hard to express to all of you the meaning of my experience in Kalongo. In order to do that, I’ve to start from the beginning.
When the Foundation came to my university offering a period of internship in Kalongo, I was attracted by the proposal but with a lot of doubts. However, I felt that the “Kalongo” was the best choice for me since the first interview with the Foundation.

And all the doubts disappeared as soon as I landed in Kalongo: I suddenly felt at home.
I could talk about my job there or about the amazing places I have the opportunity to visit. For sure we did a very well job and we had the opportunity to go for a Safari or to see the amazing landscape from the top of Kalongo Mountain.

But the best thing of Kalongo are people and their feelings. In Kalongo, I really understand the importance of some values that, maybe, in our society are not considering so important yet. Gratitude, Family, Love, the Strength of a Smile. People in Kalongo live in a very difficult and problematic environment. However they always smile, they are always available to offer their help and they have a great sense of gratitude in front of who try to help them. I never forget our goodbye party. They said us thanks praying, singing and dancing. In that moment my heart was full of joyful. And I cannot forget when the Kalongo football team decided to give me the shirt n.8 with printed my name. For us is only a shirt. But, maybe, they will not have the chance to buy another one.

I left Kalongo with something of all the people I had the chance to meet inside me.

Today Kalongo is in my heart and will remain forever and ever.

Best

Federico

Pictures....

Pictures....

Only 10 days miss

Dear All,

a lot of time passed from the last time I gave you my news here in Kalongo. As usual, the time run and a lot of thing we have to finish. Specifically, speaking about my job we are going to finalize the budget for the next financial years and we are going to set up a good management for the pharmacy and the stores. It is amazing. I love to work on my desk in front of my computer and also working on the field!!!
Valerian started to work on main store and I work in the Technical Department. I manage 10 people and we started to clean and sort all the items existing in the 14 stores. The problem is that they used to collect everything. The thinking was: maybe an item is useless but could be useful in the future!!!So we need to clean. After collecting all the useless things I'm going to organize a market for the next weekend in which we will sell at a symbolic price all the things that we do not need.
In the meanwhile I'm training every day with my new team: Kalongo United. Yesterday we started the Acholi Summer Tournament. We won 2-0 the first match and we qualified for the quarter finals. Friday, for the first time I will play away. We are going to Pader (40 minutes driving from Kalongo) and we will try to arrive to the Semifinal.
We are going also to try to create a good environment into the hospital. Together with Beatrice and Maria Sole, we are going with some paper and felt-tips to encourage children to draw something. In this away they can enjoy a bit.
Finally, tomorrow we are going for a Safari to Murchison Fall. We will stay there for 3 days. The schedule is: Boat-trip on the Nile to see crocodiles,hippopotamus, elephants and the Falls. Game-drive to see lions, gazel, giraffes and maybe gorillas.

I will try to update some pictures and I promise to you that I will update the blog after the Safari!!!

Ciao

Fede

Kalongo United

Dear All,

here I am for a new post. This post is dedicated to my new Soccer team: Kalongo United.

Yes guys, also here I found a soccer team to enjoy myself in a championship.
Last Wednesday I was jogging and a guy came to me asking if I would like to play soccer with him and his friends. We played a match 11vs11 and at the end they explained to me that they were the Kalongo United team and they asked me to play with them on Sunday.

On Sunday I went to the soccer field for the match against the Technical Institute of Kidgom (a village not too far from Kalongo). The match was amazing..I never see so much people to see a non professional match like here.
I play for 60 minutes, until I finished the oxygene in my body.....
At the end both the team plus all children that went to see the match enjoyed drinking and dancing all together.

For those interested, Kalongo United won 3 to 2....

See you

Fede

Other pictures

Pictures