Today we visited SOMERO, a 
non-governmental organization located in Bwaise, a slum in Kampala. SOMERO, or “school” in Lugandan, aims to empower slum children and young women to lead a self-determined life. They offer education in vocational skills and health promotion among slum girls and young women in order to improve their living conditions and rehabilitation.
We teamed up with some of the girls to 
cook lunch. We prepared nakati (a leafy green), cassava, yams, potatoes and matoke (a kind of banana). Everything was then tightly wrapped in banana leaves, packed into a large pot and placed on the fire. It took about an hour for everything to cook.
We got a chance to play with the kids and several of the children seemed very curious about the color of my skin. They would pull on my small arm hairs and run their fingers along my veins. They kept holding their arms up to mine for comparison. It struck me as odd that they were so curious about my color. During a group discussion the following day, Maryam shared her experience with one of the young girls. The girl said she wished she was Maryam’s color because it was so beautiful. In many 
cultures lighter skin is considered more beautiful. Maryam made it her mission to make sure this young girl knows she’s beautiful. SOMERO strives to teach young women, that they are more than where they come from and that they are capable of achieving anything they set their minds too.
After lunch we walked to 
Kawempe-Kazo. Every fortnight an outreach program between Hope & Beyond and SOMERO is held offering FREE HIV testing, counseling, and treatment. A tent and benches are set up near the community football pitch where people line up and wait their turn. We paired up with girls from SOMERO to walk around and “convince” people who were not already up at the pitch to go get tested. I felt more like a distraction walking around with my partner because whenever she spoke with someone it seemed like they spent more time watching me than actually listening.
Later I got a chance to speak with John Senyondo, an employee of Hope & Beyond. I asked him questions about substance abuse treatment offered by HaB. Alcohol treatment takes about 3 months. Patients are placed on a strict diet in order to “reboot the body” and individual, group and drug therapies are utilized. Drugs are used to draw the alcohol out of the blood to help with detox. Therapy then focuses on rethinking one’s behaviors and encouraging patients to focus on themselves. Counselors work with patients to identify a strength or skill providing patients with another way of connecting with people without the aid of alcohol. They also teach patients to substitute the time they would have spent drinking with something constructive for themselves or for their communities.
As we were getting ready to leave, we discovered a stow away sharing a seat with Catherine. Needless to say, I think Dr. White will be checking everyone’s suitcases before we check in for our flight back to the States.