Overwhelmed from the moment he stepped off the airplane, Ben Prieur was reduced to monosyllables. “Wow,” he wrote in his journal, summarizing his initial reaction to being in Uganda.

“Despite of all of the preparations I have made, books I have read and advice I have received (gratefully) I never thought that Uganda would be such a beautiful, mysterious and rhythmic place,” he continued. “The people are absolutely wonderful and the country is lush, green and leaves one feeling lucky to have the opportunity to gaze on such a glorious place.”

He would soon, however, learn there was much more to the country. For three months last year, Prieur was based in Mukono, a quasi-city in Uganda, where the Global Volunteer Network put him in touch with a local charity.

He spent every other week out in rainforest villages, talking about disease prevention and distributing mosquito nets, antimalaria medication and other vital supplies.

“It was the real deal — just what I was looking for,” said Prieur, a Hamilton, Mass., native who graduated from Saint Anselm College in May. It was that — and more. His first day in the country, Prieur said his anxiety quickly wore off.

“I said, ‘This isn’t going to be that bad,’” he recalled. That was before the night set in, when he failed to tuck his mosquito net under his sleeping bag — an invitation to an almost rat-sized cockroach which crawled onto his neck.

It would be the first of many lessons. Out in the rainforest, Prieur said none of his extensive research could have prepared him for what he saw firsthand in the villages.

One, Kigaya, a fishing community on Lake Victoria, had been ravaged by the AIDS epidemic, wiping out most middleaged people. One grandmother had been left with 40 orphaned children. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that women had to sleep with fishermen in order to get fish to feed their families and sell at the market.

When Prieur had decided to spend his summer volunteering in Africa, he sought to do more than merely meet the need of the Ugandan villagers — he wanted to experience it for himself.

So he had turned down those international service programs which sent him glossy brochures and promised stays in local hotels with running water and working electricity.

“I wanted the reality of it,” said Prieur. “I wanted the most bitter kind of reality.”

He was so determined to embed himself in the daily lives of Ugandans that he also made a point of avoiding service programs which paired him up with other Westerners. Instead, he worked with other Ugandans on his missions into the rainforest. “I didn’t want to go with a group of white kids, because I didn’t want that sense of security,” Prieur said.

Sometimes, just getting to his destinations was an experience in itself. Prieur often traveled in Toyota minivans, which had an official capacity of 14 people, but the smallest number he ever counted was 29 — plus a live chicken.

Prieur is bent on returning to Africa this fall — even as he searches for a job and braces for paying off $80,000 in student loans.

Someday, he wants to be a doctor, determined to give something back to a profession that has done so much for him.

As an 18-month-old baby, he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer behind his left eye. Chemotherapy and radiation were successful in eliminating it, but left Prieur blind in one eye and eventually caused significant facial deformities on his left side, requiring major reconstructive surgery when he was in high school — not to mention a host of other complications that have been with him throughout his whole life.

Last summer was a turning point. “I said, ‘Now is a good time, a good opportunity to give back.’”