Here is another tale of an attempt to make a snack gone terribly wrong.

I had recently picked up some popcorn and had it sitting on the shelf for quite some time when I decided today was going to be the day I attempted to make popcorn to snack on while watching yet another episode of Skins (a complete waste of my life). Bear in mind, this was my first attempt at making popcorn the old fashioned way. So, I get all excited and pour a bit of oil into the pot and open the popcorn container. To my surprise (and horror) I am greeted by little black bugs. Awesome. I decide I don’t want to waste all the popcorn so I pour it all out and wash and rinse it. I put in one kernel and turn on the heat on the stove. After less than a minute I hear a pop and feel something graze my cheek. Curious as to what potentially blinded me, I looked inside the pot and found the kernel had disappeared. I put another one in and within a second it came flying back out. I realized I severely miscalculated the time it would take the oil to heat up and in my idiocy completely forgot the lid to the pot. I put a third kernel in (still having no idea where the first two ended up landing) and heard a pop within seconds. I took this as a cue to add the rest of the popcorn so I lifted the lid and poured the rest in only to be met by billowing smoke and the sound of something going terribly wrong. After a second or two everything went back to normal so I thought the initial panic I had was unnecessary. I stand back and listen as the popcorn pops vigorously for some time then decreases in frequency. I turn the stove and gas off and lift the lid of the pot, only this time greeted by black billowing smoke and the smell of death (okay, burnt popcorn, but it smelled rancid). After the smoke clears (filling up my bedroom and living room/kitchen areas) I peer into the pot and find charred remains of the popcorn. At this point, I feel utterly defeated and decide to clean up and snack on a bag of Skittles. I had to keep the doors open for a good thirty minutes before the smoke cleared.

Why do I even bother?

In work related news, we had the launch of the Red Cross Student LINK group at RCSN. The date had been moved up from February 23rd to February 22nd. I was worried it would be a complete disaster. The only real problem was the low initial participation by the students and the late start. Power had been out all morning so we (“we” being more the students in the LINK group than me) decided to wait until we had power to begin the event (why we didn’t use the generator still puzzles me). The event was supposed to begin at 10 am (I was told 9 am but I am assuming that was for preparation because on the invitations the time was 10 am) but we didn’t begin until 1:30 pm. It was very slow at the beginning (much like most programs I’ve attended here) but the ball got rolling eventually. For the most part, the event was fun, there were some questionable performances and speeches in Luganda, which I obviously didn’t understand, but for the most part everyone was laughing and enjoying themselves. THERE WAS EVEN CAKE (I know I’m probably going to get some flak for not inviting more PCVs…Sully)! Some donations were even made (granted, it seemed to be a strange part of the program, almost an implied tradition at some points) which makes me feel more confident about being the assistant patron to the group. Hopefully this means more people in the community will be willing to help us in financing some of our programs. Mama Prima, the mayor of Rakai, seemed very enthusiastic about the launch of the group and the potential for more outreach (I even got her mobile number after the event, which probably isn’t a big deal to anyone but me, but it made me feel special). I hope to be able to work more with her in her outreach initiatives. She seemed to be receptive to my passion for outreach and education, namely working in the field and being more active in communities. Hopefully things come to fruition.

Things are starting to be a bit more “normal” here. The day to day is getting better (on most days) and I feel a little more useful and appreciated. One of the tutors has asked me to teach the skeletal system to his anatomy and physiology course, which should be interesting. I continue to express my lack of interest in teaching (not that teaching is beneath me, on the contrary, I feel I need more knowledge and experience in order to be a useful educator, especially for future nurses. I simply don’t feel knowledgeable enough…) but it seems I won’t be able to really get around it, so at least in this case I will be able to teach something I’m interested in. I hope to be able to teach more psychology lectures in the future as well. I think if I teach twice a week at most, I won’t be going too far out of my comfort zone but will still be filling in the need the school seems to have.

Hello and how is there? For me, I am trying, slowly by slowly, as they say here. The journey from America back to Uganda was anything but quick and easy. There was a twelve-hour layover in Chicago, and then a turbulence-filled, ten and a half hour flight to Istanbul, Turkey. I spent my four-hour layover here charging my laptop and doing a little bit of shopping in the duty-free shops. I bought some nice soap and one of those fancy Chinese style fans that fold up nicely. Then there was a red eye flight from Istanbul to Entebbe, Uganda, and we touched down on African soil at two in the morning, at last! I was feeling very relieved, as I was becoming slightly delirious from lack of sleep (I can’t sleep on airplanes, even with Benadryl). And then! Then, only one of my bags arrived with our plane in Uganda! I had to get a room in Kampala for the next three nights while I waited for Turkish Airlines to send it on the next flight. I finally got it back, travelled back to my village, six days after I left Rhode Island. Oh, the humanity! The humanity!!! Since then, I’ve gone back out to town for some food shopping, and one other trip to another volunteer’s site near Kampala for a 3-on-3 basketball tournament. Our team, the Jive Turkeys, placed 3rd out of ten teams, not bad I’d say. After all of this activity, I’ve been happily back at site in the village for the last couple of weeks. It is nice and quiet compared to the last three months of my life.

So, what have I been doing here, you ask? Oh, well thanks for asking! I’ve been settling back into life in the village… taking care of my plants, feeding Pearl and watching her eat the catnip growing in front of the porch and then playing with some birds, strumming the guitar, running a bit, and just relaxing. That is, when I’m not taking care of business! Business has been starting a third microfinance group with thirty of the community members (a fourth in the works!), and managing the first contract water tank that our business is building. We are building it at the primary school next door to the Health Centre, and as I write this, we have just ended the first day of brick making. Also, I’ve started a project the likes of which I’ve been pining to do for some good stretch of time now. I’ve been working with some students from the primary school on a school gardening club! We have a big composting operation, we’ve planted some border plants along the future fence line, and we’ve set some garden pathways so far! We’ve also done some container planting of moringa trees, because the rainy season hasn’t really gotten fully underway, and as we wait for the fence to be built we are having a problem with goats eating plants. Just being able to get involved with teaching some hands-on organic agricultural work with kids is a real joy for me. I mean, we’re collecting food waste from all over the village for composting and the kids love it! That rocks!

So that’s my life in a nutshell right now. I love being in the village, not going anywhere for weeks at a time, and getting the most out of my Peace Corps experience, knowing that it won’t last forever. Being a PCV creates the experience of a different lifetime, condensed and filled with an array of events and emotions that come only through the 27 months of life abroad. It is a true testament to the endless possibilities of life’s journey. Sometimes I think about reapplying as soon as I return to the states, maybe heading to South America or Polynesia. Or Mongolia… But then I think of friends and family back home and it’s hard to imagine life without them for another two years. The ocean, the seasons of New England, the food, the culture! Anyways, there is still time to create, to discover the way.

In closing, I’d like to wish you all well through the end of winter and beyond! Time to start planting indoors, tuning up the motorcycles, and buffing that windsurfer! As always, looking forward to any questions or comments, and may the force be with you!

Since I intend to do a lot of fiddling with Arduinos, and because I need the soldering practice, I bought the breadboard voltage regulator kit (by Solarbotics) from Makershed. The kit is simple – it just requires the soldering of … Continue reading →

Since I intend to do a lot of fiddling with Arduinos, and because I need the soldering practice, I bought the breadboard voltage regulator kit (by Solarbotics) from Makershed. The kit is simple – it just requires the soldering of … Continue reading →

Hello, and welcome back!

Wow... where to begin? In my last post, I detailed the first days on my overland trip that too me through 10 countries plus Uganda. As I am still in Peace Corps and therefore in a position where I can get kicked OUT of Peace Corps, I cannot go into all the details of the trip. However, I am dead set on publishing an itinerary of my adventures, as, disregarding all the once in a life-time experiences I had to pay a pretty-penny for, the trip was incredibly affordable and very easy (in terms of the road being beautifully smooth and paved, the people being friendly and welcoming etc...). And, my god... the pictures. I've already posted pictures through Capetown on my Facebook page, and I'll post the rest from Capetown onward to Uganda once I get home and have more time and bandwidth.

Here's a quick list of things I did on the trip:

Bungee jumped off the bridge connecting Zambia and Zimbabwe (a couple weeks later, that same cord snapped when I young woman jumped off... she lived... and if I had been home, Michelle would have killed me...)

Four-wheeled and Skydived (like dirt-bikes but with four wheels) in the dunes of Swakopmund, Namibia. Skydiving is probably the coolest thing I've ever done... and I'm honestly thinking of getting certified so I can dive solo.

Watched the sun rise and hiked around Namib-Naukluft State Park in Namibia, possible the most beautiful desert environment I've ever seen (and I am VERY fond of the SW in the US).

Climbed, in a day, Devils Peak, Table Mountain and Lion's Head in Capetown, South Africa and drank beers and good wine while watching the sun set over the Atlantic.

Pony Trekked, got pummeled by malaria for the first time (Ugh...) and hiked around Sani Pass, Lesotho, the most beautiful mountainous region of our entire adventure (and possibly in my life, for that matter).

Got PADI certified (i.e. I'm a registered open-water SCUBA diver) in Tofo, Mozambique, where every picture is a postcard.

Snorkeled and boated around Vilankulos, Mozambique.

Snorkeled and Kayaked in Lake Malawi... home to the most diverse collection of fish of anywhere on the planet.

And, the rest, aside from a brief stay with some snorkeling and some hilariously-tippy-canoing in Nkhata Bay, Malawi, was just travel, getting our asses back to site on time.

Again, pictures to come, but probably not until months from now. I'm busy.

On to the point of the post: COS Conference.

COS stands for CLOSE OF SERVICE.

That's right, folks. I'm damn near finished with two years of service. Soon, now actually, I'm packing up my bags and planning for the second stage of my Capetown-Cairo trip which will ultimate terminate in Tel Aviv, Israel at the end of May. From there, I'll fly back to the US for my best friends wedding (a great movie, by the way) and begin the first days of the rest of my life. In the middle of march, I'll leave Kyenjojo for Kampala. There, I'll do three days of medical and paper-work nonsense, and then I'll be, um... kicked into the pool of 200,000 + Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) that have served since March 1st, 1961.

ABSURD!!!

The conference lasted two days. We talked about things we’d miss, things we wouldn't, what we were doing next, admin stuff, and in the end, we got give feedback about the good, bad and ugly about PC-Uganda from training onward to our Country Director (boss)... and by feedback, I mean verbal ravaging (this is not the place to talk about the BAD in PC, but my thoughts will be revealed when I am safely out of the axe...).

On day two, the last thing we did was all join in a circle, arms around each others shoulders, and we all expressed something we wanted the group to know. I’d been feeling emotions welling all day, but I just my hangover playing tricks on me (we drank pretty heavily each night).Well, I was third or so in line, and when it got to me, everything just spilled over. I looked to my left at Ashley, and was met with a “Don’t… if you do, I will…”

But I just couldn’t help it...

I choked up on my first words and had to turn away, my head resting on my close friend Elizabeth's head until I could catch a breath (I found out later that my tears eventually rolled down her nose like an Olympic ski-jumper, qualifying me as the most EXTREME cry-baby in the group). Back to everyone, look around, and I somehow got out, “It’s been an honor…” before breaking down again.

When I could speak, but not for long, I squeaked out, “It feels like my whole world is being turned upside down…”

Feeling a bit depressurized, I added on, “I just can’t BELIEVE that I was the first one!!!” to which everyone erupted into laughter (we'd had a bet about who would be the first to break down... the money was on one of the small, cute girls in the group. Oops!).

Everyone had something beautiful to say, and by the end there were very few dry eyes among us.

Things wrapped up that evening with after-dinner speeches and a slideshow documenting our two years together.

I lack the words to explain what it feels like to say goodbye to a family like this... I lack the motivation, at this time, to even try. For me, it is all so surreal. I believe it is nearly finished. I've accepted that. And still, I am a bit numb. Perhaps, in the time remaining I'll be able to write something up that better catches my turbulent emotions... but don't hold your breath. Instead, ask me about seeing a slide-show that I'll put together about the experience. Only with music and pictures can something so priceless be captured.

Oh! My small travel guitar that accompanied me to Uganda is now a MASTERPIECE! I brought it to COS, and I had everyone sign it. My instructions were, "You know, sign it, do whatever, just remember there are a lot of people, so keep it smaller..." The result? Well... see for yourself:

BEAUTIFUL!! Now, I just need a professional luthier to coat the surface with a thin layer of varnish to prevent any smudging from happening in the future.

It's time for me to run for the hills. I do hope to post a few more times before I leave the country, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.

I love you all (but especially you, Michelle!)

Devon.

Hello!

I can't believe it has been almost 6 months. As we prepare for IST, I thought it would be fitting to go over what I've done/accomplished in the last 6 months (in no particular order or format really--I'm lazy).

-setup website www.friendsoftoci.org

-set up uniform emails for all staff

-setup social media site www.facebook.com/twerwaneho (please go and like it!)

-setup basic system of documentation

-created profiles for each child

-revamped and digitalized the TOCI logo

-reconfirmed commitment of TOCI committee members and established board of directors

-implemented IGA- pool table (projected to bring in 1 million UGX/year...that's like a 1 million % increase!)

-broke even on Day 1. Hit target income in within 1.5 weeks.

-as of this week, we have been able to consistently stay above our original daily target income.

-procured a computer for the organization

-started basic computer lessons

-wrote and submitted 1 grant proposal while teaching supervisor how to write grant proposals

-supervisor is currently working on writing his own grant proposal

-set up craft shop www.etsy.com

-have made $200 in sales

-increased the number of guided hikes provided each month to visiting tourists

-made a new record in Dec 2011 of number of clients who received guided tours

-development of partnerships

-worked with Ugandan Safaris to create partnership so that TOCI benefits when toursits participate in tours

-worked with CA Bikes to get OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children) bikes so that they can attend school

...not bad I think! Still more work to be done. How is everyone at home?

PS. Special thanks to Pamela for posting a video about TOCI and for your assistance. =)

W E B: www.friendsoftoci.org

S H O P: www.twerwaneho.etsy.com

F B: www.facebook.com/twerwaneho

All red blossomsand leaves verdant greenFell, rotten, frozeEventuallymy guise, out identityIf you didn't know me before, withoutyou now won't glance, seeOnly sticksStripped twigsThinly remain.Naked, bareYou'd think them dying, strangeOh, no.This is not death,Everlasting honesty,Just a glimpse,Purge, Fleeting truth,Look- seeMaking way for spring's brightcolorRest before summer's Exhausting heatAnd a glimpse, to prepare, to connect, to ponder,That true fall That last winter With Peace.

  I love my kitty.  I truly, honestly do.  I rescued here back in August and I’ve been in love ever since.  She’s always excited to see me, whether I’ve been gone for 8 hours or 5 minutes.  I’ll open the door and she’ll be standing on the back of the living room chair crying [...]

I kind of had a rough day today.

Last week, we held a “Safe School Environment” workshop for our Senior Men and Senior Women Teachers. We spent three days informing these teachers about the importance and necessity of safe schools, as well as training them on the procedures and strategies to ensure safety. The topics were wide and varied: midday lunches, reporting techniques, sexual harassment, corporal punishment, child labor, guidance and counseling, child abuse, etc. My session was about corporal punishment.

For those that don’t know, corporal punishment is any type of punishment which inflicts pain, however light; this includes hitting, slapping, smacking, kicking, punching, beating, etc. with a hand or implement, such as a whip, cane, stick, wooden spoon, etc. Obviously, corporal punishment is illegal in America. If a teacher so much lays a hand on a child, they are instantly reported to the police where they may incur imprisonment or a fine and will most definitely suffering revocation of their teaching license. In Uganda, as of 2006, corporal punishment was banned and made punishable by the law; however, nearly all officials and head teachers turn a blind eye to this legislature. Corporal punishment is rampant in all schools, private or government, for all ages and sexes. Most often, it takes form of caning, but it extends to slapping, pinching, hitting, etc.

Anytime I have discussed corporal punishment with a Ugandan, the conversation has always followed the same course. I start by telling a teacher that caning is unacceptable, that corporal punishment is ineffective, that beating only creates a vicious cycle of violence, but their responses are either:

“Spare the rod, spoil the child.” Unfortunately this proverb comes from the Bible, and it can be difficult to refute.

“An African child only hears from behind.” As an American, they essentially shut me down immediately by refusing to believe that American and African children could learn or behave the same way.

To open my session, I reminded my teachers that although I am American, I have stayed with them for over one year. I understand that their classrooms are overcrowded and classroom management can be difficult. I asked them to please have an open attitude and mind about my session. I asserted that I was not judging them, and I would not come to their schools on Monday morning with a police officer to arrest everyone with a cane in their hand. I only begged that they would consider alternative discipline.

Corporal punishment has four major consequences:1. Physical: A light beating may not leave any physical evidence, but some will leave bruises or cuts on the child. We are unable to know the history of every child; therefore, we may not know if beating a child will be harmful to their health. For example, a teacher caned a young pupil “lightly,” but this child suffered from sickle cell anemia. As result, this child was hospitalized for a few days. I think it’s relatively self-evident how corporal punishment has physical consequences.

2. Psychological/Emotional: As I have said before, we have no way of knowing the child’s history. This child may suffer an unfortunate family life, and school may be the only place this children could possibly feel safe. Corporal punishment robs children of a safe and nurturing environment, where they can properly learn. Most teachers will argue that caning forces a child to learn; however, psychology tells us that is not the case. I will try not to go into too much detail, but let me explain. We have three parts to our brain, which function like building blocks. The lowest section controls our bodily functions that we don’t even think about, such as breathing, blood flow, reflexes, digestion, etc. The midsection controls our emotions and hormones. The largest and top section is our forebrain, which handles the higher level of thinking that makes us human, such as language, critical thinking and decision-making. If our lowest section is having problems, it shuts down the top two. Therefore, if a child feels fear or anxiety in the classroom, which would automatically initiate a “fight-or-flight response” and a release of stress hormones, his mid-brain has just hijacked his brain. No higher learning can be executed. The child may be able to memorize answers as a means of survival, but he will not have a deep understanding of the material. Furthermore, corporal punishment does not even teach the child what was wrong with their behavior, help them understand more appropriate behavior or give them methods for changing their behavior.

3. Behavioral: When a child gets caned for misbehavior, he is registering two things: my teacher is angry or upset with me, my teacher is using violence as a means of expressing his disapproval. Corporal punishment teaches children that violence is an appropriate means of conflict resolution. As children, they will use violence to solve problems and to express their emotions. As adults, this will contribute to domestic violence. Men have learned that lashing out at their wives is acceptable, while women have learned that being beaten is also acceptable, which is called learned helplessness. I gave the example of an experiment done to dogs where they were forced to stand on a pad that delivered them shocks. In the beginning, they were restrained, and they would thrash about trying to avoid the shocks, but there was nothing they could do. Later on in the study, the dogs’ restraints were removed, and they were free to jump off the platform. Sadly, the dogs wouldn’t leave the platform. They had accepted the abuse as normal and would just lie on the mat and whimper.

4. Developmental: Most children that are beaten have some developmental issues, whether with maturity levels, sociability or learning difficulties.

If Peace Corps has taught me anything, it’s that development is painfully slow. Change cannot happen over night. I asked my teachers to please, try, and slowly slowly stop using corporal punishment, especially for minor offenses, such as wrong answers, late-coming, speaking Lunyole, etc. I closed my session by asking how many teachers were caned in school for coming late. Every teacher raised their hand. And what time did we have start the workshop? 11 am, because everyone was so late. So, does corporal punishment work? I think not. At least everyone laughed.

So why am I so bummed today? I arrived at my center school to teach, but all the classes were in the middle of lessons, so I sat down to journal while I waited. Out of the corner of my eye, I realized that P5 was causing some serious commotion with children pouring out of the doors and crowding around the windows. As I approached, no teachers were in sight. Children were fighting, beating each other and climbing all over the desks. It wasn’t just two kids- it was the whole class. I entered the class and gave P5 a stern lecture about appropriate behavior for big girls and boys. I told them that if I found them fighting again today, there would be a punishment for the whole class, not just one or two children. Within five minutes, I saw a boy rush outside to grab a stick and run back in to lash his classmates. I couldn’t believe it! So, the whole P5 class was punished by having to clean the school during their break in the afternoon. I made sure they understood why they were being punished. As I was finishing with them, one of their teachers finally comes waltzing in. I explain the situation to him while trying to include the class. I’m sure they were tired of hearing me talk, and I noticed some pupils were playing with their books or whatever. I walked around the class picking up books and telling children to listen properly when a teacher is speaking. What does my P5 teacher do in order to help me? Smack a kid in the face with a stick. Great. I’m trying to tell them that beating is not an appropriate behavior.

As I left school feeling discouraged, I found a P6 boy beating a P1 girl. That’s a 13-year-old boy beating a 6-year-old gisl. Again, I couldn’t believe it. The boy insisted that it was his sister, like that would make it any better. Fortunately, I knew how to ask the little girl in Lunyole if that was true. Nope. This boy was beating a little girl, plain and simple. I made him apologize, but I couldn’t dole out any more positive discipline. I just wanted to go home.

Last Friday, I had considered attempting to tackle the problem of corporal punishment at my center school during my last year of service. Today, I’m worried that not only will I be just a broken record to the teachers, but that I’ll lose motivation for everything. It’s horrifying to face the daily child abuse and violence that occurs in schools. If I don’t loose steam, I’m hoping to bring this amazing Tanzanian-based organization, Raising Voices, to my school for a more comprehensive training in positive discipline. It would be amazing if my center school could be the model school for alternative punishment. Sigh. It will just be exhausting and disheartening to have corporal punishment constantly on my radar.

I’ve wanted to be able to build small electronic devices for quite some time, but this is one of those areas in which my education is seriously lacking. I’ve gone through the Makershed Electronics Components Packs and the book that … Continue reading →

I’ve wanted to be able to build small electronic devices for quite some time, but this is one of those areas in which my education is seriously lacking. I’ve gone through the Makershed Electronics Components Packs and the book that … Continue reading →

Mom arrived late on the night of December 13th. I was so anxious and excited as I waited inside the airport for her to depart her plane. Looking more gorgeous than ever I got to run and hug my mother despite the gunned men standing and staring at me around the airport. Although it was late we had a nice bottle of wine awaiting us at Backpackers in Entebbe. We stayed for a short while chit chatting, but soon went to bed so mom could get some rest. The next morning we had to depart for another hotel so I am sure mom did not get to sleep in as long as she would have liked, but we took her to our zoo and was soon overcome by tons of monkeys running around trying to steel our drinks and food. It worked out for the best because we got to stay at a bannda at the zoo, which was amazing. We arrived nice and early and were able to investigate the zoo, Entebbe town and the Botanical Gardens. It was nice to be able to start at more modern area of Uganda to ease my mother into the country. For example she got to take a nice hot shower after a long plane ride, and had (to me) delicious Americanized food. I also got to take advantage of having food other than Ugandan posho and beans for a couple of days!

The best part of her arrival was how proud she would have made my grandfather! She traveled so light it was unbelievable! (Heavy sarcasm if you are not catching this!) Of course it is all for me, and I would not complain either way, even if it was all her clothes for the trip. She had two HUGE suitcases (that she informed me that she bought one the day before her trip to pack even more for me!) that we got carry around Entebbe and then attempt to endure the public transit portion home. I couldn’t do anything but giggle, because I have the best momma cheeks in the world! It was easy to get them from one hotel to the other, but the difficulty came later when we attempted to take them into the most hectic part of Kampala and bored a bus to Bushenyi. We took a private car into Kampala at least to avoid further and unnecessary difficulty with a Mutatu. (Which if you recall are the main means of transport, and I ALWAYS have the best of luck with them!) Our driver of this private hire was one interesting man. We first had to convince him to decrease the ludicrous price he was trying to charge us to Kampala, because he didn’t realize that Galen and I actually lived in Uganda. Then we were battling him the whole way into Kampala, saying we weren’t going to pay 200 American dollars for him to take us all the way to Bushenyi. (That would be like being charged that amount from Hoffman Estates to Chicago.) Then while we were entering Kampala we had to remind him where the bus park was, and then which and where the bus we were taking to Bushenyi was. (Let me tell you that he told us at the beginning he knew where he was going because he traveled to Kampala all the time.) He went down multiple wrong roads, which took us forever to get the bus. And we went down the worst roads possible, circling around and around to end up back at the same place we started! I am absolutely laughing in the inside, because this is typical for me and when I travel, but looking over at my mother I felt slight pity as she started to get nervous. The best (worst for my mother) was when the car got stuck in a huge pothole because the trunk was so heavy with our luggage and mom and Galen were getting ready to get out and push the car up over this mess. I could no longer handle it and started laughing, and tried to calm down Galen and my mom that it would be “No problem” and soon our car would get unstuck, probably with the help of other Ugandans because we were blocking and stopping all traffic.

We do finally arrive to our bus (an hour and half later, on a trip that would normally take 20 minutes, max) and have the fun game of trying to shove our huge suitcases onto the bus and convince the driver it wasn’t our fault he took the wrong way and he wasn’t going to get 50,000 extra shillings for his mistake. It was humorous for me, but not so much for the conductor and workers/other patrons who were riding this bus. We find two seats on the bus and watch the workers bring our bags and attempt to put them in the overhead compartments. It wasn’t going to happen, to say the least and eventually they stuffed them between our seats in the isles on a soon typically overcrowded bus. (Which I am quite thankful for, because the put a smaller bag on top and of course through the bumps on the road it landed on my head, I could not imagine the concussion I would have endured if it was our suitcase!) We were “lucky” that this bus decided to over pack for the journey and the whole isle was littered with packages, suitcases and other random material, that everyone entering or leaving the bus had to walk on all the boxes. Good thing our suitcases had a hard outer cover. After sitting for about an hour to wait for the bus to fill, we finally took off to the “real” parts of Uganda. Again, all I could do is contain my laughter when the typical merchants came onto the bus to sell us anything and everything you ever wanted. They travel for a short ways before departing a bus and probably catching another heading in the other direction to do the same thing. This being normal for me, it didn’t catch me by surprise until I looked over to my mother to see her eyes widen and hear all her questions about what these men are doing and is this legal. Unlike Honduras, these busses at least don’t really have “priests” come on to make you repent of all your sins the whole ride, so I don’t mind the minor annoyance. The best, though, was I let my mom have the window seat so every major stop she was bombarded with meat, biscuits, and splash being shoved in her face through the window. She could not understand it! And if you know my mother, you can imagine her expressions! As we were attempting to leave the bus, the men could not fathom what we had in our heavy bags and tried under a huff and a puff to get a Christmas present from the bags we unloaded. Yes mom, welcome to Uganda/a third world country. I could not have asked for a better way to start our adventures!

As many of you may know, my archenemy has been and always will be writing. No matter how long I sit at a computer staring, even with well-developed thoughts in my head, I have a huge difficulty putting things down on paper. It’s not that I want to keep all these wonderful stories from people, but I always end up having a strange mental block. So in the words of a not so grown up child “Grandma, I’m sowwy.”

I am going to try my hardest to keep the blog up to date and hopefully interesting and slightly amusing. And I’ll also apologize for the jargon I some time use, I like to pretend I am clever and oh so funny. (Which I like to look back and roll my eyes at myself because if there is one thing that I acknowledge full heartedly is that I can be a dork!) If not just to amuse myself. But I know part of my task to keep my life, semi-updated for at least my family. SO HERE GOES…

For the past few weeks I’ve been praying for rain, because without rain my rain tank runs dry and I’m left without water. I think we can now safely say we are in the rainy season now. I woke up this morning at about 7 AM and I didn’t really think it was morning because it was so dark outside. I don’t ever think I’ve see it rain so much. It was kind of like a cross between an apocalypse and a monsoon. I guess you can say I don’t have to worry about water for a while.

Valentine’s day recently passed and I celebrated in my usual manner; by filing my taxes. It didn’t take long because my life is remarkably uncomplicated. While I wait to see where I’ll be in April, study in preparation, and line up shadowing opportunities, I jog daily, bake, and hang out with my grandparents. Despite this simplicity, I do not have the clarity that I did in Uganda. I returned to the states a bit suspicious of the conclusions I reached overseas. I wondered if I could trust such out of context decisions. Cluttered now with my so much well intentioned advice, competing opportunities, chances to compare myself with others, and life details, details, details, many days I often cannot see the big picture. What am I doing? And why on earth? I realize this is the reason I went to Lesotho in the first place and part of what attracted me to the Peace Corps. The ability to think; clarity, solitude—and it is what I experienced. I have begun to respect the space for thinking that I had there. I am not confused about where I am going or what I am doing. I am not bewildered. I am not lost. I am, instead, one of the only people I know who have been able to think about what I am doing, to stop the hamster wheel, get out of the cage and make active decisions. I asked a close friend what the difference between pursuing this medicine dream and trying to settle down and get a job would be. She said, “It’s the difference between being able to decide what kind of life you want and just dealing with the consequences of other people’s decisions”.

Things are getting started again here at Busheyni PTC! As February starts a new year in the Uganda school system, we are beginning a new school year now with our old 1st year students moving up to year 2, and brand new 1st year students coming in from O level. Technically, the new term started 2 weeks ago but, as they say here, things are moving mpora mpora - slowly slowly!

Week one of the term we were completely studentless, since the exams that determine a students’ possibility to continue at the school (which they took last November) had not yet been marked. So, we spent the week in workshops with some of the other tutors, reflecting on the last year and making vague and ambitious plans for the year ahead.

Then, last Monday all of our returning 2nd year students were supposed to arrive. They began trickling in on Monday, but now (almost a full week later) less than half of them have returned. We tried to have some lessons last week, but attendance and motivation was really lacking from both students and tutors, as it didn’t really feel like things were starting “for real” yet. So, tomorrow begins week 3 of the term, and we are hoping that things will really get started at this point.

In the coming week, we will have a workshop with students to prepare them for their upcoming semifinal school practice - their first 4 week shot at student teaching (final school practice occurs in term 3). Various tutors will cover topics like using instructional materials, lesson planning and scheming, and demonstrating well planned lessons. I will be shaking things up with a paper mache demo - teaching our students the wonders of newspaper, flour and water for making all sorts of great stuff! Count on me to bring the messy fun of paper mache to Uganda!

After this week, our brand new first year students should arrive. Currently our administrators are out “selecting” these future students. From what it sounds like, they go to schools and check out various students’ scores and resumes, then “select” ones who fit our application standards. I have never heard mention of a students’ interest in attending BPTC as a part of this process, and to me it sort of resembles how I picture trading in professional sports. You don’t really get to choose what team you play for, right? Well, these students don’t appear to have a whole lot of say in the education/school that they are heading for. The administrators even “sell” or pass off students that they don’t think are good enough to schools who are less selective or have fewer interested applicants. Like the NFL or what?! It will be interesting to see who this process brings to us!

Once the first years arrive, they will be in “regular” classes for most of the term. They will follow the time table and take classes in all the subjects. Our second years will leave in mid March for their semifinal school practice and won’t return until the end of the term in late April. While they are out practice teaching the tutors will all take turns going out to supervise them and offer feedback. This process is very similar to what we did during 3rd term last year, although I suspect it is somehow less serious since this is only “semifinal.”

So, that’s what we are expecting for the general flow of the term to come. I’m probably jinxing myself to assume that I have a sense of what to expect, but maybe a year of riding things out will finally be coming to an end. Or, maybe I’ll write again tomorrow to say that plans have changed and nothing is what we expected! :-) Oh, the ride that is Peace Corps!

But, we are looking forward to the term. On top of the regular teaching/tutor responsibilities, Ryan and I are looking forward to some extra projects that we will be taking on this year. These include:

Clubs: Ryan and I hope to start clubs in the coming year. I’ll be working with a girls empowerment club to talk about issues facing young women in Uganda, and Ryan will start a similar club with the boys of the campus.Books: We’ve been asked to help develop the “reading culture” of the campus, as so many students struggle with writing in and expressing themselves in English. So, we’re going to work on getting our students reading to primary school kiddos, attempt to start a book club to discuss different books, and work on getting the kids reading and talking in English.Computer/Math Time: Since we’re here in the evenings, we’ll be making ourselves more available to students during that evening free time. Ryan plans to open the lab for free computer time 4 evenings a week, and have brief “extracurricular” lessons available to interested students. I’ll be available for math tutoring 4 evenings a week, and will eventually work to create a peer tutoring program between 1st and 2nd year students.IGA project ideas: We’re working on thinking of ideas for income generating activities (IGAs) to expose our students to through workshops on the weekends. We hear so often about how the salary for teachers is so minimal that it’s difficult to sustain as a career. So, we thought if we can expose our students to some IGA options before they leave here, maybe they will be more likely to be able to continue teaching with a little extra income on the side.

VSLA: We’ll be continuing with our community microfinance group that we wrote about a while back. Things are going so well with them that we are excited to continue with their progress! At this point, they have been saving for about 10 weeks, saved over 2 million schillings (which is super incredible considering most of the 13 members in the group make less than 300,000 schillings per month), and have loaned every cent out to members of the group. So, all that saved up money is now generating interest, as well as enabling some of our members to undertake projects or purchases that they might not be able to otherwise afford. It is incredible seeing their excitement in realizing their ability to save, and using the group’s collective savings to help meet personal goals. A success so far to be sure! We're also going to offer our staff the chance to be trained in the VSLA model, so we'll see if there is interest for them to get saving and loaning as well!Gardening and Chickens: This is just for fun! :-) We’re currently getting 2 eggs a day from Pinto and Voldemort, and enjoying watching the chicks growing up. Everyone is free range and comes home every night! In the garden, rainy season is starting once again! We’re working on growing strawberries, pole beans, cauliflower, carrots, basil, parsley, sage, cilantro, onions, bell peppers, and lots of flowers. We are astonishing our Ugandan neighbors and friends by the fact that white people can get their hands dirty and have some agricultural know-how. (We were recently told that we were working like Africans! A funny complement of sorts!)

So, we’ve got big hopes for the coming year and the coming term. We will be sure to keep you updated as things progress, mpora mpora, more likely than not.

Thanks for reading - we love and miss you all!

~emily~

So after my a month and a half of touring around Uganda, I contacted the director of Ocer Campion Jesuit College (OCJC), a high school just outside of Gulu in northern Uganda. You can check out all the work that is going on there at http://ocer.adventuredock.com/. I had known of the school for a while and had even visited a few months before I had to leave the village. The reason I wanted to come here is because they are building. The school is far from finished, infrastructure wise, and that would give me ample opportunity to put some of my $180,000 education to work.

The director put me to work immediately on several projects. Wiring up some security lights and street lights. Adjusting and evaluating the solar systems. Extending and correcting the plumbing. Helping with the dam to create a big pond. Most importantly, watching over the builders to make sure they aren't cutting corners and to keep them on schedule. This is going to take a bit to explain so hold on tight.

First, the school is not using the traditional building method of burnt mud bricks. The burnt mud bricks are cheap, but they are basically Styrofoam filler in an otherwise cement wall. They use an inch or more of mortar on all sides of the bricks because they are not uniform at all. Getting a level course is damn near impossible. The bricks themselves can just about be broken with your bare hands. Not only this, but it takes an enormous amount of fire wood to cook the bricks. In the last ten years, Uganda has lost almost 40% of its forest. Trees are on a serious decline. Add this in with how expensive (both in dollars and environmental effects) cement is and the traditional building method is crap. Plus the buildings fall down in a decade or two.

So OCJC is using interlocking stabilized soil blocks (issb). These issb's are pretty sweet. They use a hydraulic press to compress sandy soil with a little clay and cement mix. The result can be seen here: http://www.hydraform.com/ImageGallery/Index.asp?IGImageCategory=Walls+and+Stables. In the end, it is cheaper to use the issb system because you don't use any mortar between the issb's or cover the inside and outside with mortar like they do with traditional burnt bricks. It ends up saving you about 30% of the over all cost. So it looks like some engineers do get to play with Legos when they grow up.

But that brings to the builders. Unfortunately the issb's have only recently been introduced to Uganda so not a lot of people know how to lay the blocks properly. So the school hired a construction crew out of the capital city to come and do the work. In my opinion they are gouging the school really bad. For every person I see working, I see another literally sleeping on the job. No shame, no effort to hide, just flat out on his back snoring. It isn't really allowed, but no one does anything to stop it, except me. Only, I don't really have the power to dock wages or fire anyone so I end up being all bark and no bite. I'm working on that though.

We just finished, for the most part, putting up the classrooms and are now working on the boys dormitory. In Uganda, it is quite common for secondary schools to be boarding. The girls dorm was already finished when I arrived. At the moment, we have only the freshmen and sophomores because the school just opened three years ago and we are taking in one class at a time. Most of the girls dormitory is empty so I get to have one of the prefect's rooms. It is convenient and the layout of the dorm keeps me pretty separate from the girls. I moved in all my bamboo shelves, the bed was already there and the door has a lock. So now I'm all set. Oh, and living on campus means I get to eat with the students. My diet isn't all that varied, but I don't care so long as I don't have to cook. Mostly beans and cornmeal with rice on some days and meat usually once a week. Compared to other schools, we are living pretty high on the hog.

Well, there is a lot more to explain but we just had two rain showers back to back in the middle of the dry season. It is both a relief and a curse. Relief because the heat and dust were killing us and we were running out of water. Curse because right now the mosquitoes are eating me alive. Time to crawl under my mosquito net and read "Lies Across America." Excellent book by the way, but if you are interested in it then I would suggest "Lies My Teacher Told Me" first.

While I've been writing all this, I've also been letting some pictures load. I hope this helps to shape my descriptions into something comprehensible.

Dude putting together the re-bar for the wall beam of the boys dorm

That giant hole will be an underground cistern for rainwater. Roughly 20' across and 15' deep. It ought to hold about 15,000 gallons. However, 300 students will still make short work of that during the dry season.

George, a volunteer with the Jesuits from Germany, and the construction bosses

Finishing up the classrooms. It is a square with a round hut (soon to be thatched with grass) and under the hut is the rain cistern, just like the dorms only smaller

Just outside the classrooms

The boys dorm will have a urinal, latrine, bathing area, and washing area separate from the sleeping areas. These are the foundations of such. The owner of the construction company is Lawrence in the kaki shirt, his right hand man Moses is in the blue jumper, and George.

Finishing up the walls. The blocks stack together so easily. As long as you keep things level, one man can lay 1000+ blocks in a day. Well, that also assumes you can keep him awake and working.

Cistern getting deeper

Common work practice: everything stops to say good morning, ask about work, ask about home, ask about kids, ask about crops, ask about the weather, and ask about extended family. Its actually a very nice practice and helps to keep the community strong, but it sure can get frustrating when you want to get stuff done.

I like working with the women the most. They are usually more dedicated, hard working, and willing to learn than the men. Part of that is because they are accustomed to taking direction much more than men in African society.

Hut (soon to be thatched) and water tank for the girls dorm. The cistern is also under the hut just like the boys dorm. The boys and girls dorms will be just about identical. You can see a small water pump for getting the water out of the cistern.

Just outside of the girls dorm. When we have freshmen through seniors living here, all the rooms will be full of girls. I will not be living here at that time, praise the Lord.

Just outside the classrooms

Fire in the distance and a storm coming to put it out.

This is the scene 3 - 5 days a week at 4:00 pm during the rainy season. Amazing!

More blocks. I love Legos!

This shows how the blocks lock together, both vertically and horizontally.

Got to cover the blocks as they cure so they don't dry too fast. Too fast and they crumble.

This is the shop, the place I call home during day light hours.

This is Ojok Francis, the carpenter whom I work with nearly everyday. One of the few men I've meet who is nearly as concerned with learning new skill as he is with getting paid. He's quick and hard working. I would say he is my apprentice, but he has taught me far more than I have taught him.

Just outside the shop

Tool room on the right, office in the middle, loft up above where we keep all the big stuff, pvc pipe, sewage line, lumber and such.

I climbed up the water tower we have and snapped a lot of pictures. Right below is the solar array that runs the pump that fills the water tower. The solar array tracks the sun, its a really nice set up.

Far left is the temporary shower room for the boys while we finish their dorm, middle is the toilet, and the far right is the corner of the shop.

Shop, the four tanks on the corners each hold about 3,500 gallons which then feed the buildings down hill with running water for everything but drinking. The water tower gets ground water from 100' down. We get it tested every year and it's what we drink.

Far right is the roof of the boys temporary dorm. It will become classrooms when the dorm is finished.

Down the hill towards the left are the classrooms, on the right is part of the boys toilets

Far down the hill on the right is the girls dorm, just up from that is the Jesuit's house. That is where the priests and brothers live. The nuns live in an apartment that is part of the girls dorm.

Far center is the construction of the boys dorm.

Neighbor's house and cows. They are pretty well off, that is how they were able to afford donating the land that the school is being built on. Their cows are even part Holstein, that is a major sign of wealth.

Neighbors

Top of boys temporary dorm

Road headed to the nearest trading center (group of shops and houses) called Unyama. It'a about 2 miles away.

Other neighbors, they are all related though. Cousin brother's wife's sister's mother-in-law's aunt.

Nice house, very cool during the dry season. It costs about $40 to build a house like this, and that is if you hire someone to help you. Usually you just get family and neighbors to help out, then when they go to build a house you return the favor.

Eucalyptus trees grow straight and fast, sell for good lumber or telephone poles and repel mosquitoes. The downside is that they soak up water like it's their job and will quickly dry up your soil. It is best to plant them in swamps that you want to dry up, or in dry areas where other trees won't grow and you can't farm anyway.

Storm blew itself out before it got to us. Good thing too, cause half way up this water tower was a small wasp nest, so I wasn't going to make it down the ladder until some one gave me a pole to knock down their nest.

And that's all for now. I'll add words soon. I don't have any more pictures.

Caitlin and Shane got engaged a couple weeks ago now. I am happy, happy, happy for them. I've also been, since then, unbelievably excited to go home. Not to get out of Uganda, but just to go home and have the wedding to look forward to, seeing everyone and celebrating and being back. I'm also anticipating the itch that I know will come as soon as the wedding ends and the celebrations start to die down: the itch to leave home again. This, from a great article in today's New York Times:

“Your first discovery when you travel,” wrote Elizabeth Hardwick, “is that you do not exist.” In other words, it is not just the others who have been left behind; it is all of you that is known. Gone is the power or punishment of your family name, the hard-earned reputations of forebears, no longer familiar to anyone in this new place.

In Arabic, the word “bayt” translates literally as house, but its connotations resonate beyond rooms and walls, summoning longings gathered about family and home. In the Middle East, bayt is sacred. Empires fall. Nations topple. Borders may shift. Old loyalties may dissolve or, without warning, be altered. Home, whether it be structure or familiar ground, is finally the identity that does not fade. Loved that, and wanted to share, and I guess that's all. Just excited to go home, happy to be here and have home, as it resonates beyond rooms and walls, to go back to.

Anyone who reads my blog regularly knows that I sometimes recommend movies, but I have yet to recommend any books on this blog. So I’m changing it up a little. I have two books I want to recommend.

The first book is Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles by Richard Dowden.

Many people, when they found out that I was going to Uganda, couldn’t help but say “Idi Amin”. A lot of people only think of Idi Amin when they think of Uganda. They don’t even realize that Amin hasn’t ravaged this country in over thirty years. They saw The Last King of Scotland, and this is all they know. When I told people I was going to Rwanda for Christmas, most people responded with “Is that safe?” My response to that was “We’re not living in 1994 anymore”. All people know about Rwanda is that there was genocide, but many people don’t even know when the genocide started or ended.

This book by Richard Dowden is about Africa. It is meant for people who have never been and maybe never will go to Africa. It emphasizes how many people in the western world think they know what Africa is, but, in fact, they have no idea. All they know is what they see in movies and in the little bit of news that is reported from Africa.

Richard Dowden is a British journalist. The first two chapters of the book are about Uganda because he was a teacher here for a couple years back in the early 70’s. After that he spent over thirty years travelling in Africa as a journalist. He discusses the problems in many different countries and how these countries got this way.

It is a good read and I feel like it explains things about Africa a lot better than I could. You can read my blog til your face turns blue, but I would suggest reading this book if you want a different perspective on it with a more expansive explanation of Africa as a whole.

The second book is Dead Aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa by Dambisa Moyo.

Foreign countries donating aid to Africa doesn’t help and it never has helped. This book takes a very academic look at why aid doesn’t work and discusses alternatives to aid, such as trade, foreign direct investment, capital markets, remittances, micro-finance and savings.

Dambisa Moyo is an African woman who has gotten advanced degrees from the United States and the UK. She talks about how foreign aid from western countries is more about the western countries than it is about Africa and how the corrupt governments of this continent swallow up aid money and the poor people never see a dime. She is really focused on fixing this problem.

It is a very good book, but it takes a more academic approach as compared to the first book. It is more like reading an extensive college paper whereas the first book is more like having a conversation. However, if you fully want to understand why I think foreign hurts economies such as Uganda, read it (it’s only about 100 pages)!

So it rained yesterday. No big deal, you say? HUGE deal! It hasn't rained since I came back from Christmas vacation, and it's been hot and dusty and just plain miserable the whole time! Yesterday when the clouds started brewing, I asked my neighbor if it would rain (she's usually right about these things). She said no, but that I should just pray. Then, when the winds started to blow, my neighbor said "the wind is blowing away the rain." I screamed at the rain to come back. I jumped up and down around my house in a desperate attempt to lure the rain to me. AND IT WORKED. The rains came. I danced in the rain with my neighbor until she said it was too much and left me to dance alone. It was the most magical 20 minutes EVER.

Unfortunately, the rain water tank never got "fixed" after the party (my landlady was worried about running out of water, so she paid two men to carry jerrycans of water from the borehole and pour them in the tank until it was full. It took them two solid days to do it, and they took out the pipes from the gutters so they could easily pour the water inside), so the water flowed uselessly on top of the tank instead of inside it.

The kicker? Just the day before I had told my landlady to fix the tank in case it rains. Her response? Eh, does it look like it will rain anytime soon? IN YOUR FACE LANDLADY. So of course I had to call her and scream IT'S RAINING!!! Until she hung up on me.

So it rained, and it was glorious, but there's still no water in the tank. SIGH.

Another non-photo snapshot from the Philippines. — Concrete block house. Metal sheet roof. The only doors (the 2 leading outside) made of what seems to be particle board. Between the top of the walls and the roof, the ends of the house are partly open, and a collection of lizards wait for insect meals to [...]

I’ve been back in Uganda for a month now.   Since returning home I have seen a lot of progress being made with my secondary project.  Yesterday, I had my first meeting with a second Village Savings and Loan (VSLA) group, this one also comprised mostly of women.   Many other individuals in the community have also [...]

There was an article out recently about 12 reasons to date a returned Peace Corps volunteer, including the perks of having someone whisper a tribal language sultrily into your ear, or the general low-maintenance of girls who have just returned after two years of having no hair dryers or high heels. High heels? That’s hilarious. I can’t remember a time in the last year when I have had an easy time walking down the dirt road I live on. In rainy season, the road is impassible and muddy in an evil way, a quick sand way, that sucks down motorcycles, vehicles, and pedestrians. I have fond memories of getting out of the parish vehicle with Tom, Father Lino, and the secondary school head teacher, on the way back from a church function, to all push the car out of a gigantic pile of mud, in the middle of a tropical storm. During dry season, just when you are getting the taste and texture of mud out of your mouth, the roads become somehow even worse, but this time are completely impassible because all the dirt turns into sand. Ever tried biking or running in sand? I digress.

I’m not asking any of you to date me once I return from peace corps, completely shell-shocked and socially-awkward after two years of living in Africa, I’m just trying to inspire some awe in you, until you actually come visit me and realize that I live like an African princess. An African princess with perpetually dirty feet, who pees into a bucket at night. I’m having a moment, I must confess, in which I fantasize strongly about the magical existences and lives of PCVs in other countries. Surely I live in the worst PC host country, at least in terms of environment and awesomeness. I envision hazy, magical scenes where volunteers frolic with water buffalo in clear streams, and walk hand in hand with monkeys to pick coconuts off trees. My friend Beth in Guyana has just written a blog where she states that she and her fellow trainees are permitted to use any of the below forms of travel: bike, kayak, horse, foot…Wait, what? Kayak? HORSE? I live in a country where I can’t even go WADING or stone-skipping or even really think about bodies of water because I’ll get a terrible tropical disease (which I in all likelihood already have), let alone do watersports! Horses? Unless I jump on one my neighbor’s starving-from-dry-season cows, I won’t be travelling anywhere by animal anytime soon. This Peace Corps “moment” that I was having continued aggressively, after I read on that the food in Guyana was delicious; a savory blend of Indian, Mexican, and Caribbean. Excuse me? Everyday I eat an uncooked cassava bread that has the texture of bloated play-dough and tastes like centuries of misery, with a side of plain beans. People here call anything vaguely spicy or flavorful, “self-punishment.” I wonder what they would think of sriracha. Oh, but in Guyana (which sounds painfully close to Uganda), I’ll just jump on my horse and ride off into the jungle-sunset with my belly full of curry. Did I mention that Guyana is all jungly? And how, even though I somehow live 2 k from the Congo and smack dab on the equator, the environment around here sweetly recalls an aging shanty town from the wild west? WITHOUT HORSES.

The inspiration for this blog came in a minute when Tom looked me in the eye after my long diatribe, and seemingly inspired, blurted, “Yeah what is there fun to do in Uganda? We can’t even ride on trucks! There aren’t even any cool animals, just a shit ton of chickens! We can’t go swimming! All we can do here is…Walk around and get hot!” That’s exactly right. I spend my days in a feverish daze, and slip into a heat coma the minute I step outside of my house.

The funny part, is how cool Uganda actually is, especially when I take a moment to step back and examine it. Even though I do have these moments of irrational jealousy, which usually have to do with camels, horses, and curries. What does Uganda show me every day? I hear drumming almost every night, I walk past women pounding on the ground to simulate rain fall to draw “white ants” out of their underground homes, I see large groups of elders drinking homebrew out of empty coconut shells under the shade of trees, I watch a tiny 6 year old girl teach her even tinier sister how to correctly throw a spear, I watch life stir as the first morning light eases above the thatch roof huts and rolling hills on morning runs.

I can't wait to show this world to my friend Lauren who will be here in a week, and then my parents a few weeks after!

Love and lima beans,

Ilse

There are few things which are certain in this life.  But one of them is Bruno.  I am certain that Bruno is amazing.  And 100% adorable.  30% nut case.  He’s my landlord/body guard/best friend for life and, among other things, my Eating Assistant when we attend weddings or events together.  Portions are a problem. Over [...]

It started with pork.  It alwaaaaaaaays starts with pork.  Well, at least this time…it started with pork.  I was eating with friends at my co-worker’s new fried pork joint, enjoying my half-kilo of heart-attack-in-a-pan on the house due to my donation of a name to the business…Pork Paradise.  (Surprisingly, Swine All the Time got a [...]

Last night I was cooking up one of the three remaining meals which neither makes me want to starve myself nor costs more than 2,500 shillings to prepare, which I delightfully refer to as “cow pea mash”.  Besides the obvious ingredient, this delectable repast is, like approximately 100% of every other meal I have ever [...]

The Peace Corps Web site, obviously attuned to the loneliness and desperation of Peace Corps Volunteers across the globe, is possibly trying to make us feel better.  I think it worked.  Kind of.  They made a list of 12 Reasons to Date a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer.  http://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/2012/02/12-reasons-to-date-a-returned-peace-corps-volunteer/ I can think of a few of [...]

During holiday at home in America, I was asked to visit the Dallas Peace Corps office so that I could be interviewed about my service. So, the day of my departure from the Lone Star State, I swung by. I was able to see my recruiter, meet some of the staff working there, and answer some questions about my projects and time in Uganda. While there, I might, or might not, have very politely made a stink that I hadn’t received a single piece of Peace Corps paraphernalia, and that until receiving the proper accoutrement, the questions that they had would go unanswered. Unanswered! Again, I was very polite and was half joking. My demand was for 1 Peace Corps sticker that I could ever so proudly slap on my Nalgene water bottle for the whole world to see. An acceptable request, yes? After a few laughs about this ridiculous, yet half serious, demand, I was handed a tote bag. Contained by this bag of wonders was more Peace Corps gear than a measly $200/month volunteer like myself could ever imagine. Inside the tote bag was another tote bag (seriously), there were more patches than I could ever hope to iron on my North Face backpack, window decals for the car I don’t have, a wall calendar, a file folder, a water bottle (and not one of those crummy plastic ones!) to replace the one I’ll most likely lose, a keychain, and stickers. More stickers than the eye could fathom. There were about 50 sheets, 12 per sheet, of stickers. If my math serves me correctly, this comes to a total of exactly 3 million stickers. Seeing this made my heart skip a beat. I thought this had to be a mistake…that they didn’t realize that their entire annual supply of stickers was now in my new tote bag within my other new tote bag. I said nothing…but merely nodded my acceptance of the contents, trying to stay calm and to regain control of my sweating. “Be cool”, I told myself…and we proceeded with the interview. When I arrived back in Uganda, I felt that with this power comes a certain responsibility. I had to share the wealth of these stickers with other volunteers. I handed out a sheet to each volunteer I saw. It was majestic. I now had a purpose in Uganda, and my goal 2 was coming along quite nicely. With all of this advertising, I felt like I should get paid. Perhaps an extra $2.00 a month in my bank account? Yes, that would do nicely. I made it slowly, but surely, back to my little village in the South Western region of Uganda. I unpacked my bags from Christmas break, arranged all of my things, and placed the remaining stickers on my bookshelf. Each day, they were just sitting there staring at me, judging, as if saddened by their being shelved. So, each day, without giving it any thought, I would put a sticker on something. The longer this went on, the more ridiculous places I would find that “needed” a sticker. I began to search for places to put a sticker. It became a habit; and not a good habit, but one that causes your friends and family to hold an intervention. I was expecting my neighbors to be gathered in my house one day when I arrived back from the market, all holding letters they had written to me in the local language about how my change in behavior has affected their lives. I wouldn’t have been able to understand them, but the point remains. I had a problem. I have since stopped putting stickers on everything, mostly because I'm running out of places. I have found, however, that if neighbor kids prove bothersome, slap a sticker on them and they become quite pleasant.

Call them door-to-door salespeople. Hawkers. Peddlers, even. But to me, the stream of folk that trickle through Wanyange selling avocados, hair clips, tupperware, pedicures, trousers, bedsheets, woven baskets, cloth, mats, and many other things is what I like to call the “African Home Shopping Network.” These same items are available in the many markets around, but I suppose there are some women who don’t get to go to town very much--those women being my neighbor ladies. Why go to town when the shopping can come to you?! Not only is it convenient, but the prices are far cheaper (somehow, even though these guys lug their goods around all day--they must not be charging transport). Today, through the AHSN, I bought a new skirt and then walked to another neighbor to have it tailored (for about 20 cents). My favorite item on AHSN is during mango season when young ladies come through with fat, red-and-yellow, juicy, ready-to-eat mangoes the size of a baby head. Mmmmm...

In other news, my project at school at the moment is re-organizing the library. So, if you recall last year, when I came to site, I was also re-organizing the library. Our Jinja PTC is lucky to have so many books it’s hard to figure out what to do with them. We have a store room the size of a small office that was formerly packed (to the ceiling) with books, newspapers, learning aids, charts, etc. Me and my team of six students have gutted most of the storage room and laid out the (nearly brand-new) books in the gigantic reading room--of which appears to be filled. Our goal is to rotate out books from the library that are not in use (like the old curriculum) or those that have far too many copies (like P3 math--there were about 500 copies and they took up far too much precious shelf space). By taking out the redundant literature and putting in the never-used, American-made textbooks about everything from Geography to theatre, our students will have more exposure to more fabulous information. The task is a bit daunting, but this is only day one. I’m currently motivating my team by buying sodas.

Lastly, I want to give a BIG THANKS to everyone who sent me things! I like things. Things will be coming back your way soon-ish. Like African time soonish, so who knows when that will be...

Thank you Jean for the fleece you designed! :D

(I love that I can say I know a real fashion designer).

KOHLS.

Big thanks to Siobhan for the 200 some markers she sent. I'm excited about

both the markers and the ziplock bags they came in. LOOK AT THE EXCITEMENT!

This is Hilda on the left and Mercy, her two-year-old daughter on the right.

Mercy is adorable, hilarious and also does not speak Lusoga (like me!)

For this reason, she's really picking up English. This day, she was looking at Cosmo Magazine

in my house, pointing to each gorgeous model and saying "Ma-wy! Ma-wy's bag! Ma-wy's glasses!"

She only pointed to the prettiest models when she said Ma-wy. Haha. I was flattered.

Whenever I was about to take the picture, she would get so excited and start screaming,

which is why she looks a little crazy in each picture. She's not always this crazy.

Well, sometimes, when "Ma-wy" is around...

This is the wedding of the couple whose introduction I went to last year.

They had customized water-bottles--I got a kick out of that.

Nile river behind me.

The happy couple! Robinah works at the Bank of Africa and

Job works for an NGO in Karamoja. It was a fun wedding, but

unfortunately I didn't stay for the cake and dancing!

Entertainment at the wedding--this is actually a man,

dressed as a woman and doing the Busoga dance. He was

hilarious, in a creepy-kind of way.

Life on the equator is still trucking along. This should be some poignant seminal entry about how changed and amazing my life is, but the truth is that my "normal" now is more mundane than not, and it would be disingenuous to tout my life as more than what it is. Basically it’s hot as all get out and my feet are filthy. Most days I try not to make too many faux pas. Some students have shown up but there’s not teaching going on yet. I laugh a little to myself when the other tutors talk about needing to make a timetable for classes so the students know we’re serious. Hmm.

I spent last weekend shuttling back and forth around Northern Uganda. I had gone to Iceme to stay with Jacque a night before heading to Gulu, but got a call from my principal that our staff meeting was scheduled for the next morning (after having been put off for two weeks and no one knew anything about a new time for it) so I jetted back to Boroboro to attend the meeting and then zipped back up to Gulu to celebrate the close of our first year in Uganda. We layed by the pool, ate lots of Ethiopian food, got super dirty on transport to Stevie's house, and drank "non-alcoholic celebration drink". <3 magical.

There are screens on my bedroom windows now, as it is too stiflingly hot to close them at night, but I’m still freaked out about malaria and little hands reaching in to take my shit. Not that screens offer much protection against the latter but at least I’d wake up and be able to scream something (or lay there in a terrified silence…)

Not much else, I’m just trying to be better about writing consistently. Xoxo.

First, Happy Valentine’s Day to my family and friends! Sending my love from the other side of the world.

Today has turned out to be pretty good. I got caught up on some schoolwork (creating exam questions for Social Psychology). Good – done. Then the power came back on after a 2-day blackout. Nice. And I decided to give my feet a good scrubbing and pedicure. Awesome.

I also had the idea to transfer all of my blog entries to a Word document to save as a “journal.” So I just finished copying all of my entries over and relived my trips to Costa Rica and Brazil (and Peace Corps Training again). I also got a chance to read comments that I didn’t know were posted! Thanks to everyone for writing and giving me so much support! I’m charged with positive energy right now! :)

So, it’s been 6 months since I moved to Africa, and it randomly hits me that this is my life:Tucking my mosquito net under my mattress as I climb into bedBoiling water for a bucket bath Riding in a matatu (taxi) with a live chicken under my seatWatching the monkeys run around my front porchHand-washing my clothes in basinsPassing the grass hut villages on my bike ride to AruaI totally love this experience.

So one day as I was leaving work, there were two girls standing next to a wheel barrel waiting for me to approach. I am used to this, as it happens all the time when I step out of my house. Kids, and sometimes adults, will see me coming and stop so they can wait for me or cross the street to walk past me and say, “Munu, how are you?” in the nasally voice they do to mimic munus. So, I greeted them and thought that was the end of it. But the older girl, prob about 11, said something in Acoli. All I heard was “help with water”, and as I am told quite often, “You give me water,” I assumed that was what they said. So I said back, “I don’t have.” And they looked at me in confusion. I told them I didn’t understand and began speaking in English in hopes that I could be of better assistance. And man do I regret that decision. I should have just stayed ignorant and played dumb so that I could walk away and avoid the embarrassing task that lay ahead of me.

Turns out the girl did ask if I could help them with water, only she wasn’t asking me for the water. She was asking me to help carry the wheel barrel containing 5 jerry cans of the water. I immediately thought to myself, “HELL NO! I can’t do that!” But I looked at the girls who couldn’t have been more than 11 and 9, and I said, “Well, I have to go up to hill. Where are you going?” thinking that I could somehow escape the task that way. The response, “We live on the hill, too.” BOO freaking BAM. These girls knew I lived there because they see me walk it every day. And because they see me every day, there was no way I could say no and get away with it, let alone saying no and have the 11 and 9 year old girls push that weight up that steep hill. I said yes while thinking to myself, How the eff am I gunna make it up that hill?

So, we began my walk of shame. The 11 year old girl held a string that was somehow supposed to guide the wheel barrel but did nothing of the sort, and I was trying to balance the moving weight every step. The 9 year old girl could not stop laughing, not at me, I don’t think, but just at the fact that a munu was actually fetching water. And so too were the townspeople amazed at the bright red, sweaty munu struggling to push the wheel barrel on the dirt road. Mind you, in addition to the heavy load, it is the dry season here. And that means, its bloody hell hot. So you can imagine I was EXTRA red. I had to stop a few times as my hands were going numb and my palms were cramping. And all along the way, I had Acoli people, adults and kids, stop in their tracks to watch the munu do physical labor. Literally stop walking, stop talking, turn and follow me with their eyes. It was embarrassing. I just kept thinking to myself, They are gunna see me fail to get the water up that hill, and that is going to be my identifier. And that darn string wasn’t doing any help to me and I literally almost tipped the wheel barrel four times. And of course the jerry cans had no lids. So every time it slipped, splish splash joey was taking a bath. My skirt was covered in water by the time I got home. But I digress.

So, the time came when we approached the hill. Duh, duh, DUHHHH. And so we started up the steep hill that takes my breath away every time I walk it, and I walk it at least four times a day. And of course, I’m wearing my toms with absolutely no traction whatsoever for the dirt/gravel/slippery hill. The laughter and amusement from the girls stopped at this point, because now it was serious. Twice I thought I let the wheel barrel go and I envisioned the girls hard labor just pouring down the hill, never to be recovered again. I can’t even count then number of times I had to stop, cause it was A LOT. And up that hill, there were four GROWN MEN who passed us and did nothing. They just stared and kept walking along their merry way. Those girls were 11 and 9 years old…how could you just keep walking? I was infuriated, and I think that may have given me some push for the remaining 25% of the hill. And finally, we reached the top. And it felt glorious. I almost said, ok you can push to your house over there by yourself, but decided that wasn’t very nice. So I pushed it the 30 or so feet to their compound. And again, I almost tipped it. Seriously this time, though. The patch of dirt in front of their compound was extra soft and sandy and manipulated the wheel barrel ever so swiftly. But me and the girls were able to catch it, and I decided I had done enough damage to their water supply and stopped there.

Once we reached the hill and they pointed to their house, I realized it was the mother of my workmate, Winnie. So I knew work was going to hear and that made me both happy and embarrassed at the same time. For one, they would know I’m strong and that I can do work, because they do not believe munus are capable of anything physical. But on the other hand, they would know how much I struggled and how I almost lost the water multiple times. But I didn’t care anymore, my palms were spasming, my biceps were aching and I couldn’t make a fist with my hands. My skirt was drenched and my legs were muddy. And I was red. And sweaty. I greeted the family and took off down the hill and finally made it to my house, were I pounded back water and just collapsed in exhaustion. Going pee was too hard. I had to give myself about an hour before I even thought about dinner, and by that time the spasms had stopped and I was able to grip a knife. And my biceps were sore for the next three days.

All of this only confirms my belief that the women here are a different breed. Those girls were SO small, I have no idea how the would have or how they ever do manage to get that water up the hill. But they just somehow do. I see women walking all the time up it with jerry cans on their head, making it look so easy. And that is an every day thing for them. And the men just walk past…irritating. So, whats the moral of the story? Girls rule and boys drool. And also, I hope those girls never find me on my way home again, lol. I don’t know if I can manage.

PEACE.

I have officially been in Uganda for a year – I do not think I have ever gone this long without In and Out or Starbucks. At the beginning, a two-year commitment seemed like a long time, but it is amazing how fast time has flown by. I cannot imagine having to come home right now. School has officially started and it is nice to get back to work. Of course, it took about a week or so for school to get organized. Kids slowly trickled in and the timetable took a while to set up. While it is nice to be busy, I do miss my days of lounging around and reading. Last week, my counterpart and I facilitated a three-day workshop on “Safe School Environment”. The workshop was held at my Coordinating Center and it was for all the government schools in my district (20 schools). Three teachers from each school attended, so there were a lot of participants. The workshop focused on child abuse, corporal punishment, and how to create a safe learning environment for students. Here were a few of my favorite moments from the workshop: In every Ugandan meeting or workshop, there needs to be a chairperson, spiritual leader, timekeeper, and a secretary. (The timekeeper position always makes me laugh because I have yet to attend a Ugandan workshop that keeps time.) The chairperson is in charge of keeping the participants in check and the spiritual leader is in charge of the prayers before and after the workshop and before meals. The secretary is in charge of taking down the minutes and they literally have to write everything down. My counterpart asked for a volunteer to be a secretary, and one of the male teachers said, “Ok, come on all female teachers.” I snapped and said, “I don’t think so! You now have the position of being secretary.” Thankfully, my counterpart laughed and backed me up in my decision. Later in the day, we were discussing some of the causes of child abuse - such as, lack of education and cultural beliefs. One of the teachers raised his hand and said, “Beauty.” I was a little confused and I asked him to elaborate more (even though I was pretty sure I knew where this was going). He replied, “Sometimes these girls are just so beautiful, and us teachers cannot help ourselves.” I was horrified and I think my eyes nearly popped out of my head. Even worse, there were some words of agreement amongst the teachers. I responded, “As a teacher, you are required to abide by a code of conduct. If you cannot practice self-control, then you have no business being a teacher. A child can never be blamed for their abuse, even if she is beautiful or dresses indecently. The blame always falls on the abuser. It is because of comments like those that I am teaching girls life skills.” A lot of the teachers clapped afterwards (especially the women). Once again, my counterpart backed me up and said, “Yes, so maybe we could say a cause of child abuse is ‘lack of professionalism’.” I guess I really am my mother’s daughter… On the second day, a woman from the Ministry of Education came to observe the workshop (the ministry sponsored this workshop across the nation). She gave a little speech about the importance of the workshop and then asked for questions. For the next hour and a half, teachers raised their hands and said something along the lines of the following:

“Thank you, Madame. We are just appreciating you coming. We are all working hard, you see. But you see, us teachers have this problem. There has been little reimbursement for this workshop and we must travel long distances to get here. Ah, and there is no support for when we take this back to our schools. There must be support from the ministry so we can talk to the community and parents. And you see, us teachers are not paid enough.”

While the teachers did have some valid complaints, they kept repeating each other and all their complaints would be accompanied by an anecdote. My patience was wearing thin because it was past lunchtime and I was so hungry. I could see and smell the overcooked, fatty meat and rice littered with tiny stones. I jut wanted everyone to be quiet so we could go and eat. (Uganda is no different than America: everyone loves to hear themselves talk before lunchtime). Thankfully, my counterpart finally cut them off and said we should not take any more of the ministry’s time and we should go eat. At lunch, my counterpart said he was so hungry and he almost didn’t survive the last session. I said, “Ya, everyone was complaining. I didn’t like it and I was so hungry!” This leads me to my favorite part of the workshop: On the last day of the workshop, we had time for questions/comments before lunch. We started at 12:30, and people were still raising their hands at 2:00. It was an hour past lunchtime and I was hungry and annoyed. At 2:15, my counterpart finally says, “Alright ladies and gentleman, Aubrey doesn’t like to listen to us Africans complain. Let us go take lunch.” I could not stop laughing, but I have never been so happy with my counterpart. I was so hungry; I was about to chew my arm off! This past weekend, a bunch of people from my group went to Jinja to celebrate our “one year anniversary.” Of course, the weekend was pretty much devoted to eating too much food and a dance party complete with glow sticks. The place where we stayed also had a rope swing that went into the Nile. It was really fun, but on my last turn, I slipped, and now I have some lovely rope burn on my hands. That’s pretty much all that has been going on with me! This term I plan on teaching Life Skills at my Coordinating Center and at Namengo Girls. I am also hoping to do a reading comprehension class once a week. I am going to continue to help out teaching P6 and P7 math. I have a lot of things to look forward to after this term too: Egypt in 3 months, my awesome cousin Jane comes in 4 months, and I get to see my bestest, prettiest friend in the whole wide world in 6 months in Rwanda!

Transportation can prove to be a big challenge in this country. There are a few different modes of transport but the most commonly used ones are buses and taxis.

Buses are usually used for long distances. So if I was going from Kampala to Mbarara, I would take a bus. The one good thing about buses (at least compared to taxis) is that you pay for a seat and only you sit in that seat. This may seem obvious, but if you ever take a taxi in this country you will realize that it’s not. Even though you get your own seat, the seats are not nearly big enough for the average person. This is coming from me and anyone who knows me knows I’m not the biggest person (despite the weight I may have put on since I got here). You end up finding yourself sitting butt to butt with the person next to you, whether you want to or not.

Taxis, on the other hand, will cram as many people as they can in to it. There are two different kinds of taxis. There are Matatoos and there are car taxis. Matatoos are kind of like Volkswagen buses. They are made to sit 14 passengers, but they usually squeeze in at least 20-25. So needless to say, you never get your own seat. Car taxis are usually a car like a Toyota corolla (not a very big car) and in those they can squeeze up to 14 or 15 people. Sometimes they even put more than one person in the driver’s seat.

I’ve found that Ugandans seem way too used to squeezing into vehicles, because sometimes even when a vehicle is not full, they might sit really close to you. They don’t seem to have a need for personal space.

Children usually travel for free. This sometimes proves to be a big problem. The caveat is that they have to not take up a seat. Although especially in the way you have to travel here, you can’t just pretend that your kids don’t take up any space. Sometimes you will see a kid sitting on their parents lap when they are way too old to do so. So if you are sitting next to them odds are they are taking up part of your seat as well. On a bus this is particularly annoying because you paid for one seat but you don’t necessarily get to use the full seat. Another place they will put kids is on the floor. In America this would be considered child abuse. The floors are not the cleanest thing (sometimes you may even see a roach or two on a bus or taxi). I’ve seen kids sleeping under bus seats and in the isle. This is a problem because they can take up your precious foot room. I don’t think Ugandans understand that you can’t pretend like their 456332 kids don’t take up any space.

The other day, not long after my What Am I Doing Here moment, one of my HIV counsellors came into my office to drop off her notebook -- the ones that I gave everyone during the training, in which they're recording their visits to the various 'clients' (as we call them; Ugandans loving formalities as they do) in their communities. Her name is Atai Deborah. She's in her sixties; her CD4 count (the measure of the number of white blood cells in a person's body and a measure of how severely they've been affected by HIV, basically, as it attacks white blood cells) was once below 100 --a healthy, HIV-negative adult usually has a CD4 count of at least 800-- but now she's sturdy and strong; she's the chairperson of a committee that advocates for people with HIV/AIDS throughout the district; soft-spoken and intelligent and dedicated, and, well, the words that are coming to mind are wry and wizened, both of which, I think, work.

She sat down across from me. We went through the formalities of greeting. Then she told me a few stories from her recent client visits: someone had died; someone had gone for treatment and was getting healthier; someone else was sick; everyone was poor; there was one husband who works in Kampala, his wife lives here, she was pregnant and found out she was HIV+ when she went in for antenatal care but was afraid to tell her husband, afraid he'd beat her or leave her or beat her and then leave her, but then he came back from Kampala and tearfully admitted to her that he had recently found out that he was HIV+, at which point she disclosed her status to him, and they agreed to stay together, to stay healthy together; their baby was born, tested after three months, and was negative. Good things, bad things, the sorts of things that are all so unfortunately typical and expected that they just leave you feeling ... kind of ... neutral. Things are getting better for some people, things are getting worse for some people, and you just get used to it. Such as it is.

Amidst all of that, though, she tossed in one story. Not even a story, really: it was just a couple sentences, flowing out from a single line, that she tossed out there like no big deal. But it made me feel all sorts of good. Or, well, at least it tipped the meter slightly in the feeling good direction, at least for a while.

She said: And one man thanked me for saving his life.

It's not a quantifiable success. I didn't alleviate poverty, or help this man start a successful Income Generating Activity, or put his kids through school. (I mean, shoot: I didn't actually do anything. Though that's probably the best part. Theoretically. She had counselled him on the importance of Antiretroviral Therapy, etc. etc., and he had taken her up on her advice, decided to turn his life around, stop drinking alcohol and start living positively, as they say.) There aren't any numbers or data to prove anything really happened, apart from this throwaway line she dropped into the middle of series of stories. It's not a concrete success, really, that I can point to and say, This is what I did/built/achieved during my Peace Corps service: see how successful I was?, and it's only one man, and who knows what's going to happen in a week or year or the rest of his life. But. Even so, even though it's not something that I can touch and take pictures of and prove to everyone, and even if there's nothing else, nothing real, no sustainable or empowering or whatever success, nothing before that and nothing from here on out --though, ok, I know there were a few things before that, and I remain confident that there will be a few more things from here on out-- at least there's that, and I'll take it, and keep it and be proud of it.

My next project, I guess, building off of that, is to convince President Museveni that he needs (for the MiG fighter jets he spent 1,700,000,000,000 shillings on) an aircraft carrier in Lake Victoria.

Because where else am I going to hang my giant Mission Accomplished banner?

I hope everyone remembers this lovely face; if not, let me remind you. Before I left the states for my Peace Corps service, my younger brother, Grant, vowed to maintain a mustache for as long as I was in Uganda. As of Saturday, Grant's mustache celebrated its one year birthday, which means I've officially been in Uganda for one year. Earlier in the year, I got a phone call from Grant and asked him for an update on his 'stache. "Well, when I tell people that I'm growing my mustache for two year, people say 'Man, that's so gnarly.' Chels, I always tell them, 'No, what my sister doing is gnarly.'" As one of my Peace Corps goals of service, I'm expected to teach (or at least raise awareness to) Americans about Uganda, and I think Grant's mustache has been one of the most unique ways to do that! One of my favorite stories about his mustache: some girl asked Grant about his mustache. Upon hearing Uganda, the girl exclaimed that she had toured through Uganda, and insisted that I must be living in the most beautiful country. (Yes, Uganda is beautiful, but I'm not living at the Bujagali Falls Resort.) Grant tried to argue with her that while it may be beautiful, I was living the village life, but the girl refused to believe that I could be even mildly uncomfortable. Finally, Grant ended the conversation by saying "My sister lives in a concrete box!" Thanks for standing up for my Peace Corps service, Grant! Fetching water ain't no vacation. Throughout the year, I've been amazed by and so grateful for the support I get from home: the costly skype phone calls, the awesome care packages, the emails, the blog views and comments, everything. Peace Corps is all about challenging your expectations. I certainly never expected to be supported by a mustache and to be so appreciative of one!

In a lot of ways, the last year has completely flown by. In a lot of the ways, the year has completely dragged on. In training, a volunteer told us, "The days go by so slow, but the months go by fast." It didn't make any sense at the time, but it's totally true. I've had so many days that seem to last forever, and I'm just waiting for the sun to set so I can go home; but I still can't believe it's already February. By this time next year, I'll know the exact date of my return to America, which will most likely be in March or April.

Although I would love to say that I'm completely adjusted and that I never freak out, it would be a lie. Just the other night, I had to abruptly end a phone call with my mom because I was convinced that there was a rat trying to snuggle up with me in bed and I couldn't find my flashlight. Thankfully, I didn't have any snuggle buddies that night, but I was still tripping out. I don't scream when I see a cockroach, but I'm not pleased when one scampers across my feet. In fact, I think I've become more sensitive to certain things. I have gotten in heated arguments with taxi conductors trying to rip me off because I am a foreigner. I've lived here for a year- I know the prices! If I'm in my village, I have little patience for the "Mzungu Mzungu" song that every Ugandan child seems to know. I have even less patience for adults addressing me as mzungu. Despite these small challenges, I have managed to create a mostly comfortable lifestyle in my village where most people know my name- Negesa!

When most people think of Peace Corps, they think that volunteers must be selfless people. In practice, a selfless volunteer usually ends up becoming an unhappy volunteer. Over the last year, I've learned that it's impossible to completely put your needs or wants aside for Peace Corps. Of course you can't be needing hot showers every day, but there are certain things volunteer must do for themselves to remain, well, sane. A volunteer that doesn't take care of themselves, physically and emotionally, won't be able to accomplish very much. And usually isn't very fun to be around for anyone! It took me a while to figure out how to make me happy and healthy, but I think I've found a good balance between Chelsea and Negesa. Chelsea needs oatmeal with Jif peanut butter in the mornings, exercise in the evenings, keeping up with her journal, talking to PCVs and people from home, watching the occasional (or many) Friends episodes, reading books, wearing trousers outside the village, traveling on some weekends and her iPod on the taxis. I still have good days and bad days, but at least now I know how to manage my bad days with some TV, hot cocoa or a phone call. And that I always have the freedom to claim a mental health day.

I have a pretty good idea of what the next year will bring, but I am sure I will have to remain flexible because Peace Corps has taught me not to rely too heavily on any expectation. Still, I hopefully will accomplish a number of programs that I feel really strongly about and get to enjoy all the friends I've made in the last year.

Thanks for all the support I've had from you all at home!

So after this amazing adventure, I try to settle back into my routine. I go to school, garden, tinker and read stories with the little kids on my front porch. This is a nice easy time for me. The beginning of the term means that I and the vice principle are the only ones at school for the first week or two. So I spend most of the day in the library organizing and reading. Hang up some more maps. Put the encyclopedia in place. Simple things. I have big plans for starting a book club when the students get here. We don't really have enough copies of any one book, so I was thinking that during lunch time I would go and read short stories to the students who want to listen. Maybe after a week or so of this I can convince one of the students to take over. Maybe let one of them take the book home and practice reading a few pages so they could come back the next day and read it out loud very well. It seemed like a plan worth trying.

Unfortunately, the fun and excitement of my adventure didn't end with arriving at home safe and sound. Our illustrious driver was hounding me for money. I told him I didn't have any money for him and even if I did, I would expect my fuel back first. After a few confrontations, surprisingly civil I might add, I thought it was over. I thought he had finally given up and realized that I was not the one in the wrong. Turns out he didn't.

Instead, he went to the local council. The lowest/closest form of government and elected officials are the local council. He went to them and submitted his plea. I was informed in writing that I need to attend this meeting. I respectfully declined because I didn't see it as being worth my time and I was advised by friends not to. I didn't think he had any legitimate claim, which he didn't, and the case would be closed regardless. Besides, what could he do to me, send me to prison? The headmaster (principle) of my school even scoffed at the idea of me going to the local council meeting. I wasn't worried. But I should have been.

This ex-friend/driver of mine was the only person in the village with a vehicle. There is a reason he was the only person in the village with a vehicle, he is the chief's son. More than half of the local council are his family members. He is nothing shy of bull of the woods around here and I told him to f*** off. Not good. I immediately informed PC about this, being the good little PCV that I am and was told to let my headmaster handle it. My headmaster wasn't around so the deputy went to the local council chairman instead. This is when the my lucky stars really came into help me. It just so happens that the local council chairman was my ace in the hole that I didn't even know about. He was too old and tired to care about what the chiefs son thought of him. The chairman had nothing to loose in prestige or esteem as far as he was concerned. Not only that, but it seems his family and the chiefs family had some land disputes a while back that never got settled. So he was more than happy to help me out. He simply refused to hear the case. He postponed the meeting indefinitely. Without a meeting, nothing can go on. The police won't even do anything until the local council has had its say. So looks like I'm safe. I inform PC, but apparently they had also called the HM to get his $0.02 on the matter.

My HM stuck with me the whole way, but apparently something had happened between me talking to the HM and the HM talking with PC because all the sudden he was kind of worried about me. I never did find out what exactly happened, but I think someone informed the HM of just how big of a head honcho this chief's son is. I wasn't worried, but PC was. I talked to my boss over the phone for a bit and convinced her to let me stay and wait this out for a little bit. So I did. It was awful.

In a matter of two days, I went from being the most popular guy around to being an untouchable. When I would go to the market to get my onions, tomatoes, and cabbage, the little old ladies would all call me over to their stand so I would buy their produce. Now, I was lucky if anyone would return my greetings. Keep in mind, this is an African village. Greetings here are everything. The shortest greetings take minutes and some are an entire conversation about how everybody and everything is doing. It is considerably rude to not greet someone and even more rude to not return a greeting. I was being shunned.

It is really sad to know how quickly people can turn against you. Especially when you aren't even in the wrong. This chief's son turned the majority of the village against me in just two days. I don't know if they knew the truth or not, though I have a feeling it wouldn't have mattered. I know it is shallow of them, but to be honest, it was also necessary. The village community is so tight that everyone is, in one way or another, dependent on everyone else. To be shunned from the community means no one is going to lend you anything. No one is going to cut you a deal on your purchases. No one is going to buy from you. No one is going to look out for your home or your stuff when you're gone. No one is going to care what happens to you. No one will visit you when you get sick. No one is going to look out for your kids. To be shunned is to be cut off. To be cut off is to perish. If anyone would have sided with me, the chief's son would have turned on them too. They could choose what is right and side with the white guy who is going to leave in a year, or they could choose what is wrong and side with one of the most influential people in the area who they will have to deal with for the rest of their lives. With a choice like that, I can't fault them nearly as much. There is an African proverb that says: "When two bulls fight, it is the grasses that suffer." That was exactly it. The community was going to get trampled on if me and Mr. Big Shot got into any farther than we were.

Then I got a phone call. My boss wanted me to leave immediately. She said I would only be gone a week while my headmaster sorted stuff out for me. I was so furious at this time, I really wanted to get a piece of rebar and knee-cap this guy, but I didn't. Instead I left. My boss told me I would only be gone a week, but a week turned into two, and then a month, and then two months. Turns out she just told me that to get me out of there as fast as possible. My HM wasn't sorting things out for me, he called and told PC that it might not be safe for me while this issue is so tense.

So for the next two months I pretty much toured around Uganda. I went to any official PC event we had going on. I visited a whole lot of my fellow volunteers. I helped out at a science day. I answered questions at a health day. I took down names at a clinic for people getting tested for HIV. I went on a few hikes. Enjoyed the fourth of July at the base of Mt. Elgon with some friends. It actually wasn't too bad, but only because I kept thinking that I was going back home. Turns out I wasn't. All this time, my boss had been working on finding me a new place. She had already made up her mind. I had to find a new home.

I wash my own clothes, clean my own house, and tend my own gardens. Yet, twice a week I make my way past the screaming kids at the adjoining primary school to reach a barber shop in town. It’s a cheap luxury. A shave costs about 22 cents and gives me ten minutes where I [...]

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during meetings/trainings i tend to lose focus and not pay attention. some people doodle. others day dream. i usually find myself writing about my observations (observations that have nothing to do whatsoever with what is being covered). i was going … Continue reading →

A non-photo snapshot from the Philippines. (my camera died a few days in) — Early on Monday morning, I traveled north with a small group of students. The back of my bus ticket detailed that I had paid an extra 5 pesos (about 12 cents) for my ticket so that in case of “Accidental Death, [...]

Back to the grind in Uganda! I was welcomed back to country with a string of occupied hotels and transportation mishaps (“pardon me sir, I cannot fix an engine”). Needless to say my trip up to the North was an adventure. When I stumbled into Rachel’s house with all 70 lbs of my luggage I [...]

And the saga continues…

OF COURSE I would get attacked by a rogue bat flying into the Pastor’s house this evening. Why do I even pretend to be surprised?

Let’s back it up.

So, a few staff members and I were just having normal, after-supper conversation at the Pastor’s house. I was in a great mood, even after having a fairly controversial conversation about adoption and abortions (yeah, I definitely crossed that line). Suddenly, something flies in through the open door (rule #1: ALWAYS shut the door), hits the wall, and comes flying at me. I duck down in my chair, allowing the thing to pass and hit another wall. It turns around and starts heading towards the door only to hit a chair, causing it to be disoriented (because hitting everything else apparently didn’t do a thing to this beast’s navigation system) and come back towards me. At this moment I’m still confused as to what this thing is, so I’m relatively calm and remain in my chair. The thing hits my leg, resulting in it getting caught in my skirt (rule #2: wear shorter skirts). I shake it out where it flies and hits another chair and falls to the ground. I make the mistake of asking what the thing was and the Pastor says the second two words I never want to hear regarding something I just shook out of my skirt (the first being a snake)…a bat.

I freak out a little, but assuming the bat escaped out the still open door, I calm down. That is, until the bat begins flapping about on the floor like a fish out of water (apparently, getting caught in my skirt caused it to lose its ability to fly). I let out a very cliché, high-pitched scream (think Michael Jackson’s singing during the crotch grab, but more terrified…go ahead, laugh) and the Pastor stomps on the bat.

Five minutes later I find myself feeling the need to be escorted to my house, a mere ten feet away.

Just another night for the bat whisperer (copyright Alia Fry).

Feb 11th, 2012 Happy Birthday Meg - you are 1 in a Million, Cuz!

No Money in UgandaI am asked for money daily – usually by strangers –occasionally by co-workers. Often it is for transportation, money to attend afuneral, for a relative with AIDS, for a wife who needs surgery, or to help payschool fees. I always say I can’t helpthem. Which may seem awful, but as soon as I give money to one person, thefloodgates will … and I am here for 2 years. So I empathize, say how sorry I am, and often give them a hug, which isnot a Ugandan custom. I assume theythink it’s a weird American custom for saying something like life is hard.

However a week ago was the most difficult dilemma. OurMatron (lady who oversees the girls’ dormitory) and grinding mill operatormentioned again how sick she was feeling, especially in the chest area, and howit hurt to breathe and spit. She welled up with tears and said “I am dying and haveno money for the hospital”. She was obviously very frightened and really thoughtshe was dying. I have no medical training and had no idea how sick she was, butI could tell she believed she was very sick and dying. She never asked me formoney, she just said she had no money for transportation, hospital fees andmedicines. I believed her, since our staff has not been paid since November.

On top of this her grown daughter was recently severelybeaten by her husband. So she was gone for a few days to nurse her daughter.The husband was arrested. Although it is OK to hit your wife, you are notallowed to almost kill her. I have no idea how old the Matron is, as her lifeof poverty has prematurely aged her. I do know she also has kids in primaryschool and her husband is either dead or “gone”.

So I hugged her and told her I was so sorry and I would prayfor her. I felt so torn. My heart wastalking and my head was talking. I listened to both knowing there are millionsmore stories that are equally horrific and compelling. So I decided to find things in my home I didn’t need – the packageof incredibly large old lady panties a friend sent (to my horror), some mintleaves and lemon verbena as herbal medicines for her chest, an extra package ofBand-Aids, and 2 extra pillowcases in a brown cloth pouch. Not much, but I toldher she can use or sell any of the items as she feels fit. So I skirted aroundmy “no giving money to Ugandans policy” by giving things she can sell. Funnyhow the heart can out rationalize the head! The outcome has been she has recovered and is now lookingalmost 100% - I like to think it’s the lemon verbena and mint teas that helpedcure her. Maybe it was just that someone cared and tried to help that liftedher spirits.

LukodiOn Wednesday Feb 1st, 2012 I went with a reverendfrom Kampala and representatives from Bright Futures Australia to visit LukodiVillage – 17 Kilometers north of Gulu town. This village was the site of amassacre during the 20 year war with the LRA. The village was attacked becausethe LRA felt someone in the village had given information to the Ugandan army aboutthe LRA’s whereabouts. People were burned inside their homes, cut into piecesand abducted – along with many other atrocities. This is not unusual in thissection of Uganda and I am reminded daily that almost everyone I meet has livedthrough so many horrors. It was a bright,hot day and everyone was smiling as they welcomed us. We interviewed many womenand village leaders to learn how aid provided from Bright Futures is helpingthem recover. We toured homes, inspected agricultural stores, attended aVillage Savings and Loan (VSLA) meeting and inquired what their needs are atthis time.

They have received seeds, oxen, and education on farming tohelp attain more secure food sources. They have been given chickens and goatsto help generate new sources of income. They have received improved watersources and a grinding mill for the community. We were warmly greeted and evenwatched some youth perform cultural dances.

One thing they asked for that I am trying to assist themwith is a mobile HIV/AIDS testing vehiclethat can come to their village. Mostwomen get tested – it is required if they go for treatment during preganancy.However many men do not get tested and say they don’t want to pay to go to townfor testing. So the women want to get their men educated, counseled, and tested.They feel a mobile vehicle is the only way it will get done. I am hoping I canset this up through Peace corps, USAID or another organization.

GUSCOGulu Support the Children Organization (GUSCO) http://www.gusco.org/index.php is anNGO that has selected 3 vocational schools to provide 3 month courses to waraffected youth to help them acquire skills to make a living. My school is oneof those selected schools, and I have been registering the potential studentsas they come to register for the subsidized courses. This has been taking placefor the last 2 weeks and we have signed up almost 80 potential students todate. Part of the registration is asking them a series of questions. “Were they abducted by the LRA? Dates ofAbduction? Are they child mothers? Did they drop out of school?” Themajority of registrants were abducted. Many come with papers documenting theirreintegration into the community and detailing the dates they were “in the bush”.

This has been a real front row experience for me. Most can only speak a little Englishand we get through the questions using my infantile Acholi language skills andtheir often better English abilities. The hardest part is when the effects ofthe experiences are still severely debilitating to the young person sittingacross from me. I can see it in their eyes. They look like they may cry at anymoment and will not maintain eye contact. Frequently they stare at the groundand answer in a whisper. I am also encouraged by those who appear to haveovercome the trauma to a large extent and are smiling and communicating with alight in their eyes. They all seem grateful I am there and smile broadly when Itry to speak in Acholi.

Minister ofParliament Visits Koro AbiliOn Friday Feb 3, 2012 the Omoro County Minister of Parliament(MP),and Deputy Speaker of Parliament, the Hon. Jacob Oulanyah rolled through KoroAbili to address School and Business Leaders. Since the Director of our schoolwas not there I was selected to go along with our Deputy Director. The meeting place was across KampalaHighway directly across from our school offices. I tagged along to witness theevent and was completely surprised when a man took my arm and led me to thefront of the room and placed me 2 seats over from the MP’s seat. I was thenasked to address the crown of approximately 80 and introduce myself. It’s funnybut if you are white person in a small village you are automatically animportant dignitary. I took a breath and with a translator introduced myselfand the objectives of Peace Corps and said I was excited to work with the communityto help in any way I could.After the MP addressed the audience in Acholi, he turn to meand spoke in English thanking me and saying he was very familiar with ourschool and will work hard to help us. Who knows, but I am hopeful he will keephis promise.

Business AdvisingWe just began a new term at school and I put the word outthat I am happy to meet with any students who want business training andadvising support. So presently I have 3 students whom I meet each Wed andSaturday. Since this is a vocational school almost everyone will leave here andtry to support themselves with their skills. I plan to cover some theory, butmostly practical steps to help them get started. I also I am working with theadministration on a speaker series of successful graduates and other local businessmento come talk to the students about their business journeys. This will be veryinteresting to them and to me. Finally when I spoke at the Minister ofParliament Meeting, I met 2 Gulu University Students who are studying businessand they have both asked for mentoring from me.

Dry SeasonDisastersYes it is the dry season and I am very well equipped to dealwith the heat and lack of water. However, I did not realize the otherchallenges I would face. The biggest problem for me has been that in Acholiland all animals are released during the dry season to forage for themselves.This has led herds of goats and cows to roam freely onto our campus to eat anygreen thing they find. This means they have finished off our remaining cabbagesand in the process damaged a number of the irrigation pipes on our dripirrigation field. They had also eaten almost everything I painstakingly plantedand watered over the last few months. I am very annoyed with this setback, butI will rebound once the wet season returns. Thanks Mom and Dad for thesunflower seeds!

I wrote last time about Africa Burning and this continues –however last night I found out they don’t always contain the fires. My friend Nancy’scompound caught on fire around 1:30 am and she was awakened to the firecrackling precariously close, just outside her window. She, I and her neighborsfrantically worked to contain it and keep the buildings from catching on fire.This was all done with no running water – just filling jerry cans from thewater source just down the road and carrying it back to the fire. There was nomajor damage but it was a very close call. Read more on her blog...http://atexangoesquesting.blogspot.com/2012/02/and-then-there-was-fire.html

Poetry

Sunscreen Jan 31. 2012A happymemory to take out And roll overin my mindApplyingsunscreen to my sonsA protectivetender ritual

WhilevacationingTaking timeto pay attention To the beautiful parts of lifeSmiling whileasking to be stillGiggling atthe grimaces

Anointing allmagical surface areasLobes, Toes,Neck, NoseArms, Legs,Foot tops!One simplemomentEncompassingso much of motherhood

Overflowing Eyes Jan 31, 2012A favoritemovie lineGod is in the RainReturns to meoftenAnd Imanipulate itAs the momentrequiresGod is in thebreezeGod is in theeffortGod is in therestingGod is in thesunrise, sunset, light & darknessGod is in myheartGod is inyour smileI keep seeingGod Andunderstand whyMy eyesoverflow--------------Yes they overflow and I am so grateful for the life I am living.Hugs and love to all of you

After hitting up SEVEN stationary stores in the big city Mbarara on Tuesday before finding one that could print my 150 pages of color, and printing said pages JUST under the wire before the town’s power went kaput (score! …kind of), I really should have known how today would go in home-sweet-kind-of-smoky-smelling-recently Nyakasharu.  I was [...]

This is just a shout-out to my wonderfully supportive, if not slightly unhinged, but definitely wonderfully supportive family in the US.  There are a lot of hard or lonely times here when it really helps to think about people from home, and know that they will be waiting there for you with open arms (and [...]

If there’s ever a time in my life when I felt bad for Britney Spears, this is it.  Granted, in Uganda one hardly needs to shave her head, stop wearing panties, and/or pop out three babies in the space of approximately 14 months….you just gotta be white.  Being blonde doesn’t hurt either.  Reflect the sun’s [...]

This is not a healthy recipe.  There is butter.  A lot of butter.  And hot dogs.   All beef hot dogs.  And while they’re not fried, like traditional corn dogs, they’re small, which leads one to make the perfectly rational assumption that it’s perfectly fine to eat 12 at a time. One of my favorite parts [...]

February is the hottest month in Arua. Even at night, I just lay in bed and sweat. It’s a dry heat, but when I’m out in sun, it feels like my skin is on fire. Luckily, the Peace Corps provides us with all the sunscreen we want (SPF 30) and I brought Aloe Vera gel with me – so I’m not burning too badly. But because women wear long skirts all the time, my legs are as pale as they are during a Chicago winter. My upper and lower body have totally mismatched tans. It's ridiculous.

And because it’s the dry season, the hydroelectric power is failing. The power goes out every day from 4:30pm-10:00pm. That also means the water pumps aren’t working either. I haven’t had running water in 2 weeks and I don’t expect to have it until there is consistent rain (maybe March or April). Dr. Anne said that this dry season is especially bad – it’s never been this hot for this long (and without any sporadic rain showers).

So my water situation is interesting, since my house has pipes for plumbing but no water. I have 6 jerricans for water (20 liters each). Two of them are for drinking water only - I have a filtration rotation set up (i.e. continuously filter water & fill the empty jerrican, while drinking from the other).

The others are for bathing, washing dishes, flushing the toilet, and washing clothes. Unfortunately, flushing the toilet uses ½ of a jerrican . . . so I can’t flush every time I go to the bathroom. Funny, I never thought I would want a pit latrine. I have also had to cut back on bathing – now bucket baths are every 2 or 3 days, which sucks because I’m sweating all the time. A big thank you to everyone who has sent me Wet Wipes/facial cleansing wipes and hand sanitizers!!!

The good news is that the school driver comes around on the weekend to pick up everyone’s jerricans and fills them at the borehole for us. I am extremely grateful his help, especially since the borehole closest to my house (a 15-minute walk) is broken.

Now, let’s all do a rain dance . . .

This past weekend I was invited to a “function” being held in the compound where I live. My supervisor/landlady’s daughter just graduated from Makerere University, and so a party was necessary to celebrate the occasion (sidenote: graduations here are in Jan/Feb, even though classes end in July/Aug. No one really knows why…)

So, the function was scheduled for Sunday, and I expected a typical Ugandan function: large tents, lots of speeches, a late lunch, and then dancing through the night. What I did not expect was a pre-party the night BEFORE the actual party. But of course, we had a pre-party on Saturday. Slowly throughout the night, relatives and friends arrived to enjoy/prepare for the function. Around 9:00 pm we had break tea, with milk tea and bread. About 10:30 pm we had an appetizer course of cow liver. At around midnight we had roasted cow meat (sticks from the trees were widdled down and stuffed with hunks of meat and roasted over a bonfire constructed in front of my house). Finally, around 1:30 am we had dinner (rice, matooke, and cow intestine soup). I’m pretty sure we consumed an entire cow that night. I even watched people cutting this whole cow throughout the evening. Even though they had hooked up a generator for the night, the kitchen was (of course) the only room in the compound without power lines strung through it, so the pieces of meat were laid on top of banana leaves outside on the dirt and hacked into pieces with an ax and machete. (Another sidenote: it was really weird to have generator power for once. My whole house was lit up at night! Crazy!)

Hacking away at the meat

They really wanted to pose with the meat :)

After all the food was consumed, the party continued with dancing and booze. Many beers were drunk, many hips were shaken (chisoga dance!), and lots of loud music was played. Of course, I was told this was not a “serious” party, since the REAL sound system and music would be coming tomorrow. Nevertheless, the party continued the whole night, the generator finally going quiet around dawn.

The next day I emerged from my house around 9:00 am (relatively late for me, but I figured it was justified given the late nature of the party the night before). As soon as I appeared, my landlady’s husband told me he was so worried that I slept so late that he was about to come and check on me to make sure I was still alive. By that time, the tents were already set up and the caterers were already beginning to cook the huge pots of rice, matooke, and meat for the party.

Giant pot of rice and giant spoon (kind of looks like a boat paddle...)

The function actually started around 1pm, and as I expected, it consisted of a lot of speeches, traditional dancers (including a very cute little girl, see below), and prayers. It also included 10 cakes, each in the form of a letter, which spelled out CONCS FIFIN. I assumed this was some sort of lusoga code for graduates (or that I was still tired from the night before and couldn’t read properly), until someone told me it was just an abbreviation for “Congratulations Fiona.”

The graduates (Fiona and her friends)!

After a speech declared to be a “mini skirt” by a local leader (not quite so mini, since he had 8 elaborate points to go through), we finally had lunch around 5 pm. After eating, the tents were taken down, and the dancing began. While everyone was still mingling about, an older woman stopped me as I was walking, wishing to talk to me. Someone had apparently told her I was a doctor (this happens way too much), and she wanted me to fix her “sick breast.” Before I could protest and tell her I’m not at all a doctor, she whips out her breast and starts waving it in my face. Now, I’ve seen a lot of Ugandan breasts since I’ve been here (breastfeeding is quite common), but I’ve never had one waved in my face so insistently at a function with hundreds of people around. It took about 10 minutes to convince this woman that I’m not a health care professional, and that she should probably talk to the (at least) 2 ACTUAL doctors and 3 nurses attending the party.

As the official guests left, the villagers streamed in to take advantage of the generator and music. As the night wore on, the numbers of strangers dancing in the compound grew, and I was told kids were coming all the way from Bufuulubi! (I know this means nothing to you, but it’s a really far village, maybe 20 minutes by taxi, and definitely crazy-far to come from for dancing). Dinner was at a more-reasonable 11 pm that night, but the dancing again continued until dawn.

The next morning was for cleaning up and saying good-bye to the few remaining visitors (and eating the rest of the cow, of course). By Monday night, it was back to life as usual in the village: me and my 4 neighbors, no power, and the peaceful quiet of the night, generator free.

ttfn :)