There are some things that people naturally adapt to in their environment that they don’t even notice or think about. For example, Ugandans use their hands really well. Because most people don’t have any running water they learn to do things like use their hands as a cup. They do this when they are washing their hands or washing dishes, because it’s necessary to be able to pour some water in one hand and hold it for a minute and then use it to wash both hands. Ugandans are also very good at using their hands as an eating utensil. You may think this sounds easy, but eating with your hands is not always so easy when you’re not eating finger foods. I’m not very good at doing either of these things and I know it, but most Ugandans are really good at both and don’t think twice about it. That is what I call adaptability!

This past Sunday I finally returned to my site after being away for about 3 and a half weeks. After my Mid-Service Conference (MSC), my parents arrived. They got here on the morning of May 4th.

After spending a day in Kampala for them to recuperate from any jet-lag, we drove up to Murchison Falls. We stayed at the Paraa Lodge for about 3 days. In that time we did two game drives, took a boat ride to the falls and hiked up the falls. We also took advantage of the pool and the sunshine while we we’re there. We got to see a lot of animals including many kob, water buffalo, elephants, wart hogs, baboons, other monkeys, crocodiles, hippos and, my favorite, giraffes. We also managed to find one lion! I would say overall, our time in Murchison Falls was a great success.

My Favorite!

Baby Elephant

Me in front of Murchison Falls

Mom and Dad with the Falls between them

Murchison Falls

Freedom Falls on the left and Murchison Falls on the right

View from the top of the falls

The sun setting over the Nile

View from our hotel room early in the morning

Murchison Falls was the only place we visited in Uganda. My dad didn’t get the opportunity to see my site or anywhere else in Uganda, but I think he really liked it nonetheless.

So, after spending a few days in Uganda, we flew to Dar esSalaam in Tanzania. We spent one night in Dar before taking the ferry across the channel to Zanzibar. We spent only about 2 days in Zanzibar and we stayed at the Seyyida Hotel. Our hotel even had a roof top restaurant where you could see straight out to the water. Zanzibar is a really fascinating place! Most of the population is Muslim, so, more often than not, you see the women with their heads covered. Some even covered everything but their eyes. While we were there, we spent most of our time in Stone Town (or Zanzibar Town). We took a tour of Stone Town where we saw things like the site of the old slave market (and the church that was built on the site), the fish market and Freddie Mercury’s house. Yes, Freddie Mercury lived in Zanzibar until he was 7 years old. We even ate at a restaurant called Mercury’s. We also took a spice tour where we got to smell many of the different spices grown in Zanzibar and we even got to taste some of them and some of the local fruits. On our last day there, we took a very rocky boat out to a small island in the channel called Prison Island. This island used to have a prison on it, but now it is a hotel. There is also a turtle sanctuary there with some of the biggest turtles I’ve ever seen. The island gave us a very nice view of Stone Town, but the boat we had to take to get there was so unstable, we constantly thought we were going to capsize. However, as my dad pointed out, the boat looked like it had quite a bit of experience, so I we would have had to have quite a storm to flip it over.

The roof-top restaurant at our hotel

The Anglican Chruch that was built on the site of the old slave market

"Doctor Livingstone, I Presume"

Local school children in The House of Wonders (a national museum)

The view from the third floor of The House of Wonders

The Ferry

Freddie Mercury's House

"He's a Killer Queeeeen"

Dad with his spice tie

Dinner at Mercury's Restaurant

The view of the sunset from Mercury's Restaurant

The boat that took us to Prison Island



Upon leaving Zanzibar we spent one night near the Dar airport and then we flew out very early in the morning for Madagascar. After a few hours delay in our flight we finally made it and then we drove out to Andasibe Mantadia National Park. Just the drive was really interesting. Madagascar is like a place I’ve never seen before. The culture there is this interesting mix of African and Asian cultures and all the people speak French (Go Figure!). We spent two days near the national park staying at the Eulophiella Hotel. While we were there we got to see A LOT of lemurs. We went for a short hike to see them in their natural habitat. We got to see many different species, including the Indri Indri, which are the largest species. We were taken to a small island where you can pet the lemurs. No sooner did I step off the boat and I had one jumping on me. It was amazing how close we could get to them. They are such friendly animals.

The Indri Indri making noise to let other know that their there





After that we drove further out east until we got almost to the coast. We then took a boat through the Pangalanes Channel to a small island in the channel. Here we stayed one night at the Palmarium Hotel. This island not only had quite a few species of Lemur, but it also had a wide variety of plants and other wild life.

View from our room

Vanilla





Next we took a boat all the way up the channel. By doing this we got to see a lot of the local tribe that lives there. They seem to transport a lot by water in these canoes that look like they are carved out of a tree. In fact, the canoes are so small our boat would have to slow down every time we past them so as to not tip them over. We took the canal all the way up to Toamasina (also called Tamatave). This is the largest port in Madagascar. From there we continued to drive for about 2 hours to Mahambo Village where we stayed at the La Pirogue Hotel. We didn’t arrive until after dark and we had to leave early in the morning, but this was my favorite place we stayed at in Madagascar. It was right on the beach!

The next morning, we had to leave very early, so that we could get to the boat to take us to Saint Marie Island. The ferry to get there was only about an hour long. Upon arrival we had about a half hour drive and then a short canoe ride to get to our hotel (talk about isolated!). We stayed at the Baboo Village and we were there for two nights. It was nice to relax and not do anything after all the adventures we had had. After our time there was up, we flew back to Antananarivo where we spent one night before flying home.

The sun rising over the dock

Overall, I thought this trip was amazing, but I wish I had had more time in both Zanzibar and Madagascar. I would say you need at least a week in Zanzibar and at least two weeks in Madagascar (whereas we spent about 2-3 days in Zanzibar and about 1 week in Madagascar). There is just too much to see and do.

My computer lab project got approved!! Feel free to help me out and donate to the project. Every dollar counts. No donation is too small.

Here is the website where you can donate to this project. If you have any problems or questions, feel free to ask.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=617-056

Anne and I are on ‘holiday’ with Jen and she has allowed me to write 1 blog. We have traveled to Uganda, Tanzania and Madagascar (currently) and have been to all 3 capitals. We have had many adventures but I want to talk about driving in Africa. Many people would picture a safari vehicle driving on a grass plain. Main roads here are paved, often with a dirt shoulder where people walk – many people. Foot and vehicle traffic are blended, with people often drifting into the street and vehicles in traffic using the dirt sometimes to pass. You need nerves of steel to drive here. Madagascar’s roads are like the Pacific Ccoast Hiighway (curves and hairpin turns, but no cliffs). We spent 4 hours late yesterday being driven from the airport on these roads, the last hour after dark. Our drive from the ferry in Tanzania to the airport was in jammed traffic . The drivers (including our’s) were very, very aggressive but none of them get aggravated (a few polite toots on the horn, no more). Our driver cut through a parking lot and nudged back into traffic to move ahead 3 car lengths. At 1 point he went over the curb, into the gas station, past the pump and back into traffic. Traffic in Kampala, Uganda (like Tanzania) was very heavy. There was 1 traffic light (Jen says Uganda has 4). Traffic is about 1/3 cars, 1/3 trucks and taxis (15 person van’s) and ½ boda bodas (motor bikes with 1, 2 or 3 people, mostly all men). Don’t do the math. There’s that much traffic. Add in hundreds of people on foot, traffic circles and vehicles inches apart. This is Kampala traffic.

I succesfully made it through mid-service (way to go me!)!! For anyone who doesn’t know, I’m referring to my mid-service conference. This is a conference we have with Peace Corps when we make it through one year of service. We come together as a group and talk all about our success stories and our challenges. We also take a look at the year that we have left ahead of us. Although I found out recently that we actually completed half of our time here sometime back in March. So I guess you could say that we have been on the downhill for over a month now. But either way, we commemorated this past year at MSC (Mid-Service Conference).

Now that MSC is over, I have an awesome adventure planned! My parents arrived this morning. They didn’t lose any bags or miss any fights so I would say it was a success. Tomorrow we are heading to Murchison Falls. After that we come back down to Entebbe to fly out to Dar es Salaam (Zanzibar) and then Madagascar after that. It should be quite a trip.

All that being said, I may not have much to say here for a couple weeks, but I will definitely give the full report in a few weeks (with pictures!). So as they would say here in Uganda…”You first wait.”

A few weeks ago I saw two crested cranes in my backyard. For anyone who doesn’t know, the crested crane is Uganda’s national bird. They even appear on the Ugandan flag. Up until that point I had never seen any up close like that outside of the national parks. I never even thought I would, especially because I live so close to the main road. Since that first sighting, I’ve seen them at least a half dozen more times. Now I’m just assuming that they are the same two, but I feel like considering I’ve never seen any here before, they probably are the same one’s coming back. So I guess I’m just wondering if I’m going to keep seeing them or if they’ll eventually move on. I hope they stay, because I love watching them and it is just so pleasant to wake up in the morning and see crested cranes in your backyard!

Ugandans often enjoy sports, but not usually the same sports that Americans would normally watch. The English Premier League is probably the biggest thing in sports here. Ugandans love football (aka soccer). Sometimes I think people like teams like Manchester United more than they like the Ugandan Cranes (Uganda’s national football team). Almost everyone here finds an allegiance to one premier league team. It is kind of like how Americans are loyal to their local sports teams, except the premier league teams aren’t local.

Occasionally Ugandans get into American sports, but the American sports that they will watch are not what you might expect. Sometimes Ugandans will watch basketball or even golf. Many Ugandans even know who Tiger Woods is. However, they don’t know what American football and baseball are. I’ve tried explaining both to people here and they just think that Football is the same as rugby and baseball is the same as cricket. This can also be seen as kind of funny, because you can often see people wearing t-shirts and hats with AmericanFootball and Baseball team logos on them. Although this just goes to the fact that many Ugandans wear clothes with American brands and logos on them without understanding anything about what they mean. It blows my mind that they know so much about America, but they have no idea about America’s two biggest sports. Personally, I find this a bit depressing because my love for the Philadelphia Phillies is not usually understood by Ugandans because they don’t even know what baseball is. It’s also a little mind boggling because the Ugandan little league team qualified to go to the little league world series last year, yet the average Ugandan doesn’t even know what baseball is.

I’m often asked by Ugandans the differences between schools here and schools in America. One time I was asked what students in America learn in history class. The answer shocked them. I told them that we learn American history and “World history”. I explained that we usually learn about European history, but not much more than that. I was then asked what we learn about African history and I had to explain that we don’t really get much African history, that we learn more just African geography, if anything. The response I got was all too appropriate… “Do we not have history here in Africa?” I didn’t quite know how to respond.

Students here learn about a lot more history than students in America do. Ugandan students learn about African history, European history, American history, and even some Asian history I think. Why don’t students in America learn African history? I remember when I was in high school in Philadelphia this problem in history curriculums came up (mostly just in public schools), because in the city of Philadelphia there are more African American students than any other race (in the city as a whole) and yet they didn’t learn their own history. I think if Americans got more of well-rounded history lesson throughout their schooling maybe people wouldn’t be so ignorant about Africa. They wouldn’t think that South Africa and Africa are the same thing. They would understand the difference between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo. They would realize things like the fact that Rwanda is safe to travel to because what happened there in 1994 is no longer happening. They would also understand the similarities and differences between Africa and wherever they live in America. I think all of this is incredibly important to come out as a well-adjusted adult who makes educated decisions.

So my parents will be here in about 3 weeks (as long as my Dad gets his birth certificate and passport **fingers crossed**)!! Then my vacation begins! They will be here at the very end of my Mid-Service Conference. We are going to Murchison Falls for a few days, then we fly to Tanzania and spend about 3 days in Zanzibar and after that we are flying to Madagascar where we are spending about a week. This should be a lot of fun and it will be my first big trip since being here!

This is one of the biggest benefits in Peace Corps. You get 2 vacation days for every month you serve (about 48 in total), so you can travel around. This gives you a chance to explore the countries that are nearby (or even the ones that aren’t nearby) and a chance to go home to visit if you want. Me, I prefer the former. I don’t intend to go home for any reason, so I’m just gonna travel until every last vacation day is used. So far, I’ve only been to Rwanda, but I have this trip planned with my parents in May and a few other perspective trips as well. Hopefully, I’ll be meeting my mom in Tunisia for about 10 days in October (Happy 25th Birthday to Me!!) and then between December and January I hope to be travelling for almost a month. If everything works out, I’ll be going to Dar es Salaam for Christmas and Zanzibar for New Years (yes, again) with a large group of people from my training group as one last hooray before we COS (Close of Service). After that a smaller group of us are planning on going to Cape Town, where I’m hoping I have a couple of friends from home meet me. And after Cape Town, I intend to go to Victoria Falls before heading back to Uganda whether anyone wants to come or not. Now I’m just hoping all my plans work out.

Peace Corps is a great place to get a lot of reading in. Some volunteers will even read an unfathomable amount of books in their two years. And, I guess, you can say that those who don’t have power end up reading more than those with power, but nonetheless the majority of volunteers read a massive amount of books.

All this reading also leads to a plethora of books at my disposal. Many volunteers, including myself, have Kindles, but there are still many who read paper books. And even those with Kindles often read paper books, because there is such a wealth of good books floating around.

This past weekend I went to Jinja to celebrate Easter. On my way to Mbarara (the very beginning of my journey), I realized that I forgot my Kindle, which at first was very upsetting. So, when I got to town I stopped at the Peace Corps resource room to pick up another book to read for the weekend. I ended up taking two books, with at least a handful of others that I wanted, because there were too many good books to choose from.

One of the books that I took was called The White Masai by Corinne Hofmann. It was so good that I managed to finish it in two days (which is unheard of for me because I’m a fairly slow reader). So if from nothing else but the swiftness at which I read this book, you can tell it was pretty good. It’s about a Swiss woman who marries a Masai warrior. It’s very interesting because it talks about many of the unique customs and traditions of the Masai.

So with all these reading options we’ll see what my book record becomes by the end of two years. So far, I think I’ve read about 15 or 20 books. I know it won’t be a Peace Corps record, because I know people who have already read more than a hundred. But for me, maybe it will be a personal record.

“X amount of people live on less than a dollar a day”. This is a statement that I feel is thrown around all too often. In fact, it is a statement that I get quite sick of hearing. Yes there are so many people in the world that live on less than a dollar a day, but you can’t take it the same as saying “X amount of people IN THE U.S. live on less than a dollar a day”. THAT, I think would be an interesting statistic.

When someone gives you that statistic of however many people in the world live on less than a dollar a day, they are trying to play on your sympathy and on your ignorance. Many Americans (or westerns in general) don’t realize how easy it is to live on less than a dollar a day in some countries. For example, here in Uganda the currency (the Ugandan Shilling) has a very low value, especially compared to a dollar. $1 is currently equal to 2500 USH. Many volunteers, including myself, often refer to it as Monopoly money because of its low value. So to live on 2500 shillings a day is not that difficult. I wouldn’t say it is a high standard of living, but it is definitely not as extreme as you think. I would say that I’ve even had days where I’ve lived on less than a dollar. Not out of need (like many local people), but just not living extravagantly (as I often do).

Many Ugandans will ask me how much it would cost for them to live in the U.S. and when I tell them they don’t believe me. They can’t believe that a person could make so much money that they could live in the U.S. I think this is part of why many locals think that America is a Utopia, because people make more money than they can fathom. Little do they realize how much of that money goes to their personal cost of living. So I guess you could say that the pendulum swings both ways. Americans don’t understand the cost of living in Uganda and Ugandans don’t understand the cost of living in America.

So the next time someone gives the statistic of how many people in this world live on less than a dollar a day, try to put it in context to get a feel for what they are actually telling you, because odds are they are trying to convince you of something that is rather normal in many parts of the world.

As I went up to school today, I noticed that the computer lab was already open. So, naturally, I looked in to see who was using it. I often feel a bit protective of it because when things get disorganized or destroyed it impedes on my classes. Anyway, the reason the lab was open was because they had brought in new computer desks this morning! Last term, the school had chopped down quite a few trees in order to get the lumber, but I wasn’t sure what they were going to use it for. Apparently, they were making desks for the computer lab and tables for the staff room. But when I found out we were getting desks, I figured they would just be regular tables and I also thought I wouldn’t get that many tables. But instead we got actual computer desks and there are enough to accommodate at least 30 computers! They have partitions to indicate where each computer workspace should be. This may seem somewhat inconsequential, but it isn’t. Normally the tables in the computer lab can be taken from the lab and used for different events and functions in different places. This is the main reason the lab gets disorganized and destroyed. But because of the way these are designed, they are not very likely to be able to use them for anything but computers. They are also nicely stained in a reddish-brown color. They look really nice. Hopefully over the next couple weeks I’ll get the okay to move the few computers we have to these new desks, because as it is, the old computers are still on the old tables. Not only are the new desks in the way of the old tables but the old tables are also not wide enough for a computer. You can tell they are just makeshift. They are not meant for computers.

All of this is so exciting because it means the school is really trying. They are preparing to get new computers. All I need now is for my grant to actually go through. Sometimes I doubt whether it will ever go through. Not only is this just disappointing because we won’t get new computers, but it will also be very discouraging to the school because they are doing so many preparations for these computers. I would feel really awful if we couldn’t get the grant and the computers. I guess I should try harder to work this out with Peace Corps. At least now, if I get the computers I’ll have desks for them. Before, I was a little afraid if I did get computers that we would have nothing to put them on. This is no longer a concern. For now, we are putting one foot in front of the other and celebrating the small achievements.

Just this week I was asked to help co-direct Camp Glow in the West. We are having the camp in Fort Portal in August. We need to submit the grant proposal soon, so we’ve been working on it to hopefully submit it this week. This camp will have about 80 female campers from the age of 12 to 15. Hopefully, I’ll be able to take a few girls from my school, because all the girls for this camp glow will be from the West and Southwest region of the country. This should be a good project and it should keep me pretty busy for the next few months.

As many people know, I hit my one year mark about a month ago. It’s funny how much you can adapt to a society in a year. I find myself doing things that many Ugandans do that I was initially appalled by and I don’t even think twice about it.

For example, I often throw trash on the ground or out the window of a bus or taxi. This may sound awful, but the reality of it is that there isn’t any kind of trash receptacles, anywhere! I guess after a while you get used to the fact that things like this are totally acceptable and there is no other practical alternative. You just get used to it eventually.

Another example is that I’ve started arriving to meeting late. This is not because I don’t value timeliness or that I have so little respect for the people I’m meeting with that I can’t show up on time. The fact of the matter is that if I show up on time, I end up wasting at least an hour or two (or three or four) of my own time. I would rather run the chance of showing up a few minutes after the meeting has started (which is never the time that was initially stated) than waste my time. My time is worth more than that. And as it turns out, showing up for meetings late is so common here that no even thinks twice when you show up late.

It's official!! Kevin and Alyssa are coming in August!!!! I have no idea what we are going to do while they are here, yet, but we have 152 days to figure it out. I can't wait!

Sometimes things seem to change here on a daily basis. As of the beginning of this week I was still only teaching Senior 2 computers, but now I’m teaching Senior 1, Senior 2, Senior 5. Luckily there is only one stream for both Senior 1 and Senior 5, although I have a lot more girls taking computers in Senior 5 than I expected. In Senior 5, each student takes three principle subjects. If one of those subjects isn’t math then they have to take a subsidiary subject of either math or computers. So computers is somewhat voluntary. I have 48 girls who are willing taking computers! I think that’s bigger than any other stream I have.

Being here and travelling around so much has caused me to give up on some of my principles, especially when it comes to certain electronic devices.

I never used to understand why people needed a device like a Kindle. Are people really too lazy to carry around a book if they want to read? Do we really need to read on a screen as opposed to reading on paper? I think that a lot of people have Kindles (and other similar devices) because they think it’s cool because it is the latest technology. But being here where I can’t get any book I want like in America, travelling around so much and having a lot of time to read, I find having a Kindle very useful. If I want a certain book I don’t have to wait for someone to mail it to me (which can take weeks). I just buy it on Amazon, download it, and put it on my Kindle. It couldn’t be easier.

Another device that I never liked when I was back home but have now found a need for, is a netbook. I used to find netbooks more annoying than useful. With the smaller keyboard it was more difficult to type and the smaller screen made it more difficult to see what you were doing. But I think I only needed to travel around with my 15”+ computer a few times to realize when these netbooks would be useful. Today, in fact, I just ordered an Acer netbook that my parents are going to bring me in May. Travelling here is hard enough, I don’t need any extra pounds to be lugging around with me.

Now don’t misunderstand me. I don’t know if I will still like these devices when I go home. I may find them as useless as before. But for now, especially with all the travelling I do and will do, these devices have found a purpose in my life.

Today we had a visitor at school during lunch that was pretty interesting. He was working with an organization that is trying to prevent counterfeiting money. So he did a short presentation in the staff room about how Ugandans have been counterfeiting money and how you can tell if money is counterfeit. He said that counterfeit money is often times passed off in taxis. The taxi conductor will either put some counterfeit bills in you change when you pay for your ride or he will ask if anyone can break a large bill, but that large bill will be counterfeit. He also said that another place that money is counterfeited here is in banks (believe it or not!). In the banks when someone deposits money the bank checks to see if the money they are receiving is counterfeit, but when someone is withdrawing money the bank teller never checks the money going out. I’m assuming he was insinuating that the bank teller is putting in fake money and keeping the real money he or she should have given to the customer.

All of this was a little eye-opening but what I found most interesting was that this man was telling us that part of the reason for the extremely high inflation last year was because there was so much counterfeit money introduced into the economy. And with a greater money supply the price of goods goes up. I guess I never realized how much money was counterfeit in this country.

Another good thing that happened today is that I think I finally got the ball rolling on my grant project for the computer lab. Peace Corps told me that they still don’t have money for that kind of grant, but that it would probably be there by the end of the month. And my school has started to ask about it again. My Headteacher even told me today that he has a bit of a plan on how to accomplish this. I wrote up a draft for the grant proposal and he wants me to sit down with a few of the teachers and work out all the details and perfect it. Then I can submit it to Peace Corps. He was also talking about opening up a bank account for the project, so that the Old Girls Association (that’s the alumni) can deposit the money they have already have for the project. This is something that Peace Corps requires we do for the grant project, so it was nice to know that they Headteacher was really thinking about this. There was a point where I had practically given up on this project because things weren’t going right. And there were also many times where I found the project to be more discouraging than inspiring. But now I’m back in it!

My Headteacher also asked me today (for the first time) if my contract was able to be extended (aka can I stay longer than one more year). Don’t worry, I’m not staying! But it was nice hearing him say that he wanted me to stay longer. That in and of itself almost inspires me to try to do more while I’m still here. I told him that I couldn’t stay (a little white lie), but that he could always apply for another volunteer and maybe Peace Corps would send someone else after I leave, either right after or a few years down the line. Many of the other teachers have asked me this before and the girls have asked me as well, but never the headteacher. Many of the girls were actually asking me last week how much longer I was going to be here and if I could stay longer. Currently I’m teaching computers in Senior 2, but it is not required for the students to take in Senior 3. So the girls were telling me that if I wasn’t going to be here for the entirety of next year to teach them, that they didn’t want to take computers because it was too hard. Now there is a new challenge for me to conquer before I leave…how to inspire the girls to take computers even if I’m not their teacher. I guess I still have a year to figure that out.

It blows my mind and it disappoints me at how much school students learn about geography, both in the U.S. and everywhere else in the world. The average person knows very little about world geography outside of their own general region.

If the average American is having a conversation with someone and this person mentions Equatorial Guinea, odds are that that average American will not remember exactly what country was mentioned in that conversation. They may remember it differently. They may remember it as Ecuador. They may remember it as New Guinea. They may remember it as Guinea. Unfortunately these four places (Equatorial Guinea, Ecuador, New Guinea, and Guinea) are entirely different.

3 of them are countries.2 of them are in Africa.1 of them is in South America.1 of them is in the South Pacific split between two different continents.

Can you guess which one is which? Give it a try before scrolling down to see the answers. (Anyone who knows me knows I can correctly identify each one.)

Equatorial Guinea is a country in Central (or middle) Africa.Ecuador is a country in South America.New Guinea is an island in the South Pacific. Half of it is part of Papua New Guinea and half of it is part of Indonesia (Papua New Guinea is in Oceania and Indonesia is in Asia, hence it is split between two continents).Guinea is a country in West Africa.

How many did you get right? I’m guessing most people who read this blog post could only probably properly identify one of them before looking at the answers. This is why I think that most countries should totally revamp their geography curriculum.

7 Worst International Aid Ideas...Check it out!

http://matadornetwork.com/change/7-worst-international-aid-ideas/

Here are just a few ways in which foreign aid doesn't work. Sometimes it can even be considered that the donors are donating for their own selfish reasons.

I find myself craving world news more than I ever thought I would. At home I read Time Magazine every week and I’m constantly looking at news online as well as reading The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times sporadically. Not to mention watching World News every night on TV. However, here many sources of world news are definitely lacking.

If I were to rely on what news I can get locally I would be left with local newspapers, which usually only contain local news and consider international sports to be the only thing worth mentioning in international news, and local news on TV, which is no different. And then there is the few times a day that they air Aljazeera on one of the local channels. Although whenever I get to see this it is usually in a somewhat noisy staff room, yet I’m usually craving the goings on of world events so much that I’m adamantly reading the news headlines as they scroll on the bottom of the screen (although this only happens if I happen to be sitting close enough to the TV to see them and if no one is standing in front of the TV). I think the other staff members must think I’m crazy at how mesmerized by the news I am, when in fact I’m just straining to get some information, yet on the other hand I also don’t think they understand the need to know so much about world events (probably because most of them will never leave Uganda and what happens in the world will never actually effect them).

So needless to say, I very much look forward to and appreciate every time I get a Time magazine or news article in one of my packages. When I get home I’m going to have so much access to news, I won’t know what to do with myself.

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.

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)!

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.

I finally started teaching again today. It was nice to get back into it. My classes were significantly smaller than they were last year. I think I had only about 40 girls in each class. This will make taking them to the computer lab easier.

Running has proven to be a big challenge for me. If I want to go running, I have to go early in the morning. So, I try to get up at around 6:30 in the morning and go running when it is barely light out. I go so early because otherwise I draw too much attention. This is hard for me to do because I’m used to running later in the day. It’s hard to get up early and be motivated to go running. Another reason it’s hard to go running here is because the roads are not even. Sometimes it seems more like an obstacle course with me trying to watch my footing so I don’t fall. Sometimes I can manage to wake up, but I have no motivation to go running. I need to find another way to work out here. Suggestions are welcome.

A lot of times people here will make committees. In fact, they love making committees even for the most miniscule things. But their main problem with making committees is that these committees usually don’t do anything or they have really long meetings where they don’t accomplish anything. Often times, if someone is put on a committee it is seen almost as an honor. It is a good thing to be on a committee. Whereas, I would never want to be on one of these committees, because I would most likely have to sit through some long, boring, useless meetings.

I got my class schedule today, which will probably stay pretty much the same for the whole year. I’m teaching Senior 2 Math and Computers. I wasn’t necessarily thrilled at first. I wanted to teach Senior 1 again, but after I thought about it a little I realized that it would be nice to stay with the same girls again this year. Last year I didn’t even have enough time to learn all their names, so this will give me the opportunity to get to know them better, instead of starting over. I think it is also better for them. It took some of them a little bit of time to get used to my accent and stuff, so now they are already used to it. I guess this is probably better than breaking in a new group of girls. Also, with Senior 2 computers I can get them in the lab more for practicals. The curriculum has me teaching Microsoft Word and Excel, so I want to spend a lot of time in the lab, because you can’t learn this with a blackboard alone. This will give my computer lab project a lot of personal justification (if it ever gets off the ground, that is). This also works well with the fact that I want to teach them proper typing (if I have time). My schedule also has me with no classes on Friday again (after a little switching with other teachers). This is good because if I’m going somewhere for the weekend, I don’t have to worry about teaching classes on Fridays. As of right now, I have no idea when I’m supposed to start teaching. I probably won’t start until the beginning of next week. Some of the girls are still arriving and probably will for the next couple days. And for Math, especially, I don’t even know what is in the curriculum, so I’m not yet prepared. But it should all fall into place over the next few days.

Things are finally starting up again, problems are getting solved and created and life goes on as usual. Yesterday we had our beginning of term staff meeting and a teacher’s development workshop. The staff meeting was as long as it was late. It started an hour and a half late but it only lasted a record hour and a half. That was great! But the teacher’s development workshop was long and drawn out and full of people who like to hear the sound of their own voice. I guess overall things went pretty well. I anticipated it taking up my whole day and it did. Because it is a new term and a new school year there have been some changes. One thing is that we got a new computer teacher. Before there was Teacher Marion and me, but now with this new year the curriculum has changed a little. Computers is now compulsory for A level students, which is Senior 5 and Senior 6. Because of this change and teacher Marion being out on maternity leave, we now had a third teacher who was added. He seems really good. He is finishing his masters at a local university and he seems really eager to fix up the computer lab and make computers a subject that is easier to teach and more enjoyable for the students to take. So I’m hoping he can help me with my grant proposal for more computers in the computer lab and he will also be a great way to keep that project sustainable after I leave.

In other news, my power was shut off again last Monday because the bill was not paid by the school (again). I guess you could say they are getting better at getting it back on seeing as it came on today, so it was out less than a week, but in reality, I think it is better to say that they should get better at paying the bill. They didn’t understand why the power company didn’t warn them before shutting it off, but I think the power company is wondering why they didn’t pay when they know they were using power. But as I said with problems getting solved more problems are created. My tap ran dry today (literally right after I realized my power was back). So for now I have a few jerry cans full of water and I will probably inquire at school on Monday about where to get water. Luckily, just by inquiring, it probably means they will again send the little old man to fetch me water every. That makes my life easier, but I guess I’m back to bucket baths for now, at least until the rainy season starts again, which will hopefully be in the beginning of March.

Dry season here is pretty interesting. In the mornings it can be as cold as 50 degrees, but in the afternoon it can easily go up to 90. The extremes are a lot more emphasized in the dry season. Whereas in the rainy season it is just fairly cool all the time.

Anyway, my students are supposed to be coming back today (probably as I write this). Although I don’t yet know what I’m teaching (hopefully Senior 1 again) and I also don’t know when classes start. It could be a couple weeks especially if I’m teaching Senior 1, because apparently the Senior 1’s aren’t coming back until February 13 (this is because they are the new students in the school). So I guess I will go up to school on Monday and figure a lot of things out.

People here are obsessed with Obama. They love him. Many people here realize that Obama’s father was from Kenya, but some people get these facts confused. Some people think that Obama was born and raised in Kenya. Some people even think he is from Uganda. It’s interesting how much people can see Obama as the leader of the United States but then never understand that there are other African Americans in the U.S. It blows their minds that America is not just full of white people (blond hair, blue eyes, etc.). Ugandans also think that all Americans know Obama personally. When they find out that you’re American, they will sometimes ask you to tell Obama “Hi”. Sometimes the people here amaze me with the way they understand things or the lack thereof.

Most Ugandans understand English really well, because that is the language they learn in in school. But there are many people, including little kids, who pretend like they understand but they don’t. If you say “hello” to someone as they pass by, sometimes they will respond with “I’m fine”. I think this is mostly because they don’t understand English. But this could also be because they think it is rude that you haven’t asked how they are doing. So basically you could say anything to people walking by and it is not uncommon to get a response of “I’m fine”.

I had Christmas down in Africa. So a few days before Christmas Kelsey and I set out on a little journey to Rwanda. We started by going to Kigali, the capital, on Thursday the 22nd. On Friday before leaving Kigali, we went to the Genocide Memorial Museum. It is one of the few tourist attractions in Kigali. It was really interesting but a really sad thing to see. Later in the day we headed out of Kigali and we went to Musanze.

Kigali Skyline

Musanze is a town right outside of the Parc de Volcans. The Parc de Volcans is the only national park in Rwanda where you can see the mountain gorillas. The next morning, Christmas Eve, we had to get up early to get to the park. We had a tour operator picking us up at 6:15 AM so we could get to the park by 7 for a gorilla trekking briefing. At around 6 we were outside our hotel waiting for our ride. We waited until about 6:30 before I started getting worried. I went back inside the hotel to ask the guy at the reception desk if he knew where our ride might be. He told me that it was 5:30. When I questioned what he was saying he told me that I wasn’t in Uganda anymore. We were in a different time zone. I almost didn’t believe him because Rwanda is directly south of western Uganda. I was so skeptical that I asked the security guard on my way back out what time it was. He pointed to the clock and said it was 5:30. So as I went back outside laughing, Kelsey knew that things should have been okay. We had been in Rwanda for almost a day and a half and we had no idea that we were in a different time zone.

So after we figured out our mistake and our ride came, we went to the National park. We had our briefing where we learned about the gorilla family that we were going to be tracking. Our family was called the Amahoro family. In Kinyarwanda Amahoro means peace. After our briefing we had to drive further out into the park to our starting point. They say that you may be hiking for up to four hours to find them and once we find them we spend an hour watching them before we turn around and walk back. For us it only took us about an hour and a quarter to find them. Although the hike was pretty quick it was not the easiest hike I ever did. There were points where we were knee deep in mud and there were also a lot of nettles which would get you right through your clothes. But seeing the gorillas was worth it. We got a really good view of them and we got pretty close to them too. You are supposed to stay 7 meters away from them at all times, but I think at points we were even closer than that. There was one silverback, a few black backs, some females and quite a few juveniles and babies. The youngest one in the family was 5 months old. I asked the guide if I could take him home and cuddle with him. He said sure, go ahead. But I’m pretty sure the rest of the family wouldn’t have been so happy if I had, so I refrained.

This one tried to come over and say hi to us

The 5 Month Old Baby (the youngest in the family)

The next day, Christmas Day, we left Musanze and headed toward Gisenyi, which is a town on Lake Kivu. Lake Kivu borders both Rwanda and the DRC.

When we got there we decided that we should have a really good Christmas dinner at the Serena, a really nice chain hotel in Africa. When we went to have dinner we ran into a few other Peace Corps volunteers from Uganda at the Serena. They gave us a few tips. They told us that for 3000 Francs we could use the pool and the beach at the Serena. So the day after Christmas, that’s just what we did. We laid by the pool and got some sun. They also told us that in Kigali we can stay at the Peace Corps office. Unlike the Peace Corps office in Uganda, in Rwanda they have a dormitory at their Peace Corps office. And any PCV from any other country can stay there for free. So on Tuesday the 27th, when we went back to Kigali, that’s what we did. After we dropped our bags off at the Peace Corps office we went to the Mille Collines Hotel, aka Hotel Rwanda. It is what the movie was based on. It’s sad to think that the only real sites to see in Kigali are related to the genocide

The next day we went back to the other side. We crossed back over the border and came back to my house for one night before going to the Ssese Islands for New Years.

On the Ssese Islands we stayed on the biggest islands right outside the only town on any of the islands, Kalangala. We stayed at the Mirembe Resort. They had a beach, but you can’t go in Lake Victoria. We also didn’t have the best weather while we were there. So we ended up just hanging out doing nothing for a few days, which was a really nice way to spend New Years.

I just got back from spending the weekend in Kampala. It was my first real time to spend a lot of time in Kampala. We stayed with a guy who works for the US Embassy here in Uganda. It was like a vacation. He had an awesome house, even by American standards. We had comfortable beds, hot showers and we even got to do our laundry in a washer and dryer. While in Kampala I did a little shopping, ate a lot of good food and I got a haircut. Overall, it was a great weekend.

Tomorrow I’m leaving to go to Rwanda for Christmas. From what I’m told it is our friendlier cleaner neighbor to the South. We are going to go to Kigali, Lake Kivu and to track the mountain gorillas. It should be an interesting way to spend Christmas.

Sometimes I think your pets are the hardest thing to leave behind at home. Harder than any person and any convenience you have in America. There are a couple reasons for this:

1.) You can’t talk to them on the phoneI guess maybe you can talk to them, but they don’t really understand and they can’t talk back. It’s not like it is with people where you can have a conversation with them whenever you want.

2.) They can’t come and visit youAny person you may miss at home has the ability to come and visit if they want to. But your pets can’t come and visit. They don’t have money for a plane ticket and they don’t know how to use the internet in order to book one.

So for these reasons sometimes I find the thing I miss the most is my baby, Olivia.

It’s funny how the infrastructure here (or lack thereof) is just accepted by the people here. Power and water go out all the time and the people here just adjust their lives to deal with it. Luckily for me my water comes from a rain tank, so I always have water unless the entire tank runs dry, which hasn’t happened yet. But in Mbarara water has been going out all the time. I know this seems strange because it doesn’t really happen in the U.S., but this means the water company shuts off the water. It just seems ridiculous that Mbarara doesn’t have water half the time and we’re in the rainy season. Things like this shouldn’t happen. For me power is the real problem. First of all, I don’t pay my own power bill. My school pays it (well…most of the time). Every so often they don’t pay the bill. I don’t exactly know why, but this causes the power company to disconnect the power. This happened right before I left for Thanksgiving. So my power went off Monday November 24th and it didn’t actually come back until yesterday December 3rd. Luckily I was gone for a large portion of the time it was out, but after I came back I was told that they had paid the bill and we just needed the electrician to come out and reconnect it and that took about 4 days itself. Power was not just out for me, but also all the other teachers that live on my row of houses. This even includes the Headmaster and the Deputy Headmistress. The fact that power was out for 12 days didn’t seem to bother anyone else in the slightest. I think I was the only one really put out by this. On top of problems like this, Uganda has been having problems with what they call “load shedding”. I’m not exactly sure what this means, but to me it is an excuse for the power company to shut off power for an entire town or region for no real good reason. I think it might be because the country as a whole is using too much power. Either way it causes big problems for businesses and people have been demonstrating about it in Kampala. And keep in mind as I’m writing this my power is currently out.

In other news, I’m leaving today to go to Camp Glow. I’m taking 4 girls from my school. This should be an interesting experience. Most of the people here don’t move around their own country the way I do. I don’t know that any of these girls have ever been to Kampala before. Because my school is more urban, I know that they have at least been to Mbarara, which is the biggest town in the region. But some volunteers are bringing girls that have never left their village. So either way for most of these girls, this will be quite the experience.

Camp Glow (Girls Leading Our World) and Camp Build (Boys of Uganda in Leadership Development), which are being held right next to each other, are the capstone events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps. So at least for the last day of these camps there should be a lot of volunteers around. It should be a good week.

I don't always like when the power goes out for obvious reasons. At night it makes it quite dark, I can't use my computer for too long after it goes out, and I can't charge my phone. Sometimes I can't even cook without power. But there are moments when I really enjoy the power outages. Last night power went out for about an hour. During that time I finished watching a movie I had already started and I washed my dishes. When I went outside to dump the dish water, I had a moment when I looked up and I could see every star in the sky. It kind of makes you wish power doesn't come back right away because it is the one moment and place when you can see the stars better than anywhere else in the world.

Most restaurants here don’t make international/American food, but the ones that do don’t always put so much care into it. Ugandans don’t understand the idea of having good food. As long as it’s edible, they’re okay with it. However, there is one guy in Mbarara who just opened a small café and movie theater. He is Ugandan but he has lived in America before, so he can kind of understands how Americans like there food. He makes the best sandwiches! And he actually cares how we like our food. He always makes sure everything is fresh. This weekend alone I had three sandwiches. When we went in there on Saturday, it took a long time because he had to go out and buy all the ingredients to make our sandwiches, but they were so good that we didn’t mind. This pace makes me want to buy a sandwich every week when I’m in town. There are other places to get good food in town, but I don’t necessarily feel the need to go there every time I’m in town. I kind of just want to support this guy because I love that he cares so much what we actually want.

So I finished with my classes today. This means that other than giving my exams, grading my exams and attending my end of term staff meeting, my second term is officially over. My school year is also finished. So after the term officially ends on November 30th, I’ll have off for almost 2 months. I hope to take advantage of this time. I want to get started on my computer lab project and I also want to do some travelling.

Today I finally finished with the computer practicals. To me it was very long and kind of boring, but I think overall it was worth it. You could tell there were a few of the girls who had used a computer before, but for the most part I don’t think that most them had ever used one before. This made it all the more interesting. This must have been what it was like when the first personal computer was created and they gave it to the first test subjects. Most of the girls were totally fascinated by things. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of people so computer illiterate. It’s kind of nice because there is a lot to show them and there is a lot of gratification in it. Some of the girls constantly wanted to stray away from my lesson, but others were so thrilled when they did something I told them to do correctly. I had at least one group who was totally terrified. At the beginning of one of my lessons, after I told the girls to click on something, they just continued to stare at me and the computer without touching it. I had to explain to them that they didn’t have to be scared of the computers and that they were allowed to touch them.

I also somehow managed to give all of my lessons at the time I originally allotted. This may seem obvious, but almost every lesson, at one point or another, got rescheduled. Sometimes there were other people using the lab. Sometimes I couldn’t locate the keys to the lab. And one time I even had power go out for a minute or two. But despite all of these little blips, I managed to give all of my lessons as planned.

I really want to try to get more computers in there, now more than ever. Most of the girls kept asking me why we don’t do this more often. And when I explained to them that we don’t have enough computers and we have too many girls, they all agreed, but you could tell most of them are just dying to get into the lab. The headteacher wants to work it out starting next term so I can give practical lessons to some of the students that don’t take computers, like some of the higher level classes. So I would stop teaching Math and focus solely on computers, which is what I originally wanted anyway. But this could be very difficult without getting more computers. Hopefully over the holiday I can work on fixing up the lab.

This week the senior 1s invited me to come to their party which was taking place today. It was a party not only for the senior 1s but also a party for the members of Harvard House, which is one of the dormitories. It was to initiate the Senior 1s and to congratulate the Harvard House for having the cleanest dorm. I would say it was one of the easiest functions I’ve ever been to here. It did however start about an hour late. Although this didn’t bother me so much because I anticipated it starting late and I didn’t show up on time (but I was still there well before it started). It was however only 2 hours long, including lunch, so I was pretty pleased with that.

Sometimes, being here, I look at people or I look at my students and I can’t help but think how different they are from American students. However, today I looked at them and I couldn’t help but think how similar they are. There was supposed to be music at this party. And for the beginning of the party there was, but about halfway through power went out. But while power was on, all most of these girls were interested in was singing, dancing, and how “smart” everyone was dressed. I can’t say that this is all that different from how American teenagers think. I felt bad for them, because their little dance afterwards was postponed/cancelled because the power was out. But overall, it was a good event.

This week the senior 1s invited me to come to their party which was taking place today. It was a party not only for the senior 1s but also a party for the members of Harvard House, which is one of the dormitories. It was to initiate the Senior 1s and to congratulate the Harvard House for having the cleanest dorm. I would say it was one of the easiest functions I’ve ever been to here. It did however start about an hour late. Although this didn’t bother me so much because I anticipated it starting late and I didn’t show up on time (but I was still there well before it started). It was however only 2 hours long, including lunch, so I was pretty pleased with that.

Sometimes, being here, I look at people or I look at my students and I can’t help but think how different they are from American students. However, today I looked at them and I couldn’t help but think how similar they are. There was supposed to be music at this party. And for the beginning of the party there was, but about halfway through power went out. But while power was on, all most of these girls were interested in was singing, dancing, and how “smart” everyone was dressed. I can’t say that this is all that different from how American teenagers think. I felt bad for them, because their little dance afterwards was postponed/cancelled because the power was out. But overall, it was a good event.

This week the senior 1s invited me to come to their party which was taking place today. It was a party not only for the senior 1s but also a party for the members of Harvard House, which is one of the dormitories. It was to initiate the Senior 1s and to congratulate the Harvard House for having the cleanest dorm. I would say it was one of the easiest functions I’ve ever been to here. It did however start about an hour late. Although this didn’t bother me so much because I anticipated it starting late and I didn’t show up on time (but I was still there well before it started). It was however only 2 hours long, including lunch, so I was pretty pleased with that.

Sometimes, being here, I look at people or I look at my students and I can’t help but think how different they are from American students. However, today I looked at them and I couldn’t help but think how similar they are. There was supposed to be music at this party. And for the beginning of the party there was, but about halfway through power went out. But while power was on, all most of these girls were interested in was singing, dancing, and how “smart” everyone was dressed. I can’t say that this is all that different from how American teenagers think. I felt bad for them, because their little dance afterwards was postponed/cancelled because the power was out. But overall, it was a good event.

This week the senior 1s invited me to come to their party which was taking place today. It was a party not only for the senior 1s but also a party for the members of Harvard House, which is one of the dormitories. It was to initiate the Senior 1s and to congratulate the Harvard House for having the cleanest dorm. I would say it was one of the easiest functions I’ve ever been to here. It did however start about an hour late. Although this didn’t bother me so much because I anticipated it starting late and I didn’t show up on time (but I was still there well before it started). It was however only 2 hours long, including lunch, so I was pretty pleased with that.

Sometimes, being here, I look at people or I look at my students and I can’t help but think how different they are from American students. However, today I looked at them and I couldn’t help but think how similar they are. There was supposed to be music at this party. And for the beginning of the party there was, but about halfway through power went out. But while power was on, all most of these girls were interested in was singing, dancing, and how “smart” everyone was dressed. I can’t say that this is all that different from how American teenagers think. I felt bad for them, because their little dance afterwards was postponed/cancelled because the power was out. But overall, it was a good event.

Ugandans typically don’t think you have eaten unless you’ve had “food”. This may sound like it makes sense, but you don’t know what Ugandans consider to be “food”. “Food” to Ugandans is something like matooke, posho or rice. They typically eat meals consisting of “food and sauce”. “Sauce” can be something like beans, meat or peanut sauce. But if you try to tell them that sauce is food, they will never agree with you. So if I just eat meat, according to most Ugandans, I haven’t eaten. You can even give them a dictionary definition of food and they still won't agree.

I have finished my classroom lessons for computers with my girls for the term and also the year. This means that starting next week I start what they call practicals. This just means that I’m taking them to the computer lab for a practical lesson. Up until this point, I’ve been teaching them computers in their classroom with the chalkboard. I’m not really sure how effective this is. So, I guess, I’m hoping that one 80 minute lesson will sum up and tie everything together. I hope they get a lot out of it because it means that I have a lot more work to do for the next two weeks. I broke each class into 5 groups. So I have 10 groups in total. So over the next two weeks I have to teach the same lesson 10 times. Each group has 10 or 11 girls in it and I only have about 5 or 6 computers that we can use. So the girls will still have to share computers. They seem really excited about going to the lab. I’m just hoping they behave once they get there.

“The days go by so slowly, but the weeks and months fly by.” This is something I hear volunteers here say all the time. This may not make much sense, but when you are here experiencing it and someone says this, it totally makes sense. There are many days that you don’t have anything to do, so your days can go by slowly. On the other hand, there isn’t much change in seasons here. It sometimes seems like an eternal summer. Without any change of season, for someone who is used to having both summer and winter, it can seem like time isn’t moving, when, in fact, the months are going by before your eyes. Sometimes it feels like I just got here yesterday and in fact I’ve been here for almost 9 months. My dad mentioned this to me the other day and, at first, I didn’t see the significance of 9 months. At 9 months, I’ll be a third of the way done. That seems crazy because there is still so much to do here and so many places to go see.

I know I haven’t written on my blog in over two weeks, but I’ve been too busy to write. Too busy having fun! My mom finally got to my house early in the morning on Saturday October 8 after having a lot of trouble with her connecting flights. It took her almost an additional day and an extra stop in Nairobi, but she eventually made it without any major disturbances.

So, on October 8, after she slept for a few hours, we left my house and went to Lake Mburo National Park. I thought it would take us about an hour and half to get there, but my calculations were a little off and it took us about three hours to get there, but it was worth it. Even though we were only there for one night, it was totally worth it! We stayed at the Mihingo Lodge, which is actually just outside the park (although you can’t get there without going through the park). It was nothing short of amazing. Up until that point I don’t think I’ve eaten so well in this country. I didn’t even know there was food available in this country that can be so good. Our room was huge. It was trying to portray a rustic feel in the lap of luxury. Many people have told me that Mihingo Lodge is debatably the nicest hotel in any Ugandan National Park and it might be. So, we spent Saturday hanging out and laying by the pool relaxing. Then Sunday morning we got up early and went on a horseback safari. We spent two hours on the safari and we saw many different kinds of animals. Most notably, we saw a lot of Zebras, but we also saw some waterbucks, eland, impala, monkeys, and warthogs. In the afternoon we took a boat ride on the lake and we saw some hippos and crocodiles as well. By Sunday late afternoon we were on our way back to my house in Kinoni, which is where we were going to spend most of the week.

The Mihingo Lodge Pool (it overlooks a watering hole)

Our Room (or tent as they called it)

Our Bathroom

The was our "Tent" (no, we were the only ones in this huge room)

Horseback Safari

There were lots of Zebra

The sunset from our room

Hippos

And more hippos

On Monday, we went into Mbarara for the afternoon. I gave my mom a nice little tour of the town and we saw many of my favorite places, including the Peace Corps resource room, City Restaurant (for Indian food), the market, the Orange store (for airtime for my phone), and a couple of my favorite supermarkets. Other than that there is not much to do in town because it wasn’t nice enough out to go to the pool.

On Tuesday, I took her to school for lunch and to meet some of my favorite people here. Unfortunately, even though I only gave the headmaster short notice of her visit that day, they still insisted on improving the lunch. Instead of Matooke, we had rice (which is somewhat of a luxury) and they also gave everyone bottled water. This never happens except on special occasions. While we were there the headmaster invited us to come back later that day to have evening tea with him and a few of the other teachers and to take a tour of the school. This ended up being a lot nicer than lunch. We had tea with the headmaster, the deputy headmistress, the director of studies, the head of the business department and the head of the student council. After tea we took a tour of the school. This was the first time even for me to see the inside of the dormitories. We also went down and saw the girls having their dinner. Not only did they love seeing another white person, but they also loved that she brought her camera. Most of them either really wanted their picture taken or some were very shy and didn’t want it at all. The tour ended up being very amusing.

One of the classroom blocks

Some of the dormatories

On Thursday morning, after I had finished my first two classes, we left for Queen Elizabeth National Park. Even though it is only a few hours from me, I had never been there before. I had arranged for a private car with a driver to take us. He even had a safari vehicle where the top opened so we could see the animals better. We stayed at the Simba Safari Lodge, just north of the park, for two nights.

On Friday, very early in the morning we went on a game drive in Kasenyi (a game area in the northern part of the park). At first we were a little disappointed. Other that seeing some kob, buffalo, crested cranes and other birds, we hadn’t seen anything all that exciting. Until…we got a glimpse of the big cats. We saw a bunch of cars stopped looking at something, so we stopped as well. They said they saw some lions in the distance. Even with my binoculars, we couldn’t see very much. So after a few minutes the two of us got back in the car and waited for the driver. When he came back he told us we were going to go out and see those lions. So we drove out to where they were and we were within about 20 feet of four lions, 3 male and 1 female. It totally made the drive worth it!

A Crested Crane (the national bird of Uganda)

In the afternoon on Friday we went out to Mweya, where there is a boat ride in the Kazinga Channel, which connects Lake Edward and Lake George. Our driver dropped us off at the Mweya Lodge to have lunch. When we got there we realized that this is where we should have stayed at. It was beautiful! I started to have my doubts that Mihingo was the nicest lodge in any Ugandan park. After we had an amazing lunch there, our driver picked us up and took us to the boat ride. This boat ride was much better than the one at Lake Mburo. We saw lots of hippos and crocodiles close up. Some of the hippos even rocked the boat. We also saw buffalo and elephants as well as many birds!

Where we should've stayed

On Saturday morning, we checked out of our hotel and started out for Ishasha. Ishasha is in the southern part of the park and it is where you can often times see the tree climbing lions. On our way to Ishasha, we saw more elephants, but when we got there we didn’t get to see any tree climbing lions. I guess I’ll have to try again some other time. After Ishasha we left the park and we took the back roads down to Kabale. This took quite a long time because the roads are made of dirt and they wind around the hills (luckily it wasn’t raining). I thought it was really awesome because this is the kind of route that you will never get on public transportation. It was really something to see. When we got to Kabale we had lunch and then we went out to Lake Bunyoni.

At Lake Bunyoni, I had made a reservation to stay at the Bunyoni Overland Resort. Even though it was an okay place to stay, we weren’t very happy with it. Right from the beginning we had our doubts about it. The guy who checked us in was not very friendly and after a while he seems straight up grumpy. He was also the person we had to deal with for everything. The room only had one towel and he was the one we had to bug for another. I didn’t even want to mention to him that we had only a trickle of hot water for the shower. This was the most disappointing part to me, because not only did the guide book brag about the hot water at this place, but I always look forward to a hot shower. The food at the hotel restaurant was okay, but not the greatest. But besides all these faults, the lake was beautiful and the grounds of the hotel were very nice.

The first place we stayed (The Bunyoni Overland Resort)

On Sunday morning, we took a boat ride on the lake. We could have rented a dugout canoe, but my mom wasn’t that adventurous. So instead we got a small motor boat with a driver to take us to three of the islands. It was a nice ride on the lake and it was nice to hear about all its history, but there was nothing all that interesting to see on the islands.

After getting back to the hotel, we ordered lunch and went for a little walk down to, what looked like, a nicer hotel that we had passed on our ride in the day before. It was called the Birdsnest and it wasn’t even in my guide book. After stepping in the lobby, I think we were completely done with the first hotel. This hotel was gorgeous! Later we found out that it was only built a year ago and that is why it wasn’t in the guide book and in fact, it was still under construction partly. After speaking with the owner, Pablo, and meeting his dog, Pacino, we decided to move from the Bunyoni Overland Resort to the Birdsnest Hotel. We went back up, paid our bill, ate our lunch, packed our things and moved.

The second place we stayed (The Birdsnest Hotel)

The Birdsnest had amazing food, a hot shower, and the second night we were there, I think we were the only guests there. It was nothing short of perfect. So we spent the next two days just relaxing around the hotel and looking at the pretty lake.

On Tuesday, we came back to my house for my mom’s last couple days here in Uganda. And on Thursday she left for Entebbe so she could fly out Friday morning. So far, as far as I know, she has only had minimal problems with her flight. Needless to say, I don’t think she ever wants to fly through Heathrow again.So now I’m back to the same old same old and planning for my next big trip when my parents come in the spring!

It’s been rainy season here for over a month now. Some days it rains and some days it doesn’t. Most days it at least looks like it’s going to rain at some point in the day, even if it never actually rains. And then there are other days where it rains really hard. But no matter what, it almost never rains all day. Today was one of those when it rained really hard. I was heading to my last class and you could see the rain clouds starting to form. I got to class and I started teaching. As I was writing on the board I could hear the rain start and I didn’t think much of it until I noticed the commotion going on in my class. It was raining buckets outside and it was windy too. So because many of the windows in the classroom are broken or missing, the rain was starting to come in. So the girls had started to move all of their desks to the middle of the room. One of them got up to close the door. This made no sense to me, because the door is supposed to have panes of glass in it and they were all missing. So I don’t know what good this was doing. Another one of the girls also got up to take down the clock, which hangs on the wall above the blackboard (in the middle of the classroom). This also made no sense to me. I think the funniest part of this whole ordeal is that it is not uncommon. These girls are so used to learning with distractions like this. And by the time my 40 lesson was over, it had stopped raining all together…go figure!

I have another movie pick from my ever growing movie collection. I watched Out of Africa last night. Or I should say I tried to. I watched the first two hours and then there was a problem with the video file, so I didn’t actually get to see the last 40 minutes of the movie. But even though I never saw the end, I still think it was a good movie and I’d still recommend watching it if you are interested. It's a Meryl Streep movie from the 80's. It’s a love story, but in the background of the love story it’s actually about colonial Kenya. It’s interesting to hear them talk about and go to the different places in Kenya and talk about the Masai men. So I’m adding it to my movie recommendation list.

This afternoon I’m supposed to be getting a visit from the office of the Inspector General from Washington DC. Apparently they are coming to interview me about how good of a job Peace Corps and Peace Corps staff are doing. This should be an interesting visit.

On another note, my mom will be here on Friday. This weekend we are going to go to Lake Mburo National Park. And then next weekend (or extended weekend, I should say) we are going to Queen Elizabeth National Park and Lake Bunyoni. This should be a fun little trip even though I’m gonna be teaching in between.