No, I was not pregnant (though the recent weight gain might have made you think otherwise). Nine months ago, I began fundraising for Libraries for Life with some fellow PCVs and children’s author, Jean Reidy. We had a target goal of $17,000, but after we joined forces with another volunteer in Central Uganda, we raised over $21,000. As a result, Books for Africa shipped us 22,000 books, 4 brand new computers, and 40 solar lamps. The shipment finally arrived last week, which was a great welcome home gift after Egypt. I am happy that I was in Egypt when the books arrived; there were a few hitches at the Mbale Port. This is Uganda, after all, and it would not be right if there were no problems. Bryan and Andrea had the unfortunate task of dealing with the Mbale Port for a week. They had to argue over excess charges and taxes – I am pretty sure they wanted to kill everyone by the end (I would have). The port workers also decided that they were entitled to some of the books and solar lamps too. Apparently they just opened boxes and helped themselves. They took around 7-800 books and 8 solar lamps. There were plenty of books, but I am pretty sure they were taken with the intention of being sold. I was only mad when I heard that one worker took a whole set of the Harry Potter series. Not cool, not cool at all. We were all a little irritated about the solar lamps too, but, as we say, TIA. This past weekend I went to Iganga to sort the books at Musana Children’s Home. (Jean Reidy was raising the money for Musana and Andrea is the founder). At first, Bryan, Linda, Gary, Andrea, Leah, and I were all a little perplexed with how to go about sorting all the books. (Bryan, Linda, & Gary are PCVs. Leah & Andrea work at Musana). The amount of boxes was intimidating and they took over two large classrooms. We started off by each taking a subject and unpacking the boxes. It only took us five minutes to realize that was a terrible idea because we would run out of space and get really confused. We decided to all work on one subject because it would be more time efficient and organized. Well, so we thought. We all just started to unpack boxes and put the books in piles (there were a lot of sets). We did not realize how many boxes there were and soon the whole floor was covered in a mish-mash of piles. We were all having anxiety, especially because there was no walking room. Thankfully, Musana had a church group visiting for the week and they were extremely helpful. The boxes were not split up very well between the classrooms – half of each subject was in each classroom. As a result, we had the church team organize the Literature books in the other room and then we had the Musana students bring them down to our room. The students were so eager to help, they would pile them on their head and then come running down the hill to give them to us. It became a contest to see who could hold the most books. After the books were organized, we each decided what we wanted, packed them up in boxes for our school, and moved the boxes to a different room. After Literature, I was exhausted and sore from all the lifting. Literature sort of wiped us all out and we were a little discouraged – we had not expected sorting to be so much work. We decided to sort the Reference books next because it had the least amount of boxes. Also, there was less to organize since we did not have to sort through various types of textbooks and workbooks. After reference, we called it a day! Sunday was much more productive because we had an idea of what we were doing and we learned from our mistakes. We started off by dividing up the “leisure reading” books because that was the easiest. We just each took the same amount of boxes and did not bother opening them up. We figured we would each get good and bad books, but at least it would be random. We were not up for sorting through thousands of children’s books and novels. Afterward, we sorted the science books and we were really organized. We created rows and organized the books by title and publisher. When the kids brought the books from the other classroom, it was much easier to find their place! We chose our books, packed them up, and moved the boxes. Last was math, which went relatively smoothly. There were a lot of single textbooks that did not have a set, so they took up a lot of floor space. By the end, the room kind of looked like a bomb went off. We finished up quickly, however, because by then we were pros. That or we just wanted to be done! Bryan and I live relatively close to each other, so we hired one truck to bring our books back to our schools. My school was ecstatic when I arrived. All the teachers came to help unload and they kept saying, “So many books!” and “God bless you!” They were also going nuts over Bryan because he speaks Ateso (another language in Uganda) and he speaks it pretty well. Stephen and Sauya both speak Atesso and they kept calling him their brother. Bryan was clearly better at learning his designated language than I was because I can’t speak Lugwere to save my life. Way to show me up, jerk! (Just kidding…sorta). My school has hired a carpenter to make brand new bookshelves for the library. We had a little leftover money from the fundraising, so I am paying for half. I will still have a little left, so I am going to buy supplies for organizing. I’m hoping to organize the books using the Dewey Decimal System, wish me luck! I just set up the new computer, which is nice, and the teachers are thrilled. They keep saying, “We’re so modern” and “That computer is smart!” Needless to say, they are very excited about the books, computers, and solar lamps. The P7 students will be able to use the lamps to study for the PLE even when the power goes out, which is great. Thank you to everyone who donated to Libraries for Life and made this possible. Your support means a great deal to me, and my school is more than grateful. They spent all Monday excitedly asking each other, “Have you seen the books?” I wish you all could have seen the kids at Musana flipping through the books with huge smiles on their faces – they were just excited to touch a book and look at the pictures. I cannot wait to have the books organized so my students can share the excitement. Thank you, again!

Photos courtesy of Bryan:

They needed two trucks to transport all the books to Musana

Kids helping us sort out books

Me, Gary, Linda, and Leah

So many empty boxes!

The first half of the Literature books

The church team was a great help

The kids were so excited to help

The Peace Corps team: Linda, Me & Gary. (Bryan took the photo)

YAY! BOOKS!

I have returned from an amazing trip to Egypt. I had a lot of fun and I am a little sad to be back in Uganda. The trip went super smoothly, which is surprising because there were 11 of us on this trip. We were all kind of expecting some drama – it is almost a given in such a large group. Our hostel, however, took care of everything and we really did not have to worry about much. They arranged all of our transport and bought our train tickets in advance, which relieved a lot of stress and prevented any major drama within the group. We had a tour guide in both Cairo and Luxor, but both of them served primarily as babysitters and making sure we were on schedule (we lagged a lot). Our tour guide in Luxor was awesome, however, and he knew a lot about Egyptian history. I’m not one for tour guides, but I liked him! He was funny and had a lot of great stories. Unfortunately, none of us could remember his name…it kind of sounded like Why. Egypt is, in one word, awesome! Egyptians are extremely nice and helpful; we were a little caught off guard at first. Ugandans are usually pretty helpful, but they usually expect something in return. For the most part, we weren’t hassled in Egypt – except for the bazaars at the super touristy places (they got annoying!). Since we were coming from Uganda, I think that our perceptions were different than those of someone coming from America. Here were our first impressions:

- “Wow, look at how nicely paved the roads are!” - “They drive on the right side of the road. Nice.” - “OMG, there is an H&M – let’s go shopping before we go back!” - “There are so many nice cars.” - “Whoa, they have streetlights!” - “AIR CONDITIONING!?!?!?!”

We also noticed the really cool architecture of the buildings, but mostly we were impressed with how nice Egypt is. Granted, I do not think someone traveling from a developed country would be quite as impressed. I felt really safe in Egypt; in fact, I felt much safer there than I do in Kampala or any other big city in Uganda. The only time I was terrified was when I had to cross the road. There is no such thing as a right of way or crosswalk – everyone just goes. You hold up your hand, cross the street, and hope everyone stops for you. We always tried to follow behind an Egyptian because we all thought we were going to get hit by a car. One Egyptian instructed Maggie and me, “Just hold up your hand, close your eyes, and may god be with you.” We were the definition of tacky tourists – all we needed were fanny packs and t-shirts that said, “I <3 Egypt”. After arriving at our hostel, we went straight to McDonalds, which was right around the corner! The smiles on our faces were about a mile long and some even ordered seconds. That pretty much set the pace for the week – the amount we ate was pretty impressive and disgusting. We tried everything that Egypt had to offer – both American and Egyptian. After stuffing our faces with McDonalds, we walked to the Egyptian Museum, which was awesome. I’m not one for museums; I think they are pretty boring – so if I say it is cool, then it is cool! There were a ton of statues, sarcophaguses, mummies, and other random artifacts. There was an animal mummy section, which was pretty creepy and gross, but still cool. They also had a King Tut section with all of the artifacts from his tomb. We spent a couple of hours walking around and looking at everything. The museum was HUGE! We all couldn’t believe how much stuff was there.The second day, we went to the Pyramids of Giza, which were amazing. When most people think Egypt, they think pyramids – it was what I was most excited to see. In proper tourist fashion, some of us even paid to ride a camel. I, of course, was one of those people. It was $10 for an hour and a half, which was all the time we needed. We were all surprised by how close the pyramids were to the city; we thought they would be way out in the desert. Cairo, however, is pretty much built right up to the pyramids. You can see them from the highway, which we thought was so weird. After the pyramids, we went to KFC/Pizza Hut for lunch. There is one outside the gates to the pyramids with huge glass windows so you can look out at the pyramids. I do not think you can get any tackier, but I really wanted popcorn chicken. After the Pyramids of Giza, we went to the Dahshur Pyramids. We got to go inside the Red Pyramid, which was really freaky and awesome. We had to crouch down and go down a steep passage that was 3 feet high and 4 feet wide. It was seriously a never-ending tunnel (200 ft.) and it was really tiring. It is a good thing none of us are claustrophobic. The inside of the pyramid was pretty crazy. However, it smelled like ammonia and was kind of stuffy. It is seriously mind-boggling how they built these pyramids. There were two chambers, connected by small passageways. Inside the second chamber, there was a wooden staircase that lead to the last chamber. Climbing back out of the pyramid was an adventure; we were all breathing hard and saying, “Are we at the end, yet?!” That night, we took the train to Luxor. We opted for the sleeper train because it is about an 11-hour trip. The train was nice and we were actually pleasantly surprised with how comfortable the beds were. In Andrew’s words, “The sheets were perfect.” We were all pretty excited with the dinner of highlighter yellow rice and fried fish with no flavor, another testament to the fact that we have been in Uganda far too long. For breakfast we got an assortment of breads and we could not stop cracking jokes. We got a croissant, a “cheese” croissant (basically plain), and a dinner roll. After we arrived in Luxor, we dropped off our things at the Cleopatra Hotel and then headed off to the Valley of Kings. The Valley of Kings was by far my favorite part of the trip; it was remarkable! Unfortunately, we could not bring our cameras inside, so you are going to have to take my word for it. The Valley of Kings lies in a ravine of limestone hills and there are sixty-two tombs (not all of them are royal). The tombs were massive, way bigger than I would have expected. The walls were covered in paintings and hieroglyphics, which represent a guide to the underworld. The tombs were all constructed to have long corridors and shafts to prevent tomb robbers (which didn’t really help). It was really pretty amazing to see how much work went into constructing these tombs. After the Valley of Kings, we went to the Al-Deir Al-Bahari Temple, which is the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut. It’s situated at the head of a valley and almost blends in with its surroundings. There were a ton of columns and statues throughout the temple, which were incredible. We all couldn’t believe how massive it was. The next day, we drove two hours along desert road to Abydos in order to see the Temple of Seti (also known as the Great Temple of Abydos). Abydos is one of the most ancient cities of Upper Egypt. It was quite a trek to get there, but the temple was really cool. Also, there was hardly anyone there – partly because it is so far out and partly because tourism has really gone down in Egypt (great for us!). After Abydos, we drove to Dandara Temple. This temple is one of the most well preserved temples in Egypt – with huge granite columns inside. The temple also has a tomb – you had to climb down stairs and crouch down to get inside. Our tour guide turned off the lights once we were all inside, which he found hilarious because we all screamed. Our tour guide also told us that he wanted to put me on a leash because I kept wondering off to take pictures. Later that night, our hotel had a BBQ for us and hired an Egyptian band to come play music for us. It was awesome and the music was great. We all showed off our stellar moves too! The next day, we got to sleep in – Maggie and I were in heaven. We did not get out of bed until noon. We were perfectly content laying in bed with the air conditioning on full blast. We even convinced Chris to bring us breakfast in bed. Nothing too spectacular, just rolls and yogurt, but we didn’t have to move! We finally got out of bed to get ice cream and then shower for the day. In the afternoon, we went to the Karnak and Luxor Temples. They were interesting, but the previous ones were definitely more spectacular. (We were also pretty temple-d out). Afterward, we went to an Irish Pub to gorge in food and drink draft beer until it was time to catch our night train back to Cairo. When we arrived in Cairo, we actually had to figure something out for ourselves. Our hostel did not pick us up because they told us the hostel was only a 15-minute walk away. Well, that did not turn out to be true, but we figured out the metro system to get to Tahrir Square and then we walked to our place. We were all pretty impressed with ourselves that we did not get lost. Later that day we went to the Citadel of Salah Al-Din, the Coptic section of Cairo, and the oldest mosque, Amr Ibn El-Aas. The Citadel was really cool, but the Coptic section was kind of blah. The mosque was really pretty, but the girls had to wear these ridiculous green, hooded robes. We looked like Jedi and we were trying so hard not to laugh. However, we looked absurd and the boys could not stop making fun of us (especially because they got to go through the front entrance, but we had to go through a different one). The last day in Cairo was spent doing last minute shopping and eating. I desperately wanted a Starbucks because I had yet to find one (pretty sure everyone wanted me to stop talking about it too). Ryan, Josh, Kelsey, Chris, Maggie and I took a cab to the nearest Starbucks and it was well worth it. The Starbucks ended up being in a really nice mall, which also had Annie’s Pretzels! I got a Frappuccino and a soft pretzel with two things of nacho cheese dip. Kelsey and Maggie got haircuts and I went and got a much-needed pedicure. Before we went home, I got another pretzel with nacho cheese and a Frappuccino…not joking Our flight was at 9:45, so we went to the airport in the evening. We were all pretty stoked when we saw a Burger King – we hadn’t seen that, yet. And yes, I ate that too (but I only got chicken tenders…). During flight check-in, the attendant asked to marry me. I declined, but I said if he made sure to put no one else in my row, then I would reconsider. Well, he either delivered or I got lucky – I had the whole row to myself and I got to lie out and sleep the way home! Now I am home and I am not all that thrilled. I miss the air conditioning, constant power, showers, and good food. Students are slowly starting to trickle back into school and I will probably start teaching soon. So I am sure it won’t be long until I get back in the swing of things.

This is Josh's "Yay, we're in Egypt!" face

The stairs up to our hostel were a little sketch...

View from the balcony Really does put a smile on our faces...

Tahrir Square

Andrew and Caroline

Caroline and me outside the Egyptian Museum

Egyptian Museum

Aftermath of the revolution

Our sweet ride

We couldn't believe you could see the pyramids from the road

On our camel, Mickey Mouse

Not going to lie, I was a little terrified at first. We were so high!!

Maggie and me on our "Egyptian Cadillac"

Time for a photo shoot and soda

Lookin' good Magz, lookin' good

We are so cool

The geeks who paid to ride camels

Awkward solo shot

Sphynx

Lunch!!

Keepin' it classy: Maggie and Chris

Red Pyramid

The entranceRyan coming down the stairsInside the first chamber

Stairs to the third chamberWe're in a pyramid!!

Sleeper train to LuxorRise and shine!Rooftop restaurant at our hotel in Luxor

Al-Deir Al-Bahari Temple

We know, we're cool and you all want to be our friendsThe awesome trio: Caroline, Ryan and MeAw, aren't they cute...

Temple of Seti (Great Temple of Abydos)

The pictures inside the temples didn't turn out too great because we weren't allowed to use flash:

Part of Abydos King ListThe OsireionDandara Temple

Down to the dungeon...

I went down first, lucky me

Inside the tomb

On the roof of Dandara Temple

Sunset from our hotel. Valley of the Kings in the distance

The Valley of the Kings is lit up at nightThis little boy kept staring at me and smiling while we were listening to the Egyptian band. Karnak Temple

Ryan, Caroline, Me, and Maggie

Chris and Andrew deciphering the hieroglyphics

Luxor Temple

Caroline, Maggie, and Me

The Citadel

The inside was really cool...then my camera diedThe Jedi in the mosque - a better picture to come soon

One of the many things that I find amusing in Uganda is that there is not a distinction between “men’s” and “women’s” clothing. This is not to say that men walk around wearing dresses, but you will find them wearing lacey women’s tops, hot pink shoes, or women’s dress pants. There have been many times I have tried not to laugh at a grown man’s bedazzled shirt. For example, Emma, the little boy next door, has a favorite pair of pink, short overalls – clearly made for a girl. The other day, however, his wardrobe went to a whole new level. He was wearing a royal blue dress. I kept doing a double take and asking myself, “Ishe a boy?” I spent the whole day trying to determine the answer. Sure his name is Emma, but I was pretty sure that was short for Emmanuel. Plus, his sister’s name is Kevin – so the idea of sex-based names was sort of thrown out the window. I really wished I could just take a peek under his dress without being a perv. Well, this morning, the mystery was finally solved. He was outside taking his bath and I confirmed in a non-creepy way that he is in fact a boy. Phew! Another one of Uganda’s mysteries solved. You know that saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”? I have never seen an idiom hold so true as I have here in Uganda. Whenever I go to the trash pit, it is a free for all. The kids coming running to see what sort of goodies they can dig out of my trash bag. Peanut butter jars, empty bottles, boxes, paper – you name it, they want it. Last week, I threw away my trash and minutes later Dennis came knocking on my door. He was holding up my old, used razor blade and said, “You shave your face!?” while pretending to shave his chin with the razor. I laughed and reassured him that I do not shave my face, but mzungu girls shave their legs. I also told him that he shouldn’t be playing with the razor and he should go throw it back in the trash pit. He looked at me with some confusion and asked, “You mean like this?” and proceeded to shave his legs with the razor. I snatched it from him and said, “No, really, you should not be playing with this. You could cut yourself and it’s unsanitary to use some else’s razor blade.” Of course, this went way over his head – safety is not a big thing here among kids. Youngsters often run with knives (literally!). I took the razor back and decided I would throw it away in Mbale. Chelsea and I have been really committed to “Active April” – Chelsea wants to look good for her boyfriend that comes in two weeks. I am just along for the ride for moral support. This past weekend, we decided to climb Wanale Cliff, which is just behind Mbale – it’s almost like the backdrop to the city. You can see Wanale Cliff in the background of this photo

There is no designated hiking trail, but Ryan gave us “directions.” His directions consisted of routes like “take the shitty road on the right that goes up” and “there is a sort of fork in the road, go left.” Of course we missed this so-called fork in the road because it was actually a left turn, so we went in a round about way to find a path for this cliff. Thankfully, Ugandans are extremely helpful when you ask for directions. So we were led to a path that we could take up the hill. A lot of the times we were walking through people’s property and gardens, but everyone just waved hello to the mzungu and told us which way to turn. Wanale Cliff hike started off relatively easy because it was just a wide dirt road. Towards the end, however, the hike was very steep and we had to climb up a lot of rocks – we took breaks every three minutes. The whole time we kept saying, “Going down is going to be extremely interesting.” Of course, Ugandans who live on this cliff were running up and down no problem. Two men were carrying matoke on their heads and they didn’t even look like they were breaking a sweat. Also, a grandma was booking it up the cliff no problem. I swear Ugandans are of a different breed. We were both drenched in sweat and near the end, it did not feel like we were getting any closer to the top. Two kids, about 8 years old, followed us the last leg and I am sure they were thinking, “Man, these white girls are slow!” We finally reached the top and it was beautiful. You could see far out past Mbale, green grass was everywhere, and there was a stream and a waterfall. Well worth the hike! We brought a bag of salt & vinegar chips and bread and peanut butter to make sandwiches. A sandwich always tastes the best after a long hike! We decided we wanted to go to this rock at the edge of the cliff to eat because it had a great view and looked awesome. When we got there, we realized that we had to jump over a crevice. We debated, “Is this a bad idea? What if we fall and get stuck? Or just drop to our death.” Well, one of the little kids just looked at us and hopped up on the rock ledge no problem. Needless to say, we felt pretty lame. Nevertheless, we practically crawled across in fear of falling through. The kids stared at us like vultures while we were eating, but we didn’t want to give them any food until after we were done. We knew it would be like pigeons, they’d come for more and bring their friends. Unfortunately, our great lunch was cut short because it started to pour rain. Of course we didn’t have our rain jackets and it was freezing. The rain eased up after we moved and we decided that we really wanted to finish our salt & vinegar chips. We were munching away and we could see rain clouds coming in the distance. We also heard thunder and saw lightening – not the greatest thing to see/hear at the top of a cliff. Chelsea and I were discussing how we should probably head back, but we really wanted to finish our chips. However, after Chelsea mentioned that you should get into a ditch if lightening gets really close, we decided it was probably time to make moves. Thankfully, going down was actually a lot easier – minus all the slipping and sliding in the mud. Also, we dodged the storm so we didn’t have to lie in any ditches. This week I am helping Chelsea cut cloth for RUMPS and I am hanging out with Eva, Janet and Isaac. (They are also helping me cut!). Next week we have mid-service training and then I am off to Egypt. So, it may be a while until you hear from me, again – but I will be sure to post when I get back.

This lady was really excited to take a picture with Chelsea

The hike started off so easy...

Halfway to the top! Mbale and beyond

Nap time!

Looks safe, right?We made it! Crossing the crevice! Eek

Getting a little too close to the edge for comfort there, buddy!

The slices of bread were cut a little unevenly in our bag of bread. Oh Uganda...The lunch spot

A while back, Eva and Sara brushed out my hair because they love to play with it. I am sure you can all imagine what my curly hair looked like after it was brushed out - a lion's mane. Afterward, Sara told me that I looked like Princess Mia from the "Princess Diaries" before she got pretty. Sara, Eva, Janet, Isaac, Osborne, Oswald, and Jimmy decided they wanted to draw me. Take a look at all their lovely portraits of me - real self esteem boost!

At least I have boobs and arm muscles!

Does this picture make me look fat?Sara, this is why you're my favorite. I don't look too awful. Look at that cleavage! Osborne, gold star. And, my personal favorite. Thank you, Isaac.

Now that I have passed the year mark, everyone seems to love to ask what I will be doing once I finish my service. A few of us have started thinking about it, but the idea of entering the “real world” gives most of us anxiety. Chelsea and I were recently talking about how we will have to update our resumes before we apply to grad school or for jobs. We were joking around about what we would actually put for our Peace Corps description – “Ate a lot of waffles, pooped in my hand, and oh yeah, I started a library or something.” Even though we were joking, it got me thinking about the qualities of a Peace Corps Volunteer that make us unique and desirable prospective employees or grad students:

Innovative:Out of toilet paper? No problem. PCVs are all too familiar with this dilemma and we have developed some alternatives:

1. Newspaper2. Paper (some love using the cover page of students’ exams)3. Socks4. $30 Dermalogica face wipes (I’ll let you all take a guess as to who this was.)Dental hygiene products have multiple uses! Dental floss can be used as a clothesline and toothpaste can be used to hang up pictures.Kiddie pools make great bathtubs

Trilingual:We have learned our local language, but that’s not all! PCVs in Uganda have truly mastered “Uganglish.” We use phrases like “eh, soddy!” and “thank you for your work.” Our phrases are accompanied by a weird accent that we believe helps Ugandans understand us better. You might be thinking this is like speaking English with a Spanish accent when you go to Mexico. Unfortunately, you’re probably right. Nevertheless, we still do it because Ugandans really do understand us better.

Good Communication Skills:PCVs can really talk about poop and we don’t spare any of the dirty details.PCVs can spend the whole day talking about food and we usually do. We gossip, a lot. Peace Corps is like high school all over again. In the bush, with not much to do, there is nothing we love more than to discuss hot hook ups and break ups.In large groups, we are very good at utilizing the f bomb.

Punctual: We arrive to meetings forty-five minutes late and we are still early.

Easy Going:It’s raining? Don’t worry; we will have no problem not showing up to work today. We have a date with our couch and some episodes of Friends. And you know what? We probably won’t show up for work tomorrow either.

Economical:PCVs won’t let anything go to waste. The other night I made fried rice for dinner and I knocked my plate off of the table. Rice spilled everywhere – the floor, the walls, and all over me. Did I still eat it? Yes! My friend, Lauren, asked me if I at least recooked it a little. Nope! That would have wasted my precious propane (and my time!). I just scooped it up with my hands, threw it on my plate, and enjoyed. I only found one hair, which I think is pretty good. I’m sure there was some dirt, ants, and lizard poop mixed in – but I’m a fan of the adage “what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.”

First-Aid Experience:

Experts in jigger and mango fly removal.Diagnosticians: PCVs love to call each other and rattle off symptoms in order to get a diagnosis. Sometimes, we prefer this to calling our medical staff because we fancy ourselves as doctors.We know the antibiotics you should take for the following ailments: bacterial infections, malaria, amoebic dysentery, and schistosomiasis.

Committed: PCVs are not afraid of a challenge – we will give more than 100%:

Recently, two girls in my group had a contest to see who could go the longest without bathing. After 18 days, they called a truce. I am pretty sure Ryan wishes that he had been a contestant because a bath every 18 days is “clean” for him. A PC training group before mine had a rolex-eating contest. (A rolex is two eggs rolled up in a chapatti. A chapatti is like a tortilla, but it’s made from oil and flour). The contest was to see who could eat the most in 24 hours. I believe the winner ate 21. I might have this wrong because it’s word of mouth, but I do know someone definitely ate 18. So that’s 18 chapattis and 36 eggs in 24 hours…Ryan, Caroline and I had a contest one month to see who could save the most money. In an effort to win, Ryan rode his bike to and from Mbale (30km each way) to save 4,000 shillings. That’s less than $3. I wish I could say he won, but Caroline blew us both out of the water.

Work Well with Others:Rats, spiders, bats, cockroaches? There is no problem – we can live and work in harmony with these creatures.

As you can see, I don’t think that I will have a hard time finding a job when I get home. Who wouldn’t want to hire a returned PCV?

One year ago, I came to Namengo Girls for “future site visit.” I was reading through site visit blog post and I realized that I seriously played down my experience. I did not want to freak out all of you back home and have you thinking that I was going to be miserable for the next two years. Now that I have been at site for almost a year, and I can honestly say that I love it, I will tell you how I actually felt about future site visit.

Let me just start of by saying that I did not have a “great time” like I led you all to believe. I was honest about one thing in my blog: future site visit was a reality check. For eight weeks, I was in the company of 43 other Americans and I was living in a really nice homestay. I was completely thrown for a loop when I arrived at Namengo Girls and saw where I would be living for the next two years. I think the best word to describe my future site visit experience is “terrifying” – it was a three-day anxiety attack. First of all, my house was pretty dirty when I arrived. The walls were black in some parts, there were tiny bugs everywhere, and there were tons of termite mounds. The electricity looked like an 8-year old had hooked it up because there were stray wires everywhere. The house was barren because I did not have any of my things with me except for a few changes of clothes – it did not feel like “home.” My neighbors and fellow teachers came to greet me, but it was really overwhelming and I couldn’t keep their names straight. Also, I had to completely rely on Sauya for my food, drinks, and bathing water – I felt pretty helpless as I sat on my couch waiting for my dinner to be delivered. Cosmas, my counterpart, was not aware that I would be in town for future site visit. He picked me up when I arrived, but he had prior engagements for the next three days. Therefore, I had nothing to do. I awkwardly roamed around the school compound and introduced myself to students and teachers. All of the students stared at me – they were probably wondering whom this crazy mzungu was and why she was staying at Namengo. There was a lot of awkward small talk. Fortunately, I had at least brought a book to read. Unfortunately, I was reading the Stieg Larson series at the time. Nothing like a book with rape, murder, and kidnapping to make me feel super safe in an unfamiliar environment…NOT! I do not think I slept a wink during those three nights – I kept hearing strange noises and I was unsure about the security of my flimsy, wooden, front and back doors. I was also sleeping in a bed with someone else’s sheets and I was unsure of their cleanliness. I went through a ton of airtime those three days texting Ryan, Caroline and Bethany. Most of our texts were “GET ME OUT OF HERE!” or “Is it Saturday, yet?” We all felt the same way and we could not wait until it was finally time to leave. I could not get away fast enough on Saturday. Jennifer and Annette (teachers), however, insisted that I take lunch before I left. Of course, lunch was late to arrive and then it started to pour rain. I thought I was going to be stranded another night and I was going to have a full-blown panic attack. The rain finally let up and I made a mad dash for the Budaka taxi stage. Caroline, Ryan, and I all met up so we could travel back together. I wish there was a photo of us reuniting – the look of relief on our faces was probably priceless. Misery really does enjoy company because for the next four hours we discussed our awful and awkward experiences at future site visit. We kept saying, “Thank god it’s over!” and “What are we going to do when we actually have to live there.” We kept trying to reassure each other and ourselves that it would be different when we actually had our things with us. In the back of our minds, however, I think we were all thinking, “What did I just sign up for? I want to go home, now!” Rest assured, though, I am now very happy at Namengo Girls and I do not want to come home. As you might recall, a couple of weeks ago, Cosmas and I held a Learning Aids Workshop for the five model schools in Budaka. On Wednesday, we went to each of the five schools in order to check to see if they were actually using learning aids and developing resource rooms. My supervisor, Noel, and his colleague, Bernadette, even came from St. Aloysius Core PTC in order to check out our work. (PTC = Primary Teachers College. All the Coordinating Centers work under a PTC). Noel provided an evaluation form for Bernadette and me so that we could all three evaluate the resource rooms and learning aids. (Cosmas did not evaluate because he didn’t think he would be objective). We started at Budaka FHP, which is where our Coordinating Center is located, so it is supposed to hold the main resource room for the schools in the district. I was pretty impressed with the teachers’ work because a month ago, the room was completely bare. The teachers had a ton of learning aids and some of the activities were pretty creative. As soon as we started our observations, however, I realized that this was going to be a long day. Noel and Bernadette critiqued every single learning aid. Here are some of the critiques:

- “Your letters in the title are too squished together. And the title is not in the center”- “Why did you put the article ‘a’ before ‘fish?’ You should just write ‘Fish’ because ‘A Fish’ is confusing.” - “You did not write in a straight line, this should be redone.” (This was an elaborate learning aid of the human heart, and the line was only slightly crooked. It looked perfectly fine to me). - “There are too many questions on this activity, students will get confused.”- “There are too little questions on this activity.” - “The colors you used here are no good – they are not friendly for students.”

The whole time I was glaring and thinking, “Are you serious right now?!” I was really annoyed and the observing process was taking an hour and a half instead of the allotted 30 minutes. The teachers were clearly proud of their work and wanted to show it off, but they were being critiqued on very minor details. Needless to say, I was starting to get in a bad mood. I was also hungry. Not a very good combination. (Thankfully, the headmaster, Chris, gave me some biscuits and a soda!). Noel had a car, so we were able to drive to the other four schools, which was great. We visited Kabuna down the road, which had developed a sub-par resource room. A lot of the learning aids had spelling errors and it looked like the teachers had pulled a few things together at the last minute. I do not think any of these learning aids were actually used in the classroom either. Also, the resource room was tiny and all of the teachers were inside to observe. I was so hot and I was profusely sweating – I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. There was, however, this really awesome list of PIASCY Questions in the Resource room:

No, there was not an answer key – so you will just have to answer these questions yourselves. (PIASCY = Presidential Initiative on AIDS Strategy for Communication to Youth). Afterwards, we went to Namirembe Primary, which had a pretty decent resource room. By that point, it was 3:00 and I had not eaten lunch, yet. I was so hungry and I just wanted to get to Namengo Girls because they were providing lunch. Namengo, of course, had the best resource room with the most creative learning aids. (Okay, I’m probably not the most objective observer!) Sister Goretti prepared a delicious lunch for us too – rice, matoke, chicken, potatoes, greens and fish. We also got another soda! (Yes, this is considered very exciting. My life is a little pathetic). The good meal gave me the extra push I needed for the last school, Butove. We did not get there until 5:00 (way behind schedule!) so we went quickly because the teachers were anxious to leave. Overall, I was impressed that most of the schools were serious about creating and using learning aids – hopefully they keep it up! Chelsea came over on Thursday because she wanted me to help her cut cloth for RUMPS (Re-usable Menstrual Pads). She is doing this as a secondary project for girl students in upper primary, which is great. A lot of girls do not come to school when they have their period because they do not have access to disposable pads (they are very expensive). Also, there is no health education in Uganda, so most girls do not understand what is going on with their body. Chelsea is going to be teaching girls how to make their own re-usable menstrual pads out of inexpensive, local materials and teach them about the menstrual cycle. I helped her cut out over 200 pieces of cloth that will be used as the base of the pad. (Chelsea will teach the girls how to sew it all together at her workshop). I was glad I could help because it’s a great project – I don’t think I’m mature enough to actually lead this type of workshop because I’d probably laugh every time I said “menstruation” or talked about sex. After we finished cutting, we decided to go for a run. (This month is Active April after all of the eating we did in Kampala!). People are usually pretty excited when they see me running and kids love to follow after me. On Thursday, there were TWO mzungu running – kids were going nuts. Students are taking their exams, now, so I am done with work for this term. The books from the Libraries for Life project are arriving in ONE month, so I have a lot of work to do to get my school organized. We need to build more bookshelves and get more tables and chairs for the library. Hopefully we can get that all done before the books get here!

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter! I just watched Ice Age and The Lion King with my neighbors' kids. I'm banking on being invited to a really good Easter dinner tonight :)

An awesome learning aid for religious studies. This was made from banana leaves.Kabuna Resource RoomNamirembe Resource RoomNamengo Girls Resource RoomButove Resource Room Biscuits and soda. When I get this at school...it's a GREAT day. (Told you, pathetic!)Kids watching "The Lion King"...again!

I just returned from a weeklong trip to Kampala – a trip that was pretty much devoted to seeing how much Chelsea and I could eat. We had to come to Kampala for a two-day DSR (District Security Representative) training. As DSRs, we are in charge of sending out security updates to our fellow PCVs in our region. (Can you tell that PC loves acronyms?). I wasn’t too thrilled about having to come to Kampala, again, but the training was at the US Embassy. The embassy is really nice and has air conditioning, so that was a plus. We were also given per diem, which Chelsea and I blew all on food. We were supposed to return home on Saturday, but Chelsea and I both had to stay until Monday in order to go to medical. I have been sick for almost two months, but I have been too lazy to get checked out. All my friends, however, were nagging me to go to medical because they said something was seriously wrong with me. Barbara, our PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer), was at our DSR training – so I really had no excuse to not talk to her about my symptoms. Nevertheless, I was in denial and kept telling people I was fine and I could wait until we got checked out at mid-service. As a result, Chelsea took it upon herself to talk to Barbara for me and insisted that she make me come in to medical. Chelsea and I both had to wait until Monday for appointments, which meant a weekend in Kampala. (Fine by me since I got to stay at my embassy sponsor’s, again!) All we did was eat and talk about food. So you can get an idea, here was our Saturday:

- Breakfast: eggs, toast, and bacon- Snack: Waffles with butter and syrup and lattes- Lunch: Salami sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, tomato, and cucumber- Snack: Chocolate bars- Dinner: Pita with hummus and veggie dip. BBQ chicken and chips. - Dessert: Ice Cream

We ate ourselves sick every day, but we would continue to talk about “what we would eat next.” I was already sick, so I am sure you can all imagine what this food was doing to my digestive system. I did not care, our days revolved around where we wanted to go to eat. After training on Friday, Dylan, Chelsea, Bethany and I were all starving. We went to a restaurant and Chelsea went to the grocery store to buy big waters. Dylan and I were famished and we decided we couldn’t wait for Chelsea to come back, so we ordered for her. When she came back, I told her, “We ordered you a bacon cheeseburger. Hope you’re okay with that because we are hungry and we want our food now.” Chelsea looked at us like “are you serious?” laughed and said that was fine. I’m pretty sure when our food came, we didn’t even chew. Later that night, we went out for Chinese food and ordered a “round two” and then went to the grocery store to get drumstick ice cream cones. I’m not going to lie; I think my pants are a little tighter after this week in Kampala. Chelsea, Audrey, Rachel and I all had to go to medical on Monday, so it was a party! I’m going to warn you that this next story is really quite gross, and I can’t believe I’m posting it on the Internet… Rachel and I were both having GI problems, so we had to give stool samples. The cups they gave us were tiny. We sat on the couches in the waiting room discussing our plan of attack - how we could manage pooping in this cup without making a mess? (This is really one of the reasons I refused to go to medical, I have stage fright and I didn’t want to poop in a cup thank you very much!) I made Rachel go first, and she came out and said, “I figured out the perfect way. Put paper towel in your hand, poop in it, and then use the scraper to scrape it off into the cup.” Audrey and I looked at her with raised eyebrows and started laughing. I could not believe Rachel pooped in her hand and she was now telling me to do the same. I headed to the bathroom, still laughing, and Audrey and Rachel both yelled, “Good luck!” Well, all I am going to say is, when I got in the bathroom…Rachel’s plan started to seem a little more reasonable. I will let you all guess what I did… Let’s just say, I think I have forever sealed my fate of being single for the rest of my life now that I have posted this for the world to see. It turns out that I actually was sick and I had amoebic colitis. So I was given a bunch of antibiotics to take for the next week. I’m feeling better, now, so it’s all good! On Tuesday, I went to Lugogo Mall (a large shopping center) to wait for Peace Corps to pick me up. (Peace Corps will drive you to and from medical; it’s awesome!) I was waiting in the parking lot and this woman walked by in a short, tight, hot pink strapless dress with four-inch heels. I was horrified. This outfit would not be appropriate at any shopping center in America, let alone Uganda. We don’t show our power here!! (For those that have forgotten, a woman’s thighs are her “power.”) This outfit was absurd and I needed a picture to show people. I took out my iPhone and proceeded to try and take a picture. As I’m holding up my phone, I hear someone say, “Look, she is taking a picture!” I turn around and there are two marines behind me cracking up laughing. Busted. I turned back and unfortunately I had lost the photo op. The marines apologized for distracting me and commented on how awesome the outfit was. I just said, “Wow, that’s really embarrassing I just got caught. Guess I’m not very covert.” Thankfully, I saw this lady again when I was at Nakumatt and I got my picture. I was a little slyer this time and I pretended to be talking on the phone while taking the picture.

Classy! I blurred out her face because I thought that was the polite thing to do. Anyway, school is quickly coming to an end – I feel like it just started! So I am finishing up and getting more and more excited to go to Egypt in a month.

As per usual, the power was out the other night. My house was completely dark except for the light coming from my computer screen. I was watching “Friday Night Lights” and ogling over the sexy Tim Riggins when my front door pushed open. I looked and saw a tall figure carrying a huge gun. I lurched back on my couch and screamed until I caught a glint of green from the eskari’s uniform. (They call guards eskaris in Uganda). The eskari started saying, “Sorry, sorry” and stepped away from my door. I, of course, started hysterically laughing because my scream terrified the eskari and I realized that I was not about to be robbed at gunpoint (or shot). My eskari continued to say, “Sorry, sorry” and he held up my solar charger for me to see. Turns out, I had left my charger outside and he had knocked on my door to let me know. My door, however, was unlocked, so it just pushed open. I think he felt pretty bad and he was embarrassed. I kept saying, “Sorry, I couldn’t see who it was. Don’t worry about it.” I am sure it did not take long for my neighbors to catch wind of that story… Oh and I am sure all of you are thinking, “WHY wasn’t your door locked?” Well, all I can say is, I thought it was. Whoopsie!

A while back, Peace Corps Volunteers could sign up for an “embassy sponsor” – we would be paired with a staff member from the US Embassy who would open up his or her home for us whenever we were in Kampala. Obviously I signed up because one of the bullet points said, “hot shower and hot meal!” Is there anything better? I went to Kampala this past weekend because my friend from home, Kiera, is in town for the week. I decided to stay with my sponsor, Nathan, and it was pretty much life changing. I could go on an on about the greatness of it all – my own bedroom and bathroom, hot shower, good food, washer and dryer, and American TV. He drove me around in his car (air conditioned!), which was really nice of him and I was happy that I did not have to take public transport. I also got to play WII Mario Cart at his friend’s house. I felt like I was back in America and I got to see Kiera – I was one happy Peace Corps Volunteer. Needless to say, I wish I had more excuses to go to Kampala. I think that next time I am going to bring all of my dirty laundry…too much? On Wednesday, my counterpart and I held a Learning Aids and Activities Workshop for the four model schools in Budaka District. (Of course Namengo Girls is a model school!). The head teacher and two teachers from each school attended, so there were about twelve teachers in attendance. This workshop happened to be one of my favorites so far – we actually kept time! I also had fun because I did a lot of activities with the teachers and they all got really into them. One of the activities was Multiplication Bingo and the teachers went nuts. They had never played “Bingo” before, but after the first round, they were pumped about the game. (I was giving the winner biscuits, maybe that had something to do with it). We played roughly ten times until I finally said we had to move on – lots of “ahhs” ensued. The teachers had a lot of fun with the other activities and I hope that they were motivated to try them out in their own classrooms. After my presentation of activities, my counterpart held a discussion on the qualities of a good learning aid. The teachers used my “Multiplication Bingo” as an example of a “model” learning aid. They all took turns pointing out the qualities that made it a good learning aid. Some were hilarious:

- Her letters are all the same height- The numbers are written in the proper format (I didn’t know there was an improper format)- Good use of colors. If she had used red, then it would have not have been inviting. (Ya, I totally thought so too. That’s why I used green. That or it was just the color marker I happened to grab). - It is safe

My "model" learning aid

My counterpart and I encouraged the teachers to develop their own learning aids/activities and then bring them to the resource room. I will be visiting the model schools in the upcoming weeks to check on their progress (hopefully at least one class isn’t lecture and rote memorization!). My counterpart and I are hoping to get teachers more involved in the resource room so that they will maintain it and actually use the resources. Unfortunately for me, the workshop ended just as the neighboring secondary school was let out for “sports”. As a result, all the secondary students were walking down the road to the football field as I was walking up to head home. Well, we all know what happens when we have a large group of hormonal teenagers that get cockier in big groups. Catcalls. There is nothing better than getting harassed by a bunch of 15-16 year olds – and of course I laughed, which only exacerbated the problem. Here is what the first 5 minutes of my walk home sounded like:

- “Hey baby girl. What’s up?” (Followed by kissing sounds)- Whistles - “Hey mzungu, just give me one hug.” - “Hey baby girl, we go make Obama babies.” - “Eh, mzungu. A kiss for me?” - “You are beautiful!”

Granted, laughing was probably the worst thing to do in this situation, but it was so ridiculous! I laugh in inappropriate situations…it’s a problem sometimes. I noticed the other day that the "Kony 2012" video was trending on Facebook. I am happy to see that more people are becoming aware of the atrocities that have ravaged Northern Uganda, the DRC, and South Sudan for years. I, however, want to encourage you all to do a little more research if you were moved by the video. I found this article extremely interesting:

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/03/07/stop-kony-yes-but-dont-stop-asking-questions/

Some of the learning aids made from local materials (made by other teachers)

Teachers observing the various learning aids in the Resource Room

My counterpart, Cosmas. He wanted a picture with the learning aids

In front of the CCT office (my counterpart's and my office). My parents brought this "I Love LA" t-shirt and he was really excited about it. So he wore it to work and showed it off.

I am sure a lot of you are familiar with the website "Texts from Last Night." Chelsea decided to compile a bunch of Peace Corps Volunteers' texts in order to give you an idea of the sort of texts we send each other. She posted the texts on her blog. Here is a little preview:

"I was about to have a poop attack, but I couldn't find the key to my latrine. So I pooped in a plastic bag. FML"


"oh and emptied my night bucket for the first time in two days. the smell gave me an instant head ache. oops." (a night bucket is the Peace Corps equivalent of a chamberpot)



"i have the least self control when it comes to american food. but i'm going to try!!"



"i heard you solved your cockroach problem somehow. what did you do?"



"hey you guys still alive?"



"side note: a teacher just raised their hand in the middle of my workshop and told me i look like hannah montana without the wig"

If you're curious and not too grossed out, then you can check out the rest of our crazy texts on Chelsea's blog:

http://ugandareadthis-iaintlion.blogspot.com/2012/03/texts-from-uganda-edition.html

If you ever visit Uganda, or any East African country for that matter, then you need to ride in a taxi in order to get the full experience. Depending upon where you are, they are called different things: Kenya = matatu, Tanzania = dala dala, and Uganda = taxi. In a few of my posts, I have mentioned a few particularly eventful taxi rides - whether it was chickens pecking at my feet or my seat catching on fire. I mean, who wouldn’t want to ride in a taxi? For those that have forgotten or for those that are not avid followers of my blog, a taxi is a mini van that serves as a sort of bus. Along with the driver, there is a conductor who sits in the back and he is in charge of looking out for more passengers, collecting the money, and opening and closing the door. A taxi is supposed to seat about 14 people (4 rows that seat three people and then 2 people up front with the driver). In most places, however, traffic police doesn’t regulate taxis. Thus, conductors usually pack in about 20 people in order to get more money. Here is how a typical ride will usually go for me if I’m heading to Mbale: I wait on the side of the main road in Budaka for a taxi to pass. I usually don’t have to wait very long – 15 minutes max. There is no set schedule for taxis, but there are plenty of them running along the main road. A taxi will arrive and I will usually have to haggle with the conductor over the price. It’s 2,000 shillings, but I’m an mzungu, so they love to try and rip me off. After agreeing on the price, I’ll squeeze my way into a seat. Taxis are usually pretty rundown and have at one point been filled with chickens, goats, fish, puking babies, and/or multiple people with BO (most Ugandans don’t wear deodorant). As you can imagine, they usually smell pretty bad. I consider it my lucky day if I get a window seat with a window that actually opens (30% of the time they don’t open and it’s such a tease!). Every now and then, I will sit next to a Ugandan who asks me to marry him and take him to America, which was funny at first, but now I jut get annoyed. We head down the main road and stop multiple times in order to let people on and off. Sometimes, I have to get out myself in order to let the person next to me off. As I said, there is no set schedule or stopping points for taxis, so they stop wherever and whenever – it’s probably the most inefficient form of public transport. We may stop for one passenger and another may want to get out 50 meters ahead. Does that passenger get out and walk? No. We drive forward and stop again. (As I said, it’s inefficient). In addition, if a taxi is fairly empty, then we will usually wait in a bigger trading center for me people. Overall, the 30km trip to Mbale can take anywhere from 30 minutes to over an hour – it’s really just the luck of the draw. My taxi ride to Mbale the other day was particularly eventful. There was a taxi already at the “stage” in Budaka when I got to town (score!). Unfortunately, this taxi was in pretty rough shape – the seats were falling apart and it smelled of fish and gasoline. The floor had some holes, so I could see the road passing by below (always comforting). I did not have a great feeling about this taxi and I figured it would be one that had to get a push start (oh yeah, this is quite common. Ryan has even been asked to get out and help push before). Well, this taxi ended up completely dying after ten minutes. We all had to get out and sit on the side of the road. We were in between towns, so there was no place to wait for another taxi - we all had the shade of one tree. A few boda bodas (motorcycle taxis) passed by and people boarded those and soon it was just down to me and two other guys waiting under a tree. After twenty minutes, no taxis passed and I was getting impatient. I decided I would just start walking towards Mbale and hopefully a taxi would pass by. After another ten minutes, a taxi finally passed and stopped for me. I was so happy, until I saw that the taxi was completely full. I gave the conductor a confused look and he gestured for me to sit on another passenger’s lap. I could not help but to raise my eyebrows and laugh. Uganda has a culture where men and women shouldn’t display any signs of affection, but this conductor wanted me to sit on this young man’s lap? And I didn’t know him? Well, I was hot and I wanted to get to Mbale – so screw being culturally appropriate – I was getting in. I sat on the man’s lap like it was no big deal and everyone in the taxi proceeded to chuckle. I can’t blame them – an mzungu girl sitting on a Ugandan male’s lap – I’m sure it was quite a sight to see. Thankfully, after about five minutes, someone got off the taxi and I was able to get off the man’s lap. I have been fairly busy now that school has started up, again. After my “Safe School Environment” workshop, Sister Goretti wanted me to help facilitate the workshop at Namengo Girls (all the teachers that attended were in charge of rolling out the workshop at their own schools). Thankfully, we cut down the workshop to one day and just covered the basics for the teachers. I was in charge of talking about corporal punishment and alternative discipline – a topic that always sparks a lot of debate. Caning (hitting a child with a stick) is a pretty common punishment here in Uganda and it has probably been the most frustrating and hardest thing to deal with since living here. Students are caned for various reasons: tardiness, talking in class, wrong answers, failing tests, bullying, hitting other students (ironic), etc. Namengo Girls is one of the better schools when it comes to caning – all of the teachers know I’m strongly opposed to this form of punishment. Nevertheless, I sometimes hear the slap of a stick and a student’s cries. Teachers walk around waving a stick in order to intimidate students to get to class. Even the head girl (like a prefect) carries around a stick and sometimes hits other students. Teachers justify caning with the following phrases:

1. “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” – This is from the bible and it’s pretty hard to refute. I try to explain that this should not be taken literally and that the bible is instead emphasizing that children should be disciplined or they will be spoiled. 2. “An African child hears from behind.” – Ugandans are convinced that children can only learn from being hit. 3. “No gain without pain.” - Again, I say this should not be taken literally.

Unfortunately, most Ugandans take most things they hear at face value. Critical thinking is not taught in schools, so when I say, “don’t take this literally,” most Ugandans don’t understand my point. As a result, I am sure that most of my fellow teachers only half listened to my presentation. I talked about the effects of caning and why it is wrong. I followed up by discussing alternative discipline and gave some examples of appropriate consequences for misbehavior. The teachers were polite and participated in my activity, but they still continue to carry around sticks today. I have to accept the fact that I cannot change this behavior with one presentation. In all likelihood, teachers will probably still cane after I leave in a year. I try to remind myself that corporal punishment did not start being banned until the 1970s in the US, and in some states, it’s still legal! Nevertheless, I continue to cringe every time I hear the deafening crack of a stick as it hits a student. Last week, I had my first Life Skills class at Budaka F.H.P., which is the school where my Coordinating Center is located. Technically, this is the school where I am supposed to work, but I have played favorites, and do most of my work at Namengo Girls. (I’m awful, I know). Anyway, last Thursday happened to be the day teachers do “guidance and counseling” with the students, so my schedule was messed up. I am supposed to teach two streams of 40 girl P7 students once a week (one stream on Tuesday and the other on Thursday). Well, the teachers decided that they wanted me to attend the guidance and counseling sessions instead. The first session they lumped all the P1 and P2 students together (boys and girls) – so there were about 400 students with limited English speaking skills. The teachers asked me to talk to them about life skills, but instead I introduced myself in Lugwere and taught them the “Peel Banana” song/dance. (You all wish you could have seen that!). The P3 and P4 kids were placed together and I just said hi quickly and introduced myself. (I’m really not sure how these teachers expect to guide and counsel such big groups of students…TIA). Lastly, the P5, P6, and P7 students were grouped together, but the girls and boys were separated. The teachers thought I could definitely start my first Life Skills lesson, even though it was tailored for 40 students, not 200. Nevertheless, I tried, but it was pretty much a flop. It started raining and we had to move inside a room meant for 50 people, not 200! The room was LOUD and the rain smashing against the tin roof didn’t help matters. I made the session quick and let the eager students go home. Hopefully this week will prove to be more successful since I will have smaller classes like I planned! On Sunday, Ryan, Caroline, Max and I had a BBQ. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to have it at Ryan’s. So we sat on the floor and there were a lot of communal bowls and eating off of newspaper (which also served as toilet paper because Ryan doesn’t buy that anymore. He says he prefers newspaper because then he has something to read and it’s cheaper). My standards of hygiene are pretty low these days, so I didn’t really mind us all eating pasta salad out of one big pot. I felt pretty sick after all the food: pasta salad, goat with BBQ sauce (sent in a package from Caroline’s awesome parents!), fried bean balls, and chocolate, peanut butter covered popcorn for dessert. I wanted to puke after all the food (or maybe I picked up a parasite from Ryan’s house, who knows). Either way, the food was delicious and we had a great time.

The kids coloring

They LOVE when I bring out my camera

Communal bowl of pasta salad (notice the king of the castle gets the only chair...)

Kids were putting their hands in the windows because they wanted food...so Ryan gave them some through the window. It was a funny to watch. PC volunteers aren't normal...

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!

The Marsh Family has left Africa with no cuts, scrapes, amoebic dysentery, or run-ins with the law. Brenda behaved herself and she actually made quite a few new friends; maybe it’s something about the air over here. And you all were worried… (Okay, I was too!)

After the Serengeti, we headed to Zanzibar for a much needed three-day beach vacation. We were all happy to not have to set an alarm and drive in a car for three days. The flight over to Zanzibar was interesting to say the least. We flew out of the “air strip” in the Serengeti, which was just a long dirt road serving as a runway. When the planes took off, we were all drowning in the dust that encircled us. Also, I am not even sure these aircrafts can even be classified as planes. They were tiny one-prop planes with twelve seats, which I am pretty sure they sell at Toys R’ Us. We flew to Arusha first, which was about a 30 minute flight, and I was gripping my sister’s hand most of the way. Surprisingly, my mom, who hates flying, was perfectly fine. I, on the other hand, wanted to take her whole bottle of Xanax. We flew from Arusha to Zanzibar in another toy plane, but this flight was two and a half hours. I am not quite sure how this plane held enough fuel for two and a half hours, but some things are better left unknown. If anyone had more anxiety than me about this flight, then it was the pilot. My dad sat next to him in the cockpit because the toy plane was full and it was considered a passenger seat. The pilot was biting his nails and biting a portion of his wrist and sucking on it the whole flight. At the same time, he was reading the emergency handbook – what to do if the fuel ran out, what to do in a rainstorm, etc. I guess we should be happy that he was actually reading the handbook; better late than never! I know what you’re all thinking, “Thank God it was Brett sitting next to the pilot, not Brenda or Robyn.” Robyn was sitting behind the pilot and could see him biting his nails, which grossed her out, but she was unaware of the emergency handbook. I’m pretty sure that could be an SNL skit – someone call up NBC. Zanzibar was beautiful and relaxing. We lounged on the beach and hardly anyone was there. We basically had the beach to ourselves – white sand and the water was so warm, it was like a bath. We also had really great seafood, which was nice for me because I can’t get that in Uganda. I could have used another day or two at the beach, but unfortunately, we all set out for home after three days. I was sad to say bye to my family, but I am so happy that I could see them and that they made the trip to visit me. The flight back was uneventful, and I thankfully got a real sized plane. Herbert, our driver while we were in Uganda, picked me up and drove me all the way home. I was so happy to not have to deal with public transport and get home at a reasonable hour. Herbert used my latrine before he headed back home – and he swept out all of the rat poop and critters! He really is the best. I thought that coming back to site after being pampered for two weeks would be hard, but it feels like I never left. I do miss showers and toilets, but I am actually quite happy to be home. School doesn’t start for another two weeks, so I am just hanging out and not doing much of anything. I am starting to study for the GMAT (ew!) because I feel like I should have some sort of plan for when I enter the real world in a year. My dad loves to constantly ask me what I plan on doing after I finish the Peace Corps even though he knows it’s a source of anxiety. He seems to think, however, if he phrases the question differently each time, it’s okay. I went with Sauya to an orphanage outside of Jinja the other day. Her friend, Godffrey, recently started the orphanage and she wanted to introduce me to him and show me around the school. Also, she wanted me to consider donating some of the “Libraries for Life” books to the orphanage. The school was very small and the classrooms were tiny – P1 and P2 are taught in the same room, which must get confusing/loud. Godffrey took us to his house afterwards for a “simple” lunch, which was a small feast. The amount of food he put on my plate could have fed a family of four. I told Godffrey that I would donate a portion of the books to his school, but only if he built bookshelves in the next three months in order to prove he was committed to taking care of the books. (Otherwise, I know the books would just sit in a box). Godffrey’s neighbor came over after lunch, but she spoke no English. She scrutinized me for a little and then turned to ask Godffrey why I was there. He explained, and then she said something that made both Sauya and Godffrey laugh. All I caught was “mzungu,” so I knew they were talking about me. She kept talking and I could just catch bits and pieces – I was getting the idea she did not like mzungu. Finally, Sauya translated for me and she said, “She told Godffrey that you better not be like the ‘other’ mzungu.” Apparently, last year, other wazungu (plural for mzungu) came to the town and said they were going to sponsor the children to go to school. The town fed them and gave them necklaces as gifts of thanks, but the wazungu never delivered. Hence, wazungu kind of have a bad rep in the town of Nakirubi. I really hope that Godffrey builds the bookshelves so that I can bring the wazungu back to Nakirubi’s good graces. Lastly, thank you to all those that donated to Libraries for Life – we reached our goal, and raised all of the money that we needed! The books should be delivered in 3-6 months (I’m sure they will get stuck at customs). I will be sure to keep you updated and let you know when the library is all set up. Thank you, again!

Also, here are a few more photos from our trip:

Leopard

Taking a snooze

Baby cheetah cubs

The awesome staff at Nomad Camp

Toy Plane

Not the best quality photo, but you get the idea of how small the plane was!

The beach in Zanzibar

Getting thrown out of the boat is always fun - that's me with my legs up in the air!

Brenda is still alive!

We left Jinja on Thursday and headed to the airport really early in the morning. The drive took way less time then we expected, so we had some time to kill at the airport. We sat in the cafeteria in the airport and there was a food warmer labeled “Hot and Fresh” at the counter. There were samosas and other various fried foods, including something that my sister dubbed a “hotdog pie.” A woman sitting next to us was enjoying one of the hotdog pies, so my sister kept telling me to go get one. Finally, my mom said, “Will you stop encouraging her! She will actually go and eat one of those things.” I did, eventually, go up to the counter because I was hungry (and considering a hotdog pie just to gross out my mom). Upon getting to the counter, I realize the hotdog pie is actually called a sausage roll. Here is the conversation I had with the male cashier:

Cashier: Hello. Do you want a sausage roll?Me: No, thank you. I want a vegetable samosa. Cashier: Oh. I know the ladies love a sausage roll. Me (laughing awkwardly): Uh, ya. I’ll just have the veggie samosa. Cashier: Ok. Are you from the US?Me: Yes. Cashier: I knew it. All the beautiful ladies are from the US. Me: Thanks…

After eating my soggy, gross vegetable samosa, we headed for our gate. We had to go through another security checkpoint and I was really mad because I forgot to pack my Leatherman in my packed luggage. Thankfully, my knives somehow bypassed security. My mom’s lighter, however, was confiscated. You have to love Uganda! We boarded the plane, and immediately started dry heaving. Three grubby American girls were eating sandwiches filled with hot gym socks fashioned as meat. These had to be from the “Hot and Fresh” counter. They smelled so disgusting; I would have preferred the smell of tuna fish sandwiches. My mom looked at us and said, “You made fun of me, but now you totally want to use some of my Viks, don’t you?” My sister and I followed my mom’s lead, and I have to admit, the Viks worked wonders. The plane ride was lemony fresh the rest of the way! We arrived in Arusha, and spent the night at Onsea House, a cute little bed and breakfast (with amazing food!). The next morning, we left early to go to the Ngorogoro Crater, which is about three hours from Arusha. We met our driver, Ami, who was amazing. He was so sweet and we immediately fell in love with him. On the way to the Crater, we passed through a town called Kituru. There was a chapatti stand that said Obama ’08 and Hilary Clington, but the “g” was whited out. Awesome! While tempting, we did not stop to buy any of the “political” chapatti. We arrived at the Crater, which was absolutely amazing. For those who don’t know, the Ngorogoro Crater is a collapsed volcano where tons of animals roam around. Before we entered the Crater, we had a picnic lunch next to the zebras and wildebeests, which was pretty cool. We went into the Crater, and Ami was an excellent guide. We saw a cheetah, hyenas, lionesses, elephants, flamingos, and warthogs. The one problem there is that you have to stick to the roads, so the animals are kind of far away. Ami kept saying, “Don’t worry, once you get to the Serengeti, you will be super close.” Nonetheless, the Crater was beautiful and had amazing topography. We still had a great time and didn’t really mind that we weren’t that close to the animals – it was still far better than a zoo. We spent the night at Sopa Lodge, which is right on the rim of the crater and has amazing views. The travel agent recommended the lodge because of the views, but he did warn us that the lodge was a little dated. He wasn’t kidding. My sister said the furniture in the lodge looked like it was furnished from the set of the Golden Girls and/or Three’s Company. The place actually reminded me of a ski lodge, especially because it was so cold. The views, however, were incredible. After dinner, we went back to the room and the maids had already come in for turn down service. My sister was in the bathroom about to take a shower, and I went to my bed to read. I pulled back the covers and immediately started laughing and called my sister to come check out the beds. They had left a rubber water bottle, filled with hot water, to warm the sheets. The next morning, we got up early to head to the Serengeti. As we were heading out of the long hotel driveway, Ami said, “You guys wanted to see an elephant up close, right?” At the side of the road, there was a huge elephant! He was standing there and munching away on some grass. It was so cool, I could have reached out to pet him if I had wanted. We sat there for a while taking pictures, and then continued on. About ten minutes later, Ami said, “Hey, want to see a lion?” Up ahead there was a huge male lion walking in the road. He was marking his territory by rubbing his mane in the trees along the road. We drove right up to him, and he walked right along side our car for about five minutes. He was probably only about three feet away. Of course, it was a great start to our day. We drove for about two hours to get to the Serengeti. Along the way, we saw tons of zebras, wildebeests, and giraffes. When we arrived at the entrance to the Serengeti, Ami passed us off on to our new guide, Rem. We were so sad to say good-bye to Ami. My sister, mom, and I gave him a huge hug and we kept saying, “We don’t want to say bye!” Robyn looked over at Rem and said, “Not that we don’t think you will be good...we just love Ami” Rem laughed and said, “Don’t worry, I don’t get jealous.” (Rem, if you're reading this, we miss you already!) We headed to the Nomad tented camp, which is where we spent the next four nights. The Nomad Tented Camp was awesome. The camp is set up with 8 luxury tents that are huge and have the most comfortable beds. We arrived just in time for lunch, and we headed to the dining room tent. When we passed the tent, I realized that it was just one long dining table. I looked at my mom and said, “Uh oh, is it a communal dining thing?” She laughed and said, “You’re worried that this is going to be an issue for me, huh?” Thankfully, the other people at the camp were awesome! There were two different families staying at the camp, and my mom played nicely. Phew. Plus, each tent/family had their own driver, so we didn’t have to be with strangers all day. Rem took us out on a game drive in the afternoon and it was amazing. The Serengeti was a lot different from the crater because you can go off road and get really close to the animals. It is also calving season, so we saw a ton of baby animals! Rem turned out to be an awesome guide, and definitely catered to what we wanted to see. We told him that we wanted to see lions and lion cubs, and he delivered. We saw lion cubs that were three weeks old, and they were adorable. There were four of them, and they were playing with each other like puppies. I could have watched them all day. We also saw more giraffes, elephants, zebras, ostriches, etc. We also saw another pride of lions, with more cubs. These cubs were about three to four months old, so they were a little bit bigger. Of course, they were still cute, and the whole pride was just sleeping in the middle of the road. On the way back to camp, we spotted a leopard, which is apparently rare to see because they are nocturnal. We followed the leopard around for about ten minutes because she was hunting. We saw her almost kill a tik tik (a small antelope), but she was a little too slow. Shucks! The Nomad Camp was by far the best place that we stayed. When we arrived back at camp, the staff handed out cool towels to clean off. We headed to the dining tent for cocktail hour, and then went over to the campfire. We all sat around the campfire and ate delicious snacks until dinner. The food at this camp was amazing – I seriously don’t know how they cooked such good food in the middle of the Serengeti. We were all in heaven. Also, since we were camping, animals would just roam outside of our tent. We had zebras, wildebeest, giraffes, and elephants just chilling in our camp. Pretty cool! Plus, the hot showers were great considering they were quasi-bucket baths. You would have to order a shower, and someone would come fill the bucket outside your tent, which was connected to the shower inside. Obviously, it was a limited amount of water (Robyn ran out her first time), but it was still wonderful. A man would also stay outside your tent to refill the bucket for the next shower…hilarious. I need a contraption like that for my house in Budaka. The next three days we went out for game drives in the morning, came back for a siesta, and then headed out again in the evening. We saw a lot of different animals: hippos, cheetah cubs, a cheetah running to catch a gazelle, and a crocodile. One morning we even had a picnic breakfast in the middle of the Serengeti. Rem laid out lawn chairs, a table, and a huge breakfast spread. We had coffee, egg & bacon sandwiches, granola, and fresh fruit. Zebras, wildebeests, and gazelles surrounded us – seriously the best morning. Unfortunately, on the third day we were at the camp, both of the other families that we liked had left. Frank the Tank and Susan the Snooze Button (names courtesy of Robyn) replaced them. We immediately did not like them and their negative attitudes, and we came very close to a BIA attack. Brenda had the “look”: nostrils flared, eyebrows raised, and lip curled. Thankfully, we avoided any embarrassing altercations! Plus, a couple and a family from London arrived, and they were awesome. They definitely made up for the boring and annoying couple. On our last full day in the Serengeti, Robyn and I were sitting in our tent reading during our siesta. She told me to look outside our tent because there was an elephant literally right outside. She decided to go next door to our parents’ tent to let them know. She walked outside and waved to the elephant while saying, “Don’t charge” (she learned this from our guide Rem). She turned and continued to walk to my parents’ tent. I was taking pictures of the elephant and I see him kicking up his foot like he is about to charge. Then he starts running after my sister, so I yell, “Oh my god, Robyn! He’s charging!” She looks behind her, screams, and runs into my parent’s tent. I started cracking up laughing, and then look to see that the whole rest of the camp was watching. One of the guides, Ali, then came by with a Land Rover to pick us up to drive us to the dining tent (so we wouldn’t have to walk near the elephant). He looks at my sister and says, “Stay inside your tent when there is an elephant outside!” Of course, my mom and I are still laughing because my sister’s scream was hilarious and the whole camp saw her run for her life. (Ok, I know you are all thinking we are mean…but it was so funny!). Rem later came up to Robyn with hands held up in an expression of “what is wrong with you?” He was laughing and saying, “You don’t wave to an elephant, especially a male! And stay in your tent!” In Robyn’s defense, whenever we saw elephants with Rem, he would wave at them and say, “don’t charge.” However, we were in a huge Land Rover and he was making a joke… We left the camp today, and we were so sad. A big shout out to the staff – especially Lawrence and Reuben, they were awesome! Our guide, Rem, was amazing, and major props for putting up with the crazy Marsh family. At one point, he even stood up for my dad, which we know never happens when all us girls are picking on him. I seriously did not want to leave, and I considered chaining myself to a tree. I could go on and on about the Nomad camp – best family vacation, ever. Sorry Turks & Caicos, you have officially been beat. We are now in Zanzibar and we are going to spend the next three days relaxing by the beach. I am so sad the vacation is winding to an end, but I have had an amazing time. Until next time….

Here are some photos! I'm running low on internet time, but I think this should be enough.

Robyn and me in JinjaThe kids and meI'm "cooking" with Eva and JanetSauya in her "I love LA" t-shirtRobyn with Innocent and my mom pumping water!Robyn carrying the full jerry canOur sweet ride in UgandaMe at the meat market...mmmmAMI! We love himWaiting to enter the Ngorogoro National ParkPumba and Pumba Jr.The lion we saw on the side of the roadWho says you can't eat red meat for breakfast?

He had his breakfast, we had ours.

We love Rem too!

Baby elephant...I think Robyn still likes these

Cheetah siesta

Lion yoga

Outside our tent on the Serengeti

I know you have all been itching for me to update my blog because you want to hear about “Brenda in Africa” – now dubbed BIA, thanks to the Magur Family. For those that don’t know, Brenda is my mother, and there is always a story with her. She is very nice, but she has a sarcastic sense of humor and if you piss her off, she is going to let you know. Many keep saying, “Oh boy, what is Brenda going to do in Africa?” Well, there have been no altercations…yet. Maggie and I headed to Entebbe on the 23rd because she was catching a flight to London, and I wanted to go to the hotel a few days early. I wanted to avoid traveling during the holidays and I was anxious to get out of Budaka. I was in heaven when we arrived at the Serena Hotel because it felt like a completely different world. King size bed, flat screen TV, air conditioning, walk-in rain shower, and flushing toilet. Maggie and I kept saying, “Uh, are we still in Africa?” We gorged ourselves at the restaurant and spent all day in bed watching MTV. (Please, someone explain to me why Audrina Partridge has her own reality show. It’s awful, but we still spent the day watching because it was great to watch trashy, reality TV from America). Maggie left that night, so I had the next day to lounge around and wait for my family to arrive on Christmas. Christmas Day I was beyond anxious for my family to get there, which I’m sure some of you know from my multiple Facebook statuses. At around 12:30, I sat in the Lobby reading my book because I couldn’t wait in my room. I was alone, sitting in a chair reading, and frequently glancing at the front door. I’m pretty sure I looked a little pathetic next to all the dressed up families. A man came up to me and said, “I see that you’re sitting here all alone, and you are really into that book.” I explained that I was waiting for my family, and he gave me a little Christmas gift. Afterwards, I felt pretty lame, so I texted Robyn to tell me when they arrived at the hotel. My family finally arrived at the Serena and it was so great to have them there. Robyn, of course, cried when she saw me. We went for a late lunch/early dinner because they were starved after their long journey. I kept saying, “Isn’t this food soooooo good?” Everyone looked at with me raised eyebrows and my mom said, “Uh, I mean, it’s okay.” I guess it’s safe to say that my standards for “good” food have really gone down since I have been in this country. My dad went to the restroom in the restaurant, and a little Ugandan kid came up to him while my dad was washing his hands. The kid asked, “Where did you get your haircut?” My dad laughed a little and told him that it was his natural hair. The kid responded, “I’m going to tell my dad to get hair like that.” My sister and I could not stop laughing after my dad got back to the table. Who knows, maybe the Brett Marsh hairdo’ will be all the rage in Uganda soon. Bald in the middle and hair on the sides is such a classic look… The next day, we set out for Jinja. We had an awesome driver, Herbert, who even took us on a different route so we didn’t have to take the busy/scary road. I was so happy to not have to take public transport and be squished between three other people. Our hotel in Jinja is amazing. The rest of my family agrees, so I know it’s not just my low standards. After all, I’m used to $5 hostels and having three people to a bed. We are staying at Wild Waters Lodge, which is located on an island in the Nile River. All the rooms are set up like tents, have porches, and overlook a part of the Nile. I’m not even sure pictures will do this place justice, but we are all in heaven. The food is really good (my family agrees on this too), and now I’m starting to remember what real food tastes like. I am going to be sad to leave this place… On Tuesday, we set out to go visit my site. The drive was about three hours, but it was great for my family to see more of Uganda and all of the little towns. When we arrived in Budaka, we all really had to go to the bathroom because we drank too much coffee before the long drive. My family was super excited to use my latrine. My mom packed Vicks Vapor Rub to put under nose in case she ever had to go anywhere with “bad” smells. (She reads a lot of crime/thriller novels, and learned that cops put this under their nose before they go into a morgue). I guess a latrine has the potential to smell like a decomposing body, so she put Vicks under her nose. My sister and dad, however, said my latrine surprisingly did not smell bad. We went around to my neighbors’ houses to greet them and pass out gifts that my parents brought (t-shirts, calendars, toys, baseball caps, Frisbees, etc.) The kids were pretty shy at first, but they were ecstatic when we passed out bouncy balls and a jump rope. They were going nuts and came running outside to play. The kids were also pretty enamored with my dad – the big, tall, white man. When he was standing in the doorway of my neighbor’s house, a little kid started stroking the backs of his legs. We went to Sauya’s house last (she is the one who feeds me all the time), and she was thrilled to see my family. She gave us all a big hug and kept saying, “Thank you for coming, we are all so grateful.” She loved her presents and had us sit down to drink sodas that she had specially bought for my family and me. She then left the room because it’s customary in Ugandan culture to leave the visitors alone. This is probably something I should have mentioned to my family before we went to greet my neighbors. They all looked at me with their eyebrows raised and asked if we should leave and go back to my house. (I also failed to mention to my mother that women who smoke are considered prostitutes in this country...I only mentioned it before her first cigarette). After we finished the sodas, I told Sauya we were heading back to my house to unpack a few things, and she said we had to come back because she was preparing us a “simple” meal. Thirty minutes later we returned to Sauya’s and she had showered, done her hair, and put on her new “I Love LA” T-shirt. She was so excited and proud, and even put on her new Laker baseball cap. Then she put on the TV (Spanish soap operas dubbed in English) and left the room. My family kept laughing and my mom said she wished she could do this when she had guests. Sauya then brought over her neighbor’s baby, Innocent, because she knows I love holding him. My sister, however, was all over him and I think my mom started to really consider adopting an African baby. Sauya and her daughter, Eva, brought out our “simple” meal, which was nowhere near simple. She had special silverware and plates (which I have never seen and I eat there all the time) and had six different dishes. We had greens, sweet potatoes, rice, millet bread, eggplant, and cabbage. My family got to try a lot of the local foods, and they said it was all pretty good. Herbert, our driver, also joined us for lunch, and I think he was pleased that he got a big Ugandan feast. After lunch, my family really wanted to try pumping water. We decided to fill one of Sauya’s jerry cans because I had no need for more water. We walked to the borehole and my mom kept saying, “Oh my god, Aubrey. You made it seem like it was so far away.” I kept saying, no, it’s not that far, but just wait until you pump and have to carry the jerry can. We all took turns pumping, and they all said, “Oh, this is actually kind of hard.” The jerry can was also heavier than they expected, and they couldn’t carry it very far. Watching my sister try to carry the jerry can was probably my favorite moment of the whole day. She was hunched over, shuffling her feet, and she could not walk very straight. Sauya took my family on a tour of the school, and they got to see the classrooms and dorms (which look like a prison). We then walked into town so my family could see Budaka. My family got to experience the shouts from kids, “MZUNGU! How are you?” I showed my family the town and the market where I buy my vegetables. My dad took a lot of pictures, which I was happy about because I have never really brought my camera to town (it seems a little weird since I live there). Everyone was so excited to see the camera, and kept asking him to take a “snap.” I had to be in every picture, of course – pretending to buy a tomato, sitting with a lady selling greens, and standing next to my chapatti man. I’m pretty sure “the big, mzungu man with the camera” was the talk of Budaka when we left. I am so happy that my family got to see my site and meet my neighbors. I don’t think that you can really grasp what I do or how I live until you see it with your own eyes. My family all said that it was taking them a while to process and that they are not sure how I do it. They had a great time – they loved my neighbors and actually enjoyed the food. However, after seeing my house, school, and town, they have an idea of what I deal with. After we arrived back in Jinja, we gave Herbert one of the t-shirts and baseball caps. He was so excited, and he wore the t-shirt the next day when he picked us up for white water rafting. He kept saying, “Ah, look at my new shirt! I look so smart.” Too cute – Herbert is the best! White water rafting on Thursday was a lot of fun. We were a little worried about who would end up in our boat – as in; we were worried if they would piss off Brenda. Thankfully, these two Danish girls joined us, and they were hilarious. One of them was sarcastic and had a biting sense of humor. Hence, her and my mom got along wonderfully. We flipped once and on the last rapid Robyn and I both got thrown out of the boat. (We have an awesome picture of me going head first into the water with my legs sticking straight up in the air). My sister and I had to ride the rest of the rapid because we were thrown so far from the boat. We could not stop laughing, and kept choking on the waves hitting us. At one point, my sister got caught in a whirlpool and kept spinning around and around. My sister and I made friends with the cameraman, Steve-o, and sat next to him on the way back to the lodge. He was awesome, and he kept taking one-handed bandit photos with us. He also showed us how “mzungus” dance, and he was dead on. Robyn and I started doing dance moves for him – the shopping cart, fax machine, sprinkler, etc. Steve-o loved it, and started making up his own, which included: the kayaker, the cow, and the boda driver. I think Steve-o is my new Ugandan best friend, especially because his name is Steve-o. We are headed to Tanzania next, and we are all excited. I will be sure to update you on that part of the trip as soon as I can. Sorry for the long post! Also, pictures will come eventually (not enough time to upload!).

Ugandans can be quite superstitious – many believe in the existence of bad omens, ghosts, witch doctors, etc. A while back, a man in Caroline’s village warned residents not to leave their houses in the early morning because he saw a ghost with fire. Caroline’s neighbors did not take long to figure out this “ghost” was Caroline running in the morning, and the “fire” was her flashlight. The man, however, is not convinced that he mistook a ghost for an mzungu. He continues to warn residents there is a ghost with fire and they should not leave their houses before the sun rises. My neighbors and a few people in Budaka keep mentioning to me how happy they are that I have become “fat.” Betsy, my neighbor, recently said to me, “Your family is going to be very happy to see how big and fat you are. They will know that we are keeping you well here in Uganda!” In Uganda, it is quite a compliment to be called fat; so in a way, I am honored. Ugandans, along with many other East Africans, believe that being fat is beautiful. Fat is associated with wealth, because if you are a little on the chunky side, then it means you can afford to eat well. “Slim” is often referred to those who are infected with HIV/AIDS because they are usually very thin. Therefore, if you are called slim, then it is most likely an insult. I have explained to a few of my neighbors that in America, other people’s weight is a taboo topic of conversation and they should probably avoid calling mzungus fat. I mean, let’s be honest, if I told the average American girl that she was fat, then she’d bitch slap me, cry, and then run for the diet magazines and laxatives. I know what many of you are thinking, “Alright, Aubrey, you are in Africa. How do you gain weight?” A common misconception of Africa is that you will come here and lose a ton of weight because everyone is starving. After all, our parents did always tell us to finish our plate of food because “there are starving children in Africa.” Yes, this is true, many Ugandans do not have enough to eat and they do go hungry. Those that can afford food, however, eat a lot. The amount of food that the average Ugandan can pile on a plate is quite impressive. I am sure you all remember how my host family made fun of how “little” I would eat at meals. Also, the typical Ugandan meal is about 75% starch, 20% carbohydrates, and 5% protein. This is probably an exaggeration, but I feel like you get the point. If I eat with my neighbors, then I will usually get a heaping plate of posho (maize flour and water), matoke, potatoes, or rice, and then a small bowl of either beans or greens. It’s safe to say that Uganda is not the place to go if you are on the Atkins diet (no, I am not and have never been on the Atkins diet. Actually, I’ve never been on any diet). In addition to eating an insane amount of starches and carbs, I am also able to get pretty much any type of American food in the big cities like Mbale, Jinja, and Kampala. Unfortunately, whenever us Peace Corps Volunteers go to the big cities, we gorge ourselves in American food like we will never have the opportunity to eat it again. We all feed off of each other like some sort of mob mentality: “You’re getting another milkshake? Ok, then I’m going to get a soft pretzel with cheese, and then maybe we should split a brownie with ice cream. Ohhhhh look, they have hummus and pita – we should probably order that too.” It is pretty disgusting the amount of food we can all eat in one weekend. We have yet to learn our lesson, however, and we continue to eat ourselves sick. Sometimes we will spend an entire day in a restaurant just sitting around and eating. Laurie, the missionary in Budaka, has recently started a bakery business in Budaka to support the orphanage. Caroline, Ryan, and I will probably keep the place in business – after all, it does go to the kids. The amount of cinnamon rolls, cakes, pies, and cookies we have eaten is pretty gross. Yesterday, Caroline and I went to Ryan’s and we ate an entire pumpkin pie. Caroline kept saying, “Oh my god, what is wrong with us? We are animals!” We did play some basketball afterwards, so as the Ugandans say, “It’s okay!” Thankfully, I have never been one to worry much about my weight, so I don’t mind that my neighbors are calling me fat. Don’t get the wrong idea; I have not turned into a Two-Ton Tess. My dad, however, seems to think I was serious when I told him I gained 15 pounds. My parents have asked if they need to bring me some “big girl” jeans when they come and visit. The reason that I decided to finally write this post is because weight seems to be an issue among some volunteers. A sad reality of Peace Corps Uganda is that most men lose weight, and most women gain weight. So if you think that coming to Africa is a great diet plan, then think again. Africa is like America – you are going to have to eat properly and exercise if you want to lose weight. Unless you are afflicted with amoebic dysentery the whole time, you are not going to drop a pant size. School has been out for a couple of weeks now, and I am surprised that I have not gone insane with boredom. It has been nice to just relax and read, but I am anxiously waiting for my family to get here. Thankfully, my neighbors’ kids are home from secondary school, and they are a lot of fun to hang out with. We have all been watching movies on my computer (they love movies about high school in America). We also just chill listening to music and play cards. Now that all the students have left campus, I do have to fetch my own water. I finally pumped my own water and carried it back to my house two weeks ago. I have a newfound appreciation for Ugandans that do this every day. I used to find it a pain to ask my students to get me more water, but it is obviously a lot different when you are the one who has to fetch the water. I am even more conservative with my water, now. I probably only use around 80-100 Liters a week because I dread going to the borehole. Sometimes I can have Eva or Isaac (Sauya’s kids) help me, but I always feel bad asking since they have to fetch their own water. 12 days until my family arrives – and soon after that I’m sure there will be many posts about the Marsh Family in Africa.

A nice ad on the back of a taxi in Mbale

The kids love coming over to sweep. They wait at my door until I wake up and then ask to come in and sweep.

Emmit - he is so cute.

Francis and Faith

Thanksgiving is my all time favorite holiday – it’s a day dedicated to eating! I am happy to report that I was still able to uphold the tradition of eating myself sick, even in Uganda. I actually had two Thanksgivings, which definitely made up for not being home. Caroline, Ryan and I spent Thanksgiving Day with Laurie, an American missionary who lives in Budaka and runs an orphanage in town. She has a really nice house with a refrigerator and oven, so she invited us over for food and games. She cooked up quite a feast for us: Chicken, gravy, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, homemade rolls, carrot cake, and pumpkin pie. We contributed green beans with garlic. I could not stop talking about how delicious her homemade rolls were; I ate about five of them! We ate ourselves sick, and played Scrabble (my favorite) and cards. We all kept saying, “Wow, it feels like we are back in America.” It was a great, relaxing Thanksgiving. We headed to Elizabeth’s site on Friday for Thanksgiving Part II. There were over 20 of us at Elizabeth’s, and there was quite a bit of food. We slaughtered our own Turkey, which was 20 kilos. (By we, I mean Max). Thankfully, Elizabeth knows someone with an oven in her town, so we were able to easily cook the turkey. We had more or less the same menu as the night before. Maggie and I contributed green beans with caramelized onions. Maggie bought 4 kilos of green beans two days before, but did not take them out of the plastic bag. Hence, we had to sift through 4 kilos of green beans and take out all of the moldy ones. They smelled so bad, and it was a huge pain to cut off the ends of the ones that were not rotten. In the end, however, they turned out delicious! I felt so sick after eating dinner, I literally thought I was going to puke from eating so much. A group of us headed to Kampala for the weekend to run the marathon on Sunday. Chelsea, Lisa, Bethany, Joe, and I ran the half and Erik ran the full marathon (what a champ!). I did not train at all for the half, but since other people were running, I figured I would give it a shot. The marathon cost 10,000 shillings, about $4.50, and the money went to clean water in Uganda. We also got an awesome swag bag of MTN paraphernalia, including this yellow jersey we had to wear when we ran. The marathon was a lot of fun, and I am glad that we all participated. I was surprised that they actually had a decent amount of water stations (yes, it was bottled water) and they passed out sponges to cool off as well. At around 18 km, I was passed by all of the elite runners that were running the full marathon. I seriously could not get over how fast these men were running; it was amazing! There was someone filming the race, so for about 2 seconds I felt super cool running behind the leader. Needless to say, a lot of the elite runners finished the full 42KM before I finished my 21KM. Now, this is Uganda, so of course this marathon wouldn’t be complete without some mishaps:

The latrines at the start of the race were FULL. I thought I was going to vomit, but when you got to go, you got to go. When I say full, I mean about to spill over.The roads were somehow closed off for the runners, but only at the beginning. For the most part we were battling taxis and boda drivers for the road. There were no bathrooms along the way and I really had to go. I didn’t feel like earning my brown badge, so I just went into a random restaurant along the way. Lisa, however, peed her pants and a Ugandan behind her laughed. There were markers every 5KM, but they were completely wrong. There was also a marker for 40KM (the finish for the half and full were the same), so I thought I was coming close to the end. WRONG! 3KM later I reached another sign that said, “1KM to go!” We all seriously wanted to punch someone in the face. At least that one was right…There were people directing the runners, but after the elite runners finish, they close up shop. Since I was running the half marathon, I didn’t have a problem. Erik, however, got lost near the end of the marathon and ran an extra few kilometers. Also, some of the water stations were closed.

Overall, I had a great time and I am thinking about running the half marathon in Jinja. I plan on actually training for that one though. Needless to say, I was super tired when I returned home yesterday. Sauya's daughters, Eva and Janet, met me in town when my taxi arrived. They were really excited to have me back and wanted to congratulate me on finishing the race. They carried my things home and filled all of my jerry cans for me. Afterward, they brought over some food for me and we hung out and read magazines. They are the best!

Dennis and Bryan - they love getting their photo taken.

Dennis playing with my camera

The rolls cooking in the oven

Caroline, Ryan, Laurie and me

I was walking back from the latrine and this turkey fell over in my backyard. I started laughing, and then realized it was dead. My neighbor spent the next hour trying to figure out who the turkey belonged too. No, we did not use this for Thanksgiving dinner.

Bethany and me in our MTN swag

Me, Lisa, Erik, Chelsea, and Bethany in our awesome gearErik, Chelsea, Bethany, Lisa, Me and Joe at 6am before the race

I have always had a strong urge to slaughter my own chicken, pluck out the feathers, and then prepare it fresh. I felt like in order to get the true “African” experience, I needed to prepare a chicken the real way, and not buy it from the supermarket. I finally accomplished that goal…sort of. Max, Ryan, and Caroline came over this weekend because we wanted to slaughter a chicken and make fried chicken. My neighbors could not believe that we wanted to attempt this by ourselves with no help:

Francis: “Are you sure you can manage? Let me get someone to assist you.”

Dennis (the 9 year old): “Eh, you are deceiving me. You cannot manage.”

Students were circling my compound, staring at the four crazy mzungu, and laughing. I do not think anyone believed that we could actually do this. Max, however, pulled through like an expert. He slaughtered the chicken, and then I poured boiling water over it so he could easily pull out the feathers. Max also cut out the insides like a champ! I say I sort of accomplished my goal because I did not really do any of the manual labor – I just watched and took pictures. We made delicious fried chicken and onion rings (super healthy!). We also had a huge jackfruit, which we shared with all of my neighbors. They were ecstatic and kept saying, “Thank you for keeping the visitors!” (Ugandans use the verb “to keep” for hosting). In the last blog post, I was so focused on grossing you all out, that I forgot the best part of visiting Willysha. Willysha also lives on a convent, and the sisters had a party for all the teachers because it was the end of the school year. Sister insisted that Willysha bring all of her guests - so Maggie, Elizabeth, and I all showed up way underdressed for the occasion. We had to sit at the front, facing every one, and they had us serve ourselves first for dinner…even though this was a party for the teachers. Gifts were handed out to all of the teachers, and then Sister handed a gift to each of us as well. We each got our own gift bags with handkerchiefs! Willysha headed back home because her back was hurting her, but Sister insisted that the rest of us stay to have a dance party. One of the Ugandan male teachers took the microphone and said, “Let’s start dancing. I want to dance with these guests over here!” We couldn’t really say “no,” so out to the dance floor we went. I wish there was a video of this night because I don’t think my words will do it justice. Ugandans can actually dance, unlike us three mzungu who have no rhythm whatsoever. Nevertheless, we made fools of ourselves and dominated the dance floor. We were drinking wine, and whenever we finished our glasses, Sister would grab our cup and say, “No empty glasses!!” By my sixth cup of wine, I could not drink anymore, so I left it half full. That did not work either. Sister took my cup and said, “Eh, you keep drinking. I fill it all the way!” I took to just dumping the wine out on the grass when no one was looking. At the end of the night, Sister insisted that the DJ play a “western” song and I did the worm for everyone (I told you…my new signature dance move; it’s all I got). If living in this country has taught me anything, then it’s that nuns can party. The school year has come to an end, and we now are entering our two-month vacation. I spent the past two weeks helping students prepare for their exams and I proctored a few. My family is coming to visit in 33 days, and I could not be more excited! I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving; we are all going to be celebrating on this end and preparing a special feast (slaughtering our own Turkey!). I am sad that I will be missing my favorite holiday, but I know that the Knaptons (especially you, Steve) will eat extra just for me.

Thanks to all of those who have donated to Libraries For Life! We have already raised over $11,000. If you haven't already, please check out our webpage:

https://www.booksforafrica.org/donate/to-project.html?projectId=79 Lastly, here is a little saying that Maggie shared with me – I found it funny:

“A man falls down a well, and a missionary walks by and throws down a bible. An NGO worker walks by, and throws down some money. A Peace Corps Volunteer walks by and throws down a bag and jumps in the well. The man asks, ‘What are you doing?’ The Peace Corps volunteer says, ‘I have come to live with you.’”

This is how Ryan showed up to my house. Jack fruit strapped to the bike and guess what is in the plastic bag...

...a chicken!

Students watching the crazy mzungu

Well, I guess we should make this a Kodak moment!

Lunch!!

Max getting ready to slaughter the chicken

Plucking out the feathers

Inside of a chicken - gross!

Mmm...lunch

Onion rings...low fat for sure

Fried chicken

Dennis rockin' my sunglasses

Peace Corps Volunteers have two main topics of conversation: poop and food. Whenever I meet up with a fellow volunteer, it is inevitable that we will touch on both of these topics. We always talk about the food we wish could eat: cheeseburger from In and Out, bagel and cream cheese, homemade mac and cheese, a fresh salad with feta or goat cheese, nachos, etc. Are you noticing the theme here? Cheese! We can find a lot of American type food in Uganda, but good cheese is hard to come by. Kampala, the “Forbidden City” for Peace Corps Volunteers, is the only place where you can buy decent cheese. We are able to find cheese in the bigger towns, but it always tastes like a sweaty gym sock and has a disconcerting texture. Nevertheless, we continue to buy this awful cheese because we always think, “Maybe if we cook it this way, then it will actually taste good.” Two weeks ago, Maggie and I had this exact thought – we decided we could make good mac and cheese. We were really excited and got our hopes up that the mac and cheese was going to be delicious. When we tried to grate the “cheddar” cheese, it just kept crumbling…this should have been our first clue that the cheese was no good. The cheese also had the funky gym sock smell, but we kept saying, “Oh it will be fine once we melt it.” We melted the cheese with some milk, and then decided to add some flour to thicken up the sauce. We opened Maggie’s flour and there were a bunch of brown things moving about.

Me: “Hey Maggie, what’s in your flour?” Maggie: “Maggots.” Me: “Ok, I’ll just sift them out.” Maggie: “Ya, it’s okay. Protein, right?”

We did not think twice, and used the flour anyway. I’m fairly sure no maggots made into the sauce. The mac and cheese turned out to be awful. Once again, our expectations were too high. The cheese had a funky aftertaste, so we just had to eat it really quickly so we wouldn’t notice. The cheese was also kind of a weird, crumbly texture. Then again, those could have been maggots. Maggie has not had the best of luck with maggots. She soaked her underwear and bras overnight, and when she woke up the next morning, they were covered in maggots. She tried to wash them out, and even boiled her underwear and bras. They, however, were then covered in dead maggots – so she dumped everything down her latrine. I now know never to soak my laundry overnight! This past weekend, I visited my friend Willysha at her site near Entebbe. She has a nice house with running water and tiled floors – it’s like staying at a hotel! After I got out of the shower, I noticed some dry looking skin on my big toe. I started picking at it, and asked Willysha what she thought was up with my toe. She took one look and said, “Oh my god! You have a jigger!” Now, this is not be confused with chigger. A jigger, also known as a chigoe flea, burrows into your skin and you have to dig them out. They are really common where I live because they like dry climates and live in the dirt. You can get them from walking barefoot or even wearing open toed shoes. Naturally, I started to freak out, and ran to Willysha’s bookshelf in search of our medical handbook. As I was looking through all of her medical information sheets, I saw something crawling on my leg from the corner of my eye. I could not tell what it was at first because it was blending in with my pants. I then realized it was a giant cockroach; it was probably 3-4 inches long! Willysha was skyping with her friend, and I didn’t want to make a scene. So, I calmly flicked it off my leg and continued to read the medical handbook – a true testament to the fact that I have been in this country far too long. We could not find anything about jiggers, so I decided to call our medical office. The PCMO told me that I could either dig it out or come in the next day and get it removed. I opted for the latter option because I wasn’t sure if I could trust Willysha with a needle in my foot. We spent the next fifteen minutes googling images of “jigger feet” and were horrified by some of the pictures. We then decided that if we didn’t try and dig out the jigger ourselves, then we weren’t true Peace Corps Volunteers. Thus, I let Willysha perform surgery on my foot, while I filmed and my dad watched via Skype. I was expecting something big to squeeze out, sort of like the mango fly, but there was only a lot of pus and blood. A little anticlimactic, but we decided I should go to medical just to make sure my toe was okay. Medical told me that I definitely had a jigger, but we got it all out. Oh, and that pus, was not actually pus. It was an egg sack and the white stuff was all of the eggs. Cool. I do have the video of us getting out the jigger, but I am not sure when I will have fast enough Internet to upload. Don’t get too excited because it is not nearly as good as the mango fly video. You cannot see anything because I’m far away – it’s basically Willysha and I joking the whole time. I know, however, some of you are still curious, so I will upload next time I go to Mbale. Willysha, Maggie, Elizabeth, and I went to the pool on Saturday and met some guys in the US Military. After we told them we were Peace Corps Volunteers, they informed us they call us “dirty feet.” I have to say…they were pretty spot on with that one. Naturally, I showed them my toe. Well, I think I have sufficiently grossed most of you out, now. My family is getting really excited to visit – my sister says she is wrapping herself in saran wrap :)

Jigger!

People are always asking how I bucket bathe - so I thought I would take a picture. I stand in the kiddie pool and the red basin has my bathing water (I fill it about 3/4 of the way). I use the cup to pour water on myself. And that purple shelf has my shampoo, conditioner, and all that.

I have mentioned before that being an mzungu in Uganda means being a bit of a celebrity. A Ugandan will inevitably strike up a conversation with me whether I am enjoying a meal at a restaurant, walking on the road, or sitting on a taxi. Ugandans will usually ask to be my friend, and then ask if they can have my “contact” (phone number). The main difference between a celebrity like George Clooney and me is that I actually give out my phone number. Unfortunately, this means I get constant calls from strangers at all hours of the day. If I don’t pick up, then they will continue to call five or six more times. I don’t blame them - when my friends and I got a hold of Aaron Carter’s phone number, we called him so much he changed his number. I know the consequences of freely handing out my digits, but I am too nice to say no. Plus, I sometimes receive amazing texts like these:

“flower’s die, songs fade, memoriz 4get, bt precious friends l’ke u wil neves be 4goten and da worst part ov mi l’fe iz missing a friend. Great morning.”

This past weekend a few us who live out east made the trek north to Gulu for Halloween weekend. Chelsea, Audrey, Ryan, Erica and I took the eight-hour bus ride together and I think all we did was eat. Every stop one of us would decide to buy chapatti, maize, popcorn, bananas, chicken on a stick, samosas, chips, or ground nuts. I am sure I am missing a few snack items in that list, but you all get the gist. We would complain that we were so full, and then someone would buy a snack from another vendor. Halloween weekend in Gulu was a lot of fun. I have never seen so many mzungus at one time (excluding Peace Corps). Gulu has a ton of NGOs, which explains all the foreigners. Friday night we went out and it was great to have everyone around to celebrate my birthday. At one point I had a dance off with a Ugandan and then did the worm. (My cousins Heather and Jane taught me how to do the worm in the 7th grade, and all of a sudden it has become my signature dance move here!) Caroline got me the best birthday gift ever…a chocolate croissant!! I have been craving one for two months, and she found one in Kampala. Invisible Children, one of the NGOs, threw a Halloween Party Saturday night and it felt like I was back in college. The party was at one of their houses, which was huge, and I felt like I was in a frat house. All the party needed was a beer bong and some flip cup. Everyone was dressed up in costumes and it felt like we were back in America. Halloween isn’t celebrated in Uganda, so I felt a tad ridiculous walking to this party in my blonde wig and outrageous get up. The bus ride home, unfortunately, was not as great as the ride there. That seems to always be the case when traveling. The bus was packed – there were people standing in the aisle because all of the seats were full. Ugandans do not like to have the windows open, so it felt like a sauna the whole way. I could not get off of that bus fast enough when we reached Mbale. As soon as I walked into my school compound, my neighbors’ kids ran to give me hugs and welcome me home. However, then they asked me for paper and crayons, so I’m not really sure if they actually missed me – I just think they missed my treats! Oh well, I guess I am okay with buying children’s love.

The kids coloring outside my house

John's site - I mean...come on!

We are really photogenic - Me, Caroline, Ryan

Caroline and Ryan

Hike near John's house

The river where we later went swimming (I probably have shisto now)

Bus ride to Gulu - Chelsea and Audrey

Caroline bought me this awesome birthday hat

Max and me

Mzungu dance party

Joey and me on Halloween.

When my friend Kiera was in Uganda, she asked me, “Do you think your standards for friends have lowered in the Peace Corps?” She was joking, but this question did have some validity. I am sure you all remember my friend Ryan – the one who earned his brown badge because he wanted to finish making his tea. Well, the more I hang out with Ryan, the more I realize that he deserves his own special blog post. Ryan has taken to rarely bathing in this country. As you may already know, the dirt roads and heat make it hard to keep yourself clean here in Uganda. You will find yourself thinking that you have a tan, but really, it is just dirt. I have to bathe every day because I always feel sweaty and gross. Ryan, on the other hand, justifies not bathing because he says he is just going to get dirty again – so what’s the point? I have to admit that I cannot be too hard on Ryan because I rarely bathed when I was living in Kenya. I get it…sometimes it really is just too much work to bucket bathe. Ryan, however, waited five months to finally wash his sheets. That is correct, that is 5 months of unwashed sheets with a man who does not bathe. This combination, I feel, cannot be justified. Thankfully, he recently hired a house girl to do his laundry, so his sheets are now being washed on a regular basis. On the rare occasion that Ryan chooses to bathe, he also decides to do his dishes. In an effort to save water, Ryan uses his dirty bath water to wash his dishes. He argues that it is easier because the water is already soapy and that it is okay because he rinses them off with clean water. Since Ryan only bathes about two to three times a week, I can only imagine the color of his bath water. It is safe to assume that I will not be enjoying a meal at Ryan’s in the near future. In addition to not washing his sheets, Ryan has never wiped his stove clean. He has the same stainless steel gas stove that I have, but his turned completely black from all of the grease. When he told me this fun fact, I was horrified and I insisted that he let me come over and make it silver again. I destroyed a sponge and the bucket of water was black when I was finished cleaning. I even got the special bonus of being able to clean under the stove - complete with old food and rat poop. Ryan may not be the cleanliest of people, but he is a good guy. For one, he has a sense of humor and has allowed me to post about pooping his pants and his hygiene. Secondly, Ryan also rescued a kitten from his latrine. Last week, he discovered that a kitten had fallen into his latrine and he could hear it meowing. Ryan consulted his neighbors about saving the kitten and they all laughed. The latrine is brand new, and they said they could not get the kitten out since it is thirty feet deep. Ryan figured that the kitten was most likely near death because there was no way it could survive a thirty-foot fall. After three days, however, the kitten was still meowing and Ryan set out to rescue the kitten. Ryan spent three frustrating hours trying to get the kitten out of the latrine until he was finally successful. He says that his neighbors must think he is crazy because for three hours he was shining his flashlight and yelling, “You idiot! Get on the stupid piece of wood. Come on!!!” Ryan also says that it was not compassion that made him spend so much time trying to rescue a kitten; it was his ego. There was a problem, and he needed a solution – he was not going to be outsmarted by a kitten. He finally lowered a rice sack with dried fish inside in order to lure the kitten. After ten minutes, the cat entered the sack and Ryan was able to pull him to safety. Ryan claims that he only decided to save the kitten because he wanted to poop in peace. He, however, gave the kitten a bath, pulled out his tics with tweezers, gave him food, and then let him sleep in his house. So Ryan may not be the most hygienic, but he has a good heart! In the end, I am glad to call him my friend.

Plus, he is really photogenic…



Ryan with my neighbors

My parents and sister have been nagging me to post, so I am finally getting around to writing one. I have to admit that I haven’t written recently because I feel like nothing can beat a mango fly video. I love posts where I can gross you out and have you thinking, “How is she still there?” I suppose I should count my blessings that I have not had any run-ins with rats or cockroaches recently. Two weeks ago I went to Jinja with my neighbor, Sauya, to visit her son and attend his school’s 100th Anniversary event. I expected the event to be like every other Ugandan function I have attended – long and running behind schedule. I was surprised, however, that they followed the itinerary exactly and it ended promptly at 2:30. The event was a lot of fun – lots of schools attended and they put on dancing and singing performances. President Museveni was supposed to be the guest of honor, but he was in India. The Speaker of Parliament came instead, which was still pretty cool. The Prince of Busoga was also there and he was really good looking. Too bad he is nineteen (because I’m sure I would have had a chance…). After the event, Sauya’s son, Isaac, gave us a tour of the school. It is a really pretty school overlooking Lake Victoria. Isaac had a lot of fun showing off his mzungu friend. As we were walking, Sauya turned to Isaac and asked if those were his friends over there. He said yes. She laughed and said she could see Isaac standing behind me, pointing and mouthing, “This is her!” with a big smile on his face. We went over and introduced ourselves, which I think made Isaac’s day. Last weekend, I returned to Jinja again to visit Mary at her site and teach self-defense to her scouts. I know you all just had to reread that sentence…”Aubrey teaching self defense?” The concept of self-defense does not really exist here in Uganda, and hence, I am qualified to teach it. I taught the basics that I could remember from Krav Maga: proper fighting stance, how to punch, groin kicks, kneeing, and how to get out of a choke from behind. I am sure my Krav Maga instructors would be horrified with how I most likely butchered everything they taught me, but as they say here, “it’s okay!” The scouts had a lot of fun, and near the end, the girls started to get really into it. At first they were pretty shy, and lazily punching – the self-defense concept was pretty foreign to them, I am sure. After my lesson, one of the boys said, “Madame me and him versus you and Madame Mary. We do practicals!” Whoops, guess I should have been clearer that you only use this to defend yourself. (In all honesty, though, I’m pretty sure I could have taken both of them). Mary texted me the next day, “I don’t know what you did to me, but I am so sore!” So I guess I did a job well done. On Tuesday, I went to the health clinic to see Gowa and give him more latex gloves and a poster that I had made for his clinic. We went and visited one of his patients because he said he needed me to convince her to go to Mbale to get treatment. (Apparently, advice from an mzungu is taken more seriously). He told me that she is HIV positive, and that she had developed some sores in her mouth. We walked to this woman’s house, and I could immediately tell she was very sick. She was gaunt and moving slowly. He instructed her to open her mouth for me, and it took everything I had in me to not dry heave right there. She had all of these open, pussy sores in her mouth. It looked so painful, and she told me that her whole mouth felt like it was on fire. The medicine Gowa had given her did not help and she had stopped eating because it was painful. I, of course, told her she needed to go to the hospital in Mbale because they have more resources. She nodded her head, and said that she would go. Gowa later told me that he had been telling her to go to Mbale, but since she heard it from a white person, now she would actually listen. He said that seeing me also probably gave her a little more hope. I felt awful that I could not be of more help, but this did give me a little comfort knowing that I was making somewhat of a difference. Later on in the day, a patient came into the health clinic because he was having some stomach pains. Him and Gowa were speaking in Lugwere, so I did not know exactly what they were talking about. Gowa handed the patient condoms and asked if he knew how to use them. The patient said no, he had never used a condom before. Well, this all led to me giving my first condom demonstration! The patient brought in two other men to watch me too – who could pass up the mzungu demonstrating how to put on a condom? I wish there was film footage of this; my goofy smile did not leave my face the whole time and I could feel that my face was beet red. Overall, it went well though, and I passed around the condom after so they could all see what one actually looked like. I’m really hoping that practice makes perfect. If I have to do another one, then hopefully I won’t be as embarrassed and awkward. Here are a few photos from the 100th Anniversary Event in Jinja:

100th Anniversary Event

Some of the boys dressed up as girls for the dance - hilarious

Sauya and Isaac

Isaac and me

Sauya and me

If you have been an avid follower of this blog, then you probably recall me mentioning mango flies. For those that have forgotten, let me refresh your memory. Mango flies will sometimes lay their eggs in your clothing while it is hanging outside to dry. The eggs hatch upon contact with skin, and the larvae burrow into the skin and develop into fully grown maggots. In order to avoid these pesky flies, it is advised that you iron all of your clothing. The thought of maggots in my skin terrifies me, so I have been adamant about ironing all of my clothes. A part of me, however, did wonder if mango flies were an actual problem…until now. Over the weekend, I met up with Bethany, Joe, and John in Mbale. John asked us, “Do you all want to see the weird bite I got at Joe’s house?” He raises his arm and there is a boil like spot that is black in the middle – characteristic of a mango fly. Joe says, “Uh, I think that’s a mango fly.” Naturally, John freaks out, while the rest of us proceed to check it out and take pictures:

Mango fly bite Since we are Peace Corps Volunteers and have been in Uganda far too long, we thought the proper thing to do next was pop out the maggot. I should probably mention we were in Chat n Chino, an mzungu restaurant in Mbale; neither an ideal nor very appropriate place for popping out a mango fly. We, however, have been in the village far too long and did not think twice about popping out a maggot in front of other patrons. We also disinfected with Purell because that's all we had. Now here is the proper way to pop out a mango fly:

1. Make sure someone is there to film this because you are going to want to cherish this moment forever. Thankfully, I had my iPhone and was able to document the whole adventure. 2. Put Vaseline or clear nail polish over the red bump in order to suffocate the maggot. It will then proceed to try and wriggle itself out. 3. Wait a few minutes and then squeeze the maggot out like you are popping a pimple. If it’s being stubborn, then use a needle to pull out the little bugger. 4. Let out a sigh of relief…you are now maggot free. 5. START IRONING YOUR CLOTHES.

I know you are all dying to see this adventure. Sorry for the poor video quality, but I didn't want to sit here all day. When I return to the US I'll show it to all of you in high def. You can click on the video to watch it via youtube and make it full screen:



Coming home from Mbale that day was also quite eventful. I was sitting in the front, middle seat of the taxi, which is usually right on top of the engine. While we were driving my seat started to get hot, but I did not think much of it because I know this can happen sometimes. I ignored it until it started to become a little unbearable, and I told the driver that the seat was getting hotter than usual. He looked over, and then we both realized the seat was starting to smoke. He pulled over; the conductor in the back seat jumped out, opened the door and pulled me and the other passenger out of the front. The driver lifted up the seats to see the engine and a small fire was starting. He had a jerry can ready and he poured water on the engine in order to put out the fire and cool it down. He then put the seats back down and motioned for us to get back in. I looked at the other passenger with my eyebrows raised and we both laughed and shrugged our shoulders. I got back in the taxi like this was perfectly normal and no big deal. After all, this is Uganda and anything goes. As they say here, “there is no problem.” We drove for a couple of meters and then the driver pulled over again and he sent the conductor to refill the jerry can from the swamp. He returned, and we were instructed to get out of the taxi again. The driver filled the coolant tank with water and then told us to get back in the taxi. All I could think the rest of the ride home was, “Wow, I hope there isn’t another fire. I really like these jeans I’m wearing and I don’t want to burn a hole in the butt.” This past week was uneventful because the students were slow to trickle into school and the teachers are still on strike. Things are continuing to get worse here in Uganda, the exchange rate is now 3,000 shillings to the dollar. It was 2,300 when we arrived! Food and gas prices continue to rise, and teachers are still only making around 173,000 shillings a month. That’s just over $50!! It is rumored that the strike will end sometime this week, but anything goes. I am going to keep myself busy by going to the health clinic and working on the resource room. On Sunday, I invited my neighbors’ kids over to watch a movie on my computer because I have a bunch of Disney movies on my external hard drive. We watched the Lion King, and I thought the kids were going to die of excitement. The only television they watch here is the news and Spanish soap operas that are dubbed in English. (Only some of my neighbors have televisions and they only get a few channels because they use the bunny ears). After the movie, they went home and then came back twenty minutes later and asked if they could watch Simba again. While it was a very cute request, I had to say no (I don’t want to set a bad precedent of allowing them to come over all the time to watch TV). I told them that on Sundays, when I am around, I will have them over for a movie day. I have a feeling that I will be watching a lot of Lion King because I am not sure they really understand that I have other movies to watch. Ah, but there is no problem :)

This bug was in our hotel at Lweza. We don't know what it was, but it was gross!

I am finally finished with the three weeks of Peace Corps workshops, and it feels great to be home. When I arrived back to my site, my neighbors were beyond excited with my return. They had some of the students help me clean my house, and they did an amazing job. They swept, scrubbed the floors, and dusted everything. I don’t think my house has ever been so clean – I am so grateful for my awesome neighbors. I did say in my last post that I was worried I was going to find some critters in my house and/or latrine. Well, I had reason to be worried. There was a dead and decomposing rat in my latrine. It was actually STUCK to the floor and my neighbors had to scrape it off. It smelled like death in my latrine; I was gagging. They then scrubbed the floors, so now it’s back to its clean self. Phew! During my three weeks away, I realized my whole training group has started to pick up a few Ugandan phrases. While sometimes we are joking, sometimes we cannot help talking like a Ugandan. In order to understand, I think that I need to teach you a little Ugandan English:

1. Greetings are more than just a simple “How are you?” Here is how a typical greeting will go with a random person on the road:

A: “How are you?” B: “I’m fine” A: “Mmm.” B: “How are you?” A: “I’m fine.” B: “Mmmm.” A: “How is there?” B: “Good. How is home?” A: “Fine. Well done.” B: “Mmm. Thank you for your work.”

A: “Mmm.”

From there you can continue down the road. And, yes, the “Mmms” are essential in every greeting. I actually usually say “mmm” when someone speaks to me in Lugwere and I don’t understand. In most cases, it will suffice!

2. You will find yourself saying all of these phrases constantly if you are in Uganda an extended period of time:

- Well done- Thank you for your work- It’s okay- Eh, sorry (sorry is pronounced more like saaawwryyy” - “You first wait” or “You first come” - If something is broken – it’s “spoiled”. - If your phone battery is dead – it’s “finished”- If a restaurant ran out of French fries, which are chips here, then the chips are “over”.

3. I feel like I should elaborate on some of these phrases. For instance, “it’s okay” is the response to everything. When I tell my neighbor that I’m off to Mbale to do some grocery shopping, he or she will usually say, “It’s okay.” If I ask a question, and I’m not understood, then the response will just be “it’s okay.” It’s a universal response to anything.

4. “Eh, saaawwwyy” can be used in all contexts. For example: If you’re sick, you drop your pen, you trip, your phone battery is finished, or if your computer is spoiled.

A: “My mom has the flu.” B: “Ehh, saaawwryyy. I missed your call because my phone is finished.” A: “Eh, saaawwryyy.” Person A drops their pencil accidentally. B: “Eh, saaawwryyy.”

You get the picture.

5. If you are gone for a long time, then people will tell you that you have been “lost.” Since I was gone for three weeks at workshops, people keep coming by to tell me, “Ah! You have been lost.”

6. Statements can always be turned into questions. “The phone is what? It is spoiled.” “The food is what? The food is over.” “I am what? I am hungry.” This is a nasty habit we have all picked up – it started out as a joke, but now most of can’t help speaking in statements/questions.

7. When you return home, some people say “well be back” instead of saying, “welcome back.” We have not started saying this, but we all want to know why this is said.

For all the people reading this that have been to Uganda, I know you’re thinking, “yup, totally!” For everyone else, I’m sure you’re thinking, “huh?” All I have to say is, come visit me and you will understand completely. Otherwise, in two years you will start to notice that I sometimes speak like this myself. Kind of like when I picked up a little bit of a Midwestern accent when I went to UW.

This blog post is now what? Finished.

For those of you that do not know, I am working on a project called “Libraries for Life” with three other Peace Corps Volunteers. Libraries for Life is partnered with Books for Africa, and we are working together to build libraries in select schools throughout Uganda. There is not a big reading culture here in Uganda – books are not readily available and most Ugandans do not read for fun. We are all working together to try and change that. I plan to set up a library at Namengo Girls and create a literacy program in order to improve reading comprehension skills. I will be working closely with a teacher, Sauya, so that the project will be sustainable when I return to the US in two years.

Books for Africa will send us the books, but we need to pay for the shipping and port fees. We are currently trying to raise $21,000 to cover these costs, and we would greatly appreciate any donations. You can check out the webpage for Libraries for Life and read more:

https://www.booksforafrica.org/donate/to-project.html;jsessionid=061425D51330A6547D34436583544822?projectId=79

You can also go to www.booksforafrica.org -> donate now -> donate to a project -> scroll to Uganda and click on Libraries for Life.

I am almost done with all of my Peace Corps Workshops! I have been away from my site for almost three weeks, and it is getting a little tiring. In Service Training was interesting to say the least. Our Ugandan counterparts had to attend the workshop with us for four of the days, and it definitely provided entertainment. One of the days we had a gender debate where the men had to ask the women three questions and vice versa. Well one of the questions for the women was: “If the Bible says God created man first, and all of St. Paul’s helpers were women, then how can you say that men and women are equal?” (I think we can pretty much guarantee one of the Ugandans came up with this question, not a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer). Here were some responses from the women in my training class:

Erica: St. Paul also had women working in hire positions than men.

Willysha: Men wrote The Bible.

Chelsea: The Bible can be interpreted in many ways, and it’s important that we look at both sides. God created man first because he is superior OR God created man first and made a mistake.

One of the days we had a session on how to do HIV/AIDS education with students and how to do condom demonstrations. A Ugandan raised his hand in the middle and said, “I have never used a condom, but this seems like a very long process.” We were all horrified and laughed out of shock! It was really interesting to see the cultural divide. After this, a Ugandan asked for the Ugandans in the room to please raise their hand if they use condoms – very few of the 44 raised their hands. He then asked the Americans to raise their hands if they use condoms – most of us raised our hands. The workshop was extremely helpful at times because it gave a lot of us ideas for secondary projects and programs to start in our schools. It was nice that our counterparts were there because they will be a big help in starting these projects. My counterpart was very excited and we made an action plan for the next term. I also was able to talk with him about being MIA and not giving me advanced notice for meeting and workshops. So I think this term will be a little more productive (hopefully!). I am excited to go back home on Friday…but I am a little terrified to see what creatures have found their way into my house and/or pit latrine. Don’t worry, I will keep you updated :)

I am sorry that it has been a while since I have updated. I wish that I had an excuse; like that I was really busy and I have a lot of cool things to write about. Unfortunately, I’m just lazy. My counterpart showed up at my site one morning last week to inform me that there was a workshop for the School Family Initiative. I had just come back from a run and I was sweaty and disgusting. The meeting, of course, was starting in 2 minutes. I threw on some clothes and sat in on the workshop. Now, I feel like I should explain how a typical Uganda workshop operates:

- The workshop was scheduled to start at 8, but it did not start until 10:30 because everyone showed up late. Surprisingly, this is actually pretty good in Ugandan standards.

- The workshop started with a prayer, then we sang the national anthem, and then all 30 people had to stand up and introduce themselves. Some people are quick and mumble, while others talk for about 5 minutes.

- For the next 5 hours the workshop is conducted in a lecture style. There is time for questions and comments in between, where people usually take this time to speak nonsense, just so they can hear themselves speak. (Just like what happens in America!)

- This brings me to the title of my blog. One teacher raised his hand to comment on whether or not teachers should say, “I love you” to students. How that topic came about, I am not even sure. He is rambling on and on about himself and his experiences. All of a sudden he says, “I know I’m a bad person, but at least I’m good looking.” My counterpart and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows and laughed. It had absolutely nothing to do with what we were talking about.

- Statements are constantly being turned into questions. For example, if I was leading a lecture, I might talk like this: “The students need good discipline. The students need what? Good disciple. If they are not disciplined, then they will misbehave. The students will what? They will misbehave.” The audience will usually join in and answer the question as well – much like the teaching style in Uganda. A lot of us volunteers have picked up the habit of speaking like this, and it’s quite fun. Although, I’m not sure that it will be well received when we return to the US.

- The workshop was supposed to serve food, but that did not happen. By the time it finished at 3:30, I was starving because I had not eaten anything all day.

I was done with teaching two weeks before term was over because the students had to take their final exams. I went to the health clinic one day during my time off to help Gowa set up balance sheets to keep track of money and supplies. While I was there, Gowa asked me if I would go with him to visit a patient. I agreed, and we walked over to the patient’s house down the road. We greeted the patient’s wife, and she led us into the bedroom. At first I could not even tell there was a body in the bed; this man was all skin and bones. He was curled up in the fetal position and he looked at me with eyes that said, “Put me out of my misery.” Since I am an mzungu, they immediately thought that I was there to rescue them and take care of their troubles. I have never felt so utterly helpless, and I stood there trying to find the proper thing to say. I talked with his wife for a little while. She told me that her and her husband were diagnosed with HIV a while back. They were both put on ARVs, but her husband stopped taking them after he felt better. He eventually got worse, and she said that he only had a few more days to live. I left their house sick to my stomach – I had just met a dying man in a two-bedroom house made of mud, and there was nothing I could do to help. While I know that I can’t solve all the world’s problems while I am here, I couldn’t help feeling somewhat defeated. Gowa and I, however, discussed a plan for HIV/AIDS education in the community when I return from IST (In Service Training for Peace Corps). I am happy that I will be able to work on that and feel like I am doing my part. During my time off, I have spent a lot of time with my neighbors. Sauya’s son and daughter are back from secondary school, so I hang out with them a lot because they are around the same age. I did not buy any groceries last week since I knew I’d be leaving for 3 weeks for IST; so I ate pretty much every meal with my neighbors as well. Sauya has a bad rat problem in her house, and you can hear them running around everywhere. One night, when I was over for dinner, the power was out and we were eating by the light of one candle. I felt something on my foot, and at first I thought that it was just my pants. Then it started to tickle and move. I thought I was just being paranoid, until I felt something crawl on top of my foot. My eyes grew wide and I clenched my teeth as I thought to myself, “Don’t make a scene. It’s going to be okay.” I casually said, “I think there is something crawling on my foot.” We all looked under the table with the candlelight, and the rat scurried away. No big deal; we continued to eat like this was a perfectly normal occurrence. I am currently at IST for the next ten days. We will have a three-day break, and then we have to return for All-Volunteer Conference. It’s a little weird being back with my training class again in Lweza. It has been three months since I have seen a lot of them! My neighbors were all very sad to see me go, and I had a lot of tea before I left. I planned to leave at 9 in the morning to head to Kampala, but I did not end up leaving until 12:30. I stopped to say goodbye to each of my neighbors, and they all insisted in either inviting me inside for either tea or food. Living in a country where time doesn’t mean anything can be relaxing at times. I don’t ever feel rushed; I can just go with the flow. A great thing about being in the city is that I now have a great Internet connection. So I am online a lot now and able to chat with all of you lovely people. So get on Skype and gchat!

A sad, and somewhat disgusting reality of the Peace Corps is that volunteers talk about poop…a lot. It is acceptable to talk about at the dinner table and we definitely don’t spare any of the dirty details. When my training class arrived in Uganda, we were told that you were not a real Peace Corps volunteer until you earned your “brown badge.” I’m sure most of you can guess as to how one earns this badge – you have to poop your pants. Now don’t get too excited; I have not received this high honor, yet. Ryan, however, earned his badge this past week and has shamelessly allowed me to write about it in my blog. Here is how our texting conversation went on Saturday morning:

Ryan: “I know we always joke about poop attacks, but the reality is, it’s not that funny when you poop your pants.”

Me: “OMG YOU POOPED YOUR PANTS?!?!?! What happened?”

Ryan: “I wanted to wait for my water to finish boiling so I could make my tea. I unclenched for just a sec and then it was all over”

Me: “Hahahahahaha…gross! Are you ok?”

Ryan: “Yes. But I need a new pair of shoes”

I think that sums it up pretty nicely. Congratulations Ryan on beating me to the brown badge and thank you for letting me post it on the Internet for my friends and family to read about. Term is almost over and students are finishing up their final exams. I cannot believe how quickly the time has passed! Teachers at UPE schools (government primary schools) have gone on strike because of their low salaries. They are only paid 200,000 shillings a month, which is the equivalent of $74! As a result, the school where my coordinating center is located is closed, and last week was a little slow in the work department. I spent time with my neighbors and helped the students at my school study for exams. I gave my neighbors’ kids paper and colored pencils to draw, and now my walls are covered with drawings – the majority of which are pictures of people shooting each other. (These kids are between the ages of 4-9). I asked Dennis if they could draw something that didn’t have guns, and he responded, “You don’t like guns?” I said no, and told him that they should draw me an elephant or a cow. I got a drawing of a man holding a machete…but hey, at least he wasn’t chasing anyone. The other kids just copied pictures out of a children’s English book, so I have drawings with labels like “boy” and “girl”. Last week, the neighbor kids were watching me cook peanut noodles through my kitchen window. They were completely mesmerized and they couldn’t stop giggling to each other. When I sat on my couch to eat my dinner, they kept peeking in the window and then would laugh at me (they aren’t used to seeing this type of food). I opened my door and asked if they wanted to try some. They went nuts and were so excited to try my food. They devoured their plate and when I went to dump out the extra sauce, they stopped me and drank it like a soup. Either they really liked my cooking or it was just nice to eat food that wasn’t rice, beans, or matoke. This past weekend Caroline, Chelsea, Audrey, and I went to Sipi Falls, which is about an hour and a half away from Mbale. We decided to go on a whim, so there was not much planning involved. A five-minute Internet research landed us in “Crows Nest,” which was one of the cheaper places to spend the night. Our room was a mud hut with three bunk beds squished together, and it looked like a fort with all of the mosquito nets. There were papyrus mats on the walls, which I assume was to hide the mud and make it look more “homey.” There was also a bit of plastic flooring, which covered some of our mud floor. We could not stop laughing at the ridiculousness of where we were staying, but we thought it was pretty cool. After all, we were expecting to have mud huts as our houses at site – so we felt like we were finally getting the real Peace Corps experience. The lodge arranged for a guide, Malisha, to take us on our hike through Sipi Falls. (You need a guide because there are no marked trails, and at some points you’re walking through home compounds). Our hike was a little disastrous, which made it all the more fun and funny: As we were hiking, Malisha warned us that there were safari ants up ahead, and he said to run and hop over them. (If you read The Poisonwood Bible, then you know what safari ants are. The Maasai use their pincers as sutures). We were in a single file line and we all started to run in order to get away from the ants. I was in the back of the line, and Audrey was in front of me. In slow motion, I saw Audrey trip and face plant right into a big pile of safari ants. Of course my first reaction was to laugh because I am mean and it just looked funny (plus she was laughing too). She got up and started to wipe off the ants, while the rest of us started yelling at her to move. She started screaming, “OMG they are biting me!!” and continued to frantically wipe off the ants. We continued to yell at her to move because she was standing in the pile of safari ants – so was not doing any good to wipe them off. It took her a few seconds, but she finally got the picture and moved. We continued hiking and we had to go up a steep part of the hill with a lot of low hanging branches. Caroline’s backpack got caught on one of the branches, which caused her to slip and fall straight into a hole on the side of the path. It sounded and looked pretty painful, but she just cracked up laughing…and so did the rest of us. A few minutes later, Chelsea slipped and fell while going down a steep part of a hill. At this point, I am pretty sure Malisha thought we were completely uncoordinated and crazy because we couldn’t stop laughing at each other. Chelsea turned to me and said I should stop laughing because pretty soon it was going to be me. It started pouring rain during our hike and it got really muddy. Unfortunately, at this point we were going downhill. Malisha told us we should take cover until it let up a bit, so we stood under the awning of a random person’s house. After the rain stopped, he told us that if we continued to go down to the last waterfall, then we would have to climb down ladders that would be slippery from the rain. We realized he was insinuating that he did not want to take us because he didn’t want to be liable for an injury. We agreed that it was best to skip going to the bottom of this waterfall, and decided to just see it from a different viewpoint. We were going downhill and it was really slippery and muddy from all of the rain. We were sidestepping and trying really hard not to eat it. Well, of course, Chelsea was right. I slipped and landed smack on my side – I was caked in mud!! We returned to the lodge, muddy and freezing. They supposedly had hot showers from 5pm-8pm because they heat the water over a large fire. Well, since we were the only four at this lodge who wanted to shower, the lodge did not really care to heat the water for the showers. We were so cold and the water from the tap was freezing – so we convinced them to heat water for us to bucket bathe. All the other mzungu at the lodge looked at us like we were crazy, but we’re Peace Corps volunteers, so we are experts at this! Plus, we were disgustingly dirty and we needed to wash off all of the mud. The rest of the night was great in our mud hut fort. Since we were up in the mountains, it actually got really cold at night. It was nice to be able to sleep with a blanket for once!

And finally, some photos:

Bujagali Falls in Jinja

Boat Ride: Maggie, Bethany, Me, Willysha

Bethany, Me, Maggie, Willysha, Ryan, and Caroline

Our boat - looks sturdy, right?

Kobe is in Uganda

I could not get this chicken out of my house.This lizard was waiting for me when I opened my door. Terrifying!

Dennis eating his noodles

Our fort in Sipi Falls

Our door to the mud hut

Crows Nest Lodge

Sipi Falls - the view from Crows NestThe biggest pig I have ever seen!!

Audrey, Chelsea, Caroline, and Me

Cabbage Field

Malisha gave us these leaves in case we needed toilet paper

Behind

Audrey was terrified crossing the slippery bridge

We're finished! And soaking wet.Bedtime in the fort :)One of the many drawings I received

I haven’t always been afraid of lizards – I distinctly remember catching them in my front yard as a little kid. It wasn’t until I saw an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? on Nickelodeon that I became terrified of lizards. I cannot even remember what happened in this episode, but the fear of these creatures, big or small, remains. Unfortunately, I live in an area that is inhabited by both small geckos and terrifyingly large lizards. I was, however, getting used to the small geckos that live on the walls in my house (they eat the mosquitoes after all)…until the other night. The power was out (of course!) and I was watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother on my computer. It was dark except for the light from my computer, and I felt something heavy drop on my chest. Needless to say, I shrieked and jumped of f of the couch, and a small gecko fell to the floor. Shivering with disgust, I grabbed a flashlight and made sure there were no more geckos before I returned to the couch. It didn’t take long for my neighbor to come knocking on my door to see if I was all right. I contemplated making up a story to explain my screaming, but decided I better just stick with the truth. Stephen kept saying “oh sorry, sorry,” but I am sure he was thinking “this mzungu is nuts.”

My neighbors are probably the greatest people on earth, and they are a big part of why I am enjoying my time here. Two weeks ago I got really bad food poisoning, and I was truly miserable. I was violently vomiting, and Stephen came over to check up on me and see what was wrong. I was curled up in the fetal position on the concrete floor with a bucket at my side – I don’t think I looked too hot. He ran and got my neighbor Sauya, Sister Francis, and the school nurse. They all came to take care of me by giving me water, mixing up Gatorade, and calling the Peace Corps medical office. The nurse gave me a malaria test, which was thankfully negative! Sauya spent the night on my extra bed and she woke up each time to hold my hair back as well as clean out my sick bucket. The next day Sister Francis, Sister Goretti, and Sauya drove me to the hospital and then arranged a private hire to take me to the Peace Corps Medical Office in Kampala. I am so thankful that they were here to take care of me because it was comforting to know I was in good hands. After two IVs and medicine to stop making me throw up – I felt significantly better. I was then pampered for two days in Kampala (hot showers!), which was glorious. When I returned back to my site, everyone came to my house to tell me they were praying for me and that they had all been worried. For the next week no one would let me work because they thought I had been on my deathbed. It’s a great feeling to know that my community has my back – makes me feel much more at home. This past Saturday we had a potluck at Bethany’s house for Ryan and Elizabeth’s birthdays. I think I still have a food baby from the amount of food I ate. It was great to eat an obscene amount of American food and get a little taste of home. I made hummus and fried chapati to make tortilla chips (delicious!). There was guacamole, pasta salad, mac and cheese, fruit salad, cake, and brownies. Max, however, takes the cake for the best contribution…deep-fried Oreos with powdered sugar. Unfortunately, it started a bad trend, because then we kept coming up with ideas of things we could fry. So we fried: banana, banana with peanut butter, chocolate, and cheese. Then we just started eating the fried batter. I think I’m ok with rice and beans for the next week because I’m sure my arteries are all clogged. I would have liked to upload photos, but unfortunately, my computer broke this week :( (Yes, I was pissed!) So it will be a while until I upload again.

I have had my fair share of requests to be taken to America. It's either a marriage proposal or someone asking to be my friend so that I can take them to the US. Yesterday, however, I was completely caught off guard with a request that I received. I was walking on the road into town, and I greeted (in Lugwere) a group of women who were walking in the opposite direction. One of them was so excited that I could speak Lugwere and she came up to me and started speaking really fast. My Lugwere is not that good at all, so I had no idea what she was saying and just kept nodding my head and smiling. She hands me her baby, says something about America, and then walks away. I stood there like a deer caught in the headlights with a baby in my hands. I was thinking, "Wait, did she just ask me to bring her baby to America? She isn't really walking away is she? Ok, ya, she is." I had to run after her in order to give her daughter back. I was shaking my head saying, "no, no, no." I was trying so hard not to laugh, but I couldn't help it - this woman had just given me her child! Thankfully, she willingly took her back, laughed, and then walked away.

Caroline and I were in Mbale over the weekend to do our grocery shopping, and we witnessed our first instance of mob justice. We were in the taxi waiting to head home when we start to hear a lot of shouting. We look at each other wondering what is going on and look outside the window. There is a mob of people and we see one man in the center getting punched and kicked. He managed to get away and he starts running past our taxi, and a mob of twenty people start chasing him…all laughing. The man fell and tripped right beside the taxi and the mob took the opportunity to give him a few more punches and kicks. Caroline and I of course start screaming, and everyone else in the taxi is just laughing. The man finally got away and started running again, with the mob running after him. They were all hysterically laughing because I’m sure it’s some sort of adrenaline rush. Caroline and I just sat there anxious to get home.

I have had one too many run-ins with pests these past two days. I found another rat in my latrine this morning – it was in the same curled, “rock-like” position as last time. Thankfully, I knew better than to pick it up. I hit it with a broom and it scampered out. Ew. Last night, the power went out and I couldn’t see a thing in my house. As I was searching in the dark for my flashlight, I stepped on a live cockroach in my bare feet. Needless to say, I screamed like a little girl. I washed my feet and then went straight to bed in the safety of my mosquito net.

That's all I have for now. I finally got around to uploading photos:

Rafting...I look like I'm holding on for dear life

The waterfall. Now I look like I'm having a good timeI love this picture because Wade looks like he is having a terrible time

The boat (from L to R): Rob, Sam, Wade, the greatest person ever (me), Paul, Chris, Layla, and Eugene

When our boat flipped

We were almost about to tip

There we go again - and I'm falling on top of Wade

The Nile

This kayak went from the source of the Nile all the way to the end. So obviously, the guides said I had to get in it.

The neighbor kids brought me a dead bird. So thoughtful.

The rat in my latrine. Looks more like a mouse, but they call them rats here.

I decided to show the kids PhotoBooth on my computer - we had some fun

I went white water rafting on the Nile this past weekend, and it was much more successful than the last time I went – I didn’t get sick! I went with the other intern, Wade, who my friend Kiera works with in Kampala. White water rafting on the Nile is pretty crazy because it is a lot of class 5 rapids, but it is a wide river with few rocks, so you don’t have to worry too much when you are thrown out. The first rapid we went down was a 15-foot waterfall. There is a rapid called the “bad place” because you can be under water for 10 seconds before you pop back up. The water was too low though, so we didn’t go to the “bad place.” Instead, we went through “50/50”, which gets its name because 50% stay in the boat, while the other half get thrown out. We all managed to stay in, but the boat ended up on its side and we were pretty close to tipping over. The last rapid, called the Nile Special, has a 95% flip rate – so our guide gave us some guidelines. He told us to hold on, but we would most likely get thrown out and not be able to hold onto the boat. He also said that once you’re thrown out, you’d be under water for a while, but take a deep breath when you get back up because you’re about to get hit by another wave. Well…advice I probably should have been paying more attention to. We of course hit the wave and all get thrown out of the boat and the boat tips over…on top of me. There was that moment of panic where I thought “uh, now what?” I managed to get out, but of course I get out and the next wave hits me and I swallow a ton of water. Yummy. Of course I finally come out of the rapid simultaneously coughing up water and laughing. Overall, it was a great trip. I was so sunburned on my thighs and I am still in pain (I put on SPF 70 too!!). I have been working on the resource room for the school that I work at in an effort to get teachers motivated to add to the room. I made a math bingo for 60 students, which took forever! I have also made posters to be used as examples for learning aids that teachers can hang in their classrooms. Classrooms in most of the schools are completely bare. I am also putting together binders of fun activities teachers can do in class in order to make lesson plans less boring. My counterpart wants me to set up a workshop in one of the upcoming weeks to teach the teachers how to use the resources that I have started to put together. On Tuesday I visited two schools with my counterpart in order to observe classes and to see how the school was doing with PIASCY (Presidential Initiative on Aids Strategy for Communication to Youth) and SFI (School Family Initiative). SFI is a relatively new program initiated by the government as a complement to the US-AID funded Unity. SFI aims to create families within the school in order to provide guidance to students that do not have a strong support network at home. The students are divided up among the teachers, who serve as their parents. They have a family name and they meet once a week to discuss issues they might be having at home or school. So how did the two schools fare in our observations? Not so good. Both schools had no records of doing any PIASCY related activities this past term and neither school had started the SFI. I was only able to observe classes at the first school we visited, and the lessons were...interesting. I asked to see the teachers’ schemes of work and lesson plans (which are required to be made by the teachers) – neither had them. The first lesson was P6 Science, and it took me about 10 minutes to figure out what the actual topic the teacher was covering. He was covering Milk Products, which include: ice cream, powdered milk, evaporated milk, skimmed milk, butter, and cheez. Yes, that’s right, cheez. I asked to see a student’s notebook in order to look through what they have covered in the past and to see if the teacher is grading their work. Well, the teacher is grading their work, but I discovered the students had done this same exact lesson a week before. Everything that was written on the board had already been written verbatim the week before – and the students were still copying it again! I was shocked. In America, students would have immediately called a teacher out. Not here. I am sure the teacher had done this lesson in order to make me think his students were really smart and increase class participation. (When I asked him about it after class he got really embarrassed and started to mumble an excuse. I just let it go and said that next time I wanted to see a new lesson). Lessons are only supposed to be 40 minutes long, but the teacher went for 60 minutes before the next teacher finally cut him off to begin his own lesson. Therefore, the P6 Math class I observed was cut short. He did a relatively good job for the shortened time frame, until he split up the class for group work. He divided the class into 3 groups of 27 students to solve one problem each. The problems were along the lines of “What is 14 squared?” As you can see, it is not that effective to get 27 students to work together in order to solve this problem. After observing the lessons, I had to talk with the teachers about their performance and give them feedback. I have a form to fill out which gives a score to the teachers, and I felt pretty awful handing them a score of 20/50. I worked with both teachers to come up with different teaching methods for their next classes and I stressed the importance of lesson plans and making a scheme of work. I am returning next week to the school in order to observe their classes again and I have to fill out another progress report. My counterpart will be checking on the progress of PIASCY and SFI within the schools, and hopefully they have made more progress. At the second school we visited I was looking over the enrollment records and I noticed that a significant amount of students were dropping out. P1 had an enrollment of 110 boys and 120 girls, while P7 had 21 boys and 7 girls. I asked the head teacher why so many students, especially girls, drop out as the move up in Primary School. He told me that a lot of girls get pregnant and have to leave school, and it has become a big problem. My counterpart then volunteered me to do sex education with the girls, which the head teacher was immediately thankful for. While I know this would be a great thing to work on, I hate to say that I am not sure I can do it without laughing. If I do end up doing the sex education, then it won’t be until next term – so I’ll have some time to work on my maturity.

I hope you all had a great 4th of July - I wish I could have been back home for a BBQ at the Knaptons. I miss you Steve, Penny and Sara!! (Happy Steven? That's two shout outs now.)

I woke up the other night at 3am to what I thought was another rainstorm. It was not until I heard my neighbors excited shouting that I realized it was not raindrops pounding on my roof, but white ants. My neighbors were all running outside with buckets in order to collect the white ants – a real treat here in Uganda. When the rainy season begins, white ants come out and are attracted to light bulbs. People run out to collect, roast, and eat them. They are not actually white, but they get their name from their white wings. I did not partake in the collection of the white ants, but instead, stayed hidden in my mosquito net and tried to fall back asleep. I had to sweep up thousands of wings in my house and porch the next morning; confirmation once again that it was not a rainstorm. My neighbor Betty invited me over for dinner the next day to try the white ants. I know that these are a real delicacy, but I am not quite so sure how I feel about them. They didn’t necessarily taste bad, but they did not look that tasty. It was a crunchy, salty, meaty combo…and all I could think was “I’m eating ants.” I, however, put on a smile and raved about how delicious they were. Have a look for yourself…

Last week while on a run, I met a man, Gowa, who asked me to check out his Community Health Center that he was starting in Namukalo Village. Namukalo is in the Budaka District, and about a 15-minute bike ride from my house. The students were taking midterm exams all weeks, so I didn’t have much going on. I visited the Health Centre and talked with Gowa for a while about his plans and project proposal. He started the health center because there are a total of 1,432 people infected with HIV/AIDS in Budaka. Out of those 1,432 people, 160 adults and 375 children are infected within Namukalo Village. The Gowa Aramanzan Community Health Center (G.A.C.H.C) was started in order to provide basic first aid to the community and HIV/AIDS education. In addition, many of the households are poor and lack good nutrition, so he is working to provide the resources for small income generating projects. I am going to be working with him at least once a week and help him get the center going. I am going to help him with his budget and come up with ways to make the Center self-sustainable. He told me that the reason that HIV/AIDS is spreading so rapidly in the village is because the men don’t believe in using condoms. Hence, one of his top priorities is HIV/AIDS education, especially within the schools. I think I need to introduce those condom slogans to the men of the village like “Don’t be silly, protect your willy” or “No glove, no love.” I’m not sure how culturally appropriate they are, but I don’t really care – I want to smack some sense into these men. I had a meeting with my counterpart and the head teachers of the 25 schools I will be working with. My counterpart had each head teacher write down three expectations of a Peace Corps Volunteer. I am glad that he did this because we were able to clear up some misconceptions at the very beginning. While most of the expectations were legitimate, we did get a few that were a little out of my realm of work… I expect her to: 1. Take me to her land and give me a tour. 2. Improve our standard of living 3. Feed our students 4. Find American friends for all of the students 5. Build us new classrooms Thankfully my counterpart made it clear that I am here as a teacher, and just because I am an American, it does not mean I have an endless supply of money. Power has been sporadic for the past week, and I have not had power for the past two days! I am currently in Mbale charging all of my electronics, as well as the cellphones of eight teachers. Cross your fingers for me that our power comes back soon…

The church next to my school

This is one way of carrying eggs...

My sitting room - I rearranged the furniture and put up photos

My gourmet kitchen

I have the best parents and sister!! Willysha enjoying the goodies of my 4 care packages

My whale kiddie pool! I stand in this to bathe...no joke. Now water doesn't get everywhere :)

The road to my school

My best friend Kiera is doing an internship in Kampala. She spent the weekend with me, and this is us making chapatti pizza. Gourmet cooks like our moms!

Every morning I find rocks and pieces of coal in my pit latrine. There is also a lot of rat poop scattered around, so I attribute the mess to rats running around in the rafters. On Saturday morning, it was relatively dark in my latrine, but I noticed that there was a rock in the corner. I picked up the rock in order to throw it outside, only to find out that it was not actually a rock. Imagine my surprise when I picked up something furry that squeaked. Yes…I picked up a dying rat! I screamed, dropped the rat, and quickly ran out of my latrine to wash my hands for thirty minutes. I then contemplated what I should do. Would it somehow crawl its way out of the latrine to die? Or would it die and attract maggots? I really did not want to go back and get rid of the rat, but I knew I had no choice. Thankfully, my neighbor had heard me scream and came to check up on me. Betty was nice enough to grab a broom and sweep out the dying rat – and with each hit of the broom, the rat and I simultaneously squealed. Betty thought my reaction was hilarious, and it did not take her long to tell the story to the rest of my school. One thing I have learned since being here is that as a white person, I am a sort of celebrity. Everyone knows everything that I do. I have even had random strangers take pictures of me with their camera phones when I’m out in Budaka town. When I throw out my trash, it’s a free for all. The kids swarm the trash pit in order to look through my trash bag. It is a little strange to go to my neighbors and find my empty can of Sour Cream and Onion Pringles being used as a pencil holder. I finally heard from my counterpart!! He called me on Tuesday and asked if I was around because he was at the school. I was in my pajamas and in the middle of laundry...great timing. So I had a meeting with Cosmas (my counterpart), Sister Goretti, and Steven (the head teacher) in my sweat pants, a baggy t-shirt, and messy hair. I looked very presentable. Cosmas looked very skinny, so I think he was actually really sick. He was pleased, however, that I managed to start my own work in his absence. Next week I will finally go to my coordinating center and meet with all the head teachers of the schools in my catchment area. I am going to be getting more work now because I will start to visit the schools and work with the teachers on lesson planning and classroom management. I am going to work with teachers to implement more critical thinking in classrooms, rather than rote memorization. As for classroom management, I am going to give teachers methods of maintaining order in classrooms with over 60 students. (Google is going to be my best friend!) My counterpart also knows that I am firmly against the caning of students, and he wants me to talk with teachers about alternative discipline methods. So I will primarily still be at St. Clare’s (the school I live at), but occasionally I will visit the other schools and meet with teachers. I still really enjoy teaching, and I have a lot of fun hanging out with students after school. The other day I tried to teach “Duck, Duck Goose” to some P4 students (I called it Lion, Lion Zebra). I am not so sure that they actually understood the game, but they had fun nonetheless! Afterwards, Claudia handed me a note, and it is by far the cutest one I have received. As I said, I'm a sort of celebrity - I receive fan mail. Claudia’s note was put in an envelope that had “love to love,” “kiss to kiss,” and “read it alone” written on it. Here is what the note said:

Dear my best friend, Your names are Teacher Nikessa. I love you so so much. My names are Akiror Claudia. I am in P-4. You are beautiful. You are brown. I can want to be your friend. Can you want to be my friend? Circle yes or no. FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY

Obviously I circled yes. Seriously, too cute! I am curious to know what “you are brown” means – she is probably referring to my amazing tan (yes, I’m being sarcastic). “For God and my Country” is Uganda’s national motto for those that were wondering. Teaching the teachers computers started out to be a more difficult task than I expected. Some of the teachers would show up to class about 45 minutes late and say, “You know us Africans, we can’t keep time.” Therefore, I usually had two different lessons going on – one for those who showed up on time, and another for the latecomers. I found a copy of Mavis Beacon, however, which has made it much easier. Now it no longer matters that teachers show up at all different times. They were so excited after I installed the program – they love how it tracks your speed and accuracy. It was like kids in a candy store when I first showed them the program, and now it is all they can talk about. I told them that if anyone can type faster than me at the end of two years, then they will get a prize. (As to what that prize will be, I’m not sure…) I ran out of water on Wednesday and I decided that for once I would go to the borehole myself. I walked outside with my jerry cans and as I passed the lower primary block (P1-P4), students rushed to grab my jerry cans from me. They actually fought over who got to hold them. I didn’t have to do any work – the students not only cut the line, but they also insisted on pumping the water! I did, however, carry the full jerry cans back to my house. I carried two 20L jerry cans at the same time because I didn’t want to make multiple trips. The students were going nuts that I could actually carry two and were all yelling “LOOK AT NIKESSA CARRY WATER!” I will say, though, my arms and shoulders felt like they were going to fall off the next day. After carrying them back to my house, I started to make my way back to the borehole to fetch the last jerry can. Students, however, were in a huge group all carrying the jerry can back to my house. I wish I had my camera at that moment because it was the cutest thing to see about eight 6 year olds trying to all carry the jerry can back to my house. I have started to send out postcards to people, so email me your addresses if you would like to get some snail mail from yours truly :)

I have a newfound love for oral hygiene products because I have discovered they can be used for so many different things! Last week I developed about 200 hundred photos to put up in my living room. I hung them all up on my wall with toothpaste. My living room was minty fresh for a few days and now I get to look at the photos of all the people I love and miss every day. Last week my power was out for four days and I really had to do my laundry. Obviously I do not need electricity to hand wash my clothes, but I iron everything because I am paranoid about mango flies. I decided to hang dry my clothes in my house. Can you guess what I used for my clothesline? Dental floss. Pretty amazing how strong that stuff is; it worked really well! I do not floss, so I am glad that I finally found a use for all of that dental floss Peace Corps provided. Last week proved to be more successful in the working department. I never did hear from my counterpart, but I have started teaching at the school where I live. As to when I will visit the school where I am supposed to work…not so sure. This is Uganda, so I have to take the initiative to make my own work. Thankfully, the school where I live needs me to teach! I am teaching P6 and P7 math three times a week for forty minutes each. The first day of teaching, I went in completely blind, which was a little nerve wrecking. Francis (one of the teachers) asked me to come visit his P6 class. After he introduced me to the class, he asked the class, “Would you like her to teach you today?” They all cheered, “YES!” So, he handed me a piece of chalk and said, “They are on long division. Good luck.” I was caught off guard and all I could think was, “I haven’t done long division since the fourth grade! Isn’t this what calculators are for?” Fortunately, I was able to remember how I was taught how to do long division and I was able to pull off the lesson. I am glad, however, that I am now able to prepare for my lessons. As Caroline says, “If you didn’t barf, poop your pants, or show up naked…it was a success.” I really like teaching so far and the students are really excited to have a mzungu as their teacher. All of my students give me their complete attention, and I even have a few teacher’s pets. I’ve gotten a few avocados and mangos, which is great. I always thought teacher’s pets were annoying, but if you are a teacher, they are pretty great. I am struggling with how students learn here – there is no critical thinking and it is all rote memorization. When I write anything on the board, they will copy it all down. If I draw a picture in order to show something, then a student will inevitably ask if they have to copy that down too. I have learned not to ask yes or no questions because the answer will always be yes. For instance:

“Do you all know how many minutes are in an hour?” In unison, they all responded, “Yes!” “Ok, how many minutes are in an hour?”Compete silence.

Students do not admit they do not know the answer to a question because they are afraid they will be caned. Also, they speak so quietly when you ask them an individual question. I have decided to bring candy to class and I will give it to the students that speak loudly and clearly! It is going to be a challenge to deal with the education system here, but I think slowly and surly I will be able to make a little bit of a difference. I am also teaching the teachers three times a week from 7PM – 9PM in the computer lab. The school has 15 computers, but they are just collecting dust because no one knows how to use them – hence the students do not get to learn either. I decided to start a class for the teachers so that they can continue to teach the students when I leave. My first lesson on Thursday was cut short because the power went out… I did not get very far in my lesson either because as soon as I started to explain the parts of the computer, the teachers asked me to write it down on the board. (I’m not kidding when I say they have to write down everything here). I wish I could make handouts, but I think from now on I will write down the notes on the chalkboard and they can copy it down after class. I am teaching again today and the lesson is: turning the computer on and off. I am not joking. It was a little crazy to me at first because I am so used to everyone knowing at least the basics of a computer. The students are really excited that I am here and I am always invited to their dorms. I sit on one of the bunk beds, and 50 students surround me and ask me questions about America.

“Are there really flying houses in America?”“Do you eat matoke? Do you eat posho?” – They are surprised when I say no.“Do people have HIV/AIDS there too?”“Can you take me to America?”“Is everyone rich?”“Are there black people in America?”“Do they cane their students in America?”“Is it true you eat snakes?” – Where they go this, not so sure. They must be watching Survivor.“Is there really a High School Musical?”

And my personal favorite…

“Sing us a song!” - I am sure some of you just laughed out loud thinking of me trying to sing to 50 students. I have not done it, yet. I always say I cannot think of a song to sing (which is true). Also, we all know I do not have a good voice, I fear I will make them all deaf. I don’t think I am going to get out of it though. I think after the first song I sing, they will no longer ask. It was only a matter of time...I finally got sick. I think it was from drinking untreated water. When I went to the P6 dorm, one of the students gave me juice, which she diluted with water. I didn’t really think anything of it until the next day when I was sprinting to the latrine. All I could think was, “You idiot, they probably don’t treat their water!” In all honesty though, I probably would have still drank the juice if the thought had crossed my mind when it was handed to me. I wouldn’t want to be rude… What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, right? Plus, I am fine now! I hope you all had a great Memorial Day Weekend two weeks ago – I definitely had my first wave of homesickness not being able to go to Laguna to see the Knapton family. I could have used a weekend of lying by the pool and a good BBQ. (There you go Steve, you got your shout out…)

I wish I could write that I started teaching, the students loved me, and I changed the world. This is Uganda, however, and things don’t tend to go as planned. For instance, if you have a staff meeting at 10am, it won’t start until 3pm (this is not an exaggeration). On Monday, I had a feeling that I wouldn’t really start to work. I called my counterpart about ten times and he did not pick up. I had no idea how to get to my school that I am supposed to be working at, so I just hung out at the school where I live. I would say only 1/8 of the students actually arrived, but I was told they would all be there by next week. Tuesday I finally got a hold of my counterpart, who said his phone was broken and he has “some” malaria. We planned to meet on Thursday, but that fell through because he is still sick. I spent the past week introducing myself to the few students that did arrive to school. We played soccer (I’m awful), volleyball, and I went running with some of the older students (they killed me!). I know that all the people I studied abroad are thinking, “Oh TIA.” They all know what it’s like to work in Africa where time means nothing and there is no structure. For everyone else, you are probably wondering how I can possibly handle working here. I won’t lie; it’s frustrating at times, especially when I know I could be doing something productive. I have learned to just roll with it and I always bring a book to a meeting because I know it won’t start on time. I am starting to create my own work too while I wait to get my teaching schedule sorted. I am teaching PE in the afternoons even though it’s not technically on the schedule, but hey, anything goes here! I also have started to work on the resource room for the school where I am assigned to work. I remember my counterpart telling me that it is used as a staff room and there are no resources. I have started making a math bingo and researching other learning aids. If any of you have any ideas, then email me! Hopefully, I will start teaching next week, but we will see. I think all of the students will have arrived, so that’s a plus.

After my mom heard this story, all she said was, “I knew that would happen.” So maybe you won’t be surprised with my stupidity. I have a gas stove that hooks up to a propane tank – like a big camping stove. I usually turn off the propane first when I am finished because I have a fear that I will forget, and then I turn off the knob on the stove that regulates the flame. Well, the other day I was cooking on a different burner than I usually do. After about 15 seconds of cooking, there is a huge pop and a fireball erupts on my stove. Guess who forgot to turn the knob to “off” on the other burner. Yup…that was me. I jumped about five feet backwards and screamed. The funniest part, however, was that there were little kids watching me cook through the window. (I’m white, so I’m automatically interesting. Kids are constantly watching me do everything). As soon as it exploded they all screamed and ran away. I actually think one of the little ones started to cry. They haven’t been peeking through my kitchen window anymore, which is actually quite nice. Regardless, I will try to be more careful. I don’t have much else to tell you – I just wanted to post so I could upload a few pictures. I have spent the last week lounging around and playing basketball at Ryan’s school. School starts again next week, so my three-week vacation is coming to an end. I was enjoying being lazy, but I guess it’s time to get to work now. I’ll try to update you after my first week as a teacher in Uganda…eek! Also, I updated my contact information. I have a new address now - I know you are all dying to send me some awesome care packages :)

A typical Ugandan meal

Loading all of our luggage to move to site

Josh and me

Ryan and me - super photogenic

Swearing In Ceremony

Nikki and meWe're PCVs!!

A giant spider that I found right by my door

CRAB

The Nile River

Great sunset in Soroti

The gross beetles in Soroti

A great way to transport chickens

Meat on a stick

Humongous jack fruit

I am sorry that it has taken me so long to make another post, but I haven’t been able to access Internet lately. I just got back from a four-day workshop on the new P5 curriculum in Soroti, but I had to cut it short to two days…for several reasons. While I did meet a lot of people at the workshop – it turned out to be a series of bad events. Bethany and I have the same supervisor, so thankfully she had to go to the same workshop. It definitely made the situations more bearable and we were able to find some humor in all of it. So let’s go through my delightful trip to Soroti… shall we? As soon as we walk into the dorm room we are staying in, Bethany asks, “So Aubrey, you’re over that fear of lizards, right?” (For those who do not know this, I have an irrational fear of lizards. I have gotten over it though since I have a lot of geckos in my house). So I replied, “ya, why?” She points under my bed and there is a huge lizard. Actually, no, this qualified as a dinosaur. In fact, the more I think about it, I’m certain it was a descendant of a stegosaurus. I jumped to the other side of the room and shrieked, “OH MY GOD!! No, that has to leave.” Bethany got a stick and she tried chasing it out of the room. It ended up running into the closet and she shut the door. After five minutes of hearing it to try to get out, she tried once again to chase it out. Eventually she was successful, and I breathed a sigh of relief. At this PTC there were also gigantic beetles that were bigger than ping-pong balls. When they walked on the floor, they sounded like wind up toys. Seriously, they were the grossest things and they were everywhere. The first night, while we were waiting for dinner to be served, Bethany and I tried to play some games to take our mind off of how hungry we were. During the game, I realize Bethany is no longer looking at me and is staring at something and trying not to laugh. “What?” I ask. She kind of shakes her head and says, “Mmm…” So I follow her eyes and look down at my dress where there is an enormous bug just chillin’. My immediate reaction was to jump up and yell “OMG!” Of course the Ugandans found this hilarious and all started laughing. Great first impression on my part! Later that night I took a shower and I had some money in my bra for safekeeping. I left it on the ledge and told Bethany not to let me forget about it. Of course, I left it – 150,000 shillings, which is the equivalent to $65. I remembered an hour or two later and it was no longer there. I was a little annoyed with myself, but I figure that is about a month’s salary for teachers, so someone got really lucky. During the workshop, I was kind of cranky because they would feed us late and they always ran out of bottled water. As a result, Bethany got super sick (which is why we had to leave early). The last night we were there I woke up so thirsty, and I did not know what to do. I went over to the bathroom (that smelled like an outhouse even though there was actual plumbing). I looked at the tap and in desperation drank out of it. I know what you’re all thinking – that’s a one-way ticket to diarrhea-ville. (I’m not sick …. yet!). We left the next day because Bethany was really sick and they wanted me to take her to get treatment. We boarded the bus and had to wait two hours for it to fill up, which was frustrating because we just wanted to get out of there. Some guy came on the bus selling samosas in a plastic bags and I immediately wanted one. I asked Bethany if she thought that was a “poop attack in a bag,” but she told me to go for it since I already drank tap water. They were delicious, and definitely put me in a better mood. (Again, still not sick!). Site has been really good so far, and I’m really enjoying my time. School doesn’t start for another week – so I have spent my time with my neighbors and riding my bike to hang out with Caroline and Ryan. I wish my life here could be filmed like the Truman Show because most of the time I am sure I look ridiculous. Let’s take me bathing for example: I no longer use my bathing room because I don’t like having to go outside to get to it. Also, chickens tend to get in there and poop and it smells like pee no matter how much bleach I use. So I bucket bathe in an extra room in my house. I stand in a basin; have my bucket of water in front of me, and then a bucket behind me to catch any excess water that I splash. I make a mess and usually have to mop up all the water when I am done. I am sure my neighbors are talking about how I walk to the latrine – I stomp loudly and slowly survey the area for snakes. I’m sure I look silly to the Ugandans, but come on…SPITTING COBRAS?! I think I’m being just plain reasonable. Everything I do takes about an hour, from bathing to cooking. Hence, my diet now consists of a spoonful of peanut butter and mangos. (Or I mooch off of my neighbors for dinner). I usually have to chase a chicken or wild turkey out of my house once a day. Caroline and I usually find ourselves calling each other, laughing, saying “Is this really our life?” The answer is yes. I went running the other day, which was awesome being able to see more of the countryside. At one point I had seventeen kids following me – all barefoot! Amazingly, they all kept up and they were giggling to each other the whole way. Either I’m really slow and out of shape or I totally see why Africans are always winning marathons. I also did a workout from Krav Maga one day outside. Pushups, sit-ups, jump sprawls – etc. My neighbors came outside to see what I was doing, and then some kids joined in. It was pretty cute, but the teenagers were better than me. I was dying and they kept cheering me on, “Come on Nikessa, let’s keep going!” Nikessa is my Lugwere name that I was given. Now the teachers want me to teach PE, which I am excited about. Well, that’s all I have for now. I will try to post more frequently! My next post will probably be about how I have a parasite from tap water and the samosas. Get excited for that one!

It looks like my two years in Uganda will be spent overcoming my fear of snakes. I’m not sure why no one mentioned the prevalence of snakes in the Eastern region the past two times I was here, but I guess they knew there was a possibility I wouldn’t return. I officially moved to my site on Friday and as soon as we arrived to my place Bethany says, “Hey Aubrey, I don’t mean to freak you out or anything, but take a look at that.” I look to where she is pointing and there is snakeskin lying in my garden area. The look on my face was sheer horror as I said, “Um, there aren’t supposed to be snakes in Africa.” The Ugandans could not stop laughing and they were making fun of how scared I was. Francis (one of my neighbors and a teacher at St. Clares) said I shouldn’t be scared because it was obviously a small snake that left the skin. I said I didn’t care because a black mamba could kill me big or small. He said not to worry because there are no black mambas in this region, only cobras and puff adders. Oh right, like that makes me feel better! I was then warned that I should watch out for “night cobras” and to be careful because they can spit too. Looks like I will be utilizing the night bucket after all. The times I have braved the pit latrine at night, I usually come back sweating because I am so nervous. I’m sorry that I have been incommunicado for the past week, but I was busy after we moved out of homestay and my Internet does not work at site. This post might be kind of long, so I hope you don’t get bored with me! Last Monday we all moved out of our home stays; and I was so sad to say bye to my family. They were really great to me and I felt like a part of the family. Monday morning was hectic because we had to load the luggage of 44 people onto a truck and we have all accumulated more things during these two months. We were put up in a hotel about an hour outside of Kampala and it was so nice. There was a pool, hot showers, and good food. I guess Peace Corps likes to give you a little luxury before you move out into the bush. After we checked in, we were supposed to go shopping and take a tour of the Peace Corps office in Kampala. Unfortunately, the “Walk-Out” protests that have been happening across Uganda broke out in violence. There were riots, tear gas, and rubber bullets – so roads were blocked and Kampala was pretty crazy. As a result, we were not allowed to leave our hotel. (Side note: For the past two weeks there have been “walk-outs” as a protest to the rising food and gas prices. People walk to work every Monday and Thursday. There have been a few instances of violence, so we have to take extra caution.) Anyway, we were all kind of happy we did not have to drive all the way back to Kampala in the first place. We spent the day laying by the pool and eating the good food. We were a little ashamed of ourselves that we were enjoying ourselves at a nice hotel, while only an hour all hell was breaking loose. It’s like something from Hotel Rwanda. Thankfully, everything settled down and we were allowed to leave the hotel the next day. We went to the American Embassy for a presentation by the Ambassador, Deputy Ambassador, Security Representative, and two people from USAID. It was really interesting and now I think I might want to pursue a career in the Foreign Service after Peace Corps. Wednesday we had an all day workshop with our supervisors, which was really boring for the most part. It mostly covered everything we have learned the past nine weeks and most of us were just anxious to be done. Thursday we were officially sworn in and the ceremony was at the house of the Deputy Ambassador. This officially sealed the deal of why I (and the rest of my group) want to be in the Foreign Service – the house was amazing. The swearing in wasn’t long and there were delicious hors d'oeuvres afterwards. There was a basketball hoop in the driveway and a few of us got a game of knock-out going. I am sure I looked ridiculous playing in my dress, but I won three times. I guess I still have my high school basketball skills. I moved in to my site on Friday, which went smoothly. Thankfully, Bethany and my supervisor had a car, so he was able to drive our luggage and us to our sites. It was great to not be squished into a taxi and our travel time was cut down. We ran into some terrible traffic along the way, but our driver followed behind the Ministry of Defense car that had its sirens on and we got to bypass a 2-hour traffic line. Our supervisor said that we only got away with it because Bethany and I are white and people automatically think we’re important. I guess being an mzungu really has its perks sometimes. Since being at site, I have spent my time get settled and introducing myself to the people in the community. I spent Easter Sunday scrubbing my house and latrine from head to toe. I think my grandma would be proud by the amount of bleach I used! Sister Goretti stopped to tell me “well done” and then invited me over to the convent for Easter dinner. Sunday night was probably one of my favorite experiences thus far in Uganda. When I get to the convent, Sister Goretti says, “So we will eat dinner, have some cake, maybe some dancing, and then if you feel like it we’ll set up a bed for you and you can sleep here.” Dinner was amazing and the cake was even better (it was pumpkin, so it tasted like pumpkin bread with icing!). There was no dancing, but there was some really good wine. We had a huge storm that night, and they all kept telling me it was a sign of good luck and a good visitor. They didn’t want me to walk back to my house in the rain (it’s about 50 ft away), so they set up a bed for me. I got my own bedroom and bathroom! It was a pretty great sleepover. I am really enjoying my site so far and I think it is going to be a great two years. I have been riding my bike a lot to meet up with Ryan and Caroline. Ryan also informed me today that I have a fan club with the boda boda drivers in town. He said that when he went to Budaka they hounded him about the “other mzungu” and asked him how they could get me. Awesome. I always love walking by them and they shout “mzungu mzungu, just my size!” It’s a great pick up line if you ask me, but I’m not sure on its success rate. Anyway, that is all I have for now – and I will try my best to update as often as I can. It’s difficult with the limited Internet access and the nearest cyber café is 30 minutes away. Hopefully, I will be able to find an Internet provider that works way out here!

I am finished with training that is. I cannot believe that I have been in Uganda for over two months already. I am so happy that training is over with, and I can finally start working. This week we will be in Kampala to finish up some last minute things. We get to visit the embassy, go shopping, have a workshop with our counterpart, and then we are sworn in on Thursday. We leave for our sites on Friday, which is going to be interesting considering all of the stuff I have! I had my language exam last Thursday, and I passed!! I took it a day early because the guy giving the exam was testing two different language groups. The test went way better than my practice exam, which was nice. I did run into one slight problem during the exam. The tester asked me what activities I liked to do during my free time. One of the activities I said was play soccer – clearly not true, but I knew how to say it in Lugwere. Well instead of asking about the other activities I listed, he asked me questions about soccer. He asked me what my favorite team was and all I could think was, “Oh crap, do I even know any soccer teams?” I said the LA Galaxy because it was the first thing to come to mind. Then he asked why. This is when I decided to get creative. I proceeded to talk about David Beckham and how I thought he was good looking and I wanted to marry him. He could not stop laughing, and I think he finally realized I don’t know anything about soccer. We had a home stay thank you for all of our families on Saturday. Each language group had to prepare a ten-minute and a five-minute presentation. People did a whole range of things: taught the Macarena, chicken dance, electric slide, while others sang songs in their language. A few people talked about what states they were from and had a power point presentation. Now of course CRAB (Caroline, Ryan, Aubrey, and Bethany) did not take this seriously, and went in a different direction. I came up with the idea of doing “summer camp skits” for our ten-minute presentation. Our first skit was called the “shoe psychic.” I’m not sure how many of you remember this skit (or if you even do at all), but it goes pretty much like this: Caroline was the shoe psychic and we went up to her and she smelled each of our shoes and would tell us our “future.” Things like you’re going to be rich, live until you're 100, etc. With Kenneth she said “You are about to pass four students on a very important language exam”. Well, after that we called up Kevin to try out the shoe psychic. He took off his shoe, Caroline smelled it, and said, “You are about to go on a very long journey.” She threw it to me, and I then proceeded to chuck it as far as I could outside of the conference hall. Pretty brilliant if you ask me, and the Ugandans seemed to think so too. Our second skit was called “Captain of the Ship.” Ryan was the captain, and I ran up to him yelling, “Captain, a ship is coming!”

Ryan: “How many guns and how many men?”Me: “20 guns and 20 men”Ryan: “Bring me my red sweater so they won’t see me bleed.”

Bethany followed next, and the scene proceeded the same way, except she said “50 men and 50 guns”. He still asked for his red sweater so they wouldn’t see him bleed. Caroline went last, but it went like this:

Caroline: “Captain a ship is coming!”Ryan: “How many guns and how many men?”Caroline: “100 guys and 100 men.”Ryan: “Mmmm…bring me my brown pants.”

I mean really, we should be in show biz – I think our performances were Oscar worthy. How we managed to actually keep straight faces is beyond me. People laughed, so that was good! I still can’t believe we performed these in front of our host families. For the five-minute presentation we introduced ourselves in Lugwere and then we individually thanked our families. Bethany then read a speech that Kenneth wrote, but cracked up laughing the whole time. The rest of us didn’t help either because we were snorting trying to contain ourselves. The speech started with “When you touch a rock, you touch the past. When you touch a flower, you touch the present. And when you touch a child, you touch the future.” Not our finest moment on stage because we couldn’t take it seriously…whoops! I am really sad to be leaving my home stay. My host mom has showered me with gifts: a dress, a mat for my house, a battery powered lamp, hot sauce (she knows I put it on everything here!), and tea. I guess it’s safe to say that she is going to miss me too. I have just been hanging out with the family today; I even went to church at 6:30 am!!! My mom asked me to go because it’s Palm Sunday, and I felt bad turning her down. It was packed in the church, and of course I was the only white person. I was stared at the whole time and I didn’t know what was going on because it was in Luganda. The singing was really pretty though, so that kept me entertained. I have to attempt to pack up my things now. I wrote this blog post in an attempt to procrastinate, even though I had no news! I am not sure how my Internet service will be at site, so it may be a while before my next post.