Oh, what I have been up to. That is a good question. After a couple semesters of not having much to do, I decided to head over to the secondary school and offer to teach. Well, it just so happens that they just had nine computers donated, but no teacher! Talk about my lucky day! Despite the many horror stories I have heard about teaching computers, I was psyched to finally have something to do and to work with secondary students instead of unmotivated teachers. Oh, boy. If only I had known what I was getting myself into. On day one we had already broken one computer and by “we” I mean some overanxious student who has never touched a computer in his/her life and won’t stop pushing buttons. By the time I came back from America two more were broken. Now, we have six computers and my classes have usually around sixty kids in them. I’m sure you are thinking, well why don’t you just break them into groups? Well, even that is a disaster because they are so excited to use the computers that they lie their faces off about whether or not they have already studied. By week four I am starting to get it under control, but that’s only when the power is on. I would say the power is off way more than it is on. Many days I come in the morning and sit around waiting all day for the power to come back. Needless to say, I real a lot of books. While teaching computers feels like punishment, I really enjoy the staff at the secondary school. They are much more educated than those at the primary school so we can talk about meaningful things and we understand each other because they know english well. You have no idea how nice that is after not having it for a year and a half.

The other day my friend Michael was home from boarding school and came to visit me. He started telling me about how the girls dorm at the school was having some trouble with cannibalism. Cannibalism in the girls dorm? I am intrigued. He went on to say that a couple of girls had woke up to find parts of their hair cut off. So of course, I question him about this wondering why he thinks these girls are cannibals. He says that some people in this area are cannibals, but once they go away to boarding school they have the witch doctor put a spell on them so they will not act in that way while at school. However, sometimes the spell wears off, as it did with these girls. He begins to explain that these people usually go around digging up dead bodies to eat and that he has heard them outside his window at night. Apparently, when they moved past his window they made a sound similar to that of a helicopter landing. He tells me that they have a few sharp teeth that come out to make eating the bodies a bit easier and that they only eat at night. I say, “Michael, are you telling me these people are vampires and if so, have you ever read Twilight, because if not you should borrow my books?” He said that he has seen some vampire movies and he was very scared because those are the kinds of people that live in the village. Hmmmm....

The next day I went to school and I sought out the director of studies to ask him about the problems in the girls dorm. He gets super awkward and tells me not to worry because they are taking care of it. After a bit of prying I get out of him that one girl in the dorm is performing witchcraft and that they are going to find out that day who she is. The following day he reports to me that they girls have identified the girl performing witchcraft and have sent her away from the boarding section, but not before calling the parents of the girl to come to the school. I expected that when they were told their girl was being accused of witchcraft that they would fight it, but they just said, “We had no idea she was performing witchcraft.” and took her home! I would like to know what the real story is. I bet she is a sleepwalker or talks in her sleep.

One day Carol was talking about how one of my neighbors was mad at the other for something, so he went to the witch doctor and had a spell put on him. For months, the normally hardworking neighbor, did nothing but sit around. The village is now scared of the neighbor who “put the spell on the other.”

In other witchcraft news, I heard on the radio the other day about this women who’s village has blamed her of performing witchcraft and killing many people in the village. Apparently, the last straw was when her neighbor was found “mysteriously dead.” The village destroyed all of her crops, killed all of her animals, and burned her house. Now she has no money, no where to go, and children to feed. These people do not take witchcraft lightly.

I love my dogs and I am more than happy I have them, but Ugandans and my dogs drive me bonkers. My village likes Mugezi and they are usually pretty good to her, but poor Fence has a rough life here. Mugezi and Fence were both teased quite a bit as pups. I used to find kids barking at him or throwing rocks at him for no reason. Now, Fence has some aggression issues, to say the least, and I feel my village is taking full advantage of it. When I was recently in the states for Ashley’s wedding, Fence bit a child. Now, of course my dogs are vaccinated against rabies and I have proof (as a side note they are the only vaccinated dogs in the village), but the family wants their child to be vaccinated anyway. It cost me fifty bucks, but I felt so bad for the kid that I didn’t really care. However, then they want ten dollars (I know it doesn’t sound like much, but its a lot of money for a family in the village) for the witch doctor. Now, I am annoyed. I paid for you to go all the way to the district hospital and now you want me to pay for some herbal remedy from the witch doctor that was never prescribed (this is where I lack in cultural understanding)? Not to mention there is no way the witch doctor costs ten bucks. That is outrageous for a local remedy. They were of course lying. Then, they tell me that he isn’t able to eat some foods and that they want money for rice. Now I am just plain mad. I loved this kid and now they are trying to get all the money they can out of me. I understand that my dog bite him and that I am responsible, but I did more than my part. It is when things like this happen that I question what I am doing here. I know, I shouldn’t complain too much because if this would have happened in America it would have been much different, but the point is that if the dog would have happened to belong to an Ugandan not much would have been said about it or they would only have had to pay for the witch doctor and not ten bucks. I guess sometimes I feel that some of these people don’t appreciate that I have left my family, friends, and culture to help them. Its like no matter what I do its not enough because I am not giving away all of my money.

Last week I am out with my two dogs, Carol’s dog, and another neighbor’s pup in a large open field where animals graze. It is the only place I can take Fence to let him run free (without any kids around) for a couple of hours before having to tie him back up. The dogs were playing and swimming for about an hour when they take off towards some sheep. I don’t think anything of it. My dogs will usually bark at them and maybe chase them around a bit, but that’s about it. So, I see them chase them a bit and then they are down in a hole and it looks like they are digging. When I reach the hole I realize that the two other dogs are eating a baby sheep. The baby is alive and just laying there while they have taken a piece of meet out of its behind the size of a baseball. I try getting the dogs away, but these are dogs who are not fed regularly and definitely have never had meat. They finally run away, but start chasing and trying to eat other sheep. While there are many men around and I am screaming in a panic trying to get all of the dogs away from the sheep, everyone is just watching me. Finally, my friend Tony heard me and came to help. It was awful. I had no idea what to do. It seemed like it would be better to just kill the poor thing, but it wasn’t mine and I felt too guilty. So, I carried him home. Of course I arrive at Momma Carol’s, covered in blood and holding a sheep with a large hole in it, during the primary school’s break. Everyone looks at me and says, “Nalubega, your dog ate this sheep.” I wanted to scream! It wasn’t my dog. I told them probably fifty times that it was Carol’s dog and the neighbor’s dog, but still all I hear is “Fence has bad manners. He likes to eat animals and bite children.” Ahhhhhh! He only wants to bite your kids because your kids throw rocks at him and beat him for no reason and he isn’t the one who attacked the sheep! Did he want to eat it after it was half slaughtered, probably, but your dog would too! We decided to call our neighbor who is a vet and he came to see what he could do. Some of my good students were around and we decided to clean the wound and sew him back up. While this whole situation was awful, at least it was educational for the kids. They have seen more animal surgeries in the past year (the spaying and neutering of Mugezi and Fence and this) because of me. Anyway, I assume that the owner is not going to want the sheep. It is in bad condition and it might not be able to use its behind leg again and it would take a lot of time and energy to keep it alive. So, I figure I will buy the sheep from the man and then give it to Momma Carol to take care of.

I went to town to buy a baby bottle to feed it with and while I was away the owner comes to Momma Carol’s house. Apparently he was really mad because someone said that my dogs had attacked his sheep. However, Momma Carol told him that it wasn’t my dog, but that it was her dog. As soon as he finds out that it was her dog he calms down and all of the sudden decides he wants the sheep and about twelve dollars. If it would have been my dog he would have demanded much more. For the life of me I cannot figure out why he wanted to bother with this sheep. Later I find out that he is the care taker of that sheep and not the owner. However, he took the twelve dollars as a bribe. He told Momma Carol that if she gave him the money that he would tell the owner that he found the sheep that way and that a wild animal must have attacked it. He would also claim that he is the one that paid for it’s medical treatment so the owner will have to pay him back when in reality I am the one that paid. Momma Carol went along with it because it would probably cost her less money this way. This sort of thing is normal in Uganda so I didn’t really think anything about it, but then I saw the care taker yesterday and found out that the sheep had died. I couldn’t understand why it died, but either they decided to kill it or they never bothered giving it its antibiotic. It doesn’t annoy me that I wasted that money, but that that sheep had to go through so much pain only to be left to die later and all because the care taker wanted money. However, I have learned never to go anywhere in this village with someone else’s dog.

In other news, I only here for five more months! I cannot believe how fast the time has gone by and I cannot imagine what it is going to be like to leave this place. Especially the people who have made my time here worth the while!

Okay, my computer is going to die, so I am not proofreading! Forgive me!

Peace and love,

Autumn

There is an old Peace Corps saying that says:

“Volunteers who go to South America come back to the States politically active, volunteers who go to Southeast Asia return spiritually aware and curious, and volunteers who go to Africa?-They come back laughing.”

About a year and a half ago I showed up in Uganda with a certain naivety and much excitement for the adventure I was about to begin. I had the hope of improving the lives of those in which I would be working and truly making a difference. I was surprised when I met volunteers who had been in country for over a year; they seemed like they didn’t want to be there or that they felt like they were not making a difference. Many of them drank a lot and others seemed to be unnessesaryily rude to the locals. It was incredibly baffling to me to find these qualities in a Peace Corps volunteer.

There were stories of volunteers keeping bottles of local whisky under their pillow at night. Stories of volunteers yelling at locals for any number of reasons. Stories of volunteers seeking anger management. My friend and I used to laugh about these things thinking these volunteers were crazy. However, now, after a year and a half, we get it. We understand the anger and the reasons why these people may want to drink.

I don’t know why it has taken me so long to understand. Perhaps it has taken this long to truly understand what is going on around me. Perhaps it is the large amount of failures and the few successes that have led me to reevaluate what I am doing in this foreign land away from my family and friends.

I know I haven’t wrote about some of my challenges that I feel have made me become somehow “crazy” so I will take the time to do so now.

Recently one of my best friends in the village was accused of beating his half brother. However, during the time of the supposed attack he was with me and about ten other villagers. At first I thought nothing of it. There is no way Ntale could be found guilty with all of these witnesses. I went to the police to see the report made by the brother. I explained to the police that Ntale was with me and others and that I would pay for his transport to come talk to all the witnesses; he told me he would. Two days later on the day we had decided he would come, I went to pick him up. He tells me he will not come and that there is no doubt that Ntale is guilty. That we are welcome to take the case to court, but that he is going to lose. He says that I should just pay the brother money. He then shut a door in my face. At this point the police man had never talked to anyone but the brother. Clearly he had been paid by the brother.

A couple days later Ntale decides to leave because his only other option is to go to jail. The police show up at my house before seven in the morning looking for him telling me I need to find him and bring him in. I was irate. They want me to do their job for them?

So, Ntale has been gone for a month now. Just the other day I was told that the brother “knows” that Ntale is living with me and that he is going to bring the police to search my house. Now, this is just the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. I live in a duplex with five other teachers and people are always around my house. Wouldn’t a rational person think that someone would have seen him in the last month? I am almost positive that if the police show up at my house again I am going to lose it just like those other volunteers.

Somehow I ended up with two dogs. Okay, so I am a sucker. That is how it happened. Mugezi is perfectly mannered and the village loves her. Fence (previously named Defense by someone other than me) is a little on the wild side. He used to be perfectly mannered, but the kids in the village love to tease him. I have caught them throwing rocks at him and barking at him. He has always loved to chase the kids, but now because they have annoyed him so much he sometimes gets a bit aggressive. I have had to keep him tied to prevent him from potentially hurting the innocent kids, but the mean kids love to take advantage of this. Yesterday, as usual, I found some kids up a tree yelling his name trying to get him to try to come after them or start barking. I have started threatening them that if they annoy my dog I am going to let him off his leash. I’m not sure what will happen if I do. He may bite them or he may just chase them a bit, but as far as I am concerned they asked for it. I know, it is mean and that it is going to end up with them in tears, but it gets old and I do not want to have a mean dog because they think they are funny.

Many Ugandans think it is entertaining when things smaller than them suffer. The other day a dog bit Fence on the leg and he was holding his paw in the air while crying. The owners of the dog that bit him could not stop laughing. They thought it was so funny that Fence was crying. I yelled at them and told them they had bad manners. I would have never done that a year ago, but after a year and a half of watching Ugandans beat children and animals and laugh I am losing it. It makes me so angry.

Somedays I just need time to myself. I want to stop being the prize muzungu and just be a normal person. I want to be able to go to an event and not be asked to give a speech, I don’t want to be asked for money, and I don’t want to be stared at everywhere I go. Ugandans are always greeting one another with these long elaborate greetings, but I feel that I get greeted more than the average person. I understand that it is a very friendly gesture, but it can become tedious. The greetings start out by asking how you are, thanking you for the work, asking how the dogs are, and asking where I am going.

I was having a bad day and just wanted to be alone so I took the dogs and decided to walk up the hill behind my house. Ten minutes into the walk I realized it was a bad idea. I had already been stopped five times to great people. A half hour later I made it to the top of the hill around the time secondary school students are making their way home from school. I make my way to the backside of a church to try enjoy the view and much needed alone time. No such luck. Three students follow me and begin to stare at me. I don’t mean they looked at me for a few seconds too long, I mean they stared at me for ten minutes. I gave up and decided to walk back home, but they followed me and told me to give them my dog. This again, is a compliment. It is a way of saying that they admire my dogs, but when you are used to hearing “Muzungu give me this give me that” it is hard to hear the compliment. On a normal day my response is, “If I give you my dog I will cry because she is like my baby.” Usually this makes us both laugh. However, this isn’t a normal day so my mean side came out and I said, “If you want my dog come take him, but just so you know he is going to bite you.” When they hesitate I walk towards them insisting they take “their” dog until they run away. I know. I know. I am awful, but please try to imagine a life in which you have no alone time and someone is always wanting something from you. Sometimes you just lose it.

The teachers I have come to train do not want my help. Most of them do not want to be teachers in the first place so to ask them to do their job well is asking way too much. I am always told, “Nalubega, that may work for your white children, but African children are stubborn and need to be beat.” I watch teachers physically and verbally abuse children almost on a daily basis. No matter what I have tried to change their minds it has not worked. I love these kids and in the year and a half I have known them I have learned more about them than their teachers have learned in five years. I could tell you where most of them live, who they live with, what is going on at home, and usually their dog’s name. If they ever are in trouble they come to me. To invest so much in these children’s lives trying to help them have confidence in themselves and then watch their teachers destroy it is difficult.

Ugandans love to tell me what I don’t know how to do even when I am doing it just fine. This partly comes from their belief that we have machines to do everything for us, which is somehow true, but also because they believe there is only one way to do everything. So, I am always hearing things like “You don’t know how to [insert verb here].” Things I don’t know how to do according to Ugandans are, but not limited to, holding a hoe, moping, eating, pealing, running, riding a bike, swimming, driving, and bathing.

Those are just a few of my challenges. I could go on, but then you would probably call me Negative Nancy and I would prefer if you didn’t. While some of you may be thinking I have lost my mind, others of you may understand how these things could make one a little crazy. For those of you who understand you may be wondering what I am still doing here. So, let me talk about what I love about Uganda and what keeps me here.

The other day I went on a field-trip with the school to visit another school. The vehicle that was picking us was two hours late. Once it arrived seventy students and ten teachers were packed into the back of a cattle truck. With the dust flying around us while the kids are singing, we are on our way. Five minutes later the truck is making its way up the hill and then the engine dies. We all file off and wait and then wait even longer. We waited for over two hours. Once the new truck comes we pile back in. Again we are making our way through the dust. We come to stop again. This time the tire has blown a mile away from the school and we need to walk in the afternoon heat the remainder of the way.

Once we reached, five and a half hours late, the students sang some songs, competed in a quiz bowl, played netball and football, and we ate food. We were only there for a few hours before it was time to pack back into the vehicle. As we are leaving the sun is setting, the air is cool, and the kids are signing Radio and Weasel (most likely upon my request). At that moment I realized there is no place I would rather be than with my newfound friends enjoying the day and then something hits me in the head. I turn to the teacher and ask him what is happening and he tells me we are being stoned. Sure enough I turn around to see kids throwing rocks and sticks at our vehicle. I could get annoyed about this, but the kids only took a break from their song, before returning to singing louder than before. That is thing thing about this day. To Americans this sounds like an awful day, but to Ugandans it was okay. No one was in a hurry; they were just happy to be able to go on this trip and enjoy one another’s company.

Every morning I take the dogs and we help my friend Tony take twenty cows out to pasture. I started going because we walk through empty fields where the dogs are able to run without annoying anyone. Usually I leave with Tony, but we meet up with a few others. After the cows are in the pasture we sit around and watch the dogs play and swim in the ponds. Even though my herding friends do not know much English and my Luganda is far from fluent we are able to communicate and we spend most of our time laughing. Tony and the others have come to love Mugezi and Fence. Even on days in which I am not able to go they take them with them. While there are many people in the village who do not understand the way many Americans feel about dogs, these friends of mine understand and I love spending a bit of time with them everyday

The students at the school are some of the most amazing kids I have ever met. For those of you who have been lucky enough to meet them, you know exactly what I am talking about. When they find me running in the mornings while on their way to school they will run with me, even if they are carrying a chicken. If they find me carrying something, no matter how small, they will insist on carrying it for me. When I ask them to do something for me and want to pay them they will tell me that they are a volunteer, a word that I taught them. They are always dancing and singing. Simply put, they are incredible and make me laugh every day.

While there are few very rotten people in my village, most of them are incredible and do everything they can to make me feel welcome and at home. Carol’s family has become my family away from home. If I am not around they take care of my house and dogs. If I come home late they will bring me food. When I am bored I can sit at their house for hours and when they are bored they come sit at mine. Whenever I need help I can ask them. Whenever they need help they can ask me. My life here is easier because I know them.

While I have failed in many things I know I have changed some of the lives I came to change. In no way am I doing it in the way I thought I would, but I am doing it. I know that I have made some people’s lives a bit brighter. While I may not necessarily see the differences now, I think that if I were to come back in ten years I would see them. I once read a quote that said, “To know that one has breathed easier because you have lived is to succeed.” If that is the measure of success then I have surely succeeded.

Which brings me back to the original quote. I get it. I understand why they would say that volunteers serving in Africa return home laughing. Because it is the only thing you can do. Either you laugh about the craziness and injustice of this place or you get mad, but even when you get mad you cannot stay mad because mixed in with all the bad there is so much good; it is just hard to see sometimes.

I hope this message has found you all under sunny skies!

Peace and love,

Autumn

Greetings everyone! I hope this message finds you all happy, well, and enjoying the spring sunshine! I must say, that while I feel blessed to have wonderful weather all year round, I am jealous that you get to enjoy the first warm day after a long winter. I am sorry I have been long, but the good news is that my computer is finally fixed! So, I should be updating my blog more regularly.

I have been rather busy for the past month. The students at the teaching college have been at various primary schools student teaching and I have been supervising them. It was lots of fun for me and felt like “real work.” Some of the student teachers were some of the best teachers I have seen in Uganda. They would have even been superb teachers in the states. There was one student that’s lesson ran short, but instead of having the pupils sit quietly he had them sing a song and dance. One kid played the drums on his desk, while the teacher called students up to sing a part of the song and dance for the class with him. They loved it. I loved it. There were even students outside his classroom wanting to get inside. It was the first time I have ever seen students in Uganda having fun in the classroom along with their teacher. While it was fun to supervise it was also somewhat frustrating. At the end of each week we would meet at the college and talk with the other supervisors about what needs improvement. Their complaints were almost always about the students’ teaching files. While yes, I believe lesson plans are important, I do not think they are more important than how you teach and interact with your students. When I would first come into a classroom I would look at previous supervision sheets filled out by fellow tutors to see what they felt were the teacher’s strengths and areas to be improved upon. Some of the comments were ridiculous making complaints about ties not being on straight on so on, but usually they were making some ridiculous complaint about the teaching file. While I would stay for the whole forty minute lesson, my counterpart and other tutors would stay in each lesson for maybe twenty minutes before moving on to the next which I find completely unfair. Usually the last fifteen if not twenty minutes is dedicated to giving an exercise. How can you give a student marks when you don’t even seen their teaching? Sometimes I feel like they enjoy watching students fail.

The library is finished! The carpenter came Easter weekend and built the shelves and on Friday we were able to move all the books into the library. Thanks to my cousin and his wife, Shane and Christin, we now have story books for the children to read! On top of that, the school was donated text books awhile back, but were not used. They were kept in boxes covered in dust. I knew we had some good books, but I didn’t realize how good. They are from the states and there are enough math books for the entire p7, p1, and p2 classes! It is awesome. I am so excited to begin using the library! Oh, and for those of you who bought the paper beads when I was home. That money paid for the book shelves! Thank you!

I am broke this month. Half of my monthly allowance went to fixing my computer and I am now remaining with fifty dollars for the entire month. Fifty dollars is what some teachers get paid a month. I’m going to try to make it on fifty dollars, but I am not sure if I can make it without taking money from my American account. I don’t have a family to support, however the dogs probably eat better than most children here. There are two things working against me. 1. Other Peace Corps volunteers. 2. The fact that I don’t grow my own food. I guess we will see if I can live on the salary of a local. I must add, that many Ugandans do not even made fifty dollars a month.

The other day I was talking to my Ugandan friend Gerald and somehow we got on the subject of fatness. All the sudden he says, “When you came back from America you were fat! I don’t know what happened....I guess you liked your momma’s cooking.” Thanks Gerald.

Dog stories:

One day I am out front acting like an Ugandan turning my front yard into dirt when some kids around start hitting each other. It is a rare occasion that I will yell at a the kids, but I get so annoyed when I am pouring sweat and I have kids beating each other. So, I put my hoe down and started yelling at them about how there is no hitting allowed at my house. However, it was in my broken luganda and I am already looking like a nut when Mugezi decides to jump and bite my skirt. As my luck would have it, her tooth gets stuck and pulls my skirt off. Now, when I said they were kids that might not have been the best description. They were fifteen year old boys and they were shocked. We laughed for a bit, I pulled my skirt back up, and continued yelling.

Ugandans love to give me advice on how to raise dogs which I used to find entertaining and now find annoying considering that almost everyone in this country is scared to death of dogs and the ones that do have them are starved. Some of my favorites are as follows:

You should put hot peppers in Mugezi’s food so she will be very fierce. (I find this one the most amusing. They are scared to death of her despite how friendly she is and they are giving me suggestions on how to make her mean?)

You should keep her tied up all day so she will become very fat.

You shouldn’t let your dog play with the big dogs or she will become pregnant. (a. she is a baby. b. I can’t choose my dogs friends for her when there are no fences in this country c. she is fixed (okay not yet, but next month)

Defense is teaching Mugezi bad manners. (This one is annoying for so many reasons that I cannot talk about without getting upset, but I will say that it is not true. Defense and Mugezi both have good manners...most of the time)

You should hold her upside down by her back legs for a while so she can become very fast. (This is just ridiculous. Every time the man who tired doing this to Mugezi comes over she starts crying and peeing. It has taken weeks of him bringing her meat for her to stop fearing him.)

As a puppy, Mugezi loves to play bite and chase anything that moves. However, that was proving to be a nightmare once the primary school was back in session. Mugezi has a brother, Defense, that lives across the road that I would bring over to play with Mugezi to give the kids a break. However, Defense has sort of moved in and I cannot say I blame. I love Defense, but sometime having two puppies can be a bit overwhelming to say the least.

Case 1: One day I call a meeting at the school with the school management committee and the PTA about starting a poultry project. When we start the meeting Mugezi sees me and comes running in the classroom. I pick her up, carry her back to my house, and lock her in. Once I get back to the meeting Defense sees me and comes running in. Again, I pick him up, carry him back to my house, and lock him in. I get just around to the front of the school when I hear horrific crying from one of the dogs. I turn around to see Defense dangling from the security bars of my window after a failed attempt to escape through the window. I panic and start running yelling his name. Once I get to him he is as happy as can be wagging his tail. I soon realize that he is stuck and the only way to get him out is to pull him back through, but I need help and no one is around. I stand there waiting holding his front half. Eventually, the head teacher sees me from the meeting and comes to help. Once he starts pulling him back through, Defense starts peeing all over my shirt. Perfect. Once he is out I decide to leave them out. I come back to the meeting covered in pee with two dogs tailing behind. We had to close the door and place a chair in front of it. Anytime someone would leave I would have to carry two dogs back outside. Ugandans have always thought I was a bit crazy, but even I am starting to believe it now.

Case 2: I let Defense stay at my house all day and don’t feel guilty about stealing my neighbors dog as long as I send him home at night to defend their house, hence his name. For a while he would come at 6:30 am with a couple of quiet barks. It wasn’t a problem because I get up then anyway. However, he then started coming at 5, then 3, and sometimes 11. The only way to break him of it, that I know of anyway, is to ignore his barking. The problem is that it will wake up all the teachers and their children resulting in the probability that they will poison him (I am told this happens often). So, every night I wake up to let Defense in whenever he chooses. Now, Mugezi has a baby mattress she sleeps on and when Defense comes in he tries sleeping in it with her resulting in a fight. So, Mugezi started jumping in bed with me. At three in the morning I am in no mood to fight with her, but a twin size bed and a dog that loves to cuddle is getting a little old.

Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful Easter full of peanut butter filled eggs and pastel colored peanut M&Ms!

Peace and love,

Autumn

p.s For those of you wanting to send me something and make my month here are some things I love!

Trail mix. Anything from Trader Joes. Dried fruit. Head bands. Any clothing item that you own that you think is old I would probably think is the greatest thing in the world and wear it extensively. PICTURES of YOU. Things that would make me look like the hippie I wish I was, ex. head scarfs. Hot chocolate. Music. Beef jerky. A book you love. Dog treats. Jewelry. Taco and other mixes of any sort. Taco Bell mild sauce. Letters. Music. Soup mixes.

For those who have sent me packages recently; thank you soososososo much. You are wonderful!!!!!!

p.s.s. my battery is going to die so I am using that as an excuse to not proofread!

Greetings everyone! First let me apologize for, as Ugandans say, being lost. Shortly after my last entry my keyboard on my computer stopped working. It’s a long story about me listening to music on my computer while taking a bath and deciding to change the song. I don’t know if those couple little drops of water on the keyboard are the cause or not. All I know that the next day it stopped working. As everything in Uganda, it is taking months to get fixed. Thankfully, Amber allowed me to use her computer to update you all!

Let me first tell you about my new love. Her name is Mugezi and she is the cutest little puppy ever. Okay, maybe not ever, but I think she is pretty darn cute. When I first got her I thought I would use this as an opportunity to show my village how intelligent and wonderful dogs could be and that they don’t need to fear and beat them. Knowing that teaching her tricks would make her seem extra clever, I named her Mugezi meaning clever. However, somehow it has been shorten to Gezi (or Moo if you’re talking to my sister Ashley who can figure out how to pronounce it). I have had her for a couple months now and it has been an up and down experience. When I first got her at four weeks old she was the not so proud owner of a bazillion fleas and a belly full of worms. In the first couple of weeks I took her to the vet a few times; once in tears because I was pretty sure she was almost dead. Luckily, after finding a competent vet (you wouldn’t believe how hard one is to find around here) and being de-wormed somewhere around five times she started acting like a normal puppy. The villagers thought I had lost my mind. I speak and worry about Mugezi more than they do their own children. At first, they thought it was crazy that I would walk her on a leash and take her just about everywhere I go. After a few weeks they started buying into it. Not only do they greet me, they greet Mugezi. If she is not with me, they are sure to ask where and how she is. They cannot believe she is a village dog because you cannot see her bones and her coat is so shiny. They are amazed that she can sit when I ask her. They laugh hysterically when she shakes and rolls over on command. When they ask me why she is so beautiful I say because I feed her. When they ask why she is so smart I tell them all dogs are. When they ask why she likes people so much I say because I don’t beat her.

Right now, having Mugezi is really working out and I feel like we are making a bit of a difference. Carol’s family is the owner of Mugezi’s mother. I have never seen them beat her and they feed her a bit better than most Ugandans feed their dogs, but for the most part they ignore her. When I have to leave Kiyumba Carol will stay at my house with Mugezi. In the beginning Carol acted like she liked Mugezi, but you could tell she couldn’t care less about her. She thought I was crazy for all the commotion I was making over her. At first, I let Mugezi sleep with me and she thought I was nuts. Last week I had to go away for some training and we sprayed for the bats (six dead and yet there are still more). Mugezi couldn’t stay in the house after spraying so Carol’s family offered to let her stay in their house. I couldn’t believe it. I do not know a Ugandan that lets their dog stay indoors. I get a call from Carol one night saying that because their mattresses are on the floor Mugezi keeps sneaking into bed with her. I assumed that she was rather annoyed by this, but when I returned she admitted that she actually enjoyed sleeping with Mugezi! She actually walked in just now and I told her about how I am writing about her sleeping with Mugezi. She told me she got a bed, but she will still let Mugezi sleep with her. It is outrageous and wonderful.

Ugandans are fearful of dogs, no matter how small, and the first few days of schools were ridiculously difficult. Mugezi was so excited to have all of these new friends, but they were terrified of her. They would come to my house to greet me, but Mugezi would make it out the door first and they would take of screaming and flailing their arms like a bunch of wild hoodlums. Of course Mugezi loves this and takes off after them. Sweet little Dissan, who knows Mugezi, did this. I thought he was joking, but after running in circles for a while hitting his head on my window and falling in a hole, he was in tears. On top of dealing with Mugezi, she has a brother that comes over to play first thing in the morning. So not only was I chasing one cute little puppy I was looking like a lunatic chasing two cute little puppies. However, it is now week two and the students and teachers love her. She has stopped chasing them and they now love scratching her belly and trying to get her to put her paw out to shake for them. Usually if I am going somewhere and cannot bring Mugezi, I leave her in the house. However, today I was meeting with several people at the school and I was able to leave her out without worrying too much. Every time I would check on her a child was playing with her or she would be sitting with someone under a tree while they were listening to the radio. My one fear is the road. She loves to visit her brother and Carol’s family across the street and while it is just a dirt road sometimes lorries and motorcycles are driving rather quickly. Overall, I’m glad I love having Mugezi around and I cannot wait for you all to meet her when she comes to the states!

Martin is one of my favorite kids in the village. I guess I shouldn’t say kid, he is sixteen, but in the seventh grade so sometimes I think of him in that way. When I first came to Kiyumba he asked me to explain what a “volunteer” was. I explained that it is someone who does work without pay. Most people here have a very hard time understanding this concept. They always wonder why we would do such a thing. One day, I asked Martin if he would fetch water for me and offered to pay him two hundred shillings. However, he refused to take the money. He said, “Madam Nalubega, I don’t want money; I am a volunteer.” He made my day. He actually makes my day everyday I see him.

On Valentines Day I will have been in Uganda for a whole year! I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by. I can remember my first day in home stay. I was not used to feeling so awkward and out of place and I was feeling a bit worried that I was not going to be able to make it two years. I have come a long way. No longer do I feel out of place and rarely am I awkward anymore. While one year seems like a long time, it does not feel like I have accomplished much of anything. I know that is not completely true; I have accomplished a lot of things on a personal level. I have many wonderful friendships here in Kiyumba, I am growing as a person, and I am realizing how truly amazing my family are friends in the states are. However, this second year I am hoping to accomplish more tangible things. When joining Peace Corps I remember thinking that two years was a long time, but they knew what they were doing when they required a two-year contract. I would say that most volunteers would agree with me when I say that it takes most of the first year at site to figure out how to work within this culture. Just now am I beginning to understand how and why schools work the way they do. Just now I am figuring out whom I can work with and who is just wasting my time. Hopefully, this next year will be as great as the first!

Finally all of this talk of a library is finally coming along! Now that school is back in session, after ten long weeks, I met with the deputy of the school and talked about a way forward in the development of the library. After taking another look at the room where the library will be, I realized that the school has way more books than I realized. While they are mostly textbooks, they are still something. Thankfully, my cousin Shane, his wife Christen, and their church have also donated seven boxes of books! I was super excited to receive them because they are storybooks instead of textbooks, which is hard to come by in Uganda. During holiday I had kids at my house overwhelmed with the wonderful selection of books and so far I have only received one of the seven boxes (even though all seven were sent together). The box I received also contained a lot of novels, mostly Hardy Boys, and the older kids have become bookworms. Carol and Kennedy will come over and we will just all sit around reading. It has been great to see because Ugandans do not read for fun; I have never seen a Ugandan reading a book other than a textbook. However, as with Kennedy and Carol, I am hoping to change that and create a culture of reading here at Kiyumba Primary. The room where the books are stored is a complete disaster with books everywhere and no shelving. Of course, the school has no money to purchase shelving. After awhile of discussing possible solutions to no avail, it dawned on me that when I went home in September many of my wonderful friends and family purchased some of the paper beads my students made. Because of that money, we are able to purchase shelving and hopefully buy some mats so the students can lie in the grass and read. I am super excited about the project finally taking off and cannot wait until we can begin using the library. Oh, and before I forget! My friend Carla and her classroom in Chicago have been saving their money for the library as well! With that money I am hoping to purchase some books in local language for the young ones who have not yet learned English. Thank you for all of your contributions!

Bonny is another one of my favorites. Not only is he incredibly polite and funny, he is also very intelligent. Bonny has lost both of his parents while he was young, but has since lived with his elderly grandfather in a village near Kiyumba. The first week of school Bonny was nowhere to be seen. Paol had told me before hand that Bonny would not be back at school, but I did not believe him; Bonny loves school. Towards the end of the week the p6 teacher came to ask me why my friend Bonny is not in school. Poal is there and informs us that Bonny’s grandfather kicked him out of the house so he had to go to Nyendo, the nearest town, to find a job and place to live. We made a plan for his two best friends, Paol and Martin, and I to go to Nyendo on Sunday to find Bonny and see if we can get him to come back to school. In the meantime Mr.Kisuli would visit the grandfather. Because I am cheap and the boys have no money, we decide we will walk to Nyendo. And because I am not very bright sometimes I bring Mugezi along, wear flip-flops, and no sunscreen because it wasn’t sunny. It took us two hours and ten minutes. Towards the end Paol took turns with me carrying Mugezi which passersby thought was more amusing than me carrying Mugezi. While we were exhausted it was a great to spend the day with the boys.

When we got to Nyendo I met many people in Paol’s family whom stay in Nyendo. We made it to the bakery where Bonny works and lives to find many other boys his age with bad manners. One passed me a note saying, “Will you play sex with me? My name is Mike. What is yours?” Bonny comes out with the biggest smile on his face and I forgot how much I missed having him around the past few months. I talk to Bonny a bit about why he is not in school and he tells me that his grandfather has refused to pay his school fees and has kicked him out, but he cannot tell me why. I’m not sure if he, himself, doesn’t know the answer, doesn’t have the English to explain it to me, or just doesn’t want to tell me. I’m not even sure if he is telling the whole truth. Many students leave school to take jobs making money. I talk to Bonny about how he wants to be an engineer; he always told me he wanted to be an engineer because he wanted people to call him Engineer Bonny. I ask him how he is going to reach his goal without finishing primary school. He says it is impossible to become an engineer because he doesn’t have the money for schooling. I have offered to pay his school fees and he told me he will return in a few weeks, but I am not sure if he is telling the truth.

I have been so impressed by a few teachers who have went out of their way to get Bonny back in school; I have never seen a teacher here go out of their way for a student. I told Bonny how all of the teachers have been asking about him and how everyone wants him back. He asked, why the three of us would walk all the way to Nyendo and I told him because, like everyone at Kiyumba, we miss him a lot and want him to come back. By the look on his face, you could tell he was surprised. I have talked with Bonny about his grandfather before and it seems that he is abusive and as though Bonny does not realize that even though his grandfather may not want him, we do. Tonight Mr. Kisuli said he would visit with the grandfather so I guess we’ll know his side of the story tomorrow.

Okay, perhaps this is enough for now. I know some people were asking about my holidays. They were wonderful. My friend Rachelle came and we cooked potatoes, green beans, apple crisp, and chicken. However, we were invited last minute to Carol’s house and they fed us so much food we couldn’t touch our own. Mr. Serwadda also brought us some food. That day Mugezi probably ate her body weight in meat we just could not physically eat. While it could not compare to spending the day with my family, it was great to stay in my village and spend it with my family of sorts here in Uganda.

Anyway, I apologize again for taking so long to update you all. I am not sure when I will be able to write again. hopefully I will have my computer back soon! Thanks for taking the time out of your busy lives to see what I have been up to! Miss you all!

Peace and love,

Autumn

p.s. I just read a book by Kelly Corrigan called The Middle Place and it was great memoir about a father and daughter, both, diagnosed with cancer. If you are looking for something to read you should pick it up!

Muli mutya! I hope this message finds you all happy and well! I cannot believe it is almost Thanksgiving and that Christmas is in just over a month! This message is going to be short, but I wanted to send a short update!

Before I left for America I planted a garden. The villagers laughed when they saw me “digging” as they call it, but that is nothing new. The school was kind enough to build me a fence to keep the goats and cows from eating my food and when I returned from the states things were actually growing! I have tomatoes, maize, carrots, eggplant, green peppers, and beans. The other day I was thinking how easy it is to grow your own food. While it did take some work to actually cultivate the land, by hand of course, I have had to do little to no work since. The other day I was talking to a student and he told me how Mr. Kisuli had another student weed my garden the other day. Then another told me how Mr. Kisuli had transplanted some of my tomato plants. On top of that they had also pruned my plants for me! No wonder it has been so easy, everyone has been doing the work for me and I had no clue.

As many of you know I have been thinking about getting a dog lately. I keep going back and forth on whether I will do it or not, but now that there are puppies in the village I think I may just go ahead. Despite wanting them for how darn cute they are I really want to show Ugandans that animals are smart. There are so many dogs in the village and a majority of them are neglected, feared, or abused. I show them pictures of Gunner all of the time doing funny things like wearing a birthday hat, swimming, or just posing in front of the Christmas tree and they love it. The other day they were looking at a book with a photo of a dog playing frisbee and they could not believe it. They have no idea that dogs can learn. So, I am hoping that by having an Ugandan dog myself I can prove that all dogs, not just Muzungu dogs, are intelligent and deserve to be loved and taken care of. Or, maybe that is just my excuse to get a cute little puppy.

Holiday begins on the 26th lasting for over two months! I was talking with the deputy about starting a Life Skills club at the school teaching students about HIV/AIDS and how to make good choices. I want an Ugandan to teach with me to make sure the students are understanding so I was planning to start next term. However, much to my surprise, the deputy decided that it was important enough to start over holiday and even offered himself to come help out! I am super excited about this project and incredibly proud of Mr. Lubowa for seeing the importance of teaching life skills and offering his time. Volunteerism of this extent is not something I see often out of Ugandans!

I walked around the conner of the school yesterday afternoon to find a teacher hitting about twenty students on the butt. I just stood there and watched her. That usually puts them in an awkward position because they know they are going to be in trouble, but the cannot stop midway through. However, usually they start hitting them less hard when I am watching. It always surprises me about how upset I can get when I see this, but after awhile it actually became funny. I know that sounds wrong, but here is this ridiculous woman hitting fifteen year old with a stick on their butt. On top of that, it does not even hurt the kids. They run off towards me laughing. Apparently they were in trouble for not cleaning the compound and the way they see it is they got hit twice, which did not even hurt, and they got out of cleaning. I talked to the teacher afterwards and she says, “I did it because they were disturbing me.” I mention how this is not the first time I have had to talk to her and she says, “Last time I was only chasing them with a stick I didn’t hit them.” You were only chasing them with a stick? You are a grown woman chasing kids around in circles with a stick while they are laughing at you. On top of that, you are too slow to actually hit them. She says, “Well, I told them if they did not clean they were going to have to stay after school and finish it and when I went back they still were not cleaning so I had to hit them.” She does not get it. If she would have actually carried through with keeping them after school I am sure they would have learned next time, but they knew she wouldn’t want to stay after her self. It just so happens that tomorrow I was planning on teaching classroom management and discipline to the teachers at my school. I am excited because after this they have no excuse, but I have no doubt that they will continue beating children because it is easy and makes them feel good about themselves.

I was too lazy to proofread this; I apologize! If I do not talk to you before Thanksgiving, I hope it is wonderful!

Peace and love,

Autumn

Hello everyone! I hope this message finds you all happy and healthy! Again, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read about mine!

Updates on the break in: There are none. Partly because the police are not doing their job, but mostly because I have chosen to forget about it. My things are gone and long gone. Most likely whoever stole them has sold them by now and most likely will not be found. I had my time to be upset and I don’t want this incident to hinder my time here. The village has been incredibly gracious towards me and sorry for my loss. Under the circumstances, I do not think I could ask for more. As for Paol, I don’t know if I fully believe he did it or not. They really do not have evidence that he is the culprit. I truly believe that if it was Paol it was because when I did not return when I said I would he thought I was not returning. The first day I saw him after my return the look on his face was nothing short of pure happiness and shock. While it does not make what he may have done okay, it at least makes it a bit more understandable. Even if I found out it was Paol I would not do much more about it than let him know how hurt I am. If Paol is held formally accountable for his actions he would probably go to prison or get kicked out of school. Paol needs school because without it there is a good chance he would find himself in a life revolving around poverty and stealing. It is wrong to steal, especially to break into someone’s house. I feel hurt, but I am not about to let the loss of my things potentially ruin someone’s life, even if it was their own fault. For those of your worried about my safety, I have never felt more safe. They have done construction blocking off the bathing room door from the outside and creating a new entry from my bedroom. Not only will this prevent anyone from being able to break in that way, I will not have to leave my house to bath anymore. It was always kind of scary to go out there at night when the teachers were away. It was also kind of awkward when I would forget clothes and I would have to come out in a towel scandalizing the village. I am happy!

I have found the best way to know my way around the village and the people is by carrying water for the little ones I come across while I am out walking. The set up of a village is hard to explain. My village is located off a road, but once you move away from the road there is nothing but small paths making their way through fields. The other day I was walking and saw some small children collecting water. I took their jerry cans. They promised me their home was close, but they were lying. Every house we passed I would say, “Wano (here)?” They would say, “Si wano (not here), kumpi (near)!” We walked up a large hill winding and twisting to a part of the village I have never been before. When we finally arrived they yelled, “Wano Auntie Nalubega!” At this point I realized it was the home of some of my students at Kiyumba. I continued on my way passing many more houses of my students. Each one was happy to see that I had made my way to their part of the village. I must say that is it nice to see where your students live. It is one thing that does not happen very often in the states.

My new favorite thing is Sodoku. I am somewhat obsessed and here is a story to prove how intense I am about it. The other day the construction workers were at my house so I had to stay in my house all day while they were working. I was sitting in my front room doing Sodoku. while they were tearing part of my bedroom room down. One worker comes in and looks at me and says, “Fufu is everywhere!” Meaning there is dust everywhere. At that point I look up from my Sodoku and notice everything around me is completely white. I stand up and there is a perfect print of where I had been sitting. I was so interested in solving my puzzle that I did not even noticed the fufu!

Saturday was my birthday and I want to thank you all for my birthday wishes! Originally I thought I wanted to spend my day at the pool, but once I was in Masaka I realized that the only place I really wanted to be was in my village with the kiddos. It started raining so I decided to head back to the village. Of course, in the village, it was beautiful sunny day! Overall it was a wonderful birthday! However, I will tell you a story I think is funny about my mom. My mom had called, but I was out collecting water so I had missed the call. I was exhausted and fell asleep around eight thirty. My phone rings at eleven thirty; it is my mom wishing me a happy birthday. At this point I have been asleep for three hours. She says, “You sound tired.” I say, “Yea, it is like midnight here I am sleeping.” She then goes on talking having a normal conversation. I am not really talking because I am asleep. She finally gets annoyed and says, “Well, I can tell you don’t want to talk so I’ll just let you go.” Bless her heart for wanting to talk to her daughter on her birthday, but it is midnight! I am sleeping! She says she wasn’t mad, but I don’t believe it. Actually, now that I am typing this I am realizing that perhaps I am lame. I was asleep by eight thirty on Saturday birthday.

The other day Frank was staring at me and he says, “You are a different color than when you left.” I said, yea I think I am much more white now. He says, “Yea, it is much better.”

Jen knows I help the kids carry water and today she was carrying fifty pounds worth on her head. She asks me if I will carry it for her. I declined, but say at least you are almost home. She says, “No, I am going to the duka (store). I am carrying this for Annett.” I ask if Annett is paying her and she says that she is! She was trying to get me to carrying the water and then collect money for the work I did! Sneaky, but smart I suppose.

Holiday is almost here and it is over two months long! I am hoping to do some HIV/AIDS information activities, but I mostly hope to work on the library. I just realized that in April my service will be almost half way over! My cousin’s wife Kristen has collected books from her church that she will soon be sending over and my little sister Schuyler has informed me that her school may be contributing as well. I am working on writing a grant so I can make sure the room is secure, freshly painted, and shelves are made. I am hoping that I will be able to get these things done over break and that we will have some books before the next term in February! If anyone is part of an organization, church, or school, that would like to be part of this library please let me know! We would love books or money that can be used to purchase local language books since they are taught in local language up until P4!

Today I woke up and started to boil water for my oatmeal and coffee only to realize that I am out of gas for my stove. So I move on to plan B which is boiling water on the charcoal as Ugandans do. While I use my charcoal often, I have never used it to strictly boil water. The entire process took me an hour and a half. Usually I can make my breakfast in five minutes. While I choose to do many things as an Ugandan, cooking oatmeal using charcoal is not going to be one of them.

Anyway, as always I miss each and every one of you! I hope you are all happy and well! Because my photos were stolen and because I want to see your beautiful faces, please send me photos of you, your animals, or whatever else so I can share them with my village and hang them on my walls!

I have decided to try taking up running again now that Ashley has given me an early Christmas present of an I-pod shuffle and Courtney gave me some new jams. Yesterday I was running on an open path through a tea field when out of no where one of my students comes up behind me; shoeless and talking away. Me, on the other hand was completely out of breath. When I stopped I asked her if she was tired and she laughed and said, “no.” They do this to me all time. Show me how bad of a runner I am.

Yesterday I was wearing a dress that Lisandro would consider frumpy, but what I would call long and flowy. I am talking with Boney, my fourteen year old student, and my dress is blowing in the wind and Boney looks at it and says, “Madam Nalubaga what a big dress you are wearing!” The previous day he says, “You have become fat while you were in America. What were you eating there?” He cracks me up.

Peace and Love,

Autumn

Greetings all! I hope this message finds you all happy and well! First off, I want to thank you all for taking the time to read my blog after a long break! I apologize, but as always, I have an excuse which I will explain later.

I am not quite sure where to begin. I feel like so many things have happened or maybe so many different emotions have ran through me the past month. As I mentioned in the previous e-mail, I was scheduled to return to the states for a couple of weeks for a wedding. It was great to spend time with my family and friends; I have missed them all so much. The first week I was home I got to spend time with many of my friends and my parents invited family over for a small party. It was wonderful to see all of your smiling faces again!

In general, I found America to be somehow stressful. I can’t even count the number of times I had witnessed conversations revolving around money and the lack there of. How many times I heard people talking about their jobs as if they had to have them and that they have to make more money. While I understand in some cases this may be true, I would say that in most cases people have to have more money and work the miserable jobs they do to support the kind of lifestyle they would like to have. To live in the house they want, to drive the car they want, to have the things they want. I watched people glued to the television and I must admit I did the same and not even because I like it, but because I was lazy. Too lazy to pick up a book, go for a walk, or talk. The worst part about the television experience was the popularity of shows portraying “mean girls” and shows where kids show no respect for themselves and others. I went out to eat with a friend where we ate cheese and bacon covered french fries for an appetizer only to follow it with a meal containing french fries as a side dish. No wonder most Americans are overweight. The idea of an obese child is horrendous. I can tell you that it would be a rare day that I would see an obese Ugandan child and it is not because they are starving. It is because after they finish their chores and then they run around playing all day. I would say that most American food tastes fake to me. After eating food with no trace of preservatives and fake flavors for nine months, American food does not even taste like food anymore. It is not to say that I will never return to America. I love many other things about America. I love that by being an American I am given many resources I would not otherwise have. I love that most schools prepare children with the needed skills to survive. I love America because that is where my family and friends are. However, when I return I will try my best to maintain some of what I have l learned about life here in Uganda. To not eat fake food, do not sit in front of the television, spend more time outside, spend more time talking with people, and do not live a life according to tradition. Do things how you choose to do them.

After being home for a week I started getting serious headaches. I started noticing them on Wednesday and by Friday I was in some serious trouble; no amount of Tylenol was helping. I had a temperature close to 104 and my head felt as thought it could explode. I ended up trading in the rehearsal dinner on Friday for a night in the emergency room. The doctors had assumed it was malaria, treated me, and released me. The next morning I felt worse than ever. I had lost my hearing, could not stand for more than a few minutes, and again the headache was unbearable. Luckily for me Ashley was in town and was kind enough to get me ready for the wedding. Throughout the day I was back and forth between being fine and nearly dead. If you were to look at the photos from the day you could see my ups and downs. Despite how horrible I felt, I was glad to be part of such a special day in Mandy and Bret’s life. The following day we were burying my grandmother who had past away a few days before. Again, I woke up feeling horrible and without hearing for five hours. At this point we realized that loss of hearing was a side effect of the medicine and was prescribed something different by the doctor. By Tuesday I was feeling just about perfect and my flight was scheduled to leave the following day, but Peace Corps requires that I am first cleared by a doctor. This event took three more weeks and a lot more frustration. Doctors here do not know much if anything about Malaria so they were very skeptical to deal with me. Instead I was referred to an infectious disease doctor who took a week to return my call and once he did he wanted more blood tests. So again, they tested me more Malaria. I could not tell you why, but the test took ten days. So again I waited and wait. I felt horrible because the kids in my village were expecting me on a certain date and I was afraid that they thought I was not coming back. It was also frustrating that I did not get a chance to say, “Goodbye” to Lisandro who had just finished his service and was returning to the states. Eventually the test came back negative and I was cleared on a Thursday. However, I could not get ahold of Peace Corps until Tuesday. All the paper work was faxed then and by Wednesday I was able to talk to someone about my return flight which ended up being scheduled for the following day. I was scrambling around trying to get things washed, packed, and a find a ride to the airport. My cousin Chrissy and mom offered to take me and boy was that a disaster. Of course we ended up lost, probably on my account, and without Brent’s help we probably would have never arrived. We were there about an hour before my flight, but luckily I was checked in quickly and security went surprisingly fast as well. I ended up at my gate ten minutes before my flight which I guess was not such a bad thing.

While at home, I got an e-mail from my now nearest volunteer telling me that my house had been broken into. Apparently the day I should have returned to Kiyumba someone had come and sawed the lock off of my bathroom door. Once they were in the bathing area they had managed to climb over the wall (because I do not have a ceiling) and enter the rest of my house. At the time no one was sure what was missing as a result of no one really knowing what I have and no one knowing what I had taken to the states. However, they were sure that my bike was gone and the comforter on my bed. Today I came home to a disaster and just about anything of value gone. My backpacking bag, tent, sleeping bag, Northface jacket, all gone. Other random things like one of my three pillows, my photo album (yes, the one you gave me Mandy), random clothes, an umbrella, my medical kit, my sheets, and any soap I had. However, things such as my gas stove and solar charger were left. While I had time to process and prepare myself for what I had assumed would be gone, I was surprised by how upset I found myself upon my arrival today. I had my beautiful children on my porch yelling “Auntie Nalubega” and I was doing all I could to try to not be upset about my possessions. However, I must say the kids were rather cute about the whole situation. They were upset that someone would do this and about ten of them were standing in my bathing area looking at the foot prints going up my wall acting like detectives arguing over how it happened. After having a conversation in Luganda with a group of seven year olds I found out that Paol was the one that stole my things. I was shocked. Paol is one of my favorites. Paol is always at my house asking me to help him with his English and him helping me with his Luganda. Paol gets upset when I leave for conferences and was devastated when he had to spend his holiday fishing and away from me. Paol is the head boy at the school. He gets upset if I do not let him help me carry water. He helped me make beads. He always came over before school to say, “Hello” and always came over after school to say, “goodbye." Before I came home for my visit Paol used his fishing money to buy a mat and his sister made one for my family. Apparently the police came and picked him up last week and my bike was found (the one things I could really care less about). From what I gathered people have been bringing some of my things to the school, but I am not sure what if anything. After all, my information is based on seven year olds and my knowledge of the Lugandan language. I am hoping that tomorrow I will find out more between the police, the school, and Peace Corps. While I have hope that most of my things will be returned, I feel that because they are just now finding out what all is missing, that some things may be long gone.

I know what you are thinking, that between Malaria, my grandmother dying, and my house being broken into I couldn’t have much worse luck and I would suppose that is true. However, I suppose it was worth it to be able to see my family and friends again. While it was great to be home, I am incredibly happy to be back in my Ugandan home. I missed the kids and my life in Uganda. I only have a short time here in Uganda and I want to spend as much time as possible here. I apologize if this message seems somehow negative, I am sure by next week I will have much happier things to say!

Peace and love,

Autumn

p.s. It is 5:30 in the morning and I haven chosen not to proofread this; I apologize.

Hello everyone! I hope you are all happy and well! I cannot believe September is already here and that summer is almost over for all of you, but not for me! : ) I am sorry I have not written in awhile. I spent almost eleven days in Kampala and Mityana with inservice training. It was long, but part of it was spent on language training and it was good to find out what I had been saying wrong and find out how to say things I have been needing to say.

I was recently invited to an introduction ceremony in my village by my local chairman. We, my friend Rachelle was kind enough to tag a long, were picked up from my home by one of my students, Martin. We headed to the chairman’s house and were ushered into a small room with other guests of honor were we ate more mashed bananas than I would ever hope to eat again. After we finished eating we sat around waiting for the ceremony to begin. The chairman brought in a crate of beer. I was given an almost hot Guinness. For a while I did not want my village to know that I drank, but I have decided that maybe I will show them that one can drink without becoming drunk. So I drank the beer. The ceremony consisted of mostly women dancing around the makeshift stage and talking to the groom’s MC, both the bride and groom had their own MC. When the women weren’t talking to the groom’s MC, the MC’s were talking to each other. It was all in Luganda so I did not pick up on much of what was being said. I was also distracted by the women to my right. Ugandans make an alcohol which they refer to as local brew. There are many different types of brew made depending on which region you live in. I believe that the local brew here is a homemade wine made of bananas. It is potent and rather disgusting. However, the women to my right couldn’t get enough of it. Throughout the ceremony she would walk across the stage on a quest to obtain more. She would talk out loud and interrupt the ceremony. I have never seen anything like it. When the ceremony was winding down we were dragged around to take pictures with everyone and everything. The bride’s family gave gifts of sofas, livestock, food, and just about anything else you can think of. We had to sit on the sofa and pose in front of a cow. After all the pictures it was finally time to dance. The chairman brings us each another beer which we drink happily, but then throughout the night he keeps bringing us more. Uganda has some of the worst vodka I have ever had and it can be bought in a plastic bag, known as a “tot.” Of course he brings us these as well. All of my students and the entire village is around me. There is no way I am drinking these. Luckily Rachelle had a dress with pockets and we packed her pockets full of vodka. Dancing was fun. The old ladies, beers in hand of course, were teaching us how to dance like them. It was a great time, but soon the place got really crowded and everyone seemed to be incredibly drunk. The MC’s are drunk and yelling out my name over the microphones. Old men, as well as small children, are drinking tots. A drunk old man fell asleep on Rachelle’s shoulder when she was taking a break from dancing. I watched this same man try to walk out of the area and fell face first into a crowd. It was a drunken mess and while being white is usually a spectacle, it was worse than usual and we decided to call it a day. I learned a lot about my village that day and I felt like I really bonded with them. However, now it is certainly clear that my village has an alcohol abuse problem.

I was invited by my village chairman to an introduction ceremony a couple of weeks back. An introduction ceremony is an event where, once a couple wants to get married, the woman introduces her fiance to her family. We, I dragged my friend Rachelle along, arrived at the chairman’s house around one, escorted by one of my students and sat around with other guests of honor eating food. The chairman then brought us all beers, giving me the warmest Guinness I have ever had. We then move to the ceremony which consisted of the wedding party sitting in front. The woman and the man both had their own MCs. The man’s side was what you expect out of a MC, but the woman’s side had two and they enjoyed drinking quite a bit. The ceremony was in Luganda so I did not understand most of what was happening, but it seemed to consist of a bunch of different groups of people dancing out and greeting the wedding party while the MCs from each side talked with one another through the microphones. During this, a large gourd of sorts that is made to hold the local brew is brought out. Local brew is one of the most potent things I have ever tasted in my life. I would never trust myself to drink a whole glass of it. There was a woman sitting next to me who loved it and she would interrupt the ceremony poring herself more local brew and spilling it all over the place. Throughout the ceremony she would get up and sit by the bride or dance around the stage. It was outrageous. The couple was given many gifts that included a rooster and a cow. I only knew about the cow because I was dragged out into a field to take a picture with it. Around nine o’clock all the greeting was finally over and it was finally time to dance. I am obsessed with dancing in this country and I am in love with Ugandan music. We danced with the LC and eighty year old woman who were chugging beers. The chairman kept handing us beers and tots (horrible vodka in a bag), but there was no way we could or wanted to drink it all so we kept shoving them in the pockets of Rachelle’s dress. More people started getting incredibly intoxicated. One man wondered aimlessly around until he fell into a group of people relaxing. Another sat next to Rachelle and fell asleep on her shoulder. I was taking tots away from ten year old kids on the dance floor. It was out of control and by eleven we decided that we needed to get out of there. Overall though, I had a really great time; it was great to have fun with my village.

Over the years I have heard stories about spiders and such laying eggs under a human’s skin and then hatching. I never knew whether or not I could actually believe these stories or not. Some say this is a urban myth, but I now know better. For about a month I had what I thought was a blister between my big and second toe. I showed Lisandro and he proceeded to inform me that I had jigger. Meaning, that a jigger, whatever that is, had laid eggs under my skin. He gets a needle and opens my skin and squeezes the egg sack out. I should be grossed out, but I am not. I think it is kind of awesome.

Dad I have bad news; I was wrong. You cannot drink water from the pond using the ceramic filter. When I first came to Kiyumba I was using a solution to purify my water that I was collecting from the rain tanks. However, once I started getting my water from the open well I started to use a ceramic filter because there was lots of sediment. I was telling a Amanda this and she informed me that the filter only removes sediment, not the parasites. I went home and read the instructions and sure enough she was right. May I remind my readers that my open well is partially supplied by a swamp; I have been drinking water from a swamp without it first being treated. The part that really gets me is that I have yet to be sick. On top of that, I have been giving that water to all of my visitors as well. Jackie, you were smart to buy bottled water. Sam, if you ended up sick you now know why. I apologize.

My Ugandan friend Carol has always told me that she does not want to become small. However, the other day she was over and Lisandro was teaching her how to cook a pizza. She was amazed that we do not cook with oil and said that she too is no longer going to cook with oil. I told her that if she did not cook with oil she would become small. She replied by saying that she now wants to be American size. I could not believe what I was hearing and asked her why she wanted to be small. She said, “Because you people are very portable.” I laughed for awhile and asked her what that means, but she couldn’t tell me. I love Carol; she is always making me laugh.

A few of you already know, but for those of you who don’t, I will be returning to the states at the end of September for a couple of weeks for my best friend’s wedding. I am so excited to see friends and family; it has been too long! I will write again when I return the to Uganda the first week in October!

Peace and love,

Autumn

p.s. I wrote the previous a week ago, but have not been able to get to town due to riots across the Buganda region (the region in which I live) to post. On Thursday Riots started in Kampala and by Friday they had made their way to Nyendo and Masaka (maybe 9K from my home). My friend Lisandro and a visitor had to have a police escort out of his home in Nyendo. There were fires, gunshots, and total chaos. I do not have time to explain the situation in full, but it seems as though the next two years leading up to the next presidential election will be intense. I am posting a link explaining the situation, but in my next post I will explain more and what it could potentially mean for me and Peace Corps Uganda.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8249812.stm

http://www.independent.co.ug/index.php/uganda-talks-/for-the-international-audience-the-kampala-riots-explained.html

Hello everyone! I hope this message finds you all happy and well! I cannot believe we are already half way through August. I have heard that it is hot; I hope you are all staying nice and cool in your air conditioned homes. As for me, I often find myself rather chilly. Fancy that.

Carol and Kennedy are home from school and I could not be happier! If you do not remember, Carol is the girl that was asked to babysit me when I first arrived here in Kiyumba. Both her and Kennedy attend the teachers college for whom I work and have been at school for the past two few month, but now they are on holiday. Not only are they hilarious, they are a huge help. After talking with many students about the lack of school fees and their fears about not being able to attend another year of school I realized that I really need to focus on doing both an income generating project, specifically for women, as well as a village savings and loans. I have been procrastinating a bit on both for a couple of reasons. The first being that I feel that it is important for my village to know and trust me before I am able to initiate these projects. However, I know feel that I am at this point. My second reason is that I have failed to find someone that would work with me. Because I am not anywhere close to being fluent in Luganda it is important for me to work with someone in the village who is fluent in both Luganda and English. While there are about a handful of people that know some amount, it is not nearly enough. However, eighteen year old Carol is fluent in both. I brought up the idea of starting the village savings and loans and I did not even have to ask her to help me. Immediately she said, “Nalubega that is great! We will contact the LC and he will call everyone to a meeting for us to explain the program to everyone.” I am so happy to have Miss Carol back in Kiyumba!

Over the years I have met several people that have thought their birthday was a national holiday. Others who not only had a birthday, but more of a celebrating not only a day, but for a full week opening a present each day. The other day my friend Lisandro celebrated his birthday and had made a comment about starting the year off right. I found it funny that unlike everyone else who considers New Year's Day to be the beginning of a new year, he considers his birthday to mark the new year. Things are different here in Uganda. The other day I asked my friend Kennedy when his birthday was and he told me, “It is soon approaching. It is June 26th.” I said, “Kennedy, it is August. June was two months ago.” He started laughing and said, “I guess I forgot my birthday.” Today I asked my friend Carol when her birthday was and she started laughing. She got her phone out and started looking at the calender and said, “Ummm, I don’t remember. I think it was in May. Yes, May 26.” Now, I know there are times when I get confused about if I am twenty-three or twenty-four, but I do not think I would ever forget my birthday. It’s your birthday for crying out loud! Perhaps all the celebrating we do for our birthdays in America makes up for the lack there of here in Uganda.

When I first arrived in Uganda the country director for Peace Corps Uganda was warning us about the amount of frustration we will endure as volunteers. He said, “If Uganda didn’t have these problems that frustrated us we wouldn’t be here.” This week I have been trying to remind myself of this. The education system here is a complete disaster and living at a primary school I see this first hand. The Ministry of Education, teachers, head teachers, parents, they are all setting their children up for failure. The Ministry never pays the teachers which requires children to pay outrageous fees that they are unable to pay. The teachers fail to assess children, use teaching methods other than lecture, teach in English when students will be tested in English, they beat the children for things such as wrong answers, and they have no relationship with the children nor do they communicate with the parents. The head teacher never shows up to school to supervise nor do they have anymore education than a regular teacher, which may be no more than a secondary education. Lastly, the parents are not involved in their child’s education; they never visit the school, contact teachers, or ask questions about their child’s education. For the past two to three weeks the children have done absolutely nothing. I mentioned that some were practicing the past couple of weeks for the open day ceremony, but not all of them. I assumed that this week they would get back to work, but it is not the case. The children arrive at school at eight and play until five when it is time to go home. The cook has not been here for the past week so children cook lunch for the teachers and their children, but they, themselves, go hungry. The upper classes have had exams the past couple of days and one of the teachers delegated Carol to grade the papers for him. I intercepted them and was incredibly disappointed to see their scores. Out of fifty marks, children were scoring twos and eights. As a teacher, if over half of my class was failing I would feel incredibly guilty for failing my students, but teachers here blame the children for not being bright.

There are about ten children that I know rather well and they can usually be found at my house when they are not in class. I think the teachers get annoyed by the fact that I would enjoy spending time with the children and that I am so well liked by the children. The teachers teach their classes, make the students fetch water for them, wash their clothes and dishes, and take care of their children. However, I do these things for myself and enjoy spending time with the children. Today I had a teacher who I really like come up to me while I was playing a game with some kids including Bonny and Martin. She looked at me and said, “These two are your best friends?” Teachers always do this when they have a problem with a child. They cannot take care of the problem themselves so they make it out to sound like it is my problem because they are my “friends.” Anyway, she reminded them that they were not to be seen with one another any longer. I was baffled they are best friends and both incredibly great kids. I have never had a problem with either one of them and while Bonny is rather bright naturally, Martin tries to learn and always reminds me of how much he wants to learn. This teacher informed me that Martin is “destroying” Bonny. That Martin has very bad manners and never does as his teachers ask. Apparently during the exams he had Bonny do his for him. She was also mad because during school Bonny and Martin always go to his house instead of staying at school. I was incredibly shocked to hear about Martin having bad manners because he always does as I ask and always offers to do things for me. I am not surprised about them going to his house during school because the students are never in class. Why would you stay at school where you have no food and you are not learning anything? As for Bonny doing the exam for him I guess I understand that as well. Martin wants to succeed, but under the circumstances unless you are incredibly bright you cannot succeed in this school system. I was asking the teacher if she has talked with Martin about these issues to find out if something else has been going on and she said no that they have think that he doesn’t want to learn. I said, “He told you that?” She said, “No, I just know.” I asked if she had contacted his parents and she said that she had talked with his father awhile back. I told her that I thought she should follow up and she does not see the point. Now let me tell you something else about Martin and his life. Martin’s mother runs a small shop in town that sells alcohol. I have never walked past that store and not seen at least five drunk men sitting there all day long. On top of that, Martin is usually left to run the store when he is not at school. Martin a) probably realizes that if he doesn’t preform well in school this will be his life and b) he’s a sixteen year old boy who spends most of his free time with drunks; how do you think he is going to behave? Tell me how keeping his best friends, who is a good influence, away from him is going to help anyone. If they insist on this I guarantee Martin will not be back in school next term. What is most frustrating is that she kept mentioning what a good student Martin was last year and how well he was doing, but at the same time she doesn’t believe that there could be something else going on to make him behave in this way. I try to remind myself that America didn’t always have a great educational system. It still is far from perfect, but we are coming. Uganda, in a way, is like America sixty years ago. America has come a long way in the past sixty years and I pray that one day Uganda’s educational system will be where we are today. Things take time. I just hate waiting when I am so invested in these children and want so many great things for them. Sometimes I wish I could run a school here with American teachers to show them how things could be, even without money.

Who gets to decide what is beautiful and what is not? In America we hear a lot about body image and there has been a push to try to influence the entertainment business into displaying a diverse group of people. The other day I was talking to Martin and somehow he started talking about how my skin was beautiful because it was white. When I told him his skin was beautiful he told me I was lying and that only white skin is beautiful. Even after I told him all the disadvantages of having white skin such as sun burns, skin caner, and the fact that I am always visibly dirty in this country he still insisted that mine was much more beautiful. I was heartbroken. Martin is a sixteen year old boy that lives deep in the village. Who told him that white skin was beautiful? To my knowledge, he doesn’t have access to entertainment as we do in the western world, but perhaps it goes way back to colonialism. Martin is not the only person I have had this conversation with it happens often and each time I wish they would truly believe me when I tell them that they are beautiful. I always try to explain to them how much I love to photograph them because of the way the sun always reflects off of their skin, but they do not believe me.

The other day a girl in secondary school brought be a book of poems to explain an English word she did not know. She said, “My teacher is an expert in English, but even she has failed to know this word.” The word was “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

A student of mine, Paol, is leaving Kiyumba for the holiday to earn some money fishing with his father in Entebbe. Paol has been worried that the other children will know more English than him because they will have me to practice with during holiday. I gave Paol my English/Luganda dictionary and told him to write down important words and their meanings to study while he is gone. He started doing so, but then got called away and I had to leave for town. I brought the paper to him and he got this worried look on his face and said, “But Madam Nalubega, I am missing a word.” The word he was worried about not having was “wizard.” WIZARD! Seriously? WIZARD! How often in everyday conversation does one use the world “wizard”? I would say that for Americans not too many people would complain if we decided to remove it from the dictionary. Who knows though, this is a rather superstitious culture perhaps it is an important word.

Uganda is a rather conservative culture when concerning dress. I cannot even imagine what would happen if I ever wore something short enough to see my knees in the village. I have a picture in an album where some friends from home and I went camping and we are all wearing shorts and the kids are absolutely shocked. At first I didn’t think anything of it, but now I am starting to get self conscious about the fact that these kids have seen my knees. A friend donated a Cosmo Girl magazine for me to cut up to make beads. I had torn the pages out and the wind had blown them all over my house. I picked most of them up, but there were some I had forgotten about. The worst picture was a page where they had six celebraties wearing two different things and readers were asked to choose which one they preferred. In each picture the girl was either wearing a thong swimsuit or a skimpy swimsuit. I almost died. It was as if I just introduced these fifteen year old boys to porn. I can only imagine what Ugandans have to think of Americans after all the movies and magazines they see of us.

I am not fat. I know that. Most people know that. I am not self conscious about being fat (because I am not), but come on people, give me a break! They love calling me fat here. It’s actually more that they like to tell me that I have become fat since I have moved here which is not true; or maybe it is and I just haven’t realized it because my clothes are all stretching out. Could this be a situation like my freshman year of college where me and my entire dorm got fat and blamed our clothes not fitting on how hot the dyers in the basement got? Not noticing how much we “porked out,” as Jess’ mom later informed us, until we saw pictures of ourselves? Anyway, back to the point. The other day it got brought up with thirteen year old Frank, him calling me fat that is. I told him that it makes me sad to hear that and that if I am fat no one in America will like me. Of course I was joking, but he didn’t know this. Frank, with the most serious face I have ever seen on him, says, “But Nalubega, for you, you are fat. You enjoy Uganda’s food.” I get it, it’s a cultural thing, but what about this little thing known as tact. You know I don’t enjoy being called fat and that while we both understand that it is a compliment in Uganda I have told you a thousand times that it is a negative thing for Americas so lay off; I am not fat. Bless the American who ever comes to my village and is a bit sensitive about their weight.

Again, I hope all is well with you! Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to take an interest in my life here in Kiyumba!

Peace and love,

Autumn

P.S. Mandy, Jacob, and Michelle thank you so much for the wonderful things you sent! You are all wonderful and I appreciate the time and effort it took you to do so!

Hello everyone! I hope this message finds you all happy and well! I cannot believe that August is already here!

At the beginning of my English classes I have my students write a journal entry. While I think it is a great way to give them practice writing, I often dread this part of the class. Children in Uganda are taught in a way that is so different then we are taught in the states and getting them to do anything that does not involve remote memorization is like pulling teeth. I started out by giving them a question to answer such as what do you do before you come to school? I would give them an example of what I did before I came to school. After explaining it to the whole class a couple of times I would go around to each of the five groups and explain it again. After that I would then go around to individual students and ask them things like, “Do you fetch water? Do you greet your mother and father? Do you put on your uniform?” I then began giving them a word bank to choose vocabulary from and explaining everything in both English and Luganda. It really did not make much of a difference. Yesterday I asked them what they would like to do after they finished secondary school and in the word bank I put possible careers along with other options. Over half of the class’ entry went something like this, “I want to be a shop keeper. I want to be a driver. I want to be a doctor. I want to be a singer. I want to be a dancer. I want to be a priest. I want to go to university. I want to be a teacher. I want to be a farmer.” I was thinking a bit about this and why they would answer this question in this way and I came up with two reasons. The first being that from the time they begin school they are taught to memorize sentence structures. For example, I cannot tell you how many times I hear classes repeat “I see a boat. I see a car. I see a house. I see a person.” When the children master reading this out loud the teacher says, “Great they can read.” It is clearly memorization. If you ask the child what they just read means they could not tell you. If you changed the sentence structure they could not “read” the words. My second hypothesis is that children are never asked or given the chance to think about their future. As Americans from a very early age in life we are asked what we want to be when we grow up. When we say we want to be a doctor, a singer, or the president, we are encouraged. This simply is not the case here. It seems that most children assume that their future will be the same as that of their parents a farmer or a shop keeper.

I have talked with my counterpart about the issue of memorization and the lack of creativity and critical thinking in the education system and we are planning to hold a workshop with teachers after the holiday. I have been doing some research, but if you have any ideas of activities I could do in my class or share with the teachers please be sure to let me know.

While my Luganda is improving, my English is slowly deteriorating. I was grading my students papers the other day and I starting getting confused whether or not what they were writing was correct. For example, almost all of them would put that they lived at Kiyumba instead of in Kiyumba. I had to ask a friend if using at was correct. I can no longer spell anything. Now, the children at Discovery Middle School where I student taught would tell you that I was never very good at spelling in the first place, but it has gotten much worse. I was trying to write the word doctor the other day and I could not figure out how to spell it. This sort of thing happens all the time and I often find myself with my face in my dictionary. I fear my life after Uganda.

The other day my school had an open day in which they invited the community and political leaders in the community. They have been preparing for this event for the past few weeks which means that the children have not been in class. Instead they have been making crafts and singing. Those who were not involved with this project spent their day playing football or practicing multiplication at my house. I found this whole even rather frustrating. Music, crafts, and P.E. are all part of the curriculum, but it is never taught at the school. Now they have this event and they do nothing but these things. If they would have been teaching these courses all along these children would have had time for learning core subjects as well these past few weeks. Also, why aren’t all the children involved? Here they tend to pick out students who have “ability” and only those ones are allowed to participate. The invitation I received for this event invited the public to come see what their children learn at school. I found this quite amusing. It should have said, “Come see what some of your children have been doing in the past two weeks.” The day of the event I invited Lisandro, the Peace Corps volunteer that lives nearest me, to come. The day was long, but for the most part entertaining. Many people gave speeches and talked about me for a while, it was in Luganda so I am not sure exactly what they were saying. I smiled and nodded as if agreeing. I can only hope that they were saying good things; Fredrick assures me that they were. Towards the end of the event the children were singing their last song, a catchy number in local language wishing us all farewell. I soon noticed that in the song the were calling out the names of certain “important” guest to come up and dance a bit. Lisandro and I are enjoying the performance and then the Vicar leans over and tells me that they are calling me up to dance. Thankfully Lisandro was kind enough to come up with me and we danced in front of the entire village. The village thought it was great because they are always surprised when the find out I can do anything. They honestly do not think muzungus know how to do anything, but be a doctor. After the ceremony we get escorted to the important peoples’ room to eat more expensive food than the villagers. I hate when this happens. The villagers got beans, rice, and sweet potatoes which are some of my favorite foods. I on the other hand was served beef and rice. The most important people were served chicken.

Yesterday I went for a run and on my way back I stopped to greet some villagers at the shop. They immediately said, “Nalubega, you know how to run?” After explaining that yes, I do know how to run. They then continued to tell me that I was becoming fat. I found this rather interesting because I am not becoming fat, but also because can you imagine coming back from a run in states and someone telling you that you are becoming fat? They would tell you the opposite to encourage you. But here in Uganda things are different. If you are big you are considered beautiful. It is a sign of wealth, showing that you can afford to eat. They are shocked when I tell them that I do not want to become big, but seem to accept it when I tell them that if I become big that I will have to buy new clothes and that I do not have money.

When a child in America loses a parent we call it a tragedy. When a child in Uganda loses a parent they call it life. One of students that I am the closest to is Bonny. He is an amazing child. He is smart and eager to learn. He has great manners and is just a great kid to be around. The other day I was talking with him and he told me that both of his parents are dead and that he lives with his seventy-four year old grandfather. Another student, Irene, has also lost both of her parents and is living with her grandmother. Most of the time I speak with students and they tell me that they have lost at least one of their parents. I have chosen to speak about Bonny and Irene because they are constantly amazing me. They are beautiful children who I believe will do great things if they are given the opportunity, which is something hard to come by here in Uganda.

Recently I had a friend from home write me an e-mail and she told me that she would not even have a clue as to how to do half of the things I do here. It got me thinking about what it means to be an American and living in another country has definitely given me the opportunity to see how incredibly lucky we are. I would say that most Americans could easily do the things I am doing here in Uganda. As Americans there are many things that we do and that we expect that all people can easily do. We assume that if there is a problem that there is a solution. While we may not know the solution we most likely know how to find the solution. We understand how important communication is and most people find a means to do so. I cannot tell you how many times there has been a problem here which is the direct result of no communication. We understand the importance of showing up for work and doing your best. We believe that people should be held accountable for their work and majority of people hold themselves accountable. We know how to think critically and we love to ask “why?” While many feel that politicians are corrupt in comparison to the corruption elsewhere in the world we have nothing to worry about. We have hope for the future. As children we are told that we can be anything we want to be and I believe that for Americans that is pretty realistic. A majority of us do not have to worry about becoming an orphan. We do not have to worry about finding clean drinking water or water in general. My point to all of this is twofold. First, as Americans we know how to do things and we do not even realize it. I would say that I am a rather average American. I’m not incredibly smart or creative, but here, in comparison, I am because as a product of the American school systems I have been taught to think in a way that people in Uganda have not been taught to do. There are some very bright Ugandans, but they have no idea what to do with their intelligence. I have a friend here named Peace and every time I tell her I am going to do something she tells me that it is impossible. I love showing her she is wrong and that I am able to do most things I try because I find a way. My second point of all of this remember how privilege you are. I feel that Americans catch a lot of slack, but be proud you are an American. You do not realize how talented you are and how much you know how to do until you live in a country that has not been taught to do much more than memorize. I stopped refruting when Ugandans tell me that I am rich. They are right. Materially I have more than they probably will ever have in their lives and I do not even have a job. The amount of resources and privileges I have is incomparable to theirs. My education, not even counting university, far surmounts theirs. No matter how much or little you feel you have, you are rich.

Anyway, I apologize if this is just a bunch of rambling. It is a product of my writing in an internet cafe. I hope you are happy and well!

Peace and Love,

Autumn

Hello everyone! I hope all is happy and well with you on your side of the world! I want to apologize for the enormous amount of grammatical and spelling errors in last weeks blog. I promise to proofread this one to some extent before posting.

I cannot believe I had forgotten to write about this earlier, but a few weeks ago I was conducting a workshop on thematic curriculum. Upon my arrival at the school I was greeted by the headmaster who greeted me with a couple of slaps on the face. I was absolutely flabbergasted and I can only imagine what my face had to have looked like. To my surprise I ended up really liking this man at the end of the day.

Last weekend before Jackie and Sam left Lisandro and I took them out dancing at a club in Masaka town. While a decent amount of people were drinking alcohol there was also a decent amount of people drinking milk out of box with a straw. It was like a juice box of milk drank by grown men at a club. How often do you see that in the states?

Every week I do something and realize that I am becoming a bit more Ugandan. Most of the time I think it’s funny until I realize what consequences this will carry once I return to the states. Yesterday small children were playing with magnets (which they love Kelly!) and I decided it would be a good idea to give them five rusty nails to play with. I was a teacher and a nanny before I came to Uganda. I spent most of my time keeping things like rusty nails away from children and now I am giving them to them.

When I first moved to Kiyumba my supervisor and I stopped at the police station to introduce myself. One of the first things they said to me was that Kiyumba is very dangerous and that I needed armed guards. Amber and I laughed about this for the past two months because it seemed ridiculous to us. Well, the other morning the local chairman, the deputy of the school, and two armed guards showed up at my house. Apparently they are going to start patrolling the village at night. I’m not sure if the are going to be patrolling all of the village or just my house, but I was in shock. I have armed guards wondering around outside of my house at night. I have no idea who’s idea this was or who’s money is paying for these men, but hey, I have armed guards.

I think I had mentioned last week that Sam had witnessed a male teacher beating some of the students and that I had a talk with him about copral punishment. On Monday I was walking over to the school and I witnessed a female teacher with the students lined up beating them with a stick because apparently they were not cleaning the compound as they were supposed to. I really like this teacher and she was completely mortified when she saw that I was upset and promised it would not happen again. On Tuesday I made myself lunch and was on my way to my front porch to eat when I saw a student laying on his side and a girl in his class beating him with a stick. She seemed uncomfortable about it, but the same male teacher I had a talk with on Friday was encouraging her to hit him harder. On top of this, the entire class was purposely gathered around to watch. This time the male student had stolen sugar cane from the girl’s farm. I again talked with the teacher and he was completely baffled. He said, “But you said that I couldn’t beat the children. I didn’t know they couldn’t beat eachother.” It seemed ridiculous to me. Can you imagine giving a student a stick and having him beat another student? We talked for awhile and he asked what he should have done with the student. I told him that he should have to go and apologize to the girl’s father and pay for the sugarcane taken and if he could not pay he should do some work at the man’s house to make up for the cost. He seemed to agree with me. When I asked him if he felt that beating the children was working he agreed that it was not. Later on that day I was walking through the school and this same teacher and another female teacher stopped me. They had just found a group of girls that were out in the bush picking jamula (similar to grapes) while they were supposed to be at school and they wanted to know what an appropriate punishment would be. I told them that the girls should not be allowed to play during their lunch time the following day and that they should instead be kept inside writing sentences. They agreed and wrote the girls’ names down to miss free time the following day. While the past week’s events have been rather frustrating I am hopeful that change will come about. I talked with my counterpart and we are going to plan a workshop on classroom management/discipline. I am a big believer that a well managed class will not need discipline and I have been been posting my procedures, classroom rules, and consequences in my own classroom. The classroom I have been using in the same room that we hold workshops so it is good that I will be able to show them partly why my students are so well behaved.

Today I taught a couple of the teachers and students how to make the paper beads and they loved it. It is great because they are all very eager to learn and contribute to the library through the profits made off of the beads. They are a bit difficult to make at first and some of them turned out rather bad. I know they are capable of making really good beads with a bit of practice, but right now they are not as good as I want them to be and it is hard for me to tell them they are not as good as they need to be. I have learned that many of the people I work with tell me what I want to hear, but never follow through with their promises. I have one teacher who has really surprised me with her enthusiasm with the project and has even brought me some beautiful seeds from some plant that she was hoping that I could find something to do with. Luckily, the day she brought the seeds Jackie happened to be wearing a beautiful bracelet made out of the same beads. Today after school some students came over to my house and made the paper beads while Paulo made bracelets out of the seeds. So far this project is going just as I would like it to. I have shown them how to make the things, but they are taking complete ownership of the project and I am mearly supervising.

Jackie and Sam I just want to tell you what I have witnessed this week after you have left. The other day I was standing in my kitchen cooking and outside my window I hear “ch ch ch ch ch ch woo!” They were singing the part of singing in the rain that they remembered. I watched Martin place three sticks in a row and play the jumping game by himself. I found out Madagascar was a boy, despite the fact he only ever wears dresses, and he actually talks and smiles all the time. He must have just in muzungu overload. Oh, and as I expected I have received a numerous amount of requests for the photos you took of them. Lastly, I have also finally tired of “Wagon Wheel,” somehow. Believe it or not, as of Monday, it has only been played forty-three times.

I got mail and tons of it the other day; seven packages in total! Thank you Julie, Carla X2, Kelly X2, and Lindsay X2! You are wonderful and the kids and I are really enjoying everything! Geoffrey that postman now also knows that I am incredibly loved!

Peace and love,

Autumn

Hello everyone! My last blog took me so long to post that I was able to post again soon after! I hope all is happy and well with you and that you are enjoying your summer weather!

Last week Amber and attended a workshop that was training tutors on how to train teachers to teach students about life skills. The first question asked was how STIs were transmitted. The Ugandans all agreed that the only way that STIs could be transmitted was through sexual intercourse. I raise my hand and add that STIs can be transmitted through any sexual act, not only intercourse. They all get a confused look on their face and someone refers to instruments. At this point Amber and I are baffled about what they are talking about so I take it upon myself to clarify what I mean. Mind you, Ugandans are incredibly indirect. I stand up in a room full of fifty adults and say, “For example, lets say I have oral sex with one person and contract herpes. Afterwards, I kiss another person and they now contract herpes. That is one way an STI can be transmitted without sexual intercourse.” If I did not have everyone’s attention at the beginning, I definitely had all eyes on me by the end. I sat down and Amber burst into laughter. Everyone was shocked that I would say such a thing. On top of that I think they now believe that I have herpes. But hey, if it gets them to teach correct information then I will let them believe that I am promiscuous and have herpes.

After the workshop I headed to Iganga to stay with a friend of mine and visit another volunteers women’s group that makes the paper beads I want my students to make. I got there Saturday afternoon and met up with the volunteers in that area for lunch and headed over to meet Cate’s group and learned how to made beads. The work these women is absolutely beautiful. I tried to make one and it was a disaster. The worst part about trying to roll the paper is that you notice how dirty your finger nails are in this country. I think I need to invest in a bottle of black nail polish so I will never have to accept how dirty I am on a regular basis. On my way back to Masaka I stopped in Kampala to get some things from the Peace Corps office. During this time I get a call from my friends Jackie and Sam telling me that they are at the airport a half hour away from Kampala. Jackie and Sam are my friends from the states who have spent the past four weeks making their way up to Uganda from South Africa. I knew they were coming sometime soon, but I haven’t been to the internet for a while so I had no idea when they were coming. So that was a big wonderful surprise for me! When I got them to my village my villagers were on muzungu overload. They were going nuts over Jackie and Sam.

This week I started teaching English to the P6 and P7 kids and I was thankful Jackie and Sam were here to help me out for the first week. The first day we taught the P7 students and for the most part it went really well. I had them do a writing sample and realized that many them are having much trouble with forming basic sentences. The next day we taught P6 and it was a bit rough; they were having a really hard time understanding what we were asking them to do, but by the second lesson they were doing really well. Because both P6 and P7 were having a difficult time forming basic sentences we decided that we should start with the basics. The next day we went over what a noun was and had them work in groups using some flash cards of nouns and adjectives and had them pick out which ones were nouns. It was a great lesson because children here are not taught to work in groups and some of the groups were doing a really great job of discussing and thinking critically together. I also really liked it because we were using a resource we found in the box of unused resources and the children loved them. We had them do some fun appreciation cheers for right answers and at the end of our lesson they thanked up for teaching by doing the cheer for us. It was wonderful and I absolutely love teaching them.

I didn’t visit schools this week because I am teaching English at an odd time of day. We got to spend a great deal of time with the kids during their breaks. They have always known that I was a bit goofy, but once we added Jackie and Sam to the mix we were all kinds of weird and the kids loved it. We were teaching the kids silly songs, dancing, and just making fools of ourselves. The teachers thought we were nuts, but it was great to show them how teachers in the states interact with their students. The other day one of the teachers asked me to teach the students how we dance in America. I just laughed, I cannot think of anything worse than me teaching kids how we dance in America.

While I was developing instructional materials in the resource room Sam witnessed one of the teachers beating the children. I asked him about it later and he saw nothing wrong with it, although it is illegal. We talked for a bit about why, especially in a country with a history of violence, it is important that we are not being instigators. He did not agree and tried giving me the excuse that Africans are different from Americans and that they must be beat or they will not behave. He keeps claiming that other methods would not work and that beating them is the only way. However, beating them is not working either. What I find the most interesting is that the students he has the most trouble with I have no trouble with at all. He says that when he tells them to carry water they refuse. However, these children beg to carry my water. He says that in class they refuse to listen. However, in my class they are incredibly well behaved. I think the difference is that they respect me because I don’t believe in this whole hierarchy that Ugandans love and because I treat them as I would a friend. In fact they are my friends. If a child respects you they will do as you wish, but why would a child willingly do something for someone that beats them and pays no attention to them? I mentioned to the boys that I was told that they have bad discipline and they were mortified. On Monday I told that teacher that we could talk about alternative discipline methods so hopefully that will go well.

The other day Jackie and Sam offered to paint a wonderful quote on my wall that says, “I never knew of a morning in Africa when I woke up that I was not happy” by Ernest Heminway. I was joking with Jackie about looking out for Patu if she leaves the black paint on my back porch because last time he smeared orange paint all over my back porch. Well, I walk out on my back porch a bit later to find Patu sitting there with a big paint covered grin on his face. I am not sure what he was doing, but it looks as if he was tasting the paint. He is outrageous, but I love him more and more everyday. I am so glad that Jackie and Sam had the opportunity to understand why I love this naughty and strange little boy so much.

I have always loved my village and I hate when I have to leave it for more than a day at a time, but it was not until this week that I realized how attached we all are to one another. The other day I was talking to an older student and he told me that he was sad because his mom was going to die. She is in the hospital next to my home and has not ate, drank, or talked in the past week. He tells me that she is suffering from malaria, but he asked me to tell him about HIV/AIDS so I suspect that she may have AIDS. His Dad lives about four hours away and is a fisherman and his sister and brother have been taking care of him while she has been sick. It broke my heart to hear him talk about his mother and what he thinks will happen if (but as he says, when) she dies. I have noticed that he waits around until six or seven until he leaves the school, he is always wanting to help me, and very curious about my own mother. He is doing everything he can to take his mind off of his mother and I believe I am the only person he has told about his mother. When he left me the other night to visit his mother I burst into tears. Sometimes the reality of these children's’ hardships is too much to handle. Their strength is inspirational.

Yesterday when Jackie and Sam where leaving they were telling some of the students goodbye and even though the boys only knew them for four days they had tears in their eyes. I made a horrible joke with Martin, the boy I have known the longest, about how I was also leaving with them to go back to the States. Martin, a fifteen year old boy, burst in to tears; I cannot think of a time I have seen someone so upset. It took me a good five minutes to get him to calm down. It did not help that I did not know the word for “joke” in Luganda. Needless to say, I have learned my lesson about making jokes when you don’t know how to tell someone you are joking. I have often thought about how hard it will be for me to leave these people in two years, but this was the first time I really realized what my leaving is going to do to this village and how much of an impact I am making on these children. I have no idea how I am going to leave these people in two years.

Anyway, thank you again for taking the time out of your lives to read about my little life here in Uganda! I hope all is happy and well on your side of the world!

Peace and love,

Autumn

Muli mutya! I hope this message finds you all happy and well. I am so sorry my entrees have been becoming farther apart. I feel that this is for two reasons. 1. I have been rather busy with work and find it difficult to find time to get to the internet. 2. The longer I am here the more normal things become to me and I do not think to relay them to you. Therefore I am running out of things to talk about.

When I leave my village I am constantly being overcharged at the market. The color of my skin determines the price in which I pay. I try to assimilate as much as possible into the community and live like a local and I find it, at time, frustrating that the color of my skin signals to locals that I have plenty of money to give them. The other day I was washing my clothes and had them hanging on the line out back. On my way to my house from the well I noticed what others in my village must also see. I had not only taken up my line but the line of another teacher’s with a total of three skirts, a pair of pants, and six shirts. This may not sound like very much to you at home, but let me just say that I recognize most of the people in my village by the outfit they are wearing. Most people in my village wear the same one or two items everyday. I started thinking about the fact that I am able to go to Masaka town at least once a week which is much more often than most go. I noticed that I am able to travel around this country much more than those in my village would ever dream of doing. My friend Gerald’s dream is to go to country he was born in, Rwanda. Rwanda is right next to Uganda and does not even charge fees for a visa, but he is still unable to afford to go. My friend Julius has not been at school all week because he could not pay the school fees for the term of ten thousand shillings, an equivalent of about five American dollars. I have talked to many adolescents who have said that they have had to quit school due to the lack of funds. It is times like these that I become both grateful and guilty for the amount of resources I have been given my whole life. I have never had to worry about not having food to eat, a place to sleep, quality education, or shoes to protect my feet. How is it that some of us are given so many resources to succeed while others are given so little?

While I have hope for Ugandans, I recently came upon some facts that were startling. Uganda is the size of Oregon and it has one of the fasted growing populations in the world with the average women having seven children. Over half of the population is under fifteen years of age. Schools already have classrooms occupied with over one hundred children, land is scarce, and jobs are hard to come by. What is going to happen when the population doubles? It is part of the Uganda culture to have large families. A man who does not produce many children is thought to be weak. Unless the government, who currently supports large families, creates a law to limit the amount of children a family may have, I fear that Uganda will face a grave future.

Last week I spent a four day at a conference with all other Peace Corps volunteers in Uganda and I cannot tell you how beneficial it was. It was a chance for us to share what we are doing in our villages with one another. Talking with the one hundred and twenty-eight volunteers and learning about their projects has completely inspired me. When you talk with a volunteer individually they will say that they are not doing much, but when you listen to all they have accomplished it is quite impressive. When you take into account that any given time there is around one hundred and thirty volunteers stationed around the country doing various projects it is quite astonishing to realize the amount of impact the Peace Corps has on the lives of Ugandans. Many volunteers have initiated projects that help Ugandans manage their money through their own banking systems, others have started computer labs and trained students on how to use them, there income generating groups, latrines and libraries being constructed. On top on the tangible things, the connections that we are making with the people here in Uganda are indescribable. For me, I have spent most of my time with the kids. Just by allowing children to freely visit my home, giving hugs, and letting them know what they have to say is important has seemed to make them a bit more confident than when I first met them. If in the next two years I do not do anything else, but love the children in the same way I was lucky enough to be love, I will have done what I came here for.

I have been visiting schools with my counterpart for the past few weeks which is always fun for me to see the many different schools. Yesterday we went to a school located on the shores of Lake Victoria; it was beautiful. On the beach there were fishermen pulling fish trapped in nets from the lake; others could be found napping in their boat. The school was constructed of old wind worn boards with tin roofs and the floor was filled with sand. While they had so little, I couldn’t help but feel jealous that this was their school.

The other day I helped conduct a workshop for the head teachers of fourteen different schools. Of course the meeting started a hour late and only five out of eighteen were present. However, over the next few hours nine more showed up at various times. Sometimes I feel that my counterpart is working against me. He is really pushing to get electricity at the coordinating center and was encouraging the teachers to donate. However, in doing so he told everyone that I had a computer. I have done a good job of not letting anyone in my village know that I have a computer because I do not want to come across as the rich mzungu anymore than I already do nor do I want to encourage those in desperation to steal from me. However, now I am sure everyone in fourteen different villages now know about my computer. During that same meeting he began telling the teachers about a conversation we had about how teachers are not held accountable. However, he changed the story to say that I told him that because teachers are not held accountable that we should not waste our time with them, but how he told me that he must go and help them. I was shocked; he had completely made up a negative story and told it to a group of head teachers in my presence. I am not sure if he just doesn’t realize what he is doing or if this is a power struggle. I have noticed that he feels that men are better than woman. The other day he told me that my father must be very miserable to have only girls. I told him that he was in fact not miserable and that we are all strong and clever women, but he just laughed. The more I speak up and the more opinionated I am the better it seems to be. I am usually not a very opinionated person, but I find it entertaining when I do it with my counterpart.

One of the things that make the Peace Corps stand out from other volunteer organizations is that it encourages volunteers to make sure their projects our sustainable. It happens often that short term volunteers will come in and throw money into a community and once they leave the project falls apart. A perfect example of this is the borehole in my community. It was donated by an organization, but the villagers were never trained on how to maintain the borehole nor did they feel any ownership over the borehole and now that it is broke it sits there. I have been thinking a lot about how I can make the library at Kiyumba sustainable and the one thing I want to do is have the community contribute financially. However, as I mentioned before most people do not have money to contribute, but Ugandans are incredibly talented craftsmen and women. I recently bought some beautiful handmade necklaces made out of magazine paper. I showed some teachers and students the necklaces and we decided that I would teach the children how to make the beads and we would make jewelry that we could sell both here and in America. I, as well, as the students are incredibly excited about the project; I really hope it works out. My hope is that the school will take ownership over the library and see it as a product of their own work and not as a library contributed by me.

I cannot believe I have not talked about this earlier, but the stars in my village are absolutely stunning! The entire night sky is lit up and the Milky Way can be seen from my back porch. Sometimes when I walk out my back door at night I forget that we do not have electricity because the moon is shinning just as bright as a street lamp.

Every time a new month begins I find myself wondering what happened to last month. Time seems to be flying by; I cannot believe I have already been in Uganda for six months. Everyday is a good day and I must say that I have never been happier!

Anyway, I hope everyone has had a wonderful and safe 4th of July! I love you and miss you all dearly!

Peace and love,

Autumn

P.S. Happy 50th Birthday Dad! I love you and am sorry I am not there to drink a beer with you in celebration! : )

p.s.s. Carla I got your package! Thank you so much it was absolutely wonderful! Apparently I have three other packages waiting for me at the post office and I will let you know when I find out who send them! :)

Greetings everyone! I hope this message finds you all happy and well! My apologies for taking so long to write, but I have been rather busy in the past couple of weeks.

Last week a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer and myself decided that we would like to go camping over the weekend. On Friday I made the six and a half hour trip out west to Fort Portal to meet him. On Saturday morning we made our way to the taxis and told them that we wanted to go to the Rwenzori Mountains. Now, most of you have probably not heard of the Rwenzori Mountains, but they are humongous. Of course the drivers tried asking where at the Rwenzoris, but we had not thought this far. One driver told us he new a place and to get in the car. Once we were in the car we waited for about an hour for him to find a spare tire, but eventually we made it to the mountains. At this point we were told that we would need a guide and porters to carry our things, but we decided that we would be able to carry our own gear and that we would only take the guide.

In all honesty, I had no idea what I was about to get myself into. We were told that it was about a two hour walk to the park boundary, with twenty some pounds on my back I knew it wouldn’t be pleasant, but I didn’t think it would be too bad. Within the first hour I thought I was going to die; this was not a walk by any means, but a serious climb. I know I am not in great shape, but I did not think I was by any means out of shape until this day. For the first hour, or so, I insisted on carrying the tent; I had my pride to keep, but after some time I realized that if I didn’t give it to Robert I probably wouldn’t be making it to the top of that mountain. It was also at this point that Patrick told us that we were going to start climbing. We just spent the last hour climbing some rather steep inclines and we were just now really start climbing? He was right. I cannot believe we were able to climb some of these inclines. We were making our way through trenches dug out by the rain. I felt like I was at fat camp or on “The Biggest Loser.” I would have to stop to rest for a bit and Robert would keep saying, “Just keep going if you stop it is going to make it harder. You can do it; we are almost there.” I don’t think I responded in anyway to Robert’s comments, but I wanted to push him off the mountain a few times. If I was able to move on without taking a break I would have. I didn’t need motivation, I needed someone to carry me. After a couple of hours we made it to the park boundary and headed farther up the mountain where it only became more steep. Most of the time I refused to look up because just when I thought we would get a break from the climbing I would find another difficult climb ahead of us and want to cry. Thanks to some blue monkeys we were able to take a bit of a break and not long after that we were finally at the top of the mountain, 2000 meters high. Eventually we did make it to the top and it was absolutely amazing. We were in a jungle on top of a mountain.

Despite how much we wanted to, it was still a bit too early for bed when we arrived so Robert and I decided to go for a walk. Patrick stayed behind supposedly to watch the tent. We came to an overgrown area and stopped only to discover what sounded like rain, but the sky was blue. I looked down at the ground and realized that the sound we were hearing was not rain, but millions of ants eating the leaves around us. I then noticed that ants were crawling all over my shoes and making their way up my pants. Now, these are not just ordinary ants. These ants bite and it does not feel good. Robert was trying to knock them off the outside of my pants while I was trying to smash the ones inside my pants. Robert of course found it amusing that I would have ants in my pants. I, on the other hand, did not find it one bit amusing. We spent a good while trying to kill the ants before I realized that some had make it all the way up the back of my shirt almost to my neck. At this point the only thing I could do was take off my shirt. Just as Robert is finishing knocking off the ants off of my back Patrick comes strolling around the corner. I am not exactly sure what he saw, but I am sure it didn’t look too good. I cannot quite figure out why the ants liked me so much more than Robert, but he seems to think it is because I had sweated out the immense amount of sugar I eat weekly.

When we began climbing the mountain we noticed that Patrick was carrying a very small bag; not even a backpack. Once we got to the top of the mountain we noticed that Patrick has stuffed a large jacket in the bag and that there definitely was not a tent, sleeping bag, or food in that bag of his. When we asked him where he was sleeping his response was, “You don’t have two tents?” I don’t know why he would have thought we would have two tents, but my tent is big enough for three so it was no problem. Now, 2000 meters up it gets rather cold so I ask Patrick if he has a sleeping bag, but of course he does not. Robert and I decided that we would share mine and give Patrick his. Now, as far as food goes, we are not sure what Patrick ate. It was suggested that we give him 10,000 shillings to buy food before we left the town, but all we saw him with was a 1,000 shilling bottle of water and a pack of cigarettes. Patrick also smelled of alcohol, so I guess we know where our money went and why he wanted to stay behind and watch the tent. The only food I brought on this trip was an apple and a box of crackers. Robert brought a smashed loaf of bread that tasted like play-dough, an avocado, peanut butter, and some jerky. So him and I took turns sharing the one spoon we had eating a spoonful of peanut butter and stuffing bread crumbs in our mouth. Needless to say, Patrick did not ask to eat any of our food. Around seven-thirty we were exhausted so the three of us and Patrick’s riffle climbed into the tent; Robert in the middle. Within five minutes Patrick was snoring quite loudly and within a half hour Patrick was practically sleeping on Robert. A few hours later and Robert and I still cannot sleep due to Patrick’s snoring. It begins to rain and of course we did not fully put the rain cover on because Patrick told us the rainy season was over so we ended up with wet and cold feet the rest of the night.

The next morning we made it back down the mountain in one piece. Robert and I figured I would fall down multiple times, but in reality, I only fell once and was while walking on flat ground after stumbling over a rock. It is a week later and I am still exhausted.

The thing that really gets me about this mountain is that Ugandans live here. They farm on the slopes. They walk up the mountain to school everyday. They fetch water from one of the two streams that flow down its sides. They carry babies tied to their backs with who knows what on the heads. They walk their cows and goats to the top to let them graze and they carry loads of bamboo down the mountain to build their homes. These do these things everyday. I cannot even imagine how strong they must be.

My counterpart arrived a couple of weeks ago and now I am incredibly busy. While it is great to be busy, I miss out on spending a great deal of time with my village which makes me sad. It also leaves me little time to do all of my chores. For the past week or two my counterpart and I have been visiting schools in our area handing out invitations to come to a workshop we will be holding next week. We have around seventy schools and hand delivering them gets a bit old real fast. We stopped at some of the schools and Fredrick would put me on the spot by telling the teachers that I wanted to talk to them, but I had no idea what I was supposed to be talking about. I would ask them questions about whether they had been trained in thematic curriculum and if it was being taught. I would ask about their lesson plans and schemes of works and most times I would get blank stares. I could be talking to ten teachers and not one would answer me; most of them would be looking at their feet. The reason for this kind of response is because they are not doing the things they should be. These teachers are always so excited to see me until they hear that I am an education inspector and from that point on I will not get a single one of them to look me in the eye. Eye contact is a hard thing to come by in Uganda and it drives me crazy at times. I was in a meeting with the head teacher of the primary school that I live and my counterpart and the head teacher spent most of the meeting playing with his radio. At times the radio was so loud that I could not hear a word that was being said. He was doing anything he could to avoid eye contact. I was completely baffled. Could you imagine a school inspector coming to visit your school and your principal was playing with a radio the entire time? However, Fredrick did not seem to mind so I guess it is nothing out of the ordinary. It is a sign of disrespect for children to look an elder in the eye so when children are greeting me they look at their feet and are so quite I can barely hear them. Coming from America we teach our children to be confident and eye contact is important. How many times have you heard your parents or teacher say, “Look at me while I am talking to you.” Luckily for me the children that have gotten to know me no longer look at their feet while talking to me. Now if only I could get the teachers to stop fearing me and start looking at me and answering my questions.

While visiting one of the schools the deputy informed me that they had computers, but that they did not have anyone to train them on how to use them. I am hoping to go next week to check out the computers and see if I could start teaching computer classes at both the primary school as well as the neighboring secondary school that is supposed to be sharing the computers. The older children have also been begging me to teach them more English and after examining their PLE (similar to the I-Step) I noticed that they are really lacking in English. I, however, have no idea how to go about teaching a language especially when I am not fluent in Luganda. However, I think I am going to start a writing club and encourage them to write in English. They know enough to get started and I can help them fill in the blanks. Eventually, I want them to write story books that can be used in the lower primary grades. If you have any ideas on how to go about teaching a foreign language please be sure to let me know! I also had the opportunity to visit a school funded by a Canadian and it was fantastic. They had a fabulous library that I am hoping to duplicate at Kiyumba. I believe I have found an organization that is willing to donate some books, but I am hoping to find more. I am just glad that I have found a library in which I can model Kiyumba’s after.

As Said By Ugandans:

Frank: “So if I go to America my skin will turn white?”

Me: “No, it doesn’t work that way.”

Frank: “But Michael Jackson turned white”

Fredrick:“I don’t want to have women working at my school because they get pregnant and become week.”

Carol: “Where did you learn to eat corn?”

Anyway, I hope this message has found you all happy and well! Happy Father’s Day dad and Happy Birthday Mom! As always, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read!

Peace and Love,

Autumn

p.s. I would love to have some Cliff bars for my next camping trip!

p.s.s. It was brought to my attention that I may have given you the wrong address. The correct one is listed on the top of my blog. There is no zip code. Thanks!

Muli mutya! I hope this message finds you all happy and well! I cannot believe summer is already here and I hope you are enjoying the sweet sunshine! I am jealous that many of you will be spending time on boats and in the water. There are only canoes here and if I swim in the water I will most definitely contract a parasite.

It has happened more than once during my time here in Uganda that my neighbors will spot another muzungu in the village and find me immediately. The conversation usually goes something like this, “Nalubega, there are muzungus! Come and see!” Of course I always come running because it is incredibly unusual to find muzungus in the village. Upon reflecting on this event later I usually laugh. Here we are running outside to find other white people as if we are an extinct species with only a few left in the world. I acted in the same way a few days previous when we saw some rare parrot. On this particular day I met five westerners. Three of these muzungus were from the states on a mission trip. My villagers apparently informed them that there was a born again Christian living in the village which is how they found me; which brings me to the second point. I don’t exactly know what a born again Christian is, but this country is crazy about them. I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked if I am a born again Christian. Why do I need to be born again? Can’t I just be Christian? And where did they get the idea that I was a born again Christian in the first place? Upon walking into the grocery store I have even been given a rosary. If I know anything about this country it is this, Ugandans love muzungu sightings and born again Christians.

An addition to the mission trip people: I went for a run last night and the Christians were back in the village having some sort of assembly and were just finishing up as I was running by. As they are driving by me one of them has a video camera out the window filming me. Now, I am sure it was because many children were running along side me, but come on; it is not a safari. I can think of many things I would not liked to be filmed doing and running is definitely one of them. I am sure they are going to go home and show all of their friends a video of me running and they will probably laugh at how slow I am and how much I am tripping over the uneven ground. Awesome.

Ugandans are very indirect. For example, if you have not ironed your clothes they may ask you if the power was out. What they are really asking is why have you not ironed your clothes. When I was at home stay I was washing my clothes on a Sunday and the father said, “I think you wash your clothes on Saturday.” To this day I am not sure if he literally thought I washed my clothes on Saturday or if he was indirectly telling me to wash my clothes on Saturday. Now that I am in the village my new favorite word is “somehow.” My friend Peace told me she was going to come visit me in the afternoon, but never showed up. When I saw here later I was giving her a hard time about it. The conversation that followed went like this:

Peace: “I am sorry I could not come. I was sick”

Me: “Oh, you were sick? I am sorry.”

Peace: Somehow I was sick.

Me: “You mean you were sick or you were not sick?”

Peace: “I was sick, somehow.”

What does this word somehow mean in this context? I have laughed with Peace about this a lot lately. It was Peace’s way of lying to me about being sick, but indirectly. It was used in a way that if questioned, she wasn’t really lying. I have noticed many Ugandans using this word lately and I laugh every time. I have even started using the word myself. The other day a teacher saw that I was planning to carry two jerry cans and asked me if I was stronger than him. My response was, “Somehow.”

I love big dogs and for the past few years I have really wanted to get a Great Dane. Last weekend I met a German man with a Great Dane as big as a calf and it got me thinking about what it would be like to have such a large dog in the village. First, let me explain the idea of pets here in Uganda. It is non existent. Sure, many Ugandans have dogs, but the are underfed, sleep outside, are never petted, and are used for protection and chasing monkeys out of the garden. Second, Ugandans are scared of dogs that they don’t know. Third, they have no idea how smart animals are. Lastly, all of their dogs look exactly the same; none over two feet in height and none any other color than brown. I would love to have a Great Dane here mostly for the shock factor. My dog would have a very cool African name; perhaps that of a warrior. I would walk him to the local store and people would run for their lives. When I asked my pup to sit and he did, they would be in total amazement. At night when I brought him into my house people would laugh and point. When some thug (not that there are any, but lets say there is a village thug) tries stealing from me, my dog would scare him away with one simple bark. He would probably even eat the bats. It would be fabulous all around. Well, until I was trying to feed him on a volunteers’ salary. I would probably have to ship him home to my parents who would be less than thrilled. No worries Mom and Dad, I will not own a Great Dane in the next two years, somehow.

Under most circumstances living on a Peace Corps salary is more than enough, or so I hear. However, moving in I had to buy everything I own and I quickly ran out of money. The last week in May had been incredibly rough for me in the money department. I was out of money and food, owning only a kilo of beans. However, at this point my stomach was hating me for the amount of beans I have consumed lately. So what I would do is strategically place myself in the path of anyone I saw returning from the garden carrying food. I would then greet them knowing that they were going to ask me if I could identify the food item they were carrying. It was usually an ear of corn or an avocado, but I would look at it in amazement and act like I have never seen such a thing. Because they are incredibly generous and because they want to be the one to give the muzungu their first ear of corn, they would give me some and there you have it; I am able to eat a dinner consisting of an ear of corn. I know it is wrong to deceive them in this way, but I was hungry.

One day I was looking out my front window and I saw my seven year old friend Patrick, also known as Patu, standing behind a cow. After looking around to see if anyone was watching Patrick stuck his fingers inside the cows rear-end. He then looked to see how the cow would respond. When the cow gave no reaction, he did it again! I could not believe this. I was watching a child willingly stick his fingers into a cow’s butt. All I had to do was yell “Patu” and he took off running. A few hours later I passed his house on the way to the store and his mother told me he was really sick and that it was malaria. I should have told her that it was not malaria, but it was probably from Patrick sticking his fingers in a cow’s butts. From now on there is going to be a strict hand washing policy for Patrick anytime he comes to my house. Later in the day, Patrick comes over again. If you remember from my last post, Patrick was the one wearing his sister’s skirt. However, on this trip to my house he decided to leave the skirt at home and opted for just a semi long T-shirt. I know I should love this kid less, but I just don’t.

I think I mentioned that I bought a football a while ago. I have adopted the Ugandan name for the game of soccer; the word soccer almost sounds derogatory to me anymore. Today as I was on my way out for a run the kids were playing with my football and I decided to play with them instead. I soon had a crowd watching me which included, but was not limited to, the entire village. Now, I used to play football as a small child. My team even won the city championship, but I do not think it had anything to do with my athletic abilities. In all honesty, all I remember from my football days is my coach telling my mom not to buy me shorts with pockets because I spent most of my football career with my hands in my pockets. Needless to say, my abilities have not grown exponentially over the years. However, when I was playing against the seven year olds I was winning ten to one. The older kids were intrigued that I was playing so I invited them to play. I knew what was going to happen even before I invited them to play; they showed me how the game was really played. These kids play barefoot on some of the most uneven ground I have ever seen and they are fabulous. Actually, fabulous does not even begin to describe how good they are. The thing that gets me is that they have never had a coach. They have never done drills or worked out. All of their talent comes from just playing during recess with a blow up plastic ball. Bless their hearts, they would pass it to me knowing that I would probably give it up to the other team in a couple of seconds anyway. I have about five kids that have promised to turn me into an all star football player before I move back to the states. We’ll see how that works out for me.

Without electronics and the late arrival of my counterpart I have had great deal of free time. Luckily for me, I have recently inherited a set of water color paints from a PCV about to return to the states and have picked up painting as a hobby. I am not sure which is better, my athletic abilities or my artistic abilities. I like to paint pictures and amaze small children. However, there is always one brutally honest child in the group who tells me as he sees it. “Sagala,” he says. Meaning, “I don’t like/love/want.” I just pretend there is a language barrier and go on painting gaudy things.

I feel that most people can be put in one of three categories. You are either incredibly intelligent, athletic, or artistic. During training I became aware that everyone was incredibly talented. My friends and I tried to find my talent and as it turns out I am very mediocre at everything. For weeks we tried to find my talent. At the end of training, when we still had not come up with anything, Celeste told me that I had good ideas. I think she was being sarcastic or just trying to make me feel good, but I am going to take it. I may not be able to play soccer well, paint well, or be incredibly intelligent, but darn it, I have good ideas.

I sleep under a mosquito net every night. When I first opened the package it told me that it was treated to repeal mosquitos. The other night I noticed my mosquito net was covered with mosquitos. I am not sure what exactly they treated the net with, but I have a feeling it might be sugar water. Some nights I manage to trap a mosquito inside my net. As I am sure you can imagine, this ends up a complete catastrophe. After nights like this, I wake up covered from head to toe with bites that I then continue to scratch like a three year old with the chicken pocks. Between my mosquito bites and the cuts and bruises I acquire in this country, I look like a complete disaster on a daily basis. While my mosquito net may not do much for me in the mosquito department, at least it protects me from bat poop.

My last story is not about Uganda at all, but about Holland. There is a volunteer living in Uganda from Holland and one night some PCVs and this volunteer from Holland were hanging out. A fellow PCV decided to tell this other volunteer everything he knew about Holland. Apparently, Holland has a their own Santa Claus like character, but instead of reindeer he has fifth-teen black men that carry the presents, obviously slaves. However, in recent years they have claimed that these black men were not slaves at all, but merely this Santa character’s friends. On top of this, apparently they have a parade every year with Santa and his “friends.”

As Said By Ugandans:

“Do not go to the next village, they eat people there.”

“Your father must be really rich to have three girls. My friend told me about how Americans have to pay the government money if they have more than two children”

“I am sorry your father did not have any boys.”

“I am sorry I could not come; I fell out of an avocado tree.”

"Did you see my mom? She is the one with only one eye?"

“All women have to do is give birth to children. Men do everything else.” Apparently this man has not given birth to know how much work it is nor has he noticed the amount of work woman do here which is exponentially greater than what the men do.

Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to read! If you have not done so already, please be sure to send me an e-mail letting me know what you have been up to! I miss you and think about you all often!

Peace and love,

Autumn

P.S. To add to the list of things I miss. Good flavored teas, but not fruity ones.

I am white, okay, maybe I am more brown now as Frank pointed out to me the other day, I am now more aware of that fact than I have ever been in my entire life and I also more popular than I have ever been or ever will be again. Sometimes it saddens me to think of how unpopular I will be when I return to the states after being so popular here. I am amazed by the amount of people that I hear yelling my name no matter if I am in my village or the next. I usually have no idea who they are, but they know me. Today as I was walking to get a taxi a large truck drives by with a couple of men with a microphone and large speakers on the bed of the truck. When I heard the truck coming I knew what I was in for. As the truck was inching by I thought I was in the clear, but at the last minute the man with the microphone caught a glimpse of me and says, “Oh! Muzungu!” He then went on for a good while saying things to or about me in Luganda, I could not figure out which, all on his microphone loud enough for the entire village to know that I was nearby How often do you find yourself being humiliated by a man on the bed of truck with a microphone? There are times when I think I am going to run out of things to tell you about, but then things like this happen and I realize that I will never run out of things to laugh about here.

Lately I have noticed that some of the kids around here are just downright naughty. I have chosen to use the word naughty because they are cute kids and they always make me laugh, despite their bad behavior. To me that is what naughty is, a humorous word used to describe a bad action. Last week I was painting my front room an obnoxious color orange. I was trying to mix Tibetan Yellow and Ruby Red; at first I got magenta, but with a little more Tibetan Yellow, I ended up with what Crayola calls red orange. It is a disaster. Anyway, I left the paint on the back porch and I walked out my back door to find that someone had stuck their little paws into the paint and smeared it all over my wall. Next, I bought a football (soccer ball) for the kids to play with and they will come ask for it whenever I am home. I always leave my doors open so people know I am home if they want to visit and I just like the openness of it. The other day the boys were outside my window asking for the ball and when I went to get it for them I saw them in my house getting it for themselves. Another day I gave it to some small children and soon saw them sitting on my porch without the ball. I then realized that some older kids had stolen it from them. As I mentioned before the borehole is broken and apparently it is because children had been playing on it. Because most of these things happened in about two days, I was annoyed. I told myself, “This would never happen in the States” and clearly this is not the case, but it is a bit different here than in the states. Things happen in the states, but we ask “Where were their parents?” Here, kids are on their own. Two year olds wander across the street to my house alone, seven year olds are taking care of infants. The other day I asked a teacher what she does with her four month old baby when she teaches and she told me she leaves her at home alone. I realized she was not joking when I heard the baby crying for a half hour while she was teaching. The lack of supervision and the amount of responsibility given to these children is, at most times, frightening.

Even though I just got done talking about how these children are naughty, let me tell you about why I love them so much and how it already saddens me to think about leaving them in two years. There is a family of four children, Ivan, Angel, Patrick, and Martin and they are probably the funniest kids I know and the ones responsible for painting my back porch. Today they came over as usual, Patrick wearing a skirt and Angel wearing pants. Clearly Angel store Patrick’s pants, but Patrick couldn't care less despite how much the other seven year olds made fun of him. Although Patrick was wearing a skirt and not wearing underwear, he did not want to be left out of doing handstands and again, couldn't care less when the kids were laughing at him exposing himself. He is a complete and total ham and will dance for anyone that asks. Today when I was showing them the fighting bats on my back porch ceiling Ivan went and got a stick and tried shooing them from my house; when he didn’t succeed he decided to free my house of wasps nest in stead. When I went to fetch water today and was carrying two twenty liter jerry cans many small children would try to help me in any way their little arms could. Yesterday one of the brightest thirteen olds I have ever known came over just to sing for me and offered to help me clean my lamp. They let me play soccer with them and never laugh at me when I make a food of myself, well unless I laugh first. All the kids in my village are wonderful and fabulous and I am so lucky to have them. I think the adults think I am crazy because I play with them so often and my house constantly looks like a day care, but I do not care. Hopefully I can inspire them to play with their children as well.

The holiday is over and students returned to class on Monday and while I was excited to begin work, I am sad that all of my friends are gone. All along I knew that Carol and Kennedy would be returning to boarding school, but I did not realize what school would do to those who are not boarding students. Before holiday, children were everywhere. In the mornings the village was quiet; everyone in their gardens digging. I would sometimes see the children on their way to fetch water and they would stop and talk. In the afternoons the children lived on my porch and I would have to beg them to go home when it was time for me to lock up for the night. Now that school has began I hardly see children and I live at a school. I will see a few of them while they are on break or taking their time walking to the latrine. While the educational part of the school day ends at 3:30, students are at the school until five and at five the students scurry on home to do their chores and homework. Before school children were at my house or playing football in front of it; now it is like a ghost town and I miss my friends.

While the man I am supposed to be working with has not yet showed up, I decided to meander on over to the school the other day to look through some educational materials I had been told the school had been given by an American organization. I was incredibly happy to see that many great things were donated such as educational bingo, flash cards, story books, and dvds. However, everything was still shoved in boxes and clearly not being used. Over the next few weeks I hope to organize the materials in the resource room as well as train teachers on how they can best use the resources. I just hope that everyone is excited about these materials as I am, but I am sure they are not considering that they have had some of them for over a year and they have not been touched.

Ugandan children do not have books. Part of it is that they are expensive and I think that part of it is just not in their culture to read books for leisure. While walking past the school the other morning I noticed that the P2 teacher had not yet shown up an hour after the school day began. The class of fifteen children were sitting patiently waiting and I decided to stop in and say hello. After a bit I decided to go grab a story book I had saw in the donated materials and read it to the class. The story was decent about some angry lady bug and the kids did not understand most of what I was reading, but they loved the fact that I was reading to them and they had beautiful pictures to look at. While they may not have understood exactly what I was saying, they were sure to shout out in English objects that they were seeing in the pictures. It was fabulous and I am really hoping to influence the teachers into reading at least one story to their class a day. However, for this to work the school needs more books. I have looked into another organization that donates books and I am in the process of contacting them to see if I can get some books. My main goal is to establish a library at the school which would allow children to access books whenever they would like. One of the issues that I am having a bit of trouble with is that the books I have come across here in the resource room are culturally irrelevant to children here. For example, there was a book talking about a school day, in America, and there were very few things that correlated with a classroom here in Uganda. For example, students were riding a school bus to school and not walking miles on foot, they were feeding their classroom pet, and they were being fed lunch which is a huge issue here right now because students are not fed at school. However, there are many books that show cultural differences and others such as Chicka Chicka Boom Boom that can be used in both cultures with no problem both of which would be great. While I love having English books to get children of all ages used to seeing English words, I would also love to be able to buy Luganda language books here in country. If anyone would like to contribute in any way please be sure to let me know!

Last weekend I had my first visitor from the states! Miss Sarah Matthews, who I met in Kenya last year while she was doing research, was back in Kenya doing some follow up research and was kind enough to fly into Entebbe to visit me for the weekend! We spent the night in Entebbe and the following day at the pool and then made our way to Kampala for dancing and good food. As always in Uganda, it was an interesting evening, filled with other Muzungus from all around the world. My favorite part of the night had to have been when I noticed a very intoxicated girl on the ground clearly searching for something. I watched her search and search in between pulling her pants up and falling over. I felt bad for her and decided to ask her friend what she was so desperately trying to find in case I could be of some help. He looked at me with one of the most disgusted looks I have ever seen and said, “You’re never going to believe me if I told you; she’s looking for her teeth.” Apparently she had fake teeth and they fell out at some point in the night. For the remainder of the night she could be found on her hands and knees searching for her teeth. Part of me hopes she never found them; it just seems like bad hygiene to be putting things in your mouth that you found on the floor of a bar.

And lastly, I finally have an address! It is P.O. Box 849 Masaka, Uganda. Some tips for sending packages. Be sure to write Air Mail on everything and usually if you write educational materials or something religious on the package (Sister Autumn Radtke); things are less likely to be tampered with. My mom has also informed me that the post office has prepaid envelopes that you can shove as much as you like in and that is probably the most inexpensive way to send things. I, in advance, thank all of you who have been wanting to send things and those who will in time send things! While I do not really need anything, except for photos and music, there are of course things that would make my day. Things I miss: trail mix, Taco Bell mild sauce packets, puzzles, decent razors, chocolate covered salty things, books, and smell good things for my house. In all honesty, I would love anything you sent!

There are also many things I wish I had for the kids. Children in my village do not have toys. They make their own balls out of plastic bags, today a kid made a toy gun out of who knows what, and they pull each other around in cut up jerry cans. While a part of me loves that these children are so creative, I want them to have more. My mom had sent me a package of things to give to the children in my home stay family, but it arrived too late and now my village kids are making use of them. They love chasing bubbles, looking at postcards, playing with an etch a sketch sort of contraption, and a deck of cards. I recently inherited a small map of the United States and the World, as well as a deck of cards showing famous landmarks on one side and giving a description on the other, from a volunteer that is returning to the states. Last night I brought them both out and I would show the picture of the landmark and they would find its location on the map; they were ecstatic about it and they were learning at the same time. Oh, and I am sure they would love puzzles just as much as I do. So if you would like to donate toys, both them and I would love it!

Anyway, thank you for taking the time out to read my ramblings!

Peace and love,

Autumn

Greetings everyone! Before I begin, let me thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to follow my little life here in Uganda; I really appreciate your interest!

After spending time in schools here in Uganda it has become apparent to me that teachers teach strictly using lecture and the children then spend hours upon hours memorizing what the teacher told them that day. If I were to ask ten students what a parasite was they would each tell me, “A parasite is an organism that lives in or on another organism and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host’s expense.” Their definition would be word for word from their notes and if I asked them to put in their own words most would not be able to. Children here are not taught to think critically in the least. In some ways I understand why; teachers are expected to teach over one hundred students at a time. Lecturing seems like the most logical thing to do with a classroom of this magnitude. Despite the fact that I knew students did know how to think critically about things, for some reason I expected that adults would be able to. The other day when I was painting my bedroom the neighbors would stop by in awe that I was painting; they could not believe that I knew how to paint. They assumed that I had been taught and were astonished to find out that no, in fact I had never been taught and this was my first time ever painting. They informed me that woman would never paint and that they would hire someone to do the painting because they have not been taught how to paint. The same thing occurred the other day when I invited Carol over for breakfast where I made pancakes. I have never made pancakes from scratch, but I had a recipe in the Peace Corps recipe book. Carol was flabbergasted that I had never been taught to make pancakes, but I was able to read the recipe and make perfectly delicious pancakes For me, as I am sure many Americans, we see something once and we try it. We may research it first, but a lot of times we just try and see what happens; that does not happen here in Uganda. Realizing this, I now feel that in order for development to occur the children of this country need to be taught how to think critically about things. Part of what I am hoping to do is teach teachers how to teach in a way that promotes critical thinking to large numbers of students. If anyone has any ideas that I can pass along please be sure to let me know!

A few random stories completely unrelated to the above:

I do not know if it is because I feel that I have to prove myself, I like being independent, or that I like the looks of shock on the faces of the people in my village, but I feel the need to do everything myself. As I have mentioned before, the borehole behind my house is out of use and the nearest clean water to me is the hospital about 1.5 K away. I have four twenty liter jerry cans and last week I told Carol that I would carry two of them. She laughed for a while, but humored me anyway and let me carry them about halfway until my hands turned a few different shades of red. Today Kennedy, also a student at the college I work for, went with us and I, again, told him the same thing I told Carol. I made it a bit farther than last time and then he took over for me. The whole way home neighbors were telling me how powerful I was. It makes me laugh because I see woman carrying these things on their head and I am the powerful one? The carpenter came while I was painting my bedroom today and also told me that I must have brought the power with me. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I think people here just assume that everyone from America hires people to do things for them and that we are incredibly weak human beings.

The other day Carol called me over to her house where I found her mother and five of her siblings surrounded by grasshoppers. Earlier that day Carol had went to the market and purchased bags full of grasshoppers at a moderately expensive cost; here in Uganda grasshoppers are a delicacy. At her home, Carol and her family were busy pulling the legs and wings off of the alive grasshoppers and putting them in a basket. I am sure they had assumed that I would join in with the process, but after looking at the large basket of alive grasshoppers missing their limbs and in a state of shock, I didn’t have the heart to help. As I should have guessed, later on that day Carol shows up at my door with a bowl full of at least one hundred fried grasshoppers, all looking directly at me. Here my neighbors are sharing this delicacy with me and I am completely grossed out and still feeling bad for the little fellows, but I knew I had to at least eat just one. It took me awhile to get up the courage to stick him in my mouth and once I did, I wished I hadn’t. It is not that he was bad, he was kind of like a potato chip in that he was salty and crispy, but I couldn’t swallow him. He just wouldn’t go down and the longer he was in my mouth the more disgusted I got by the thought of eating all of its parts. I explained to Carol that most people in America have never eaten an insect before and I think that helped her understand why it was so difficult for me and did not offer me another. The carpenter came over the next day and told me that he was looking for me earlier in the day because he had fried a bunch of grasshoppers he would like to share with me. Luckily I was able to explain myself before they were actually brought. Later on that night, a few other volunteers and I went dancing and on the way we saw what looked like a WWF arena. There was an area surrounded by tall pieces of sheet metal beaming with lights. We walked over to see what was going on; hoping to see WWF Uganda style, but instead we saw millions of grasshoppers swarming the lights. Once they hit the sheet metal they would slide down into barrels where they were collected by workers. After we had our fill of grasshoppers we headed over to the club. Once we sat down with our drinks we realized that we were covered in grasshoppers as well. Needless to say, I have had my fill of grasshoppers.

One day I was sitting around talking with Carol and Kennedy about random things and out of no where one of them asks me if we have t-strings in America. I had no idea what they were talking about. At first, I thought they might have meant a G-string, but thought there is no way they would be asking me this. They were getting giggly and told me that they saw people in movies wearing them on the beach and Carol imitated for me what they looked like while doing so. I laughed hysterically for awhile; the things they tell me they see in these American movies are outrageous. There is always a boy named Frank in my village who for the first week of my living here would knock on my back door and ask me if I knew a bunch of actors I have never heard of before. Everyday he would walk away disappointed that I didn’t know who he was talking about, until finally he asked me if I knew Chuck Norris and I knew who he was talking about. I even had to argue with him that Prison Break is a television show and not a movie. He told me that I was wrong and that he watches it at the theater in town. Now, when I say theater I mean a small shack in which movies and tv shows that are pirated are played. I cannot blame Frank for believing that Prison Break is a moving when it is advertised on the chalk board outside the theater as “Prison Break 13.”

And lastly, a lot of Peace Corps volunteers have a difficult time when they first get to sight. After all of the training and listening we’re ready to do things, but it is difficult to get started. While we all have job titles a lot of our job titles do not mean much and we are left to find our own work within the community. Luckily, there is plenty of work to be done, but it is difficult to get started and many people find themselves incredibly bored and wondering what they are actually doing here. For me, it has been the opposite. The other day I read a quote by Aldons Huxley in the Peace Corps newsletter that said, “ “Your time traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-- his excessive freedom. He accepts boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.” After reading this it got me thinking about boredom in general. With all of the entertainment and all the work I was doing in the states I constantly felt bored, but here, when I have no electricity and no place to go, I am never bored. I have never really enjoyed complete quiet; I am a music person, but the lack thereof has become a blessing. These past few weeks I have been forced to spend time with solely myself and I am thankful for that; it is like a constant state of meditation. This has been an opportunity for me to get to know myself and it is wonderful. How often in America do we take the opportunity to remove ourselves from the outside world and just be?

Anyway, I hope all is happy and sunny on your side of the world! I miss you all immensely!

Peace and love,

Autumn

p.s. I just read “The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint” by Brady Urdell and thought it was fabulous; just in case you were looking for a good read!

After I graduated from college I wanted to kick myself for never taking a foreign language. I was always so jealous of those who could speak in a second language. I am proud to say that I can speak decently well in a language spoken no where else in the world. So what if I never use it again after my two years; I can say speak in two languages!

The learning of Luganda has been and still remains to be an interesting journey. People in Uganda are shocked that a Muzungu would know how to speak Luganda and they are very complimentary no matter how much I actually butcher their language. It got me thinking about how many times I have met a foreigner in America who is able to speak english. Never once did I get excited or thank them excessively for taking the time and trouble to learn our extremely difficult language. Most Americans have that attitude that if you are in our country you better know our language and do not appreciate the amount of effort one puts into actually learning the language. It is not rare that I say something strange without knowing it until I see the extremely confused look on their face. For example, the word for woman is very similar to the word for volunteer and when I am bargaining I often times tell them that I am just a woman so I do not have any money instead of saying that I am just a volunteer. There have been times that I have told people I will be living here for 200 years as opposed to two. Before I moved into my house the school deputy was telling me that they had sprayed for bats, but I was thinking he was saying spiders and I went on for a good while about how I fear spiders. Apparently they kept telling me that bats eat spiders and I was saying good, but I had no idea what was being said until Amber made fun of me for awhile the following day. Go figure I have bats, they thought I wanted them to take care of the spiders. I have a friend who was learning another Bantu language who had a habit of telling people that he liked to eat them for dinner. Thankfully Ugandans are very sympathetic listeners and rarely do they laugh at us. However, I am not sure that I am such a sympathetic listener. Today an Ugandan tried telling me that he wanted a muzungu girlfriend in English, but instead told me he wanted a boyfriend. When he realized what he said he laughed a little and I laughed for a good three minutes.

I am constantly trying to impress Ugandans with my language skills and sometimes they try to impress me with their English skills. This always ends up being a very strange conversation where they speak only in English and I only in Luganda. I usually don’t realize what has happened until we walk away and I realize how odd that was. In my attempt to learn to read and write in Luganda I am actually losing some of my English. For example, when I see a “ki” in an English word I want to pronounce it as “chi” as you would in Luganda. I can’t tell you the last time I have used the words “okay” and “no.” It’s always “kale” and “nedda.” Every time I write I start to write the word “kubanga” instead of “because.” While most Ugandans know English fairly well, it is British English and they say things odd in general. For example, instead of saying “I will pick you up at five” they would say, “I will pick you at five.” When I speak with Ugandans in English I find that I get this goofy accent, that we volunteers refer to as speaking Uganglish, and I leave off words we, as Americans, never would. When I come back to the states after two years most of you will think I am the strangest person in the world. I will be inserting Luganda words for English ones all of the time. I will be saying weird things like, “even me” and “thank you for the work” when you’re doing nothing at all. I will be greeting everyone I see and not just a friendly “hello” it will be followed with series of questions such as, but not limited to: How are you sir? Thank you for the bit of work you do. How is the family at home? How is life? All of these questions followed by a series of mmmm and ahhhs. In most situations this is a typical greeting. I’m sure you can imagine how long it takes me to walk a kilometer down the road when I pass about ten people. When I’m trying to impress taxis drivers with my Luganda, usually to get a better price, I end up using all of my Luganda by asking stupid questions like, “What do you like to do in your free time? Are you married? Do you have children? What do you most like to eat? Where do you live? I of course give my whole spiel about how I am from America, I am a volunteer with the American Peace Corps and I live at the primary school. I studied Luganda in Wakiso, but I only know a little. I will live in Masaka for two years, but I have a mom and dad in America. They have two cows and a dog. I also have two sisters. I know how to drive a car, but I fear driving in Uganda because many drivers drive crazy. I was a teacher in America and I like to teach geography. I usually throw in a few other random things that I know how to say, like that they drive well even though I am usually scared for my life or that I like to eat chapati. I’m sure they go home to their families and talk about what a weirdo I am, but I am usually proud of my lack of important Luganda phrases.

A new group of volunteers arrive in Uganda every six months. When one group is swearing in, another group is returning back to the states. I have been talking with volunteers that are on their way back to the states and it is quite comical to hear them talk about their fears of returning home. One girl said that she fears that people will just think she is plain retarded. It’s not saying that Ugandans and their mannerisms that we have picked up on are retarded, but when you put them in the American setting I can see how one would feel that way. This same volunteer asked me my name the other day and I said A-U-T-U-M-N being sure to enunciate every single syllable. When I finished I realized, wait this is not a difficult name for her. We laughed for a bit because she understands why I did it, but when I return to the states people would probably be offended and think I thought they were slow. When you go to a restaurant here in Uganda you may be handed a menu, but there is no point in looking at it because it is unlikely that they will have 90% of the items on the menu. Instead you ask, “What do you have?” Another volunteer was talking about going to an Applebees and after looking at a menu asking, “But what do you REALLY have?” Due to the lack of electricity it is at times difficult to find cold drinks. When ordering a drink it would not be rude to ask to feel them all to find one that is actually cold and then it is also appropriate to ask any drink to be returned if it was not opened while you were looking. As an American, what would you think if you saw someone requesting to feel all the bottles at the bar before buying and then refusing to drink it because it was not opened in their site. I will probably be very touchy when I get back. It is not odd to touch someone on the arm or the back while speaking with them, even if you just met. If I were to get on a bus that contained only one other passenger, I would probably sit right next to him and talk the entire time. Women and children kneel as a sign of respect. Upon first coming here I figured I would do it, but then I could never figure out when and who to kneel and it also seemed a bit tedious to always be kneeling, so I have chosen to refrain. Yesterday, I had a 80 year old woman kneeling for me on the side of a dirt road and I felt like a complete jerk. An 80 year old women kneeling down to me; I should have been kneeling down for her. Maybe I’ll start kneeling and bring that back to the states with me as well.

Before coming to Uganda I figured any job interview would be a breeze upon my return to the states. Such questions as “Tell me how you would handle a class of thirty-two children” could easily be answered with “Let me tell you about the time I taught a class of a 132 children.” “Tell me about a time you worked with someone different than yourself,” would sound something like “Well let me tell you about the time I lived in Uganda for two years.” Easy as pie. Now I’m starting to think differently. I’m going to go into an interview speaking Uganglish, being all touchy feely, kneeling for them, and asking completely inappropriate questions about their personal life and telling them that my parents have two cows and a dog. Overall, I cannot wait for you all to see how weird I have become; it is awesome.

Other random stories and thoughts completely unrelated to the above:

The other day I was on the way to my latrine and saw thousands of termites swarming out of their termite hill. A child noticed the termites and I would have thought he just saw Santa Claus. He came running full speed yelling for his friends with pure excitement. I went to the bathroom and when I came out there were ten children catching the termites and eating them. One child had so many stuffed in his mouth they were pouring out and he was laughing hysterically; just as a child in America would stuff his mouth with cake and laugh. I was talking to my mom about things we could do if they came to visit and I was saying how it is possible to not really do anything and yet be constantly entertained when you are experiencing another culture. This was a perfect example of a time was throughly entertained while doing nothing more than walking to and from the latrine.

I got an e-mail last week asking me, “Besides the obvious friends and family, what do you miss the most about home.” I think I said something about Penny’s Noodle Shop’s pad thai and Cubs games. But I think that what I actually miss the most is late sunsets in the summertime. There is nothing better than the day you realize it is nine p.m. and just getting dark. Here is gets dark at seven and it makes it feel more like winter despite the 75 degree weather. It is also a huge bummer when you have no electricity and when darkness brings out the bats.

The other night I stayed the night at Amber’s because I was going to pick up my new purple ten speed bike, an almost replica of the one I had in fifth grade. I have what I refer to as “my” room at Amber’s place and she had sent me a text a week before informing that she had just stepped on a huge rat, but trapped it in my room. A few days later she had opened the windows in the room and looked everywhere for him the following day with no luck of finding him; we obviously assumed he had made his exit through the window. So I was getting ready for bed, removing her backpack and such off the bed, trying not to step in rat poop. This has seemed to become my life, always dodging poop of some sort. At home stay it was that of a child’s, at my home it is of a bat, and now at Amber’s it belongs to a rat. Anyway, I turn around to walk out of the room when I just about stepped on the rat. Luckily, he was dead and I was able to just sweep him on outside; apparently Amber had starved him to death. I felt a little bad about his long death, but at the same time I am over finding rodents or bats dead or alive indoors.

And lastly, my Ugandan friend Carol’s grandma passed away on Monday night and they were having her burial on Tuesday. A man on a bicycle with a megaphone rode around the village announcing her death and the time of the burial. I decided that I should probably look “smart,” as they call it, and wear my floral Goodwill dress that I cut the shoulder pads out of along with my K-mart dress shoes. It was quite the outfit, but just as I thought, I was complimented on how smart I was. Usually the African’s opinion of what is smart is what an American would consider tacky. But whatever, if I can be smart for under ten dollars, I’ll do it. Anyway, We first went to the grandmother’s house and sat with the rest of the village in the front yard while the daughters and sons were inside with the body wailing. About an hour later they came out of the house and the village chairman and some other men wrapped the body in a cloth used for burial and placed the body in the casket. Once they brought the body out of the house they sang a few songs and a man talked a bit about her, or at least that is what I think he was saying. I did hear that she was eighty-nine years old, which is extremely old for a developing country. They then took the body to the burial site in which they lowered the body into the grave while singing another song and people through dirt on the grave. It was odd because despite the fact that Carol was the granddaughter, we sat in the back behind a tree and she did not even seen upset. I’m sure she was, but she talked with me about random things most of the time and during the burial she decided we should start walking home. I think I was more upset than she was because it got me thinking about my own grandfather’s death, but I guess different cultures have a different way of responding to tragedies.

Once again, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedules to take an interest in my life! I hope all is happy and well!

Peace and love,

Nalubega Autumn

p.s. If you have not yet done so, please pick up a David Sedaris book. I just got done reading “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and laughed out loud multiple times.

p.s.s. I promise I will have a new address soon. I need a letter from a woman, who is on holiday, before I am able to open a P.O. Box!

Muli mutya! I hope this message finds you all happy and well!

More often than not, time in Africa seems to be almost nonexistent. If someone tells you you are leaving at three, it is more likely you will leave two to three hours after that time. One day I was told that someone would come take care of my bat situation on Tuesday morning, but actually did not show up until Wednesday afternoon. Ugandans even have a different way of measuring time which I still have a hard time of grasping. According to Ugandans the day starts at seven a.m. and they call this the first hour, or 1 o’clock. Seven p.m. would be 12 o’clock. I guess it makes some sense considering the sun rises around seven a.m. and sets at seven p.m Upon first arriving at the college we had a meeting with our colleagues in which we were told would start at ten. After three hours of waiting around, the meeting finally began at one. What I found the most odd was the fact that despite the fact that everything from actual work to the format of the meeting’s schedule was discussed, never once was it mentioned that the meeting started three hours late and that all but Amber and I were excessively late. While I was sitting waiting for the meeting to begin I was being my typical American self thinking about all of the things I could have done with those three lost hours. While living with my home stay family I used to find myself annoyed when I woke up to a rainy day because I knew I was going to have to once again convince my family that despite the rain, I still had to go to school. It is a rare occasion to see Ugandans traveling in the rain. When I would have to once again justify my moving in the rain, I would think to myself that if more Ugandans would just go to work during the rain the country may be a bit more developed. I know that it was rather judgmental, but when in America could you tell your boss “Sorry I didn’t come to work and I missed a major meeting, but it was raining?” They would tell you, “Don’t you know time is money?” Last weekend on the way to Celeste’s Amber and I learned a major lesson on why Ugandans do not travel in the rain. Amber and I had plans to leave at 9:30 and even though it was raining, we had plans that we were not about to let a little rain delay. We started walking down the road looking for a taxi, but we were the only people on the road. Of course the road is made of dirt and is composed of incredibly steep hills. Twenty minutes into our walk I am drenched and our shoes are so covered in mud we cannot move our feet. Anytime we were able to move, we would take one step forwards and slide at least to steps back down the hill. We took off our shoes which made the going a bit easier, but still no taxi in site. Of course, there are plenty of Ugandans standing on their porches stating the obvious, that it is raining. A hour, maybe even two, later the rain stops and out come the taxis immediately. If we would have just waited like the Ugandans, we probably would have reached our destination at the same time, but a lot drier and cleaner. For the rest of the day Ugandans continued to state the obvious by saying, “Muzungu, you are dirty.” When roads are made of dirt, it is wise to remain in doors; lesson learned. While that only helps me understand the lack of punctuality while it is raining and not the lack of punctuality in general, it is a start.

Our trip to Entebbe to visit Celeste was fabulous. Celeste lives in a convent with seven or so other nuns on Lake Victoria. The nuns are probably the funniest nuns I have ever met. Okay, so they are probably the only nuns I have ever known, but none the less they are hysterical. Sister Valentine loved her Smirnoff Ices and upon our arrival gifted the five of us with thirty beers and a 2L of Fanta. She told me that Fanta was an acronym for “foolish Africans never take alcohol.” I found that a) hysterical and b) odd considering that many Africans love to drink, maybe even a bit too much. Celeste’s home has tiled floors, a shower, refrigerator, and wireless internet. While it is not was she had envisioned as being her Peace Corps experience, we convinced her that she still has many hardships such as: sometimes the internet doesn’t work very well, there are ants in her bathroom, and sometimes it is too misty to see the lake from her bedroom window in the morning. But in all honesty, she lives in Uganda and there will be extreme difficulties she will deal with despite how posh her living arrangements are. On Saturday Celeste took us to get real lattes and cappuccino at a coffee shop. While this may not sound like a big deal to you at home, imagine only drinking instant coffee for the past two months. After the coffee house we went to beautiful hotel to swim, have a drink, and eat pizza. Luckily, I learned my lesson the last time we went to the pool in Wakiso and did not end up with blistering skin. Ashley, I know what you’re thinking, but I did wear tons of sun screen; it was faulty and I have new that actually works.

In other news, I caught another bat today. I saw him hanging from my suitcase and was appalled considering I had been digging through the suitcase all morning and could not believe neither one of us seemed to notice the other. I got my bat catching box out (the box my charcoal iron came in. That’s right, I iron my clothes with an iron I fill with charcoal) and got up enough nerve to catch him, it was only after I set him free outside that I realized he was not going anywhere to fast. I gave him a little nudge and that is when I realized that the poison must have gotten to him. For a second I started to feel bad, but then I just made breakfast and enjoyed my bat free house. Okay, so it is not free of bats, but at least I am one down.

Anyway, as always I hope everything is happy, warm, and sunny on your side of the world! : ) I miss you and love you!

Peace and love,

Autumn

p.s. Thank you for taking the time out of your days to read about my little life here in Uganda!

If we were making a list of things I dislike in this world it would be rather short, but it would most certainly include bats. Last night I spent my first night in my new home; I had been warned that there were some holes that would need to be repaired to keep the bats out, but at the time I did not think too much of it as long as I had my beloved mosquito net to keep me safe. Because it gets dark here around seven, I do not have electricity, and because it is not safe to be outside after dark I found myself going to bed around nine only to wake up two hours later to the sound of what I thought was someone trying to unlock my back door. I was so frightened I just about peed myself. Schools are on holiday so all of my neighbors have left and the closest neighbor is about two hundred yards away and I doubted they would hear my screams. I immediately went through the list of phone numbers I had recently acquired of community members. I had recently went to the police station to let them know who I was and all I found was a man out of uniform and a room all but empty except for the empty desk. I took his number and he told me to call if I need anything, but he has no car and no motorcycle. I was not sure how much of use he would have actually been. I decided that the bars on my windows, and the pad locks on the steel doors would most definitely keep me safe and that they were probably hoping that I had forgot to lock up, so I tried to get back to sleep. After while I realized that this was not at all the sound of someone trying to break in, but rather the sound of some kind of winged animal coming through the holes in the walls. While I now at least felt safe, they were incredibly loud as their wings would flap against the tin roof. I now regret only wanting a tin roof and no ceiling. Around six in the morning they finally decided that they were tired and would leave me; at least one of us would get some sleep. Once I left the safety of my net, the status of the type of animal was confirmed by the presents they left me all over my house. Luckily I just received a call from Amber informing me that her and Moses, one of the most incredible people I have ever met, will be over tomorrow afternoon with concrete and bat repellent. Just another example of how fabulous the people of Uganda and my PCV friends are!

Upon arriving at my new home yesterday I unloaded my only furniture, a twin-sized bed, a table, and chair, all borrowed from the college. I am constantly reminded of who I work for by the name imprinted on the table every time I sit down to eat a meal. I was introduced to a student from the college who lives near while on holiday; her name is Carol and is sweet as can be. In exchange for her showing me around the village I have offered to help her with her homework. Yesterday, the deputy of the primary school were I live, a man who never stops smiling and is wonderful to say the least, told me that it would be arranged for water to be brought for me. I was confused because I was told the water was near my home and figured that because I am a muzungu he too believes that I am not able to do manual labor by myself. I asked to see the water regardless and he just laughed saying that I would not want to use that water. I was fully convinced that the water would be just fine until I saw children standing in a swamp collecting water next to the broken borehole. He was right, I will not be collecting my water from the swamp. Well, unless I want to be guaranteed to contract some sort of bacterial infection during my Peace Corps years. Throughout my training we talked a lot about sustainable development and how a lot of water projects fail to be sustainable. The problem seems to come in when groups with money come in, give a community a borehole, and leave without training community members on how to maintain the borehole. Therefore, the borehole breaks and the community waits for the organization to come and make the repairs, which most likely will never happen. I asked the deputy how long the borehole has been broken and I was told three months. It is frustrating to see a community collecting unsafe water when there is a bore hole that just needs repair. However, it will give me an opportunity to work with the community and hopefully get the borehole back in working order.

After looking into the water situation I asked Carol to show me where the market was to buy some food. I was told that market day is every Monday and switches locations every other Monday. One location is near my home, the other not. Yesterday happened to be far away market day. Carol gave me the option of walking through the forest, I was told this was the short cut, so of course I choose this route. An hour later we had finally arrived at the market which was actually a clothes market and not a food market at all. However, we found some food along side the road and made our way back home just before night fall. I decided that getting food is a huge hassle and I’ll think twice before I eat out of boredom. On the plus side, the walk to market is one of the most beautiful walks I have ever taken. Once I get to know my community a bit I will take some pictures and once again attempt to post pictures. I tried posting last time, but of course the electricity went out just as I was about to finish. I want to wait to get to know my community before I bring out my camera to try to combat being labeled the rich muzungu. People see the color of our skin and automatically assume that we are rich. Yesterday I had a small child yell to me, “Hey muzungu, give me my money!” We always have to barter much more than a local and while I understand where they are coming from, it can be frustrating at times when you’re trying to fit in. Carol also told me that her dad was so proud that she was the one who gets to show me around and went on for awhile about how happy he was going to be to see her with me. Here is a man that knows nothing about me, except that the color of my skin is white and it is like I am some kind of celebrity. I asked her why he would be proud and she told me because he knew that I would teach her many things because I am very educated. While he doesn’t know exactly how educated or uneducated I am, people from the Western World are thought of as being incredibly educated. According to Carol and her father, I know just about everything there is to know. It’s interesting to see how people on the other side of the world view us Westerners. While I am happy to at least be singled out in a positive manner, I would rather not be singled out, and I most definitely wish I did not have these expectations of me. I guess I can just look at it as another teaching example; that just because we are muzungus doesn’t mean that we are any smarter than any of them. Knowing me, I am sure I will be able to prove this on a daily basis.

Because of the holiday and the fact that my counterpart has not yet moved into his new home, I have little to no work to do for the next couple of weeks other than get to know my community. My days usually consist of twenty-two children of all ages surrounding me on the porch. I’ll usually talk with them until I exhaust my Luganda which takes about twenty to thirty minutes. Then I read my book while they watch me closely in hopes they will see me do something strange. After awhile I get tired of being a freak show and decide to move inside. My movement indoors only encourages them to peer into my windows and try their hardest to coax me back outside with the ever famous word of “Muzungu.” While I enjoy their company and their beautiful faces, I hope the novelty of me will soon wear off a bit. Today I have also received an abundant amount food from neighbors. So far I have received four of both avocados and eggplants, two yams the size of my head, sugar cane, soybeans and greens galore, mangoes, passion fruits, papaya, squash, two eggs and a bunch of other things I have yet to figure out what they are. I’m just waiting for my jello mold to arrive and I’ll be set.

Anyway, I could go on forever about how amazing my community is, but I’ll stop for now. As always, I hope everything is happy and well at home!

Peace and love,

Autumn

p.s. Amber’s mom, I hope I posted this is a timely fashion! : ) Thank you for reading!

p.p.s. I just wanted to add that I just caught my very first bat. He was sitting in the corner of my room and because of the new cement installed today, he had no way out. I, of course, called my savior Moses to ask him what I should do. He of course offered to come over and take care of it or suggested that I hit it with a broom until it dies. Instead of bludgeoning it to death, I opted for capturing him in a box and setting him free outside. I’m sure I’ll have to do this everyday until he gets the point that he’s not welcome, or until Moses comes and beats him with a stick.

p.p.p.s. for those of you wanting to send things. The only things I wouldn't like to receive are sardines and cilantro. Other than that I would welcome anything! However, it is expensive to send things so keep it small! My mom said you can get a prepaid envelope and stuff it with as much as you like for 12 dollars. I would love to have any packaged foods like noodles or whatever that is small. Spices and seasonings are also always a wonderful and convenient thing to have while I'm slaving over my stove in the dark while dodging bats! :) Oh, and due to a lack of better things to do after 7 pm I would love any old book you have lying around! (That includes the last two of Twilight Aunt Di)! I will get a post box today and post the address soon! Thanks!

Greetings everyone! As always, I hope this message finds you all happy and well! Here is Uganda things are more fabulous than I could have ever dreamed! Because I have not been able to write for awhile I will try to fill you in on the past few weeks! Training has been exhausting to say the least and a couple of weeks before the end we had a talent show in which trainees and trainers preformed. While many of my fellow collegues are incredibly talented musicians, dancers, and performers in general, I have yet to find my talent. Therefore, along with the rest of my language group we decided to make complete idiots of ourselves doing a Spartan Cheerleader skit which ended with our Ugandan teacher wearing a dress and topping off the top of our all female human pyramid. Overall it was a great day and couldn't have come at a better time, we were all in need of a relaxing and fun day. The following week was again a bit stressful because we were all preparing for the presentations of proposed secondary projects. Once those were finished we had our language test which must be past in order to be a volunteer. If one did not pass then they would be retested again in three months and if at that point they still did not pass the country director would decided whether they could stay on as a volunteer or not. Despite my many awkward laughs throughout my test, I passed! It is incredible the amount of Luganda I can actually speak and understand in such a small amount of time! After our language test we had a ceremony to thank our home stay families for accomidating us for the past nine weeks. It was requested that each language group perform something demonstrating both Ugandan and American cultures. We decided that we would demonstrate Ugandan culture by singing an Ugandan fable in Luganda. For our American culture segment we decided to showcase American dance through three different dances. We first started off with Soulja Boy's "Superman," then line danced to Alabama's "Lousisiana Saturday Night," and finished with "Land of a Thousand Dances." For those of you who know me, you know that choreographed dancing is not my thing and I was probablly a step behind the whole time, but it was a great time regardless! After the homestay welcome we left Wakiso for the country's capital, Kampala, where we met the people we would be working with for the next couple of years. We had a very long and tiresome lecture, dinner at the country directors house, and finally our swear in ceremony! Immediately following we left for our homes for the next two years!

My new home is in the Masaka district and I could not be more happy about this placement! My good friend Amber is also posted in this district and is working at the college my center is connected with. Because students are on holiday I have been staying with her for the past few days. She has a very nice house complete with a toliet (this is very rare), elecricity, and running water. Over the past few days we have been getting to know Masaka and the people we will be working with over the next couple of years and after meeting everyone I am super excited to begin my work! While I won't move into my house until Monday, I was able to visit my house the other day and I am so excited to move in! My house is located on the grounds of a primary school in the middle of no where, has no electricty, no running water, and no toliet. While I'm sure I'll regret saying this later, I am happy for my lack of water and electricity! In general, my home is beautiful and much larger than I had expected complete with a back porch overlooking some of the most beautiful land I have ever seen! I cannot wait to sit on my back porch every evening and just take in the beauty of Uganda! Everyday I find it more and more beautiful. Oh, and did I mention that I can see Lake Victoria (the second largest lake in the world) from my village? Oh, and it's in a swamp of sorts! I am in love!

While we're on the subject of being in love, everyday I love the people of Ugandan a little bit more! I have met very few people in my life that I have met and fell completely in love with them at that moment. In the short time that I have been here I have made many great friends amongst Peace Corps Volunteers, but I have also made some fabulous Ugandan friends. The people here are so loving, caring, and genuine. They are the kind of people that you miss when you don't see them for a day. My language teachers is one of the most kind and patient people I have ever met. For the past nine weeks he put up with five girls who sometimes cried or were just plain moody and he always came to class with a smile on his face. He would do just about anything for us, including putting on a dress doing some ridiculous dances in front of his peers. He always treated as one of his own children, regardless of how much we probably frustrated him. The same could be said for almost all of the trainers. Now that I am site I have met even more amazing people. The driver for the college had drove us around a lot helping us get things for our houses and meet people and I could not be more thankful for him. He is probably the happiest man I have ever met in my life and he actually gets our jokes! The other night I rode with him to town and I was being my normal self asking a bazillion questions and we both began to reailze that we have a lot in common. After awhile he looked at me and said, "You know, a week ago I didn't know I was going to meet you and you didn't know you were going to meet me, but here we are sitting as friends and we're from different sides of the world." It was so good for me to hear him say those words because it reminds me of one of my reasons that I am here. We are all one people and despite our many differences, we have more in common.

Anyway, I could go on forever, but I want to go explore and get a few more things for my new house! I'll warn you now that I am also too lazy to proofread this; please don't judge me. : ) I hope it is finally begining to warm up where you are!

Peace and Love,

Autumn, Nalubega, Toomie, Toom, Button', or Awtoom...or any other crazy name I get called here

Despite my many attempts to learn all of the words to Toto's "Africa" I still could not tell what the song is really about. However, I do know he's got something right when he sings "God bless the rains down in Africa." While living in Indiana rain is something I thought very little about and if I did it was usually about how it was ruining my day. However, here in Uganda I find myself wishing for rain on a daily basis for many reasons. The first reason being that without the rains it is incredibly hot. When I first arrived here I was sweating constantly. I would go to bed sweating and wake up sweating; it was ridiculous. The family I am staying with also relies on rain tanks for our main source of water. However, due to the late start of the rainy season our tanks have been dry which means that the work boys have to travel a ways to the nearest boar hole where they attach five twenty liter jerry cans to their bicycle and push it up the incredibly steep hill upon which we live. The town we live in is also composed of mostly dirt roads. While these are beautiful, they are a disaster when it is dry. Cars passing by are constantly covering me in red dust that sticks perfectly to my immense amounts of sweat. As of last week the rains have finally arrived, of course on the day the American Ambassador invites us to the embassy for a pool party (which was fabulous by the way), but I am beyond happy they are here. I can finally sleep under blankets, wear a coat, and the rain tanks are overflowing! It is fabulous! So, I do believe Toto got it right; God bless the rains!

Now for the cockroaches. It would not be odd for you to find me "saving" caterpillars and worms. However, when it comes to cockroaches, I feel that the world would be a better place without them. They have infested my room. Okay, maybe not infested, but they do like to visit me at night and they creep me out. For those of you who may not know much about cockroaches here's a few things you should know: 1. They are creepy. 2. They are incredibly loud. 3. They are large. 4. They can fly. My first encounter with the creepy crawlies woke me up one night. They were flying around my room, running into walls and falling down. I'm not a light sleeper, they are loud enough to wake me up. I tried listening to my I-Pod to block them out, but I could still here them. The fact that I had my mosquito net to protect me did not help me fall asleep. I decided to by myself a can of doom and now I sleep with it next to my pillow. I haven't seen them as much lately and I am thankful for that. However, I did wake up to the most ridiculously large seven legged spider I have ever seen on my wall the other day. My friend tells me that a spider that large eats cockroaches, so I made the decision to let him stay. Maybe someday I'll have decent internet and be able to post a picture!

In other news, training is almost over! I have about two more weeks at home stay before I am sworn in as a volunteer. At that point I will be sent to a village by myself for the next two years; I am nervous, but incredibly excited all at the same time. If you are wanting to send me something, please wait to do so until I get my new address! Language is going pretty well. It can be kind of frustrated at time, but we had a mock language test a few weeks ago and I scored rather well. We have our real test before swearing in, so hopefully that will go well! Today we also built a stove completely out of mud, which was kind of cool.

Well, I hope all is well at home and that this message has found you all happy and well!

Peace and Love,

Autumn aka Nalubega (my new Ugandan name)

Greetings everyone! I just got back from a fabulous week spent with a current volunteer and I am even more excited to start my life as a Peace Corps Volunteer instead of as a trainee. As I had mentioned in my last post, trainees have little to no independence while volunteers have an abundance of freedom. The volunteer I had stayed with was quite impressive. She lives in a small and very conservative village where she teaches at the local university. She knows a great deal of the local language,Lusoga , and even rewrote the manual for the current volunteers. While I have heard many volunteers say that you really do not need to waste your time learning locallanguage , after seeing my volunteer interact within her community I completely disagree. She gets much better deals and Ugandans get so excited when they see a muzungu speaking local language. She has inspired me to work on my language

much more than I have been. We also had the opportunity to eat more fabulous food in Jinga (yes, Jackie, Lindsay, and Sam...I did say JINGA) and we even cooked some amazing food on the charcoal. I also had the opportunity to meet many more fabulous Peace Corps Volunteers.

For those of you who know me, you know that I always have some ridiculous

ideas so I figured I would share some of my "wish list Uganda" with you.

1.Run a marathon...however, on the first day of training I realized that I have an extreme dislike for running...so this is now off of the list.

2.Julie brace yourself for this one....I want to ride a bicycle from Kampala to Rwanda which is maybe some 300K. The funny partabout this is that Peace Corps gave us all "Hero" bikes which I have yet to ride. However, to my defence these bikes are ridiculous one gear bikes in which people have lost pedals and brakes while riding to training. However, once I get to site I will purchase myself a new bike that is

somewhat suitable for thispurose.

3. Climb the Rwenzori Mountains. I have been told that this is more difficult than Kilimanjaro.

4.I want to buy a motorcycle. While the riding of these, and thus owning,is prohibited by the Peace Corps I can still dream. Dad, you go ahead and get that Harley and you can pick me one up as well. We can get our license together as a sort of a father daughter bonding time.

Again for those of you who know me, you know that I take great pride in the fact that I have a fantastic immune system. However, that has changed. Before leaving for the Peace Corps I got a cold that stayed with me for the entire month ofFebruary. Upon its much awaited departure, I then contracted what may or may not be ghiardia. It's fabulous. Oh, but what is even better is the fact that my malaria medication prevents me from sleeping. I haven't slept in almost five days; it's outrageous.Luckily , medical is coming tomorrow with a different magical pill and hopefully I will be sleeping through all the creepy things that I hear sleeping with me in the night!

Anyway,thank you all again to those who take the time to check in on me and to

those who leave such loving messages! I will try and post pictures next time, but the internet is beyond slow and extremely temperamental so I refuse to make any promises!

As always- Peace and Love, Autumn

p.s. In case I have forgot to mention...I lead a fabulous life.

Greetings everyone! I hope this message finds you all happy and well! I have only been in the country now for three weeks and I cannot believe how much has happened. For the sake of saving my small salary of money for other things than the internet cafe, I will try to mention the things that seem to stand out the most.

If I would have had access to the internet a few days ago this message may have a very different tone than I plan for it to have today. The Peace Corps training process can be incredibly exhausting. I think that in order to be a Peace Corps volunteer you must be a rather independent person. However, the PC training process takes just about independence you have away. As I mentioned before, we have training from about 8-5 six days a week. After leaving training we leave to go home to our home-stay families and many of us loose even more freedom. Ugandans are some of the most hospitable people in the world. They want to make sure you are safe and by all means well fed at all times. While I really appreciate their care and concern, for someone who is rather independent this can become a bit stressful. Throw in a language barrier and four screaming children it can become quite stressful. Last week I was having a bit of a hard time dealing with all of this. My family expected that I would have afternoon tea at 7 pm which would consist of three fried eggs, noodles, and bananas. Then around 9 pm they would try to feed me an even larger meal. It was incredibly hard for me to find a way to tell them that Americans eat small amounts of food. Luckily, the home stay coordinator spoke with my home stay mother and she now understands my dietary needs and I think we both feel much better. I now look forward to going home at night and really enjoy getting to know my Ugandan family. For those of you who may be wondering, I do have temperamental electricity, but no running water. With that being said, my bathroom in a hole in the ground outside and I take a cold bath out of a bucket. To simplify this process I had a friend cut almost all of my hair of. It was a fabulous idea and others are being to follow.

As a Peace Corps volunteer I will be training primary school teachers. While at first I was a bit overwhelmed with this task, I now feel very confident and excited to begin my service. Last week I had the opportunity to observe and teach in a primary school; my class had 111 students. How they were able to pack that many students into one classroom I will never be able to understand. It also gave me a greater understanding of the kinds of challenges a teacher in Uganda faces. Being at Kayunga Primary School gave me many ideas as to what kinds of secondary projects I would like to do. This past week I visited a coordinating center where I had the opportunity to conduct a workshop for ten teachers emphasizing different teaching methods. It went exactly as I, and our supervisor, had hoped.

I have so many things to say, but I want to enjoy Kampala while I can! For those of you who spent time with me in Kenya please know that I am eating plenty of chapati and enjoying my fair share of Nile Special. Also, if anyone would like to send me any donations in the form of snack, photos, letters, or MUSIC I would be forever greatful! My address is:

Autumn Radtke

Peace Corps Trainee

PO Box 29348

Kampala, Uganda

Be sure to write air mail and if you write "god bless" or something religious on it, it is much less likely that it will be tampered with!

Peace and Love,

Autumn

First off, I hope this message finds you happy and well! Along with thirty-two others I arrived here in Uganda last Saturday night after a very long trip consisting of stops in Chicago, Philadelphia, Brussels, Kigali, and finally Entebbe! The Peace Corp group is absolutely fabulous and I am so happy to share this experience with them. However, I must say they are very intimidating. These are some of the most accomplished people I have ever met and according to the director we are one of the most talented groups they have ever had. Many have traveled all around the world while others have their doctorate, some have done both. After my journey here in Uganda has ended I hope to posses some of the qualities they do.

The Uganda I have been experiencing is much different than I remembered. I am currently at a compound in Lweza and it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It is incredibly tropical, hilly, and filled with monkeys and exotic birds. The only downfall of Lweza is due to its location near Lake Victoria, making it rather humid. Even with its humidity, I am in love already. Tomorrow morning we will be moving to Wakiso where the Peace Corps training sit is located and we will be moving in with our home stay families. I am incredibly excited to meet the family I will be spending the next two weeks with and hoping that I will learn the language much faster once I am fully immersed in it. For the past few days the other volunteers and I have spent our time at the compound trying to combat jetlag, get to know one another, get shots, learn Luganda, and listen to several speakers explain to us what we can expect over the next couple of years.

I have so much more to write, but I must be going. Thank you all for your wonderful comments and constant support! I am sorry I have not had time to respond to each of your comments both on here and facebook, but I will try to as soon as possible!

Peace and love

Autumn

For those of you wondering exactly what I will be doing while in Uganda here is what I know so far!  I will depart for orientation that will take place somewhere in the states on February 8th.  On the 10th I will begin my training in Uganda where I will live with a host family for three months, learning an Ugandan language and receiving job training.  After I complete training I will be sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer.  I will then be moving to a new village where I will remain for two years!  My actual service will end on April 17, 2011.  

My primary duties are as follows (summarized from my PC booklet):

As a teacher trainer, you will be posed to a primary school or primary teacher's college in a rural area.  the Ministry of Education will assign you to work with a trained counterpart, a Coordinating Center Tutor or a College Tutor.  If working at a coordinating center, you and your counterpart will work together to develop and implement plans focusing on key areas of school improvement and staff development for the 12-65 (or more) primary schools which surround the coordinating center.  In order to reach and support these schools, YOU WILL BE REQUIRED to ride a bicycle over relatively long distances and rough terrain.  

The work plans you develop with your counterpart may include:

1. Improving the technical skills of primary schools teachers by introducing participatory learning activities for young children aimed at developing basic skills in mathematics, literacy, and life skills.2. Working with school administrators through on site coaching and group trainings to improve their leadership skills and their ability to support their teachers' ongoing professional development.3. Strengthening home-school-community connections through joint school improvement activities and projects.  Your community has rich resources that you will help them identify and use to improve children's learning.  

Along with these activities, almost all education volunteers work with their formal counterparts, other informal community counterparts, and teachers to train youth, educators, and communities in life skills that will help them lead more productive, positive, and disease-free lives.

In addition, as with all Peace Corps Volunteers, part of your role is to inform the people with whom you live and work about America and learn about their lives and cultures so that you may better educate Americans about the people of the world with whom you live and work.

I must say that I'm not much of a blogger, but much of my decision to join the Peace Corps has relied heavily on what I have learned from other Peace Corps members' blogs.  So here I am, another blogger, sharing my stories of what will be my life in Uganda and hopefully helping others decide whether the Peace Corps is right for them or not!  I also feel that it is important for me to keep a record of my adventure in words, but as I found out on my last African trip, I do not enjoy writing by hand.  Therefore, do to the fact that this may be my only record of my trip  and the fact that this may influence someone's descion to join the Peace Corps, I will try to do my best to be honest about my feelings.  

Many people have asked me why I have decided to leave my comfortable life here in America to live in a poverty stricken place such as Africa.  In response, many have received a half answer such as "If I don't do it now, I never will."  While this is certainly true, it doesn't actually answer the question at hand.  My reasons for joining the Peace Corps have to do a lot with the experiences I had during my last trip to Kenya.  The people I met in Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda were some of the most loving and kind people I have ever met.  They reminded me of the importance of slowing down and taking the time to talk with those that surround us each day.  Everyday on my walk to school I was greeted by multiple people and everyone had a smile on their face.  I loved that my students were eager to learn and loved going to Saturday school, not because their teachers made their subjects exciting, most teachers relied on remote memorization, but because they saw the importance of an education.  I loved that despite the hardships that these people face each and everyday they are not hardened by life's hardships, but instead thankful for what they do have.  One day I had asked my students in Kenya to write letters to my students in Indiana; it was only then that I realized the extent of their hardships.  Many students and their families were struggling to pay school fees, many students had lost mothers and fathers to AIDS and other diseases, while others barely had enough to eat each day, but I would have never known it by their attitudes and their outlook on the world.  They believe that America is one of the greatest countries in the world and most have dreams of attending school there one day.  They loved seeing pictures from my home and wanted to know everything about my country and the people that make it what it is today.  

When I returned home I shared my experiences with the 7th graders at Discovery Middle School whom I student taught before my departure.  They were also very curious about my Kenyan adventure, but mostly about my students at Kabula Secondary School.  One of my students was examining a picture of my Kenyan students acting goofy and said, "Hey, they're just like us!"  That one comment has also played a big part in my decision to join the Peace Corps.  I think its important for people to see people for who they are, not where they come from.  While its important for each of us to maintain our culture and be proud of where we come from, I think that it is more important for us to realize that we are all first and foremost human beings with the same basic wants and needs.  It was amazing that by looking at this one picture this student understood this idea. Despite the fact that these two students lived on different sides of the world, that they spoke different languages, etc., they still had a lot in common.

While I tend to make brash decisions, the long application process of the Peace Corps has given me a lot of time to think about my decision. Over the past six months I have gone back and forth a lot on my decision.  While walking to work in Chicago I often times passed an ad for the Peace Corps that read, "To Never Have to Start a Sentence With I Wish I Would Have..."  While I often times go back and forth between the benefits of the Peace Corps and what I would miss here in America, I know that that their ad is right.  If I don't go now, I will one day be saying I wish I would have.