I'm Still Spoiled, Even in Uganda

            MY HOMESTAY IS AWESOME!  I could not be happier with my family and accommodations.  In all honesty though, I was expecting the worst.  I’m living with a mom, Pauline, and her two nephews who are 14 and 12 – Joseph and Dennis.  There is also house help, Sophie, who has an adorable three-year-old son.  Dan, a 24 year old, is staying with us as well, but I’m not sure what his relation to the family is.  He keeps asking why I would come to Uganda because America is way better, so I keep having to explain that it’s just different and that they are good and bad to both places.  He also said that he is going to take me clubbing and teach me how to dance.  He clearly doesn’t know what he is getting himself into.  Basically, a lot of people come and go in Ugandan households, and I’m already starting to lose track as to who is staying here and who is just visiting.  The house is extremely clean and I have a decently sized room with a full bed.  There is an actual toilet inside the house, so there will be no night buckets for me these next 8 weeks!  It could be a different story when I move to site.  Unfortunately, I do not have a shower, so it’s all about the bucket bath.  It’s a little bit harder than I remember, but I am sure I will get the hang of it, again.  It also didn’t help that the electricity went out mid-bath.  I’m going to remember to bring my flashlight next time I bathe at night because the electricity seems to be going out a lot here.  The house does have a pit latrine and a place to take a bucket bath outside, which I assume was the original layout of the house.  My host mom told me that she is going to make me practice for when I move to the village and make me go one day only using the pit latrine as well as carry a jerry can of water to the outside bathing area.  She said she is going to teach me how “most Africans live” so that I am well prepared.  Ha! 

            My host mom’s daughter came by this afternoon, and she was great.  She also speaks English very well, so it was nice to be able to talk to her.  The rest of the family is okay at English, but they mostly stick to speaking Lugandan – so I’m out of the loop a lot.  My host mom is insistent that I learn Lugandan, which will hopefully motivate me to practice.  My family has also been laughing at me because apparently I eat “too little” and I need to get an African body and be fat.  For those who don’t know, being fat is seen as beautiful here as it means that you are well fed.  I can eat a lot, but not nearly as much as the Ugandans can eat!  Especially since all the food is pretty starchy, so I fill up quickly.  My host mom also told me that all the host families were warned by Peace Corps not to tell the volunteers they were fat because Americans take it as an insult.  She said it was a good thing she got a “normal sized” girl because she wasn’t sure she could go without calling someone fat. 

            My host mom is really great, she has done a lot for me already.  She took me to the Quality Market today, which is basically like a Target and it felt like I was back in America.  She has a modem for Internet through her cell phone, which is pay as you go, so she refilled it today so I could have Internet (so sweet!).  Then, she took me to “Good African Coffee” (yup, that was the name of the coffee shop) and bought me a latte – no instant coffee, whoo!  Basically, I am being spoiled.  She keeps reminding me that I will not be living like this when I move to the eastern part in 8 weeks…shucks!  I guess I will look at it like I’m easing my way in… 

            It’s nice to finally be out of the training center and have freedom to roam around.  I finally feel like I’m actually in Uganda, minus Quality Market.  I have already been swarmed by tons of kids shouting “mzungu!” (white foreigner), and they all run up to me to shake my hand.  It’s pretty cute.  I was also proposed to by a boda boda driver, he told me to marry him so I could take him to America.  It was a hard decision, but I had to turn him down.  For those who don’t know, boda bodas are motorcycle taxis, which Peace Corps prohibits us from taking.  I’m actually more scared of my mom’s wrath; she was less than pleased with my motorcycle riding in Kenya.

            Well, that’s all I have for now.  I’m going to spend the rest of the day lounging around because I worked up quite a sweat doing my laundry today.  Dennis and Joseph do a way better job and they made fun of me because I was struggling and doing it wrong.  You know you must be bad when 12 and 14-year-old boys can do laundry better than you. 

You Are Most Welcome in Uganda

            Hello everyone!  It's my first official post from Uganda.  I'm sorry that I have been MIA for the past two weeks, but I didn't have access to the internet.  We were restricted as to where we were allowed to go during the elections as a safety precaution.  Thankfully, everything went relatively smoothly, and now we are allowed to move around more.  I was going to write a post yesterday, but I ran out of time.  The internet cafe is currently running on a generator (electricity isn't the most reliable here) so I only have 30 minutes.  Excuse my bad grammar and spelling, I'm going to try and write this fast.  Hopefully it's not too long either.
           We got here without too many hiccups, but it was a lot of traveling.  We checked out at 2am and headed for JFK at around 3am.  We got to the airport at 5:30am, but of course, South African Airways ticketing didn't open until 7:30am.  We just sat, all 44 of us, against a wall with our suitcases - we looked ridiculous.  Some people started to play hacky sack, which to me seemed like the typical Peace Corps stereotype.  I told one of the guys that he should start play kumbaya on his guitar, but he wasn't down.  After ticketing finally opened, everything went pretty smoothly.  I also wasn't charged for my bag that was 19 pounds overweight - AWESOME!  Two plane rides and 24 hours later, we arrived in Entebbe, Uganda.  We were greeted by a lot of the Peace Corps staff, all saying, "You are most welcome in Uganda" or just "You are most welcome."
           We are currently in Lweza, which is about 20 km outside of Kampala (I think).  For the past two weeks we have been staying at our training center, but tomorrow we move to our host families.  I'm living with a single mother and her two sons; I cannot wait to finally meet them!  The training center has been nice because we actually have a real toilet and hot water, so we have been spoiled.  Training has been good so far, but it is really long.  It's from 8-5 Monday through Friday, and then we sometimes have a half day on Saturday.  We are being trained for our jobs (how to make lesson plans, alternative teaching methods and how to teach HIV/AIDS education), cross-culture awareness and current affairs in Uganda.  For the first week we learned survival Luganda, which actually turned out to be extremely hard.  It's a tonal language and I have already been running into some problems.  Last week I asked the waiter for feces instead of water.  Amazzi is water, but amazi is feces...I'm not kidding.  I'm going to stick to using English now when I want water.
            We received the region that we will be placed in for our jobs on Sunday.  I'm going to be in the East near the mountains (apparently there is good coffee!!).  I have to learn Lugwere, which is pretty similar to Luganda.  There are four other people in my language group/region, and we are all pretty terrible at it so far.  Our language trainers arrive next week, so hopefully that will be better than learning from a hand out and recorded tape.
           We have been given a lot of talks from the medical staff, with the main point usually being "you are going to get diarrhea" and "remember to take your malaria pills."  The staff seems awesome though, and apparently you receive the best medical care in the Peace Corps.  Good to know considering my track record for bacterial infections.
         The food here has been decent, pretty much what I expected.  Beans, rice, plain pasta, fish and meat (not sure what kind...).  They also eat matoke, which is mashed plantains.  It hasn't been my favorite, but I have never been a fan of anything in the banana family.  Last weekend we split up into four groups and cooked for each other, which was a nice change.  We had Mexican, Indian, Italian and Asian food.  Cooking on coal stoves was definitely interesting and different.  Also chopping onions and carrots with a dull knife was no easy task.  Not that I was really helpful in the cooking department - it just didn't look easy.
         I have already managed to electrocute myself, which was a great welcome.  They warned us to use surge protectors because Uganda is prone to power surges.  I chose to ignore this piece of advice because I figured my electronics would be fine.  Well, my roommate Bethany kept scaring me that it would fry my electronics and I should use her surge protector.  I finally agreed and decided to use it to charge my phone.  I figured she would have bought an international surge protector that could handle the voltage;  I was wrong.  I was unfortunately the guinea pig who had to find this out.  I plugged in the adapter and surge protector, and flipped the switch to turn the electricity on for the outlet.  Immediately it all exploded and sparked, and my instant reaction was to unplug everything (before turning off the electrical current), so I kind of got a shock.  Whoops.  My phone is fine, but my charger no longer works.  Oh well, lesson learned.
           You are all going to die when I tell you what I have to purchase once I get to home stay.  Our home stays, and maybe even our sites, will have pit latrines outside.  Well, it's unsafe to use them at night because of thieves.  So I have to purchase a night bucket for my room!!!  I don't think this needs any more explanation...  But I could not stop laughing when they told us.
           Anyway, I am running out of time here, and that is all that has been going on.  Sorry for the long post, but hopefully you enjoy.  I miss you all and thanks for all the emails and Facebook posts.  I'll try to post again soon.

Philadelphia

            I arrived safely in Philadelphia today for "staging," which is basically a one day orientation.  My flight got in at around 4 o'clock, and after I got my bags I went outside in the freezing cold to wait for the hotel shuttle.  There were two other guys there who also had an obscene amount of luggage (and I figured they were probably in the Peace Corps too), but we were all too frazzled and awkward to make an actual conversation.  After about twenty minutes of waiting, we were finally told that a shuttle for our hotel doesn't actually come to the airport...great.  This is when we figured out that we were also all in the Peace Corps together.  Well, one of them suggested we just take the train to the hotel because the security guard told us that the hotel is a block away from the train station.  I thought to myself, "Um, can we just take a cab?  I don't want to have to haul around my huge suitcase, backpack, small backpack and purse."  However, I didn't want to be seen as the annoying LA girl, so I decided to go with the flow.  BIG MISTAKE.  Seeing me try and maneuver all of my luggage onto the train, and get it out of the aisle, was quite a sight to see.  People were staring/glaring until some man finally took pity on me and helped me out.  I was sweating by the time we made it to the hotel!

I had to maneuver all of this on the train

            After arriving, we registered and turned in all of our paperwork.  We were given $120 for our stay in Philadelphia for food, drinks etc.  I still have yet to meet my roommate, but I admire how little she was able to pack.  She has ONE suitcase and it's smaller than my larger duffel bag.  She was probably really taken aback by my four bags...maybe I over packed a little.
             Tomorrow we get our shots and play ice breaker games in order to get to know each other.  Then we leave Thursday at 2:30 am for New York (by bus!) where we are catching a flight to Johannesburg.  From there we fly to Entebbe, and then take a 30 minute bus ride to where our pre-service training will be.  I should be in quite a delightful mood by the end of all that traveling :)  I'm sure my next post will be all about our traveling mishaps, but I will also finally be in Uganda!!

Why Peace Corps?

            I leave in exactly one week, so I'm finally making my first blog post!  I thought it might be a good idea to start off by answering the question many of you have asked me, “How can you go back to Africa for two years?”  A lot of you read my emails during my study abroad in Kenya; so I know that you are all referring to some of my not so pleasant stories.  A house filled with cockroaches and a rat the size of a cat, showers from a bucket, bed bugs, getting mugged and multiple hospital visits due to various bacterial infections.  Needless to say, these are not the reasons why I am returning to Africa.  I am not sure if I can accurately express in words why I chose the Peace Corps and why I am so excited to live in Uganda for two years, but I will do my best.
            My four months in Kenya were truly some of the best times of my life; to be able to live and work in a different country was priceless.  I always felt, however, that my time there had been too short, and I didn’t have the opportunity to truly take advantage of my experience.  I left just as I was finally starting to understand the language, culture and what was expected of me at my internship.  I looked into the Peace Corps because I wanted the same sort of experience, but for a longer period of time.  I think that one can learn a lot from working with people of different cultures and backgrounds.  I hope that I will be able to accurately relay everything that I learn and experience so that those reading this will come to realize there is more to Uganda than poverty and an HIV/AIDS epidemic.
            So, how can I “rough” it for two years?  Well, I look at it like this - I have the opportunity to live in Uganda for two years, to travel to different parts of the world and to help those in need - in the grand scheme of things, taking a bucket shower just doesn’t seem all that bad.  Millions of people live like this for their whole lives; it’s not going to kill me to do it for two years.  I also have the luxury of knowing it’s not permanent, and I can come home to my soy latte at Starbucks and a gourmet meal cooked by mom.  At the end of the day, I know that I’m going to have to find the humor in the bad situations and just roll with the punches.
            Everyone has begged me to please be careful, and I promise that I will.  I will not aimlessly walk into a prison like the last time I was in Uganda or take a short cut home through the woods at night (while texting, of course).  I have been taking Krav Maga self defense, so hopefully I will do a little more than scream at the top of my lungs if I do get jumped from behind, again. 
            I am going to miss everyone and saying my goodbyes has not been easy.  I will do my best at updating this blog and responding to emails while I am away.  I’m not sure how my Internet access will be when I arrive in Uganda, so it may be a while until you hear from me.  I love you all!