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.
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.
hahahah Ok I died laughing about the bucket!! Thats what we did when we stayed at Tosha n Phils. Not too bad I must say just put soap and water in the bucket every night and that will help with the smell and the bubbles with protect your view of the contents hahahahaha
ReplyDeleteHi Aubrey... this is Ashley's mom (Paula)... I will be following your blog, I am so very happy and excited for you. I'm so glad Ashley shared the information so I can hear all about your adventures.
ReplyDeleteI hope you brought baby wipes
ReplyDelete