Last Saturday, we were finally taken to Kampala and given a tour of the city. It was as I expected – busy and polluted. It reminded me a lot of Nairobi, but bigger and a little dirtier. I felt like there were more options for the “mzungu” places where you can get American food like burgers, pizza, steak etc than there were in Nairobi. We walked around the outdoor market, which is where I finally got to taste grasshoppers. Grasshoppers taste like overly salted chips with a face. They weren’t great, but they weren’t bad. I’m not really a fan of eating foods that can look back at you.
We had language immersion this week, which was a lot of fun! We left Sunday morning for Budaka, which is in the east, about 20 minutes outside of Mbale. We took a taxi there (or matatu as they are called in Kenya), which is basically a van that holds 15 passengers. When we got to the taxi park, I asked our language trainer, Kenneth, “So this taxi is going to stop for food along the way, right?”
He looked at me with his eyebrows raised and responded, “It’s a three hour drive; are you really going to need food?” Oh Kenneth, clearly you don’t know me very well. He then added, “It will stop for food, but you can’t eat it. You will get diarrhea.”
Ryan, Caroline, Bethany and I could not stop laughing because it’s pretty uncommon for Ugandans to talk about anything toilet related. He did have a point though. Taxis will usually stop on the side of the road where they have vendors that sell food and water. Usually about thirty or so people will rush up to the taxi and wave things in your face to buy. It’s not the smartest idea to eat the food though because 1. It’s not the most sanitary, 2. For meat products, they aren’t always fully cooked. Once the vendors see a taxi, they just pull it off the grill in order to make money and beat another vendor from selling their meat. So yes, diarrhea is probably in the cards. (For those of you wondering – yes, this is why I was always sick in Kenya. I definitely ate from these vendors!). I knew Kenneth was not going to let me eat this food though; so Bethany, Ryan, Caroline and I stocked up on the biscuits they were selling at the taxi park.
The drive to Budaka was not too bad, except for the fact that it was a little squished and the driver drove like my mom (for those that don’t know, that’s terrifying!). Along the way, we did make a stop for food. As we were pulling up to the stop, Kenneth told Bethany that she might want to close her window. Not having been to Africa before, she was a little confused and slow to close the window. In about five seconds, 20 or so people rushed the taxi to sell things and were waving meat on a stick and bottles of soda through the window. Closing the window does not really do any good because they will just slide it back open. All of us really wanted to get the meat on the stick because it actually looked pretty good. Kenneth gave us the evil eye and told us we better not because he didn’t want to take care of us if we got sick. We then saw a kid selling chapati that looked AMAZING! Now chapati is just flour and water, so it doesn’t matter if it’s undercooked, right? Well, that’s the argument we used, and Bethany, Ryan and I bought some. Kenneth saw and just gave us a look like, “are you kidding me?” He then raised his hands as if to say, “If you poop your pants, not my problem.” Caroline refused to eat any because the kid handed us the chapati with his bare hands, which were extremely dirty. She said, “Um, did you see his hands! His fingernails were black!” While she did have a point, it was seriously the best chapati I have eaten – and none of us got sick!
Budaka is a really small farming town and pretty rural. Our “hotel” was interesting to say the least. We each got our own room with a bathroom, so that was nice. There was no running water though and the toilet didn’t have a seat. Since there was no running water, you had to pour water into the toilet to have it flush. My toilet was absolutely disgusting; I don’t think it had ever been cleaned. We had to bucket bathe since there was no running water, and you had to do this basically on the toilet because the bathroom was so small. Let’s just say, we were all pretty filthy by the end of the four days. We, however, found it absolutely hilarious. My language group is pretty easy going, and we just find the humor in everything. Even though the town was small and out in the boonies, we are all pretty excited about our region. It was really green everywhere and there was no pollution. The people were also very nice and welcoming. Since it’s so small, we know that our sites will most likely be relatively close to each other, which means it will be easy to meet up and hang out. It also means, however, that our sites are going to have the bare minimum. I don’t think I’ll have running water and I might have electricity. Thankfully, Mbale is close, which is a bigger city and I will be able to buy anything I need there.
We got a lot of practice speaking Lugwere during immersion, but we also realized we have a lot of work to do these last few weeks of training. Everyone spoke so fast! Everyone we met was shocked when we would greet them in Lugwere, but really excited we were learning. Kenneth is from the Budaka area, so he had some family there. His cousin Mark showed us around and introduced us to people, which was really nice. Kenneth is probably the best language trainer and really fun to hang out with! He told us that whenever we are feeling down about learning the language, we should listen to the Mariah Carey song “When you Believe” or R. Kelly’s “I believe I can fly.” He loves these songs. He also says phrases like “Jesus Christ on a wooden bicycle.” Not really sure what that means… We taught him a few card games and he taught us how to play pool using Ugandan rules. He also taught me how to play Uganda Chess, which is actually nothing like chess, and more like a complicated math version of Mancala (it was fun, but he kept beating me!).
One of the greatest moments during language immersion was at lunch on our last day there. A man came over to us and apologized for interrupting, but he said he just had to come say hi to us because we were in the Peace Corps. He said that he had a Peace Corps volunteer as a teacher when he was younger, and he still remembers him to this day. He said he was so happy that we were there and that we were going to be teachers in the Lugwere region. He said we were most welcome and he knew we would do great things. It was good to hear that Peace Corps can leave an impact, and we are going to be doing something worthwhile. Another great moment was when a 16 year old proposed to me. Actually, it was more of a demand than a proposal. He said, “We get married and then you take me to America.” I had to let him down by telling him that’s illegal where I come from.
OMG LOVED LOVED LOVED THE PHOTOS!! And they made me miss even MORE!!! You look great/happy/everything good! <3 LOVE YOU!
ReplyDeleteAubrey, I love how you write! I could see it all in my mind before I even saw the photos. : ) You're really having an adventure! God bless, stay safe and only eat what you're supposed to so poor Kenneth doesn't have to take care of you when you get sick--lol
ReplyDeletexoxo Patti