Apparently if shit hits the fan, we can COS now...

Exactly one year ago today I, along with 44 other, amazing people, swore in as Peace Corps Volunteers. I posted back in August that we've been in Uganda for a year, but this milestone means that we've completed half of our two years of service (Peace Corps doesn't count those 2.5 months of training as "service"). This time next year, I will (hopefully) be an RPCV! It also means that if crazy stuff happens in the country (we are still banned from Kampala...), and we get evacuated, we can technically still close our service (COS) and be an RPCV (highly unlikely though)!

It's easy to look back on the past year and feel disappointed. By American standards, PCVs don't accomplish a lot of tasks or complete a lot of projects in a year. However, I think it's important to take a look at the past year and commemorate the good. Here's some exciting things I've done this past year:

• Wore a traditional Ugandan gomez at an introduction (a pre-wedding ceremony). No I never posted a picture of this because the gomez was bright orange and slightly hideous. 
• Spent my first Christmas abroad with my awesome friend Lisa!
• Leaned to collect and prepare the materials for and sew a traditional Ugandan mat. Pictures to come, if I ever finish it!
• Rafted the Nile River
• Learned to make yeast bread
• Learned to test for malaria, vaccinate babies, and palpate a fetus
• Helped with a mass, door-to-door polio vaccination campaign
• Lived through my first African election
• Attempted to teach my health center about good record keeping
• Helped paint a mural with some kids at the Uganda PC 50th anniversary service event
• Helped Soft Power Health sell about 600 mosquito nets to people in my community
• Taught some kids about HIV/life skills
• Mostly answered a lot of kids random questions about any and all things
• Crossed the equator by land
• Visited Rwanda and Kenya
• Wrote and received funding through my first-ever grant
• Saw the last two Harry Potter movies at Uganda's one and only theater (ok, the same theater opened a second branch a block away from the first branch, but it's really all one theater)
• Found good fajitas and pad thai in Jinja!
• Learned about the LRA and the war up north from some powerfully strong Ugandan youth
• Ate at the first KFC in east Africa 
• Went on my first safari
• Got schistosomiasis
• Spent two birthdays in Uganda
• Helped ensure quality control during an injury research study in Iganga by training field workers and reviewing their work
• Found and purchased 300 towels in one go. They take up a lot more space than you would think. 
• Somehow come to terms with the fact that I will probably need to move sites in the next few months (details to come)
• Made some great friends, both fellow PCVs and Ugandans
• Read 63 books (and counting...)

It's been a good year

ttfn :)