This blog is written in two installments, dated from when I wrote them and listed oldest to newest:
September 12, 2010
Today marks the end of week four of official training – one month down! This week has been pretty eventful, with some field trips during the training week, a Muslim/national holiday that the entire country (include the PC office in Kampala) had off except for us, and a fun filled weekend.
On Monday we drove for several hours east to a current volunteer’s site to visit village health teams (VHTs) and ask them questions about their work. VHTs are meant to be a first line of health care/referral for communities, especially those that are far from health centers. They provide education on hygiene, sanitation, HIV/AIDS, malaria prevention/distribution, and refer people to facilities when needed. VHTs are chosen by the communities, and are usually people who are well trusted and respected within the community.
We also got to visit a woman who raises poultry and grows mushrooms. She demonstrated how she creates her mushroom gardens in plastic bags, and then we got to see her room full of mushroom gardens – bags hanging all around with mushrooms growing out of the sides. Pretty cool! The ride back to town was also eventful since one of our trainers bought a live chicken to take home, and she carried in back in the bus in a plastic bag – his worried little head stuck out of the bag-handle the whole way back!
This week I also got to co-facilitate a medical session on STDs and HIV with two other trainees and a Peace Corps medical officer. Some of you might know that I volunteered with Peer Health Exchange (PHE) in college and taught workshops on this very topic to high school students in Boston. Proof that this is indeed a small world: one of my fellow trainees also did PHE and taught the very same workshop! So we got to pull out our old activities and use them with the PCT class. Great fun J
Saturday was a designated cooking day – within each of our language groups, we prepared a menu to cook at one of our homestays lunch for our class and the host family. We made a delicious three course meal: egg and cheese sandwiches, chapatti burritos with guacamole, salsa, ground beef, rice, and beans, and pineapple and brownies for dessert (one of my brilliant classmates rigged an oven out of two pots and some sand – I love my language group!) The meal turned out great, and I had an absolutely amazing time cooking with my Lusoga team – I really and truly could not have asked for a better group of people. Freeze frame moment: after our meal while waiting for the brownies to cook, we all laid out on a mat on the back porch, and digested our delicious meal while enjoying a gorgeous view of lush Uganda in the midst of the rainy season. Life just doesn’t get much better.
Sunday I went with a few other trainees to a local secondary school event to cheer on our friend’s host sister during their “field day.” She won the cross country race (go Stella!). and we stayed to watch some of the other events: sack racing, long jump, jaggling, matooke peeling (my favorite event! girls had to demonstrated peeling and wrapping matooke in the banana leaves for cooking, but boys only had to demonstrate fast and correct peeling), and bottle filling (a race where kids filled their mouths with water and ran across the field to spit the water into a bottle, repeating until the bottle is full). Since these events took until 1 pm, and there were 32 total listed on the schedule, we left to get lunch instead of watching all the events. However, I was sad to miss some of the events-to-come, such as the laughing and crying contests…not quite sure what we would have experienced with those! Afterwards we enjoyed a delicious meal of fried chicken and fries with a bag of strawberry yogurt for dessert. Mmmm mmmm good.
September 22, 2010
There’s a general feeling of restlessness among our training class: in just over a week, we’ll be given our site placements. We’ve been anxiously waiting for that day since training started (and honestly, since we applied to the Peace Corps), but the wait has become even harder since we’ve just returned from our immersion week. Week 5 of training was our “tech immersion.” We all got placed with current volunteers and spent 4 days at their site. Not only we were all excited for a vacation from the usual training schedule, but it was a great chance to cook our own food: no matooke!
I went with another trainee to visit a volunteer just east of Kampala. Sadly our site was not in my language region, but at least we were close to Wakiso, so we didn’t have to spend 10 hours on a bus like some of our training class. Part of the excitement of the journey came from the chance to spend some time on the way to and from the site in Kampala. We savored the opportunities: coffee, smoothies, burgers, fries (with real ketchup!), Indian food, etc. We even got to use a real flush toilet! Woohoo!
The community we visited was right on the shore of Lake Victoria, and we got a beautiful view by hiking up a hill and looking out over the village. We also got to feed some local monkeys along the lake. Some were shyer than others, but they were eager for our bananas!
In terms of cooking, we learned that the locals are much, much better at preparation than we are. One of the PCV’s secondary students helped us one evening, and she peeled and chopped sweet potatoes, tomato, cabbage, and pineapple faster than I could blink. I have to admit, after using the locally purchased knife the PCV had, I am glad that I brought a set of good kitchen knives with me! We also got to cook some luxury foods: sweet potato fries, peanut butter cookies, and pancakes. Mmmm.
Needless to say, after the freedom of immersion week, it was hard to come back to training. We’re also all starting to realize how little training we actually have left, and we’re all scrambling to finish our self-exploration projects and study for our language exams. We’ve been told that failing the exam is no big deal (you still swear-in as a volunteer and just retake the exam in 3 months), but we’re all a little worried about being that ONE TRAINEE that fails…
Some things that have become “typical” in my Ugandan life:
- Sweating. All the time. Even at night. What I wouldn’t do for a screen on my window so I could get some fresh air while I sleep!
- Rain. The rainy season is in full swing, and sudden downpours are commonplace. Last week I enjoyed a peaceful walk to training in the pouring rain: even though it happens all the time, the Ugandans all stay in doors when the rain comes, so I was met with strange looks on my walk from people looking out their windows, but few shouts of MUZUNGU!!!
- That brings me to the “SEE YOU MUZUNGU!!” and “BYE MUZUNGU!!” shouts that every child yells, at least a dozen times, at the sight of a foreigner. Muzungu means traveler or white person, and I still haven’t figured out why seeing one inspires such excitement in Ugandan children. They scream, run toward us, and often grab our hands or hug us. It can be sweet, funny, or overwhelming depending on my mood.
- Dust. There’s constantly a layer of it all over my body. It bothered me for a couple of days, but now I’ve accepted that I will be dusty for the next two years. Embrace the dust!
- Christmas music. They start playing it even earlier than back home!
- Pizas/Rolexes - similar delicious street foods. A piza (not to be confused with pizza, which has the much missed cheese) is a small chapatti with fried egg and onion on top and costs the equivalent of about a dime. A rolex is a large chapatti served burrito style with fried egg, onion, and tomato, and it’s a bit pricier: about 30 cents.
- Cadbury chocolate. It’s readily available in town, and has sadly become part of my daily routine.
Well, I think that’s all to report at the moment. I’ll update again when I get a chance. ttfn – ta ta for now!
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