Wow, I've been here for a while now - time to post!

Sorry to all of you who have been following my blog for the last few weeks hoping for an update – internet (and sometimes even electricity) has been difficult to come by. Anyway, here is a very long post about my first few weeks in Uganda J

Staging:

My journey started with an orientation (called “staging” in Peace Corps-speak) in Philadelphia. I had to arrive the night before because I came from the west coast, so I was able to enjoy a fabulous tour of the city and dinner with a friend of mine from college. Thanks again Jason! After arriving back at the hotel, I met a few of my fellow PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees). They are all amazingly wonderful (of course), so I enjoy a long night’s rest (my last for quite a while).

Staging involves a lot of paperwork/logistics/get-to-know you activities. I finally get to meet all of my training class (although it will take me a while to learn all of their names), and we get to share are common fears and excitements about the next 2 years. It’s very comforting to know that we all have very similar anxieties about traveling to Uganda! Staging ends with some logistics for our journey to Africa, and we’re all told that we should pack our carry on luggage to last us our first 6 days in Uganda because we may not get access to our luggage until we get to our permanent training site. This causes a bit of a panic among the group, as we’ve all spent hours carefully packing our bags before coming to Philly, only to find out we need to re-arrange it all. Several people make a mad-dash to the Target that is (thankfully) right across the street, and then we all share a last-American meal at California Pizza Kitchen before delving into the re-packing task.

After a “restful” 0-2 hours of sleep, we all pile onto buses at 2:30 am for JFK airport. The journey: 15.5 hour flight to Johannesburg + 6 hour layover + 4 hour flight to Entebbe = 45 very tired/slightly smelly PCTs. Also, fyi: it is currently winter in South Africa, and their airport seems to not be at all heated….so if you happen to have a 6 hour layover there, you might consider packing some warm clothes or a blanket, as I did not.

We arrive to a warm welcome by the PC staff and pile into a coupler of buses for the ride to Lweza Training & Conference Center. We drop off our bags, eat dinner, and stumble to bed.  

Arrival week:

Our training in Lweza starts with some introductions of each other, the staff, and Peace Corps. Oh, and of course we get a couple of immunization shots. The next few days involve meetings with our program coordinators about expectations and job assignments, preparations for moving into out homestay, and survival Luganda language lessons. The first week has a “summer-camp” feel because of the (fabulous) morning and afternoon tea breaks, the dorm-style living (complete with running water!), and the continual “bonding” activities. We even get a gorgeous view of the Ugandan landscape in out backyard, complete with monkeys. All in all, it was pretty great.

Our week in Lweza ends with a tour of Kampala. We split up into small groups and explored the city with a Ugandan PC trainer. We went to Kampala on Sunday so it would be less crowded, but the city center was still a bit overwhelming. Not only is the city packed full of more people than I thought could possibly fit into such a small space, but the amount of dust and fun odors in the air was a bit of a shock to my system. After some shopping, we rode back to Lweza on a public taxi and repacked our bags (again!) for our homestay.

Week 1:

Our first week of real training starts with us moving into our homestays in Wakiso, a “suburb” of Kampala. After storing some of our luggage at RACO (our training site), we wait for our families to pick us up. My host mom picks me up in her car and drives me to her home. I had no idea what to expect from my new home, but I am surprised to find that in many respects, it is not very different from a home in America. There is a garage, electricity, and even a television. However, there is no running water, so I get to learn how to use a pit latrine and bucket bathe outside. I have to say, the pit latrine is not nearly as bad as I expected. It’s still not my favorite thing in the world (or even my top 100), but it’s completely do-able. The bucket baths are pretty even nice, except that it’s hard to get all the shampoo out of my hair (since there’s so much of it!). It’s also difficult to explain to my host family why I need more water to bathe than they do since they all have shaved heads…

I’ve also improved upon using just a jerry can for hand washing by constructing a tippy tap at my home (something we learned in training). It’s basically a jerry can tied to a pole (where our clothesline is) and to a stick on the ground. When you step on the stick, the jerry can tilts down, and water pours through a hole poked through the side of the can, creating an easy way to wash hands after using the latrine. Simple yet effective!

I’m staying with a Muslim family: a mother, father, and three kids (a 13 year old boy, and two 5 and 2 year old girls). There’s also a house-girl who stays with the family and helps with the cooking and cleaning. It’s Ramadan, so my family’s schedule is quite a bit different than mine. I eat dinner around 7-7:30 and then go to bed around 9-9:30 (since training starts at 8), but my family stays up until around midnight eating and praying while it’s dark, and then they wake up again to eat around 4:30. By the time I get up at 6, everyone has gone back to sleep. In fact, I haven’t yet met my host dad because he gets home late from work in Kampala after prayer, and he’s always asleep when I leave in the morning. Other than the mismatch of schedules, I adore the children in the house. The eldest son goes to boarding school, so he’s often not home, but the younger girls are the same age as my niece and nephew back home, and they are so much fun to play with.

Training classes involve a lot of language study. We’ve all been assigned to language groups based on the region of the country we’ll be placed in. While we won’t know our specific site placements until close to the end of training, our language group gives us an idea of where we might be. I’m learning Lusoga, which is very similar to Luganda (the language spoken in Wakiso and the central region of the country). Lusoga is spoken in the southeastern part of the country, around the town of Jinja and the heart of the Nile River. There are 4 other (fabulous) trainees in my language group, and I’m pretty excited to have them as “neighbors” after training.

This first week involves learning greetings and introductions in our language and getting some overviews of our program areas: community health and economic development. We also get our bikes to use during training. As many of you probably know, I had to learn how to ride a bike before coming to Uganda, and one of my biggest fears upon arrival was how well I would be able to get around on my bike (especially after all the horror stories I’ve heard about bikes falling apart and poor-quality African roads). Needless to say, I got my bike and promptly put it in storage for safe keeping. After seeing my fellow trainees (with many more years of bike-riding experience) struggle on the rough and bumpy dirt roads, I was glad to be walking. The walk to training everyday is beautiful. It’s about 30-40 minutes (depending on my energy level), and it’s like trekking through the jungle. I’ll try to post pictures when I can.

Week 2:

In week two we get more language and more shots, but we also get to do a field assignment. We met with members from one of the local villages in the community, and we executed an assessment tool that we’ll likely use at our sites. My group constructed a community map, so we had community members draw a map of their village and point out important places, places they like/dislike to go, and places they would like to see in their village that aren’t there. It was a great way to get to know the community, how they spend their time, and their own priorities for improvement in their village.

This week we also learn about perma-culture/perma-gardening and as a group we construct a garden of vegetables at our training site. I have absolutely no previous experience in gardening, so it was great to learn about it, but I’m still unlikely to be my community’s perma-gardening expert.

The week ended with another visit to Kampala: this time to visit the Ugandan Museum and go to Garden City (a nice shopping mall) to test out our new ATM cards, which will enable us to access our PC living allowance while at site. The highlight of the trip for me was getting pizza for lunch – oh so delicious! I hadn’t realized how much I missed cheese…and flavor! The typical Ugandan diet consists of a lot of bland starches: matooke (mushed, cooked plantains), posho (a mushy, flavorless white starch made from flour), rice, potatoes, etc. We usually get some fruits/vegetables thrown in (a PC requirement for our homestays), but the food got old really fast. However, the pineapple here is beyond amazing. Mmmm mmmm good.

Week 3:

This past week has been pretty great, mostly because I finally feel like I’m settling into a routine here – things are just feeling a lot more familiar. Training consists of the same: language and technical sessions, but we also get several opportunities this week to go out into the field. On Thursday we got to visit the local health center and get a tour of the facilities. We even got to see their daily child health activities, where they offer immunizations, growth recordings, and vitamin supplementation to babies in the community (they’re following the EPI schedule recommendations!!). It was interesting yet sad to hear about all the local health issues plaguing the community. Today we also got to visit a local community based organization that works on HIV testing and counseling in their community and hear from the staff and counselors about their work. Overall, it’s been a pretty interesting week. I’m really exciting to start seeing first hand all the things I’ve spent the last year studying.

On a side note: tonight for dinner I got buttered pasta (or “macaroon” as my host mom called it), and it was DELICIOUS. Pasta’s never been one of my favorite dishes, but it was just so exciting to get something new!

I’m still not sure it’s hit me that I’m staying here for the next two years. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not at all planning on getting on a plane home tomorrow, but I just keep thinking about what I’ll do when I get “home.” I need to start getting my brain to think of Uganda as my new home. I’m sure once I get to my site and can settle into my own place I will feel more “settled in,” but it’s hard to really feel at home here while I’m still living out of a suitcase.

I think that’s all I have for now. For those few who actually read this entire crazy-long post – good on you mate, and thanks for reading. Until next time - ttfn, ta ta for now!