I'm soooooo National Geographic

Mommy came to visit!!!! It was great, great, great! Ugandan culture is very welcoming and hospitable so all of the friends and colleagues I've made here were absolutely ecstatic to meet her (and greet her, they LOOOOVE to greet in Uganda). Check out some of the fun experiences she had in my home sweet home Naddangira, Uganda.

Upon arrival she was given a chicken by my neighbor as a welcoming gift.

Then, of course, we ate it. But we had to catch it first, and I'll be damned if those things aren't fast! But as you can see, we prevailed in the end--with a little help from some local children and my neighbor Daisy (pictured above).

Mama Brett (as everyone here called her throughout her stay) also got to meet my counterpart, Lukman, and his son, Rahman.
And she got to hold a million adorable babies, most of them not wearing any pants!

Aside from hanging around my place in Uganda we also went on a safari in Tanzania. AMAZING sights (Thanks Mom!!!). We went to Tarangire National Park, Ngorngoro Crater, and the Serengeti. It was very Ernest Hemingway. I'm also pretty sure National Geographic would hire me if they got the chance, just check out my vivid and action-packed nature photography skills.

But now vacation time is over and schools are back in session. This term I started after school life skills clubs at two of the primary schools I work with. Life skills are all those general abilities we need to lead happy and healthy lives, such as confidence, self-esteem, assertiveness, critical thinking, etc. Life skills can be built through games, art, discussion, role-playing, and a million other activities, so the kids should have some fun with it aside from it's learning benefits. I go once a week to each school and meet with about 60 or 70 kids. The age range varies, but I would say most of them are approximately 11-13 years old. The club is only in it's second week, so I cannot really report too much on it's success or challenges so far. Although, I can tell it will take a little time for the kids to understand the way I am teaching. Children here are used to being asked strictly factual questions. All questions asked in class have a distinct yes or no answer, rather than being based on opinion or personal experience. So when I ask children, "How do you think you'd feel if....." or "Can you remember a time when...." it is a complete paradigm shift! I have gotten very used to awkward silences following my questions (although part of that might be attributable to my accent and the fact that English is these kids' second language!). I'll keep at it though, because I think they will get used to it sooner or later, and I hope they will be in some way better for it.

What did you do this weekend?

Going to the market, fetching water from the borehole, getting hair braided at the salon, cooking on the charcoal stove.....a regular old Peace Corps weekend.

Keep your fingers crossed for Kenya

I don't know if it has gotten a lot of news coverage in the US, but there is bit of a disturbance going on in Kenya at the moment and I wanted you all to be aware of it. But first let me say, I am absolutely fine, please don't worry about me.

In the last weeks of December Kenya held it's parliamentary and presidential elections. Evidently the presidential race was very close, but they announced that the current president had won reelection. However, there were questions of corruption and the opposition party has called for an investigation. That is all relatively okay. The problem is that since the announcement of the President's election to a second term there has been significant violence erupting around Kenya. It is hard to be sure of the facts, as different news papers and radio stations give different reports, but death tolls have been estimated at around 300 people, so far. Some of the deaths have been caused by supporters of the opposition party attacking supporters of the President's party. Some deaths have been caused by opposition supporters attacking people of the President's tribe, which is the dominant tribe in Kenya. On the other hand, some deaths have been caused by police shootings at, reportedly, peaceful protests. It is a sad way to begin the new year.

The recent events in Kenya are also effecting Uganda. For one, a number of Kenyans fleeing the violence have crossed the border into Uganda. Uganda, as a land locked country, also depends on Kenya as it's connection to the coast (a.k.a trade). Gas prices in Uganda have skyrocketted as a result of Kenya's conflict. Right now gasoline is upwards of 3 times it's normal price in Uganda!!! Taxi rides are ex-pen-sive.

It is hard to tell what will happen in Kenya, as the disturbance is so recent. But keep an eye on the headlines and send all your peaceful thoughts and goodwill towards East Africa. Let's hope for the best.....

Tis' the season

Happy holidays to all!!!! I sincerely hope every last one of you had a great Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever other love and good-tidings filled day you choose to celebrate. And, by the way, how is 2008 treating you so far? Let me back up a moment though. I feel all this holiday business really got moving with Thanksgiving, and that it has just been one long roller coaster of celebration since.

So Thanksgiving....I had a really, truly wonderful Thanksgiving. The celebration was the most multicultural celebration of a purely American holiday I have ever encountered. When we sat down to eat (a delicious feast cooked almost entirely by my friend Amy and myself, including--among other mouth watering treats-- turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and of course pumpkin pie) we had a group of 10 American PCVs, 4 Ugandans (my counterpart and his wife included), 2 Pakistanis, and 2 Japanese volunteers. It was an amazing way to celebrate Thanksgiving, as we shared a piece of American culture with a variety of people. Now, explaining to our diverse dinner party what we were celebrating on Thanksgiving was a bit of a challenge, due to the inconsistency between the mythos of Thanksgiving and the historical fact of the matter, but we did the best we could. The company and the food were both superb, although cooking a meal of traditional Thanksgiving fare was no small task. For instance, our Thanksgiving turkey was alive and well when we woke up on the morning of the blessed event, that is until Amy and myself....well, just take a look below.

Turkey (alive)


Turkey (not so alive)


Makeshift oven over hot coals


Delicious!


I'm not sure if it's weird or not, but being a part of the process from slaughtering to plucking to cleaning to cooking was oddly satisfying. I felt accomplished, powerful, self-sufficient, and well, just all-around good.

I also had really nice Christmas, which was spent at PCV Brad's house in the Eastern part of Uganda. Below are a few pictures of everyone enjoying Christmas dinner. (Just kidding, now the computer won't load them, but check back later....)

Finally, for New Year's 2008 I stayed at my house and had a good old fashioned American style BBQ. I grilled kebabs out on my lawn and drank a few beers. The kebabs, made with beef and pork and marinaded in 4 different sauces, were delicious and I think my neighbors enjoyed them as well. Although I must admit that I fell asleep before midnight--come on, I don't have any electricity--it was a really good start to a new year in my life in Uganda. Here's to 2008, and all it may hold in store... Oh, I also made a New Year's resolution. I intend to begin exercising OR studying Luganda (the language here) at least 5 days a week. Hopefully I'll turn out smarter or healthier, which would be an improvement either way. Happy New Year!!!!

Belated Halloween and Early Thanksgiving Wishes (and Rwanda!)

Happy belated-Halloween and Happy early-Thanksgiving! I hope all of you dressed up for Halloween. I dressed up for a Peace Corps party, however the costume was Uganda specific so i am not sure if the hilarity of it will carry over (I promise it's actually funny!!), but I'll try to explain. There are a lot of street hawkers in Uganda, selling anything and everything from food to radios to underwear. When you are in taxi parks especially they are overwhelmingly in your face--it can be intense. Anyways, you operate cell phones here by purchasing airtime cards and then typing the airtime number into your phone, then you can make a call. Their are LOTS of airtime hawkers in the taxi parks. There are two main cellphone companies in Uganda: Celtel and MTN. So, my friend Amy and I dressed up as competing airtime hawkers, her as Celtel and myself as MTN. It's funny, seriously. I am not sure what my plans for Thanksgiving are yet, but don't worry I will be spending it with friends (although there won't be any mac n' cheese like your G'ma can make, Momo!). We are contemplating buying a turkey, but then of course we would have to slaughter, pluck, and cook it. Sounds like a lot of work, so we'll see....

In other news, I have a kitten!!! It is an adorable little Siamese that is just so cute you want to squeeze her till she pops. Her name is Sake (like the Japanese liquor). I found her abandoned in a ditch near my house. She was completely terrified and also appeared to be injured, so I just felt too guilty to leave her there. At first having her was a bit stressful, as I was concerned that she may have rabies and she DEFINATELY had lice. However, after getting her vaccinated and thoroughly de-lousing her I feel much better about the situation. I also planted a garden at my house. I am trying to grow tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, and zucchini. The tomatoes and broccoli are off to a good start, but I am not sure if the lettuce is going to pull through. Working in the garden has been a great stress reliever! It feels good to just do some work but not have to really think about anything. Although, seeing a white person digging in a garden is evidently pretty shocking/hilarious to most Ugandans, so sometimes I have a lot of people gawking at me, which is more stress inducing than stress relieving. In addition to my garden, I recently discovered that one of the trees in my yard is an avocado tree. The avocados aren't quite ripe yet, but I'm super excited.

At the end of October I took a vacation with four PCV friends to Rwanda. My companions on this trip, as pictured left to right above were Rishi, Brad, me, Amy, and Joe. It was amazing! The capital of Rwanda (Kigali) is about 8-10 hours by bus from the capital of Uganda (Kampala). We took a week off work and explored the Western half of Rwanda. We spent a night in Gisenyi, which is located on a beautiful sandy lake--Lake Kivu--that lies on the border between Rwanda and Dem. Republic of Congo. Although we didn't go swimming (evidently there are toxic volcanic gasses in the lake that can kill you???) it was gorgeous. We also toured the Primus Beer brewery, that national beer of Rwanda (the bottle holds 720 ml!! See above). The highlight of the trip, however, was when we visited Parc National des Volcans and hiked up Mount Bisoke, an inactive volcano 3711m tall. At the top of the mountain was a crater lake (pictured to the right) that was shrouded in clouds. Amazing. We didn't see any gorillas (mainly because it costs $500 to go where they live) but we did see some gorilla poop! The hike took us 7 hours round trip, most of it up-up-uphill, with our guide Jean-Claude and our four armed guards (half of Bisoke belongs to DR Congo, not the friendliest nation at the moment). The last memorable experience we had in Rwanda was visiting two different genocide memorials. I don't really know how to describe the feeling of visiting memorials to an atrocity that happened so recently. It was shocking/moving/horrifying/beautiful/indescribable. All in all, the trip was a success.

I love and miss you all. Sometimes I cannot believe that I've been away from home for 8 months already, and that there is plenty more where that came from. I am ecstatic every time I read your emails and hear what you are doing and how you are. Please write me letters and emails and send me news of your well being. Anyone who wants to send a care package (award goes to Mom, Dad, Eric, Mrs. Rossman, and Morgan/Holly/Brit for sending me wonderful goodies) I would love anything and everything you send. Food, books/magazines, games, art stuff, pictures of yourself, and surprises of all types are greatly encouraged!

The newest news from the equator

It's been awhile hasn't it? Sorry about that, I don't know where the time goes but suddenly it is September. Maybe it's the lack of seasons, but time for me has lost all meaning--it could just as easily be January as September in my mind. At any rate, I apologize profusely for being out of touch for so long. But hey, I AM on a different continent.

Important news/information/events:
1. You should all know that I bought a mumu--and that I love it dearly. Seriously. Now, I know mumus really catch a lot criticism in America, but they are whole heartedly accepted (even for professional events) in Uganda. They are unfairly judged in America and I would urge you all to give mumus a chance. It will be a cross-cultural experience!! Eventually I will send a picture of me in my mumu, I'm pretty sure I look incredibly attractive in it.
2. Did you know you can back on a charcoal stove?? I sure didn't until a few months ago, but now, if I do say so myself, I am pretty darn good at it. You create a miniature oven of sorts out of two large pots, placing the dish you are baking inside the pots. Then you place the whole thing on your hot charcoal, wait awhile (the timing is pretty unpredictable because the heat of the coals varies a lot depending on how much coal/wind there is), and viola!!! I've made spice cake, coffee cake, pumpkin bread, and corn bread. Which is actually quite odd, because I never cooked most of those even when I had a fully functional electric oven. I usually give my neighbors (the women who share the building I live in) some of whatever I make because they constantly give me things from their garden: bags of avocados, huge cabbages, papayas, eggplants, potatoes. It's amazing. Anyways, they asked me to teach them how to bake corn bread. I agreed, thinking I'll be teaching a few ladies to bake. Wrong. Somehow this turns into quite an event and before I know what's happening I am teaching 5 or 6 women and at least as many rowdy teenage boys. Thankfully the corn bread turned out excellent, because how embarrassing would that have been?!?!? Anyways, I guarantee anyone who comes over here to visit me fresh baked goods, hot off the charcoal stove.
3. I finally got a tent (thanks Dad and Mom!) and went camping in it for the first time a few weeks back. It was great. I went with 4 friends to Mabira Forest, which is a huge, wonderful, incredibly old, monkey-harboring, bird-filled (you'd love it Mom) rain forest. We camped and hiked, had a camp fire, roasted kabobs, and just generally had a great time. The only issue: seriously angry ants--everywhere. These are the kind of ants that are so big you can see their pinchers, from a few paces away. When they bite you they hang on and you literally have to rip them off. And there are a million of them. The lines they move in are just incredible, it's like a river. Just picture something out of national geographic. We spent a decent portion of our hiking leaping over these ant rivers at a run to try and avoid their vicious attacks. Still a great trip though.

Thank you thank you thank you to those who have emailed (Alison, you are the best/most consistent emailer I LOVE you), and those who wrote me letters/sent packages. I'm sorry if I haven't responded to people personally, but internet time is a serious challenge. Please keep emailing me and I PROMISE to respond to people individually soon. Maybe even later this week (Pete and G your emails were amazing, I will write you soon!). Internet time's up. Later from the equator.....

Getting old

Is it really summer there?? I am still stuck in the belief that it is February in America, because that's when I left and I cannot imagine that time progresses undisturbed without me. That's just preposterous! But evidently it is now July, which I am especially aware of due to the fact that today, at long last, I am 23 years old! I had a wonderful birthday, which I spent with many of my PCV friends here in Uganda. It's been great. I even got presents!!!!! Remarkable among the gifts I received are a hand crafted birthday poster in which I have googly-eyes, a turtle carved out of stone, a crown made out of banana leaves, and four humongous cabbages. It was amazing--although I have to admit that I gave the cabbages away to an orphanage because what am I going to do with FOUR monster cabbages?!?! At any rate, it was all amazing. And I cannot wait to receive all of your birthday wishes, which I trust all of you remembered to send out approximately three weeks ago, and that I will be receiving in the mail any day now!

Life here is good. My neighbors are getting used to me and I am finally settling into my house, I even have some furniture now!!! The top left picture was taken looking out my bedroom window. The top right picture is my neighbor Grace washing laundry in our backyard. She is a cook for the priests at the Catholic church. The bottom picture was also taken in my backyard. As you can see, the neighbors were doing some major cooking. My kitchen is the metal hut in the background. My recent home-improvement project has been making curtains. I bought some majorly cool African print fabric and have been sewing two curtains for my house, because that's how many windows I have, two. It's taken me a little while, but some days I have nothing else to do with my time and sewing curtains seems great. It's kind of like TV when your bored, except not really because it is not especially entertaining. But I don't have a TV, so curtains it is!

The other night I woke up to hear something rustling in my room. I listened for a minute and concluded that whatever was making the sound was certainly bigger than a cockroach, which can be pretty big here. So I decided I should probably investigate. My room has a sink in it, although there is no running water in my area, and as near as I can tell there never really has been running water despite the fact that some buildings have had pipes installed. Anyways, I tracked the noise to the useless sink, which had an empty travel-size tissue package in it. The package was moving. But what was in the package???? I couldn't tell. Deciding it was probably a bad idea to poke at the package or try to pick it up, I scooped it into a Tupperware and slapped the lid on. And what popped out of the tissue package??? A mouse!!! A very frightened mouse, and rightly so. I released him outside, but if the other ladies who live in my building had seen him he surely would have been beaten to death with a huge stick. Truthfully, I've seen my neighbor Grace pulverize one rat and one snake with a very very large stick. So this mouse was lucky he was only expelled from the house and thrown into a nearby bush.

My work with the schools here has been pretty slow in starting. There are days when I do absolutely nothing related to education. Instead I sew curtains or do my laundry or go to the borehole. But that's okay, because I see work on the horizon. I have an idea I am beginning to flesh out that would deal with literacy and creating books for children to read. There are NO story books available to kids here. Seriously, like NONE. This project could also deal with social aspects of issues such as AIDS. But this project is still just an idea, so don't expect much of an update on it for 4-6 months at least. Progress is slow! More immediately, I am working with my counterpart, Lukman Kirya, on organizing an Instructional Materials Exhibition at our school. We are asking schools in the area to create learning aides for different subject areas from locally available and low-cost materials. Then we will have an exhibition in which the materials are awarded recognition, by a panel of judges. Or at least that's the idea, we'll see how it goes. Could be amazing, but also has the potential to just be super stressful and mostly unsuccessful. On July 13th we'll see.....