VACATION!

Before my vacation started, I was super busy finishing up the year. Tori and I were working on one of the projects, the 12 month long curriculum. We decided to do it in quarters. Despite the fact that I have never written a curriculum/lesson plan, and we waited until the week before it needed to be done to do it, it turned out well. The first three topics for January, February, and March are Water/Hygiene/Sanitation, HIV/AIDS, and Family Planning. I have so much more respect for teachers now that I have actually written a lesson plan…I had no idea how much work it was. Tori and I were both up til 2am three nights before the week ended. Hopefully that taught us a lesson to start a little earlier for the next quarter of the project.

I’ve been having a wonderful time ever since my vacation actually started! There was a work holiday party at Justin’s house (the executive director). Most of the employees of FDNC were there to celebrate the end of the year. It was a nice time to spend with everyone before the holiday break. For Christmas, a bunch of other volunteers and I went to Rachel’s village outside of Mbale Town. Rachel was my language teacher during training and has four boys, Keith, Kennedy (“like the president”…her words!), Kelvin, and Kris. They are so freaking adorable! The ages are 6, 5, 3, 2. Quite a handful and despite how cute they were, I was definitely ready to come back to my quiet hut after the third day. It was really nice to see how Ugandans spend Christmas and the differences in cultures. There was lots of family time…with lots of family. I bet there were 30 people in and out of the house at a time; I couldn’t keep everyone straight! We were listening to Christmas carols and cooking all day. The food takes a really, really long time to cook using only three charcoal stoves! The dinner menu included turkey, chicken, beef, rice, pasta, matooke, potatoes, fruit salad, and banana bread. We all helped cook in the 90-degree weather outside…definitely not what we were used to, but we got down and dirty!! Good food, good company, and good times. Being away for Christmas wasn’t as bad as I thought. Although, I was recently reminded about the fact that if I was home, I would probably be working…haha, this was much better than work!! =)

The day after Christmas, we spent the day with Rachel and her family at Sisiyi Falls. It’s a beautiful waterfall off the side of Mt. Elgon. We walked up part of the mountain to get a gorgeous view of the falls. Lisandro, Josh, and Liz decided to be adventurous and get down in the water. I was playing it safe and just decided to take pictures of them!

As I returned from the 4 day/3 night Christmas fun, I have been being completely lazy and loving every minute of it. I have been making use of Tori’s house mostly for the purpose of her refrigerator, but also because it’s a nice change of scenery from my one room house (hers has 4). Anyways, we have kind of known she had rats…but never actually saw one alive. She killed one a couple weeks ago with this stuff called ‘rat glue’. So I was relaxing there the other night just reading when I see something out of the corner of my eye…two moving things. The first is a lizard, small little creatures that are perfectly harmless and way more afraid of us, but they still scare me really bad. Then the second moving thing…a black rat!!! Oh. My. God. It took me back to the buffalo days when I tried to kill a rat with Mike with Brent’s hockey stick!! Haha…this time I was alone, and didn’t have a hockey stick. My options were limited, but luckily it ran out (I think), or I ran out before I could think! Another good reason for my one room, thatched roof hut, I always know what’s in it, or what isn’t!

In my down time, I have been doing a lot of reading, writing, puzzle(ing?), and napping…its been really nice and relaxing! My other Peace Corps friends and I are planning on spending new years in Jinja then rafting!

I uploaded pictures from Christmas so check them out! Hope everyone had a great Christmas also!…and Happy New Year too!!

BOOYAH TURKEY! =)

On December first we celebrated Thanksgiving at Karine's house with about 13 other PCVs! We ate the most unbelievably delicious turkey possible in Uganda! As you can see, Lisandro and myself were both thoroughly enjoying it!! =) I arrived late because of meetings with work (yes, work on a saturday!) and all of the prep work to the turkey was finished. I have to say that I was happy...I'm not sure it would have tasted as good if I knew it alive!

It was great to see people from my training group and meet other people who live in the area. The whole dinner included turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed sweet potatoes, mac and cheese (velvetta!), pumpkin pie, carrot cake, and fruit salad. It was a real thanksgiving, in Uganda!


We all even went around the table and said what we were thankful for....cute, huh? Luckily, this trip to Bududa I did not walk back to Mbale! I smartened up and took a taxi...although, I cant say that I wont do it again. =) Hopefully over the holiday when the office is closed, I can be prepared and hike up another mountain! Its so beautiful here! The weather though, nothing like that in New York! Soooooo hotttttt, seriously, what did I expect, I guess...I'm in Africa! This is the time when I am extremely happy for my thatched roof hut!! It stays so much cooler than tin roofed houses. And apparently the hottest/driest time is still to come, January! I'll just be thinking of all my family and friends in CNY/WNY freezing their butts off!! =) Its strange to think about life with no snow for two years...I think I'll manage! =)

This month marks 4 months in Uganda! Whoa! Happy Holiday Season, All!!

16-Mile Journey…

On the actual day of Thanksgiving, I decided to go visit my lumasaaba group and spend the weekend with them. Karine and Lisandro live close to each other and about one and a half hours away from my site. I took a taxi out there to meet them, and planned on coming back Saturday the same way. However, plans changed. Instead of taking a taxi back to Mbale, we decided to walk. Kind of crazy, I know, but at first I was totally against it…I wasn’t ready, I didn’t have sneakers, and I didn’t exactly pack lightly for a 16-mile hike to Mbale. After two days of my friends convincing me, and Karine’s extra pair of sneakers, I was up at 5 am on Saturday morning getting ready for the hike. We began our journey at 5:30 am in the pitch dark. It was my lumasaaba group (Lisandro, Karine, Liz and I), two other PCV’s from the March group, and Barbara, a 61 year old non Peace Corps American who is here volunteering for the next year. Two Ugandans guided us the whole way, a father/son pair who Barbara knew from the village. Simon (the dad) was actually suffering from malaria! Talk about motivation...if this man could make this hike with malaria, I sure as hell was going to make it! Although I had some doubts during the trip...


The whole thing took us about 7 hours total, but we were only actually walking for about 5 of them (we took a couple breaks!). I thought I was going to die, and my legs are still killing me...yeah, I'm really out of shape. Despite long, tiring journey and the awful dirt uphill paths we were walking on, watching the sunrise over the mountains and the view was absolutely amazing! The pictures barely capture the beauty of it. It was gorgeus! I will definitely be doing more hiking around these mountains and hopefully getting in better shape over the next two years!!




*Happy 21st bro! =)

Are you ready for CHOGM?

That’s the question every Ugandan has been asking for the past year plus…well, ready or not, CHOGM is here! The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting or CHOGM is being held this week in Kampala. I was very tempted to go, and despite my mother’s best attempt to be the devil’s advocate and persuade me to go, I decided against it. Kampala scares me on a normal day, so when the Queen is in the city, I would have been terrified. FDNC is being well represented during the events of the week by having the FDNC Mbale Youth Brass Band play on two different occasions in Kampala. This was the main reason for me to even consider going to Kampala, to see the band perform.

The band is a work in progress. Phil, the volunteer from the UK, has this amazing vision to create the first youth orchestra in all of Eastern Africa, and possibly in all of Africa. Right now it’s a brass band composed of trumpets, trombones, tubas, and percussion. He has been working extremely hard to teach these kids how to read music and become a sit down brass band. In January, he hopes to add a woodwind and string section…he has lots of instruments that were donated from the UK, but at the moment he lacks teachers. We were talking about my previous band experience, and I think I may be the new clarinet teacher…I just hope I can remember how to play! Its been about 5 years since I have touched mine! The hope is for the band to go to Kampala, talk to people from all over the world who have lots of money and want to support the band. It’s a big vision, but I’m really excited to help him with the clarinet section of the band! Phil also plans on building a music school in Mbale.

K, just a quick little blurb about CHOGM and a potential secondary project! And new pictures!! Check them out! =)

Settling In

Its been about three weeks since ive been here in Mbale at my permanent site. So far things are going really well and I have been unexpectedly busy. Going through training and reading about Peace Corps, they really prepare you for the worse. I guess its good to go into things having low expectation because then you are pleasantly surprised when they are better! When I thought of Peace Corps, I’m not sure exactly what I was thinking, but it definitely wasn’t this.

Currently, I am working a lot with Richard (my counterpart and the coordinator of the community health department). We have been working in his office, which I now have a desk in, organizing it and complying malaria data for one of our donors. Last week we had about 17 people visit from the UK who have donated money to FDNC, they came to see where their money was going. So we were busy preparing for their visit, which was actually quite stressful to get all the information done in time, but the visit went well and they were pleased to see the work that FDNC is doing.

Ive also been going out almost every afternoon into the field with Richard and Sandra, my supervisor. We have 28 different communities with a community health volunteer in each community who is responsible for organizing the events. So we go out to the communities to do different health related projects including, fuel saving stoves, the importance of mosquito nets, HIV/AIDS, girl child empowerment, and we are currently in the process of creating a curriculum for 2008 to implement in January. I am sort of in charge of putting that all together.

During our visits to the communities, the community members are always really excited to have us there and especially happy to see me (the muzungu from America!). They usually provide us with some sort of soda, or crackers, or even they prepare a meal. Which can be awkward at times because they expect me to eat a plate of food twice my size, but anyways, we were out the other day and the community prepared a feast! Beef, chicken, rice, potatoes, beans, eggs, matooke, millet bread, seriously, tons of food! Well, I am sitting there eating, trying not to think about the food preparations/cleanliness of the utensils I am using (my germ phobie kicking in), when my supervisor pulls out a round ball shaped mass from her plate. I thought it was a potato and didn’t really think much of it until she looks at me and asks if I wanted an egg. Yes, an egg, from the inside of her chicken that she was eating. When I realized it was an egg that was cooked from within the chicken (it took me a minute to process that) we all had a good laugh and conversation about culture. How pulling out an unhatched egg from a cooked chicken would never happen in America, or at least I haven't witnessed it. One of many hilarious conversations since ive been here…

Some other projects that I will be working on in the next couple of months, that im sure you will be hearing much more of, is a sports league within the communities, a library project for the vocational school, much needed organization, and developing the special needs school. I did my first health science lesson last Monday at the vocational school to the students here. It was a little intimidating never having taught before and then doing it here, but it went well, the topic…diarrhea, awesome. Haha.

We are planning on having thanksgiving with some people in my training group the weekend after thanksgiving. Deep-fried turkey? It will definitely be an exciting adventure…ill let you know how slaughtering, plucking, and whatever else has to be done before you eat a turkey goes! =)

WHIRLWIND!

As of October 18th, I am an official Peace Corps Volunteer! I had some technical difficulties with my flash drive and because of that, I was unable to post a wonderful blog that took me about 3 hours to type up. They teach us patience and flexibility in training and I definitely had to put those two skills to good use when the document wouldn’t open up at the internet café. This post is a well overdue one and I’ll try to remember everything that has been happening these past couple weeks!

I am finally done with training and in Mbale volunteering at my organization called ‘Foundation for Development of Needy Communities” (FDNC). After training was over, we had our final language test…I passed!! :) YAY! Thank God because I don’t have to use my language here that much and retaking it would have sucked. I was so excited and relieved to have it over.

We said goodbye to our lovely home stay families and went to Kampala last week for the final days before our swearing-in ceremony. It started Monday night (October 16th) at the United States Ambassadors house, Mr. Steven Browning. Yeah, I went to a pool party at his house. Although I didn’t get to meet him, (he was doing official U.S. Government business in the States) but I met his wife and their house also served as the host for our swearing-in ceremony on Thursday. Tuesday, we actually visited the U.S. Embassy. I was literally on American soil. I couldn’t believe it, and I really thought I left Uganda for 5 hours. The building looked American, smelled American, and there were tons of Americans working in it. The bathrooms and cafeteria were just like the ones in America. It was surreal, the whole Embassy experience. We heard from about 5 different people that work there and they talked about the role of the Embassy in Uganda. Two of the people we heard from were Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. It was really interesting to hear their stories and to see what they are doing after Peace Corps. Crazy to think about what could happen after this experience!

The swearing-in ceremony was really nice, and there were representatives from the Ugandan and U.S. Governments. Museveni’s private doctor was there to speak on his behalf and told us a story about how he and Museveni both were taught in secondary school by Peace Corps Volunteers. Peace Corps has had a significatn impact on their lives and he expressed his gratitude to us for coming and serving our time here in Uganda. It’s really great to have such support from both sides here and to really be welcomed with open arms.

About FDNC: Check out the website for more info→!

FDNC is a big NGO in Eastern Uganda with many branches of work including a vocational school, a special needs school, a community health department, a village clinic, a paralegal department, and a town/village band. I am one of several volunteers from all over the globe. FDNC has hosted many volunteers over the past 11 years, and currently there are two other Americans also working for the organization (one is the executive director), a Japanese volunteer working with the tailoring class, and a volunteer from the United Kingdom. It’s really surprising to be working with other ‘Muzungu(s)’ and speaking English to mostly everyone. Besides the greetings and very brief introductions, I don’t use my lumasaaba very much. I am meeting tons of new people and everyone has been great here. They seem happy to have me and welcome me with open arms. We had a welcome celebration at the executive director's house Friday night to welcome the new volunteers (me and Tori) and to welcome back Sam (the founder and trustee of FDNC) from his trip in the States. Sam toured all over the States to speak at churches, schools (like Harvard and Syracuse), and even the U.S. Senate in Washington to raise money for the organization and get FDNCs name out there in the international world. Apparently he did a great job and his trip seems to be successful. It was fascinating to hear his story and how he brought FDNC to where it is now.

About my house: My ‘house’ is in fact a one room, thatched roof, circular hut! Really crazy and awesome! I love it. It has one light bulb and outlet (perfect for the size!) and the water source is really close, although I have yet to carry my own water. I am living on a 24-hour secured compound with the vocational school, students who board, other volunteers and a Ugandan family. There are many people here and a lot going on. I have internet on the compound that I am free to use whenever I want…its dial up, but its internet. Hopefully I will be able to update this more frequently!

I am finally cooking for myself. After ten weeks of living with my host family having no control over my food, it was really nice to get a stove and start to cook myself. Of course it wasn’t easy and I bought a stove with a gas leak first. So cooking was a bit delayed but eventually I was able to cook for myself and I’m happy to say that I didn’t burn down my hut, although it was close! Now, finally I have a new stove that works properly! My first meal was pasta with sauce made from real tomatoes and an avocado on the side! It was yummy!

I’ve been here with FDNC for 8 days now and already I am really busy. I will be mostly involved with their community health department and partly involved with the special needs school. I am really excited to be part of this organization. More will come about my specific job and what I am doing here in the next blog, I’m exhausted for now.

On the Downhill!

To your comment Brian, I am definitely bringing the dowry back to America and I am worth at least 20 cows. Not the skinny ones either, they have to be nice and plump! Don’t worry though, no Ugandan man has won my heart over. The Ugandans find it really weird that we can go to the store and buy pre-plucked and cut chicken, so I think it would definitely be a rip off if the gift was already cut up! It is much more valuable for them to have a live chicken running around and when they decide they want chicken for dinner, they slaughter. Take my homestay family for instance, we have two chickens, one turkey, two dogs, and a cat. These are our ‘pets’, if you can even call them that. The pets here are nothing like in the US. They all have a purpose. The chickens and turkey are for eventually eating, the dogs are let out of their cages at night and are for protection and the cat is to kill rats and insects. Yeah, its strange....I really miss Madison :(

Some really exciting news is that I found out my future site and met my supervisor yesterday! Things are really coming together and a lot of my questions are being answered. It’s a non governmental organization (NGO) and called ‘Foundation for Needy Communities’. The town office is located in Mbale town, which is the largest city in the east. My supervisor is a young woman, and I haven’t met my counterpart yet, but he is a community health worker there who I will be working close with. It’s an US/UK funded organization that primarily works with women and children. The executive director is an American from San Francisco, which is really crazy. They have two schools, one is a vocational school with about 50 students ranging from 13-25 years old and they teach carpentry, tailoring, agriculture, computers and brick laying. The other school is just up and running and it’s a special needs school. Right now they only have 15 students and the disabilities vary. There are students with physical and developmental disabilities. Another part of the NGO is going out into the community and educating mostly women and children about different health issues like Malaria, HIV/AIDS, hygiene/sanitation, nutrition and others. I’m really excited to work with this NGO and apparently they are used to working with Americans because they get many volunteers from American. I guess 20 volunteers from Colorado just left. Next week I am going to Mbale to visit it. I will be there for 5 days and get to see where I will be living, the NGO/schools, and Easter Uganda, which I haven’t been to yet.

Last Saturday we went on a field trip to Jinja, another large touristy city in Uganda. Thus far, I have only been to Luweero and Kampala. Going to Jinja was AMAZING! We had such a fun time. We saw the source of the Nile at Lake Victoria, some forest that I’m not sure of the name and then a really cool waterfall called Ssezibwa falls. It was really beautiful and made me really excited to see the eastern part of the country because it is very mountainous and I heard very beautiful as well. Another wonderful part of Jinja was lunch. A bunch of us found this Mexican restaurant and ate there. I had quesadillas with a margarita!! A frozen drink in Uganda!?! So crazy! But it was awesome and such a nice break to relax!

Oh and I have a really funny story about my homestay mother. So I have a 9 month old little brother and there is a ‘walker’ for him that my mom puts him in but up until the other day she has always referred to it as ‘prison’ because when she put him in it he couldn’t go anywhere. Well, recently he is getting bigger and his feet are touching the floor. He started walking and moving the other day and I seriously saw the light bulb go off in her head and she said “OH MY GOD!! HE’S WALKING!! IS THAT WHY YOU CALL IT A WALKER??” haha, it was really funny to see the connection from ‘prison’ to ‘walker’. Anyways, I hope all is well and wish me luck in Mbale and on my future site visit next week!! =)

Halfway through Training!

September 9th marked one month in Uganda for me and my other trainees. Things are going really well and the past two weeks have been very eventful. Overall, I am becoming much more confortable being here and actually doing things on my own instead of feeling helpless and like a child. I am a lot more independent at home and I feel like part of the family. I am really enjoying my home stay family.

On Wednesday (September 4th I think) we went to Kampala to see different income generating activities in the bigger city, and it was a great experience. We went to an organization called ‘Reach Out’ which is a non governmental organization (NGO) that trains women who are HIV positive to make beads and generate an income for them and their families. We ate at an Indian restaurant and everything was great until the ride home. Our bus, which was driven by a Peace Corps employee was hit. It was not our fault at all, and what happened was that a big trailer wanted to pass us, but when he tried, realized another large trailer was oncoming. So he didn’t make it and hit the side/back of our bus which pushed us off the side of the road and into a tree. Meanwhile, the two trailer hit headon. Everyone on our bus is okay, just some minor cuts and emotional trauma. I was sitting in the middle of the bus right by the door so I had bars in front of me, instead of a seat. My knees hit the bar and my neck/shoulders were sore for a couple days from whip lash, but overall, we were really lucky and our driver did a great job keeping the vehicle under control. It definitely could have been a lot worse. It was really strange to be part of it and felt surreal (almost like this whole experience so far!) but our training group and trainers all came together and were supportive of one another. I really felt close to them and that experience brought us even closer. The Peace Corps Safety and Security Regional Officer of Eastern Africa happened to be in Kampala that day and came to speak with us about the accident and how it could impact our individual feelings about Peace Corps. I feel lucky/blessed that everyone was alright, and I know accidents happen but I cant live my life in fear or quit Peace Corps because this happened to us. I'm just looking at it as another obstacle in training that I overcame and we are a stronger group because of it!

The weather here in Uganda is actually pretty nice. It hasn’t been too hot, although there has been a few hot days, and technically it's not the rainy season, but it rains an awful lot. At least once a day, but only for a little while then it will be nice again.

So the electricity in Uganda is not consistent at all, and when we do have electricity my host family is sitting in front of the tv. We watch Big Brother Africa (which is very strange!), and they love their Nigerian Films, which is basically a really, really bad soap opera. They love it! Last night I was talking to my host mother and her friend about America and the difference in culture. They were asking me tons of questions including if we pay the wifes family a dowry when a couple gets married, and who does the chores around the house, and how the women get away with wearing pants all the time. Its so interesting to see their faces when I tell them that men actually do chores, and cook, and that the husband does not pay the wifes family in cows when she wants to get married. The two cultures are very different but I think I am fitting in well and trying to explain America as best as I can, although it does make me a little sad to think about....i miss it!!

Things are going well in training, we are in week 5 (almost the end) which is the half way point. Really crazy to think about. Tomorrow the APCD (Assistant Peace Corps Director) is coming to talk to us and give us our future site placements. So tomorrow I will actually know what my host organization will be! Im really excited to find that out and I think it will make it all real...maybe.

Training Continues...

First of all, thank you all so much for all the messages! They are so encouraging and definitely great to hear!

Training last week went well, Wednesday and Thursday we were in Kampala to listen to speakers from 'The Hunger Project', which is an international organization started in New York in 1977 and began in Uganda in 1999. It has been doing some really great things here in Uganda like community gardens, womens groups selling baskets, mats and fabrics for side income generating projects. It gave me some good ideas for things that I could help out with and how to go about secondary projects when I get to my site.

Friday we had an assessment, and I actually thought language was part of it, but thankfully it was not and we only discussed any concerns I had about training. So far, I have been impressed with the Pre-Service Training (PST). I love all of our trainers and the only concern I had was with myself and learning the language in the short amount of time that we have. My language teacher Rachel was very supportive and encouraging to me and told me that I am doing well, I just need to be more confident when I speak.

On Saturday, we had a cooking session with our language groups. Rachel taught us how to cook some Ugandan dishes and we taught her some American ones (or Mexican!) . It was such a relaxing day and so yummy! She taught us how to make matooke and bamboo shoots...very interesting but not something I plan on making when I am at my site. We made chicken/cheese quesadillas and killed the chicken ourselves!! (holy cow) Only once I got over the killing of the chicken could I actually enjoy my quesadilla and it was delicious! It reminded me of Momma's! We also made banana bread for her too. Its really strange how there is such an abundance of bananas here but Rachel had never heard of it. We made the bread like a cake in a dutch oven and she loved it, she plans on making it for her four boys!

There are lots of very delicious/interesting fruits here too. Right now pineapples are in season and fresh cut pineapple is sooo good! They also have passion fruit, which you cut open and scoop out the insides. Some people eat the seeds but most people make it into a juice. It is also very tasty! Jackfruit is another fruit that I tried the other day for the first time. Im not really a fan. The texture is oyster-like and it is very sticky. It wasnt awful, but not that great either...at least I tried it!

So besides training and being busy with my homestay family, I do have somewhat of a life with my fellow trainees. We started a 'journal club' and meet once a week at the local bar. Its a great time! We all hung out on friday night and drank a beverage of choice. Let me just say that they dont have a very good variety of beer, but its beer. Its a time where we can relax away from training and take a break from it. We need that at least once a week!! (And the name of one of the beer is called "Nile Special"... funny name!)

I just made the connection the other day that it is September, and for the first time in my life that I can remember, I am not going to classes. Its really weird, and I am almost jealous of you guys that are. I hope you all are enjoying your last few days before classes start and things are well with everyone!! I miss you!

1st Blog!

Ok, so the idea of a blog didn't appeal to me at all when I was win the states, but after a couple of emails and a ton of questions, I think this will just be easier! (not that I don't love the emails, its just impossible for me to resond individually to everyones email. So here it is...my first blog. Sorry if there is some repeated information from my previous email.



2 1/2 weeks in Africa and so far so good! I am in a training class of 21 other people (was 22) ranging from 21 to 29 with 4 men and a married couple! Everyone is really nice and from all over the United States. Training is in a place called Luweero and we are all staying with host families where we really see the Uganadan culture first hand. Training is monday thru friday from 8-5 and then on saturday half days. It lasts for 10 weeks. The only day we technically have off is sunday, and im not even sure you can call it a day off. I spend the day with my family doing chores around the house includind laundry, cooking, mopping. I have been exhausted and sleeping very well!

My host family is great though and I can't complain at all. The parents are very liberal both teachers, the father works at a school in another district and is only home on the weekend. They have four biological children and 2 other kids live/work there. I actually just found out the that the one 15 year old boy is my mothers brother. Interesting. Anyways, their kids are 14 year old boy, 10 year old girl, 6 year old girl and 7 month old boy. The kids are all hard working and go to school, its nice because everyone is pretty fluent in English, so there is no communication barrier. The house is really nice too and completely surrounded by a big brick wall, very secure! It has electricity (which is only on part of the time b/c of inconsistency with Ugandan electricity) and marble flooring with really nice decorative ceilings. No running water and the 'bathroom' (hole in the ground) is outside. Oh the pit latrine...hopefully ill get used to that at some point within the next two years.

There definitely are culture differences here that im still adjusting to like the gender roles and the women doing all of the house work, being treated as a guest and having my food served to me, and everyone calling me 'Muzungu' - which is a term used to all white people. Its been interesting living in this culture and being immersed so quickly. My host family is very curious about America and all the 'convienences' we have. They asked me about the machines that wash our clothes, dishes and that cook our foods. My 10 year old sister even asked me that if a white person gets, cut do they still bleed? Its really crazy how humbling it make me feel.


So right now I am a PCT (peace corps trainee) and after the ten weeks of training there is a swearing in ceremony where I will become a PCV (peace corps volunteer)...hopefully. Once we are sworn in as PCV's we will all separate into our own villages and communities throughout Uganda to work on our areas of interest/expertise. They haven't told us too much about exactly what we will be doing or where we are going, but I do know that I am going towards the Eastern part of Uganda called Mbale where they speak Lumasaaba...the language I am currently trying to learn (ugh!) This past weekend I actually got to go away for the weekend and visit a current PCV to see how living on my own will really be. It was a really nice break from training and a great experience to see what life after training will be like. I spent the weekend with Gloria, she is an education volunteer in Mityana, about an hour west of Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. She was awesome! She is a retired teacher from Washington state and had an awesome outlook on the world/peace corps. I really learned a lot about how it will be like living on my own in Uganda. Gloria's house had a living room, kitchen, storage room, 2 bedrooms, and a washroom. She decorated it so nice and it got me so excited to be able to buy cool African crafts and wall hangings for my house. There was no electricity in her house so when it was dark we used candles and lanterns to see. We played lots of cards and a cool game called Quiddler. I met other PCVs this weekend too and we all meet up in Kampala to have lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I dont even like chinese food, but this was soooo good! Kinda weird to have chinese food in africa, but still really good. Which brings me to the next issue...food. The food here is really boring. It mainly consists of starchy like foods like potatoes, matooke (mashed bananas), beans and vegetables. While I was staying with Gloria, we had some amazing food! We had pasta with homemade sauce from tomatoes, peppers, onions and garlic, popcorn, chocolate cake, stir fry vegetables, and no bake cookies!


Yesterday we received some more information about our future site organization and what type of work we will be doing, so that was really exciting! I am placed in the "general health promotion" group...which I am pleased with. The other 3 categories of groups were Orphans and Vunerable children, Home based Healthcare, and Water/Sanitation. Im really glad that Im not focused on anything really specific or a specific population, we will learn who our host organization is in week five and spend that week with them learning about the organization and how we can help.


Right now in training we are working on projects that we have to present to our fellow trainees and the trainers at the end of the 10 weeks. Its still in the preliminary stages, but right now I am looking at focusing on a womens group and preventable disease/how to prevent them. Im not really sure, but its a topic I guess. We also had a medical session this morning with more vaccines, I only had to get one this week...Typhoid, awesome. Many more still to come. My arm hurts and I'm kinda sick of writing. Hope everyone is well and leave me messages to let me know how america is!!