Under The Weather

30 Aug 2010 2 Comments

by danrennt98 in Uncategorized

What’s up blog readers? This is going to be a long one probably because I have nothing better to do really. Well, regarding the title I’ve feeling a bit sick today and yesterday. I didn’t go to training today because I didn’t really want to get anyone else sick or have to sneeze 50000 times in front of everyone. I talked to the medical people today and they’re really amazingly nice. I have a medical kit, which is helping me keep my nose semi-clear. You know you would think that I would get some crazy disease when I went to Africa… no.. just a common cold. So I’m just sitting on the computer in my room. I feel bad because I’m just in here with the door closed, but I don’t want to get them sick either.

It’s funny though because my crazy new-fangled adapter/converted broke on the British setting which is what they have for plugs here (mostly, and my room), but the European setting works (the living room power strip is European kind). So I borrowed a British one. So I’ve got my American computer plugged into my european adapter, which is plugged into the British adapter which is plugged into the wall and when I graze the metal part of the computer I get a little bit electrocuted hahahahhahahahah (Note: this is only for today because I don’t want to sit in the living room). I finally talked to Stephanie online which was really great. She said I love how you are poo-ing in a pit latrine, have no plumbing, and only have water from your tap sometimes, but yet you are on the internet in your room. I told her T.I.A. = This is Africa (quote from Blood Diamond).

FYI, Africa has the biggest market for mobile phones in the world (fact), if anyone wants to get rich.. [Verizon - you better get on that] Almost everyone has a cell phone. It’s all pre-paid like Virgin Mobil/Nextel, etc. And it was really funny explaining to my host family how the American cell phone system works.. which made me realize that it can only work because we have a good mail system, addresses, street signs, and most importantly credit. Also, my host father thought that if you are charging your phone and the power went out that your charger would go backwards and start sucking the battery back out of your phone. lol

Anyway about the title that reminds me of two things: a really great world weather site, which will tell you that it’s about 77 degrees and sunny here everyday is http://www.wunderground.com/ and also on this map I could be anywhere in this region for the next two years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basoga/ (in red).

GARDEN CITY!

So we went to Garden City Mall in Kampala after we visited the Ugandan museum (which was nice, but I’m not a museum person). This was spectacularly awesome! I got this modem for my computer in my room. I ate a cheeseburger with fries and I ordered a bbq chicken kabob with fries. The lady was like isn’t that going to be a bit much? I was like trust me it will be fine. When the food came mostly silence and burger praise came to the table! It was delicious. I also had 2 iced coffees and I do miss the coffeemaker at Wesley’s house, Mrs. Lewey!  Then I went food shopping for my family breakfast! On Sunday morning, I made 30 eggs with cheddar cheese (they never had before), red pepper (never had before), and onions. I also made 20 sausages. They really really enjoyed breakfast. My host father ended up not even eating until dinner because it was so good. Unfortunately, mid-morning is when I started really feeling sick and relaxed for the day. I could tell I was going to be sick on Sat. at the mall though, so I can’t really pin point it on anything specific from last week. But going to the mall was a good morale boost for all of us I think!

Pix – Later

I will try and post some pictures soon.. The problem is that uploading and downloading things takes data on the modem and I only bought .5 GB of data plan, and I’m sharing it with a friend and I don’t know how it’s going to affect the internet. So I don’t want something we both paid for to stop working. But maybe I will try and upload one or two later and see how it goes.

Training –

So everyday we go to training from 8 – 5  Monday-Saturday. Though usually on Sat. we’ll have language in the morning and do something fun in the afternoon, or get out around 12. We’re also beginning a more community based training where you go out into town/villages and practice what we learned. So, on saturday we went out to the market and learned how to say the names of all the foods… Don’t worry my friend Christie and I learned the words for beans and know how to say — “Beans, Beans, they’re good for your heart” — in Lusoga. I will post the whole song once we’ve got it down. Our language trainer thought it was pretty funny and that was the reason we wanted to know how to say heart. Anyway, there’s these PACA tools — Participatory Analysis for Community Action — that we were learning about a week ago. We also went to a community nearby the training center and tried the tools in groups. I did my introduction of our group in Luganda and they loved it! Our group’s activity was “Daily Activity Schedule” — this is when you take members of your community and maybe separate men/women or older/younger etc. and have them discuss and tell you how their days go. This will allow me to find out when I go to my community the best time of the day to have community meetings or do a certain activity. At the same time it allows for men to see what exactly women are doing all day and vice versa, and maybe have some sort of productive discussion about it afterwards. We are going to do this again next week or this week, but using a different tool. And we learned how to make a garden the other day and then spent the rest of the day making a garden which was quite hilarious. Can be a bit tiring at times being so busy all the time, but that’s what I’m here for. We learn Lusoga for at least 2-4 hours a day. There’s 4 other people in my group who are just awesome, and they’re going to be the people who are closest to me when we go to our sites! The only confusing thing is that they speak Luganda here in Wakiso. My host parents know how to speak both Lusoga and Luganda. So I’m learning both languages at the same time and they are so similar it gets confusing. When someone says welcome back in Luganda to me, I would respond Nvodeyo. And if they said the same thing in Lusoga, I would respond Nvireyo. So it’s nice that they’re so similar, but can be confusing when trying to remember which one is which!

Okay, I better go and get some oranges or vitimans or something! Plus, I know really long blogs are like ummmm… that’s nice but I really don’t feel like reading all that. So congrats if you got this far!

Love from Wakiso,

Dan