Rant
22 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
I’ve been waiting to write a blog when I was in a positive mood or about a good day. But it seems that I’ve only wanted to write a blog after a bad day. And I don’t believe I’ve written a blog after a bad day yet, maybe I have. But last time I had a bad day and I was going to write a blog I decided to sleep on it, but you know how you always feel better the next day.. Anyways, my cousin just wrote a bitching blog, so I’m going to as well.
Just a short one about how bad days go here and how this month hasn’t been that great. So, if you don’t want to hear about my bitching and moaning, about things I signed up for when I joined the PC, please stop here.
So, for most of the month I’ve been frustrated about the electricity situation, mostly at my house. At my job the power was on. The line to our group of houses was down and no one was paying the bill so they shut us off. Now, my neighbor works for the electricity company, so he’s been coming home around ten on weeknights (just when I was about to go to bed out of frustration of reading too much) and connect us to someone else’s power. Which was nice, I’ll admit, but he didn’t come home on weekends for 3 days of boringness. And it was just really annoying. So after talking to the neighbors and the power company. We’ve got the power turned on again! And it’s been great. Since the day that I got electricity back at my house, they shut of the electricity in town where my job is for the past week, for what reason I don’t know. Leading to boring days at work and not much to do there. So I’ve been going in, having coffee and snacks, chatting for a while/reading magazines, and possibly coming back in the afternoon. [Once a bank has power it's hard to switch back, since all the info is on the computer]
Leading to today, where the power in town was out again. The ATM hasn’t been working for 5 days straight and today it just wasn’t turned on. Which means tomorrow, if it’s going to work, there’s going to be an hour long line for the ATM. Or I could go inside and wait for 1+ hours. So, I was actually kind of excited because there was supposed to be a county SACCO forum meeting in a nearby village Namwendwa. The last one went well, so I figured this one would too. Well, it was supposed to be last month but the chairperson couldn’t attend, so they rescheduled it with one week notice and no time on the invitation. It should be at the same time as last time, right? So, that was at 10 am. I got to work at 9:30 to have coffee and snacks before work. And the golden rule for Africa is leave your workplace a half-hour after the meeting is supposed to start. We left at 10:45. Stopped at two place where it was supposed to be and no one was there. Not even the host organization. Now it was 11:30. We went to the SACCOs and told the managers we were there. So, we went to the spot and waited for an hour while 3 out of 15 organizations showed up. Pathetic. We began at one — I thought we should’ve just gone home, but that would’ve been a waste of money.
Now, every meeting has a chairperson, this one had 3 and one hadn’t even shown up yet (district representative for a national SACCO regulation body/alliance). The meeting began at 1, and we set to end at 3, talking about time management. Now, if you are the chairperson in Uganda, every meeting has an agenda, and on the agenda is “Communication from the Chairperson”. This is like their 15 minutes of fame during a 3 person staff meeting or a 200 person district-wide event. They go on forever thanking you for coming, you are all welcome, we are glad to have this meeting, our SACCO is like this, I would like to thank the academy for making me the chairperson… etc. So, after the two chair people finish talking, it’s 1:30 and now on the agenda is “Reactions about the chairperson’s communication.” — not going to get into that one. Then the district rep. shows up, who is a nice guy and I like, but is about 4 hours late and really really really loves talking.
Now, the district rep. had a lot of good things to say, but he completely took over the meeting which was supposed to be a discussion of problems amongst the managers of SACCOs in the area and suggestions about how we work them out. It turned into a lecture. (And another thing was the list of problems that we were meant to discuss from the last meeting, I was the only one that had them – what would they have done?) One of the things everyone was pointing out was, “Lack of time management is a problem, and suggesting things that we do to fix other problems, like have classes for members, have meetings for this…” but none of that can be done without time management. When the meeting was supposed to end at 3, my mind is screaming “SHUTUP!”. It went to about 3:30 and then we had lunch, though I would’ve liked to go home and try to get inside the bank which closed at 4. Thankfully, the next meeting is going to be at our SACCO, where I told everyone if they are not there at 10, we will start without them and my manager agreed [We will probably start at 11, but still..].
It then turns out that the chairperson of the last meeting, his father died (sorry to hear that, it’s sad.), and the funeral was today. So on the way home, my manager told me we were going the long way so she could show me around [the bush]. So, we end up on a road where there’s a lot of people dressed nice and our car is heading right into all of the people. And I’m saying “where are we going?” “Is this the right way?” “How can we get past all of these people?” — response: “It’s this way.” So, my manager and my coworker get out, and then the driver gets out and asks me Why I’m not coming? I was like “Where are we? What is this event (tons of people, sound system, tents)?” His response, “The chairperson’s father died.” What?!? I’m at a funeral reception for someone I’ve never met. EVERYONE is staring at me because I’m obviously the only white person and the only person no one has ever seen before. Thanks for the heads up. I sit down next to them and I’m pissed. I feel like it’s rude. People don’t know me, I’m not dressed for a funeral, I’m getting stared at. And the people I came with are just chilling in seats waiting for the guy to come and I said to my co-worker “How long are we going to be here?!” and I think they got the point. My manager went to go look for the son. But he found me first[no idea who he was], sat next to me, thanked me for coming and told me “My father died a few days ago.” [Thoughts: "AAAAAHHH!"] Meanwhile, everyone is greeting him and slipping him cash to help with the costs of the reception, and he’s probably expecting me to do the same thing. We were there for a humiliating 20 mins. And then we went back to the office where the power was out and the bank was now closed. I am now at home trying to chill out from the long, frustrating day.
I hope April will be better. The white ants are back and they’re getting wings all over my house. Got to go.
Peace,
Dpop
A Quote that I Live By
21 Feb 2011 1 Comment
It is my favorite saying — “There are only two types of situations: Situations that are in your control and situations that are out of your control. If something is out of you’re control, there is no need to worry about it. You can’t do anything about it and therefore you must move on. If something is in your control, than stop worrying about it, you have the power make a change and fix it. Change it and move on.”
- Someone told this to me at UVM and I’ve never forgotten it. And you wonder why I’m so laid back?! 
Elections, Boredom, Being Download-Happy, HR Management, etc.
20 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
Hello amigos/mikwano,
Let me just tell you. We’ve been planning and planning and taking precautions and talking and speculating and dreaming and pondering — about these elections that took place on Friday. Now, I didn’t necessarily want there to be an Egyptian/Tunisian/Bahrainian/Yemenite/Cote d’ivorian/Nigerian/Algerian/Djiboutian style revolution in Uganda (yes, if you read the news, there is currently revolutions going on all across Africa and the Middle East). But these elections in my opinion, as obvious as the results were going to be from Day 1, were very anti-climactic.
So, I was supposed to stay at my house, which I didn’t because I was dying of boredom and all seemed calm on Friday and Saturday. Friday was calm and creepily quiet. Many shops and the major stores/banks were closed, but I got some street food and went home. And since there was about 10 polling stations within 1 km from me, none of them had lines. No one was selling cassava near my house and the taxis were not filling up. When I went out on Sat., things were back to normal everyone straight chillin’ doing their regular thing. Women waiting for huge trucks to come pick up their cassava, yelling at boda-boda drivers, children yelling “Give me a car!” at me, boda drivers greeting me in Lusoga because they think it’s funny and ask me for money (My new comeback when they ask me for 200 shillings in Lusoga is to ask them for 10,000 shillings in Lusoga), and the animals were back out, with one particularly daring chicken that came onto my kitchen table and wouldn’t leave even after I hit it with a bag of sugar (sorry PETA, get over it).
I also realized that Ugandan languages are demanding in nature. There really is no word for please, hello, “Can I have”, “Can you give me”, “Would you be able to”, etc. It just doesn’t make sense in their language. So, I’ve have to get used to it. (grrr I wrote three paragraphs after this, then saved the draft and went to town and it didn’t save, so now I have to remember what I wrote, not that I don’t have plenty of time to do it) So when a child comes up to me and says, “Give me some money.” He really means “Can I please have some money please?” Either way the answer is going to be no, but still it take some getting used to. The nature of Ugandans seems demanding but according to the book that Michelle and Ashley gave me in my going away present, it’s because help among peers is just naturally expected rather than just an option. So most people when going to the shopkeeper say “Mpa amadhi” or “Give me water”, or when she shopkeeper says “Oyenda ki?” (What do you want?”), rather than “How can I help you?”, they’re not being rude, it’s just how their language is formulated.
So, today being Sunday, I really didn’t have to much to do after the past two days off. The elections were really anti-climactic, the expected happened – the current president is winning with about 70% of the vote and the main opposition about 20%. I wasn’t looking for a revolution, but some little excitement to pep-up my weekend would’ve been nice. I usually have a work week from Monday to Saturday, which I was thinking I’d be off all weekend when I came to the PC. But I really enjoy the people I work with. I have a great organization and I consider them to be my best friends here. Most of the people around my age here either have husbands or wives and children, so there’s really not much for me to do around here on the weekends. So, working on Saturday s really takes up a good portion of my day and then I have the next day and a half to myself. The work week, for me at least, is flexible. I’m always on time to meetings, events, field work, but if there’s not much for me to do around the office I take 2-3 hour lunches, come in when I feel like it and leave when I feel like it. If I’m having a particularly bad/lonely/annoying day, I can take the rest of it to go home and rest, etc. So, my work here is important, but I don’t have a specific job at the SACCO and a lot of my work requires waiting for other people, conversation with my manager, and organizational development, which is a very slow moving process.
I’m looking forward to skyping/talking with my parents this weekend. Otherwise, I’ve spent the weekend on facebook, reading Wikipedia, on gmail, cooking food, staring at the walls, slowly reading the books my mother sent me (I don’t like to read unless the power is out, or else when the power is out.. I will have nothing to do if I’ve read all of my books.) When you have a limited data usage, I can’t just spend the day watching youtube videos and using stumble upon which can take up a huge portion of the day. So, I’m limited to certain websites that I can look at and then I must find something else to do. I’ve been a bit download-happy, remembering old trance songs from my high school days and have been using way too much bandwidth downloading the audio tracks from youtube. I’m actually really looking forward to going to work tomorrow and hopefully next weekend doing something fun with my Peace Corps buddies somewhere in the country and getting out of Kamuli!
But the last week or so at work has been eventful and uneventful. It required a lot of Human Resources work and development. We’ve been having weekly meetings every Friday morning at around 7:30 – 8 am., which all 6 of the staff attend. This past Friday, Edith had to go to Jinja last Friday morning (Feb. 4th) to type up and send her training reports/homework to the UCA (Ugandan Cooperative Alliance). This was the first staff meeting that was conducted without her, ever since I came to Kamuli Twisania SACCO in October.
Since the manager wasn’t there, during the new Business section of the meeting, my colleagues trusted information about the problems that they were having and problems between the manager and the staff. I listened intently and asked them if they would feel comfortable having a separate meeting (with the manager) about the issues at hand. They said yes. I separately met with Edith, my supervisor, for about two hours to brief her on the issues at hand. The appointment of Three staff members (Patrick, Julius and Joffrey) who have been working since August as volunteers at Twisania (what we call the SACCO for short), Overworking / Staying Late Hours / Duty Allowance (extra pay for working on days off such as Sunday or working very late during the work week), Role Delegation in case of absentees, Calling out of work / Sick Days / Death or Sickness of a Family Member / Request for days off for important events in the future.
When I told my manager about these ideas, she had taken the initiative to organize a Human Resources Comittee meeting, and a Board of Directors meeting about the appointment of certain staff to take place on Feb. 16th. She worked out the issue with the Table in the Board room on her own with my co-workers. Overworking has solved itself (my co-workers are not completing the work during the day leading to them having to stay later at night to complete it) and we all figured that one out on our own. A Role Delegation meeting will take place after the elections outlining and talking about each person’s roles and responsibilities and who will take care of them if someone falls sick for a few days. My manager took the initiative to create attendance sheets, absentee sheets, and request off sheets regarding the need to take days off in advance. These will be presented to the staff at the meeting on Monday and it also provides a system of checks and balances, as to keeping track if someone is abusing the privilage to request days off, or calling out sick too often. All of the issues were solved mostly before even having the staff meeting.
So, I didn’t have much to do this week, since these were the main topics at hand. The manager took the initiative to solve most of the issues herself and a lot of the problems were realized by the staff themselves. I was basically just a catalyst in being there to work the problems out and being the middle man at times. But it was a very successful week and I think everyone at my job is happy because of it. A lot of my ideas are developing and now that the school year has started, I will be working with schools again teaching business ideas and working with the class that will be corresponding with my Aunt Sharon’s class in NJ. That usually takes up a lot of my time. But for right now, I’m bored out of my mind and I’m looking forward to some upcoming changes in pace.
I hope all is well at home with everyone and I miss you guys a lot. I’ve been having dreams about pizza, sandwiches, donuts and cupcakes with sprinkles on them. I’m dying for some good food. I’ve also probably lost about 15 pounds since I’ve arrived in Kamuli. I’ve been eating a lot of chapattis (tortillas made with wheat flour) and have become quite addicted to them and mandazi (fried sweet bread). I eat a lot of pasta and vegetables for dinner and eggs for lunch. I just finally bought some rice and made some fried rice, but I was missing the main ingredients. Plus, the rice I bought, you have to pick the rocks out of before you can eat it. Next time, I’m buying the rice at the supermarket, so I don’t have to tediously search through each grain of rice for mini-rocks. And I’m going to get soy sauce so I can make lo mein. Hopefully, I can make some decent lo mein. And if anyone has any good, simple recipes, please send them to me! [by simple, I mean no crazy ingredients, like cheese/red pepper/refrigerated items]
So I’m going to start adding a psytrance quote of the week (or whenever I decide to write a blog), which is a quote from one of the songs I’ve been listening to, just because I want to. For those of you who don’t know what psytrance is, it’s a type of electronic music that originated in Goa, India in the early 1990s, from Goa Trance. It became psytrance circa 1995 and has been evolving ever since. I discovered the music in 2005 and have been listening to it ever since. It’s pretty much the only genre of music that I listen to in addition to all other types of electronic music and you can read about it here, if you’re bored or want to know more about me:
http://psychedelic_trance.pagesperso-orange.fr/psy_history_part1.htm
http://www.australiens.net/features/3/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_trance
Quote of the Week:
“When you dream there are no rules. People can fly. Anything can happen. Sometimes there’s a moment as you’re waking and you become aware of the real world around you, but you are still dreaming. You may think you can fly but you better not try.”
- From the track “People can Fly” by Astral Projection (Quote is originally from the movie Kalifornia, spoken by David Duchovny)
Be good my friends and family, but not too good!
Dan
White Water Rafting the Nile!!
06 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
Dearest Peeps..
You either must be really bored or really love my blog if you’ve read all 3 posts in this one day. Just FYI.
But here is the promised blog about rafting with pictures! And within the next few days, I will post about my weekend with my friend and my recent work life. Plus, the fears about the upcoming elections.
And also with the modem working and my new webcam and microphone (Thanks Mom and Dad!) I can now skype with people and I’ve semi-successfully skyped with Sandra for like 3 minutes. And I just had a really good skype session with my cousin, my aunt and the family which was awesome!! SWEET!
Modem Troubles:
So, I’ve been having trouble with my modem since the end of In-Service Training. My modem decided on its own that since it was in a 3g zone during Training that it changed itself to only connecting to the network in a 3g zone. Kamuli is certainly not a 3g zone, it’s a 2g zone. So, I went through a bunch of trouble trying to contact the people and go to the service centers of the company that makes my modem (MTN) so they can assist me with my trouble. I didn’t understand why it wouldn’t work in Kamuli, but it would in Jinja and Seeta (near Kampala). I called the people and the guy’s best piece of advice: “Okay, here’s what I want you to do. Restart your computer and then plug in the modem again and tell me what happens.” My response: “NO! I did that like 50 times. I uninstalled and restarted and reinstalled and restarted and then plugged it in. I tried everything I don’t know what to do.” His response: “I’m going to have to call you back.” This was 4 days ago and I still haven’t heard from them. It turns out I just had to de-select under network preference “3g only” to “2g and 3g preferred” and seconds later it was picking up the network. Hence me having the internet right now. Sweet!
About the New Year’s post and Shisto:
So, my friend Anna got sick the past week and went to Kampala for treatment. And she was diagnosed with Schistosomiasis, a parasite that lurks in all bodies of water in every country of Africa, a few in Asia, and 4 in South America. When asked, did you go swimming by the doctor.. she said “Yes I went to the Hairy Lemon (refer to New Year’s blog) on New Year’s” and what did the doctor do? He laughed! He said that almost everyone that goes to the Hairy Lemon gets Schisto because there’s a place of standing water where they have a volleyball net in the water. Schisto is mostly in lakes, but it also appears in the Nile. So, hence I’m probably going to get symptoms of shisto within the next few weeks! hah! I’m just going to take the meds from the pharmacy as a precaution before I even get symptoms just to make sure. Because during the elections, which take place on the 18th, would be a very bad time to get sick. And there’s a 6 week period from swimming to getting symptoms placing the 16 of us in the middle of a bad time to get a parasite! But I’m going to continue to go swimming in these beautiful places and continue to go rafting because it’s too much fun to miss out on when in one of the most beautiful countries of the world.
Rafting:
So, Rafting on the Nile was probably one of the most amazing, beautiful, exhilirating, adrenaline pumping experiences of my life. I’m going to post some of my friends pictures of their raft and rapids because our raft didn’t buy the pictures of ours because it was too expensive but we did the same exact rapids as they did so just pretend it’s me in the pictures.
So, after training about 37 of the 45 from our group got picked up from the training hotel in Seeta and traveled shortly north of Jinja to the Nile River Explorer’s lodge where we were to stay for 2 nights, 1 day of food included, and embark on our rafting trip. We settled into our hostel style rooms and they offer a booze cruise, which I opted not to go on, and went to Jinja with a few friends instead. Apparently, the booze cruise was fun because when the 30 volunteers came back from it (20 bucks for dinner, free alcohol during a 2 hour boat ride on the Nile/Lake Victoria), they were way drunk, which was hilarious for those of us who went to Jinja and had dinner, went shopping and came home and had a beer or two.
So, we hung out that night for a while. Went to be to arise for a 9 am departure to the rafting prep center. At the prep center, we had breakfast (chapatti, toast, fruit, etc.) and then we got our life jackets and helmets. It was then, after all of our stuff was at the hostel, that they told us what we should bring on the rafting trip. Which, most of us just brought sunblock and what we were wearing. So much for that! So, then they the put us back on the trucks, there was about 50 of us including visitors from home and some other people visiting from other countries who happened to be rafting that day.
We got to the push off site where we got our paddles and picked our groups. My raft was my friend Anna, her two wonderful British friends from her place that I met during Christmas, Chelsea, my friend Joanna, and another volunteer friend Gary (who is 49 and took hold of the raft along with me in the front! hah!) and our guide Bonnie, who was awesome. He’s from Zimbabwe, is a well traveled raft guide, has rafted the Nile over 500 times and has lived in Colorado for a while (He was wearing Vail, Colorado shorts that day, which Joanna noticed since she’s from Colorado).
Push off point:
Loading Up
So we loaded up, got our paddles and we were the first group on the river! So the first part is kind of boring, but it’s mainly for safety. They teach you about how to hold paddles, that they’re the most dangerous part of rafting since you can smack someone in the face if you’re not paying attention and when you flip over (which you will, you won’t have control because you’re so worried about staying afloat through the rapids). Then, you do a flip test, in the calm water, where every one gets onto one side of the boat and the instructor says, “hey look it’s a monkey over there!” and then flips you over while you’re not paying attention which is quite hilarious. And they teach you how to get to the safety kayaks if you fall off and how to reflip the boat or breathe underneath it and get back onto the boat.
Flip in the rapids!:
My friend's boat flipping over in the middle of a rapid!
So, the first rapid that we went over I think is either a grade 3 or 4 and is called Bujagali Falls and is a semi-big tourist attraction in the area. It was a good, cool first rapid, but a lot of us were like that was it?! We want more! Bigger! I wasn’t sure about flipping the boat yet, but the guide sitting in the back of the boat has the most control over flipping, because he acts as the rudder and if he deems you a crazy bunch, you will flip on every rapid. And flipping isn’t as bad as it sounds, it’s pretty fun.
Bujagali Falls:
The first rapid
The second rapid was much crazier, called the 50/50. Because 50 percent of rafts flip on this rapid. And my boat happened to be in the 50 percent that flipped. It was awesome, and disorienting and fun, but they tell you exactly what to do when you flip, so as long as you stay calm in your mind and aren’t completely retarded or drunk, you’ll be fine. So, they tell you basically, you always wanna keep your feet first in case of rocks and curl up into a ball and you’ll float to the surface (I was, after all wearing a life jacket). So, we’re going over into it and he’s like “Paddle Paddle Paddle, GET Down!” and we all get down and the boat turn sideways, went down into a wave and then, BOOM, I was flying through the air on my way into the water. In the water, I was so disoriented, but thinking okay feet first curl into a ball as I’m rapidly being tossed and turned underwater in these rapids. And then up I come, perfectly fine and everyone from our boat is cracking up laughing and both Anna and I, fell far from the boat so the safety kayak picked each of us up and took us back to our boat where we re-flipped the raft and got back onto the boat. When getting onto the boat again, it’s really difficult to pull yourself up, so someone has to pull you up by the shoulders of your life jacket. You end up landing on the boat like a beached whale, on other people’s paddles, legs, halfway over the side of the raft. It’s hilarious. I think the 50/50 was a class 5. And it was spectacular.
The 50/50:
50/50
I can’t really remember which rapid came next, but I think there was another good one and then my favorite one and probably the most intense one called Silverback. Here is a video of a guy going through Silverback on a Kayak:
Silverback was crazy!!! So they stop you before to prep you to go over it. This is where they’re currently building a dam which is going to completely ruin all 3 rapids I’ve talked about so far. The dam they’re building is supposed to bring a lot of electricity to the people in the region, but the way things work here, I don’t think it’s going to have as big of an impact as they say it will for the Ugandan people. You can see they’ve started building the dam on both sides of the river but it’s nowhere close to being done, though they say it will be done in 2011, actually in Feb/March. But that’s definitely not happening. Also, the dam is highly contested by Egypt and its government because it will affect the water flow up the Nile all the way through Sudan into Egypt. So, they started building in 2006, and they say it’s going to be done this year, this year, but this is Africa, maybe next year. Anyways, Silverback goes around a small island in the river so the rafters go over the left side because it’s more easily navigated. But the river runs around the island and converges into one HUGE rapid that looks like a rooster’s tail. So, you paddle all the way towards the island get down in the boat and fly downwards for a few seconds and then straight into the convergence point blasting your raft with water and you fly up over the rooster’s tail into the remaining rapids. This one was my favorite. And we didn’t even flip though, as we were flying up into the rooster’s tail, Anna flew out of the boat and started heading down the river.
Silverback:
Silverback rooster's tail
So, then they’re some calm parts after this rapid for a while where you have to paddle a lot to get through and this is where you meet up with the safety raft and get your lunch which is cookies/biscuits and half a pineapple per person. Not too filling, but it does the trick and is easy to eat on the river because you can throw the ends of the pineapple into the river and it will get eaten by something. And this part is where you get into Crocodile territory. But they generally stay after large rafts and this is where you can go swimming and cool off as you’re being cooked in the sun all day. Which was nice. We also played a game called Rodeo, where the rafters spin the boat around and one person stands on the side and tries to stay on as long as possible without falling off! haha Needless, to say no one lasted very long. And Anna decided in the middle of lunch that she wanted to stand on the side of the raft, where she proceeded to try and talk to other rafts, and VERY hysterically and ungracefully slipped, hit and fell off the raft and lost part of her lunch in the process. So funny.
One of the next rapids, was funny because we were almost about to flip, but didn’t. The boat tipped enough so that when I quickly looked to my left and Gary and Joanna just WHOOP flew off the raft, in a split second and there were people sitting in between them who didn’t fall off which made it even more funny. After this, is when I decided I was already getting sunburnt, so now was the time for me to put on some suntan lotion, good thinking. Chelsea took it upon herself to put a crapload of suntan lotion on her face, she did NOT want to get burnt, and her whole face was white with suntan lotion. Then, she decided she wanted to go swimming and jumped in. So, when she got back on the boat for the next half hour Anna had to use her handkerchief to stop the lotion from burning Chelsea’s eyes out hahhaaa Being with the two Brits made things even more funny and their stories were wonderful and Dulce, decided that we all wanted to flip on the next rapid, which we didn’t but she was egging us on.
The next rapid, was supposed to be pretty much like going over a vertical waterfall but you have to paddle it correctly or the river will take you the opposite way and you go back wards over another rapid. Well, he didn’t tell us during the paddling that we were doing it wrong, so we missed the waterfall, but it was still a fun rapid and we ended up being one of the two boats going over the rapid looking something like this:
Whoops!
But, we were one of the first to go through so seeing everyone’s faces drop when they saw the vertical drop they were about to go over was priceless!!
Then, there was some more downtime and some chatty fun until the last rapid. The last rapid has two parts, one is a Grade 6 rapid — the highest — called Bad Place and the other part is called Other Place. I was trying to get them to let me go through Bad Place on a boat with some people that wanted to, but they said the water level was too high and it was too dangerous. So, for this part they get you out of the raft bank on to land. They take a picture of your raft group, and then they carry your raft past Bad Place and you raft the Other Place rapid, which was alright but not that exciting.
Bad Place:
Scary! but I would totally do it if they let me.
Then, you turn back around and bank on land and your 5-6 hour journey rafting the Nile is finished. They pick you up back on the trucks and buses and take you back to headquarters where the hotel is and the have a BBQ feast of delicious food and beer tickets waiting for you upon arrival. So, you get back, eat, decompress, shower, change, and then the video guy makes a video of you going over the rapids and of the whole trip traveling ahead of you all day. So, around 9 pm everyone gathers with their beers and friends and they play the video of the incredible day on a huge projector screen. This was especially great, because we all knew everyone who was rafting and their personalities, so seeing their faces and them on video was funny and more personal than if you had gone rafting with a random group of foreigners. We have a copy of the video which I will bring home and I will show it to you in 2013 upon my arrival home after the world ends in 2012.
Well, this must be my longest post yet! Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it and felt like you were there. Because it was an experience I’m never ever going to forget. And an experience which I’m going to do at least 2 more times before I leave the country! Hopefully, once again in the next month or two with Anna and the Brits, Dulce and Nate.. and then once with my Mom and Dad in May! Some more random pics:
50/50 again I think
Mid-Rapid Friends
Mid-Rapids Again
Well, thanks for reading this far! And I hope everything is okay at home.
Love,
Dan
Reflection on IST (In-Service Training)
06 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
Blog written on February 1, 2011: Reflection on IST (In-Service Training)
Dearest Family and Friends,
My internet is still not working so when you receive / see this blog posting, I will be permanent online unless I encounter the same problem with my USB stick modem. So, I reloaded my monthly package when I was at training in Seeta (12 km from Kampala, so great service) where they have 3g network for my MTN modem. So the internet was really fast there (obviously cuz it’s 3g, which is incredible for Africa). So, when I came back to Kamuli, every time I hit connects and saying “Connecting to MTN mobile Internet” and a few seconds later it doesn’t pick up the network (I live VERY close to the cell tower that gives me service), and says “Connection Terminated. Redial? Cancel?.” So, sometime over the past few days I went to the MTN place in Kamuli, who couldn’t fix it, but referred me to the Jinja service center, where I went there once and the service center was closed, went back again…. I get there and the guy plugs the modem into my USB drive. And guess what? It worked no problem there because I was in a 3g zone. That’s the second time I’ve gone somewhere to fix the modem, but when I present the problem to a MTN official/employee, it connects to the internet no problem, instead of saying “Connection Terminated” I get back to Kamuli and now it resumed saying Connection Terminated”. So I still can’t get online. Has that ever happened to you where you think something’s broken at home and then you take it to get fixed, but before they do any fixing (or test) of the problem, it corrects itself, making you look embarrassed or crazy, idiotic? Perfect (sarcastically).
Enough about my internet problems, because by the time you read this I will probably have the internet problem fixed. So on January 13th, my whole group of volunteers went to a hotel in the Seeta area for our first IST (In-Service Training). It was great to see the other 44 of our group and that we were all still here! In almost every country, at least one person would have ET’d (Early Terminated, their choice), administratively separated, or medically separated (to sick to stay in country) by now. When the country director came and opened up the meeting to our group of 45, he said that the record in Peace Corps Uganda for a full group to stay in Uganda is one week after IST (which is about 25 weeks of being in country). And as I’m writing this we’re all here and have stuck it out, so if we’re all here tomorrow, we will have beat Peace Corps Uganda’s record since PC started in Uganda in 1962. [It's the 6th of Feb. and we're all still here! Woo! We win!]
This is truly a testament to how special and tightly nit of a group that we have. And our group of 45 is one of the largest groups sent to Uganda, so for not one person to leave, that is quite an accomplishment .We all have our few best friends in the group, but we are all friends with everyone and we didn’t really have too much internal problems / social issues. I truly love everyone in our group and this training was the first time to see the many people who live in the west side of the country. Since I’m in the east, I’ve seen them a decent amount, and always is good to see them again! But I know that if I was having a really bad day and that I needed to call someone, I could call anyone in the group and they would understand and / or be going through the exact same thing.
It’s both hard and easy for me to believe that I’ve been living in Africa for almost 7 months, but once I’ve gotten used to the surroundings, started meeting people, and settled in at my workplace, it just feels normal now. I do have certain epiphanies (I guess you can call them that) where something truly Ugandan happens around me and I think “WOW! I’m really living in Africa now.” I’m truly a Kamuli resident. There’s always times in a volunteer’s service, including my own, where we consider ET-ing (leaving early), especially after a really frustrating or lonely day. I make a conscious effort to call someone or keep myself occupied when having those thoughts.
The Peace Corps staff has also changed over the past few years, to become a much stronger, understanding staff and gotten better at training us. So, I think they played a good role in all of us staying. They’ve done a great job at matching us to organizations that need us, which if not done properly can make a volunteer want to leave in a few weeks after training!
So, the first few days were language training, mostly for people who had failed their Local Language test at the end of training. These days were mostly spent relaxing, and having teaching sessions with out Lusoga teacher Dan, who really just translated things that we wanted to know how to say in Lusoga. This was really helpful because now I know how to say “Go Away (Vawo)”, “You are rude (Olina empisambi)”, “How is the weather there? (Obwire buli butyeyo?)”, “What jobs/projects do you want to start? Mwenda kutandiika emirimo ki?,” and many more things, that only after living somewhere I could figure out what I needed to still learn. And this week I learned that okufuka means “to pee,” but okufuuka means “to become.” So when I use that one I have to be carful lol. We also discussed the problems with our organizations, housing, and people that we work with as volunteers; so that they can be talked about when the supervisors come to the training (I didn’t have many problems, just advice to give). Then, we had a spectacular Sunday day off, where we all went swimming in the pool and relaxed and shot the shit with each other which was awesome, because we were at a nice hotel with clean rooms, good food, a pool, and good people.
Then, on the 17th our supervisors arrive and we had a full day of training regarding our problems at site, issues, confusions between co-workers, and what our role as a volunteer in the organization should be. My organization is great and we really don’t have any problems, mostly because we are all laid back people, we get along well, we keep open communication about everything, and being self-funded helps, too. Many of the organizations are funded by outside partners, so they expect us “rich, foreign colored” volunteers to be handing them money freely, or having their purpose at the organization to be writing proposals for grants and loans, etc. The role of the volunteer is to build the organization’s capacity, so they can do their work more effectively in the future and introducing new ideas and practices, rather than doing their current practices for them or filling a missing position in the organization. My manager understands all of this completely, so I haven’t written one grant, I’ve been teaching them things, exchanging cultures, helped with their budget, and would never ask me for any money.
We than did some project design work (which in my opinion should have been a two hour session instead of a 2 day session) or have us at least have a project in mind to design before we arrived at training. And then we learned how to teach Life Skills to youth. Life Skills is “a comprehensive behavior change approach that concentrates on the development if the skills needed for life such as: communication, decision-making, thinking, managing emotions, assertiveness, self esteem building, and relationship skills.” It also, has a very big concentration on the HIV/AIDS. This was really fun, because it involves a lot of games and things (to keep kids involved), and Anna, my good friend, was leading the session.
Life skills is something I never planned on teaching as a business volunteer, but I feel that it is something that the people in my community need and it would be great to teach at the schools I’ve already been teaching business skills at. I’m also going to make a box at leave it at the schools for people to put in questions on slips of paper anonymously, so they can ask me things they would like to know about (HIV/AIDS / sex / condoms / business, etc.) So, next Tuesday I’m going to a Junior Achievement (the program that I teach at with schools for kids to build their own businesses) seminar in Kamuli with head officials from the program where I will be introduced as one of their partners in the community. Then, next week I will be re-starting my business sessions at schools, and this is where I will introduce life skills – starting with creating personal and business goals and the steps to achieve them.
I was going to talk about my white water rafting trip on the Nile last week (Preview: it was spectacular!) and the aftermath of returning home from feeling like a tourist for 3 weeks, but this has gotten to be too long of a post! So I’ll leave you at this cliff-hanger!!!!! Thanks for reading! Give me a few hours and I’ll write you a spectacular post about my rafting trip. Plus, it’s 12 in the afternoon, here on Sunday which means most of you are sleeping right now (it’s 4 am there) except for a select few probably, most likely my dearest friends who are complete night owls like myself.
Love you all,
Dan
Late New Years Post
06 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
Blog written on January 30, 2011:
Dearest Friends and Family,
Just quick note – my internet modem has been giving me problems for a while, so that’s why I haven’t been online at all, which is terrible for me because it makes my life so boring lol! And it makes me even more lonely, I’m making up for the past month with one or two blogs. And I soon should have skype set up so that we can skype each other which would be super cool! Note: Modem fixed on Feb 6th. On with it! ——
First of all HAPPY NEW YEAR (Issokomwaka!! I have a hunch that 2011 is going to be on of the most amazing years of my life, and I hope that 2011 will go just as well for the rest of you!
So, for New Year’s weekend, myself and a group of about 16 people from my group total travelled to Jinja and met up at Biasara Hotel. [Note: After next week we will become veterans in the PC Uganda because a new group is coming next week, with a bunch of Education Volunteers.] It’s a cheap place for a single [26,000 shillings, 12 dollars] and a double [36,000 shillings, 16 dollars]. The rooms are clean but they expect you to give up your bed sheets at check out at around 9, which is incredibly annoying and is now an inside joke for all of the people. We always sleep 3 to a double (or more) and 2-3 in a single.
Remember, we are still volunteers and our PC monthly salary is a small amount compared to an American Salary. So, living in Uganda at my site is fine on the PC allowance, but when wanting to do tourist-y things, they know they will charge American prices and that people will pay, so it’s hard to live on unless you don’t go visiting friends or [going to muzungu restaurants, Bungee Jumping ($65), Rafting the Nile( $95), Hotels with a pool ($35 - $150), safaris ($45-$500), going to see the gorillas ($500)] whatever than it’s hard to do fun things to regain my footing with my friends from time to time.
Anyways, we had a good lunch and dinner at nice muzngu restaurants, then headed to the nightclub with about 10 people around 9 [other people went to the Nile View Casino, where you can’t see the Nile from haha] We danced for a while then went back and hung out on the roof of the building, it’s the tallest building in Jinja which is about 5 stories high.
On New Years Eve, we were recovering from the club the night before and pretty much relaxed until Dinner. Then, for dinner we made reservations at this nice place called 2 Friends Hotel. We have a spectacular dinner and I think everyone was happy. We went back to the hotel and were having drinks on the roof. And from the room, 11 people went back to the club for New Year’s, but the “Fireworks Five” – including myself – stay on the roof and hung out and got to see 3 sets of fireworks going off at once, in all different directions. Now, they weren’t as amazing as Fourth of July fireworks but still great. This was the first year since the beginning of college at UVM that I hadn’t been at a club or psytrance party in NYC for New Year’s, but I will be continuing that tradition upon my return home in 2012 [or maybe at a psytrance party in India or Thailand?]
The next day all 16 of us got a private hire matatu to take us to this paradise island in the middle of the Nile, called the Hairy Lemon (the island was once owned by Irish people who named it after a Bar in Dublin, that my friend Chelsea has actually been to). Once you get to one side of the river, you ring the gong. Now I was expecting a big Asian gong, but it was just a tire rim and I was a bit disappointed, because I made sure that it was clear to everyone that I was going to ring the gong and no one else. I called it just because I organized the entire trip to New Year’s in Jinja and made sure there were spots for everyone to sleep and made the reservations for everyone at Hairy Lemon, as you can’t just show up unannounced because they provide all 3 meals for you and they need to make sure they have enough to feed the group. But one Congolese man and one Ugandan man came across the river to pick us up on canoes, and to make sure our shoes didn’t get wet they picked us up out of the canoe over their shoulders and took us to land. This was incredibly funny to see the macho-ish of our group getting picked up and tossed over someone’s shoulder. The food was delicious and they just installed hot showers and flush toilets, which was great. And the staff there was an Aussie and a Brit and they were really cool and showed us the coolest places to swim.
It was a beautiful day and we spent the day swimming in the Nile and chilling in pools of water made in between rapids. Then, all 16 of us hiked through the Nile to the nearest set of rapids and we parked ourselves on one rock and took pictures of us there. Then, we floated back to the Island and had some dinner and drinks with some really cool Swedish people. They have a 2 chill out areas which have hammocks, beds, and carpets in the shade so we had a place to hang out since most of the beds are dormitory style, except the one I slept in which we rented out for 4 people. And I didn’t put any sun block on for the day that I was there so I had one of the worst sunburns of my life, probably since the last time I went to Florida when I was a kid. But it was fun peeling my skin off haha! And it certainly did not get rid of my farmer’s tan but made it worse as you can tell from my pictures!
It was like a little paradise and probably the most beautiful place I’ve seen in Uganda so far. My friend’s pictures from the Southwest of Uganda also look beautiful, but I haven’t made it there yet. The Busoga region is definitely one of the hotter regions of Uganda, plus Northern Uganda. The southwest is a bit cold. And now I am used to being in this hot weather so when I went to training in Seeta (near Kampala) and it was raining and 60 degrees I was freezing and missing my Kamuli/Busoga weather! It doesn’t rain much in Kamuli during the wet season or the dry season. It’s a pretty dry place with only Lake Kyoga to the north (80 km), so that doesn’t affect us. So anyone who wants to visit, I wouldn’t worry about the dry season / wet season, it’s just much much hotter during the dry season! It hasn’t rained in Kamuli for at least 2 weeks, but when I was in Seeta it rained almost every day.
But in a still pond of water flowing upstream through the island on the Nile, they had set up water Volleyball net in the Nile. That was really fun to play with everyone because it’s so hard to move quickly and not fall in when trying to hit the ball when the water is up to your knees. We had breakfast and lunch there, which was well needed after so much volleyball, swimming and sun. And then, as much as we felt like tourists for those few days and didn’t want to leave paradise, we all went back to our respective sites that afternoon, knowing that we had just had a wonderful New Year’s Celebration! Everything went perfectly according to our plans and even some better opportunities popped up in Jinja which made it all the more better!
Hope your New Year’s was as good as mine! I wish you the best at home in the US and be grateful this year for what you do have!
Love you all,
DPop [my new nickname here]
You know you’re in Africa when…
09 Jan 2011 3 Comments
Happy New Year Everyone! 2011 is starting off as a wonderful year, though it is a bit scary and intimidating that I will be spending the entire year in Uganda. We kick started it with a trip to Jinja and a day spent on a beautiful island on the Nile, which I will write about in my next post. I got a major sunburn, and now my entire back is peeling [TMI? no such thing in my book], but it was still worth it.
The power was out from Thursday until about an hour ago. Which is unusual for the power to come back on a Sunday, as you will see from my list. I ran out of books to read and all my electronic devices were dead. And no power means no water [which is pumped by electricity], which means I couldn’t even be productive and wash my clothes or clean the house. So, in my infinite boredom of this weekend, I created this list in one of my Journals.
I know I’m in Uganda/Africa:
- When we go to a professional meeting/workshop for Managers and Chairpersons (of the Board of Directors) of all SACCOs (reminder: Savings and Credit Cooperatives, e.g., a Credit Union) that is conducted under a mango tree on the property of a primary school where the only seats available are primary school benches
[Backstory: This town, Namasagali, was my manager's hometown where she married her husband. My manager, Edith, and her husband made it a top priority to do well for themselves and make sure that ALL of their children were educated up to a Bachelor's degree level (One is now a lawyer, another studying Information Technology, another still in high school, and several more that all have degrees and are doing quite well for themselves). Hence, most of the people in Namasagali currently are Edith's relatives. They were jealous/angry that Edith's children were educated and their children were not educated. So, they were very mean and discouraging about staying on the land that her father-in-law had given to them (it is tradition to give your son a piece of land when you get married). So, they moved from Namasagali to Kamuli town, where they currently reside. They donated the land to the town to build a school. This was the school where we had the meeting. I think it was a bit awkward for her because most people in the village were related to her.]
- When on the way to the meeting Edith stops at her house to pick something up (we were already a half hour late), she comes back with fly fishing boots, a machete and a bandana. I think, “Okay.. whatever.” On the way home, we drive in a different direction basically on a footpath [2 ft. wide] deep in the bush (in a sedan, mind you) where she stops for 15 minutes to cut the grass at her farm with her machete and fly fishing boots, so she can bring the grass home to feed the goats at her house in town.
- When we arrive at said meeting one hour late and that’s when they are just about to plan the agenda for the meeting, starting at around 12:15 (the invitation said starting at 11). Being an hour late is like coming early.
I know I’m in Uganda/Africa:
- When people sometimes greet me in Arabic and I know how to respond in Arabic.
- When I get a package from my Aunt Sharon (thanks!), who used bags and paper towels as fillers, and I kept the bags and paper towels, because paper towels don’t exist here. And bags are useful for trash (trash bags don’t exist either). Sometimes I keep the boxes too, if they are still in decent condition when they arrive here.
- When walking on the side of the road (no sidewalks, duh!) and I hear the honk of a car, truck or motorcycle from behind, and I don’t look back to see what is honking, I just move closer to the edge of the road without even thinking.
- When there are always either chickens, goats, cows or ducks right outside my house and I don’t live on a farm.
- When I greet people on the street and I say “Hello” and they say “Bye” or “I am fine”
- When people are scared of puppies.
- When instead of saying “I’m scared of them”, people say “I fear them” or “I am fearing it”
- When all men over the age of 18 dress in business casual attire, all the time. When you look around town, it’s difficult to find a man wearing a shirt without a collar on it. And if you are over 18, a man can no longer wear shorts [even though people are considered a youth here up to 30]. Women don’t wear pants, they only wear long skirts, dresses, or a gomez (traditional dress). The only exception to these rules is in Kampala, and sometimes Jinja. So to be culturally appropriate, even in the daily 80 degree weather, I wear pants whenever I go into town.
- When I can only use the bathroom and bathe outside. Although bathing outside is quite refreshing, I would still prefer a hot shower.
- When the power company can’t go more than 3 days without a power outage. And usually with the exception being this weekend [Thursday night through Sunday afternoon - power out], if the power goes out after 5 pm on Friday, you’re screwed until Monday morning.
- When a taxi driver drives on the wrong side of the road to avoid potholes, despite oncoming traffic and I think nothing of it.
- When on most days I’d kill for a sandwich or a hamburger, but without a refrigerator, this is not possible.
- When welcome meetings/speeches at workshops take a minimum of a half an hour (usually I am livid when they are over, what a waste of time) and then everyone at the workshop introduces themselves.
- When I have a very, very serious farmer’s tan that is not going to go away until I return for winter 2013.
- When there are waiting benches outside of the ATM.
- When there is always at least 1 banana tree in my line of sight at all times.
- When I find it awkward when I see another white person in my town and I am unsure as to whether or not it would be appropriate to introduce myself simply because the only thing we have in common is skin color. This is especially most awkward for Americans where race is a somewhat taboo/touchy topic.
- When in the morning I am welcomed at the office with “Issukobwire” which, when nicely translated, means “Welcome back from the night.” But literally translated means “Congratulations, you survived the night and didn’t die.”
[Backstory: Waaay back in the day when there was no towns and there were many wild animals roaming the plains/bush/serengeti of Africa, people made houses out of banana leaves, sticks [both for walls] and grass [roofs] rather than mud or brick nowadays. So, the house offered the people little protection during the night from wild animals or feuding tribesmen from nearby villages. This was the origin of this word. During the late 70′s, during the reign of Idi Amin, he would kill people at night so less people would notice, but of course everyone noticed. So, during his time in office, this phrase became a very common daily greeting, meaning “Welcome back from the night, you were not killed by any soldiers or rebels, you are alive.”]
- When the usual greeting “Gybale” means “Thank you for your work”, even though many people are unemployed and quite possibly couldn’t have done a single ounce of work that day.
- When people come around selling fried locusts, fried ants, and fried grasshoppers out of small buckets.
- When the Shell gas station is the only building in town that always has electricity.
- When elections are a dangerous time and people must take extra precautions to stay safe.
- When people think that you can’t get HIV/AIDS by having sex upside-down.
- When I was asked “Is it true that there a law in America that states that you can’t have more than two children?”
- When I come to work everyday and the people ask me [jokingly] about how my Ugandan wife is.
- When my coworkers asked about my American wife, in which I tell them she is too expensive, she wants diamonds. Their response: “You go to the Congo [one of the most dangerous countries in Africa], you get some diamonds, swallow them, fly back to America, drink clothing detergent, wait for them to come out and then you will be rich.” — A Brilliant Plan of Action.
- When I asked my co-worker Issac if he would marry Kim Kardashian [she was on the cover of People that I was reading] and he said “No, she is too old.” [It is considered taboo to marry a woman who is older than the man]. Though he would marry Taylor Swift.
Well, that’s all folks! Though I’m sure there will be more to come. And sometime soon I will post about my New Year’s.
Love,
Dan
Post-Christmas Blog
29 Dec 2010 1 Comment
Merry Christmas Everyone!!! And Happy New Year soon!
So, I just posted how I was before Christmas.. and now let me tell you about my Ugandan Christmas 
and my first Christmas away from home. 
But.. you should also read Anna’s blog about the Christmas preparations before my arrival and there’s some pictures on there of me and the kids at her place that I don’t have:
http://missannuganda.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-eve.html
Anyways, I wasn’t really as excited for Christmas this year, mostly because of the weather and the lack of Christmas spirit/decorations here. People here don’t decorate and I doubt that they could afford to even if they wanted to. The fact that it’s 70-80 degrees everyday doesn’t really make me feel like Christmas time and when I’m listening to Jingle Bells in that heat, well, it just seems silly. I opted to join my good friend Anna at her place in Nkokonjeru (shortly out of Kampala, closer to the Lake, the name of the town literally means White Chicken) as opposed to traveling to Masaka, where a bunch of volunteers spent Christmas together. And it was a wonderful decision indeed! I had a spectacular Christmas.
So, I arrived on Friday morning in Nkokonjeru and realized that I didn’t get any cell service on my new cell phone number/provider there, so I had to switch and take the sim card out of my internet modem in order to call her to tell her I was there and to talk to my family on Christmas Day. I did this all as about 15 children watched my every move in front of a store there. I soon met up with Anna, whom I was incredibly happy to see, and she took me to here house which is in the compound of the Nkokonjeru Providence Home for the Disabled. The Providence home usually has about 110 children, but there was only about 45 there at the time, as many had gone home for the holidays. Then, there were also about 15-20 elderly/older people that are also disabled that live there as well. The home is also a convent for nuns, who run the place, and nearby is their church and a home for retired nuns, as well as a church. So, as I entered I met some of the nuns, some of the kids and elderly, all of whom are wonderful and nice. I was in a Luganda speaking area, and when a few of them caught on that I spoke Lusoga, not Luganda, they greeted me in Lusoga which was really nice and made me feel at home.
She showed me to her house and where I put my stuff down and hung out for a while. Then, she showed me around the compound. There’s a girls dormitory, boys dormitory, all the elderly have their own little “townhouses”, a main hall, a workshop for sewing, the sister’s convent, and some other buildings as well. The place is really remarkable and the kids that are less disabled take care of the ones who can’t do too much and really help each other out. The sisters feed them some meals, but they also can cook for themselves and take care of their dorms. Which I found really great. She took me to the bakery, when they earn some income by selling loaves of bread, and where I found two other muzugus with delicious cakes. One muzungu staying there is Chris, who used be a Peace Corps volunteer there before Anna, about 5 years ago. She had just come to visit and help out for a few months. Chris is wonderful and I was sharing a room with her and here I actually had a bed to sleep in. And I also met Dulcie, who is from the UK and has been traveling around with her BF Nate for 18 months, spending some time in India, Malawi and Tanzania and will be staying at the Providence home until April. These two were wonderful and the 5 of us spent a lot of time together and had a blast!
So, we had a delicious lunch with the nuns and a delicious dinner at home. Better than I cook for myself, because cooking a huge meal for myself, which I can’t save for later just doesn’t make much sense to me. Then, we made some drinks, mostly gin and fresh passion fruit juice and enjoyed the rest of the night talking and getting to know each other and sharing stories. Anna and Nate went to Midnight Mass, while Chris, Dulce and our Ugandan friend (Matogo — I forget his name) hung out for a while.
Christmas Day — when we woke up it was POURING RAIN. From about 9 am to 1 pm it was raining so hard. It was then that I realized just how much hotter and drier it was in Kamuli compared to there, which is ridiculous because the distance between Kamuli and Nkokoneju is like from Cape May to NYC and the climate is very different. We had pancakes and omelets (real omelets with gouda cheese! mmm) for breakfast and then started wrapping Christmas gifts for the kids and elderly. The last volunteer left some money here to buy gifts and food for Christmas day. Each of the older people got one small gift of their request (a thermos, shoes, etc.) and a goodie bag of candy and toothpaste. The kids either got bouncy balls, cloth bags, coloring books, bubbles, a radio, and all got some candy. Once it stopped raining we went down to the main hall, which we had decorated the day before. We were like Santa Clauses for the kids! Because we had the bags of presents, bags of ballons, and when we came, shortly after all the food started pouring in that the nuns had prepared.. There was matooke (of course), lots of chicken, beef, pork, potatoes, cabbage, bananas, pineapple, and sodas. This was a special treat for the kids as well as us, even though we ate such a big breakfast 2 hours prior.
After lunch, we put all the presents under the Christmas tree and I took a picture of all the kids.
- The Providence Family
This was a really happy moment and made me feel like a part of something this Christmas, and that I did something meaningful and every time I held up the camera everyone started cheering, which made it even better, especially cuz I had 3 cameras in my hands. I was taking pictures of everyone giving out gifts. And to see the smiles on everyone’s faces whether they got a pixy stick or a thermos for Christmas, they were all more than content. Then, they all paraded around showing their gifts and dancing to the music. So, we danced and played with them. And probably the most hilarious part was watching the nuns parading around on these bouncy balls:
Bouncing Ugandan Nuns
Chris and Designer dancing
- One of the nicest ladies receiving her Christmas Gift
- 2 Kids Sharing their Christmas Treasures
So, later we proceeded to back to Anna’s place to have an amazing Christmas night. It was Anna, Chris, Motogo, Nate, Dulcie and Me, and we had so much fun. We played Kings and talked about the differences between British English and American English. And I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. Cards, broken glasses, beer, cheese, sausage, popcorn, laugher, vodka watermelon juice and music sums up a good portion of the night.
There was no cell service all day on Christmas, but the network finally started up around 11:30 pm Ugandan time and I was able to text my parents and tell them they could call then. So, it was great everyone was at dinner at my cousin’s house and I got to talk to everyone as they passed the phone around. So I was really grateful to talk to them on Christmas and was really jealous of their Christmas dinner and hearing them spending time together, but I was also very satisfied with my Christmas Day, having experienced something that many people will never in their lifetime and then sharing good times between people from across the world through the night.
But I did miss everyone at home and I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Stephanie also called me on Christmas Eve and I got to talk with her and her mother, which is always funny. I’m glad she called on Christmas Eve because of the cell service and I probably would have gone with her to visit her family this time of year as well, so it made me feel like a part of home, and of course we had a hilarious conversation sharing funny stories about Uganda and East Windsor, NJ, two of the most ridiculous places this world has to offer.
Sunday was a relaxing day of cleaning, eating cake, making dinner, and popcorn. I decided to stay an extra day because I was having such a good time. We played Phase 10, which is a tiring game similar to Uno, and then Quiddler a word card game, not unlike scrabble. Some inside jokes were developed after I tried to use the word “Clel” during the first round. Then left Monday morning, spent some time in Jinja and now am home back in Kamuli! These two days at work were fairly lazy. I had screens installed in my windows yesterday finally, even though the carpenters made a huge mess. I’m not sure why they even bothered to measure the windows because the screen “holder” they hammered around the window area is about 1 ft. too big on each side. But such is Uganda. Tomorrow, I leave for Jinja to celebrate New Year’s, where I’ve organized three days of fun! Cheap Hotel tomorrow, nice hotel with a pool for New Year’s and overlooking the Nile/Lake Victoria with a restaurant, and then an island on the Nile with a private cottage for the 3rd night. Then, back to Kamuli for a week or two to get back to regular life.
I really hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, and I’ve been checking for packages every few days but I think Kampala is really overwhelmed with stuff. So I hope some of it gets there before we leave for In Service Training on the 13th. But thanks to the Shrimpe’s and the Krupa’s for sending me Christmas Cards! They were a warm and welcoming reminder of home for the Holidays! Have a happy new year everyone! And I’ll post about my new year’s in Jinja upon my return sometime next week!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year with Love From Uganda,
Dan
Pre-Christmas Blog
29 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
Blog for Monday, December 20, 2010 — stay tuned for an after Christmas blog in about an hour.
Hey everyone!
So I wrote this blog on Monday, December 20, 2010, at the current moment, I have no internet. So I probably won’t be posting this until before or after Christmas time. By then, I will probably have written another blog about my Christmas experience in Nkokonjeru, about an hour or two away from Kampala at my friend Anna’s house.
So I’ve been in Kamuli, it seems, for about 2 months now. And things are moving quickly, though there’s a lot to look forward to in the next month. But I think after that time will start moving a bit slower. I’ve got Christmas coming up this weekend. Then, the next weekend I will be spending 4 days in Jinja for New Year’s where I’ve heard there will be fireworks. Then, on the 13th of January I will be traveling to Kampala (or somewhere shortly outside of Kampala, for our first IST (In-Service Training). This will be half Language Training and updating our language skills and checking out where we are at with our language instructors from the first 3 months in Uganda during our training. Which should always be interesting. My language teacher Dan is awesome, funny and easily divertible to the silly topics that I am usually the one to initiate. And I get to spend a lot of time with the Lusoga Group [Lisa, Rashida, me, Nick and Christy] who have become my really good friends since they are the closest volunteers to me and because we spend so much time with each other during daily language classes [2-4 hours]. And when I meant closest, I mean minimum of 2 ½ hours matatu ride to them. I think at the current moment, I’m the farthest volunteer from all other volunteers in the country [not just from my group, including the other 150 people not in my training group of 45].
Then, after that is our Technical training where we will probably split up into Community Health and Economic Development [me], where we will have some extra training and re-application of Peace Corps tools. And I think it is at this time that my counterpart [Isaac] and my supervisor [Edith] will be joining us for this. This time it will be especially less awkward, because the last time when I met them for a training, it was my second time of meeting them, I was trying to savor every moment of being together with my fellow Americans, while balancing out spending time with them and Americans, and running to my room during every break to smoke a cigarette, without them knowing of course. Cigarettes are 75 cents here, btw.
Enough about that, always ups and downs here. Some days are fantastic some days are horrible and I really miss home, and I question why I am here. The kids that live around me have recently taken a liking to me. Especially after I gave a bunch of them lollipops and two little girls asked me why there was a pencil in my window, I said I don’t know and told them they could have it. Now, at least once to four or five times a day I get kids at my front door or back window coming to greet me, watch what I’m doing, or go “Mpa sweeties” Give me sweets or “Mpa pen-eee” Give me a pen. That’s the word they use for pens and pencils in Lusoga, obviously adopted from English; almost all words adopted from English end with and ‘I’ or ‘eee’ or ‘aaa’, for example in the matatu Deeerriiiivaaaa = Driver and Condactaaa = Conductor, Dan-ee = Dan and they like many other cultures can’t make the ‘aeh’ sound, so Dan sounds like Don or Daaan, cat sounds like cot. Needless to say, I’m going to chill out on giving these little kids things, not because I don’t like to, but because once you give them something, they will never ever forget it and they expect you to give them things whenever you see them. Which is not good for A. future white people that come here and B. my sanity.
We are almost finished with the budget at work for 2011, which has been the main thing that we’ve been working on right now. We’ve been coming in at around 7:30 am every morning and looking at 2009, 2010 estimates and actuals, trying to estimate for 2011 what the costs will be. I try to participate wherever possible, but they know about the budget better than I do and what they need. So I generally let them do it, and I type up the explanation and put it on excel for them. Next year, after we hire a cashier [the second round of interviews are going on right now] I’m going to train Isaac or Julius on excel so they can do it themselves. We will present this to the board on Wednesday and I will be leaving for Christmas on the 24th. This has been the main project and it makes me especially tired to get up that early in the morning. This Sunday I woke up at 11 after catching up on all the sleep missed.
Well, hope all is well at home and you have/had a Merry Christmas. Thanks to everyone who sent packages! I’m checking several times a week for them but I expect that Kampala is especially busy with packages and all packages have to go through there to get here. So, I will let you know when they arrive! Weeraba [bye] for now!
Love,
Dan
P.S. Here are some similarities and differences about Uganda and America.
Differences:
-You say goodbye, I say hello.
-Paradise Hotel is no where near paradise, in room conditions and just not near a paradise. The first thing I did when I entered my room for 26,000 shillings (12 dollars, not bad though, right?) is kill a cockroach that was wandering around the room.
-Everything takes time here, and many people cannot keep time here. So people are always late to everything. Sometimes it’s their fault, but many times it just takes longer to do anything. I wanted to withdraw money from the bank yesterday but there were about 60 people in line for the ATM – no way Jose. So, I went inside and I was inside waiting behind about 20 people for 1 ½ hours before I even reached the teller.
- Primary School = Elementary School, and some of Middle School. Secondary School/College = High School, University = College/University
- People are always skeptical of why I want to take a photo of them.
Similarities:
- It’s hard for everyone in the world to get out of bed in the morning. And everyone knows what a “snooze” button is.
- Everyone loves 10 o’clock tea/coffee time from work.
- Indians own all of the convenience stores / supermarkets.
- American Media is all over the place, especially all the rap that you hear on the mainstream radio stations. It’s nice when I can walk down the streets of Uganda and hear Usher or Rihanna playing in the distance.
- Spider Solitaire – On my last taxi ride, they driver had a nice radio installed, so the people on the radio were listening to music and talking and every few minutes you could hear over the music the dj dealing a new round of cards. He was just too lazy to turn the sound off. Everyone likes Spider Solitaire.
- We have the same kind of bugs, but they’re bigger and more gross looking here.
- Kids love candy.
- If you do something that a kid likes [like dancing, or playing games with them, throwing them in the pool, etc.] they’ll want you to do it over and over and over again.
- Christmas songs are the same, even though they may be in different languages and sound different when it’s 80 degrees out.
Random Updates
07 Dec 2010 1 Comment
Hey everyone hope all is well. Can’t really sleep over here it’s about 2 am and I’m goin strong! But if I misspell some things, well, you’re just going to have to get over it. So I only have 3 things for you right now. Tomorrow or the next day I’m going to write a good long blog about my holidays and how much fun I had and how much money it costs to spend time near Entebbe, were the airport and all things muzungu are. I also changed my number which is item number 3.
1. Probably the most important and profound thing that’s occurred at Guest Supply (no the catalog is not out yet, which WILL be sent to Africa when finished, as promised.. on company money ), which is that my dear friend and ex-coworker has read most of my blog and enjoyed it! I would just like to thank her for doing this because it means a lot to me! Thanks Smashley! You’re the best!
Send my Hello (s), Jambo (s)[Hello in Swahili], and Muli Mutya (How are you all?) They should respond “gyetuli” (Okay we are, literally)!
2. The address I put on the last blog was CORRECT, but to reiterate it’s:
Dan Popielarski
PO Box 177
Kamuli, Busoga, Uganda
(If you happened to write Basoga instead of Busoga, it doesn’t really make a difference, the people at the post office will understand) [Basoga is the tribe of people from the land of Busoga]
so even if you just wrote:
Dan Popielarski
PO Box 177
Kamuli, Uganda
It would still get here no problem, and seeing as how I can get many things because I live in town and not deep in the village, you can check out the last list of thins that I might want or need. And I forgot to add Mac and Cheese, which sounds quite tasty. But also if you decide to send something monetary, there are forex beaurous in Jinja that I can go to make sure that you hide it maybe in a magazine or a book or a diary or something, because packages go through South Africa I believe and they’re not know for having the least corrupt postal service, though they will courteously put a note inside that says “Sorry, your package has been tapered with. How sweet.
3. Along the lines of South Africa, the phone companies in Uganda are having a price war but South African owned MTN (the company that I’ve been using) is like Verizon. They have the best coverage “everywhere you go” (their slogan) but since they’ve got top quality service they’re not really participating in the price war. And also today I tried to load 1000 UGX on my phone for 4 hours ever half an hour to tell mt mom I was okay, but it wouldn’t load so I couldn’t do that or text anyone so they could tell my mom. Plus Warid, another company has cheap texts, 1000 UGX called Pakalast and you can call anyone else with warid and talk for 24 hours straightl I’m switching to them but I want everone to know my new number which I will be putting in tomorrow:
From Uganda: 0700567668
From America: +256700567668
The + is to get out of the country. And 256 is the country code and the rest is my number. So you Americans don’t use the o in “0″700. Got it? Goodl
Remind me to tell you next time about the cutest little Muslim girl and how we greeted each other in Arabic.
Until Next Time Dear Friends!
Love you with all my heart and I wish I could’ve eaten Thanksgiving at my Dad’s Side and My Mom’s Side and at the Peace Corps Americans [mashing potatoes with fork, etc]
Also, thanks for the packages Aunt Sharon and Mom and Dad! The pictures were wonderful and I have them all over my walls, now I have a world map that came with Aunt Sharon’s Magazine, which I’m sharing the magazine with the members of our SACCO. And those puzzle books were fantastic. And there was a Kriss-Kross all about cities in New Jersey so i was showing the neighbors my home “district” and the T-Shirts are great as well Mom! Good Choice! I also made better friends with the neighbors, the neighborhood kids, and a man on a tasi because of the lollipops!
Thanks again!
Love ,
Dan
