Muli Mutya!

Greetings everyone! I hope this message finds you all happy and well! I have only been in the country now for three weeks and I cannot believe how much has happened. For the sake of saving my small salary of money for other things than the internet cafe, I will try to mention the things that seem to stand out the most.

If I would have had access to the internet a few days ago this message may have a very different tone than I plan for it to have today. The Peace Corps training process can be incredibly exhausting. I think that in order to be a Peace Corps volunteer you must be a rather independent person. However, the PC training process takes just about independence you have away. As I mentioned before, we have training from about 8-5 six days a week. After leaving training we leave to go home to our home-stay families and many of us loose even more freedom. Ugandans are some of the most hospitable people in the world. They want to make sure you are safe and by all means well fed at all times. While I really appreciate their care and concern, for someone who is rather independent this can become a bit stressful. Throw in a language barrier and four screaming children it can become quite stressful. Last week I was having a bit of a hard time dealing with all of this. My family expected that I would have afternoon tea at 7 pm which would consist of three fried eggs, noodles, and bananas. Then around 9 pm they would try to feed me an even larger meal. It was incredibly hard for me to find a way to tell them that Americans eat small amounts of food. Luckily, the home stay coordinator spoke with my home stay mother and she now understands my dietary needs and I think we both feel much better. I now look forward to going home at night and really enjoy getting to know my Ugandan family. For those of you who may be wondering, I do have temperamental electricity, but no running water. With that being said, my bathroom in a hole in the ground outside and I take a cold bath out of a bucket. To simplify this process I had a friend cut almost all of my hair of. It was a fabulous idea and others are being to follow.

As a Peace Corps volunteer I will be training primary school teachers. While at first I was a bit overwhelmed with this task, I now feel very confident and excited to begin my service. Last week I had the opportunity to observe and teach in a primary school; my class had 111 students. How they were able to pack that many students into one classroom I will never be able to understand. It also gave me a greater understanding of the kinds of challenges a teacher in Uganda faces. Being at Kayunga Primary School gave me many ideas as to what kinds of secondary projects I would like to do. This past week I visited a coordinating center where I had the opportunity to conduct a workshop for ten teachers emphasizing different teaching methods. It went exactly as I, and our supervisor, had hoped.

I have so many things to say, but I want to enjoy Kampala while I can! For those of you who spent time with me in Kenya please know that I am eating plenty of chapati and enjoying my fair share of Nile Special. Also, if anyone would like to send me any donations in the form of snack, photos, letters, or MUSIC I would be forever greatful! My address is:

Autumn Radtke
Peace Corps Trainee
PO Box 29348
Kampala, Uganda

Be sure to write air mail and if you write "god bless" or something religious on it, it is much less likely that it will be tampered with!

Peace and Love,

Autumn