Posts
Greetings everyone! Before I begin, let me thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to follow my little life here in Uganda; I really appreciate your interest!
After spending time in schools here in Uganda it has become apparent to me that teachers teach strictly using lecture and the children then spend hours upon hours memorizing what the teacher told them that day. If I were to ask ten students what a parasite was they would each tell me, “A parasite is an organism that lives in or on another organism and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host’s expense.” Their definition would be word for word from their notes and if I asked them to put in their own words most would not be able to. Children here are not taught to think critically in the least. In some ways I understand why; teachers are expected to teach over one hundred students at a time. Lecturing seems like the most logical thing to do with a classroom of this magnitude. Despite the fact that I knew students did know how to think critically about things, for some reason I expected that adults would be able to. The other day when I was painting my bedroom the neighbors would stop by in awe that I was painting; they could not believe that I knew how to paint. They assumed that I had been taught and were astonished to find out that no, in fact I had never been taught and this was my first time ever painting. They informed me that woman would never paint and that they would hire someone to do the painting because they have not been taught how to paint. The same thing occurred the other day when I invited Carol over for breakfast where I made pancakes. I have never made pancakes from scratch, but I had a recipe in the Peace Corps recipe book. Carol was flabbergasted that I had never been taught to make pancakes, but I was able to read the recipe and make perfectly delicious pancakes For me, as I am sure many Americans, we see something once and we try it. We may research it first, but a lot of times we just try and see what happens; that does not happen here in Uganda. Realizing this, I now feel that in order for development to occur the children of this country need to be taught how to think critically about things. Part of what I am hoping to do is teach teachers how to teach in a way that promotes critical thinking to large numbers of students. If anyone has any ideas that I can pass along please be sure to let me know!
A few random stories completely unrelated to the above:
I do not know if it is because I feel that I have to prove myself, I like being independent, or that I like the looks of shock on the faces of the people in my village, but I feel the need to do everything myself. As I have mentioned before, the borehole behind my house is out of use and the nearest clean water to me is the hospital about 1.5 K away. I have four twenty liter jerry cans and last week I told Carol that I would carry two of them. She laughed for a while, but humored me anyway and let me carry them about halfway until my hands turned a few different shades of red. Today Kennedy, also a student at the college I work for, went with us and I, again, told him the same thing I told Carol. I made it a bit farther than last time and then he took over for me. The whole way home neighbors were telling me how powerful I was. It makes me laugh because I see woman carrying these things on their head and I am the powerful one? The carpenter came while I was painting my bedroom today and also told me that I must have brought the power with me. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I think people here just assume that everyone from America hires people to do things for them and that we are incredibly weak human beings.
The other day Carol called me over to her house where I found her mother and five of her siblings surrounded by grasshoppers. Earlier that day Carol had went to the market and purchased bags full of grasshoppers at a moderately expensive cost; here in Uganda grasshoppers are a delicacy. At her home, Carol and her family were busy pulling the legs and wings off of the alive grasshoppers and putting them in a basket. I am sure they had assumed that I would join in with the process, but after looking at the large basket of alive grasshoppers missing their limbs and in a state of shock, I didn’t have the heart to help. As I should have guessed, later on that day Carol shows up at my door with a bowl full of at least one hundred fried grasshoppers, all looking directly at me. Here my neighbors are sharing this delicacy with me and I am completely grossed out and still feeling bad for the little fellows, but I knew I had to at least eat just one. It took me awhile to get up the courage to stick him in my mouth and once I did, I wished I hadn’t. It is not that he was bad, he was kind of like a potato chip in that he was salty and crispy, but I couldn’t swallow him. He just wouldn’t go down and the longer he was in my mouth the more disgusted I got by the thought of eating all of its parts. I explained to Carol that most people in America have never eaten an insect before and I think that helped her understand why it was so difficult for me and did not offer me another. The carpenter came over the next day and told me that he was looking for me earlier in the day because he had fried a bunch of grasshoppers he would like to share with me. Luckily I was able to explain myself before they were actually brought. Later on that night, a few other volunteers and I went dancing and on the way we saw what looked like a WWF arena. There was an area surrounded by tall pieces of sheet metal beaming with lights. We walked over to see what was going on; hoping to see WWF Uganda style, but instead we saw millions of grasshoppers swarming the lights. Once they hit the sheet metal they would slide down into barrels where they were collected by workers. After we had our fill of grasshoppers we headed over to the club. Once we sat down with our drinks we realized that we were covered in grasshoppers as well. Needless to say, I have had my fill of grasshoppers.
One day I was sitting around talking with Carol and Kennedy about random things and out of no where one of them asks me if we have t-strings in America. I had no idea what they were talking about. At first, I thought they might have meant a G-string, but thought there is no way they would be asking me this. They were getting giggly and told me that they saw people in movies wearing them on the beach and Carol imitated for me what they looked like while doing so. I laughed hysterically for awhile; the things they tell me they see in these American movies are outrageous. There is always a boy named Frank in my village who for the first week of my living here would knock on my back door and ask me if I knew a bunch of actors I have never heard of before. Everyday he would walk away disappointed that I didn’t know who he was talking about, until finally he asked me if I knew Chuck Norris and I knew who he was talking about. I even had to argue with him that Prison Break is a television show and not a movie. He told me that I was wrong and that he watches it at the theater in town. Now, when I say theater I mean a small shack in which movies and tv shows that are pirated are played. I cannot blame Frank for believing that Prison Break is a moving when it is advertised on the chalk board outside the theater as “Prison Break 13.”
And lastly, a lot of Peace Corps volunteers have a difficult time when they first get to sight. After all of the training and listening we’re ready to do things, but it is difficult to get started. While we all have job titles a lot of our job titles do not mean much and we are left to find our own work within the community. Luckily, there is plenty of work to be done, but it is difficult to get started and many people find themselves incredibly bored and wondering what they are actually doing here. For me, it has been the opposite. The other day I read a quote by Aldons Huxley in the Peace Corps newsletter that said, “ “Your time traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-- his excessive freedom. He accepts boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.” After reading this it got me thinking about boredom in general. With all of the entertainment and all the work I was doing in the states I constantly felt bored, but here, when I have no electricity and no place to go, I am never bored. I have never really enjoyed complete quiet; I am a music person, but the lack thereof has become a blessing. These past few weeks I have been forced to spend time with solely myself and I am thankful for that; it is like a constant state of meditation. This has been an opportunity for me to get to know myself and it is wonderful. How often in America do we take the opportunity to remove ourselves from the outside world and just be?
Anyway, I hope all is happy and sunny on your side of the world! I miss you all immensely!
Peace and love,
Autumn
p.s. I just read “The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint” by Brady Urdell and thought it was fabulous; just in case you were looking for a good read!
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Language
After I graduated from college I wanted to kick myself for never taking a foreign language. I was always so jealous of those who could speak in a second language. I am proud to say that I can speak decently well in a language spoken no where else in the world. So what if I never use it again after my two years; I can say speak in two languages!
The learning of Luganda has been and still remains to be an interesting journey. People in Uganda are shocked that a Muzungu would know how to speak Luganda and they are very complimentary no matter how much I actually butcher their language. It got me thinking about how many times I have met a foreigner in America who is able to speak english. Never once did I get excited or thank them excessively for taking the time and trouble to learn our extremely difficult language. Most Americans have that attitude that if you are in our country you better know our language and do not appreciate the amount of effort one puts into actually learning the language. It is not rare that I say something strange without knowing it until I see the extremely confused look on their face. For example, the word for woman is very similar to the word for volunteer and when I am bargaining I often times tell them that I am just a woman so I do not have any money instead of saying that I am just a volunteer. There have been times that I have told people I will be living here for 200 years as opposed to two. Before I moved into my house the school deputy was telling me that they had sprayed for bats, but I was thinking he was saying spiders and I went on for a good while about how I fear spiders. Apparently they kept telling me that bats eat spiders and I was saying good, but I had no idea what was being said until Amber made fun of me for awhile the following day. Go figure I have bats, they thought I wanted them to take care of the spiders. I have a friend who was learning another Bantu language who had a habit of telling people that he liked to eat them for dinner. Thankfully Ugandans are very sympathetic listeners and rarely do they laugh at us. However, I am not sure that I am such a sympathetic listener. Today an Ugandan tried telling me that he wanted a muzungu girlfriend in English, but instead told me he wanted a boyfriend. When he realized what he said he laughed a little and I laughed for a good three minutes.
I am constantly trying to impress Ugandans with my language skills and sometimes they try to impress me with their English skills. This always ends up being a very strange conversation where they speak only in English and I only in Luganda. I usually don’t realize what has happened until we walk away and I realize how odd that was. In my attempt to learn to read and write in Luganda I am actually losing some of my English. For example, when I see a “ki” in an English word I want to pronounce it as “chi” as you would in Luganda. I can’t tell you the last time I have used the words “okay” and “no.” It’s always “kale” and “nedda.” Every time I write I start to write the word “kubanga” instead of “because.” While most Ugandans know English fairly well, it is British English and they say things odd in general. For example, instead of saying “I will pick you up at five” they would say, “I will pick you at five.” When I speak with Ugandans in English I find that I get this goofy accent, that we volunteers refer to as speaking Uganglish, and I leave off words we, as Americans, never would. When I come back to the states after two years most of you will think I am the strangest person in the world. I will be inserting Luganda words for English ones all of the time. I will be saying weird things like, “even me” and “thank you for the work” when you’re doing nothing at all. I will be greeting everyone I see and not just a friendly “hello” it will be followed with series of questions such as, but not limited to: How are you sir? Thank you for the bit of work you do. How is the family at home? How is life? All of these questions followed by a series of mmmm and ahhhs. In most situations this is a typical greeting. I’m sure you can imagine how long it takes me to walk a kilometer down the road when I pass about ten people. When I’m trying to impress taxis drivers with my Luganda, usually to get a better price, I end up using all of my Luganda by asking stupid questions like, “What do you like to do in your free time? Are you married? Do you have children? What do you most like to eat? Where do you live? I of course give my whole spiel about how I am from America, I am a volunteer with the American Peace Corps and I live at the primary school. I studied Luganda in Wakiso, but I only know a little. I will live in Masaka for two years, but I have a mom and dad in America. They have two cows and a dog. I also have two sisters. I know how to drive a car, but I fear driving in Uganda because many drivers drive crazy. I was a teacher in America and I like to teach geography. I usually throw in a few other random things that I know how to say, like that they drive well even though I am usually scared for my life or that I like to eat chapati. I’m sure they go home to their families and talk about what a weirdo I am, but I am usually proud of my lack of important Luganda phrases.
A new group of volunteers arrive in Uganda every six months. When one group is swearing in, another group is returning back to the states. I have been talking with volunteers that are on their way back to the states and it is quite comical to hear them talk about their fears of returning home. One girl said that she fears that people will just think she is plain retarded. It’s not saying that Ugandans and their mannerisms that we have picked up on are retarded, but when you put them in the American setting I can see how one would feel that way. This same volunteer asked me my name the other day and I said A-U-T-U-M-N being sure to enunciate every single syllable. When I finished I realized, wait this is not a difficult name for her. We laughed for a bit because she understands why I did it, but when I return to the states people would probably be offended and think I thought they were slow. When you go to a restaurant here in Uganda you may be handed a menu, but there is no point in looking at it because it is unlikely that they will have 90% of the items on the menu. Instead you ask, “What do you have?” Another volunteer was talking about going to an Applebees and after looking at a menu asking, “But what do you REALLY have?” Due to the lack of electricity it is at times difficult to find cold drinks. When ordering a drink it would not be rude to ask to feel them all to find one that is actually cold and then it is also appropriate to ask any drink to be returned if it was not opened while you were looking. As an American, what would you think if you saw someone requesting to feel all the bottles at the bar before buying and then refusing to drink it because it was not opened in their site. I will probably be very touchy when I get back. It is not odd to touch someone on the arm or the back while speaking with them, even if you just met. If I were to get on a bus that contained only one other passenger, I would probably sit right next to him and talk the entire time. Women and children kneel as a sign of respect. Upon first coming here I figured I would do it, but then I could never figure out when and who to kneel and it also seemed a bit tedious to always be kneeling, so I have chosen to refrain. Yesterday, I had a 80 year old woman kneeling for me on the side of a dirt road and I felt like a complete jerk. An 80 year old women kneeling down to me; I should have been kneeling down for her. Maybe I’ll start kneeling and bring that back to the states with me as well.
Before coming to Uganda I figured any job interview would be a breeze upon my return to the states. Such questions as “Tell me how you would handle a class of thirty-two children” could easily be answered with “Let me tell you about the time I taught a class of a 132 children.” “Tell me about a time you worked with someone different than yourself,” would sound something like “Well let me tell you about the time I lived in Uganda for two years.” Easy as pie. Now I’m starting to think differently. I’m going to go into an interview speaking Uganglish, being all touchy feely, kneeling for them, and asking completely inappropriate questions about their personal life and telling them that my parents have two cows and a dog. Overall, I cannot wait for you all to see how weird I have become; it is awesome.
Other random stories and thoughts completely unrelated to the above:
The other day I was on the way to my latrine and saw thousands of termites swarming out of their termite hill. A child noticed the termites and I would have thought he just saw Santa Claus. He came running full speed yelling for his friends with pure excitement. I went to the bathroom and when I came out there were ten children catching the termites and eating them. One child had so many stuffed in his mouth they were pouring out and he was laughing hysterically; just as a child in America would stuff his mouth with cake and laugh. I was talking to my mom about things we could do if they came to visit and I was saying how it is possible to not really do anything and yet be constantly entertained when you are experiencing another culture. This was a perfect example of a time was throughly entertained while doing nothing more than walking to and from the latrine.
I got an e-mail last week asking me, “Besides the obvious friends and family, what do you miss the most about home.” I think I said something about Penny’s Noodle Shop’s pad thai and Cubs games. But I think that what I actually miss the most is late sunsets in the summertime. There is nothing better than the day you realize it is nine p.m. and just getting dark. Here is gets dark at seven and it makes it feel more like winter despite the 75 degree weather. It is also a huge bummer when you have no electricity and when darkness brings out the bats.
The other night I stayed the night at Amber’s because I was going to pick up my new purple ten speed bike, an almost replica of the one I had in fifth grade. I have what I refer to as “my” room at Amber’s place and she had sent me a text a week before informing that she had just stepped on a huge rat, but trapped it in my room. A few days later she had opened the windows in the room and looked everywhere for him the following day with no luck of finding him; we obviously assumed he had made his exit through the window. So I was getting ready for bed, removing her backpack and such off the bed, trying not to step in rat poop. This has seemed to become my life, always dodging poop of some sort. At home stay it was that of a child’s, at my home it is of a bat, and now at Amber’s it belongs to a rat. Anyway, I turn around to walk out of the room when I just about stepped on the rat. Luckily, he was dead and I was able to just sweep him on outside; apparently Amber had starved him to death. I felt a little bad about his long death, but at the same time I am over finding rodents or bats dead or alive indoors.
And lastly, my Ugandan friend Carol’s grandma passed away on Monday night and they were having her burial on Tuesday. A man on a bicycle with a megaphone rode around the village announcing her death and the time of the burial. I decided that I should probably look “smart,” as they call it, and wear my floral Goodwill dress that I cut the shoulder pads out of along with my K-mart dress shoes. It was quite the outfit, but just as I thought, I was complimented on how smart I was. Usually the African’s opinion of what is smart is what an American would consider tacky. But whatever, if I can be smart for under ten dollars, I’ll do it. Anyway, We first went to the grandmother’s house and sat with the rest of the village in the front yard while the daughters and sons were inside with the body wailing. About an hour later they came out of the house and the village chairman and some other men wrapped the body in a cloth used for burial and placed the body in the casket. Once they brought the body out of the house they sang a few songs and a man talked a bit about her, or at least that is what I think he was saying. I did hear that she was eighty-nine years old, which is extremely old for a developing country. They then took the body to the burial site in which they lowered the body into the grave while singing another song and people through dirt on the grave. It was odd because despite the fact that Carol was the granddaughter, we sat in the back behind a tree and she did not even seen upset. I’m sure she was, but she talked with me about random things most of the time and during the burial she decided we should start walking home. I think I was more upset than she was because it got me thinking about my own grandfather’s death, but I guess different cultures have a different way of responding to tragedies.
Once again, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedules to take an interest in my life! I hope all is happy and well!
Peace and love,
Nalubega Autumn
p.s. If you have not yet done so, please pick up a David Sedaris book. I just got done reading “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and laughed out loud multiple times.
p.s.s. I promise I will have a new address soon. I need a letter from a woman, who is on holiday, before I am able to open a P.O. Box!
The learning of Luganda has been and still remains to be an interesting journey. People in Uganda are shocked that a Muzungu would know how to speak Luganda and they are very complimentary no matter how much I actually butcher their language. It got me thinking about how many times I have met a foreigner in America who is able to speak english. Never once did I get excited or thank them excessively for taking the time and trouble to learn our extremely difficult language. Most Americans have that attitude that if you are in our country you better know our language and do not appreciate the amount of effort one puts into actually learning the language. It is not rare that I say something strange without knowing it until I see the extremely confused look on their face. For example, the word for woman is very similar to the word for volunteer and when I am bargaining I often times tell them that I am just a woman so I do not have any money instead of saying that I am just a volunteer. There have been times that I have told people I will be living here for 200 years as opposed to two. Before I moved into my house the school deputy was telling me that they had sprayed for bats, but I was thinking he was saying spiders and I went on for a good while about how I fear spiders. Apparently they kept telling me that bats eat spiders and I was saying good, but I had no idea what was being said until Amber made fun of me for awhile the following day. Go figure I have bats, they thought I wanted them to take care of the spiders. I have a friend who was learning another Bantu language who had a habit of telling people that he liked to eat them for dinner. Thankfully Ugandans are very sympathetic listeners and rarely do they laugh at us. However, I am not sure that I am such a sympathetic listener. Today an Ugandan tried telling me that he wanted a muzungu girlfriend in English, but instead told me he wanted a boyfriend. When he realized what he said he laughed a little and I laughed for a good three minutes.
I am constantly trying to impress Ugandans with my language skills and sometimes they try to impress me with their English skills. This always ends up being a very strange conversation where they speak only in English and I only in Luganda. I usually don’t realize what has happened until we walk away and I realize how odd that was. In my attempt to learn to read and write in Luganda I am actually losing some of my English. For example, when I see a “ki” in an English word I want to pronounce it as “chi” as you would in Luganda. I can’t tell you the last time I have used the words “okay” and “no.” It’s always “kale” and “nedda.” Every time I write I start to write the word “kubanga” instead of “because.” While most Ugandans know English fairly well, it is British English and they say things odd in general. For example, instead of saying “I will pick you up at five” they would say, “I will pick you at five.” When I speak with Ugandans in English I find that I get this goofy accent, that we volunteers refer to as speaking Uganglish, and I leave off words we, as Americans, never would. When I come back to the states after two years most of you will think I am the strangest person in the world. I will be inserting Luganda words for English ones all of the time. I will be saying weird things like, “even me” and “thank you for the work” when you’re doing nothing at all. I will be greeting everyone I see and not just a friendly “hello” it will be followed with series of questions such as, but not limited to: How are you sir? Thank you for the bit of work you do. How is the family at home? How is life? All of these questions followed by a series of mmmm and ahhhs. In most situations this is a typical greeting. I’m sure you can imagine how long it takes me to walk a kilometer down the road when I pass about ten people. When I’m trying to impress taxis drivers with my Luganda, usually to get a better price, I end up using all of my Luganda by asking stupid questions like, “What do you like to do in your free time? Are you married? Do you have children? What do you most like to eat? Where do you live? I of course give my whole spiel about how I am from America, I am a volunteer with the American Peace Corps and I live at the primary school. I studied Luganda in Wakiso, but I only know a little. I will live in Masaka for two years, but I have a mom and dad in America. They have two cows and a dog. I also have two sisters. I know how to drive a car, but I fear driving in Uganda because many drivers drive crazy. I was a teacher in America and I like to teach geography. I usually throw in a few other random things that I know how to say, like that they drive well even though I am usually scared for my life or that I like to eat chapati. I’m sure they go home to their families and talk about what a weirdo I am, but I am usually proud of my lack of important Luganda phrases.
A new group of volunteers arrive in Uganda every six months. When one group is swearing in, another group is returning back to the states. I have been talking with volunteers that are on their way back to the states and it is quite comical to hear them talk about their fears of returning home. One girl said that she fears that people will just think she is plain retarded. It’s not saying that Ugandans and their mannerisms that we have picked up on are retarded, but when you put them in the American setting I can see how one would feel that way. This same volunteer asked me my name the other day and I said A-U-T-U-M-N being sure to enunciate every single syllable. When I finished I realized, wait this is not a difficult name for her. We laughed for a bit because she understands why I did it, but when I return to the states people would probably be offended and think I thought they were slow. When you go to a restaurant here in Uganda you may be handed a menu, but there is no point in looking at it because it is unlikely that they will have 90% of the items on the menu. Instead you ask, “What do you have?” Another volunteer was talking about going to an Applebees and after looking at a menu asking, “But what do you REALLY have?” Due to the lack of electricity it is at times difficult to find cold drinks. When ordering a drink it would not be rude to ask to feel them all to find one that is actually cold and then it is also appropriate to ask any drink to be returned if it was not opened while you were looking. As an American, what would you think if you saw someone requesting to feel all the bottles at the bar before buying and then refusing to drink it because it was not opened in their site. I will probably be very touchy when I get back. It is not odd to touch someone on the arm or the back while speaking with them, even if you just met. If I were to get on a bus that contained only one other passenger, I would probably sit right next to him and talk the entire time. Women and children kneel as a sign of respect. Upon first coming here I figured I would do it, but then I could never figure out when and who to kneel and it also seemed a bit tedious to always be kneeling, so I have chosen to refrain. Yesterday, I had a 80 year old woman kneeling for me on the side of a dirt road and I felt like a complete jerk. An 80 year old women kneeling down to me; I should have been kneeling down for her. Maybe I’ll start kneeling and bring that back to the states with me as well.
Before coming to Uganda I figured any job interview would be a breeze upon my return to the states. Such questions as “Tell me how you would handle a class of thirty-two children” could easily be answered with “Let me tell you about the time I taught a class of a 132 children.” “Tell me about a time you worked with someone different than yourself,” would sound something like “Well let me tell you about the time I lived in Uganda for two years.” Easy as pie. Now I’m starting to think differently. I’m going to go into an interview speaking Uganglish, being all touchy feely, kneeling for them, and asking completely inappropriate questions about their personal life and telling them that my parents have two cows and a dog. Overall, I cannot wait for you all to see how weird I have become; it is awesome.
Other random stories and thoughts completely unrelated to the above:
The other day I was on the way to my latrine and saw thousands of termites swarming out of their termite hill. A child noticed the termites and I would have thought he just saw Santa Claus. He came running full speed yelling for his friends with pure excitement. I went to the bathroom and when I came out there were ten children catching the termites and eating them. One child had so many stuffed in his mouth they were pouring out and he was laughing hysterically; just as a child in America would stuff his mouth with cake and laugh. I was talking to my mom about things we could do if they came to visit and I was saying how it is possible to not really do anything and yet be constantly entertained when you are experiencing another culture. This was a perfect example of a time was throughly entertained while doing nothing more than walking to and from the latrine.
I got an e-mail last week asking me, “Besides the obvious friends and family, what do you miss the most about home.” I think I said something about Penny’s Noodle Shop’s pad thai and Cubs games. But I think that what I actually miss the most is late sunsets in the summertime. There is nothing better than the day you realize it is nine p.m. and just getting dark. Here is gets dark at seven and it makes it feel more like winter despite the 75 degree weather. It is also a huge bummer when you have no electricity and when darkness brings out the bats.
The other night I stayed the night at Amber’s because I was going to pick up my new purple ten speed bike, an almost replica of the one I had in fifth grade. I have what I refer to as “my” room at Amber’s place and she had sent me a text a week before informing that she had just stepped on a huge rat, but trapped it in my room. A few days later she had opened the windows in the room and looked everywhere for him the following day with no luck of finding him; we obviously assumed he had made his exit through the window. So I was getting ready for bed, removing her backpack and such off the bed, trying not to step in rat poop. This has seemed to become my life, always dodging poop of some sort. At home stay it was that of a child’s, at my home it is of a bat, and now at Amber’s it belongs to a rat. Anyway, I turn around to walk out of the room when I just about stepped on the rat. Luckily, he was dead and I was able to just sweep him on outside; apparently Amber had starved him to death. I felt a little bad about his long death, but at the same time I am over finding rodents or bats dead or alive indoors.
And lastly, my Ugandan friend Carol’s grandma passed away on Monday night and they were having her burial on Tuesday. A man on a bicycle with a megaphone rode around the village announcing her death and the time of the burial. I decided that I should probably look “smart,” as they call it, and wear my floral Goodwill dress that I cut the shoulder pads out of along with my K-mart dress shoes. It was quite the outfit, but just as I thought, I was complimented on how smart I was. Usually the African’s opinion of what is smart is what an American would consider tacky. But whatever, if I can be smart for under ten dollars, I’ll do it. Anyway, We first went to the grandmother’s house and sat with the rest of the village in the front yard while the daughters and sons were inside with the body wailing. About an hour later they came out of the house and the village chairman and some other men wrapped the body in a cloth used for burial and placed the body in the casket. Once they brought the body out of the house they sang a few songs and a man talked a bit about her, or at least that is what I think he was saying. I did hear that she was eighty-nine years old, which is extremely old for a developing country. They then took the body to the burial site in which they lowered the body into the grave while singing another song and people through dirt on the grave. It was odd because despite the fact that Carol was the granddaughter, we sat in the back behind a tree and she did not even seen upset. I’m sure she was, but she talked with me about random things most of the time and during the burial she decided we should start walking home. I think I was more upset than she was because it got me thinking about my own grandfather’s death, but I guess different cultures have a different way of responding to tragedies.
Once again, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedules to take an interest in my life! I hope all is happy and well!
Peace and love,
Nalubega Autumn
p.s. If you have not yet done so, please pick up a David Sedaris book. I just got done reading “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and laughed out loud multiple times.
p.s.s. I promise I will have a new address soon. I need a letter from a woman, who is on holiday, before I am able to open a P.O. Box!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Muli mutya! I hope this message finds you all happy and well!
More often than not, time in Africa seems to be almost nonexistent. If someone tells you you are leaving at three, it is more likely you will leave two to three hours after that time. One day I was told that someone would come take care of my bat situation on Tuesday morning, but actually did not show up until Wednesday afternoon. Ugandans even have a different way of measuring time which I still have a hard time of grasping. According to Ugandans the day starts at seven a.m. and they call this the first hour, or 1 o’clock. Seven p.m. would be 12 o’clock. I guess it makes some sense considering the sun rises around seven a.m. and sets at seven p.m Upon first arriving at the college we had a meeting with our colleagues in which we were told would start at ten. After three hours of waiting around, the meeting finally began at one. What I found the most odd was the fact that despite the fact that everything from actual work to the format of the meeting’s schedule was discussed, never once was it mentioned that the meeting started three hours late and that all but Amber and I were excessively late. While I was sitting waiting for the meeting to begin I was being my typical American self thinking about all of the things I could have done with those three lost hours. While living with my home stay family I used to find myself annoyed when I woke up to a rainy day because I knew I was going to have to once again convince my family that despite the rain, I still had to go to school. It is a rare occasion to see Ugandans traveling in the rain. When I would have to once again justify my moving in the rain, I would think to myself that if more Ugandans would just go to work during the rain the country may be a bit more developed. I know that it was rather judgmental, but when in America could you tell your boss “Sorry I didn’t come to work and I missed a major meeting, but it was raining?” They would tell you, “Don’t you know time is money?” Last weekend on the way to Celeste’s Amber and I learned a major lesson on why Ugandans do not travel in the rain. Amber and I had plans to leave at 9:30 and even though it was raining, we had plans that we were not about to let a little rain delay. We started walking down the road looking for a taxi, but we were the only people on the road. Of course the road is made of dirt and is composed of incredibly steep hills. Twenty minutes into our walk I am drenched and our shoes are so covered in mud we cannot move our feet. Anytime we were able to move, we would take one step forwards and slide at least to steps back down the hill. We took off our shoes which made the going a bit easier, but still no taxi in site. Of course, there are plenty of Ugandans standing on their porches stating the obvious, that it is raining. A hour, maybe even two, later the rain stops and out come the taxis immediately. If we would have just waited like the Ugandans, we probably would have reached our destination at the same time, but a lot drier and cleaner. For the rest of the day Ugandans continued to state the obvious by saying, “Muzungu, you are dirty.” When roads are made of dirt, it is wise to remain in doors; lesson learned. While that only helps me understand the lack of punctuality while it is raining and not the lack of punctuality in general, it is a start.
Our trip to Entebbe to visit Celeste was fabulous. Celeste lives in a convent with seven or so other nuns on Lake Victoria. The nuns are probably the funniest nuns I have ever met. Okay, so they are probably the only nuns I have ever known, but none the less they are hysterical. Sister Valentine loved her Smirnoff Ices and upon our arrival gifted the five of us with thirty beers and a 2L of Fanta. She told me that Fanta was an acronym for “foolish Africans never take alcohol.” I found that a) hysterical and b) odd considering that many Africans love to drink, maybe even a bit too much. Celeste’s home has tiled floors, a shower, refrigerator, and wireless internet. While it is not was she had envisioned as being her Peace Corps experience, we convinced her that she still has many hardships such as: sometimes the internet doesn’t work very well, there are ants in her bathroom, and sometimes it is too misty to see the lake from her bedroom window in the morning. But in all honesty, she lives in Uganda and there will be extreme difficulties she will deal with despite how posh her living arrangements are. On Saturday Celeste took us to get real lattes and cappuccino at a coffee shop. While this may not sound like a big deal to you at home, imagine only drinking instant coffee for the past two months. After the coffee house we went to beautiful hotel to swim, have a drink, and eat pizza. Luckily, I learned my lesson the last time we went to the pool in Wakiso and did not end up with blistering skin. Ashley, I know what you’re thinking, but I did wear tons of sun screen; it was faulty and I have new that actually works.
In other news, I caught another bat today. I saw him hanging from my suitcase and was appalled considering I had been digging through the suitcase all morning and could not believe neither one of us seemed to notice the other. I got my bat catching box out (the box my charcoal iron came in. That’s right, I iron my clothes with an iron I fill with charcoal) and got up enough nerve to catch him, it was only after I set him free outside that I realized he was not going anywhere to fast. I gave him a little nudge and that is when I realized that the poison must have gotten to him. For a second I started to feel bad, but then I just made breakfast and enjoyed my bat free house. Okay, so it is not free of bats, but at least I am one down.
Anyway, as always I hope everything is happy, warm, and sunny on your side of the world! : ) I miss you and love you!
Peace and love,
Autumn
p.s. Thank you for taking the time out of your days to read about my little life here in Uganda!
More often than not, time in Africa seems to be almost nonexistent. If someone tells you you are leaving at three, it is more likely you will leave two to three hours after that time. One day I was told that someone would come take care of my bat situation on Tuesday morning, but actually did not show up until Wednesday afternoon. Ugandans even have a different way of measuring time which I still have a hard time of grasping. According to Ugandans the day starts at seven a.m. and they call this the first hour, or 1 o’clock. Seven p.m. would be 12 o’clock. I guess it makes some sense considering the sun rises around seven a.m. and sets at seven p.m Upon first arriving at the college we had a meeting with our colleagues in which we were told would start at ten. After three hours of waiting around, the meeting finally began at one. What I found the most odd was the fact that despite the fact that everything from actual work to the format of the meeting’s schedule was discussed, never once was it mentioned that the meeting started three hours late and that all but Amber and I were excessively late. While I was sitting waiting for the meeting to begin I was being my typical American self thinking about all of the things I could have done with those three lost hours. While living with my home stay family I used to find myself annoyed when I woke up to a rainy day because I knew I was going to have to once again convince my family that despite the rain, I still had to go to school. It is a rare occasion to see Ugandans traveling in the rain. When I would have to once again justify my moving in the rain, I would think to myself that if more Ugandans would just go to work during the rain the country may be a bit more developed. I know that it was rather judgmental, but when in America could you tell your boss “Sorry I didn’t come to work and I missed a major meeting, but it was raining?” They would tell you, “Don’t you know time is money?” Last weekend on the way to Celeste’s Amber and I learned a major lesson on why Ugandans do not travel in the rain. Amber and I had plans to leave at 9:30 and even though it was raining, we had plans that we were not about to let a little rain delay. We started walking down the road looking for a taxi, but we were the only people on the road. Of course the road is made of dirt and is composed of incredibly steep hills. Twenty minutes into our walk I am drenched and our shoes are so covered in mud we cannot move our feet. Anytime we were able to move, we would take one step forwards and slide at least to steps back down the hill. We took off our shoes which made the going a bit easier, but still no taxi in site. Of course, there are plenty of Ugandans standing on their porches stating the obvious, that it is raining. A hour, maybe even two, later the rain stops and out come the taxis immediately. If we would have just waited like the Ugandans, we probably would have reached our destination at the same time, but a lot drier and cleaner. For the rest of the day Ugandans continued to state the obvious by saying, “Muzungu, you are dirty.” When roads are made of dirt, it is wise to remain in doors; lesson learned. While that only helps me understand the lack of punctuality while it is raining and not the lack of punctuality in general, it is a start.
Our trip to Entebbe to visit Celeste was fabulous. Celeste lives in a convent with seven or so other nuns on Lake Victoria. The nuns are probably the funniest nuns I have ever met. Okay, so they are probably the only nuns I have ever known, but none the less they are hysterical. Sister Valentine loved her Smirnoff Ices and upon our arrival gifted the five of us with thirty beers and a 2L of Fanta. She told me that Fanta was an acronym for “foolish Africans never take alcohol.” I found that a) hysterical and b) odd considering that many Africans love to drink, maybe even a bit too much. Celeste’s home has tiled floors, a shower, refrigerator, and wireless internet. While it is not was she had envisioned as being her Peace Corps experience, we convinced her that she still has many hardships such as: sometimes the internet doesn’t work very well, there are ants in her bathroom, and sometimes it is too misty to see the lake from her bedroom window in the morning. But in all honesty, she lives in Uganda and there will be extreme difficulties she will deal with despite how posh her living arrangements are. On Saturday Celeste took us to get real lattes and cappuccino at a coffee shop. While this may not sound like a big deal to you at home, imagine only drinking instant coffee for the past two months. After the coffee house we went to beautiful hotel to swim, have a drink, and eat pizza. Luckily, I learned my lesson the last time we went to the pool in Wakiso and did not end up with blistering skin. Ashley, I know what you’re thinking, but I did wear tons of sun screen; it was faulty and I have new that actually works.
In other news, I caught another bat today. I saw him hanging from my suitcase and was appalled considering I had been digging through the suitcase all morning and could not believe neither one of us seemed to notice the other. I got my bat catching box out (the box my charcoal iron came in. That’s right, I iron my clothes with an iron I fill with charcoal) and got up enough nerve to catch him, it was only after I set him free outside that I realized he was not going anywhere to fast. I gave him a little nudge and that is when I realized that the poison must have gotten to him. For a second I started to feel bad, but then I just made breakfast and enjoyed my bat free house. Okay, so it is not free of bats, but at least I am one down.
Anyway, as always I hope everything is happy, warm, and sunny on your side of the world! : ) I miss you and love you!
Peace and love,
Autumn
p.s. Thank you for taking the time out of your days to read about my little life here in Uganda!
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