The Best Worst Weekend Ever

Greetings everyone! I hope this message finds you all happy and well! My apologies for taking so long to write, but I have been rather busy in the past couple of weeks.

Last week a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer and myself decided that we would like to go camping over the weekend. On Friday I made the six and a half hour trip out west to Fort Portal to meet him. On Saturday morning we made our way to the taxis and told them that we wanted to go to the Rwenzori Mountains. Now, most of you have probably not heard of the Rwenzori Mountains, but they are humongous. Of course the drivers tried asking where at the Rwenzoris, but we had not thought this far. One driver told us he new a place and to get in the car. Once we were in the car we waited for about an hour for him to find a spare tire, but eventually we made it to the mountains. At this point we were told that we would need a guide and porters to carry our things, but we decided that we would be able to carry our own gear and that we would only take the guide.

In all honesty, I had no idea what I was about to get myself into. We were told that it was about a two hour walk to the park boundary, with twenty some pounds on my back I knew it wouldn’t be pleasant, but I didn’t think it would be too bad. Within the first hour I thought I was going to die; this was not a walk by any means, but a serious climb. I know I am not in great shape, but I did not think I was by any means out of shape until this day. For the first hour, or so, I insisted on carrying the tent; I had my pride to keep, but after some time I realized that if I didn’t give it to Robert I probably wouldn’t be making it to the top of that mountain. It was also at this point that Patrick told us that we were going to start climbing. We just spent the last hour climbing some rather steep inclines and we were just now really start climbing? He was right. I cannot believe we were able to climb some of these inclines. We were making our way through trenches dug out by the rain. I felt like I was at fat camp or on “The Biggest Loser.” I would have to stop to rest for a bit and Robert would keep saying, “Just keep going if you stop it is going to make it harder. You can do it; we are almost there.” I don’t think I responded in anyway to Robert’s comments, but I wanted to push him off the mountain a few times. If I was able to move on without taking a break I would have. I didn’t need motivation, I needed someone to carry me. After a couple of hours we made it to the park boundary and headed farther up the mountain where it only became more steep. Most of the time I refused to look up because just when I thought we would get a break from the climbing I would find another difficult climb ahead of us and want to cry. Thanks to some blue monkeys we were able to take a bit of a break and not long after that we were finally at the top of the mountain, 2000 meters high. Eventually we did make it to the top and it was absolutely amazing. We were in a jungle on top of a mountain.

Despite how much we wanted to, it was still a bit too early for bed when we arrived so Robert and I decided to go for a walk. Patrick stayed behind supposedly to watch the tent. We came to an overgrown area and stopped only to discover what sounded like rain, but the sky was blue. I looked down at the ground and realized that the sound we were hearing was not rain, but millions of ants eating the leaves around us. I then noticed that ants were crawling all over my shoes and making their way up my pants. Now, these are not just ordinary ants. These ants bite and it does not feel good. Robert was trying to knock them off the outside of my pants while I was trying to smash the ones inside my pants. Robert of course found it amusing that I would have ants in my pants. I, on the other hand, did not find it one bit amusing. We spent a good while trying to kill the ants before I realized that some had make it all the way up the back of my shirt almost to my neck. At this point the only thing I could do was take off my shirt. Just as Robert is finishing knocking off the ants off of my back Patrick comes strolling around the corner. I am not exactly sure what he saw, but I am sure it didn’t look too good. I cannot quite figure out why the ants liked me so much more than Robert, but he seems to think it is because I had sweated out the immense amount of sugar I eat weekly.

When we began climbing the mountain we noticed that Patrick was carrying a very small bag; not even a backpack. Once we got to the top of the mountain we noticed that Patrick has stuffed a large jacket in the bag and that there definitely was not a tent, sleeping bag, or food in that bag of his. When we asked him where he was sleeping his response was, “You don’t have two tents?” I don’t know why he would have thought we would have two tents, but my tent is big enough for three so it was no problem. Now, 2000 meters up it gets rather cold so I ask Patrick if he has a sleeping bag, but of course he does not. Robert and I decided that we would share mine and give Patrick his. Now, as far as food goes, we are not sure what Patrick ate. It was suggested that we give him 10,000 shillings to buy food before we left the town, but all we saw him with was a 1,000 shilling bottle of water and a pack of cigarettes. Patrick also smelled of alcohol, so I guess we know where our money went and why he wanted to stay behind and watch the tent. The only food I brought on this trip was an apple and a box of crackers. Robert brought a smashed loaf of bread that tasted like play-dough, an avocado, peanut butter, and some jerky. So him and I took turns sharing the one spoon we had eating a spoonful of peanut butter and stuffing bread crumbs in our mouth. Needless to say, Patrick did not ask to eat any of our food. Around seven-thirty we were exhausted so the three of us and Patrick’s riffle climbed into the tent; Robert in the middle. Within five minutes Patrick was snoring quite loudly and within a half hour Patrick was practically sleeping on Robert. A few hours later and Robert and I still cannot sleep due to Patrick’s snoring. It begins to rain and of course we did not fully put the rain cover on because Patrick told us the rainy season was over so we ended up with wet and cold feet the rest of the night.

The next morning we made it back down the mountain in one piece. Robert and I figured I would fall down multiple times, but in reality, I only fell once and was while walking on flat ground after stumbling over a rock. It is a week later and I am still exhausted.

The thing that really gets me about this mountain is that Ugandans live here. They farm on the slopes. They walk up the mountain to school everyday. They fetch water from one of the two streams that flow down its sides. They carry babies tied to their backs with who knows what on the heads. They walk their cows and goats to the top to let them graze and they carry loads of bamboo down the mountain to build their homes. These do these things everyday. I cannot even imagine how strong they must be.

My counterpart arrived a couple of weeks ago and now I am incredibly busy. While it is great to be busy, I miss out on spending a great deal of time with my village which makes me sad. It also leaves me little time to do all of my chores. For the past week or two my counterpart and I have been visiting schools in our area handing out invitations to come to a workshop we will be holding next week. We have around seventy schools and hand delivering them gets a bit old real fast. We stopped at some of the schools and Fredrick would put me on the spot by telling the teachers that I wanted to talk to them, but I had no idea what I was supposed to be talking about. I would ask them questions about whether they had been trained in thematic curriculum and if it was being taught. I would ask about their lesson plans and schemes of works and most times I would get blank stares. I could be talking to ten teachers and not one would answer me; most of them would be looking at their feet. The reason for this kind of response is because they are not doing the things they should be. These teachers are always so excited to see me until they hear that I am an education inspector and from that point on I will not get a single one of them to look me in the eye. Eye contact is a hard thing to come by in Uganda and it drives me crazy at times. I was in a meeting with the head teacher of the primary school that I live and my counterpart and the head teacher spent most of the meeting playing with his radio. At times the radio was so loud that I could not hear a word that was being said. He was doing anything he could to avoid eye contact. I was completely baffled. Could you imagine a school inspector coming to visit your school and your principal was playing with a radio the entire time? However, Fredrick did not seem to mind so I guess it is nothing out of the ordinary. It is a sign of disrespect for children to look an elder in the eye so when children are greeting me they look at their feet and are so quite I can barely hear them. Coming from America we teach our children to be confident and eye contact is important. How many times have you heard your parents or teacher say, “Look at me while I am talking to you.” Luckily for me the children that have gotten to know me no longer look at their feet while talking to me. Now if only I could get the teachers to stop fearing me and start looking at me and answering my questions.

While visiting one of the schools the deputy informed me that they had computers, but that they did not have anyone to train them on how to use them. I am hoping to go next week to check out the computers and see if I could start teaching computer classes at both the primary school as well as the neighboring secondary school that is supposed to be sharing the computers. The older children have also been begging me to teach them more English and after examining their PLE (similar to the I-Step) I noticed that they are really lacking in English. I, however, have no idea how to go about teaching a language especially when I am not fluent in Luganda. However, I think I am going to start a writing club and encourage them to write in English. They know enough to get started and I can help them fill in the blanks. Eventually, I want them to write story books that can be used in the lower primary grades. If you have any ideas on how to go about teaching a foreign language please be sure to let me know! I also had the opportunity to visit a school funded by a Canadian and it was fantastic. They had a fabulous library that I am hoping to duplicate at Kiyumba. I believe I have found an organization that is willing to donate some books, but I am hoping to find more. I am just glad that I have found a library in which I can model Kiyumba’s after.


As Said By Ugandans:

Frank: “So if I go to America my skin will turn white?”
Me: “No, it doesn’t work that way.”
Frank: “But Michael Jackson turned white”

Fredrick:“I don’t want to have women working at my school because they get pregnant and become week.”

Carol: “Where did you learn to eat corn?”

Anyway, I hope this message has found you all happy and well! Happy Father’s Day dad and Happy Birthday Mom! As always, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read!

Peace and Love,

Autumn


p.s. I would love to have some Cliff bars for my next camping trip!

p.s.s. It was brought to my attention that I may have given you the wrong address. The correct one is listed on the top of my blog. There is no zip code. Thanks!

A Numerous Amount of Unrelated Stories

Muli mutya! I hope this message finds you all happy and well! I cannot believe summer is already here and I hope you are enjoying the sweet sunshine! I am jealous that many of you will be spending time on boats and in the water. There are only canoes here and if I swim in the water I will most definitely contract a parasite.

It has happened more than once during my time here in Uganda that my neighbors will spot another muzungu in the village and find me immediately. The conversation usually goes something like this, “Nalubega, there are muzungus! Come and see!” Of course I always come running because it is incredibly unusual to find muzungus in the village. Upon reflecting on this event later I usually laugh. Here we are running outside to find other white people as if we are an extinct species with only a few left in the world. I acted in the same way a few days previous when we saw some rare parrot. On this particular day I met five westerners. Three of these muzungus were from the states on a mission trip. My villagers apparently informed them that there was a born again Christian living in the village which is how they found me; which brings me to the second point. I don’t exactly know what a born again Christian is, but this country is crazy about them. I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked if I am a born again Christian. Why do I need to be born again? Can’t I just be Christian? And where did they get the idea that I was a born again Christian in the first place? Upon walking into the grocery store I have even been given a rosary. If I know anything about this country it is this, Ugandans love muzungu sightings and born again Christians.

An addition to the mission trip people: I went for a run last night and the Christians were back in the village having some sort of assembly and were just finishing up as I was running by. As they are driving by me one of them has a video camera out the window filming me. Now, I am sure it was because many children were running along side me, but come on; it is not a safari. I can think of many things I would not liked to be filmed doing and running is definitely one of them. I am sure they are going to go home and show all of their friends a video of me running and they will probably laugh at how slow I am and how much I am tripping over the uneven ground. Awesome.

Ugandans are very indirect. For example, if you have not ironed your clothes they may ask you if the power was out. What they are really asking is why have you not ironed your clothes. When I was at home stay I was washing my clothes on a Sunday and the father said, “I think you wash your clothes on Saturday.” To this day I am not sure if he literally thought I washed my clothes on Saturday or if he was indirectly telling me to wash my clothes on Saturday. Now that I am in the village my new favorite word is “somehow.” My friend Peace told me she was going to come visit me in the afternoon, but never showed up. When I saw here later I was giving her a hard time about it. The conversation that followed went like this:

Peace: “I am sorry I could not come. I was sick”
Me: “Oh, you were sick? I am sorry.”
Peace: Somehow I was sick.
Me: “You mean you were sick or you were not sick?”
Peace: “I was sick, somehow.”

What does this word somehow mean in this context? I have laughed with Peace about this a lot lately. It was Peace’s way of lying to me about being sick, but indirectly. It was used in a way that if questioned, she wasn’t really lying. I have noticed many Ugandans using this word lately and I laugh every time. I have even started using the word myself. The other day a teacher saw that I was planning to carry two jerry cans and asked me if I was stronger than him. My response was, “Somehow.”

I love big dogs and for the past few years I have really wanted to get a Great Dane. Last weekend I met a German man with a Great Dane as big as a calf and it got me thinking about what it would be like to have such a large dog in the village. First, let me explain the idea of pets here in Uganda. It is non existent. Sure, many Ugandans have dogs, but the are underfed, sleep outside, are never petted, and are used for protection and chasing monkeys out of the garden. Second, Ugandans are scared of dogs that they don’t know. Third, they have no idea how smart animals are. Lastly, all of their dogs look exactly the same; none over two feet in height and none any other color than brown. I would love to have a Great Dane here mostly for the shock factor. My dog would have a very cool African name; perhaps that of a warrior. I would walk him to the local store and people would run for their lives. When I asked my pup to sit and he did, they would be in total amazement. At night when I brought him into my house people would laugh and point. When some thug (not that there are any, but lets say there is a village thug) tries stealing from me, my dog would scare him away with one simple bark. He would probably even eat the bats. It would be fabulous all around. Well, until I was trying to feed him on a volunteers’ salary. I would probably have to ship him home to my parents who would be less than thrilled. No worries Mom and Dad, I will not own a Great Dane in the next two years, somehow.

Under most circumstances living on a Peace Corps salary is more than enough, or so I hear. However, moving in I had to buy everything I own and I quickly ran out of money. The last week in May had been incredibly rough for me in the money department. I was out of money and food, owning only a kilo of beans. However, at this point my stomach was hating me for the amount of beans I have consumed lately. So what I would do is strategically place myself in the path of anyone I saw returning from the garden carrying food. I would then greet them knowing that they were going to ask me if I could identify the food item they were carrying. It was usually an ear of corn or an avocado, but I would look at it in amazement and act like I have never seen such a thing. Because they are incredibly generous and because they want to be the one to give the muzungu their first ear of corn, they would give me some and there you have it; I am able to eat a dinner consisting of an ear of corn. I know it is wrong to deceive them in this way, but I was hungry.

One day I was looking out my front window and I saw my seven year old friend Patrick, also known as Patu, standing behind a cow. After looking around to see if anyone was watching Patrick stuck his fingers inside the cows rear-end. He then looked to see how the cow would respond. When the cow gave no reaction, he did it again! I could not believe this. I was watching a child willingly stick his fingers into a cow’s butt. All I had to do was yell “Patu” and he took off running. A few hours later I passed his house on the way to the store and his mother told me he was really sick and that it was malaria. I should have told her that it was not malaria, but it was probably from Patrick sticking his fingers in a cow’s butts. From now on there is going to be a strict hand washing policy for Patrick anytime he comes to my house. Later in the day, Patrick comes over again. If you remember from my last post, Patrick was the one wearing his sister’s skirt. However, on this trip to my house he decided to leave the skirt at home and opted for just a semi long T-shirt. I know I should love this kid less, but I just don’t.

I think I mentioned that I bought a football a while ago. I have adopted the Ugandan name for the game of soccer; the word soccer almost sounds derogatory to me anymore. Today as I was on my way out for a run the kids were playing with my football and I decided to play with them instead. I soon had a crowd watching me which included, but was not limited to, the entire village. Now, I used to play football as a small child. My team even won the city championship, but I do not think it had anything to do with my athletic abilities. In all honesty, all I remember from my football days is my coach telling my mom not to buy me shorts with pockets because I spent most of my football career with my hands in my pockets. Needless to say, my abilities have not grown exponentially over the years. However, when I was playing against the seven year olds I was winning ten to one. The older kids were intrigued that I was playing so I invited them to play. I knew what was going to happen even before I invited them to play; they showed me how the game was really played. These kids play barefoot on some of the most uneven ground I have ever seen and they are fabulous. Actually, fabulous does not even begin to describe how good they are. The thing that gets me is that they have never had a coach. They have never done drills or worked out. All of their talent comes from just playing during recess with a blow up plastic ball. Bless their hearts, they would pass it to me knowing that I would probably give it up to the other team in a couple of seconds anyway. I have about five kids that have promised to turn me into an all star football player before I move back to the states. We’ll see how that works out for me.

Without electronics and the late arrival of my counterpart I have had great deal of free time. Luckily for me, I have recently inherited a set of water color paints from a PCV about to return to the states and have picked up painting as a hobby. I am not sure which is better, my athletic abilities or my artistic abilities. I like to paint pictures and amaze small children. However, there is always one brutally honest child in the group who tells me as he sees it. “Sagala,” he says. Meaning, “I don’t like/love/want.” I just pretend there is a language barrier and go on painting gaudy things.

I feel that most people can be put in one of three categories. You are either incredibly intelligent, athletic, or artistic. During training I became aware that everyone was incredibly talented. My friends and I tried to find my talent and as it turns out I am very mediocre at everything. For weeks we tried to find my talent. At the end of training, when we still had not come up with anything, Celeste told me that I had good ideas. I think she was being sarcastic or just trying to make me feel good, but I am going to take it. I may not be able to play soccer well, paint well, or be incredibly intelligent, but darn it, I have good ideas.

I sleep under a mosquito net every night. When I first opened the package it told me that it was treated to repeal mosquitos. The other night I noticed my mosquito net was covered with mosquitos. I am not sure what exactly they treated the net with, but I have a feeling it might be sugar water. Some nights I manage to trap a mosquito inside my net. As I am sure you can imagine, this ends up a complete catastrophe. After nights like this, I wake up covered from head to toe with bites that I then continue to scratch like a three year old with the chicken pocks. Between my mosquito bites and the cuts and bruises I acquire in this country, I look like a complete disaster on a daily basis. While my mosquito net may not do much for me in the mosquito department, at least it protects me from bat poop.

My last story is not about Uganda at all, but about Holland. There is a volunteer living in Uganda from Holland and one night some PCVs and this volunteer from Holland were hanging out. A fellow PCV decided to tell this other volunteer everything he knew about Holland. Apparently, Holland has a their own Santa Claus like character, but instead of reindeer he has fifth-teen black men that carry the presents, obviously slaves. However, in recent years they have claimed that these black men were not slaves at all, but merely this Santa character’s friends. On top of this, apparently they have a parade every year with Santa and his “friends.”

As Said By Ugandans:

“Do not go to the next village, they eat people there.”

“Your father must be really rich to have three girls. My friend told me about how Americans have to pay the government money if they have more than two children”

“I am sorry your father did not have any boys.”

“I am sorry I could not come; I fell out of an avocado tree.”

"Did you see my mom? She is the one with only one eye?"

“All women have to do is give birth to children. Men do everything else.” Apparently this man has not given birth to know how much work it is nor has he noticed the amount of work woman do here which is exponentially greater than what the men do.

Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to read! If you have not done so already, please be sure to send me an e-mail letting me know what you have been up to! I miss you and think about you all often!

Peace and love,

Autumn

P.S. To add to the list of things I miss. Good flavored teas, but not fruity ones.

P.S.S. Sarah I would love to send you a packing list. Send me an e-mail at auradtke@gmail.com so I can e-mail it to you.

Holiday is O-V-E-R

I am white, okay, maybe I am more brown now as Frank pointed out to me the other day, I am now more aware of that fact than I have ever been in my entire life and I also more popular than I have ever been or ever will be again. Sometimes it saddens me to think of how unpopular I will be when I return to the states after being so popular here. I am amazed by the amount of people that I hear yelling my name no matter if I am in my village or the next. I usually have no idea who they are, but they know me. Today as I was walking to get a taxi a large truck drives by with a couple of men with a microphone and large speakers on the bed of the truck. When I heard the truck coming I knew what I was in for. As the truck was inching by I thought I was in the clear, but at the last minute the man with the microphone caught a glimpse of me and says, “Oh! Muzungu!” He then went on for a good while saying things to or about me in Luganda, I could not figure out which, all on his microphone loud enough for the entire village to know that I was nearby How often do you find yourself being humiliated by a man on the bed of truck with a microphone? There are times when I think I am going to run out of things to tell you about, but then things like this happen and I realize that I will never run out of things to laugh about here.

Lately I have noticed that some of the kids around here are just downright naughty. I have chosen to use the word naughty because they are cute kids and they always make me laugh, despite their bad behavior. To me that is what naughty is, a humorous word used to describe a bad action. Last week I was painting my front room an obnoxious color orange. I was trying to mix Tibetan Yellow and Ruby Red; at first I got magenta, but with a little more Tibetan Yellow, I ended up with what Crayola calls red orange. It is a disaster. Anyway, I left the paint on the back porch and I walked out my back door to find that someone had stuck their little paws into the paint and smeared it all over my wall. Next, I bought a football (soccer ball) for the kids to play with and they will come ask for it whenever I am home. I always leave my doors open so people know I am home if they want to visit and I just like the openness of it. The other day the boys were outside my window asking for the ball and when I went to get it for them I saw them in my house getting it for themselves. Another day I gave it to some small children and soon saw them sitting on my porch without the ball. I then realized that some older kids had stolen it from them. As I mentioned before the borehole is broken and apparently it is because children had been playing on it. Because most of these things happened in about two days, I was annoyed. I told myself, “This would never happen in the States” and clearly this is not the case, but it is a bit different here than in the states. Things happen in the states, but we ask “Where were their parents?” Here, kids are on their own. Two year olds wander across the street to my house alone, seven year olds are taking care of infants. The other day I asked a teacher what she does with her four month old baby when she teaches and she told me she leaves her at home alone. I realized she was not joking when I heard the baby crying for a half hour while she was teaching. The lack of supervision and the amount of responsibility given to these children is, at most times, frightening.

Even though I just got done talking about how these children are naughty, let me tell you about why I love them so much and how it already saddens me to think about leaving them in two years. There is a family of four children, Ivan, Angel, Patrick, and Martin and they are probably the funniest kids I know and the ones responsible for painting my back porch. Today they came over as usual, Patrick wearing a skirt and Angel wearing pants. Clearly Angel store Patrick’s pants, but Patrick couldn't care less despite how much the other seven year olds made fun of him. Although Patrick was wearing a skirt and not wearing underwear, he did not want to be left out of doing handstands and again, couldn't care less when the kids were laughing at him exposing himself. He is a complete and total ham and will dance for anyone that asks. Today when I was showing them the fighting bats on my back porch ceiling Ivan went and got a stick and tried shooing them from my house; when he didn’t succeed he decided to free my house of wasps nest in stead. When I went to fetch water today and was carrying two twenty liter jerry cans many small children would try to help me in any way their little arms could. Yesterday one of the brightest thirteen olds I have ever known came over just to sing for me and offered to help me clean my lamp. They let me play soccer with them and never laugh at me when I make a food of myself, well unless I laugh first. All the kids in my village are wonderful and fabulous and I am so lucky to have them. I think the adults think I am crazy because I play with them so often and my house constantly looks like a day care, but I do not care. Hopefully I can inspire them to play with their children as well.

The holiday is over and students returned to class on Monday and while I was excited to begin work, I am sad that all of my friends are gone. All along I knew that Carol and Kennedy would be returning to boarding school, but I did not realize what school would do to those who are not boarding students. Before holiday, children were everywhere. In the mornings the village was quiet; everyone in their gardens digging. I would sometimes see the children on their way to fetch water and they would stop and talk. In the afternoons the children lived on my porch and I would have to beg them to go home when it was time for me to lock up for the night. Now that school has began I hardly see children and I live at a school. I will see a few of them while they are on break or taking their time walking to the latrine. While the educational part of the school day ends at 3:30, students are at the school until five and at five the students scurry on home to do their chores and homework. Before school children were at my house or playing football in front of it; now it is like a ghost town and I miss my friends.

While the man I am supposed to be working with has not yet showed up, I decided to meander on over to the school the other day to look through some educational materials I had been told the school had been given by an American organization. I was incredibly happy to see that many great things were donated such as educational bingo, flash cards, story books, and dvds. However, everything was still shoved in boxes and clearly not being used. Over the next few weeks I hope to organize the materials in the resource room as well as train teachers on how they can best use the resources. I just hope that everyone is excited about these materials as I am, but I am sure they are not considering that they have had some of them for over a year and they have not been touched.

Ugandan children do not have books. Part of it is that they are expensive and I think that part of it is just not in their culture to read books for leisure. While walking past the school the other morning I noticed that the P2 teacher had not yet shown up an hour after the school day began. The class of fifteen children were sitting patiently waiting and I decided to stop in and say hello. After a bit I decided to go grab a story book I had saw in the donated materials and read it to the class. The story was decent about some angry lady bug and the kids did not understand most of what I was reading, but they loved the fact that I was reading to them and they had beautiful pictures to look at. While they may not have understood exactly what I was saying, they were sure to shout out in English objects that they were seeing in the pictures. It was fabulous and I am really hoping to influence the teachers into reading at least one story to their class a day. However, for this to work the school needs more books. I have looked into another organization that donates books and I am in the process of contacting them to see if I can get some books. My main goal is to establish a library at the school which would allow children to access books whenever they would like. One of the issues that I am having a bit of trouble with is that the books I have come across here in the resource room are culturally irrelevant to children here. For example, there was a book talking about a school day, in America, and there were very few things that correlated with a classroom here in Uganda. For example, students were riding a school bus to school and not walking miles on foot, they were feeding their classroom pet, and they were being fed lunch which is a huge issue here right now because students are not fed at school. However, there are many books that show cultural differences and others such as Chicka Chicka Boom Boom that can be used in both cultures with no problem both of which would be great. While I love having English books to get children of all ages used to seeing English words, I would also love to be able to buy Luganda language books here in country. If anyone would like to contribute in any way please be sure to let me know!

Last weekend I had my first visitor from the states! Miss Sarah Matthews, who I met in Kenya last year while she was doing research, was back in Kenya doing some follow up research and was kind enough to fly into Entebbe to visit me for the weekend! We spent the night in Entebbe and the following day at the pool and then made our way to Kampala for dancing and good food. As always in Uganda, it was an interesting evening, filled with other Muzungus from all around the world. My favorite part of the night had to have been when I noticed a very intoxicated girl on the ground clearly searching for something. I watched her search and search in between pulling her pants up and falling over. I felt bad for her and decided to ask her friend what she was so desperately trying to find in case I could be of some help. He looked at me with one of the most disgusted looks I have ever seen and said, “You’re never going to believe me if I told you; she’s looking for her teeth.” Apparently she had fake teeth and they fell out at some point in the night. For the remainder of the night she could be found on her hands and knees searching for her teeth. Part of me hopes she never found them; it just seems like bad hygiene to be putting things in your mouth that you found on the floor of a bar.

And lastly, I finally have an address! It is P.O. Box 849 Masaka, Uganda. Some tips for sending packages. Be sure to write Air Mail on everything and usually if you write educational materials or something religious on the package (Sister Autumn Radtke); things are less likely to be tampered with. My mom has also informed me that the post office has prepaid envelopes that you can shove as much as you like in and that is probably the most inexpensive way to send things. I, in advance, thank all of you who have been wanting to send things and those who will in time send things! While I do not really need anything, except for photos and music, there are of course things that would make my day. Things I miss: trail mix, Taco Bell mild sauce packets, puzzles, decent razors, chocolate covered salty things, books, and smell good things for my house. In all honesty, I would love anything you sent!

There are also many things I wish I had for the kids. Children in my village do not have toys. They make their own balls out of plastic bags, today a kid made a toy gun out of who knows what, and they pull each other around in cut up jerry cans. While a part of me loves that these children are so creative, I want them to have more. My mom had sent me a package of things to give to the children in my home stay family, but it arrived too late and now my village kids are making use of them. They love chasing bubbles, looking at postcards, playing with an etch a sketch sort of contraption, and a deck of cards. I recently inherited a small map of the United States and the World, as well as a deck of cards showing famous landmarks on one side and giving a description on the other, from a volunteer that is returning to the states. Last night I brought them both out and I would show the picture of the landmark and they would find its location on the map; they were ecstatic about it and they were learning at the same time. Oh, and I am sure they would love puzzles just as much as I do. So if you would like to donate toys, both them and I would love it!


Anyway, thank you for taking the time out to read my ramblings!

Peace and love,

Autumn

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!

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!

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!

Would You Rather....sleep with bats or coakroaches?

If we were making a list of things I dislike in this world it would be rather short, but it would most certainly include bats. Last night I spent my first night in my new home; I had been warned that there were some holes that would need to be repaired to keep the bats out, but at the time I did not think too much of it as long as I had my beloved mosquito net to keep me safe. Because it gets dark here around seven, I do not have electricity, and because it is not safe to be outside after dark I found myself going to bed around nine only to wake up two hours later to the sound of what I thought was someone trying to unlock my back door. I was so frightened I just about peed myself. Schools are on holiday so all of my neighbors have left and the closest neighbor is about two hundred yards away and I doubted they would hear my screams. I immediately went through the list of phone numbers I had recently acquired of community members. I had recently went to the police station to let them know who I was and all I found was a man out of uniform and a room all but empty except for the empty desk. I took his number and he told me to call if I need anything, but he has no car and no motorcycle. I was not sure how much of use he would have actually been. I decided that the bars on my windows, and the pad locks on the steel doors would most definitely keep me safe and that they were probably hoping that I had forgot to lock up, so I tried to get back to sleep. After while I realized that this was not at all the sound of someone trying to break in, but rather the sound of some kind of winged animal coming through the holes in the walls. While I now at least felt safe, they were incredibly loud as their wings would flap against the tin roof. I now regret only wanting a tin roof and no ceiling. Around six in the morning they finally decided that they were tired and would leave me; at least one of us would get some sleep. Once I left the safety of my net, the status of the type of animal was confirmed by the presents they left me all over my house. Luckily I just received a call from Amber informing me that her and Moses, one of the most incredible people I have ever met, will be over tomorrow afternoon with concrete and bat repellent. Just another example of how fabulous the people of Uganda and my PCV friends are!

Upon arriving at my new home yesterday I unloaded my only furniture, a twin-sized bed, a table, and chair, all borrowed from the college. I am constantly reminded of who I work for by the name imprinted on the table every time I sit down to eat a meal. I was introduced to a student from the college who lives near while on holiday; her name is Carol and is sweet as can be. In exchange for her showing me around the village I have offered to help her with her homework. Yesterday, the deputy of the primary school were I live, a man who never stops smiling and is wonderful to say the least, told me that it would be arranged for water to be brought for me. I was confused because I was told the water was near my home and figured that because I am a muzungu he too believes that I am not able to do manual labor by myself. I asked to see the water regardless and he just laughed saying that I would not want to use that water. I was fully convinced that the water would be just fine until I saw children standing in a swamp collecting water next to the broken borehole. He was right, I will not be collecting my water from the swamp. Well, unless I want to be guaranteed to contract some sort of bacterial infection during my Peace Corps years. Throughout my training we talked a lot about sustainable development and how a lot of water projects fail to be sustainable. The problem seems to come in when groups with money come in, give a community a borehole, and leave without training community members on how to maintain the borehole. Therefore, the borehole breaks and the community waits for the organization to come and make the repairs, which most likely will never happen. I asked the deputy how long the borehole has been broken and I was told three months. It is frustrating to see a community collecting unsafe water when there is a bore hole that just needs repair. However, it will give me an opportunity to work with the community and hopefully get the borehole back in working order.

After looking into the water situation I asked Carol to show me where the market was to buy some food. I was told that market day is every Monday and switches locations every other Monday. One location is near my home, the other not. Yesterday happened to be far away market day. Carol gave me the option of walking through the forest, I was told this was the short cut, so of course I choose this route. An hour later we had finally arrived at the market which was actually a clothes market and not a food market at all. However, we found some food along side the road and made our way back home just before night fall. I decided that getting food is a huge hassle and I’ll think twice before I eat out of boredom. On the plus side, the walk to market is one of the most beautiful walks I have ever taken. Once I get to know my community a bit I will take some pictures and once again attempt to post pictures. I tried posting last time, but of course the electricity went out just as I was about to finish. I want to wait to get to know my community before I bring out my camera to try to combat being labeled the rich muzungu. People see the color of our skin and automatically assume that we are rich. Yesterday I had a small child yell to me, “Hey muzungu, give me my money!” We always have to barter much more than a local and while I understand where they are coming from, it can be frustrating at times when you’re trying to fit in. Carol also told me that her dad was so proud that she was the one who gets to show me around and went on for awhile about how happy he was going to be to see her with me. Here is a man that knows nothing about me, except that the color of my skin is white and it is like I am some kind of celebrity. I asked her why he would be proud and she told me because he knew that I would teach her many things because I am very educated. While he doesn’t know exactly how educated or uneducated I am, people from the Western World are thought of as being incredibly educated. According to Carol and her father, I know just about everything there is to know. It’s interesting to see how people on the other side of the world view us Westerners. While I am happy to at least be singled out in a positive manner, I would rather not be singled out, and I most definitely wish I did not have these expectations of me. I guess I can just look at it as another teaching example; that just because we are muzungus doesn’t mean that we are any smarter than any of them. Knowing me, I am sure I will be able to prove this on a daily basis.

Because of the holiday and the fact that my counterpart has not yet moved into his new home, I have little to no work to do for the next couple of weeks other than get to know my community. My days usually consist of twenty-two children of all ages surrounding me on the porch. I’ll usually talk with them until I exhaust my Luganda which takes about twenty to thirty minutes. Then I read my book while they watch me closely in hopes they will see me do something strange. After awhile I get tired of being a freak show and decide to move inside. My movement indoors only encourages them to peer into my windows and try their hardest to coax me back outside with the ever famous word of “Muzungu.” While I enjoy their company and their beautiful faces, I hope the novelty of me will soon wear off a bit. Today I have also received an abundant amount food from neighbors. So far I have received four of both avocados and eggplants, two yams the size of my head, sugar cane, soybeans and greens galore, mangoes, passion fruits, papaya, squash, two eggs and a bunch of other things I have yet to figure out what they are. I’m just waiting for my jello mold to arrive and I’ll be set.

Anyway, I could go on forever about how amazing my community is, but I’ll stop for now. As always, I hope everything is happy and well at home!

Peace and love,

Autumn

p.s. Amber’s mom, I hope I posted this is a timely fashion! : ) Thank you for reading!

p.p.s. I just wanted to add that I just caught my very first bat. He was sitting in the corner of my room and because of the new cement installed today, he had no way out. I, of course, called my savior Moses to ask him what I should do. He of course offered to come over and take care of it or suggested that I hit it with a broom until it dies. Instead of bludgeoning it to death, I opted for capturing him in a box and setting him free outside. I’m sure I’ll have to do this everyday until he gets the point that he’s not welcome, or until Moses comes and beats him with a stick.

p.p.p.s. for those of you wanting to send things. The only things I wouldn't like to receive are sardines and cilantro. Other than that I would welcome anything! However, it is expensive to send things so keep it small! My mom said you can get a prepaid envelope and stuff it with as much as you like for 12 dollars. I would love to have any packaged foods like noodles or whatever that is small. Spices and seasonings are also always a wonderful and convenient thing to have while I'm slaving over my stove in the dark while dodging bats! :) Oh, and due to a lack of better things to do after 7 pm I would love any old book you have lying around! (That includes the last two of Twilight Aunt Di)! I will get a post box today and post the address soon! Thanks!