Acoss the Atlantic and Half a Continent

Most of you go about your daily lives... working, watching TV, going out to eat when you don't feel like cooking or better yet ordering food. I do the same except most of my time is consumed by other things. I figured I'd work out a chart so you could picture what I'm up to at the time you think about me. Keep in mind this is MY 'typical so far' M-F Ugandan schedule nobody elses. If this were Sunday it would be dominated by laundry and cooking.

Sorry the charts a bit fuzzy but I hope its readable.

I can thank spending my childhood Up North at my grandparents cabin for preparing me to wash dishes by hand and cooking on an open fire :)

I would like to take a minute and thank my good friend Betty Thompson for all the good times and good food we shared at Wildwood. She passed away last week and I have been thinking about her a lot lately. She was a co-worker of mine in Oregon and has made my summers absolutely wonderful! She was the closest thing to Betty Crocker I have ever seen with her amazing homemade cooking. Thank you Betty for all the wonderful memories I shall always carry with me and the great work you have done at Wildwood. Always kept the spirits high of everyone and gathered the group together for family dinners. I know the whole Wildwood Crew misses you very much and so do I. 

Now on a happy note again my furniture is in fact ready! I saw it myself. For the past 4 days... 'tomorrow it will finish'.... 'tomorrow it is done'.... ugh. But YAY! This could be the end of me living out of my suitcase! Whoa! I think I forgot what it must feel like not to rummage around in a giant suitcase looking for one item for 15 minutes! And tomorrow I get to plant my garden... good things are coming this way!

For your information...

I posted on facebook for people to ask me questions they would like to know about Uganda. Which throughout anytime I am in Uganda (and after) I encourage if you have a question to ask because I know at times I get distracted and am unable to put a lot of detail into my posts or even make complete sentences. So here we go...

• Do they have cold beer?
• Yes and No... depending where you are. If there is a steady source of power in a town or village some shops have refrigerators... with cold beer, soda, and Smirnoff Ice. (I have yet to find Mikes Hard Lemonade.. darn). If there is no power or the power goes out for long periods of time and a store doesn't have a backup generator then you pretend its cold.

• How do you iron your clothes without electricity?
• I don't. But if I did I would use a coal fueled iron.  (apparently mango flies, which lay eggs on wet clothes and burrow into your skin when you wear them, aren't as common in the SW because of the temperatures so I don't have to worry as much about killing the eggs by ironing all of my clothes)  

• Where do you go to plug in your electronics?
• The school has power or if I don't go to the school that day I'll either charge things at Candace's house (my closest volunteer) or go to the internet cafe my organization owns and use the internet/ charge things there.

• What do you eat?
• Whatever is in season. The PC gives us a bomb cookbook with some amazing recipes.When I don't want to follow a recipe I usually make soup, guacamole, pasta sauce, steam veggies, or cook some eggs.

• Do you miss home?
• Of course I miss home! But I have to keep thinking and knowing that what I am doing in Uganda and the lives I am changing for the better will be worth the two years I miss out on things at home. Even if I change one life. 

• Are there monkeys outside your window?
• Unfortunately no. I've been told there are no monkeys in this area... but I do get woken up by roosters and chickens every morning and I occasionally have a goat or cow visit behind my house.

• What are you learning?
• Right now I'm just learning how to survive taking it one day at a time; Preparing food for myself, making water safe to drink, washing clothes by hand, walking around town and the village, and re-adjusting to a new place. I'm understanding on a daily basis what those around me must do to prepare their daily lives. I hope soon I will be learning the local crafts, more about the school system when they are in session and absorbing whatever information I can like a sponge.

• What do you like most about Uganda?
• I absolutely love the kindness of the people and thee way they care and watch out for one another. The scenery is also amazing. Every time I'm either walking, on a bus, or in a matatu I feel like the landscape is so untouchable in its beauty. Its almost so unreal at times I feel like its the backdrop in a movie or a painting. Plus the goats, chickens, and cows wondering the streets never gets old.

• Can I com visit?
• Highly encouraged! Just save up some money first, bring a good camera, and snacks from back home :p

Side note: on my walk to town I saw a boda (motorcycle) driver with a goat on his lap... made my day :) Plus I may get to meet my future cat today! (Who are you going to bug now mice? huh? bring it.)

My House... My House

Song of the day: LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk is Playing at My House

I haven't been able to properly sit down and write a blog post. If all goes well and the power doesn't go out on me again I should be able to nail one out. Although the keyboard is quite sticky and many words may be misspelled I'll do my best to get the point(s) across.

So I've been at my site for about 3 weeks now... not including the 2 weekends I've been gone to go shopping for household goods and attend Youth Day in Kabale. I live in a 'compound' about a 1/4 mile off the main dirt road. Almost looks like a plantation in Georgie... except the long, narrow driveway is enclosed by shrubs of some kind. And you get a beautiful view of Rukungiri from the driveway which is really cool at night unless the power is out! At the end of the driveway is a house where my supervisor lives and I live behind that in a one story apartment like complex. My neighbors are the girls boarding at the school, a co-worker who spend 10+ years in the US and doesn't speak Runyankore, and the goats and chickens that enjoy hanging out on my little porch area. SO anyways... you walk in my 'house and the ceiling is about 15-18ft high! Tin roof and rustic wood logs holding the roof up just like a cabin! That's where the mice run around all day either on the tin roof itself or the rafters in my room. My house is just big/small enough for whatever I want to do. When you walk in you are in the kitchen/ living room, walk around the plywood wall and you are in my bedroom. Since the plywood only goes up about 8 feet you can play catch with someone from the bedroom and living room. Haven't done it yet but I will! Through my bedroom you open a thick metal door leading to my backyard! Don't get too excited its very small BUT I have a privacy fence and this weekend I'm working on making a fire pit that I can grill over! The backyard along with the pit latrine/ bathing room are all brand new just for me :) Plus I don't have to squat to go to the bathroom they build a cement toilet and put a seat on it! comfy actually. My Muzungu throne. The lights in my house aka one inside my house, one outside, and one in the latrine are all solar power. I have no running water other than the kids from the school who bring it to me once in a while. Every night I put out a small jerry can and in the morning I am brought hot water to bathe with from the Posho (corn meal) they cooked at school for breakfast... lunch... and dinner. That's the extent of my hot water. I could also leave my big jerry cans out and they will bring water up from the bore hole at school but its a GREAT workout when I do it myself. 20 liters each jerry can at about 40lb a each when full.

I'm a 30 minute scenic walk through Jurassic Park to downtown (I like to pretend that when the Cows roar... literally just think of what a pissed off cow may sound like, and the goats scream like little children who I think of as their victims. my imagination runs wild out here). Downtown Rukungiri is where I get all my shopping done at the market or the grocery store and get on the internet. So in a nutshell that is my house/ living area... I like it a lot! And I'm getting my furniture today! The chairs and couches at least so I can stop eating on my bed or the floor... yippy! I was only given a bed frame, two chairs, and a table that is more like a counter for cooking when I moved in.

I was walking in one of the semi-wooded fields by my house yesterday and came across two owls! Last week I was walking up to the house and saw 7 different bird species and thought to myself... where in the US would this happen so frequently! They were orange, yellow, blue, green, black, brown... all different sizes! I'm in birder heaven! And they all sounded so beautiful :)

Here are a few pictures of my place:

                                         My messy freshly painted bedroom (living out of my suitcase still)

                                           I wish this flower was edible... it looks like candy!

                                         One of the cows near the milking stalls

                   The driveway heading towards the school I work at (Miranda Memorial Primary School)

                                          My backyard while doing laundry (before fire pit installed)

Mice for sale!

Lets play a game: So I have a roommate... a couple actually, and they all just happen to be a couple inches long and A) like to stick to my walls and eat bugs or B) run around on the 'rafters' and tin roof while their poop drops all over the place. Can you guess what they are? I'll let you ponder it for a bit...

I've been busy moving in... painting over my pale yellow walls into a beautiful custom teal color that I got bored and mixed myself. I am also getting furniture custom made at one of the local carpenter shops! I have a furniture guy in town who gives me fair prices... good connection to have. I haven't been able to get a propane cylinder yet for my stove due to a shortage in town so I have been cooking on a charcoal stove (sigiri). Last night I kind of ran out of coal... so I had to scavenge for wood in order to finish boiling my drinking water! Very important! Then I almost ran out of wood cooking my dinner! Bummer. But I ate a warm meal no worries! Walked my 30 minutes to town and got some more charcoal along with a bucket to filter my water... a fresh pineapple, eggs, and g-nuts (peanuts).
My internet time is almost up but I miss you all and should be traveling to Kabale (near the boarder of Rwanda) this weekend hopefully to celebrate the youth in Uganda! Maybe I'll get to meet the president again like I did during homestay... heck yes. Shall be fun times!

I found Zucchini!

P.S. before you completely go crazy I live with mice and geckos. But funny story... all I have to do to get them to quiet down at 3am, 3:05am, 3:20am, and so on is MEOW! So I did this about... maybe 15 times last night. Lame. Someone get me a capa! (Cat)