3 weeks down!

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I’m not very good at this- pretty far behind, actually. I was taking a stats class, but finally finished it so hopefully I should be able to be in touch more now!


For those who don’t feel like reading this whole thing, here are the highlights.
*In one day, I
--Found out my bed had bedbugs
--Got pooped on by a fly (didn’t know that was possible)
--Found a dead spider on my pillow (like a big daddy long legs, guess I had cuddled too hard with him last night)*Big Beyond got an application for a person to be a “garden”
*I ate “poo beans” out of warn dishes washed with dirt
*Got relentlessly laughed at when I attempted to hoe potatoes and grind millet and told that I’d never get a husband in Uganda


Yep, it’s been great fun here so far!! I’ve been writing little bits at a time over the past weeks so here they are….

Sunday, 1/20, was an amazing day. Henish, Pip, Cat and I went to go see a group of orphans dance. It was impressive and hilarious. There opening song was in English and went something like, “Excuse me, dear visitors, PAY ATTENTION” over and over. It was very sweet and well intentioned. Then, one of my favorite babies, Amin, came and sat on my lap. He is the most precious, chubby, dirty little guy ever. He stayed there through the whole performance, which included many more traditional dances. The performance ended with another song in English, “Goodbye dear visitors, we’ll think of you, whenever we are struggling to say goodbye!” I’m trying to include a video clip- hope it works! We were then ushered into an office, where we were treated to a lunch of something like 10 different types of fruit (egg fruit, passion fruit, apples, oranges, watermelon, kumquats, mangos, etc.), and beer! Fruit and beer Sunday afternoon lunch. Can’t get much better than that! There was another adorable baby eating watermelon at the entrance, and I can’t stop myself from just snapping away, so there’s a picture of him as well.

The combination of the fact that the lunch wasn’t extremely substantial and the beers were very large helped me to go along with and actually enjoy the next part of our afternoon- hopping across the street to the local pub and watching a soccer game on a probably 13 x 13 inch TV with 40 other Ugandan men. Pip and I befriended a little girl named Jenny, whose older sister was more interested in the men. We hung out with her in the back, and it was a lot of fun. Definitely a once in a lifetime experience. I’m surprised how comfortable I feel here! Pip had to leave a bit early so while the other volunteer watched soccer I hung out alone with one of the local guys I’ve become friends with. Peed outside behind a shack. Ya know, the usual.

1/23/12

What else I’ve been up to.

Today, I went to another meeting with a stretcher group’s health committee. I’ve had several of these already. Stretcher groups are community organizations that people belong to. The name comes from the fact that when a person belonging to one of these organizations is sick, they come together andliterally carry the person toa clinic orhospitalon a stretcher. At monthly meeting the groups talk about the community (like families who aren’t doing well), and education is done. The health committees monitor compliance to requirements of having a latrine or a drying rack for their dishes.

Ispent the rest of the morning and afternoon interviewing women about nutrition, family planning, washing hands, boiling water, etc, to assess the true needs of the community. I’m going to have a pow-wow in the morning about the projects I will be implementing! I’m starting to get more involved here. It’s taking patience, but I’m learning a lot and look forward to helping these awesome people!

1/30/12

I’m missing home. Read notes from my book though and watched some HIMYM and I forgot I was here for a second. I miss things being convenient. And eating cheese and dessert. We got a refrigerator but it’s not working yet so our diet is very limited. Lots of potatoes. Dinner tonight was sweet potatoes (which are white so not like the ones at home), cucumbers in g-nut sauce (ground nuts, which are the same as peanuts) that tasted like potatoes and had the same texture, mashed plaintains (similar to mashed potatoes), and lemon cake which was really bread. So, needless to say I am fully loaded up on carbs. Tonight was particularly weird though, normally we have beans and potatoes, bean burgers, vegetables and potatoes, etc. So actually fairly good tasting food but it’s just very similar every night. Very similar breakfasts too- eggs, bread, or “pancakes” which taste good but are not like ours and I don’t know how to describe. Doesn’t matter, I’m in Africa and I get good, hot meals all the time. I wouldn’t mind jetting home though, eating a ton of food, and coming back. Special shout out to Anne and Kyle though for sending me here with chocolate because it’s made me happy on many occasions.

I have more direction with what I’m doing here. We’ve identified areas of need for education throughout the community like a lack of a balanced diet. The people here grow tons of carbs: irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, sorghum, millet, etc., and therefore that is primarily what they eat. When they go to buy more food though they buy more carbs: maize flower for bread, posho, and rice. Many do not know the importance of eating vegetables and fruits, and they cannot afford meat, eggs, or dairy. Researching is very interesting, but since I’ve never done it before it’s a bit hard to know how many people I need to talk to or what else I should be looking into. I feel like it should come naturally and somehow I should just know what to do, so I’ve been getting somewhat frustrated. I just need to keep on reminding myself that I’m doing my best and that’s all I can do! It’s also very hard to adjust to not having a real schedule. You have to be very self-motivated here to get anything done!

1/31/13



I spent the day today with a very poor family in order to fully understand what a day is like in the life of the women here, so that I can better understand why they cook what they do and their time constraints. To get to the small mud home, my interpreter and I climbed through the hills on narrow and steep mud paths. I used to think that I’m young and can handle most physical activities, but all that climbing is hard! It’s exhausting enough to be climbing up and down, but trying not to fall off the cliffs adds a new dimension to the challenge.



There was a silverback gorilla at their house this morning, who had taken a stroll out of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest today to eat their bananas. They chased it back into the forest before I got there unfortunately, but the husband is a volunteer for the park and tracks the gorillas, so I got to learn about what he does, which includes recording if the gorillas are sick and collecting vials of their poop. He then records if it is mucous-y or bloody, etc. He showed us where he makes charcoal and to get there we walked down another long, narrow path on the side of a hill. It takes him days to cut down roughly 5 trees, chop them up, and carry them on his head through the hills. He then burns them for 7 to make the charcoal. It is exhausting, physically intense work. He gets 100,000 shillings for his efforts, roughly $40.



*Side note: the fashion here is absolutely wonderful. The guy was wearing a detachable plastic black hood tied around his head as a hat. The clothing situation was in fact really miserable here, though. Each child was wearing their only pieces of clothing. It’s cold here because of the high altitude, and many times it’s only about 50 degrees here. On little boy had a fleece that was literally ripped into shreds. The sleeves were slit up the sides so the material just hung below his arms. On one side the rip went up to the collar so the shirt was literally hanging off of him. Another boy was wearing khaki shorts with holes on both butt cheeks so it was like a thong with a string of material between his cheeks. A third had a shirt with the back intact, but the strings of residual fabric that were once the front were tied in a knot on his belly.



Upon returning home, 6 children, the man and his wife and I shelled the beans that his wife had collected from the field this morning. The fresh beans here are beautiful, green and pink and purple zebra print. The Mrs. then boiled them with pumpkin leaves and salt for an hour. She mixed maize flower with boiled water in another pot to make “bread.” This was then glopped on the side of the metal dishes with big black spots when the design had rubbed off. The dishes had literally been washed with dirt and then rinsed with river water. The soupy bean/greens mix went into the center of the bowl, and lunch was served. It was gritty and smelled kind of like poop. It did so even more because Keith and Henish, the other volunteers, told me about their experience of being served beans that smelled like poo in Malawi the other night, and how they couldn’t eat more than a bite. I managed about 5, which was really bad because their emaciated 5 year old daughter who was smaller than their 2 year old due to sickness earlier in her life ate 20 times more than I did. Oh well. I tried. Said I was full from breakfast. I really was worried about getting sick! I spent the rest of the afternoon watching the woman weave a mat, which was to be used to place a body on when someone died. It was made from dried grass tied with strands of plastic pulled from a sac that had been torn apart for this purpose. It was really a wonderful experience. This was a non-work day, otherwise we would have been working in the fields from 9-6. Today though, the family spent time together, shelling more beans, playing “wave to the muzungu,” and laughing at/with the drunk stepbrother who showed up at three, dancing. He wanted to take me to see a waterfall, but I politely declined. We left before dinner (thank goodness) and I spent the evening talking and laughing with the rest of the volunteers/staff.



2/2/1



Today, I am spending some time figuring out my life, and it makes me miserably sad for the just turned 24 year old woman outside. She has 2 adorable sons, 1 and 4 years old. She works 12 hour days, six days a week, and therefore doesn’t get to spend much time with them. Although she makes a good wage for here, she’ll never be able to travel to another country for 4 months to discover herself. She is living a dream here. She was able to get out of the miserable endless toil of farming that her mother and mother’s mother were destined for. (I know, I went to her 80 year old grandmother’s farm, and they both laughed their butts off at my attempts to dig up potatoes and grind millet.) I am so blessed to have this opportunity, but just opportunity in general, to be what I want to be.



I’ve had a hundred thoughts that I haven’t had time to process about how life is here. I have, however, taken some time to think about my life and faith and relationships. I needed it. I’m excited to continue to grow as a person and have more amazing experiences.



We’re getting SIX more volunteers on Monday- there are currently three of us so it’ll be interesting to see what the new dynamic will be.

Love you guys! I’ll try to post more frequently so I don’t have these really long posts in the future.

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Photos

Amos
the guys pass around this hat regularly- it's 80 degrees though during this this pic and Amos has a coat and a fleece and this hat. he is amazing,

potatoes
covered by banana leaves to steam :)

Comments

[Erica]

<3
BAKAW! a little throw back! Thinking of you...as always =) Seems like you are doing well! Sorry not good at emailing! I suck at keeping up with it!