Runing out of internet time.... but MAIL!!!!

Ok, so I am running out of time here at the internet cafe and a few of the PCTs and I have to get back to Luweero tonight. Today we got to leave our training site and go to the capital for a 'Survival Kampala Tour.' Basically, we were shown what road the Peace Corps office is, where the major intersections are here, where some markets are, the post office, a few internet cafes, and a couple more modern and international restuarants ( I finally got to eat cheese and a hamburger!).

Anyways, I wanted to thank all of you who have have sent me letters! Since I can check my email every like month or two when I get to a large town and receiving letters is AWESOME, I wanted to request the super ancient snail mail system. My mom has sent some aerogrammes that are super cheap and get here pretty quick, like 2 weeks or so. Again, my address for the next month during training is:

Allison Muehe
C/O Peace Corps
PO Box 29348
Kampala, Uganda

Also, if you write to me I will DEFINATELY write to you back. Once I find out where my site will be and where I will be after training I will let you know what my address is because at your site you rent a PO Box at the nearest post office.

Ok, well I guess I will have to type things on my laptop and try to transfer things over later or work something out... til later!

Banana Village

As I had mentioned before, the first week here the PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) spent at a place called Banana Village. It is a resort in terms of Uganda (don't think club med, but it was very quaint and cute). I think it was a great transition week to start getting used to not having the American amenities we are used to. When I say amenities I do not mean terry cloth robes, mints on pillows, etc. I mean we got used to being cautious with water and not drinking unless boiled, electricity only every few days for a couple hours, having a quick and cold shower and things like that. The rooms we stayed in were pretty fun, it was almost like summer camp. The
'living huts' were concrete circles with concrete floor and a thatch roof that was split into two by a concrete wall, so two rooms per hut and there were 3 PCTs to a room. We got our first taste of Ugandan food, which I will make a whole posting about the food here, haha. So the week was fun, we got short but intense language, culture, and medical sessions from 8 am to 5pm. I know I know, I had to get up at 7am, it was rough for me, but I have actually risen before 7 or 8 am every day here. I also self appointed myself athletic director and organized sports after our sessions, like soccer, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, and 4 square (yes, 4 square, haha). There aren't really fields here in the sense that we are used to, if there is a relatively flat area of grass that is cut it's not exactly smooth, but we made do with this area with no trees inside Banana Village. So overall, by the time we left banana village the PCTs have gotten much closer and we spent the last day at the Entebbe Botanical Gardens for a picnic with the PC staff. The picnic was awesome, I had such a great time. The garden was beautiful, I got to swing on a vine and feed these little monkeys peanuts (I have pictures). I also juggled a soccer ball with some people and had a great meal that probably be the closest resemblance to a BBQ I will get. The day after the picnic we left for Luweero to officially start our training.

Sorry About Quick Posting...

Hey! First, I wanted to say I'm sorry about the incredibly short blog that I posted before. There has been so much going on and I feel like I have little to no time to tell all of you about it. Also, I am at an internet cafe where the speed is worse than dial up and I have to pay per minute so I will try to type up postings on my laptop and then transfer them to an internet cafe computer. However, every computer I have seen in Uganda has been from the 90s and has no USB port, at least not in the front, but there is a disk drive, haha. Anyways, I will make do.