Ants

Ok, I’m at war with the ants here. They are the tiny ones that show up in the gazillions. I don’t know where they come from or how they get in. Well actually I do know how they get in, the house isn’t exactly sealed well but I don’t see them coming in the conventional way like under the doors or windows but I think they bore holes through my concrete walls. These ants are ridiculous; they come in droves and will overtake anything. I have eventually come to appreciate them, to a point, because once I saw a piece of popcorn (yes, well a type of popcorn because they grow a species of corn here that has a kernel like quality that they make popcorn out of) that dropped on the floor and that night I saw ants had almost completely taken it away in a couple hours. It was amazing, so I at least I know that if any type of food or dead insect or animal is somewhere that I do not know or can reach that it will not rot or mildew because the ants will take care of it. But I hope that I will keep my house in order enough so that I will not need the ants’ help. The biggest problem I have with them is that they love to get into my food and unless I have everything in Tupperware I cannot keep them out. I even had a fully packaged block of cheese that I kept on the floor (yes, the floor because a concrete floor is surprisingly cool and I was going to cook the cheese that night) and the ants ate a hole in the plastic to get to a small section of the cheese. Again, these ants are ridiculous. When I remove all of the ants from a piece of food, like loaf of bread, I think ‘ha, I won this battle.’ Unfortunately, I have a feeling I will lose the war and just have to accept a co-habitual living situation. As long as they stay in designated areas then I can deal.

“Family Dinner”

I miss my family so much. I had a dream last night with me living at home and for some reason I had to leave and my parents and aunts and uncles at my house as well. I woke up so sad and missing my parents so much. Of course the anti-malarial medicine, mefloquine, gives you more vivid dreams so I felt this intense and awful feeling of loneliness and need to see and be around my family. Although I value my privacy and my Allie-time enormously, I suppose I have always known that I am a people person and I really need to be around people I like, love, and can relate to. Looking back in my life, once I got over the uber-loser phase of my life where I had no friends (maybe that is why I cherish my friends so much now and since that point… hmm) I loved to entertain people in both high school and college. I remember being the one who more often than not was the one who hosted parties, had people over to complete homework, or invited people to just hang out. I knew that the isolation factor would be the hardest for me to overcome here, but in the US I don’t think I really knew what is was like to feel completely alone and ostracized even though I’m surrounded by people. I’m not sure how close the nearest non-Ugandan is, but I have a feeling it’s a good 70 km (that is where Jinja is), there is no other PC volunteer within a good 100 km by taxi. Even with the language barrier I am able to become acquaintances with the teachers at the school that I live but there is no one that I can really become good friends with. First, purely because of background and experiences, I hate to admit, but some things that I feel and want to express only another American would understand. Second, because of culture most of the people my age are married and many with kids. Especially the women, they are all married with little babies and toddlers at their feet, how can I relate to that? I tell people here that I don’t want kids until my 30s if ever and they act like I said I want to chew my arm off. Honestly, I relate and get along with the men better than the women because I have more in common with them: I like to play soccer (women play netball here not soccer), I can drive a car and ride a bike, I fix things myself, I own and use tools, and I wear pants, just to name a few reasons. However, because of the culture here, it makes a girl seems dishonest or promiscuous if she is friends with too many men. Therefore the only people I can talk to is my 45 year old counterpart and her 16 year old niece. My counterpart is nice and relatively worldly because she has lived in Kampala for a long time and her niece is a sweet girl who treats me like a human and not like a white bag of money. I have already and am trying to keep a line with my counterpart because she is a coworker and I have to make sure to keep our friendship at a certain distance because it can affect our working relationship. Already she is overprotective of me and annoyingly motherly sometimes because her eldest daughter is also 23 years old. But tonight, since I was missing my family so much, I invited my counterpart and her niece over for dinner that we all cooked food for. Although I had to wait over an hour for them, we had a nice dinner at my house around my ‘dining room table’ which is just a table that is a little larger than the normal classroom table. I had set the table like I do in the US with plates, cups, silverware, bowls, and napkins and when they came in they were amazed and said, oh, we have to learn how to do this. It’s funny for me to hear this because it is just the way that my mom has taught me to set the dinner table every night. But it was nice to have my counterpart and her niece over because it was the closest to an American family dinner that I have had yet and that I miss so much. At training in Luweero we actually had something that was similar to family dinners but at the time it wasn’t such a distant memory and I didn’t think about it but now I yearn to have dinner and the stereotypical ‘family table.’ It wasn’t the same as home, but it made me a little happier here.

Goat!

I bought a pregnant goat yesterday!!! I had a little lean-to built in my ‘backyard’ make with branches and papayas shoots to protect it at night from rain and wind. People here don’t really have ‘pets’ so all of the other goats are tied up along roads and places to feed on grass during the day then taken home at night. So other than vegetable peelings, I will probably just let it feed on grass unless I think it’s getting sick. I want to treat it like a pet, like the first thing I wanted to do was touch it’s head and pet it’s back and it ran away in fear. I mean I know I’m the only white person in 100 km (literally) but can goats really tell the difference between races of people? Anyways, but it was also scared of me because there aren’t exactly animal cruelty laws here, so probably in the past when a human came towards it the purpose was for movement or beating so no wonder it’s scared of me. I’m not sure when she will give birth but I’m so excited to see a farm animal give birth—I have never seen it before! (yes yes, even though I grew up in upstate New York, I still have never seen a farm animal give birth!) I think baby goats are so cute so I’m so excited to have one as a pet. If anyone has suggestions for names I am all ears.

Things I’m Glad I Brought

There is a small group of volunteers coming to Uganda in a couple months, I’m not sure if they will search the web and find my blog, but I figured that I would make this posting just in case they came across it. Before I left I found a website of one of the other volunteers and the night before I left for staging I rearranged my suitcase to fit my large skillet.
In the airport on the way to Uganda, I had the most luggage out of all of the other volunteers, at least in my opinion. But some of the things that I brought that the other volunteers thought were odd have become incredibly useful. Most importantly, I’m very glad I have my large Teflon skillet, rubber scraper, spatula, and my two sharp knives. Yes, Uganda does have these things for sale in Kampala, but with the small amount of funds you are given and the lack of quality that you find in Ugandan products, I am so glad that I decided to bring these things. Even the men at the airport thought I was weird, but it’s paid off. The other thing I am SO glad that I brought is my laptop because I use it all the time and it’s a nice reminder of home with my music and pictures easily viewable. But I also use it for work and typing up monitoring sheets, etc. Also my digital camera is nice even though printing them is expensive. Yes, there are security worries but I have everything insured and I have writable CDs to back up my pictures and other information. I am able to power my laptop about every other day so I can use it a fair amount. Some other things that I know I have used a lot and I believe other volunteers have used is a headlamp, flashlight, radio or I Pod, flash drives, writable CDs, padlocks, leatherman, favorite books, quality maps of the world and/or US (I had mine sent to me), hotel-sized sewing kit, and quality scissors. Also, many people have their I Pods and a must is a solar charger—many also charges a phone (most people have a Motorola or a Nokia). Since power here is at best sporadic and not guaranteed in most areas, solar power is the best bet, especially considering we are on the equator. With batteries, again they have them here but they are expensive and very poor quality, I would bring rechargeable batteries because there are not proper disposal areas in this country and bring a charger for when you do have power (usually about 3 days a week if your village is equipped with electrical wires). The electrical current and outlets are like the British, so bring a American to British electrical converter. Other household items can be found in Uganda like silverware, glassware, books, and furniture. Some things that I would suggest having sent to you are good Tupperware because quality containers are not available here, some good spice mixes, like taco seasoning, the salad dressing seasonings, etc., properly packaged chocolate (the chocolate here just isn’t the same…), measuring cups and spoons, can opener. As for clothing and footware, again, there are plenty of clothes and shoes here, but they are usually not good quality, expensive, or second hand. But for work and for the culture in general, the girls need long skirts and button down shirts, men need nice pants and button down shirts. Granted it is hot here, so you may want to go against all fashion sense you have and buy short sleeved button down shirts. Again for girls, with the long skirts you can wear shirts that are not button down but they must be fairly nice or else at work you may be underdressed or not as respected. Non spaghetti strap tank tops are alright and pants/jeans are alright for when you go to Kampala or Jinja or another large city, but not so much for your village. Shorts unfortunately are not really acceptable or respected for men or women although after a while you may be able to wear them once your village is used to you, but by then you will be acclimated to the climate and won’t want/need to wear them. Lastly, the peace corps provides you with a complete med kit and a mosquito net so you don’t have to worry about bringing those. They also give you a blanket but NO sheets, you have to bring your own. The size of the sheets that you will need depends on the size of the bed that you will get, most people get a single bed but don’t bring any fitted sheets because nothing is uniform here so they may not fit. I’m not sure what else to recommend, but for those coming here, if you see this, feel free to email me or post a comment with a question!

Initial and Random School Visits

During training and twice since, I have gone to schools for no purpose than to tour the school and meet students at the request of the Head Teacher. For a while I did not understand the purpose of these visits, but the Head Teacher seemed so interested in my coming to the school that I could not refuse. When I get to the school, all of the children line up and do their daily or weekly songs for me then I answer questions about America for the children and the teachers. Between my talking we have lunch of usually matooke, rice, beef, maybe greens or cabbage, and possibly beans. This is an extravagant meal for the schools to give; the other teachers must love it because they get a real and good meal at the school. Other than answering America questions, I encourage the students to stay in school, work hard, try to have goals and a job, not get pregnant, etc. and all of the other messages that are seen on after school programs. Sometimes the children bring me a mango or a piece of corn or something small like that, but these tokens are incredibly sweet and really make me feel special.

Because of this special treatment I can’t help but feel suspicious of the intent of the Head Master, maybe it’s the New Yorker in me. I don’t understand how the sharing of my experiences and me talking about America grants me the rights to lunch and a day of no studying. However, I do remember when I was in school and having school assemblies with guest speakers or people who came to give positive messages to my classmates and I. Although I have no idea, I believe that these guest speakers were given lunch and depending on the program could have been paid to come. So I suppose it is the same thing. But I also notice that the Head Masters have always hinted at how I can get them money for some project and they direct me around the school pointing out what they have done and the tons of improvements that need to be made and the school’s lack of funds. At the same time, at least one student in every class has asked me to sponsor them and every time I speak with teachers they ask how they can get a teaching or any job in the US. I know I will have to get used to the constant requests to be taken to America and to the inquiries about jobs in the US but right now I can’t stand it—it makes me feel awkward, spoiled, almost overprotective of the US. Still not knowing how to correctly respond, I usually tell them that it’s honestly difficult to find a good job that will make over minimum wage. For teachers, since they think they can just teach in America because they teach here, I let them know that they would have to retake all of the education and college courses over again. Just hearing the requirements from friends who are teachers and the differences from state to state, I tell the teachers here that I although it differs from state to state, at least in New York they will have to get their masters and even then it doesn’t guarantee a job right away. They also want to know how much a teacher is paid. That’s not a simple answer, but considering that even the lowest salary given in the most inner city school is an enormous amount to these teachers, they don’t really care about what they have to do. But like everyone in Uganda, they don’t understand the cost of living in America and only think about how much you can earn, but not about how much they would need to spend just to survive. I think I will be alright as long as I tell the truth and be my blunt self.

Self Reflection

Last night I sat at my ‘dining room table’ cutting off the fat from a piece of uncooked beef. Alright, something that could definitely happen in Canandaigua. However, this beef wasn’t the nice slab of sirloin that is from a convenient package from Wegmans. I had to fight with the butcher in town to take pieces of meat from the dead hanging cow that did not have bone, had as little fat as possible on it, and had the least exposure to flies. So, as I sat here cutting, I came to the conclusion that even in the past 4 months or so I have experienced things that would ordinarily gross me out in the states and I would refuse to do it. Now I think, bring it on. I have seen the killing and preparations of a chicken, bought and cut meat in a barbaric and unsanitary manner, have had the worst bowel movements of my life, including already 2 instances of having to throw undies into the pit latrine because the 5 second warning that my body gave me didn’t allow me to run to the cement closet that is a bathroom because it has a rectangle in the floor. Before I arrived in Uganda I thought of myself as pretty level headed and not able to be disgusted to the point of wanting to leave—except that the thought of worms and parasites in my body made me run to the safety and security of my parents house in Canandaigua. Yeah, now I have been there and done that. I have experienced parasites (giardia), and pin worms and now think that if anything I have just strengthened my immune system. I have even seen a little boy dead on the road with entrails out because he was hit by a taxi while riding on the back of a motorcycle. At the time I was in a taxi heading home and the boy was uncovered and passed right under my window. Plenty of people were around and I was not only horrified at the site, I felt absolutely numb at the tragedy and sadness of the commonality of the death. Once I arrived home I told the teachers and my coworker of the awful site and they expressed their sadness and when they saw how affected I was they expressed concern. I told them I have never seen a dead body before that was not prepped and in a casket. They laughed at me, like what a ridiculous thing that I have never seen a dead body before. I had to explain that yes, people died in America and tragedy happened there too, but we try hard to keep the event away from the eyes of the people by at least covering the body with a blanket of some sort. So now, other than actually seeing a person or a large animal being killed, I think I have experienced everything that would disgust me or bring me to tears.
The other thing that I have learned about myself here is that apparently I am as subtle as a brick. I remember a few home friends and college friends mentioning my direct nature while laughing, so I did not think too much of it. But at the end of training we had a small and fun ceremony with awards given to all volunteers that were assigned by three of the volunteers. Well, the first award I received was the bat award because I am so blunt. The worst part is that I had no clue that it was me when the award was read. In Uganda with a culture that relies on indirect communication, I have wondered if I have offended people and wonder that even in the uber direct USA if I have insulted others. For a while I felt really awful about this, hoping that I’m on the side of the fence with tact. But, being aware of my subtle nature as long as I knowingly don’t offend anyone, I think that it is apart of who I am and I cannot and do not want to change. If anything, I think I can attribute this part of my personality to genetics passed down from my grandmother, Rita Newell, and just for that fact I do not want to lose any of my directness.

The King’s Coming

The king of the Bugunda region of Uganda, the central and largest region in Uganda, came to see Kalagala falls, which are about 5km from my house. Therefore, a fair/show was put on at the banks of the falls to welcome and commemorate the king, or kabaka, of Buganda. Even the main square of Kangulumira was decorated and the trash was attempted to be picked up. Although I didn’t hear about the King coming until this past week, I was able to clear my schedule to go to the ceremony at the fair for the King. At first I was just going to make sure that I was there and I could get a site of him. Then, a head teacher from a neighboring school, Kamuli UMEA, who is also the sub zone leader of head teachers, asked me to accompany him to help represent our region. Although I knew I was just going to be their token muzungu, white person, I said alright because I knew I should, had to, and it would enable me to have a ride to the fair. The morning of the fair the head teacher actually came early, unheard of here in Uganda. But once we got there we walked to the falls, a part that I had never been to, and of course it was beautiful. All of the sudden a huge uproar of people came running to the falls because a car full of muzungus with kayaks were coming to raft the falls. Ugandans fear the river because of generations of people being killed from the current so the idea of kayaking the Nile seems ridiculous and therefore incredibly intriguing to watch. The muzungus turned out to be not Americans but a group of random French, Austrian, and Australian volunteers who didn’t know about the king’s coming so they were completely confused by the booths and large amounts of people. After I spoke with them, let them know about the king, they decided that because of the low water level of the Nile (an environmental issue that I will have to write about later) that they would skip a part of the Nile but raft a part that was also very dangerous and in the view of all of the Ugandans attending the fair. I was asked, and therefore took, a video of these unknown visitors. After getting a seat in the audience seating next to the King, I went to find some lunch. While I was eating, which was completely odd because I had no one eating at the tables beside me, I had the four walls of the tent lined with people—all watching me eat. If that wasn’t bad enough, I missed the initial walking in and welcoming of the King because of the inadequacy of the restaurant staff—I had to send back my chicken 3 times before I was able to convince them that I did not want to eat the neck or liver of the chicken. Once I was back in my seat I didn’t get a great look at the King because we sat directly next to him. However, for a few of traditional dances and songs I was able to take some pictures and videos. The African or Ugandan wrestling was great, because the players wrestled to the sound of drums they are almost dancing, even when interlocked. They still have to throw the other person to the ground on their back but it only takes about a minute and they don’t have any of the techniques or moves that American wrestlers use. I met one of the King’s ministers and he was very nice and encouraged me to go where I want to take pictures, and another minister who didn’t like it that I had to pass her in the aisle to get out and take a picture of the performances. She has actually been the first and really only Ugandan who has taken a miscommunication and cultural misunderstanding directly from me and who has been mean to me. Almost offended at the fact that I wanted to speak in Luganda to her, she told me to speak in English and accused me of kicking her when I went past her and since I left twice she said that I did it on purpose. Well, first, I would never kick anyone and if anything, I may have brushed past her legs. Second, the first time that I left to get past her she yelled at me to go slower because I almost knocked over her bottle of coke on the ground. I apologized in Luganda and assured her that I would not hit the coke because I saw it and for her not to worry. Not only did she not move her soda, she hissed at me after the second time I left that I was not to pass there again and got all huffy. When I went to talk to her she was very offended and said, I’m a minister, you cannot just kick me. I think she should have gotten off her high horse and tried to talk reasonably with me. But it was almost like because she works in Kampala and thinks coming to these rural villages is beneath her so having a Muzungu come and talk to her in Luganda like a commoner was an insult to her. I tried to explain, in English, that this was my first ceremony and since I enjoyed the culture so much that I wanted to capture it on film. Maybe she thought I was belittling her and the Ugandan culture, but in my opinion she is trying to be so modern, wants to speak English, etc. but is she ashamed of her culture? I don’t know, either way she didn’t even want to talk to me, she literally waved me off. The lady next to her who apparently was spurred on by this minister suggested, after I apologized and explained the reasoning for the passing, that I take another chair and put it at the end of the row so that I don’t disturb anyone else. Now, I would think a minister would be able to keep a level head and try to make a cultural understanding so that a reasonable compromise could be suggested, like from the other lady. I don’t know why this lady minister upset me so much, but it ruined my day and I felt so bad and insulted I was almost in tears. Because of this I didn’t even notice that the ceremony was being wrapped up and I didn’t get a good picture of the King, all of the sudden everyone got up and left. Then, as we were leaving, a man and women fell down the bank into the river and presumably died. Ugh, what a horrible ending to a wonderful day. But I got a ride back to my house by the super nice head master and spent the evening reading a book and having down time.

Chicken With Its’ Head Cut Off

I have seriously considered becoming a vegetarian here in Uganda. In the US I thought you did not have a meal without meat, it was just a snack. The available meat in my town is goat, beef, or tilapia-dried or fresh. The goat and beef are displayed like the 1950’s butcher shops with the entire animal stripped to it’s muscle. But unlike butchers in the US with a clean, polished counter, shop, and possibly a refrigerator, these butchers sell the meat hanging outside of a wooden booth and take the meat off with a machete—not so appetizing. There is also dried or fresh tilapia that I have had bought and cooked for me at my counterpart’s house, but the amount of work it takes to take out the many bones and the indigestion I feel does not make the fish an appetizing idea to me either. Again, at my counterpart’s house I have ate goat and beef, so after it is prepared it looks and taste delicious. But the actual buying and preparing the raw meat disgusted me. The idea of chicken, my favorite meat, would actually entice me to buy a de-feathered, beheaded chicken that I would try and prepare at home, possibly because Wegmans sells whole chickens so the vision of the raw meat would not defer me from cooking it. However, chicken is not available in the center of town where everything else is sold, apparently you have to hire someone to go into the villages and outskirts to find people who breed chickens, then the person will deliver it to you. Because of the lack of abundance of chicken it is really expensive and you have to kill and prepare the bird yourself, so chicken didn’t seem like an option either.

So other than eggs, the prospect of eating meat seemed rather sporadic and sparse, which made me believe I could achieve my environmentally friendly goal of being a vegetarian. Also, other protein sources are in relative abundance here. Like there is a ground nut sauce that is derived from grinding dried peanuts to a powder, not peanut butter, that you mix with water and when you heat becomes this sauce with the consistency slightly less viscous than cream of wheat. It is a little sweet but takes good with rice or matooke, and it is a lavender color that threw me off a bit at first but now I’m used to it. There is also that nut and a soy nut that you can roast and eat, and beans and rice are a staple meal here. With these other options of protein I thought I would have no problem leaving meat behind.

Yea, right. It took me a while to get over the site of the hanging dead animal, but I have bought beef myself twice and I had the man cut off only the parts that I thought looked the least fly/insect infested and had as little bone chards embedded in it. But other than going to a big city like Jinja or Kampala to eat meat, I have only cooked meat twice in over 2 months which is ridiculous considering I ate meat twice a day in America. The big deal with meat would be my determination to eat chicken at my site. After I had two dreams a couple nights apart completely about my eating of chicken, I felt it was a sign that I needed to cook chicken. So this past week I sent someone to buy a chicken for me. They bought a rooster and a few days ago we cooked it. Obviously I could not kill nor prepare the meat. I asked a few neighbors to help and one of the school boys cut the head off. It was kind of like a train wreck, you know it will be awful, but you can’t help but look. Also, I wanted to see if the expression is true about chickens running around with their head cut off. It is!!!! For a couple minutes the bird body flaps around, jumps, and in general flips out. It amazed me. Without me there, I asked another neighbor to de-feather and remove the innards. It is a good thing too because in this culture, like many, they keep some of the organs like the heart, liver, and kidneys as delicacies. Then over a charcoal stove I used an old metal grate and grilled the chicken—it was delicious.
So there we go, as much as I tried to become vegetarian, it is just not in the cards for me. Besides, the nightly dreams of eating various meats would either torture me for desire to eat meat or I would be so disgusted by it that I would be miserable. But point blank I love meat and chicken too much to become the idyllic environmentalist. Oh willpower…