Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving! Well, "Thanksgiving." We are at the PC office today, hence all my posts. Good food, great company, and wifi! :)



In other, less thankful news, it has been incredibly difficult to get my posts up with all of these pictures, so you will probably be seeing a lot less pictures from here on out. I hate to do this, as I know pictures are a huge part of a successful blog, but I promise I will go back and add pictures when I have reliable wifi!

Cooking/Food

Today one of our lovely trainers gave us a demonstration on how to cook on a sigiri, a charcoal stove used by Ugandans. She cooked all kinds of wonderful food, which was DELICIOUS, all bought from the local market. It was almost like watching a TV show, she did so wonderfully!!

Construction in Uganda

On the way to the PTC we visited, we had to take a road that is under construction. It was even more stressful than construction is in the US. There were several times I thought we were going to get stuck, and once I even thought the bus was going to tip over. But, we got there and back safely! This road is going to provide a paved road between Entebbe and the Kampala-Jinja road which bypasses Kampala on the way to Jinja. It is a five year project, one year in, but once it's done, it will be great for Uganda.

PTC Field Trip!!

It has been such a long week of technical training. We have learned all about literacy and the basics of what our positions really mean in practice. Today we split up by Teacher Trainers and Literacy Specialists, and we took field trips to a PTC and to a primary school. Obviously I went to the PTC.

We went to one of our trainer’s sites, a PTC that was only supposed to be 45 minutes to an hour away, but because of construction, it took almost an hour and a half to get there.  (More on this in another blog post). When we got there, we watched our trainer give a lesson on Alphabetic Principle and Phonemic Awareness, which is exactly what we’ve been learning about this week. It was fabulous to be able to see him teach a lesson I’m going to have to teach in a couple of weeks. Throughout the lesson, he was also modelling the use of positive behavior systems, so he gave the class tally marks for behaving well. They were working to us doing a dance for them, something he definitely didn’t run by us beforehand. We’re all pretty laidback people, though, so when they had earned all five tallies by the end of class, we did the best rendition of the Cha Cha Slide in the history of Uganda. Unfortunately, no one recorded it.

Of course, they also danced for us, and I did get that on tape! I also took video of the activity our trainer had his students do. Hopefully I can upload it!

Well....

So, I thoroughly intended to blog tonight, but then I accidentally volunteered my computer so that we could watch a movie. I don't want to leave you all wondering, though, so.... I'm alive! For now, enjoy this picture of the cutest kitten on our compound. :)

Derp face!

Kampala

Today was…intense…and…stressful. We went on a tour of Kampala today. Thankfully, current PCVs were showing us where to go, how to navigate the safety concerns, and just there for us. I already do not like big cities, but Kampala was a whole other beast. I do not have very many pictures, as we were trying not to look like tourists to avoid being targets of crime.

The first thing we did was find where the post office is. Apparently, when the mail runs, you can take the postal bus to your closest town (city… more on this in another blog), literally riding into town with the mail. The upside of this method of travel is that it leaves at a set time and, more or less, arrives at a set time. Unfortunately, it leaves really early in the morning, and for my region, it takes ALL day instead of just most of the day.

Next, we walked down to the taxi park. To fully understand this, you first need to understand what a taxi is in Uganda. In the US, a taxi is a car or van that you and your party pay to take you to a specific place. In Uganda, this is called a private (taxi). Taxis, on the other hand, are mini-busses that go from one stage (stop) to another, in a similar-but-still-different way as busses do in big cities. Here, though, taxis can drive for hours and hours before they get to their destination, or they can just drive around the city you are in. These are the safest and most reliable form of travel for PCVs in Uganda, and so it is crucial we learn how to use them.

So back to the taxi park. Many towns have taxi parks where, literally, taxis drive to and park. So when you go to Kampala, unless you ask to be let off in a different place, you will arrive in the taxi park. This is the best way to pick up a taxi that is not just driving around the city. You can pick them up on the side of the road as well, but you are not guaranteed they will actually go as far as they say they will if you pick them up from the side of the road. In Kampala, there are actually two taxi parks because there are so many taxis going in and out of the city. Imagine a mall-sized parking lot full of taxis and people, and then add about twice the amount of people. That is a taxi park. The bus yard was similar, although there are not as many buses since they are not as common.

We walked from the post office, which is on the main drag through Kampala to the taxi parks, and we also passed through an open-air Sunday market on the way. Our first time in Kampala, and we are shoved into the most stressful part of Kampala within ten minutes of arriving. It was terrifying. It was definitely not comforting when our trainers informed us that Sunday is an exceptionally slow day, and that we could expect to see double or triple the amount of people on other days of the week. Talk about stressful.

In a taxi!

After we went through the taxi parks, we found a taxi up to one of the malls in town and stopped for lunch. We had to go through a metal detector in order to get to the mall, but other than that, it was a very western mall. The mall had wifi, and more importantly, a cell phone store! YAY I HAVE DATA!! Then we walked to a hostel in town that PCVs frequently stay at, and then to the PC office. The office is super cool, and the view was SPECTACULAR. I might even like it more than the view from the training center. Maybe not…

This is the view from the other side of the mall.
The mall is very nice, western even, but just across the street is regular old Uganda.

We got a private from the PC office to another mall in town, which is actually two malls right next to each other. We didn’t really have to go through security for these because our trainers were talking to the guards in Luganda, and they were laughing so hard that they just waved us on. (This is actually fairly common for some reason. I guess we just talk funny.) Here we go frozen yogurt, went to a legit western supermarket, and met a kid named Jerimiah.

Jerimiah’s English is fantastic. You can tell he is well educated. My first instinct when he came up was to ignore him, but one of the PCTs in our group started talking to him, and it was actually very interesting to talk to him. He is an orphan; his father died in a boda boda accident. He just finished the first level of secondary school, but he cannot afford the second level. His view on the world is very interesting. He holds the common view that everything is easy in the US, and he asked us to adopt him. We all knew from the beginning this was likely a scam, but regardless, I am glad we got to talk to Jerimiah. Although we do not know whether his story was true or not, I know there really are orphans out there who have no family to adopt them and cannot afford food, let alone school. It really makes me wonder what I can do in order to help them. When I get to my site, I will remember Jerimiah. I will see if there are orphans in my village that I can help with because it was heart wrenching to hear Jerimiah tell he his dad had died in a boda boda accident, reinforcing the statistic that ten people die on boda bodas EVERY DAY.

After this, we walked to another hostel PCVS like to stay at and caught a taxi home. Overall, it was a long, stressful day, but the second half of the day was much better than the first. 

Kampala

The highest speed limit sign I've seen so far is 70 KPH (~45 MPH).

These are boda boda drivers.
They are incredibly dangerous, and we're not allowed to ride with them!

I'M A TEACHER TRAINER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I HAVE MY SITE PLACEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Although I do not want to put specifics on here, I will be living in the West, near Fort Portal, working at a PTC!! This particular PTC has science labs that it would like to be better used, and so I am hoping to take on that challenge. It also has several primary schools which are part of an outreach program, and I am very, very excited about that. Although I was leaning toward being a Teacher Trainer, I do still really like kids, and I do want to help at the primary schools as much as I can. I’ll tell you more about it through my time working there!

Can I please just take a minute to give a shout-out to our trainers for being AWESOME?! We weren’t supposed to get out site placements until tomorrow morning, just before we go to Kampala, but they surprised us with them tonight, and they did so in an awesome way. Using our projector, we “watched some TV” all about our site placements. There was Jeopardy, Harry Potter, and SNL! Seriously, it was hilarious and amazing. The room was alive with anticipation. They finished our placements early, and they did all of this work so that we could sleep in an hour before going to Kampala.

I AM SO EXCITED THAT I AM GOING TO BE A TEACHER TRAINER NEAR FORT PORTAL!!!

Survival Skills

Today we learned some very important things. We learned how to use a pit latrine, how to take a bucket bath, how to start a sigiri (a small charcoal stove), and how to wash clothes by hand. This session could have definitely come sooner, especially considering my large pile of dirty clothes that are going to take FOREVER to do. (UPDATE: I still don’t have all of my clothes washed on the 20^th, sooo…) The processes for these things are honestly rather self-explanatory, so I’m just going to let the pictures speak for themselves!

The Long Night

I’ll admit I’m writing this quite a while after our travel days, but I want to give you all an overview of what it’s like to travel across the world.

During our last day of Staging, they addressed how early we were leaving, saying that they realized it was really early, but they just wanted to make for sure, for sure that we would make it to the airport on time. Well, we did. We got to JFK airport in NYC at 5:30 am. Our flight didn’t depart until 11:40 am, and we couldn’t even check in until 7:00 am. So the staff kindly made a line for us to stand in, and then most of us collapsed. Our Staging staff warned us that it would be a long day of travel and that we should sleep, but seriously now, who was going to sleep? Not I, not I. (Well, I had intended to take a nap, but then I had to re-re-re-pack my suitcases because I couldn’t find something I needed for session….) So we get into our line, and I eventually lay down on the ground and sleep for about half an hour. Then, just before 7:00 am, they let us start checking in. The sign said it should only take us 20 minutes to get through security, but it definitely took more like half an hour to 45 minutes. It’s definitely the longest airport security line I’ve ever had to wait through. At least this time I made it through without having to be patted down….

Once we all got to the gate, some people stayed with bags while we went to get breakfast. Then began the waiting. We probably got to the gate and settled in with breakfast about 8:00 am, so we had three hours or more before boarding. I sat on the floor with my stuff, just talking to people for a while. One person had brought a book of questions (Something I seriously wish I had!), so we did that for some time. When we boarded, I realized just how huge the plane was. My seat was a window seat next to one of the girls I had come to like (not that I dislike anyone), so I was pretty happy about my seat…until I sat down. I realized very quickly that my hips were just a tiny bit too wide for the seats. At first I tried to brush it off, but it ended up being the worst part about the flight. Regardless, I took some Dramamine, ate lunch (My first airplane food! It wasn’t bad.), and dozed off. Through the flight, I probably got 7-9 hours of sleep, off and on. I forced myself to wake up about 3 hours before landing because it was 6:00 am Uganda time. This helped my jetlag to be fairly little. Whoo!

When I forced myself awake, it was dark outside, which was pretty chill! I could see the stars, and it was so interesting. I knew we were in the air, but I felt this strange mixture of feeling both closer and no closer to the stars I was seeing. I couldn’t pick any constellations out because my window was so small, but it was great. Then the sun started coming up, and that was beautiful. I got lots and lots of great pictures of it!

We landed in Johannesburg on time, about 8:00 am local time. We had to go through passport control and another time through security, and then began our layover. The Johannesburg airport is a great airport! There are so many shops, and the prices honestly aren’t that bad. I bought souvenirs for less than $10. In JFK airport it was $30 for almost the same amount of stuff! I was worried about our layover being basically forever, but it actually was a good amount of time. I feel like if it was less we would have felt rushed, but if it was more it would have been too long. Some of us got breakfast (which consisted of a plate of “chips” and a milkshake for me), then we went shopping, and finally I was able to sit and look at my site bid before boarding. I even have some rand (South African currency) to bring home with me!

The flight to Entebbe was my favorite flight of the entire trip. It was only four hours, and they even fed us! The seats were comfortable, and I was able to sit next to a PCT and have a great conversation most of the way. We both slept a bit at the beginning of the flight, but the last 2-3 hours we talked about TV shows, social causes, and so much more.

Landing in Entebbe actually made it real that I was in a new country. Going through passport control and customs was extremely easy – They didn’t even check our WHO Yellow Cards! – and soon we were walking out of the airport to 10+ Peace Corps staff awaiting our arrival! We had our bags put in a truck to be brought to our training center and then boarded the bus. One of the staff came to get us off, though, so that we could get our arrival picture taken. One of our PCTs was in the bathroom when we took the first picture, but thankfully she ran out while we were all still in the same place, so she got into the picture!!

            

The bus ride to our training center was intense. Ugandan driving laws are…interesting…and not well enforced, though I’ll talk more in depth about that in another blog post.  The most confusing thing, though, was that I couldn’t tell when Entebbe stopped and Kampala began. There were shops lining the road the whole way into Kampala, through Kampala, and then out of Kampala to the training center. When we got here, though, they had dinner ready for us! We ate and went to bed, ready to begin the next day bright and early.