End of Chapter 3

As I sit in my house, having had several free days for the first time in (literally) months, listening to my dinner cook in the kitchen (beans and rice! And I’m making g-nut sauce!!), I would like to update you all about the end of language training! I know it’s been a few weeks since then, but it has sure been a hectic few weeks. 

After I returned from Kampala, cleared from my malaria, it was time for my comrades to take their LPI, the Language Proficiency Interview that Peace Corps requires world-wide before Swearing In. It is about 30 minutes of talking to a native speaker in the language you learned (for me, Runyoro-Rutooro) to assess your proficiency in the language. Self-explanatory, right? Well, when I got back to language training, I did a crash course in the different tenses of kuba, to be, and then went to join my friends to study. I asked my language trainer if I could postpone my LPI since I had been in Kampala for almost a week, and he said if I was going back to Kampala I could take it, so I decided to go into Kampala for bloodwork and the LPI the next week instead of seeing if I could have the bloodwork done in the West.

We were still in the search for matching kitenge, and that brought us to our favorite tailor, Annette Akiiki, just about every day. She was so wonderful to us! She would fix our things for free, charge us almost nothing for the things we had her make, and not to mention how much we all enjoyed her company and she ours.

When I returned to Kampala the next week, I was determined to get back as soon as possible. I arrived Tuesday night just before dark, and I was at the PC office first thing in the morning I made my presence known at the medical office, informed them that if at all possible I wanted to be back at language training that night, and waited for a doctor to take my blood. They were just looking to see that my white blood cell count had come back up, hopefully to a normal level. I asked if they could rush the test results, and they told me they would see what they could do. In the meantime, I went to find my language tester, informed her I was ready whenever she was, and took my LPI. It went rather well, though with being sick for nearly half of language training so far, I did not do as well as I would have liked. There’s nothing you can do when you come down with malaria, though.  After I finished my LPI, I went to the medical office to check on my bloodwork, and it had just come back! Though my WBC levels were not back to normal, they had risen significantly enough that I was cleared to go back to language training. About 12:30 pm, I departed the office, had some quick Mexican food (seriously the best meat I’ve had in Uganda), and by 2:00 pm I was headed back!!

After less than 24 hours in Kampala, I was glad to be home. I quickly fell back into the swing of language training, visiting Akiiki, having at least ten different pieces of clothing made for us within the last week, and Amooti, who was a server at a restaurant where we went most days for lunch, and just chilling with my host siblings at home. We started to say our goodbyes about a week before we left, and it was quite hard. Although Kyenjojo was not necessarily the best of the language training towns, we had somehow made it a home.

The day before we left, we had a farewell ceremony for our host families. Though I doubt we upstaged last June’s ceremony (I mean, people got “married” during that one….), it was a sweet and formal end to our time with them. One of our group gave a speech, another read a poem, we all butchered “Until I See You Again” (Is that even what that song is called?), our families sang along. The next morning, we left town by 8:30 am as planned (!!!), and we arrived in Kampala around lunch time, ready for All Vol and Supervisors’ Workshop!

To my host family,

I know I already wrote you a sappy thank you card, but just in case you find this post, I want you (and the whole world) to know how much it meant to me that you hosted me. I know I wasn’t much help around the house due to studying and/or being sick, but you kept me VERY well fed, and I felt loved. I have enjoyed hearing from you since I left, and I do honestly plan to meet up with you all soon.

Thank you again.