My walk to school

This morning was my last walk to school. I have generally enjoyed my walk to school in the mornings. Emily and I wake up around 6:30 and then get ready and have tea so we can leave our house at around 7. It's about a 45-50 minute walk to school and in the mornings, especially when we walk through the neighborhood, is fairly quiet and peaceful. It's also been cloudy for the whole 2 weeks, which is really nice. Walking home, it's much busier, with boda-bodas, taxi vans, and big cargo trucks driving right by us as we walk alongside the road. In the evenings, there are also many more people out at roadside stands selling food or other products. I don't enjoy our walk home as much.

Tonight, Honours College is going on a retreat to Jinja. The IMME (Missions emphasis; living off-camps with a family all semester) did their trip last weekend and I heard from Michelle that the resort is nice, with running water and a pool. We also take a boat trip out to the source of the Nile. I'm pretty excited.

I bought a UCU shirt yesterday. It's really comfortable. It's really loose, which is kind of nice because I don't really have any loose, casual t-shirts here.

Last night was my last night on my homestay. It was...good. I'm not heartbroken to be leaving my family and I'm glad to be back on campus and able to sleep in my dorm room and do homework at night, but I'll definitely miss my brothers and the kids from our neighborhood. I will definitely not miss the insistence that I eat more or that "I haven't eaten." Last night, my host mom insisted that I hadn't eaten one meal in the whole 2 weeks there. I did eat. Or at least I tried to. True, Emily tried more on many nights, but I tried to fill my stomach every night.

2 nights ago, I was not feeling well at all and my stomach had not agreed with anything I'd eaten that day. We had fish for dinner, so the only thing I ate was a forkful of rice. They couldn't understand that I wasn't hungry. They offered my coffee and tea and were wondering that I was going to bed "with an empty stomach." I told them that I had a lot of water if I wanted anything and they didn't accept that as a reasonable source of food. It's just a very different thought process. They generally eat dinner at around 9 or 10, bathe, and then go to bed. It's weird because at home we're always told to eat small portions and don't eat right before bed because the focus is on not gaining weight, but here it's good to fill your stomach because there are a lot of people living in poverty and obesity isn't really an issue.

I finished my first essay yesterday. It's 6 pages long, about 1.5 spacing, about 12 point font. However, the pages here are an inch longer, so I did have to adjust the paper size on my document, which was weird. It's for my East African History class, about stateless societies in pre-colonial Africa. I don't know if it's very good. I really only had a couple points, but I elaborated on them a lot to fill the space. And then I put in some quotes that said basically the same thing as other quotes and then explained/rephrased my quotes. I hope I do well. We only have 2 essays in the class, so each is worth about 20% of our grade. There just wasn't really a lot of information available or a lot to say on the topic.

The academic system and teaching style is also a lot different style. Uganda was colonized by the British, so a lot of things ae very similar. People have English-type accents, they use British English, a lot of students go to boarding school, they drive on the other side of the road and whatnot. Their school is set up with 7 years of primary school (P1-P7), which goes through about 6th grade. Then the students take this horrifically intense exam for admittance into secondary school. The test is basically rote memorization of everything they're learned in a bunch of different subjects over the past 7 years. Secondary school in 6 years (Senior 1-Senior 6). In the middle of this, when students are about 16, they take O-levels - to find out if they're even eligible/qualified for university. After secondary school, they take A-levels (I think), to graduate. University is generally only 3 years, but they have 3 terms each year. I'm here for the January semester, which started about 3 weeks ago and goes through April. A Master's is also 3 years (I think). Studentsin University don't have majors, they have courses. It was confusing when UCU students would ask "what course are you in?" or "what course do you offer?" because I think of a class as a course, so I'm in multiple courses. I've got it down now and I totally understand most things. Most of the time at least.

Well, I'm going to go and shower before lunch, after which I'm getting smoothies from the canteen with Emily! Then I don't know what I'm doing. I stil need to pack and then we leave at 5 tonight (it's 12:30 now). I hope you all are doing well and if you have Yahoo, I'll be on Sunday night, US time. My username is dolphinfrk2002. I also finally got 13 random pictures us on photobucket. They're not captioned or anything, but they're there. Vaya con Dios!

Pictures from Tuesday, 27-1-09

A bag of rice. They were really hard to untie, in case you were wondering.


Me sorting and rinsing beans


Sharon (in the back), Leticia and Jerry, Patricia, Jolie, and Sifa.


Leticia, Linda, Fred, Jerry, and Patricia.


Our Ugandan family. In the back are our parents, Godfrey and Faith and Joel (our cousin?). In front is Enoch (our brother), Emily, me, and David (no idea what his actual relation is, but I call him our brother).


Ugandan burritos!


Our room, my bed is the one on the left


The other half of our room. Those pots sitting on the floor, those fell at off the fridge in the middle of the night. Big fun. Also terrifying.


Emily, David, and Enoch playing cards and waiting for rice to cook. Jerry's the kid standing and watching. He tries to be in every single picture anyone ever takes.In the background in the woman who braided our mama's hair. They were out there with us the whole time. Mama made us bring the stove over right by her so she could give us instructions better.

Not exactly like I anticipated

Last night, Emily and I made dinner for our family. It was pretty fun. We decided last week to make burritos, because rice and beans are pretty easy to acquire and chapatti is tasty and easy to find also. We also got cheese, onions and peppers (which Emily sautéed), and made guacamole.
We were both done with class and lunch and such at about 2, so we left campus then. We went by our father’s workplace and our little brother was there, so he came with us. Emily had gone with a friend from UCU earlier to buy the veggies and beans from the market, so we just went to the supermarket are got rice, cheese, and spices. I also bought candy bars, which were delicious. We got the chapattis from a vendor right around the corner from our house. The first step in making Ugandan burritos is to clean the beans. We had to sort through them and pick out any grass or small rocks, then put them in water to rinse. We then had to rinse them again and then put them in a pot and over a fire to cook for a few hours. We started on the rice next: put a bag and a half (which was way too much) into a pot with a bunch of water and some oil, salt, spices, and Tabasco sauce and put it over the charcoal “stove.” The stove was like a little pot with charcoal embers. It cooked a lot slower than the actual fire with the beans. We cooked and stirred and added stuff to the rice for a while. It was cool. Our brothers laughed at us a lot. When the rice was almost done cooking, Emily went inside to chop up the veggies in peace, because we were outside cooking for most of this and our mom and our brothers kept telling us what to do and whatnot. It was good, because we didn’t really know what we were doing, but also not the most fun thing ever. When the beans were done cooking, Enoch (our brother) brought out the beans and drained the sauce out of them (their beans look similar to baked beans, but taste a lot different). When we told him not to put the sauce back after they’d cooked over the charcoal stove and we’d added some onion to them, he looked at us like we were crazy. They were a petty similar texture to refried beans, which is what we were going for. After that stuff was done, Emily sautéed the veggies, I chopped up cheese, and we made guacamole. Then we had a break, then we had our tea with dinner, since dinner was ready early and tea wasn’t ready until late (about 8:30).
I think they liked it. They all thanked us a lot and loaded up on the food, which they always do. It was a little blander than I’m used to, but the rice here is usually bland. The sauce that we drained from the beans generally has all the flavor in it. It took us a long time to make our food, but it was a good afternoon. We took a bunch of pictures, of us preparing the food and of the food at various stages, and a couple pictures of our family. It hasn’t rained since 2 nights ago, when it poured for a long time, but it’s pretty cloudy out right now. It was really sunny yesterday when we were out making food. My contacts are faring well here now, better than they do at home.
Our homestays are done after tomorrow night; Friday we come to school and bring all of our stuff with us. Then we leave at 5 to go on Honours College Retreat! We’re going to Jinja, which is an hour or so north of Kampala (it’s on maps of Uganda). It’s the source of the Nile. We’re going to be staying in a resort there, which I heard has running water and a pool, so I’m pretty excited. And because I get to dress casually. That’ll be sweet. I like skirts, but not wearing them all the time. I hope you all are doing awesome at home or wherever. I would really love to hear from you although I may be slow in replying. I’m online at least a couple times a week, but that depends on the Internet and whatnot. I am, overall, enjoying Uganda although there are definitely ups and downs. I’ll be glad when I don’t have to walk uphill 45 minutes to school every day. Vaya con Dios.

Sunshine on rainy days

It's raining today. It was raining for my whole walk from my house to school. I was glad that I had my umbrella. I don't really have anything to say right now. I have a lot of things written down to tell you all about, but now I just want to look at the rain. I'll put a few pictures up. Vaya con Dios.

My Class Schedule

Monday:
-East African History (11-1)
-Contemporary Issues Seminar (2-3)
-African Literature (3-4)
-New Testament tutorial (5-7)

Tuesday:
-East African History (8:30-9:30)
-Intro to Ugandan Politics (9:30-10:30)
-Faith and Action (11-12)
-Community Worship (12-1)

Wednesday:
-New Testament (11-1)

Thursday:
-Community Worship (12-1)
-African Literature (2-4)

Friday:
-Intro to Ugandan Politics (8:30-10:30)
-Faith and Action (11-1)

Fearless, astonished, and amazed

Our Internet at school has been really funky, on and off randomly, lately. It’s a little annoying. But other than that, I’m doing well. I like almost all of my classes, I like my family more, and my homestay roommate is pretty awesome. We got rolexes this morning (it’s like a 1-egg omelet with onion and tomato rolled up in a chipatte). It was delicious. Last night we went to a graduation party at our uncle’s house. It was crazy. There were, I think, 3 or 4 university graduates and 4 business school graduates. It was really elaborate; all the girls attending were in really nice prom-like dresses. There was a cake for each group of graduates and a formal deal for them cutting the cake. There were about 200 people there, our host father said. There was also a huge line to present gifts. One of the graudates stodd to accept them all and they were piled really high on a table. Emily and I were sitting by ourselves, with our friend Kya’s host mom and sometimes with our host father. We each got a bottle of Coke and a small piece of cake. It was a little weird sitting by ourselves at this table when everyone else was sitting in chairs facing the graduates. We were in some sort of place of honor.
After a while, we went inside James’ house and ate dinner. It was cool. We watched the end of Obama’s inauguration, basically starting when some Reverend was praying. We got to eat normal sized portions; they didn’t even force huge amounts of food on us like they do normally. After we ate, we went back outside. The kids swarmed us again and I talked to my older host brother Samuel. Then our mom dragged us into a circle and we danced in a line of the women. It was pretty sweet. We went home around 8:30 or 9 and they basically told us we could/should go to bed. So we brushed our teeth and got into bed. I journaled for a little while and then finished reading Matthew. Emily got to talk to Andrew, her boyfriend. When we went to bed, the party was still going and we could hear the music pretty clearly from our house, which is probably…4 or 6 blocks from James’ house. The streets don’t run in a grid like Phoenix and we take little shortcut paths everywhere, so I have no idea what the real distance is, but far enough that the music had to be really loud to reach us. I think it also helps that there isn’t really any other noise pollution, so the one loud thing going on could be heard for a long ways.
Some other random notes on my homestay over the past few days:
-The food here is pretty up and down. We has pineapple with one meal, which was delicious. Yesterday after we got home from school, we had samusas (no ideas how it’s actually spelled, but that’s close to how it sounds) with our tea and this morning, like I mentioned, we had rolexes. A woman in the neighborhood (Mama Eddie) gave Emily and me each a sugarcane piece on Sunday and that was interesting. You peel off the outer shell, then basically chew on the sugar cane part. You chew to squeeze out the juice and then spit out the filament part. It’s weird, but it was pretty tasty. We also had fish, which was surprisingly not horrible. A lot of the meat tends to have a lot of fat on it, so it’s not tasty. Some other foods: jackfruit (it’s really sweet and the texture is really slimy), matoke (they take unripe/green bananas and cut them out of the peel then steam it in banana leaves. Some people like it, but I do not), posho, Irish potatoes (one of my favorite foods here).
-Do you remember when you went on field trips in elementary school and any time a semi-truck passed by, everyone tried to get the driver to honk? A lot of the time walking around here, I feel like the semitruck driver. The kids all yell mzungu at as anywhere we go and they say hi or hello or how are you and they love when we wave back or say something to them.
-There are a lot of kids that I see around my house, but there are a few that are super adorable. First, the baby Eric. He’s less than a year old and he likes Emily and me. He’s adorable. Next, Leticia and Linda. They’re about 2 or 3 and they’re scared or Emily and me. They love to run up near us and say hi mzungo!, then run away when we wave or say hi to them. Third, Fred and non-Fred. There’s a little boy (3 or 4) who lives near us and he’s really cute. He doesn’t know English, but he likes to sit next to me. I like him because he’s not crazy and swarming me all the time like a lot of the other kids. It’s nice. At the graduation last night, there was a little boy who was about the same age as Fred who looked like him. He was funny too. He kept looking over at Emily and I and would dance around when he saw Emily and me dancing. Of the older kids, there’s an adorable girl named Patricia (about 7) with braids, a girl named Sifa, who’s missing her 2 front teeth, and Emmy, who has a rounder face. There’s also Faith (10 or so), who lives with us. She doesn’t know a lot of English and she’s pretty shy, but really cute also. I took my sweatshirt to the graduation party last night, but didn’t end up wearing it. At one point, I put the hood over her head and then I got dragged into dancing and she put my sweatshirt on and wore it for a little while.
-Africans identify and distinguish between people differently than we do. Our host father mentioned seeing another girl in our group and I asked something about her hair. He didn’t know, but I mentioned that she’d been wearing a green shirt and skirt and he immediately knew. I think it’s because everyone has basically the same hair color and a lot of people, especially the guys and the kids don’t really have any hair. With the kids, that can make it difficult to distinguish gender, which always makes me feel bad.
Today Emily and I are going into town with our host father to get dresses made. On Sunday, we’re going to a family reunion-type deal. It’s going to be pretty cool. Then next weekend, we’re going to Jinja, the source of the Nile! I’m excited for that one. I’m going to sign off now, or at least stop typing. Vaya con Dios.

No weapon forged against me shall remain

My first purchase here: some shell earrings.


I also bought these sandals.


Right behind my dorm is Monkey Hill. Monkeys live there.


My friend Agatha who lives across the hall. She walked up to Monkey Hill with me.


This is me, on probably the first afternoon I left my hair down for any length of time.


The sun set as we walked back down Monkey Hill.


The view from the front porch of my dorm. To the right is Winfred Brown hall, to the left is Thelma Horsey, like a lounge/hangout-type deal, and straight down is Rachel Hal, one of the boys' dorms. The other boys' dorm, Florence, is below that.


Most of the USP on-campus girls.


Caroline with her soda bottle.


Our dance party in Thelma Horsey.


I never really know what to say, what I want people to know or what I want to remember about this time later on. I feel like I'll remember a lot, but I know that I probably won't. But there's so much going on, so much going through my head, so many things that are new or changing - it would take too much space and I don't have to patience to type out everything. I do write notes in my journal of things to include, so that I remember.
One of the side effects of my malaria medicine is vivid dreams. I was hoping to not have any of the negative side effects, but I've been having weird dreams for most of the last 5 or 6 nights. I have a lot of dreams every night and they're just...weird. They're a little closer to reality than my normal dreams so it generally takes me a little while to know that it's not real. The first night I had them, I had a dream that a tidal wave hit California. There was more to it, with escaping and some guys who I don't actually know dropped some sort of explosive into the ocean to start the tidal wave, but whatever. I woke up after it and later ha another dream that the tidal wave one was actually real. It's just bizarre.
I started my homestay on Saturday morning. I'm with Emily, who's from Maryland. She lives in the girls' dorm Sabiiti. Our house parents are Faith an Godfrey Bayinde. They have 5 kids, the oldest 4 are away in universities and the youngest is a 14-year old boy named Anok. There are a unch of kids in the neighborhood though and they really like Emily and I. They enjoy trying to teach us Lugandan and laughing when we try to say things. I wrote down a bunch of words in my journal. Our house does have electricity, but not running water. For our bathroom, we have a pit latrine. It's basically a hole in the ground. It's cement that we stand on and a rectangular hole in the ground that we squat over. It's very different. For our showers, they fill up a shallow basin/tub with water and take us out to the bathing room (like a stall with no door and 3 walls that go about up to my armpits). That's different also. I'm not sure what I think about my house parents. Faith just laughs at us a lot and Godfrey is pretty intimidating. I like the kids and one of their older sons Stanley was over yesterday and we talked with him for a while. We also got to talk to their oldest, Betty. She's an engineering major, like Emily. They were pretty cool. It was good to talk to someone here who's close to our own age. I am really glad that I'm with someone. I think I would be very overwhelmed if I was alone.
Our house is a few different buildings. The toilet/bathing room is separate - not far away, but not attached to the main house. Then there's the cooking house, and attached to that is what I think is where our parents sleep. In the main house, there's a living room, a dining room, the room where 2 girls, both named Faith, sleep (I don't know exactly how they're related but they're similar to maids, but are nieces or something), and our room. Our room has 1 really bright light bulb and no windows so it's really hot, all the time. Emily and I have to have mosquito nets. They basically look like a little tent that covers about the upper 2/3 of my body and they netting that drapes over to the end of my bed. Anok and another boy named David who lives there stay in a house across the street. Across the street, there's a bunch of banana trees and some chickens who wander around and a couple of pigs in cages.
We went to church yesterday and then sat around and rested alternately (which is basically what we did on Saturday too). I learned some clapping games from some of the girls, we played a board game for a while, and jumped rope. I had my camera out at one point and they all swarmed me. I put it away pretty quickly. Overall, it wasn't a bad weekend. I'm glad I'm with Emily - she's also in a relationship, so it's good to talk to her about different things. I don't know if I would have really gotten to talk to her if we weren't together in this. Someone nearby has a little baby named Eric and he's really cute. We liked holding him, but I think at some point he peed (they don't wear diapers), so that wasn't as awesome. I liked talking to Stanley and Betty, about Uganda and university and their government. It was really interesting. I like some of the kids too. I don't really like when they all crowd around us, but there are some really cute ones. Anok and David are funny. A couple of the younger kids (like 2 or 3) are really funny. They're scared of Emily and me, so they'll come up closer and wave at us and when we wave or say hi they laugh and run away. They like if I chase them, but not if I catch one of them. I am gad to be back at school. I think I might take a nap today. We don't have supper until about 9 or 10 and Emily and I basically go straight to sleep after that. I'll be glad to see other people from USP, other people my age and whatnot. I think that's all for today. There's a lot more I want to share, but maybe another day. Vaya con Dios.

Sometimes I fall, I slip

I feel like there's so much I want to share, so much that's happened since my last blog, which was only a couple days ago. I've journalled every day so far, but this also helps me keep up with what's going on, so I'll remember later. I think I'll start with today. I had class at 8:30 (Intro to Ugandan Politics, which I am really excited for by the way), then Faith and Action (less exciting; we discussed The Poisonwood Bible). Right after class, we all got on thebus and drove about an hour out to Kampala, the capital and largest city in Uganda. We stopped first at Garden City, which is basically a mall, so that a bunch of us could exchange money (I changed $200 for $388,000; it was intense) and then get lunch. I got lasagna, which wasn't too exciting and garlic bread, which was delicious. Then we met up and broke up into groups to do a tour. The first stop my group made was the National Theatre craft fair. 3 other girls from my group were just going to stop there and look around and meet back up with everyone at the mall when we had to go. I did so also and it was really cool. There was some awesome stuff and I'm going to get people some sweet presents. I only bought one today, because it seemed like the only thing that might not be there again. I did get ideas and decide on things for a lot of people though. I wish I could tell you, but sadly they also read this probably.
After we got back, Honors College was having a party-deal. We all went to Thelma Hall and first some people gave different opening messages then each of the USP students paired with a UCU student and introduced them. We shared names, ages, and status. I was with Viola, who's a second year social work major here. She's 22 and single. When I told her I was taken, she thought I meant engaged so that's what she said when she introduced me. I had to clarify that I just meant that I'm in a relationship. Taken sounds so much better than "in a relationship." I told them that she was available. We ate and then had a dance party. It was really, really fun. I like dancing and there aren't too many occasions when there are a bunch of people all dancing a little goofy, which is basically the only time I'll dance.
Now I'm in the lobby with a giant flying cockroach. I don't like it very much. I packed for my homestay already, which I leave for tomorrow morning, so my Internet access will be fairly limited for the next 2 weeks. Right after homestays, Honors College has a weekend retreat. I'm excited for that too. I'm excited for my homestay also. I hope my family has kids. I am planning on getting online (and on Yahoo Messenger) on Monday morning, February 2nd - which will be Sunday, February 1st probably around 9 pm in Arizona. If you can get on and would like to see and/or chat with me (I have a webcam), sign on then. My Yahoo name is dolphinfrk2002.
Some other things I wanted to tell you about:
-I think our group is planning on doing a rafting trip on the Nile and a safari (separately). I'm super excited for both.
-I washed my laundry for the first time in a bucket on Thursday. I got bad rug burn-type deal on 2 of my knuckles on my right hand. It burned when I used hand sanitizer yesterday.
-I spelled it wrong earlier: mzungo (mi-zoon-goo) means white person. There's also a word for black person: mudugavu.
-At dinner on Wednesday, the power was out. Someone at a table in front of me somewhere was watching Gilmore Girls (the pilot episode) on their laptop. It made me want to watch it too.
-There's a fairly steep driveway hill into our dorm area. I've fallen on it twice so far, which stinks because it gets my clothes dirty.
-Earlier this week, I was having dinner with a couple other USPers and a couple UCU students and, somewhat randomly, one of the guys from UCU said to me "You look like you like kids." I told him that I do in fact. It was cool.
-Another afternoon, I was sitting on the porch of the other girls dorm and a couple UCU girls were watching the son of a professor. He was about 2-3 and really white, rith red hair. He was really cute and I thought it was interesting that while the two of them would sometimes mimic the sounds he made, they didn't talk baby talk to him at all. They talked to him like he was an equal, like he was their age.
-I've taken a bunch of pictures, but I don't have the patience to put them all up. It takes forever for blogspot to download pictures. Maybe another day I'll put them up on photobucket if that's faster. My photobucket account name is GingerSnap180. You can check it out. I think that's all for this evening. Email me and I may reply occasionally. Vaya con Dios!

Our Trip into Mukonotown

Mukono is the nearest town, as I probably mentioned - about a 10-minute walk from UCU. The UCU students call in Mukono Town, because tehnically the whole area around it, the school and other places not in town, are also a part of Mukono. Our whole group (39 total) did a scavenger hunt through town and bought some emergency airtime (minutes) for our phones and other necessities. I bought the airtime, some laundry detergent, and toiler paper. Africans don't really use toilet paper so us Americans who would like some have to go down to the store and buy it by the roll. We also keep it in our room and carry it back and forth to the bathroom whenever we need to use it. There also isn't any soap in any of the bathrooms, so the hand sanitizer I brought is really coming in handy. I am glad that we have real toilets in our dorm though. A few of us from Honors College walked down to the other girls' dorm, Sabiiti, to visit the 5 USP girls staying there and their bathrooms are "squatters," basically a hole in the ground with a big silver plate-type deal over it to stand on and such. I took a bunch of pictures in town, so here you go.


That's a goat. We walked by a field with a couple of them standing around, like this one, and then some baby goats started jumping out of a tree in the field. I didn't catch any of the jumping goats, but I did get this one.


Some funky purple flowers.


A few boda boda drivers. The motorcycle/bikes they drive are called bodabodas. We are strictly forbidden from riding on them. They're dangerous.


I tried to get a picture of some of the houses and buildings on the hill because it looked pretty cool, but we were walking and we were across the street and cars and such were driving by, so I don't know how it turned out.


A supermarket. I don't think it's the one we actually went to though.


A giant tree across from the supermarket that we did go to.


An advertisement for MTN, the cell phone service provider we're using. I just thought it was amusing.


The street. The white girl is Nicole, who's in our group (you can probably assume that any white people in my pictures are a part of USP). The distance she is from the truck is about how close we were to any vehicles driving on the streets, or possibly closer. Also, notice the dirt road. That's the main street through Mukonotown.

Details and such, Day 3

This is the rooster that was in our lobby yesterday morning. It crowed from about 5-6 am. Big fun, huh?

It's early Monday morning, so it's still Sunday night in AZ. I start classes today. My class schedule, that I know so far is:
Faith and Action in the Ugandan Context: Monday, 2-2:55; Friday, 8:30-10:25
African Literature: Monday, 3;3:55; Wednesday, 2-3:55
Christian Ethics: Tuesday, 2-3:55
Introduction to the New Testament: Wednesday, 11-12:55
I also have a class called African Christianity and I don't know yet when that one is. Also, a couple of my classes also require small group meetings called tutorials and I don't know when those will be. And I have Community Worship (chapel) on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12-1. That's basically my schedule. Some other random things I wanted to tell you all, in no particular order:
-There's a bird's nest in my window, outside the screen. There are also a lot of birds around our dorm and they're quite loud.
-My roommate and I each have a fairly short bunk bed set with a mosquito net draped over it. We both sleep on the bottom bunk, so we use he top bunks to put stuff on. It's pretty cool.
-Our showers only have cold water. Also, I have to shower every day because being gross and dirty isn't culturally acceptable. So every day I take a (hopefully) less than 5-minute freezing cold shower. It's fantastic.
-Mukono is the nearest town, it's about a 10-minute walk. I went down there yesterday with a bunch of the other USP students. It was pretty cool. Kampala is the capital and a big city. It's about an hour drive. We're going down there on Friday.
-My room has one outlet and it's pretty funky looking so we have to use an adapter to charge anything.
-There are big grasshopper bugs living in our bathroom. I've seen one both times I've showered so far and last night when I brushed my teeth too.
-The food here isn't too exciting. I've had rice and beans at every meal so far. It's not gross, and it's filling. We also had sweet potatoes with one meal and posho with a couple. I don't know how to describe posho. You might be able to look it up. It's basically flour and water mixed together It's really bland.
-A lot of th Ugandan students here are early risers, at about 5-6 am. The walls in our dorm are also very thin and a lot of things like doors and plumbing and such is very noisy.
-People here are really into football (aka soccer). There was a game on last night and everyone was in the cafeteria watching. Most of them are fans of Manchester United. I was in there for about 2 hours for dinner and Manchester scored 3 goals. I couldn't see the score on the screen at all, but that was my decision based on the cheering for aforementioned goals.
-The guys here are really friendly. The woman are too, but they're more reserved. The guys come and sit with us at a lot of them meals and they know a lot of the USP guys already. It's pretty cool. A couple of them walked to town with us yesterday and showed us around and such. They try really hard to learn our names and I don't think I really know any of theirs.
-Muzugno means white person in one of the languages here. I've heard it a few times. It's not really offensive, just a term for white people.
-The dirt here is red and it gets everywhere. My bag is already red on the bottom and so are a couple pairs of shoes that I've worn so far. I'm wearin a white short today and I hope it lasts.
-The conversion rate for money is about 1800 shillings to the dollar, so everything sounds really expensive but it's not.
-On my phone I can assign images to my contacts. it's really cool. Rusty's a spaceship. Charlotte's a cat. My mom is a woman face. I haven't added Becky yet but she's going to be a butterfly, I think. My dad is a man face with glasses.

I think that's all I have for now. I like it here so far, despite any complaining you may perceive above. I'm going to try and make it through today without a nap though. Wish me luck! Vaya con Dios.

Pictures, Day 1 and 2

Our room.


My roommate, Rochelle


Me, in my closet that I can;t open all the way because my bed's in the way


My dorm, from the bottom of our little hill, which is on top of a bigger hill with the other Honours College dorms


My dorm from closer.

Arrival

My plane got in at about 9 last night (the 9th). It took us a while to all get our luggage (there were 32 of us) and get out and into the bus. It was a 2-hour ride to UCU (my school). I got to my dorm, with all of my stuff, at about midnight and went to bed around 2. I unpacked and organized some of my stuff last night, but I still have a lot more to do. One of my eyes hurts a lot. Also, I sliced open my left index finger on my folder before I got on the plane in DC so that hurts too. It's hot here and humid.
My first flight was 2 days ago (the 8th). It left from DC at around 6:30 and was about 6.5 hours long. We had about 3 hours layover int eh Amsterdam airport. My second flight, from Amsterdam to Entebbe was about 8 hours long. I slept very little on either one. They did have a good selection of movies though. I watched Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (twice), the beginning of Nights in Rodanthe, Mamma Mia, 2 episodes of Scrubs, E True Hollywood Story on Heath Ledger, a TV special on The Dark Knight, and listened to the Juno soundtrack a couple times through. I read most of my book; I have less than 100 pages left. I watched the sun rise in the Amsterdam airport and set as we flew over Africa.
Today we've had a few orientation-type meetings, information about the school, about health and safety and such. We filled out some paperwork, I got a picture taken (in which I do not look good), we ate some food (chapatti (sp?), mango juice, bananas - for breakfast, and rice, beans, and posho for lunch). My dorm is called Josephine Tucker Hall. It's in Honours College, which is basically about 4 or 6 small dorm buildings where the honors students at the school live. There are 8-10 rooms on my hall, and 6 USE students including me, in the dorm. We also have a lobby/common area with a bunch of couches. My dorm building is the farthest away. Honours College is on a hill and Josephine Tucker is the farthest up the hill. I don't get Internet in my dorm, but I can get Wi-Fi from the closest girls dorm, which is where I am now.
I've received so much information today, I can't remember it all and I don't know what to write. I have part of my class schedule, but I don't feel like retrieving it currently. From what I remember, I have a class Tuesday morning from 10-11, on Wednesday and Thursday from 2-4, and on Friday morning. I also have tutorials, which aren't scheduled yet and sessions with all of the other USP students. I don't know when those are. I'm starting my 2-week homestay with a family in Mukono (the nearest town) next Saturday, so I'll be packing up and leaving in a week. It's weird to me that it's so early. I think I'm going to sign off for now. Everyone there is probably asleep already. It's 3:30 here, so it's about...1:30 am there. I miss you guys. I wish I could talk. Oh, I will have texting but I have to pay about 12 cents for each message. I think it's only messages I send. I probably won't be texting much. Okay, that is actually all. I'm going to go to my room. Maybe I'll take a nap for a little while. Or shower. Anyways, I will talk to you later. Vaya con Dios.

More pictures

Dumbo.


Plaque by Dumbo.


Flag in the Museum of American History.


Some of Julia Child's kitchen utensils. My mom wanted to show my dad that she doesn't actually own very many.


More kitchen utensils.


The Washington Monument.


And turn around...the United States Capitol.


The back of the Smithsonian Castle and the pretty gardens.

In less than 12 hours

My plane leaves tomorrow at about 6 pm. I have to be at the airport by 3 at the latest. Then I have about a 7-8 hour flight to Amsterdam and another down to Entebbe, in Uganda. My mom and I flew into Baltimore yesterday and have spent a little while in DC today. It was fun. We walked around, looked at some stuff, went to the American History Museum, took some pictures, bought some stuff and food. It was fun. My feet were a little sore. At the room, we ordered a cheese plate thru room service. It was pretty tasty. The cheese was a little funky, but I like cheese. I'm putting up my pictures from today. I like them. The next time I'm on here, I'll be in Uganda!


The plaque next to an African sculpture in the African Art Museum.


The sculpture.

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Replica of the front of the Smithsonian Castle. My dad likes castles.


For Charlotte.


A squirrel and some birds in front of the Air and Space Museum.