Some pictures

Here's a selection of pictures - they're in no particular order, so don't assume chronological order. Hope it gives you a taste of what I've seen and done.

A view of the town we're staying in for training.

A termite mound - quite large. They're everywhere.

Gorgeous sunset from my backyard.

Kids playing soccer

Typical country road in Uganda - lots of dust!

Flying over the pyrenees.

The mosque in Wakiso.

A visit to a local NGO, educating youth on health related matters.

Nice to see monkey's on one of the first days in country.

A view of Lake Victoria.

Local kids coming to play soccer.

Dedication plaque for the health center here in Wakiso - apparently Uganda's president was present at the commisioning.

Haylee ( a fellow peace corps trainee) makes a new friend

Doing a needs assessment with an outlying community.

The Peace Corps Trainees beginning work on a keyhole garden - an efficient way of growing vegetables on the household level.
The finished product. The hole in the middle is filled with compost, and the path way allows access. All watering is done in the center, and after planting, the roots will make their way to the center hole to get water and nutrients. It's highly efficient.

The sahara desert is big - really big. We crossed over france in under an hour. Crossing the desert took 4 hours.

The liberty bell in Philadelphia - the engraved quotation is from scripture, Leviticus 25:10 "proclaim liberty to all the inabitants throughout the land"

thoughts on life in Uganda thus far

Hi all,
Time to update my blog. It's hard to pick out individual stories -
life is so structured right now that there aren't a lot of notable
individual stories to pass on, so I thought I'd talk about a few
different realms of life you might be interested.

Internet: I was using an internet cafe, which was dreadfully slow.
But I invested in a USB modem, with improved results - but not
enough. Internet cafe gave me about 3 kb/s, and my modem gives me
maybe 30 kb/s, but I got in order to be able to video chat over skype,
which I was not able to do. So I'll be selling my modem to another
Peace Corps volunteer who doesn't need as much bandwidth as I do and
trying another one. I'm told that other networks ( I'm on MTN right
now) are less congested, and that you can buy more expensive modems
that are faster. One of the other trainees brought a blackberry that
has a built in modem, and he gets 400 kb/s and does video chat all the
time, so I'm hoping for that kind of performance eventually, but we'll
see what I can dig up. I'll be doing some research in Kampala on
Monday as I head out for a week. Which brings me to:

Language Immersion/Peace Corps Volunteer Shadowing: Monday through
Saturday this coming week all the individual language groups will
visit a current Peace Corps volunteer in their area. We'll be staying
in hotels ( hot showers! woohoo!), but shadowing the volunteer to see
what their life is like, as well as doing intensive language
training. Should be an exciting time - I'm not allowed to tell you
where I'm going for safety reasons, but I'll talk more about what it
was like when I get back.

Food: Pretty plain. Every meal consists of "food" ( or a starch of
some kind - matooke (boiled, mashed non-sweet bananas), or irish
potatoes, or rice) plus "sauce", which could be beans, or groundnuts
and the like. Occasionally we get meat, but that's rare. I'd say I'm
a vegetarian 3 to 4 days a week. Also, I've been realizing how
desensitized and distant from our food we are in America. I'm used to
buying chicken breasts, or ground beef in the supermarket and cooking
it, no problem. But the meat here is largely in stew form - a boiled
pot, where the meat is largely bone and gristle. I was a little
surprised when my host brothers greeting me, smiling, one saturday
morning with "Jonathan, would you like to slaughter a hen?". I
passed, but observed as they stepped on the chicken's wings and feet
and cut its head off with a dull knife. (Good kitchen knives are hard
to come by here). The dying chicken writhed and shook for several
minutes - I'm quite certain it would have run quite a distance if it
hadn't been constrained. Anyway, I miss really processed, ready to
eat, meat.

Church: Hard to adjust to. I've gone to two pentecostal churches,
and one anglican today. Several things in common: "Praise the Lord"
is the omni-present catchphrase, used as "do you agree with me?" as
well as "you're not singing loud enough" or "you need to wake up and
be excited" - not a shibboleth I'm a fan of. Growing up in a
Presbyterian church (God's frozen chosen!), I thrive on a certain
level of solemnity in my worship. If someone insists I become excited
and jump up and down, I rapidly look for something else to do or
somewhere else to be. "Clap for Jesus" is also a big thing here -
after every song, or scripture reading. Likewise, not a fan. It's
been generally a hard adjustment - the preaching lacks the intellect I
need to be fed. Mostly it winds up being a restatement ( or even
quasi-dramatic reenactment) of the scripture text, with a bare minimum
of application. I imagine that's a consequence of the lack of formal
theological training, but I'm still looking for a good preacher.
Energy is certainly not lacking - I love the drums- and harmony seems
quite natural to all the congregations, so some of the singing is
quite beautiful. We even sang "Guide Me, Oh Thou Great Jehovah"
today, which was excellent. Todays service was mostly english with a
couple Luganda songs, while the other churches have been largely
Luganda with English translation during the sermon. Also noteworthy
was a hilarious bumper sticker on a motorcycle outside church today:
"The Lord is my Refugee" - supposed to be "refuge", but the extra "e"
was quite hilarious.

That's all for now. While I have decent internet, I'll also throw up
a couple pictures in a few minutes. And I appreciate all your comments!

training continues

So I've kind of settled into the training schedule.  A typical day starts with me waking up at 6:30 and biking to the training center.  I usually have 30 mins or so of downtime before the first scheduled class, so I do my devotions or read a book or socialize with other people in my group.  There are 5 realms of training: Language, Cross Culture, Safety and Security, Technical, and Medical.  Each day has 4 sessions:  8-10, then a break for tea, 10"30-12:30, lunch, 1:30-3:30 and 3:30-5 or so.  Medical is every tuesday, so the medical officers give us our shots and give a lecture on a common medical problem, what it means, and how to deal with it.  (Thus far we've discussed malaria and diarrhea).  Safety and security involves the security officer briefing us on Peace Corps procedure, telling us what to be careful about and various related topics.  Cross culture helps us get accustomed to local customs, analyze what we're used to as Americans and how to be wary of behavior that will make us stick out or cause offense.  Tech is directed at aspects of Peace Corps work that may be useful, so last week we discussed how to build a handwashing station (it's called a Tippy Tap - check it out at http://www.cdc.gov/safewater) and how to maintain a latrine so flies and cockroaches don't pose a problem.  Language, I hope, is self explanatory.  Language sometimes takes up 2 or even 3 of the sessions during the day, and I'm learning a lot and enjoying it.   

I wish I could upload some pictures, but my internet speed has been pretty consistently 3 kb/s (which is about a thousand times slower than I'm used to), so that's not going to happen until I get to internet in the capital where it should be faster.  Not sure when that will happen - I'll keep you informed.  

Went to church yesterday and it was not bad.  Music was by synthesizer, but they brought out the drums when the power went out so that was great.  The sermon was about working hard to build the tower of your salvation (can I get an "uh oh" from my fellow calvinists? no offense to the rest of you :)).   I'm looking forward to experiencing the diversity of African churches in the coming weeks.  

Finally, I'm settling in to my homestay.  Up to speed with bathing, getting water, using the latrine and all the daily things I take for granted back in the states.  Did laundry by hand saturday - which is hard to do.  Definitely taking every step to keep my clothes clean, which is also hard when I have to bike on dirt roads twice a day.  

That's all for now.  Further bulletins as events warrant :)

Kampala, Training, and Host Family

Dear friends,

Sorry for the delay in updating my blog – my schedule's been pretty well packed and internet access is somewhat scarce and slow.  Here's what I've been up to lately.

We spent several days at the training center, doing basic language skills, introduction to Peace Corps training, some medical things (shots, paperwork) and lots of getting to know our fellow trainees.  On Sunday, August 9 we went to Kampala (the capital city) to get to know the city – know how to use public transportation, where is a safe place to stay, etc…

Here are some things I saw:

·      Kirk Franklin is coming to Uganda sometime in the coming months, according to a billboard

·      Religion is very open: saw a "Trust in God Electronics" store… I love God and all, but "Trust in God" the diagnosis I want to here from my electronics tech, if you know what I mean J

·      Cell phone ads and stores everywhere.  There are 5 or 6 fiercely competing companies, and its one of the fastest growing markets in Africa.  All plans are prepaid, so you buy a phone then can buy airtime cards at just about every store in the country.

·      It's weird adjusting to driving on the left side of the road.

·      Lots of microfinance agencies, with billboards on the side of the road!  Somebody look up "Pride microfinance" and "Equity Bank" here in Uganda and let me know if they're any good.

·      Children begging, a-la slumdog millionaire (remember the place jamal ran away from cuz they wanted to blind him?)  I asked our guide, and he said it wasn't centrally organized by someone making money off of kids – just desperate mothers – but these 1 and 2 and 3 year old kids – some of them barely old enough to walk, some with distended bellies, sit staring up with arms held out and aloft, begging for money.  Some of them are so small I nearly tripped over them. It was very sad.

Then on Monday we moved to another training center.  All 43 volunteers are with host families, which was an experience to say the least.  I'm with a Pentacostal pastor and his family, which have been most welcoming.  It's difficult having to learn how to live all over again ( you never know how much you rely on routine until you don't have it anymore.  Never have I had to think so much about a shower:  where do I get water?  How do I heat it?  What container to I use?  What do I wear to walk to the bathing area?  Where do I hang my clothes?  What's the best way to rinse off?  It'll get easier as I get the hang of it)

We're in intensive language study for 12 hours a week or so, and I'm learning Luganda (which means my assignment will be in the central area of the country, near-ish the capital for all you planning visits).  It's a great, beautiful language and I'm learning quickly. 

Barack Obama and Michael Jackson are sources of great pride and mourning, respectively.  My host family went nuts over the pic of me shaking Obama's hand, and were impressed I endured -20 degrees Celsius to see the inauguration (they watched every minute on tv).  And I swear my host brother was gonna go cry and listen to old MJ hits when he mentioned how sad he was MJ was dead.

I just got my bike today, so that was an adventure.  It's a nifty mountain bike – makes the commute a lot faster. 

That's all for now.  If you're lucky, I'll share some pictures soon.

transit and arrival in Uganda

Hello all! I've arrived safely in Uganda. I'm currently at the
training center where I'll be for 4 days, but I'm not sure when I'll
have internet to actually post this blog. In any case, I thought you
might like to hear about how I got here.
I arrived in Philadelphia on August 4 after saying goodbye to my
family in Madison that morning. I got to the hotel early, so I spent
the early afternoon wandering around the Philly historic district,
seeing Benjamin Franklin's grave, Independence Hall, and the Liberty
Bell (which quotes Leviticus 25:10 "Proclaim liberty to all the
inhabitants of the land")
Staging was a great chance to meet my fellow Peace Corps volunteers,
who will be good friends for the next couple years. We reviewed some
policies and such, then departed the following morning. (August 5)
We bussed to New York, flew out of JFK to Brussels overnight. The sun
was rising as we crossed the English channel, and it was great to see
the Belgian countryside (I've decided I like Europe). We spent 3
hours in the Brussels airport, then flew south across the Pyrenees
(which were great to see from the air), across the Mediterranean,
across the Sahara desert (which is enormous, by the way. It took us
less than an hour to cross all of France. We were over the Sahara for
4 or 5 hours). We briefly stopped in Kigali, Rwanda before arriving
in Entebbe Uganda a little early. The Country Director met us at the
airport and we bussed to the training center where we'll be for
several days.
Hopefully I'll have pictures to post later (haven't seen much - we
arrived at night), but I'll be documenting my first impressions
starting tomorrow morning. Thanks for reading!