Traveling

 

Over the past two weeks, I’ve done a little bit of traveling and it made me realize how much I need these weekend getaways!  It’s not that I dislike Kuluva, there’s just not really much to do here.  Books and movies are entertaining for a while, and riding my bike to Arua town gives me a little bit of exercise, but I need to leave site occasionally and hang out with other PCVs (not just the Arua crowd).

Kampala is a central meeting place for volunteers (because all roads lead to Kampala) and it’s also the location of the Peace Corps Administrative and Medical offices, so PCVs are frequently coming and going.  We all tend to meet up at the same hotel and then pick a place to go eat – because indulging in food is what we do in the city.  Where else am I going to find cheesy nachos with guacamole, sub sandwiches, Tofu Pad Thai, or garlic broccoli over vegetable fried rice?  Definitely not in the village.

The 8-hour bus ride from Arua to Kampala has become surprisingly pleasant.  I pack up a few snacks for the road (granola bar, apple, banana chips, a bottle of water, etc.); I know how long between bathroom stops (and ration my water accordingly); I’ve learned a little about the villages along the main road (and know where to stop for the best price on pineapples); I always ride with the same bus company and feel like the conductors recognize me (the mundu [white person] from Kuluva).  I’m pretty comfortable with the journey now.

Going beyond Kampala is always a new adventure.  I love seeing different regions of Uganda and how the landscape changes.  The north is particularly dry and dusty, while the southwest is much cooler and greener.  For the most part, Ugandan towns are kind of the same – they all have the same type of shops and restaurants.  Although there are a few towns with some perks – Gulu has a coffee shop with actual lattes and cappuccinos!  Jinja has pizza delivery!  Mbarara has a bakery!  Unfortunately, Arua is too small for any of these luxuries.

This week a group of us (from the West Nile region) decided to go to Murchison Falls National Park.  It’s only a 2-hour drive from Arua, so we went there and back in a day.  During our 4-hour game drive through the park, we saw:

·      Ugandan Kobb

·      Warthogs

·      Ugandan Crested Crane (official bird)

·      Elephants

·      A python

·      Water buffalo

·      Giraffes

·      Hippos

·      Water buck

·      Vultures

·      Baboons

·      Crocodiles

But no lions :(

(Check out the rest of my pics on Facebook and Shutterfly.)

 

And we also went for a 3-our boat trip on the Nile River and saw Murchison Falls, which was absolutely stunning.  Next time I’ll do the hike to the top of the waterfall (we just didn’t have time that day).  Since Murchison is so close, I might venture there a few times during my service.  :)

FYI – the newest Peace Corps Trainees just arrived in country!  It’s hard to believe we’re not the freshman class anymore.  Unfortunately, none of the trainees will be coming to Arua or the West Nile region.  The Peace Corps rotates regions for training groups.  I don’t know when I’ll get to meet the newbies – perhaps on some random weekend in Kampala.

Numbers

• Number of books I’ve read: 12 (This number is incredibly low for a PCV – probably because I have electricity and internet, and I also have actual work to do at the nursing school.)

• Number of movies I’ve watched: 58 movies and 3 seasons of Mad Men

• Average number of hours per day I work on the computer at school: 5

• Number of nursing students I’ve taught:  11 in Social Psychology 

• Number of databases I’m working on: 3

• Number of times I went to the Peace Corps Medical Office: 1 (to get off Mefloquine)

• Average number of hours of sleep per night: 3-4 on Mefloquine, 7-8 off Mefloquine 

• Number of months without running water: 5

• Average number of times I bathe per week: 3

• Average number of apples I eat per week: 5

• Average number of tomatoes I eat per week: 10

• Number of jars of peanut butter I’ve eaten since moving to site: 3 

• Average number of hours per day on the internet: 2

• Average number of times I see other PCVs: 2 weekends per month

• Number of times per month I call Mom & Dad: 2-3

• Number of towns/villages I’ve stayed (overnight) at in Uganda: 14

• Number of care packages I’ve received: 23

• Number of pictures I’ve taken: 864 (plus another 600 photos that other people took)

• Number of times I’ve rearranged the furniture in my house: 3

• Average number of times per month I go out to eat (in Arua): 2

• Amount of weight I’ve lost or gained since arriving in Uganda: -10 lbs.

• Average number of miles I bike per week: 24

• Number of US dollars I make per month: approx. $306.00

• Number of months left in my Peace Corps service: 17 

 Want to know any other numbers?  Just ask!

Non-Work Week

The past two weeks at Kuluva have been exams weeks.  Students have to do written exams for lecture courses and practical (hands-on) exams for the medical portion.  All of the (nursing school) teachers in Uganda switch schools/hospitals to administer the practical exams and grade other students.  So the entire teaching staff, including Sister Anne, has been gone for a while.

And since ‘the boss’ was gone, the rest of the office staff just kind of lounged around all day.  People arrived late and left early.  Teatime was at 10:30am, then everyone sat in the break room and waited for lunch to be served at 1:00pm.  I might get used to this lazy work ethic, if only I didn’t care so much about completing my projects.

With my Social Psychology teaching career over (I finished grading my students’ exams last week), my time is now almost entirely for office administration and databases.  (I will continue to teach Computing to the students, since I’m one of the few people who knows how.)  I started looking at the school’s computer programs for databases and have many questions for the office staff about the functionality that they want.  But with it being exams week, nobody has really been working.  So, I spent most of the week at home on the internet researching database programs and equipment.  And I started writing a grant proposal (which is offered through the Peace Corps) that could help fund the purchase of this equipment.  Keep your fingers crossed that it gets approved.

Feeling pretty productive during this non-work week, I decided to take Friday off and went to town to do my market shopping.  At some point during the day, I ate something that gave me food poisoning.  My entire Saturday was spent on the toilet or on the couch cradling a vomit bucket.  The scary part is that every piece of food here is potentially contaminated, so I’ll never know what made me sick.  (Were the eggs not cooked enough?  Did I use enough bleach on my tomatoes?  Was it the salad I ordered at the restaurant?)  Today I’m recovering – and snacking on some of my brown rice.  :) (Thanks for the care packages!  I’ll be dining on my packaged American food for a while.)

Next weekend I’ll be going to Kampala to work on the grant proposal some more.  Since there are no computer stores in Arua, I have to look for software and get price quotes from places in Kampala. 

And maybe I’ll take advantage of the trip and have a little weekend getaway!  ;)

GLOW Pictures

Okay - after a few technical difficulties this week, here are some pictures from Camp GLOW!  The rest are on my Shutterfly website (click on the link in the right-hand column).

Field Day with Camp BUILD

 

  

Income Generating Activity

 Self-Esteem Class

 The Recreation Project

Singing our Giraffe cheer!

Northern Camp GLOW

When I signed up to be a camp counselor, I didn’t really know what to expect.  I talked to PCVs who were at previous camps and they told me the work is strenuous, exhausting, and the highlight of their Peace Corps experience.  So true.

The first two days in Gulu were for counselor and staff training.  The three camp directors gave us an overview of the schedule & classes and they also taught us some games to play with the girls.  I never went to summer camp in the US, so this training was extremely valuable to me.  Each PCV counselor worked with a Ugandan co-counselor and they were responsible for 10 girls.  The groups were given animal names – my group was the Giraffes. :)

The Giraffes

My co-counselor’s name was Nancy – she’s an HIV counselor in Kitgum.  We ended up having nine girls in our group, because one was a no-show.

(Back row: me, Teddy, Anne, Jillian, Winnie, Nancy.  Middle: Lorna.  Front row: Molly, Christine, Beatrice, Proscovia.)

The Schedule

Tuesday:

• Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and Camp BUILD (Boys of Uganda In Leadership and Development) set up a Field Day for the campers as they arrived throughout the afternoon.  It was at the school for Camp BUILD, so at the end of the day, the girls traveled back to our school and settled into the dorms.
  

Wednesday:

• “Get to know each other” session/games
• Introduction to income-generating activities (IGAs) class
• Communication class
• Self-esteem class
• Sports/games
• Reflection time – Each night we spent an hour thinking about the lessons we learned and how to apply them to our lives/communities.  This was also a free space for girls to ask questions or talk about anything they wanted.

Thursday:

• We traveled to The Recreation Project in Gulu, which had obstacle courses, a zip line, a rock climbing wall, and other physical challenges.  The point was to emphasize teamwork and critical thinking and have a ton of fun in the process!  The girls absolutely LOVED it!  Some of them had never left their village before, so to come to a place like the ropes course was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
• Reflection time

Friday:

• HIV/AIDS lesson and guest speaker – The camp directors also coordinated with a local organization to provide free HIV testing at the camp.  It’s important for the girls to know their HIV status and getting tested at camp removed the stigma (and cost) of going to a health center.
• Reproductive health class
  
• Money management class
• Reflection time

Saturday:

• Camp BUILD came to our school for a joint session about domestic violence.  It was a heavy topic with a lecture followed by an hour of group discussion. 
• To balance out the day, we also played co-ed soccer games and had a group of campers perform some break-dancing.  These kids have got some moves!
• Reflection time

Sunday:

(Last day of camp – The directors made it an easy day.)

• Reflection class – Where do you want to be in 5 years?  Set goals.  Start your own GLOW Club in your community.
• Tae Kwon Do– self defense
• Cleaning the dorms/packing
• Closing ceremony
• Dance party!

Monday:

Traveled home

The Highs and The Lows

Let’s start with the lows:

• Food – it wasn’t terrible; it was just the same thing every day.
• Breakfast – millet porridge and a piece of bread
• Lunch – beans, rice, cabbage
• Dinner – beans, rice, cabbage
• Occasionally we’d get beans, rice, and greens for a meal.  And a couple of times they served meat, but that didn’t change anything for me.
• Pit latrines – I don’t mind using pit latrines, but these were horrible.  Maggots and cockroaches like I’ve never seen.  Plus the latrines were 100 yards away from the dorm, which was kind of a pain in the rain/mud.
• Showers – There were none.  We had to pump water from the borehole and go to a concrete shower area behind the dorms.  There were no doors and no ceiling.  You might think it would be cool to bathe under the stars . . . except it rained almost every evening.  Not fun.
  
  
  
   
• Teenagers – Trying to keep track of nine teenage girls 24/7 is exhausting.  Especially since Ugandans don’t follow schedules or ‘keep time.’  Also, they’ve never really had this kind of supervision before.  The kids here never tell their parents where they’re going – even in the villages, you’ll see toddlers running around on the streets with no parent in sight.  For the most part, my girls were pretty good – but I had a few troublemakers which caused a great deal of stress.
• No breaks – 24/7 is not an exaggeration.  I slept in the same dorms as the girls; we ate together; moved to classes together; etc.  One of the main rules of camp was to stay in your group at all times.  This was also the rule that was broken the most.  So while I was trying to work with six of my girls, I was also frantically running around trying to find the other three.  Ugh.
• Illness – The day I left Kuluva I had a sore throat.  I grabbed a handful of Emergen-C packets as I walked out the door and went to Gulu.  The sore throat turned into a sinus infection/cold and then to a really bad chest cough.  The Emergen-C helped a ton, but being sick drained a lot of my energy. 
• Injuries – On Wednesday, I tripped and fell and bruised my knee.  On Friday, I tripped and fell and skinned the other knee.  At the recreation center, I got a pretty bad rope burn on my legs and a nice bruise to go with it.  I have numerous mosquito and spider bites.  On Saturday, a mysterious rash appeared on my abdomen.  I’m pretty sure it’s from wearing the same stinky, dirty camp shirt every day without washing it.  And I didn’t really bathe for nine days (I just used the shower wipes from my care packages).  Lesson learned: it’s important to wash my clothes and bathe regularly.
• And finally, the lowest point – At 12:30am one night, there was a massive thunderstorm and I woke up with really bad stomach cramps . . . diarrhea.  I laid in bed debating whether or not I should take a chance and run through the field during a lightning storm to go to the latrine.  My mind started thinking of any possible container I could use in the dorm – there was nothing.  After 20 long minutes, the rain started to ease up and the thunder faded to the distance.  I grabbed my raincoat and sprinted to the latrines.  (It wasn't a serious illness – just too much beans & cabbage.)

The Highs

• I appreciate my site so much more now – Having a toilet inside! Buying my own fruits & veggies!  Not sleeping in a dorm with 25 girls!  Hot water for a bucket bath!  Life is good!
• The recreation center was definitely one of the highlights of the week.  The Giraffes worked well together (for the most part) and had so much fun!  Of course I went on the zip line and rock climbing wall too.  :)
• Reflection time after HIV/AIDS sessions – We had a really in-depth talk about HIV and Nancy was huge help answering all of the girls’ questions.  Even the girls who were quiet and shy spoke up during this reflection.  It was awesome.
• There were only two girls (in my group) from the West Nile region – the rest were from Gulu, Kitgum, Oyam, and Lira.  Of course I became very close with my West Nilers.  I plan to keep in touch with them and I’m going to try and visit them again in their villages.
• I feel that most of the girls at camp really learned a lot and they will carry on with the lessons in their communities.  During the classes, I noticed which girls participated and asked questions – it was easy to see the ones who wanted to focus on business or who was more interested in reproductive health.  I feel that the camp offered a well-rounded curriculum on topics that aren’t really taught in Ugandan schools.
• Because this was my first camp experience, I look back and see the areas that I could improve on.  There will be more Peace Corps camps and I intend to apply for those too.  Now I am better prepared!

P.S. Internet is very slow right at my house and I have over 300 pictures to sort through – I’ll let you know when they’re uploaded on my Shutterfly website.