Hey everyone! How was your week? ‘Cause I spent mine in the southern hemisphere!!
First, I need to say two things: 1) this is a realllllly long e-mail, it was a week of craziness!! 2) mom and dad you know most of this, but trust me the ending bit is worth it…
My host family decided it would be fun to braid my hair…wow. They braided about half of it into tiny braids which I then slept on. The next morning when I woke up they took all the braids out and instead of just letting me walk around with crazy80’s hair, they put it back into mini pony tails alllll over my head….i left the house that way, walked to my bus stop laughing hysterically at myself, and then immediately took them all out with the help of a friend. Yea, you can imagine how I looked!!
Also, my host family calls me sharoni…so now my group does too. If you want to call me sharoni that is fine haha
Alright, my trip:
Day 1: We stopped at the equator, and I bought a crazy shirt that says that I crossed the Uganda equator…as if it doesn’t go all around the globe, just in Uganda…and then I bought a huge spear…Is it Ugandan? No. Is it amazingly cool? Yes. We stayed in a town called Mbarara. Yes that’s an actual town dad…M’s and vowels, that’s how Uganda is.
Day 2: We went to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees desk office in Mbarara. It was amazing! I think for my last six weeks here I am going to try and live/work in a refugee camp and teach English or something else. I am very excited at this prospect! We stayed in Mbarara another night, and watched “Sometimes in April” a movie about the genocide in Rwanda. It was rough, as we were heading there the next day. For dinner me and a few other girls headed out to someplace called “the chef” it sounded exciting, so when it was closed we had to walk around the three street town to find another restaurant. We stumbled into a “diner” and I strolled up to the desk and got us a table. Then the whole meal we got stared at. Not even people PRETENDING to do something else….blatantly stared at. I guess that i was used to this phenomenon though, seeing as it happens an awful lot…Suffice it to say we ate our crazy chicken and bread, then quickly and scampered home.
Day 3:
We left for Rwanda early in the morning. The scenery was beautiful, as we got into the mountains. The border was cool, we got to walk it on foot. But once we started getting into Rwanda, my brain started messing with my head….
HISTORY LESSON!
Rwanda was colonized by first the Germans then the Belgians. Under the Belgians a strict system of discrimination took place, in which the two main ethnic groups of the area, the Hutus and Tutsis, were pitted against one another. The Tutsi were the minority but were favored b the Belgians who used a system of eugenics to falsely “determine” them to be the smarter “race.” When the Belgians left the country, they reversed their policy and gave power to the subjugated Hutu. The tutsis had used their power as any human would and taken advantage of being the powerful, economically stable people group, so the Hutu wanted revenge. Since independence there have been moderate bouts of hutus purging tutsi’s. Many tutsis fled the country and a rebel army, the RPF, was formed to fight the Hutu government. In 1994 a ceasefire was signed by both parties. Then one night in April 1994 the president of Rwanda’s plane was shot down. No one knows who did it. Within an hour a Hutu militia group had set up road blocks throughout Kigali (the capital city). Moderate Hutu’s were the first to be slaughtered and then the tutsi’s. All over the country people were killed. Within 100 days over 800,000 Tutsis had been slaughtered. The international community did nothing. In fact, when a refugee made it to America and was allowed to approach congress, someone stated ”America doesn’t have friends, America has interests. And America has no interests in Rwanda.” The only way that the genocide was stopped was because the RPF made it into Kigali to stop the violence.
Now, Rwanda has been a major interest of mine since I was able to comprehend such a thing. So I knew all such things prior to this trip, as I have read a good many books on the subject. So as we were driving along we passed a river. I knew that the rivers of the country had essentially run red with blood throughout the genocide, so what did my brain do? Made the river look red in my head. We passed a truck full of men heading to or from work. I imagined it as being full of men on their way to murder their neighbors. It was a really hard day.
Day 4:
As if my brain wasn’t messed up already, day four was genocide day. We first went to Gisozi, a museum in central Kigali that was opened in 1994 as the nations way of dealing with their past. It was sad, there was footage and stories and essentially craziness. But then it got worse. We went to a church out in the countryside where 5000 tutsis had taken refuge and had been slaughtered anyways. There were shelves lined with skulls, and piles of rotting clothes. I have never really smelled anything like it. It wasn’t death per say, but decay, terror, and well death I suppose. At one point I almost threw up. One skull still had a spears ticking out of it, and many had machete marks clearly visible. The worst was the church itself. They had left much of the church as it had been found. I saw a jawbone lying next to a rosary, Shoes filled with dried foods. Pans were scattered everywhere. It was the scene of a mass murder. Then we went to a second church. There 10,000 tutsis had been murdered. They had cleaned up the debris, except a wall that was caked with blood which was used to throw babies and small children against to kill them. We went down into the catacombs, where there were shelves upon shelves FILLED with bones.
I didn’t cry. I feel very inhuman. I think my main emotion was anger. But I still feel bad for not sobbing uncontrollably.
The highlight to the day (the only one haha): I had the most delicious dinner ever! It was just a crazy pizza that didn’t have any sauce…but oh man, was it amazing!
Day 5:
Kigali and Rwanda itself speak French in addition to the language KiRwanda. I speak neither of those. Lets just that most of our group did not. I followed one girl around who knew bits of French, but even I could tell she sucked at it haha. We really wanted to go cloth/ material shopping. We spent a few hours wandering around Kigali asking people…but it didn’t work out, and I had to come back to Uganda empty handed.
I was very surprised at how different Kigali was from Kampala. It was cleaner as well as prettier. Also, the people there don’t yell MZUNGU, because there is a general distrust for foreigners. Also the people look very different as well.
Day 6:
We were back in Mbarara for the night,and day six saw us leave for Queen Elizabeth National park (QE). The Ugandan landscape is really random. It went from mountains to savannah in about a mile. We dropped in elevation so fast that I was cold one minute and the next saw me peeling off my raincoat to soak in the sunshine. We got to the park, and went on a boat ride around a channel between lake Albert and Edward. I saw about 300 hippos, a crocodile, savannah buffalo, and waterbucks (which are my new favorite animal!). The we went for a game drive in 15 passenger vans. We stumbled upon some lions and I literally climbed out of the window on my van onto the top of someone elses van to take pictures. Our van driver kept freaking out and we had to persuade him to get closer every time we saw an animal of interest. Then we came across a heard of elephants! There were a few babies, and many large ones. One didn’t like us being there, so he started shaking his head (which is bad in elephant language), and we then high tailed it in reverse down a ruddy dirt road…WHOO HOO! That actually happened several times…but no one died. For the night we stayed in a “hostel” in which we were instructed not to leave our respective houses at night, because last year a ranger was eaten up by a lion…hahaha. Also, I assume I found this out as a youngster, but heres a piece of elephant trivia that I re-learned: Elephants bury their dead and then visit the graces….i find that to be really cool and creepy all at once.
We then visited a salt mine. It doesn’t sound exciting…but our guide (and by guide I mean the man we bribed to show us around…Mom and dad I think all of the fees you paid for this goes to bribes haha) 30000 people work in them, from the local run down poor area. They are very deadly. If you fall over while working you pretty much die instantly. They harvest three types of salt, including table salt.
Also, we met a peace corps couple. They were about 50, a husband and wife (hint hint mom and dad!!), and were working in one of the prettiest groves I have ever seen. The woman worked in the clinic, and the man worked as a teacher.
Day 7:
We went for a morning game drive. We were supposed to meet at 6 am…but I guess they meant 6 am Africa time, because we didn’t leave until almost 7. Immediately off the compound we ran into a heard of lions. I didn’t climb out of the van this time, but it had nothing to do with self control, instead simply the lack of something to climb on haha. We saw the head male, which is apparently rare because they are shy. We then saw some hyenas, and I even saw one stalking a Ugandan Kob (an antelope/ deer type thing). Warthogs are very prevalent, as well as ugly.
Day 8:
We went back to Mbarara. (it feels like my home there now). In Mbarara I went and got Indian food, and actually found something that had garlic in it…my Italian body had been going through garlic withdrawal…and it was delicious. Me and two other girls decided we wanted to check out the local night life and went to some crazy street party across from the hotel. The “party” was for boys I guess… I mean there were girls there, but the entertainment was a few scantily clad African women belly dancing on stage. Even though we were fully dressed, we started to attract more attention than the stage simply due to our skin color. We walked over to a bar, which I quickly determined to be a local prostitute hang out. The last straw was a sketchy old man with no front teeth who decided he wanted to talk to the whiteys. We told him we were all married, but he kept asking questions like “well do you love him?” so we downed our beers and left. We went back to the hotel and got a group leader, who is Ugandan, and went to a CD release party for a girl she went to college with. WOW! She got us behind stage, and a news crew thought it would be fun to interview us…so I am going to be on Ugandan Television on Thursday…I hope I don’t get any stalkers!
The highlight of the day was that we found cloth…a LOT of it…I bought 16 metres myself…I am coming back to America wearing some CRAZY clothes!!
Day 9:
As we were leaving Mbarara (which we nicknamed mbalala land), I was sitting on the bus waiting to go when I noticed one of the singers from the night before was coming out of the hotel. I jumped off and ran up to her and asked for her autograph…I think she was really surprised that a whitey knew who she was. But I am now going to be on TV and I have met two Ugandan pop icons! WHOO!
OK, I will write less specific stuff later…generalizations about some things…but this is three MS word pages as it is…SORRY!
I think my host family is worried about me, so I am leaving!
Bye!
Sharoni
Sunday, September 24, 2006
sep 14
Alright-Sorry that last message was slightly hurried, and probably made no sense whatsoever…Also, my spelling and grammar is crazy because half of the internet cafes that I go to have half Arabic keyboards, which make figuring out what the heck I am doing interesting…But yea.My birthday- (Monday), well my host family forgot…so there was nothing special at home. The people in the program and I were all planning on finally going out and testing the Ugandan nightlife this weekend (it is our third weekend here after all!!) But our academic director said that means we are trying to run away and disclude ourselves from our host families…so I am slightly upset, because I need a little bit of a break from the home stay routine. (Side note: Wednesday my group brought me a chocolate cake…it wasn't really what any of us thought was delicious…but it was a fun experience!!) Here I wake up at 6:30 AM (yea, many of you will be shocked by that disclosure..) and go to school by 8, and don't get home until around 8 or so. I have really long days, and am consistently tired, even though I typically go to bed at around 10:30 or 11 at the latest (yea, another shocker, Sharon going to bed before 1 am?!? WHAT?!?) I walk all over the city here, which is really good, because my diet is almost all starch (rice, mashed bananas, breads…whoo)
Yesterday was crazy. The public transportation system (called taxis,but they are public) went on strike. The government wants to install govenators and so the taxi drivers went crazy. I sat around my host mothers shop until late ate at night so I could get a ride with her and my host dad…I honestly should have just fought for a "taxi" in the taxi pit, it would've been faster…That's Edem Jimbos idea of African time for you baby! Saturday I made the maid let me help cook lunch…I was doing well,chopping vegetables and such; we were going to have pasta, which is a
treat here haha. Then they pulled out a liver…cow liver I think, as it was too big to be from a goat. I got to chop that up. After I was done with that my hands were so bloody, I had to refrain from gagging. We fried it up, and I even tried it (another wow for Sharon). I wont lie, psychologically I couldn't deal with it, so when my host dad showed up unexpectedly, I was happy to hand over my meat for re-proportioning purposes. Another "oddity" that I will be trying soon is grasshoppers. The rainy season is starting soon, and we will be infested with them in November. They are a delicacy here, so I figure I didn't come here to be a crazy American, and the point is learning…so, down the hatch!!
One of my new favorite past times is watching Nigerian movies. It sounds odd…but it's the only visual stimulation I receive without having to process. They are all very corny, and parts where the rest of my host family is practically crying I have to cramp my mouth up terribly so I don't bust out laughing. A continuing theme throughout all of the movies is poisoning…it seems that's the thing to do in Nigeria. However, they slightly amuse me, so I find it ok!
Something I have yet to participate in here is the music. I passively listen to it on the radio, but my host father said that Uganda is a major destination in Africa for musicians because people here will actually go and see concerts. And let me tell you, I think there is a new CD release party every week here…maybe this weekend. If any of you want to listen to a cool Uganda artist, look for Bebe Cool! Haha, then we can all be listening to the same crazy stuff. Also, the rainy season is coming/ on the verge of being here. It has rained a bit, and is cool in the mornings (when I get up at 6 am and take my freezing cold showers haha). But let me tell you, when the rain does come…all hell is going to break loose…the amount of mud…lets just say I need to go shoe shopping for something more sturdy than old navy sandals…\n",1]
In about a month I have to move into "my own" apartment…so I went apartment shopping yesterday with my friend Sara. We found two nice ones, one bedrooms. Then we asked some random man on a street corner if he knew of any apartments to let. That's when we found the most amazing place EVER! Five bedrooms, one bathroom, and a bitty kitchen, but its above a restaurant where if we should stay there we get 10% off meals, they give us two eggs, homemade bread and milk in the morning, and the gentlemen who own the place were amazing! We should be able to rent the whole place out for 300 apiece for six weeks…yes!!
During the same time I will be living in the apartment I will be working with a non-governmental organization here. Today I went to talk to people at the Ugandan Human Rights Commission, UNHCR, the Red Cross, and the African Centre for the treatment and rehabilitation of torture victims. It was a long day. My cabbie couldn't find UNHCR, the Torture Victims center and the commission for human rights weren't in need of anyone, so as of today the Red Cross seems most promising. I had to walk around Kampala in heels. I will never complain about heels in America again. The sidewalks…and by sidewalks I mean sketchy dirt paths with some occasional crappy asphalt poured over it…yea it was fun, and my feet LOVE me…
Yesterday I went to a slum area in Kampala. We went to see how traditional family settings are being changed by the AIDS virus. Elders….very old men and women whose life story of poverty and hardship are written on their beautiful wrinkled faces…must take care of their grandchildren. The average life expectancy in Uganda is 47 years. I cant imagine that…Sometimes it is hard to be here, and to think of all that I have, and to see the absolute squalor others live in. In Uganda the poor aren't seperated from the rich like they are in America…the poor are very visible, and could be living right next door to someone who owns a car.
I am going to babble about politics now, so I am sorry, these are just my beliefs, if you disagree that is cool…I am sitting in Uganda, a country that has had a civil war raging for 20 years. I am surround by unstable states. The Sudan was under a civil war for thirty years, and is even known the home to mass turmoil, and has the largest refugee/ internally displaced population in the world. The DRC (Congo) has not known peace since the end of Lumumba in the 1960s…Rwanda was the home to mass genocide in 1994; 800,000 people killed in 100 days, a slaughter five times faster than the Nazi's in WWII. And yet it took only six weeks for the UN and the west to push for a end to the Lebanon issue. Does anyone see that as crazy? It makes me really upset actually. I know many of you know little to nothing about Africa…but does that mean we shouldn't care about the humanity here? I am not asking anyone to be an international peace keeper…but SERIOUSLY.
Sexuality is a big issue here…it is hardcore illegal. One can be jailed for 18 years for pure heresy. We have three gays in my group alone. Yet it is acceptable for men as well as women to hold hands here; it is a sign of friendship and respect. The newspapers here are very graphic, and daily carry stories concerning mob violence. One day a mentally ill man was found eating a human arm. He was beaten severely and the police had to take him into protective custody, the newspaper showed the man, bloody, with the arm in front of him. Yesterday there was a story from Kenya concerning mob justice; a man had tried to steal a motorcycle and people caught him and burned him alive. The paper showed a picture of the still smoldering, charred corpse.
Also, there is birdflu in Sudan. I am not very worried about it, yet, and have heard no warnings about Uganda…granted I would probably not understand them, as my Luganda is not improving. Also…my family is slacking…I have gotten two pieces of mail here, and BOTH were from the fabulous Gina Sammarco!! C\'mon!! haha, I am joking…sort of.
Thanks to Leslie and Libby for the e-cards.
Barry-Still no pictures, sorry…also can u get Mikes e-mail for me again, it hasn't worked at all since I got here…
Jared- you need to read the "Great Influenza" its all about medicine and such…actually anyone interested in early 20th century history should…Dr. Symonds, I assume you already have!
Anyways I am going to go! I leave for Rwanda in 3 days! Wish me luck, and sorry this is so long!!
Yesterday was crazy. The public transportation system (called taxis,but they are public) went on strike. The government wants to install govenators and so the taxi drivers went crazy. I sat around my host mothers shop until late ate at night so I could get a ride with her and my host dad…I honestly should have just fought for a "taxi" in the taxi pit, it would've been faster…That's Edem Jimbos idea of African time for you baby! Saturday I made the maid let me help cook lunch…I was doing well,chopping vegetables and such; we were going to have pasta, which is a
treat here haha. Then they pulled out a liver…cow liver I think, as it was too big to be from a goat. I got to chop that up. After I was done with that my hands were so bloody, I had to refrain from gagging. We fried it up, and I even tried it (another wow for Sharon). I wont lie, psychologically I couldn't deal with it, so when my host dad showed up unexpectedly, I was happy to hand over my meat for re-proportioning purposes. Another "oddity" that I will be trying soon is grasshoppers. The rainy season is starting soon, and we will be infested with them in November. They are a delicacy here, so I figure I didn't come here to be a crazy American, and the point is learning…so, down the hatch!!
One of my new favorite past times is watching Nigerian movies. It sounds odd…but it's the only visual stimulation I receive without having to process. They are all very corny, and parts where the rest of my host family is practically crying I have to cramp my mouth up terribly so I don't bust out laughing. A continuing theme throughout all of the movies is poisoning…it seems that's the thing to do in Nigeria. However, they slightly amuse me, so I find it ok!
Something I have yet to participate in here is the music. I passively listen to it on the radio, but my host father said that Uganda is a major destination in Africa for musicians because people here will actually go and see concerts. And let me tell you, I think there is a new CD release party every week here…maybe this weekend. If any of you want to listen to a cool Uganda artist, look for Bebe Cool! Haha, then we can all be listening to the same crazy stuff. Also, the rainy season is coming/ on the verge of being here. It has rained a bit, and is cool in the mornings (when I get up at 6 am and take my freezing cold showers haha). But let me tell you, when the rain does come…all hell is going to break loose…the amount of mud…lets just say I need to go shoe shopping for something more sturdy than old navy sandals…\n",1]
In about a month I have to move into "my own" apartment…so I went apartment shopping yesterday with my friend Sara. We found two nice ones, one bedrooms. Then we asked some random man on a street corner if he knew of any apartments to let. That's when we found the most amazing place EVER! Five bedrooms, one bathroom, and a bitty kitchen, but its above a restaurant where if we should stay there we get 10% off meals, they give us two eggs, homemade bread and milk in the morning, and the gentlemen who own the place were amazing! We should be able to rent the whole place out for 300 apiece for six weeks…yes!!
During the same time I will be living in the apartment I will be working with a non-governmental organization here. Today I went to talk to people at the Ugandan Human Rights Commission, UNHCR, the Red Cross, and the African Centre for the treatment and rehabilitation of torture victims. It was a long day. My cabbie couldn't find UNHCR, the Torture Victims center and the commission for human rights weren't in need of anyone, so as of today the Red Cross seems most promising. I had to walk around Kampala in heels. I will never complain about heels in America again. The sidewalks…and by sidewalks I mean sketchy dirt paths with some occasional crappy asphalt poured over it…yea it was fun, and my feet LOVE me…
Yesterday I went to a slum area in Kampala. We went to see how traditional family settings are being changed by the AIDS virus. Elders….very old men and women whose life story of poverty and hardship are written on their beautiful wrinkled faces…must take care of their grandchildren. The average life expectancy in Uganda is 47 years. I cant imagine that…Sometimes it is hard to be here, and to think of all that I have, and to see the absolute squalor others live in. In Uganda the poor aren't seperated from the rich like they are in America…the poor are very visible, and could be living right next door to someone who owns a car.
I am going to babble about politics now, so I am sorry, these are just my beliefs, if you disagree that is cool…I am sitting in Uganda, a country that has had a civil war raging for 20 years. I am surround by unstable states. The Sudan was under a civil war for thirty years, and is even known the home to mass turmoil, and has the largest refugee/ internally displaced population in the world. The DRC (Congo) has not known peace since the end of Lumumba in the 1960s…Rwanda was the home to mass genocide in 1994; 800,000 people killed in 100 days, a slaughter five times faster than the Nazi's in WWII. And yet it took only six weeks for the UN and the west to push for a end to the Lebanon issue. Does anyone see that as crazy? It makes me really upset actually. I know many of you know little to nothing about Africa…but does that mean we shouldn't care about the humanity here? I am not asking anyone to be an international peace keeper…but SERIOUSLY.
Sexuality is a big issue here…it is hardcore illegal. One can be jailed for 18 years for pure heresy. We have three gays in my group alone. Yet it is acceptable for men as well as women to hold hands here; it is a sign of friendship and respect. The newspapers here are very graphic, and daily carry stories concerning mob violence. One day a mentally ill man was found eating a human arm. He was beaten severely and the police had to take him into protective custody, the newspaper showed the man, bloody, with the arm in front of him. Yesterday there was a story from Kenya concerning mob justice; a man had tried to steal a motorcycle and people caught him and burned him alive. The paper showed a picture of the still smoldering, charred corpse.
Also, there is birdflu in Sudan. I am not very worried about it, yet, and have heard no warnings about Uganda…granted I would probably not understand them, as my Luganda is not improving. Also…my family is slacking…I have gotten two pieces of mail here, and BOTH were from the fabulous Gina Sammarco!! C\'mon!! haha, I am joking…sort of.
Thanks to Leslie and Libby for the e-cards.
Barry-Still no pictures, sorry…also can u get Mikes e-mail for me again, it hasn't worked at all since I got here…
Jared- you need to read the "Great Influenza" its all about medicine and such…actually anyone interested in early 20th century history should…Dr. Symonds, I assume you already have!
Anyways I am going to go! I leave for Rwanda in 3 days! Wish me luck, and sorry this is so long!!
Sep 7
Hello again-
I am sure that you are all getting sick of me!! But I thought I might be able to better point out some issues of Kampala life.
What I said the other day about my host family doesn't mean that we are poor or rich. Pit latrines don't "mean" anything. We have a flat screen TV in our sitting room. Classes are a lot harder to define here. No one has electricity 24 hours per day. Some people have back up generators, but most do not. Many internet cafes do ( I got to witness them putting in a new one yesterday at this internet café).
I am not worried about the culture shock; it is something people go through no matter what country they study or live in. I prepared myself for this prior to coming as best I could. One thing that is very annoying here is the DUST. I think I might as well just pick up smoking…I think my luings are already black after just one week. When I go to the country it won't be so bad though. Also, I get to go to Rwanda in a few weeks YAY!. One other thing that adds to the smog is that they burn their garbage. There is no trash pick up. Yesterday at the University campus it must have been trash burning day cause I had to walk through several billowing clouds of filth. Haha, ooh Uganda. Another annoying habit here, that I am trying my best to get used to is that in Luganda (the language of this AREA, not Uganda as a whole) they have a word which means white person, "Muzungu." Many people speak English here, but on the street taxi drivers and small children call out to us/me MUZUNGU!! And is typically accompanied by a lot of staring. By the end of the day I am frustrated, and just want to yell YES I AM A WHITEY!! But I still find it amusing.
Also, everyone is interested in the food. It is different, and slightly unexplainable. We eat something called mitoki (spelling is off, my LUGANDA IS NOT SO GOOD YET), which is a mashed something (its yellow…so banana??) then you pour a stew over it, with stuff like meat carrots and peas. I ate put peas on it Tuesday and it was delicious. Last night we had what Ugandans call an "Irish." For dinner we had stewed potatoes and some greens. It was very delicious, as I had been going through potato withdrawal! There is an Indian naan type bread called chipati which is delicious in and of itself, but is used to sop up leftover stew.
The power; we are on a rotating system. I have power for one night and day, then it is followed by about 24 hours of no electricity. I am not sure how much of the stuff in the fridge stays cool, but then again there isn't much in there to begin with. It is a mini fridge, slightly larger than what kids today bring to college.
As for my home stay, I leave the city proper at around 6 or 6:30 in the evening. I do not go into the city again until the next morning. Ugandans do things differently in the evening than in America. In the US you typically go home, eat, hang out, then go to bed. Here we go home, hang out, eat (as late as 11pm) then go to bed. It is a lot on your stomach (rice, breads, starch etc) to have to climb into bed with, so I try and keep my mum up and talking to me. Then I wake up at 6 am…ooh how I long for the American University schedule!!"
Also, as I was telling my parents yesterday, everyone here is obsessed with being clean. I MUST take two showers a day. One when I wake up in the morning, and one when I get back from school at about 7 pm. These are my host mother's rules. Everyone here dresses very nicely, collared shirts and all. Perhaps that is the same in Benin Kelly?
The next big question is how do I get home? My family owns a car (a Toyota), but the point is for me to assimilate, so I take a taxi. The word taxi is used loosely here. It means that I wait around for a mini-van style public transportation vehicle to show up. Then I have to haggle with the driver, and climb aboard. In the mornings it is easy. In the afternoons I have to go to what is called a taxi park. This is an overwhelming experience, as there are hundreds of "matatus" (taxis's) in a small dusty people filled area, with no signs and no discernible system. Also, all of them look EXACTLY THE SAME. So it's a slightly stressful situation, but I am getting used to it.
People asked me if I have a curfew and such…well not really. But you dont want to take the taxi's at night, especially as a girl. Also, they have what we think of as "American" taxis, which are more expensive, but even those can be unsafe. So if I want to spend the night with my friends in the city, I must ask my mum, the academic director, and then rent a hotel room. It seems to be a slightly obnoxious process (yes yes I know its for my safety), so I have yet to do it.
Tonight I am going to a bachelors or bachelorette party with my mum. Here they are both called the same thing, and sometimes both the bride and groom attend the same one. I am really excited, but also quite scared, because when I asked what to wear, the mum and maid laughed and said they would dress me! So those pictures should be highly amusing. Sorry I haven't uploaded any pics yet…computers and power are a major issue here haha, sooo I am just trying to figure out how I should go about doing that. I am sure that I will have even more news for all of you tomorrow after my party, but you probably won't hear from me for a bit (I have flooded everyone's e-mails enough!
I am sure that you are all getting sick of me!! But I thought I might be able to better point out some issues of Kampala life.
What I said the other day about my host family doesn't mean that we are poor or rich. Pit latrines don't "mean" anything. We have a flat screen TV in our sitting room. Classes are a lot harder to define here. No one has electricity 24 hours per day. Some people have back up generators, but most do not. Many internet cafes do ( I got to witness them putting in a new one yesterday at this internet café).
I am not worried about the culture shock; it is something people go through no matter what country they study or live in. I prepared myself for this prior to coming as best I could. One thing that is very annoying here is the DUST. I think I might as well just pick up smoking…I think my luings are already black after just one week. When I go to the country it won't be so bad though. Also, I get to go to Rwanda in a few weeks YAY!. One other thing that adds to the smog is that they burn their garbage. There is no trash pick up. Yesterday at the University campus it must have been trash burning day cause I had to walk through several billowing clouds of filth. Haha, ooh Uganda. Another annoying habit here, that I am trying my best to get used to is that in Luganda (the language of this AREA, not Uganda as a whole) they have a word which means white person, "Muzungu." Many people speak English here, but on the street taxi drivers and small children call out to us/me MUZUNGU!! And is typically accompanied by a lot of staring. By the end of the day I am frustrated, and just want to yell YES I AM A WHITEY!! But I still find it amusing.
Also, everyone is interested in the food. It is different, and slightly unexplainable. We eat something called mitoki (spelling is off, my LUGANDA IS NOT SO GOOD YET), which is a mashed something (its yellow…so banana??) then you pour a stew over it, with stuff like meat carrots and peas. I ate put peas on it Tuesday and it was delicious. Last night we had what Ugandans call an "Irish." For dinner we had stewed potatoes and some greens. It was very delicious, as I had been going through potato withdrawal! There is an Indian naan type bread called chipati which is delicious in and of itself, but is used to sop up leftover stew.
The power; we are on a rotating system. I have power for one night and day, then it is followed by about 24 hours of no electricity. I am not sure how much of the stuff in the fridge stays cool, but then again there isn't much in there to begin with. It is a mini fridge, slightly larger than what kids today bring to college.
As for my home stay, I leave the city proper at around 6 or 6:30 in the evening. I do not go into the city again until the next morning. Ugandans do things differently in the evening than in America. In the US you typically go home, eat, hang out, then go to bed. Here we go home, hang out, eat (as late as 11pm) then go to bed. It is a lot on your stomach (rice, breads, starch etc) to have to climb into bed with, so I try and keep my mum up and talking to me. Then I wake up at 6 am…ooh how I long for the American University schedule!!"
Also, as I was telling my parents yesterday, everyone here is obsessed with being clean. I MUST take two showers a day. One when I wake up in the morning, and one when I get back from school at about 7 pm. These are my host mother's rules. Everyone here dresses very nicely, collared shirts and all. Perhaps that is the same in Benin Kelly?
The next big question is how do I get home? My family owns a car (a Toyota), but the point is for me to assimilate, so I take a taxi. The word taxi is used loosely here. It means that I wait around for a mini-van style public transportation vehicle to show up. Then I have to haggle with the driver, and climb aboard. In the mornings it is easy. In the afternoons I have to go to what is called a taxi park. This is an overwhelming experience, as there are hundreds of "matatus" (taxis's) in a small dusty people filled area, with no signs and no discernible system. Also, all of them look EXACTLY THE SAME. So it's a slightly stressful situation, but I am getting used to it.
People asked me if I have a curfew and such…well not really. But you dont want to take the taxi's at night, especially as a girl. Also, they have what we think of as "American" taxis, which are more expensive, but even those can be unsafe. So if I want to spend the night with my friends in the city, I must ask my mum, the academic director, and then rent a hotel room. It seems to be a slightly obnoxious process (yes yes I know its for my safety), so I have yet to do it.
Tonight I am going to a bachelors or bachelorette party with my mum. Here they are both called the same thing, and sometimes both the bride and groom attend the same one. I am really excited, but also quite scared, because when I asked what to wear, the mum and maid laughed and said they would dress me! So those pictures should be highly amusing. Sorry I haven't uploaded any pics yet…computers and power are a major issue here haha, sooo I am just trying to figure out how I should go about doing that. I am sure that I will have even more news for all of you tomorrow after my party, but you probably won't hear from me for a bit (I have flooded everyone's e-mails enough!
Sept 5
Hello all
Wow, so much has happened since I last wrote to you all! Saturday I went to the source of the Nile!! And for my many University of Chicago friends, well you know how excited that made me. If you don't fall in that group, just know that I was screeching for essentially the whole day! Saturday night many from my group went out to a local pub. Ah yes, for those of you following the story, I went out with Texas Tom and co Friday night, to an Irish bar (haha, called Bubbles O'Leary's). Sunday I had to get some stationary supplies, so me and two other girls went out and got some lunch on our adventure that is shopping in Kampala on a Sunday.
You know how we always ask if they had to kill something out back if food is taking a long time…ummm, well I think that ACTUALLY happened to me!! all of us ordered chicken…as the only things they had that day were chicken, beef or goat. It took over na hour to get a chicken breast and fries…I know they killed it for us 'cause we all had different parts of the bird..ok well I don't know they killed it for me, but I dunno I am assuming. Perhaps someone wants to correct me on that.
Later Sunday I "got" my host family…WOW, wow…everything is crazy here. I have a mom who works in a CD and DVD store, and my father works at a Toyota dealership. I have a youngr brother who attends boarding school and is in 7th grade, and my younger sister is 6 and sits at home. We also have a maid. However unlike America this is not a status symbol. Often times family members give other family members children to cement a bond, and I think this girl is one of those. She does all the washing, market runs, and takes my sister sarah to school. We do not have a table, we eat on mats on the floor. My mum taught me the correct way to sit, so I wouldn't sit improperly and show off my "naughty bits" as Niloofar would say. (Other students' families do have tables by the way). I use the toilet, a pit latrine…think Boundary waters, but with NO seat….squatting skills are necessary here. "Showering" is non-existant. I fill a bucket of water and dump cupfuls onto my head. Yea.
The food has been different, but not bad. Our maid made sure to ask what I like haha. Lots of fruit, no worry of scurvy!
Today I went to an AIDS clinic…wow again..wow. There are going to be lots of wows I am sure, but my time limit is about to run out. More cultural issues and adventures later!!
I MISS YOU ALL!
(culture shock is going to set in in roughly 2 days, b prepaerd!!)
Wow, so much has happened since I last wrote to you all! Saturday I went to the source of the Nile!! And for my many University of Chicago friends, well you know how excited that made me. If you don't fall in that group, just know that I was screeching for essentially the whole day! Saturday night many from my group went out to a local pub. Ah yes, for those of you following the story, I went out with Texas Tom and co Friday night, to an Irish bar (haha, called Bubbles O'Leary's). Sunday I had to get some stationary supplies, so me and two other girls went out and got some lunch on our adventure that is shopping in Kampala on a Sunday.
You know how we always ask if they had to kill something out back if food is taking a long time…ummm, well I think that ACTUALLY happened to me!! all of us ordered chicken…as the only things they had that day were chicken, beef or goat. It took over na hour to get a chicken breast and fries…I know they killed it for us 'cause we all had different parts of the bird..ok well I don't know they killed it for me, but I dunno I am assuming. Perhaps someone wants to correct me on that.
Later Sunday I "got" my host family…WOW, wow…everything is crazy here. I have a mom who works in a CD and DVD store, and my father works at a Toyota dealership. I have a youngr brother who attends boarding school and is in 7th grade, and my younger sister is 6 and sits at home. We also have a maid. However unlike America this is not a status symbol. Often times family members give other family members children to cement a bond, and I think this girl is one of those. She does all the washing, market runs, and takes my sister sarah to school. We do not have a table, we eat on mats on the floor. My mum taught me the correct way to sit, so I wouldn't sit improperly and show off my "naughty bits" as Niloofar would say. (Other students' families do have tables by the way). I use the toilet, a pit latrine…think Boundary waters, but with NO seat….squatting skills are necessary here. "Showering" is non-existant. I fill a bucket of water and dump cupfuls onto my head. Yea.
The food has been different, but not bad. Our maid made sure to ask what I like haha. Lots of fruit, no worry of scurvy!
Today I went to an AIDS clinic…wow again..wow. There are going to be lots of wows I am sure, but my time limit is about to run out. More cultural issues and adventures later!!
I MISS YOU ALL!
(culture shock is going to set in in roughly 2 days, b prepaerd!!)
Sept 1.
hello again-Clearly I have not yet broken my internet umbilical cord...Yesterday was slightly exhausting, it was a lot of orientation "stuff." I did try goat meat twice, don't really know how to describe it...not bad. I dont think we are allowed to go gorilla trekking or rafting on the nile...I am very upset about this. One thing I failed to mention yesterday was that when we arrived at out hotel Wednesday night the power was out. I had to stumble up to the second floor of the hotel (no elevators...) while carrying towo packs on my back, my carryon strapped to my front, while holding a candle and trying to light a match..haha, oooh Africa...Apparently Uganda is powered by dams along the Nile, but Lake Victoria has dropped 2 meters ( i dont actually know how much that is, other than a lot), and they only actually have enough power for 1/4 of the demand. Rolling brownouts are typical, i just have to figure out what schedule i will be on.Sunday i get to meet my host family. I am really nervous. I know they have kids, but ages I am not sure. I want one to be about my age, so they can take me out and show me where people my age go, and what they do. If they aren't that will be ok though. The home is about 7-10 minutes outside the city center, but with traffic it may take up to 30 minutes. traffic is CRAZY. I have been almosr run over at least 7 times already today (sorry to tell you that mom). I have never seen anything like. And rules?!?! pssh, if you thought Europe was bad, its a cake-walk honeyTomorrow we are going to Jinga, which is near the Kenyan border (sort-of) I am not really sure what we will be doig there, but it will be exciting I am sure.Right now we are on our "missions." Me and another girl are in charge of investigating markets, specifically the Nakasoro Market. The amount of stares and gentlemen that approach us is amazing, and i have trouble keeping a smile on my face (we are supposed to be nice and polite)I need to find lunch soon.
);
I have not posted any pics so dont weorry about shutterfly yet.This is the e-mail i will be recieving e-mails at, but i got a new mailing address, which should show below. If its not please tell me!!-- Sharon Wegner c/o School for International TrainingP.O. Box 23431Kati House, Ground Floor, Plot 2Kyagwe RoadKampala, Uganda
);
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)