Top 10, Culture, Imported Products, Internet at home!

Note: I intended to post this last Saturday but there was no electricity in Mbarara, so the internet cafés were closed. However,

Woohoo!! We will (relatively) soon have GPRS internet at home. This entails using a USB modem that works on the signal from the mobile network – same as our phones. It’s quite expensive in relation to Ugandan salaries and is slower than the old dial-up connections. But waiting a week for a couple of hours of internet connection is just too much to bear!

We will be in Kampala, the capital, for 2 weeks beginning Nov 17th. Danny has a week of motorbike training and the following week there will be In-Country-Training for both of us. Internet cafes are on nearly every corner, so I will be posting during that time.

Top 10 ‘events’ during our first month in Uganda (not in any particular order):
1. children running up to us to shake our hand, hug or touch us
2. finally figuring out the best way to wash our laundry by hand
3. weekly treat of fattening European food in Mbarara
4. discovering cheddar cheese, porridge oats, peanut butter, chocolate milk, and Cadbury in the supermarket
5. meeting up with fellow volunteers
6. getting our house (mostly) furnished
7. friendly welcomes by so many people – getting big smiles in return for a wave – kids always waving at us
8. discovering the scrumptious fruits and veg here
9. feeling less and less uncomfortable being the centre of attention when walking through crowded Mbarara
10. figuring out the currency here with so many zeros! Basically knowing where to shop for what items and what a fair price is.

While I do the ironing—a massive job since every item of clothing, towels, linens, socks, knickers, require ironing—I listen to audio books. I recently finished listening to Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, which was recommended and downloaded for me by my SIL, Christie. It was an entertaining and thought-provoking book and certainly made ironing and housework much pleasanter chores. Current book is Star of the Sea about a voyage in 1847 from Ireland to NYC and the history of the some of the passengers.

You may wonder why everything must be ironed. If you weren’t wondering, skip to the next paragraph. When laundry is hanging out to dry the mango flies might lay eggs on them. The heat of the iron kills the eggs. If the eggs remain on the items and they get next to your skin, they burrow under your skin and later hatch. They can be felt squirming around under the skin and must be removed by sterile knife or razor. Cringe! Didn’t want to know all that, did ya?! Personally, I’d prefer to iron everything.

Cultural differences
During a discussion with the Principle and a couple of teachers we were asked if there were people in Britain who had no home. They are under the impression that everyone in Britain and America are rich. We enlightened them with facts about the welfare system which horrified them, especially regarding government money be given to unwed, unemployed mothers. We informed them that the minimum wage was about £5.25 an hour and upon converting this to Ugandan shillings they assumed that everyone must be very rich. I explained that people making this wage were poor because everything was much more expensive in Britain, but this fact did not seem to change their view. The Principle suggested they cut back to eating one meal per day, like is mainly done in Uganda. Right. Not likely!

We have asked various staff members how many children they have and 5 seems to be the most common answer. Soon after our arrival a second child was born to the wife of the art teacher. They now have a boy and a girl, but he says they would like to have a total of 5 or 6. This baffles me, but I'll bypass that discussion for the time being. It is thought odd that Danny only has one child and I only have two.

Many times we have been greeted with ‘you are welcome’ which means ‘welcome to the college’ ‘welcome to Uganda’, ‘welcome to our village’ etc. I’ve found this a charming way to be greeted.

The pleasant aroma of smoke is nearly constant. Every staff house has a separate building that is used by most as the room where they cook using charcoal or wood. We haven’t used ours but opted to use the 2 gas burners that VSO purchased for us. We are considering getting a charcoal or wood burner so that we can bake bread and have a BBQ (not goat!).

Behind the outdoor kitchens are outhouses for each house. A couple of years ago the World Bank granted the college money to upgrade staff houses which included the addition of indoor bathrooms. Some people though seem to prefer using the outhouses. Hmmm…..not us!

The curtains in our house are backwards – with the lining facing inside. We noticed that all the houses are like this, the design is apparently supposed to be seen from outside the house. I’m deciding whether to be rebellious and turn them around.

A former volunteer told us that hygiene standards always lessen when living as a volunteer. Yup, they certainly do.

Western products
Some of the familiar products I've discovered in Mbarara thus far:
Nutella
Cadbury sweets and hot chocolate
Snickers
Kit Kat
Coke, Pepsi, Fanta
Pringles
American Garden Creamy Peanut Butter (never heard of it, but it was made in NY and tastes similar to Skippy)
Knorr soup mix
Quaker Oats
McVitties Biscuits
Corn Flakes
Trix cereal
Weetabix (Yuck! Tried this for the first time and it’s horrid!)
Rice Krispies
Persil detergent (unfortunately it’s not the non-bio that we need)
Listerine
Macleans toothpaste
Crest toothpaste
Carex hand soap
Savlon & Dettol liquid