Mini-portrait of 2 years in Uganda

new arrivals.....

• trying to figure out how to phone the VSO office when nobody met us at the airport
• arriving at our campus house to find it had 2 beds, a table and chairs and nothing else! having to completely furnish the house.
• waking up every morning for a week or two hoping that when I opened my eyes I'd be in our lovely blue bedroom in Scotland
• trying to figure out the money. So many zeros!! Then referring to the money as.... 1,000 shs is a single, 5,000 shs is a fiver, etc.
• learning how to bargain
• trying to figure out how much we should pay for our household furnishings and trying not to pay the very highly-inflated mzungu prices
• most people not understanding my accent--me not understanding theirs
• being the centre of attention EVERYWHERE
• trying matooke, posho, beans, karo and liking them
• seeing just about anything being hauled on the back of a motorbike, including a family of 4
• roadside coffin shops and the coffin have windows!
• potholes the size of a childs swimming pool
• fearing for my life every time we were on the road!
• unreliable power, no guarantee of running water
• MOSQUITOES!!!
• extremely poor quality goods - rejects from China.

settling in....

• learning the local language and the delighted reactions of Ugandans
• feeling my severe culture shock ease considerably after meeting up with other volunteers at our first regional cluster meeting
• first trip to Garden City Mall in Kampala - wow. Stuff!!!
• finally figuring out the best hand laundry washing system
• finally figuring out the best system for doing dishes when water was off in kitchen
• figuring out how mozzies got in house
• getting comfy sofa and big chairs after 5 months of crappy and uncomfortable furniture
• our first meal at a Ugandan's farm and discovering that the children read Shakespeare and classic literature -- an atypical Ugandan family -- reading for pleasure is not common
• eating goat (usually good), grasshoppers (emmm...yuck)
• meeting all kinds of fellow volunteers--from wonderful and lovely and witty to totally obnoxious and argumentative and everything in between

difficult....

• trying to explain an Ipod, washing machine, lawnmower, central heating
• the number of times we've been asked why we have so few children
• explaining why I don't need to treat my hair--being told I've been blessed by God with such hair
• trying to teach someone how to use a mouse, what a desktop/folder/menu is, etc
• trying to answer the question 'what is the staple food in your country' to people that eat the same thing day after day after year after year
• explaining snow
• not being very surprised at how corruption taints so many facets of daily life
• saying goodbye to volunteers who've become our friends and are quitting and going home early
• trying to convince Ugandans that all westerners are not rich
• trying to get used to the almost total lack of timekeeping and punctuality and planning head

memorable or surprising or depressing....

• watching a Ugandan being amazed by his first time using binoculars
• red ants crawling inside my shoes and biting the hell out of my feet and legs. screaming bloody murder!
• lions, elephants, impala, chimps, giraffes, hippos, zebras, etc etc etc.....
• seeing pics of our former principal in snow in Dublin and him being so excited about it
• watching college students eating chocolate for the first time
• coming across a group of kids in raggedy clothes with patchy hair indicating malnutrition
• hearing our former principal talk excitedly about being in a plane for the first time and how excited he was to look out the window at the ground and how everything looked so tiny
• a toddler running away screaming and crying when she saw us because whites are scary-looking!
• finding that Ugandans put their curtains up 'backwards'--pattern facing outside and lining facing inside. getting strange looks when we turned ours around.
• being surrounded by chimps after they'd killed and were munching on a monkey
• the poor kids in the villages and having far too many siblings for them all to be fed and educated properly
• having our families visit and go on safaris with us
• staying in posh lodges and simple bandas or tents
• a mouth-watering fillet steak and chocolate mousse at Mweya Lodge
• the enormous room and claw footed bathtub at Katara Lodge
• the first time seeing the Great Rift Valley at Kingfisher Lodge
• having a serious drinking session at Lake Mburo with Nikki and Hillary and feeling intoxicated whilst on boat trip on the lake
• barefoot kids running on gravel and dirt
• barefoot kids walking to school in their pink or purple school uniforms
• people eating foods like rice with their hands
• people carrying just about anything on their heads
• being the centre of attention at a wedding
• all the thumbs up and cheers for Obama
• amazing people by telling them our ages and them thinking we are really really elderly/aged
• the college students realizing that Danny was a 'proper' physics teacher
• the students cheering when Danny went into assembly
• being surprised at the dirt poor people who have such happy smiles on their faces
• getting lost in the swamp on a game drive at Lake Mburo and being chased by a water buffalo