Monday 14 September 2009

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















2 comments:

Tanya said...

Fab list! What a wonderful set of memories-good and bad- great to come back to in a years time, or five or even ten.

Melanie Arnold DuChateau said...

I am laughing my BUTT off at your lists! I just returned from Uganda mid-September and your lists were like a walk down memory lane...I am forwarding this to my friend Katie Wagner who works for the VSO out of Bushenyi, as I'm sure she will "get" it too. Anyone getting ready to leave to spend any length of time in Uganda needs to read this! --Melanie DuChateau