I live with the Kisembo family off Kisoto road on the taxi route to Kisaasi in the Kawempe district.

Note: this post is from 2/2. I just didn't have internet access until now. Can't figure out how to upload my pictures but as soon as I have time to figure it out, I will post them. This is the post:

I had to repeat that about 1000 times before I could get all of the words right. Serious, I am the worst language student ever. I have been practicing with my home stay family though, so I am getting better. I keep getting tripped up by words that I recognize from Spanish, which is not something I expected. For example, “si” means “not” in Lugandan, and the root word “tu” refers to “we.” We started grammar today (flashback to espanol uno in 6th grade) in my Luganda class, so that should be fun. Hopefully I’ll come back able to formulate at least a few sentences…

But enough about academics (I’m ready to finish up orientation already and get to some substance!). I have a lot of time to write because I am at school waiting to meet with the Academic Director to talk about my final project (yes, already!).

I moved in with my home stay family on Sunday, and have really enjoyed the time I’ve spent with them so far. The house is not, as I was told, just a few blocks from my school. It’s only about 30 minutes away though by walking/ taxi, which isn’t bad considering that some people have commutes up to 2 hours each way. It still won’t be fun though once the rainy season starts, which should be sometime soon. It’s a little bit outside the city center so it is a lot quieter and cleaner, and the air is a lot fresher than the area where the school is.

I have 8 siblings, though only 3 of them are still in school and 2 of those are in boarding school. So really, it’s just me, my host mom (Eva), my host dad (Julius), and the cutest 2.5 year old in the whole world (Jeremiah, or Jerry).

I’m kind of sad that Jerry doesn’t speak much English but we’ve already had some bonding time and he has started following me around the house sometimes. I brought sparkly pipe cleaners to play with. At first he didn’t know what to do with them so he just waved them around in the air and danced. Then, his sister and I showed him how to make hats and other designs. We made fake glasses for him, which he refused to take off. Hopefully I will get a picture of him soon so you can understand just exactly how adorable this kid is.

One of the other children, 16-year-old Daphne, leaves for boarding school tomorrow. It has been really nice to have her around these past few days. She has been so helpful explaining everything to me and just being someone my own age-ish that I can talk to. She told me that at boarding school they have to wake up at 4am to do chores and get ready for the day. The days are super structured, but it seems like they pack a lot in. It doesn’t seem like she is very happy there, but the alternatives are local day schools, none of which provide as good an education. I gave her the magazines I had left from the plane ride over here, which she seemed to enjoy. Oh, except I kept Glamour cuz I want to send in my picture with it to be in the front of the magazine in the “where has Glamour been” section☺

Julius is a fantastic father. Most fathers here are really hands off and absent from the home. Many students have barely talked to their host fathers at all. One of the first things that happened once we got seated at the house, was that Julius gave me a speech (well, a discussion with him doing most of the talking) about how he thinks that women should be considered equal in Uganda, and the ways in which he feels they need to be empowered. One of these ways is that the husband should take equal responsibility for the household. In all honesty, Eva does a lot more housework than him, but I think he is fantastic compared to most households in Uganda. He makes breakfast every morning and clearly has been extremely involved in raising his children. He is super social, and the first day instead of just dropping me off at school, he came in with me and said hello to all of the other students. I am the 13th student they have hosted, so clearly they are good at it.

Eva is very quiet (or as she told me the first day “I do not have many words”). She is very nurturing though and has been very patient with my complete incompetence in the ways of Ugandan life. For example, she had to show me the technique for bathing with just a basin of water and a drain. The whole experience was highly amusing and only a little awkward. I have also already learned how to handwash mass amounts of dishes in a very short amount of time. She has started to teach me cooking, including lighting the charcoal pot where we cook everything. So far I have helped with Matoke (the signature Ugandan dish of kind of sticky mashed bananas cooked in banana leaves, which only tastes good if you put a lot of g-nut or bean sauce on top of it) and Chapati (a lightly fried pita-like dough, which I am utterly pathetic at rolling into an evenly shaped circle). I will get better at it though.

Speaking of which, I ended up in one of the family’s of lower socio-economic status as compared to my classmates, though it is still definitely middle class for Uganda. We have electricity… most of the time. It goes out for periods of 20 minutes or so every once and a while but we just light lanterns. We don’t have running water (which means no sink, no bath/shower, and no toilet), which I thought was going to be pretty rough, but I am actually managing without much trouble. It’s kind of nice to live so uncomplicatedly. It still takes a lot of effort, but I am getting better at just sitting without feeling like I need to be accomplishing something. My stress levels are pretty much nonexistent in that sense. I got my iPod to work again though so I do allow myself about 10 minutes of movie watching before I go to sleep at night under my mosquito net, which, by the way, startles me less and less every day when I wake up.

Some one liners:
-One person in my program already got malaria. It has a 7 day incubation period. This means she got it the first day here.
-To talk about something coming up, like when driving, people here say “in the future.” For example, “after you pass the mango tree, you can see in the future the street you should turn on.” I LOVE this.
-The vans here that serve as buses/taxis all have names on their rear window. Today I saw one that said Puff Daddy. I also saw one that said Hezbollah.


Ok. Just realized how absurdly long this is getting. As interesting as Uganda sounds, you all have interesting things to be doing too so get off the computer and go outside and play! Oh, except that it is winter where you are (it’s 80/85ish here). So don’t go outside, but go do something fun!

Also, THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!!! I finally got a cell phone with free incoming calls. SO get a skype account and hit me up at 0701080373.

Off to find an internet café and get this posted!