2 years down and still going strong...

Hi Everyone!

Hope this finds you well! Ryan and I just got back from a wonderful vacation to celebrate our 2nd anniversary (Aug 15)! We had a great time seeing more of Uganda and relaxing with each other! I thought I'd write a little about it and also share a link of pictures from our trip.

All in all our trip went off pretty much without a hitch, but we did have some good adventures to share! We decided to travel further into Southwest Uganda to visit Kabale and nearby Lake Bunyonyi. On our way to Mbarara to catch the Kabale bus our taxi driver had a flat tire. That's never happened to us but we were amazed at how quickly he put on a new tire and went on our way. Even with the flat it was probably the most comfortable and efficient taxi ride we've ever had in Uganda! Then, we waited a good two hours for the bus to arrive in the Mbarara bus park. The conductors were making everyone buy their tickets in advance. (This is a little scary because you really have no reason to believe that they bus will actually arrive!) But it did show up, we got seats, and left without much more delay.

We spent our first night at a hostel in Kabale. It's a really neat place that has a hostel (maybe 7 rooms in all!), open air "nest" restaurant, and cultural museum. There's also lots of western travelers, students, and ngo workers, so we had some great conversations with some other "mzungus" while we hung out. We actually planned to spend the night at another nearby guesthouse, but the room we had reserved looked out onto a courtyard where there would be loud, Ugandan music played all night (thank goodness they let us know in advance). Our only other option was to squeeze into a *tiny* single room at the nearby hostel. We weighed our options and decided to squish for the night.

So, the hostel was really nice but this room was seriously tiny! It was in the shape of a triangle and was so small that the single bed wouldn't even fit normally and had to be squished sideways against a window. To make matters even more exciting, Ryan was chatting with his family while the power was out at the hostel and noticed that there was a mouse also sharing our tiny room! He tried to search for it in the dark, while holding a cell phone, flashlight, and weapon (plastic water bottle). When I came down later he was pretty sure it was gone. So I was sitting on the bed while we were talking and Ryan suddenly says, very calmly, "Emily...you should get off the bed. Seriously, get off the bed!" Turns out the mouse had popped up onto the bed with me and was about to run across my lap! So we had an adventure trying to get the mouse out of our room! In the morning we got to eat doughnuts at a real bakery (first bakery we've seen in Uganda!) and found a taxi that could take us to the lake.

I discovered our lake accommodations from some other PCVs who spent new years there last year. So, I blindly booked three nights on the island (only about $12 a night!) without having a very good idea what to expect! It turned out to be absolutely wonderful! There is a man who owns the island and has developed it for visitors, but chooses not to advertise. So, we were the only guests on the island! We had the company of 2 Ugandan workers who didn't speak a word of English, and 3 large Ankole cattle! Pretty exclusive, eh?

Incidentally, when they were showing us around the island and we got to the swimming dock we discovered a little problem. One of the cows had wandered on to the dock and, because these cows are HUGE, had broken the dock and fallen in. The Ugandan workers tried to grab it by the horns and force it to get out of the water but had no luck. Eventually, one of the guys climbs into the lake with the cow and starts pushing it from behind (no small task!). So, with the one guy pulling the horns and the other literally shoving the cow onto the bank of the island, they managed to get the cow out of the water and back on solid ground!

Anyhow, they set us up with charcoal and sigeeris, and we got to do all our own cooking. We'd splurged on a block of gouda in Mbarara (cheese is hard to come by!) and planned out lots of cheesy meals! We had a great log cabin with a view of the lake from bed, a shower with only 3 walls so you can enjoy the lake view while showering (and hope nobody happens to walk past)! We got to take out a local dugout canoe and canoe around the lake and nearby islands! The lake is free from hippos, crocodiles, and other dangerous water and inhabitants and supposedly (we're crossing our fingers) it's also free from schisto and other sketchy diseases and bacterias that inhabit most Ugandan bodies of water. The island has no running water or electricity, so has something of a rustic, camping feel - so quiet and peaceful! So, we swam, hiked, cooked, played games, listened to music, talked and talked, and had a great getaway!

We're home for a few days now, and then early next week we head off to Kampala again (ugh! we don't love Kampala) for two and a half weeks of training! We have IST (in-service-training) with our training group for the first week and a half, and then a conference for all the volunteers in country after that. In between the trainings our group is planning to go whitewater rafting on the Nile river (how cool is that?!) and take a sunset Nile cruise. Should be a lot of fun!

Thanks for reading - we love and miss you all!

~emily~

Reflections

Friday will mark the end of our first term here at Bushenyi PTC! The 11th of this month will make 6 months that we’ve been in Uganda, and a new group of Peace Corps Trainees arrives in country tomorrow! Seems like as good a time as any for some reflection!

On the whole, I think our first term here has been a success! It has certainly not been without challenges and frustrations, but there’s been a lot of joy too! I feel like we’re often on a roller coaster of feeling one day as if what we’re doing here is really significant and important, and the next feeling a little like we’re just hitting our heads against the wall! So, it’s good for us (especially on days like the latter) to consider all the great things that have happened this term, and maybe reframe the struggles into potential challenges that have a chance to be overcome! So...here are my thoughts!

Successes:

• Moving into our home, making it our own, and finding our way around our new community (no street signs here!)
• Developing relationships with staff, students community members, and local kiddos (it makes my heart happy to hear “ay-mee-lee (emily)!!!” instead of “mzungu (white person)!!!” when we walk around the village!)
• Finding ourselves a spot on the time table and beginning to teach
• Laying the foundation for secondary projects (Math Power Hour, open computer lab time, drama clubs, water catchment systems, malaria projects!)
• Learning to enjoy running!
• Finding our rhythm with going to the market, being present at the college, and spending time with each other
• Navigating cross cultural communication (still a work in progress...)
• Supporting the BTPC kids at scouting and track and field competitions
• Living on a Peace Corps budget
• Investing in friendships with nearby PCVs
• Becoming “pros” at Ugandan public transportation!
• Expanding our job descriptions to include health projects, specifically malaria sensitization and prevention efforts
• Cooking - using the sigeeri (charcoal stove) and really taking advantage of all these great vegetables and fruits
• Seeing some more of this wonderful country - Mbarara, Rakai, Kasese, Fort Portal, and Queen Elizabeth Natl. Park!
• Going with the flow despite electricity outages, crazy rain storms, and “ugandan time”

Challenges:

• Hurtles to getting anything and everything started! (connecting problems with solutions)
• Insufficient language progress for engaging with staff when they choose to speak vernacular in the staff room, and with rural community members
• Being valued and taken seriously in a patriarchal society
• Missing home: family, friends, jobs (purpose!), and life in Minnesota!
• Keeping patient and trying to understand when decisions or actions in the college or community seem incredibly ridiculous or unjust to us!
• Having to work so hard to feel like we are contributing anything useful here

Lots of times PCVs will tell us “the days drag on and on, but the weeks and months fly by.” I feel like that’s been the case for us too. It’s a little hard to believe we’ve already been in Uganda for half of a year, and at site for over 3 months! But, as I look at my list of successes and challenges, I think I can feel good about what we’ve started here! We always knew these first few months adjusting at site would be pretty challenging, but I think we’ve laid a good foundation to build off of when the students come back and we return from all of our August traveling.

Thanks for reading!

Love you and miss you all,
~emily~

PS - I uploaded some new pics to facebook today. If you're interested, click here!

New Pics :-)

Hi everyone!

I wanted to let ya'll know about some new pics I put up on facebook. Click here! I've been working for the last month or so on a secondary project of a drama club with some kiddos from a nearby primary school. (Loads of fun!) Anyhow, this week we were invited to their end of term program and asked to take pictures. As I say in the album, I think they're pretty much the cutest kids in Africa! :-) Enjoy,

~emily~

Mosquitoes Hear us Roar!!

The last week has been a little bit of a change of pace for us. We thought that since we had taught for a good two straight weeks it was time for something different. ;-) So after classes on Monday we headed off to Mbarara for a training - Malaria Prevention and Control. The training was a result of Obama’s PMI (Presidential Malaria Initative), an effort to eradicate malaria in the countries being hit hardest by the disease. It was held at possibly the nicest hotel in this region of the country, Lakeview Resort Hotel (yes apparently it is both resort and hotel, one of those names didn’t suffice). We were joined at the training by our Director of Studies, Smith, who it turns out was already really interested in Malaria prevention. Most Peace Corps trainings will include your Ugandan community counterpart so that the impact of the training will outlast you, in theory. The training, as well as being interesting, was also a great chance to meet some more of the CHED (Community Health and Economic Development) volunteers primarily from the group that started sixth months before us.

The majority of the week was spent learning more about the Malaria parasite, and the complexities of how it transmits through mosquitoes. We also learned some statistics about the extent of the malaria disease in Uganda, and around the world. Malaria annually affects 300 million people, and during that period results in about 1 to 3 million deaths. Most of the deaths occur among children under the age of 5 and pregnant mothers. Pregnant mothers are more likely to contract malaria because they have an increased body heat during pregnancy which attracts more mosquitoes. In Uganda, 25% of people going to hospitals are because of malaria. Finally, 20% of childhood deaths in Ugandan hospitals are due to malaria. The most surprising thing about malaria in Uganda, and maybe around the world, is that it is not a huge concern to the vast majority of the population. Because the people that it affects most fatally are those who don’t really have a voice in society, primarily children under 5.

We also got the opportunity to go into the community around Mbarara to see how malaria plays out on a local level. The first place we visited was the Mbarara regional referral hospital. So any cases from the southwest region of Uganda which can not be dealt with at the local level are brought there, and it is also the local community hospital. We split up into four groups and we each visited a different area of the hospital. So I visited the records department (so exciting!) and Emily visited the OB-GYN section of the hospital (I don’t remember what the Ugandans call this section). Malaria can have many negative effects to pregnant women, including miscarriages (which Emily had the unfortunate opportunity to witness in the hallway).

Being at the hospital was eye opening for many reasons. It was good to know about the quality of health care in Uganda, and the care our colleagues/students would receive if they needed it. It is interesting because public health care in Uganda is free to anyone who would use it, even just tourists passing through. But availability seems to also equal lack of quality. While we were there the aftermath from a Boda-Boda (motorcycles) accident came in, and it was insane to see the treatment of the people. One of the men was really rough and did not look alive but he had been wheeled around on a metal gurney for a good twenty minutes before anyone even checked his vital signs, to know that he was dead (and in the end it was the doctor touring us who checked this, and he didn’t even work there).

The next day we got to visit a member of the Village Health Team. These are volunteers who work in the community to spread health messages from the local government. It was interesting hearing about the work that she does, even though we lost a bit in translation. So over all it was good to hear the facts and figures of malaria, and then go out to see it in the community.

Finally, on the last day of the conference we made an action plan with our counterparts about how we will bring the knowledge back to our places of work. So we hope to be doing various things to educate the students at our PTC, and also to work on eliminating mosquito breeding grounds on the campus. The hardest thing about malaria prevention is that almost every Ugandan already knows how to prevent malaria, but prevention requires effort and money while the treatment once you get it is free. Another stumbling block is that the primary means of prevention, being mosquito nets, are hard to find affordable. But hopefully as the malaria initiative integrates into Uganda there will be a large influx of nets. Overall, the malaria workshop was very informative for many reasons, and hopefully we will have the knowledge to work on prevention at our school.

The conference was also the longest we have been away from wonderful House 11 at Bushenyi PTC, and it was nice to be home again. We found out the day after we got home that the Boda drivers at the stop in front of our house are convinced that we had or got a kid while we were gone, and that was what was in our big green duffle bag. We found this out through our friend Jean, who was told by her co-worker (no secrets in Uganda!). So apparently everyone there is waiting in anticipation for when we reveal the child. The funny/scary thing was that this was the consensus of the group of about twenty people, and that having a child in a bag was plausible!

Well that is all of our crazy adventures from the past week! Hope you are all doing well.

Love,

Ryan (and Emily)

Vlog #2 - Sports, Scouts, and Shopping

Here is a video of some of the recent track competitions, scouting, and shopping at our local market. Enjoy!

Events @ BPTC + Pictures!

In the last couple of weeks we got to participate as staff in a couple of events here at the college. The first was a regional scouting competition, where students of all ages came to the college for a 4 day scouting event. The students were scored on their campsites, setup and take down, cooking, building fires, singing songs, and all sort of scouty things. It was really fun to watch and cheer on our students.

Then, yesterday we participated in an all day interhouse (dormitory) track and field competition. We had been helping the students with their practices the last couple of weeks and yesterday was the big competition day. Ryan and I worked at the "technical table" determining points and making sure records were kept of all the events. It was a lot of fun and the kids did great.

Here's a link to my facebook album of the event, and we're also working on getting a new "vlog" out to you soon!

Much love,

~emily~

Catching Up!

Hi Everyone!

It has been about a week and a half since we last wrote, but lots has happened! I wanted to blog to catch you all up. Brace yourself for a long post! :-)

First of all, happy late 4th of July! It might have been our most patriotic 4th of July ever! We celebrated by making dinner and fresh mozzarella cheese with our PCV neighbor Jean. We had cake decked out with an American flag and patriotic window clings on our windows (Thanks Mom and Dad for the package!!) During dinner we got into some great conversations about why we love America! Absence really does make the heart grow fonder I guess. So...Happy belated Independence Day you good ol' US of A, and know that I mean it when I say "We miss you!"

And...some wonderful news - THE STUDENTS RETURNED!!! We were so happy to see them start trickling back on campus last Wednesday (no meeting, no announcement, students just started showing up! Some strange Ugandan nonverbal communication?! We aren't sure...) The break ended up being about two weeks, so not nearly as long as it looked like it might be. We are really grateful, and the students seem to also be grateful! There are actually now only 3 more weeks of teaching, then mock exams, and then the term is over. Since this is supposed to be the "academic" term, we feel we are scrambling a little to get all the teaching done in the time that remains. To make matters worse, classes were canceled on Friday afternoon so the students could clean their dormitories (which were supposedly in a "shockingly" dirty state - one of the tutors reminded us in all seriousness that "cleanliness is only second to godliness!"), and a small group of students was forbidden from attending classes yesterday and today because they were late for the morning assembly. So, for so many reasons, it will be a challenge to cover all the material with students before the term slips away from us!

I also started a secondary project of sorts - a drama club at a local primary school! When I visited it a couple of weeks back, the principal shared with me his passion for including creativity in the school curriculum. This excited me greatly as, in the experiences I have had so far, creativity is generally not encouraged in the Ugandan school system. So, we decided I would work with the p4-p6 (3-5th grade) boarding students on Saturdays to lead some creative dramatic activities and maybe even create a play with them. So, I embarked last weekend with my trusty assistant Ryan ;-) and had a great time with the children. It was nice to have some creative time and wonderful to work with the children! When we arrived, they spent the first 30 minutes or so singing and dancing for us, then we got to work with them on the drama activities I had planned. It went pretty well, though was challenging to get the students to come up with original ideas and they much preferred to just copy the one brave student (often Ryan!) who came up with an idea. Not unexpected, but hopefully we can develop some imagination and a willingness to be creative in the kiddos! I'm really looking forward to it. (Incidentally, when I asked the children who could tell me what the word "imagination" meant, not a single child knew the word!!!)

Another project I am working on is getting a "Math Power Hour" set up for the PTC students in the evening. My idea is to have an informal time twice a week where students who are struggling with problems or topics can come for small group/individual help. The college is constantly expressing concern for the mathematical proficiency of the students, so I thought this could be a great way to help address that concern and hopefully build relationships with students in the process. It's been a mess of Ugandan red-tape to get it started, though. (Another one of those times where the need is there and solution seem so simple, yet I can't seem to find a way to connect the two!! There seems to be no lack of those situations here!)

My first step was to talk to our Director of Studies. Although I had an evening time slot in mind, he insisted we schedule it for 5:30-7:00 in the evening. Then, I had to get approval from the principal and the math department head. The math department head was not fond of the idea, yet later approached me with a "new idea" he had that was really just my idea in his words, and insisted that I should get it started. (So thankful that a man could help this "unknowledgeable" woman come up with something valuable! grr...) Anyhow, when I finally got it all approved, I showed up on Tuesday to find no students! After fifteen minutes of sitting by myself a thoughtful student arrived to tell me that nobody would be coming since there was compulsory sports and games every day from 5:30-7:00. Nice. So....I am working on getting a new time and working my way through all the protocol once again. If all goes well, it will start tonight! I'll keep you posted!

*Each night I am going to start with a critical thinking problem. Here's the one for this week, see how you do - "Use any mathematical symbols and the number eight eight times to create a mathematical expression that equals 1,000." Any ideas?

We've also volunteered to help out with the upcoming Track and Field competitions! Although this is certainly not my area of expertise, it should be a fun way to support the students and continue to be more involved with them. Yesterday we observed the practice time and both of us about freaked out seeing the students "high jump" head first into a (way too small!) pile of dead grass. Neck injury, anyone? They're also throwing javelin (really long sticks), running, triple jumping, long jumping, shot putting, as well as all those other track and field events that used to make me cringe in gym class! :-) But it should be fun now that I'm not being forced to compete! There are regional, then national competitions, but for now they are just getting themselves ready. I'm excited to get friendly with a stopwatch and be a cheerleader for our kids!

Ryan's been busy with his computer classes (despite super frequent power outages as of late) and running open lab hours in the evenings. He is looking for a way to get involved in an economic development secondary project and is thinking about the clubs he hopes to get going at the start of next term. He's also been doing research into grad programs that he might be interested in post Peace Corps, so that's pretty exciting.

And...though it might seem like no big deal, we started getting fresh milk delivered to our door every morning! If you know how much I love milk, you'll know how exciting this is for me! So, at about 7 am each day a man shows up (straight from milking the college cows) with about a liter of milk for Ryan and I! We have a milkman! I love it! And...the milk is absolutely delicious! I don't know that I've ever had milk straight from the cow, and it is so fresh and really fun to get.

So...that's what's been happening in our neck of the woods. As always, we love and miss you all and think of you often. Keep in touch,

~emily~