May 13, 2009
A lot has happened since I last wrote. I went to Rwanda for a week and learned all about the genocide and the reconciliation process going on. We then had four days of debriefing in Entebbe (where the airport is). I’ve also been to visit Amanda and am still with her now.
Rwanda was our last trip as a USP (Uganda Studies Program) group. We took a bus down from Mukono to the capital of Rwanda, Kigali. It took us 13 hours to get there. When we crossed the border into Rwanda it seemed as if we had entered an entirely different planet. The roads were smooth, the ditches were clean of garbage, there were speed limits which drivers followed, and pedestrians were given rights! The road from Mukono to the Rwandan border was filled with potholes, speed bumps, people, bicycles, slow motorcycles, and livestock. The roads in Rwanda were taken care of regularly, it was illegal to litter, and pedestrians actually had sidewalks to walk on and crosswalks that actually meant something. It was hard to believe these two countries were neighbors but the infrastructure was vastly different.
Before coming to Rwanda we studied some of its history and specifically the genocides that have occurred. We focused mostly on the 1994 genocide but went back to the Belgian colonization and how it changed the Rwandan people. The Belgians were actually the ones who made the people put their ethnicity on their identification cards. Therefore it was easy to see who was Hutu and who was Tutsi. The Belgians were on the Hutu side because they had always been the poor, working people and had been under the Tutsi’s but the Hutu were also the majority. Tension spiked between these two groups gradually throughout the years and in 1994 finally came to a head. Extremist Hutu’s were attacking and murdering their Tutsi neighbors and family members. It was a 100 day genocide in which 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutu’s were murdered.
It was really hard to go to some of the memorial sites in Rwanda and see some of the videos. We went to one memorial site where 10,000 Tutsi’s had come to be kept safe. It was a church which could usually fit 1000 people comfortably for a service. However, word had reached the Tutsi’s that they would be safe in a church, the Hutu’s would never kill in a church. So 10,000 Tutsi’s squeezed themselves into this church, practically suffocating each other to fit another in so they would also be safe. However, the Hutu’s had spread false rumors that they would be safe there. All but two little children of the 10,000 people were killed in that church. There was also a church in Rwanda, that we didn’t visit, but where the priest welcomed all the Tutsi’s to come for a safe refuge. When they were all in he proceeded to lock the doors and windows and allowed some men to bulldoze the church.
There is a mass grave there now beneath the church we visited. We saw thousands of skeletal remains piled on top of each other. It was really hard to see, especially as college students who had only heard of this occurring in history class and who had never experienced any thing this tragic before. We heard testimonies from Tutsi survivors and their reactions to living in memory of the genocide. I can’t believe the faith they have and how they are able to forgive their neighbors and friends who killed their families. We met several orphans of the genocide who are now our age. Their stories are hard to hear and tragic yet it’s amazing at how strong they are. They had seen their family members die yet many had forgiven the murderers.
The Rwandan government put thousands of the Hutu perpetrators in prisons or what they call Reforming Centers. Rwanda also began a grass root court system called the Gacaca which is where court would be held in local villages and the people would decide the sentence and punishment of the perpetrators. It has been heralded a success by the majority of Rwanda but has also been said to be biased. We met with two lawyers of the Gacaca and it was really interesting to hear their jobs. Apparently the Gacaca will now be finished this coming December. They believe that all the Hutu extremists will have been tried and sentenced by the end of this year thus finally bringing an end to the courts of the 1994 genocide. The Gacaca courts have been a place of healing for many of the people. It is here that victims can bring their case and receive retribution from the men who had harmed them. It also gives the accused a chance to ask forgiveness and accept the punishment he believes he deserves. Most of the Hutus imprisoned after the genocide had been released sometime after the genocide. There were thousands of ex-prisoners returning to their villages where they had killed their neighbors and the survivors knew who had killed them. It was frightening to them to think of returning to their homes and having to face the survivors. The reconciliation process is incredible to see. There is counseling generally available for ex-prisoners and victims. Organizations are abundant in offering services to the people and in encouraging forgiveness.
Several of the people who told us their testimonies implored us to tell others of what we had seen here. Several countries still refuse to acknowledge that there was a genocide in Rwanda. The formation of the UN had promised that a genocide would never take place again after what happened in Nazi Germany. Thus, a “genocide” has never taken place after the holocaust. It’s all in what you call it. To the developed world (including the US), the Rwandan genocide was a “civil war”, not a genocide. Therefore the developed countries did not need to intervene because it wasn’t really a genocide. It’s strange to think that while the Rwandan genocide was going on, the OJ Simpson trials were occurring. The media was focused on OJ, and gave little attention to a small unknown country in the middle of Africa. If Rwanda had had oil, things would have been different. Rwanda would have meant something then (to the developed world).
There is so much more to write about Rwanda but I don’t have the room or the time. I hope I was able to give you a glimpse into my time in Rwanda. I still have so much to process and have left many things out. I’ve seen some crazy things.
Now, onto a happier topic…. Amanda. I’m sitting at an internet café in Kampala with Amanda at my side. It’s so strange that we are both here in Uganda and didn’t even plan on being in the same country. God definitely had a role in this.
Amanda is living at a convent in Gayaza which is a little town about 15 km north of the capital, Kampala. Though she’s only 15 km away from the city it can take from 25 minutes to an hour to get to her town depending on the traffic and roads. I came to Amanda on May 5th and will be here until Sunday, May 17th. We’ve done many things in preparation of moving her into her house. We’ve painted her rooms. Her bedroom is a really pretty green, her sitting room is a bright bright yellow orange (some could say Kraft Cheese color), and her kitchen is a bright blue. It’s been fun proving that Americans actually know how to paint and aren’t afraid of hard work. We are constantly asked if we know how to paint and find impressed Ugandans whenever we show them what we’ve done. One teacher, Patrick, asked us how we learned to put tape on the walls to keep the trim neat. We’ve also made quite a spectacle of ourselves when we went into town to get some lumber to build a book shelf. It must have been quite a sight to see to female “Mzungu’s” (white people) carrying lumber on their shoulders all the way to the convent. We were the talk of the town.
Amanda’s still not able to move in because of some safety things that have yet to be installed such as bars over her windows, doors that lock, and vents over the holes in the walls. I have pictures and will have to show you when I get home.
I’m here for about 5 more days and then I’m heading home. It’s going to be strange coming back to a developed country, driving on the right side of the road, and getting back to my old vocabulary and not saying “How has been your day” or “You look smart”.
I’ll see you soon.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Safari, Amanda, Exams
April 16, 2009
Exam week
Shout out: Hi Ang!
First of all, I’m sorry it has taken me so long to write another update. I think the last one I sent was about bungee jumping and white water rafting. A lot has happened since then but not so much that this letter will turn into a book.
This is the last week of the semester for us in Uganda but as a group we still have three weeks of the program left before the official end. The university has allotted about 10 days of exams, this is really nice because then we have days between our finals and papers to study and prepare. Gordon only gives us four days so it’s a lot more stressful. I’ve found Uganda to be calming compared to the potentially stressful and fast paced Gordon. I have learned a lot academically from UCU but find that what I want to take with me back home is what I learned through my experiences and everyday living rather than classroom lectures and projects.
The first weekend of April my program (USP) went on an optional safari. About eight people opted out and chose to do something else. A friend of mine, Kristen, planned the whole thing and because of her great bargaining skills and management we were able to pay less than half of what the advertised price was. We also went as cheap as possible. This included camping on the campground (where hippos and warthogs roamed freely), hiring our own drivers and rather cheap vehicles (not the best for safari viewing but still cheap), and bringing our own food (PB&J all weekend long!).
All in all I had a wonderful time. I saw a variety of animals I’ve never seen in their natural habitat. I saw herds of elephants, waterbucks, bushbucks, gazelles, antelope, a leopard, a lion, water buffalo, hippos, warthogs, crocodiles, lizards, and monkeys. We slept two nights on a campground overlooking Lake Edward. We slept next to snorting hippos and grunting warthogs. Did you know that hippos are the only animal to kill another animal for fun/out of spite/ because they’re bored. Needless to say it was a little scary finding the bathroom at night when we knew there were hippos wondering around freely. But don’t worry, no one got eaten or bothered by the hippos. The drive took about twelve hours on roads that were more potholes and speed bumps than actual asphalt/tarmac. Uganda is the size of Oregon, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take twelve hours to cross the entire state of Oregon but because Uganda doesn’t have highways with exits, it took us quite a while to get there.
The next weekend I went and spent Easter (this last weekend) with Amanda and her family in Wakiso. I first went into Kampala with my friend Chuck to do some gift shopping at the local markets. I wasn’t planning on buying anything because I had convinced myself I’ve already got everything I needed. Well, I was helping Chuck do his bartering for random knick knacks when one of the vendors came up to me and commented on my watch. I don’t have a very fancy watch; it’s just a regular digital watch that is good for timing yourself when you go running. Well she offered to exchange anything in her stall for my used and scratched watch that I’ve probably had for at least a year now. I couldn’t pass up this offer since I could easily replace my watch when I get home but I probably could never get some of the wares she was selling. So I took my time, looked around and finally settled on a vase made out of Ugandan soap stone with a very African safari them painted into it. I picked the largest and prettiest one and she was happy with it but then asked me for another 10,000 shillings ($5). We did a bit of bartering and all that and finally settled on a smaller version for just my watch. I was extremely happy and proud of my new vase.
Anyway, after spending the morning doing some shopping Chuck went back to Mukono and I went on to Wakiso (exact opposite directions from each other). I had a wonderful weekend with Amanda and her family. She has two darling little sisters named Cowphra and Swabra. I’m pretty sure I slaughtered the spelling but that is what they sound like. Cow (I know, horrible nick name but that’s what they call her) is four and Swabra is two. Aisha is their mother and a very welcoming host. Cow and Swabra were constantly practicing their limited English and reciting all of our sisters by name. They’d say, “Amanda, Ashaley, Mewissa, Malooooo, and Angela” over and over again to make sure we heard them. I met most of Amanda’s fellow peace corps volunteers, saw some of the things she has been working on (she and a couple other peace corps-ers built a mud stove, it’s pretty impressive), and celebrated Easter with her.
We went to the Catholic Church on Easter because apparently they tend to be the shortest services at about two hours long. One of Amanda’s friends went to one of the Anglican churches at 10 and didn’t get out until 2:00. We went to the English service which was mostly in Luganda and it only lasted about an hour and a half. I enjoyed being in Church on Sunday even though I didn’t understand the majority of what they were saying. Amanda got to practice understanding Luganda and enjoy the Easter service even though the sermon didn’t really have much to do about Easter.
Amanda and I both had a big week of exams/presentations ahead of us so we spent most of Sunday afternoon studying and working on presentations. It was fun to be able to be together even though we were just studying. Amanda finds out where she’s going to be placed sometime this week. She has her language test on Friday (April 17) and her signing in ceremony on Wednesday (April 22nd). I wanted to go but apparently there is a fixed guest list (important people like the Ambassador, etc.) and a limited amount of space. I don’t think they really expected family to show up (which isn’t surprising).
It’s hard to believe I only have three weeks left of the program. Next Thursday (April 23rd) we leave to go to Rwanda for one week to learn about the genocide of 1994. It will be a very challenging and interesting week. We then come back to Mukono on May 1st, spend one day packing up all of our things and then head to Entebbe (where the airport is on Lake Victoria) for four days of debriefing. May 5th almost every USP students boards a flight to come back to the US. Some of my friends are remaining in Africa for varying amounts of time. Two of my friends are going to Kenya for five days, one friend is going to South Africa to work in an orphanage for 2 months, another friend is going into Northern Uganda for 4 months to do missions, and I’m staying for 10 days in Uganda with Amanda. My flight leaves Uganda on May 17th and I get home on the 18th. Exactly one month from today I’ll be flying home. It’s so hard to believe how fast this semester has flown.
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this last little update about my Ugandan life. I’ll probably send one or two more with updates about Rwanda and Amanda.
Thank you for your prayers, letters, and emails! I’m sorry I’ve been so bad at replying to emails, the internet is very touch and go and sometimes doesn’t work for days at a time.
Exam week
Shout out: Hi Ang!
First of all, I’m sorry it has taken me so long to write another update. I think the last one I sent was about bungee jumping and white water rafting. A lot has happened since then but not so much that this letter will turn into a book.
This is the last week of the semester for us in Uganda but as a group we still have three weeks of the program left before the official end. The university has allotted about 10 days of exams, this is really nice because then we have days between our finals and papers to study and prepare. Gordon only gives us four days so it’s a lot more stressful. I’ve found Uganda to be calming compared to the potentially stressful and fast paced Gordon. I have learned a lot academically from UCU but find that what I want to take with me back home is what I learned through my experiences and everyday living rather than classroom lectures and projects.
The first weekend of April my program (USP) went on an optional safari. About eight people opted out and chose to do something else. A friend of mine, Kristen, planned the whole thing and because of her great bargaining skills and management we were able to pay less than half of what the advertised price was. We also went as cheap as possible. This included camping on the campground (where hippos and warthogs roamed freely), hiring our own drivers and rather cheap vehicles (not the best for safari viewing but still cheap), and bringing our own food (PB&J all weekend long!).
All in all I had a wonderful time. I saw a variety of animals I’ve never seen in their natural habitat. I saw herds of elephants, waterbucks, bushbucks, gazelles, antelope, a leopard, a lion, water buffalo, hippos, warthogs, crocodiles, lizards, and monkeys. We slept two nights on a campground overlooking Lake Edward. We slept next to snorting hippos and grunting warthogs. Did you know that hippos are the only animal to kill another animal for fun/out of spite/ because they’re bored. Needless to say it was a little scary finding the bathroom at night when we knew there were hippos wondering around freely. But don’t worry, no one got eaten or bothered by the hippos. The drive took about twelve hours on roads that were more potholes and speed bumps than actual asphalt/tarmac. Uganda is the size of Oregon, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take twelve hours to cross the entire state of Oregon but because Uganda doesn’t have highways with exits, it took us quite a while to get there.
The next weekend I went and spent Easter (this last weekend) with Amanda and her family in Wakiso. I first went into Kampala with my friend Chuck to do some gift shopping at the local markets. I wasn’t planning on buying anything because I had convinced myself I’ve already got everything I needed. Well, I was helping Chuck do his bartering for random knick knacks when one of the vendors came up to me and commented on my watch. I don’t have a very fancy watch; it’s just a regular digital watch that is good for timing yourself when you go running. Well she offered to exchange anything in her stall for my used and scratched watch that I’ve probably had for at least a year now. I couldn’t pass up this offer since I could easily replace my watch when I get home but I probably could never get some of the wares she was selling. So I took my time, looked around and finally settled on a vase made out of Ugandan soap stone with a very African safari them painted into it. I picked the largest and prettiest one and she was happy with it but then asked me for another 10,000 shillings ($5). We did a bit of bartering and all that and finally settled on a smaller version for just my watch. I was extremely happy and proud of my new vase.
Anyway, after spending the morning doing some shopping Chuck went back to Mukono and I went on to Wakiso (exact opposite directions from each other). I had a wonderful weekend with Amanda and her family. She has two darling little sisters named Cowphra and Swabra. I’m pretty sure I slaughtered the spelling but that is what they sound like. Cow (I know, horrible nick name but that’s what they call her) is four and Swabra is two. Aisha is their mother and a very welcoming host. Cow and Swabra were constantly practicing their limited English and reciting all of our sisters by name. They’d say, “Amanda, Ashaley, Mewissa, Malooooo, and Angela” over and over again to make sure we heard them. I met most of Amanda’s fellow peace corps volunteers, saw some of the things she has been working on (she and a couple other peace corps-ers built a mud stove, it’s pretty impressive), and celebrated Easter with her.
We went to the Catholic Church on Easter because apparently they tend to be the shortest services at about two hours long. One of Amanda’s friends went to one of the Anglican churches at 10 and didn’t get out until 2:00. We went to the English service which was mostly in Luganda and it only lasted about an hour and a half. I enjoyed being in Church on Sunday even though I didn’t understand the majority of what they were saying. Amanda got to practice understanding Luganda and enjoy the Easter service even though the sermon didn’t really have much to do about Easter.
Amanda and I both had a big week of exams/presentations ahead of us so we spent most of Sunday afternoon studying and working on presentations. It was fun to be able to be together even though we were just studying. Amanda finds out where she’s going to be placed sometime this week. She has her language test on Friday (April 17) and her signing in ceremony on Wednesday (April 22nd). I wanted to go but apparently there is a fixed guest list (important people like the Ambassador, etc.) and a limited amount of space. I don’t think they really expected family to show up (which isn’t surprising).
It’s hard to believe I only have three weeks left of the program. Next Thursday (April 23rd) we leave to go to Rwanda for one week to learn about the genocide of 1994. It will be a very challenging and interesting week. We then come back to Mukono on May 1st, spend one day packing up all of our things and then head to Entebbe (where the airport is on Lake Victoria) for four days of debriefing. May 5th almost every USP students boards a flight to come back to the US. Some of my friends are remaining in Africa for varying amounts of time. Two of my friends are going to Kenya for five days, one friend is going to South Africa to work in an orphanage for 2 months, another friend is going into Northern Uganda for 4 months to do missions, and I’m staying for 10 days in Uganda with Amanda. My flight leaves Uganda on May 17th and I get home on the 18th. Exactly one month from today I’ll be flying home. It’s so hard to believe how fast this semester has flown.
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this last little update about my Ugandan life. I’ll probably send one or two more with updates about Rwanda and Amanda.
Thank you for your prayers, letters, and emails! I’m sorry I’ve been so bad at replying to emails, the internet is very touch and go and sometimes doesn’t work for days at a time.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Extreme Weekend
March 15, 2009, Sunday
This weekend has been pretty extreme. To give a quick overview I’ll use three words/phrases… faintness, white water rafting, and bungee.
Faintness:
Friday started out pretty harsh. I was up most of the night before and was pretty sick. I must have eaten something that did not agree with me and therefore I was sick most of the night and into the morning. I had gotten food poisoning before and knew I had the same thing and I would be back to normal in 24 hours. Friday morning I had a phone date with Erik at 6 am. I figured I could handle sitting still and carrying a conversation since most of the food I had eaten the night before was out of me. I was on the phone for about five minutes when I had to ask Erik to call me back in five minutes because I was afraid I was going to throw up. So I hung up and promptly proceeded to faint three times as I walked/staggered back to my room. Once, I was outside and landed softly on the grass. Another time I landed pretty hard on the hallway floor leading to my room. And another time was in the arms of my Ugandan floor-mates who heard me fall and came to my rescue. I was pretty embarrassed to be given such attention at 6 in the morning. I had never fainted before in my life and therefore thought something terrible must have been wrong with me. I was just really dehydrated and needed to get some more sleep. So in the end I am proud to have such a story to tell of one time I have ever fainted and hopefully will never have to again.
White Water Rafting:
Saturday was a full day of white water rafting on the Nile. We were on grade 5 rapids for most of the day. It was so fun and exhilarating. My raft flipped, I fell out, we collided with rocks (on the raft, not with our bodies), and we feasted on pineapple and crackers for lunch, and slowly roasted under the equators sun. If you ever come to Uganda white water rafting is a must if you have any desire whatsoever. I loved it.
Bungee:
Sunday brought about a day of bungee jumping. We rode a short distance from our hostel in Jinja (the source of the Nile) to the bungee site. About fifteen people form our group jumped, one guy and fourteen girls. We apparently have a pretty hard core group of girls. Bungee jumping was so fun; it lasted for a pretty short time but was so exciting. We jumped about 45 meters down and could touch the Nile if we wanted to. Some people dunked completely into the water and others didn’t touch it at all depending on their weight. I wanted to be dipped but only my arms got wet.
Recap on the week before:
I just realized I never wrote about seeing Amanda in Kampala. I went into Kampala last weekend to see Amanda and spend the night with her and her family in Wakiso district. It was so fun to see her; we kept commenting on how strange it was that we were meeting up halfway across the world in Uganda. It was such a strange feeling. But, Amanda is doing really well, she was healthy and loving the Peace Corps and Uganda when I saw her on Saturday/Sunday. I met several of her friends and they are all great, some are older and most have their masters or doctorates. They were all extremely friendly and so excited to see us together. They knew I was somewhere in Uganda and were happy to see Amanda and I reunited.
This weekend has been pretty extreme. To give a quick overview I’ll use three words/phrases… faintness, white water rafting, and bungee.
Faintness:
Friday started out pretty harsh. I was up most of the night before and was pretty sick. I must have eaten something that did not agree with me and therefore I was sick most of the night and into the morning. I had gotten food poisoning before and knew I had the same thing and I would be back to normal in 24 hours. Friday morning I had a phone date with Erik at 6 am. I figured I could handle sitting still and carrying a conversation since most of the food I had eaten the night before was out of me. I was on the phone for about five minutes when I had to ask Erik to call me back in five minutes because I was afraid I was going to throw up. So I hung up and promptly proceeded to faint three times as I walked/staggered back to my room. Once, I was outside and landed softly on the grass. Another time I landed pretty hard on the hallway floor leading to my room. And another time was in the arms of my Ugandan floor-mates who heard me fall and came to my rescue. I was pretty embarrassed to be given such attention at 6 in the morning. I had never fainted before in my life and therefore thought something terrible must have been wrong with me. I was just really dehydrated and needed to get some more sleep. So in the end I am proud to have such a story to tell of one time I have ever fainted and hopefully will never have to again.
White Water Rafting:
Saturday was a full day of white water rafting on the Nile. We were on grade 5 rapids for most of the day. It was so fun and exhilarating. My raft flipped, I fell out, we collided with rocks (on the raft, not with our bodies), and we feasted on pineapple and crackers for lunch, and slowly roasted under the equators sun. If you ever come to Uganda white water rafting is a must if you have any desire whatsoever. I loved it.
Bungee:
Sunday brought about a day of bungee jumping. We rode a short distance from our hostel in Jinja (the source of the Nile) to the bungee site. About fifteen people form our group jumped, one guy and fourteen girls. We apparently have a pretty hard core group of girls. Bungee jumping was so fun; it lasted for a pretty short time but was so exciting. We jumped about 45 meters down and could touch the Nile if we wanted to. Some people dunked completely into the water and others didn’t touch it at all depending on their weight. I wanted to be dipped but only my arms got wet.
Recap on the week before:
I just realized I never wrote about seeing Amanda in Kampala. I went into Kampala last weekend to see Amanda and spend the night with her and her family in Wakiso district. It was so fun to see her; we kept commenting on how strange it was that we were meeting up halfway across the world in Uganda. It was such a strange feeling. But, Amanda is doing really well, she was healthy and loving the Peace Corps and Uganda when I saw her on Saturday/Sunday. I met several of her friends and they are all great, some are older and most have their masters or doctorates. They were all extremely friendly and so excited to see us together. They knew I was somewhere in Uganda and were happy to see Amanda and I reunited.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Rural Homestays
March 4, 2009, Wednesday
Rural home stays were absolutely incredible. I just spent the last week in eastern Uganda in the region of Soroti, in the village of Serere. I was with a wonderful family who became very close to me. My Papa was an Anglican priest, and my Toto (mother) was a wonderful mother who taught me so much about simple living and living a traditional Ugandan life.
I’ve learned much of their language during my short stay. They loved bringing me around to other families and neighbors to say hello in their language and carry on a very short conversation. Yoga = hello. Eyalama aanyun = It is nice to meet you. Ejokuno = likewise. Sometimes they would test me on words and see if I knew them. It was really hard for me to hear their words and repeat them and then remember them at a later time. I’m a very visual learner and need to see how something is spelled before I can pronounce it the way they pronounce their words. I was also given an Ateso (local language) name. I was sitting in church, in the front row, and the entire congregation asked me to introduce myself. They had great difficulty saying my name and therefore decided to truly make me a Teso (the area I was in) child and dubbed me Atim (ah-team) which means mercy. So now, if you add my Lugandan name to my Teso name and my American name, you can now call me Ashley Kwagala Atim Rodriguez, Ashley Love Mercy Rodriguez. I must say the sound of Atim sounds much better than Kwagala, though both have great meanings.
Church was a fascinating experience; I missed most of the message since it was in Ateso, the local language. We sat right in front, and of course were about 15 minutes late. My Papa was the head priest of the congregation and he was also 15 minutes late. We spent the first half hour in praise and worship, my Toto (mother) shared her Teso hymnal with me and I sang some familiar hymns in Ateso. We sang Rock of Ages and other hymns but they were just in a different language. After the praise and worship, I was asked to introduce myself. Everyone was fascinated to have a white person in their village. I was the second white person to ever stay for a week in their homes. We then moved to the sermon, my Papa gave the sermon which I completely missed since it was in Ateso. After the sermon was more singing and offering. Offering was very interesting. There were three baskets and we were to place our tithes into the offerings. Well, I walked up and put mine in along with everyone else, however it was a little different than I had seen before. Along with literal coins and bills, there was a chicken, bags of nuts, bags of cow peas (a type of veggie), and other bags of food and spices. After everyone was done, a lady walked around the congregation selling the chicken and bags of food. The money was then given to the church. It was so cool!
The food was a little hard to handle sometimes, not the actual taste of the food, but the amount and the timing. Much of the food was absolutely delicious, and then there was some that I had to force down my throat with a smile. I ate a plenty of cassava, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, beans, beef, pork, fish (with the bones, tail, and head still attached), chicken, atap (millet bread), millet porridge, and more. Millet is their version of wheat. They make millet bread (which is more like a big lump of play dough but with a slightly better flavor), they make millet porridge (which was absolutely wonderful), and more things made out of millet. The timing and the amount was pretty hard to handle. We had breakfast/ tea around 9/10 every morning. Lunch was between 1 and 3:00. Evening tea was usually at 7/8:00 pm. Dinner was usually around 9/10:00 pm, sometimes even 11:00. I was told often that I “feared food” because I couldn’t eat very much. It was really hard to eat at night when I was exhausted from the day and had just had tea an hour before dinner. Now tea is not just a cup of tea and cookies. Tea consists of a full cup of steaming cows milk with cocoa and sugar. We also have a full dish of Irish potatoes, a cup of g-nuts (similar to peanuts), and sometimes pork. This is tea, dinner is about an hour later. Dinner was usually atap, some type of fatty meat, rice, matooke, and something else. It was so hard to eat. It was usually good, but just so much. We also ate everything with our right hand. I’ve burnt my fingers a couple times but it was fun to have everything as finger food.
I almost butchered a chicken. I was standing on its feet and its wings and had its neck in one hand and a knife in another. It was still conscious and moving slightly and I could feel its pulse under my fingers. I have no problem with other people killing chickens and me eating them, but when I’ve held a chicken for a while, then have to stand on its wings and neck, and then saw through its neck with a dull knife, I just couldn’t do it. I don’t think my family really thought I would do it; they just wanted me to have a picture of me almost slaughtering it. But we had chicken one night and it was delicious. I also ground several foods on a grinding stone, made Teso cookies (pretty much fried dough), and shelled ground nuts/g-nuts (similar to peanuts) until my fingers almost bled.
Overall it was a wonderful experience. It was fun to disprove much of the Ugandans thoughts about Americans. They thought that we couldn’t do hard work, they thought the sun would literally make my skin peel off if I was in it too long, they thought there was a machine to do all of our work so we’ve never worked before, they thought we never needed to wash our hair, and so much more. So I basically worked like crazy to prove that Americans were not all lazy bones and that if we wear sun block our skin will be just fine. I was so surprised at some of their beliefs about America.
I also learned a lot about simple living and being truly content with what you have. This family had very little, but they were so generous with the little they did have. For example if someone were to come by the house, my Toto would immediately pull up a chair for them and bring out some tea or a little snack. They did not have much food, but believed God would care for them so they care for their neighbors. They have never been rich and had even been without food sometimes. But they have never gone hungry for a long time (besides when the insurgency was happening several years ago). They have such a deep faith in God; it was so inspiring to live with them for the short time I was there.
Well, I hope you enjoyed hearing about my rural home stay. This weekend I’m going to visit with my real American sister Amanda who is doing the peace corps for the next 2.5 years. We’re meeting in Kampala, hopefully going to eat some American food and maybe some ice cream and then I’ll head to her training home in Wakiso district where I’ll spend the night with her and head back to UCU in Mukono on Sunday. The following weekend about 30 of us are heading to Jinja to go white water rafting on the Nile. It should be incredible. We then have about 8 weeks left at UCU. One of the weekends we’ll head over to western Uganda to go on a Safari. Our last one and a half weeks we’ll spend in Rwanda learning about the genocide. I’ll then spend about 10 days with Amanda in her rural village, then head home. It’s hard to be bored in this place!
Rural home stays were absolutely incredible. I just spent the last week in eastern Uganda in the region of Soroti, in the village of Serere. I was with a wonderful family who became very close to me. My Papa was an Anglican priest, and my Toto (mother) was a wonderful mother who taught me so much about simple living and living a traditional Ugandan life.
I’ve learned much of their language during my short stay. They loved bringing me around to other families and neighbors to say hello in their language and carry on a very short conversation. Yoga = hello. Eyalama aanyun = It is nice to meet you. Ejokuno = likewise. Sometimes they would test me on words and see if I knew them. It was really hard for me to hear their words and repeat them and then remember them at a later time. I’m a very visual learner and need to see how something is spelled before I can pronounce it the way they pronounce their words. I was also given an Ateso (local language) name. I was sitting in church, in the front row, and the entire congregation asked me to introduce myself. They had great difficulty saying my name and therefore decided to truly make me a Teso (the area I was in) child and dubbed me Atim (ah-team) which means mercy. So now, if you add my Lugandan name to my Teso name and my American name, you can now call me Ashley Kwagala Atim Rodriguez, Ashley Love Mercy Rodriguez. I must say the sound of Atim sounds much better than Kwagala, though both have great meanings.
Church was a fascinating experience; I missed most of the message since it was in Ateso, the local language. We sat right in front, and of course were about 15 minutes late. My Papa was the head priest of the congregation and he was also 15 minutes late. We spent the first half hour in praise and worship, my Toto (mother) shared her Teso hymnal with me and I sang some familiar hymns in Ateso. We sang Rock of Ages and other hymns but they were just in a different language. After the praise and worship, I was asked to introduce myself. Everyone was fascinated to have a white person in their village. I was the second white person to ever stay for a week in their homes. We then moved to the sermon, my Papa gave the sermon which I completely missed since it was in Ateso. After the sermon was more singing and offering. Offering was very interesting. There were three baskets and we were to place our tithes into the offerings. Well, I walked up and put mine in along with everyone else, however it was a little different than I had seen before. Along with literal coins and bills, there was a chicken, bags of nuts, bags of cow peas (a type of veggie), and other bags of food and spices. After everyone was done, a lady walked around the congregation selling the chicken and bags of food. The money was then given to the church. It was so cool!
The food was a little hard to handle sometimes, not the actual taste of the food, but the amount and the timing. Much of the food was absolutely delicious, and then there was some that I had to force down my throat with a smile. I ate a plenty of cassava, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, beans, beef, pork, fish (with the bones, tail, and head still attached), chicken, atap (millet bread), millet porridge, and more. Millet is their version of wheat. They make millet bread (which is more like a big lump of play dough but with a slightly better flavor), they make millet porridge (which was absolutely wonderful), and more things made out of millet. The timing and the amount was pretty hard to handle. We had breakfast/ tea around 9/10 every morning. Lunch was between 1 and 3:00. Evening tea was usually at 7/8:00 pm. Dinner was usually around 9/10:00 pm, sometimes even 11:00. I was told often that I “feared food” because I couldn’t eat very much. It was really hard to eat at night when I was exhausted from the day and had just had tea an hour before dinner. Now tea is not just a cup of tea and cookies. Tea consists of a full cup of steaming cows milk with cocoa and sugar. We also have a full dish of Irish potatoes, a cup of g-nuts (similar to peanuts), and sometimes pork. This is tea, dinner is about an hour later. Dinner was usually atap, some type of fatty meat, rice, matooke, and something else. It was so hard to eat. It was usually good, but just so much. We also ate everything with our right hand. I’ve burnt my fingers a couple times but it was fun to have everything as finger food.
I almost butchered a chicken. I was standing on its feet and its wings and had its neck in one hand and a knife in another. It was still conscious and moving slightly and I could feel its pulse under my fingers. I have no problem with other people killing chickens and me eating them, but when I’ve held a chicken for a while, then have to stand on its wings and neck, and then saw through its neck with a dull knife, I just couldn’t do it. I don’t think my family really thought I would do it; they just wanted me to have a picture of me almost slaughtering it. But we had chicken one night and it was delicious. I also ground several foods on a grinding stone, made Teso cookies (pretty much fried dough), and shelled ground nuts/g-nuts (similar to peanuts) until my fingers almost bled.
Overall it was a wonderful experience. It was fun to disprove much of the Ugandans thoughts about Americans. They thought that we couldn’t do hard work, they thought the sun would literally make my skin peel off if I was in it too long, they thought there was a machine to do all of our work so we’ve never worked before, they thought we never needed to wash our hair, and so much more. So I basically worked like crazy to prove that Americans were not all lazy bones and that if we wear sun block our skin will be just fine. I was so surprised at some of their beliefs about America.
I also learned a lot about simple living and being truly content with what you have. This family had very little, but they were so generous with the little they did have. For example if someone were to come by the house, my Toto would immediately pull up a chair for them and bring out some tea or a little snack. They did not have much food, but believed God would care for them so they care for their neighbors. They have never been rich and had even been without food sometimes. But they have never gone hungry for a long time (besides when the insurgency was happening several years ago). They have such a deep faith in God; it was so inspiring to live with them for the short time I was there.
Well, I hope you enjoyed hearing about my rural home stay. This weekend I’m going to visit with my real American sister Amanda who is doing the peace corps for the next 2.5 years. We’re meeting in Kampala, hopefully going to eat some American food and maybe some ice cream and then I’ll head to her training home in Wakiso district where I’ll spend the night with her and head back to UCU in Mukono on Sunday. The following weekend about 30 of us are heading to Jinja to go white water rafting on the Nile. It should be incredible. We then have about 8 weeks left at UCU. One of the weekends we’ll head over to western Uganda to go on a Safari. Our last one and a half weeks we’ll spend in Rwanda learning about the genocide. I’ll then spend about 10 days with Amanda in her rural village, then head home. It’s hard to be bored in this place!
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Ugandan Wedding/Reception
February 15, 2009, Sunday
I think I mentioned before that I was going to a wedding on Valentines Day. To give some background, Ugandans are very communal and welcoming of everybody. Warning: be prepared to be slightly confused… One of my roommates, Kelsey, roomed with a girl named Lillian at a retreat in Jinja (the source of the Nile). Lillian invited Kelsey to invite Kelsey’s friends (that’s me) to come to Lillian’s boyfriend’s sister’s wedding. Confusing, I know. So we decided to go.
The day started out pretty dismally, we had had Ugandan dresses made for the occasion and had picked up the dresses the day before. My friend Kristen and I had dresses that were either way too tight or way too big. So, we had to walk into Mukono town early on Saturday morning to have the seamstress fix the dresses. We spent about two hours in town waiting on the dresses and were happier (though not thrilled) with the outcome. Just to give you an image of these dresses we wore. Ugandan fabric is not the comfy satin, polyester, silk, synthetics you may be thinking would be appropriate for a dress. How I would define the fabric of a Ugandan dress would be a plastic table cloth (also, it was about 85/90 degrees on Saturday).
So, there were five USP students going to this wedding, four of us snugly dressed in our table cloth dresses. Tim got to wear a suit. The plan was we were to meet Lillian and her two friends at her hostel in Mukono, than another of her friends would pick us up and drive us to Kampala to the wedding. Well, apparently Lillian’s friend is not that fond of church services so purposely was late so he wouldn’t have to go to the ceremony. When he finally pulled up to the hostel, two hours late, there were nine of us that needed to fit into his five passenger Volkswagen. Also, Lillian and her two friends were wearing black dresses that could be worn to prom while the Mzungus (white people) were dressed in bright and shiny Ugandan dresses (plastic table cloths). So we all climbed in, two in the front (Tim and the driver), five in the back seat, and two in the trunk (not an actual trunk). Needless to say, we bottomed out all the way to Kampala.
We reached the church just as the wedding party was leaving the church. Of course, we were directly in their path and were just the slightest bit obvious because of our white skin and bright Ugandan clothing. The photographers took pictures of us as they passed. I can imagine the bride and groom looking through their pictures later wondering who all the white strangers were. But, we were there, and were embracing the culture.
The wedding was actually very western. The bride and groom were wearing western wedding apparel, the bridesmaids were wearing western bridesmaid dresses, but there weren’t any groomsmen. They all climbed into their tastily decorated cars and drove to the reception.
The reception was worth all the problems making it to Kampala. It was the nicest and probably fanciest reception I have ever been too. It was outside under a huge white tent. There were servers for every table, we could have any drink we wanted, there was an open bar (which was really interesting, we had been told that Christians don’t drink in Uganda, but Lillian said the couple were Christians). There was a group of Africans dressed in traditional tribal dress that lead the wedding party into the reception. They played drums, sang songs, and danced tribal dances for the wedding party and guests sporadically throughout the reception, it was incredible.
The reception traditionally lasts for about 6-7 hours, often ending around 2 or 3 in the morning. We weren’t planning on staying that long; we were going to leave around 10:30 via Private Hire (Ugandan version of an American taxi). Dinner was served around 8:00 and tables were escorted to the buffet where we had a huge selection of wonderful food. There was matooke (mashed bananas), millet (brown tasteless loaves of starch), beef, goat meat, chicken, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, spaghetti noodles, white rice with veggies, brown rice, beans, chapati’s, and fruit. I’m writing out all this food because it’s so rare to eat something other than rice, beans, and matooke, it was like Thanksgiving.
While everyone ate, the bride and groom’s families would give speeches. This took a good 2-3 hours and was often in Lugandan or Rwandan. Thankfully we were on the outskirts of the tent and therefore didn’t have to pay as much attention to the speeches. Though, once one of the speakers told everyone to go home to their villages and tell the villagers that at this one wedding, there were Mzungu’s from all over the world. There were two med students from Denmark, an older couple from Scotland, and then five of us from the US. But we were made to feel very welcomed and everyone was so glad that we got to experience a Ugandan wedding. We left just as the dancing was starting. We needed to get back to UCU before the gates closed at midnight.
Well, I’m off to bed. I have a ritual of washing my feet before bed to keep my sheets as clean as possible for as long as possible. The sheets are a pain to wash by hand. Anyway, I have come to really appreciate the biblical teaching of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. Feet are disgusting, especially after being in sandals all day in hot, dusty weather. My feet are so gross after walking around all day, I don’t even want to imagine what is on them. Then I think about Jesus and his disciples walking around camels, donkeys, and who knows what else, and then Jesus washing their dirty calloused feet. Tat definitely changes things from my visions of clean (though possibly smelly) feet coming out of their socks and tennis shoes. Yay Jesus.
I think I mentioned before that I was going to a wedding on Valentines Day. To give some background, Ugandans are very communal and welcoming of everybody. Warning: be prepared to be slightly confused… One of my roommates, Kelsey, roomed with a girl named Lillian at a retreat in Jinja (the source of the Nile). Lillian invited Kelsey to invite Kelsey’s friends (that’s me) to come to Lillian’s boyfriend’s sister’s wedding. Confusing, I know. So we decided to go.
The day started out pretty dismally, we had had Ugandan dresses made for the occasion and had picked up the dresses the day before. My friend Kristen and I had dresses that were either way too tight or way too big. So, we had to walk into Mukono town early on Saturday morning to have the seamstress fix the dresses. We spent about two hours in town waiting on the dresses and were happier (though not thrilled) with the outcome. Just to give you an image of these dresses we wore. Ugandan fabric is not the comfy satin, polyester, silk, synthetics you may be thinking would be appropriate for a dress. How I would define the fabric of a Ugandan dress would be a plastic table cloth (also, it was about 85/90 degrees on Saturday).
So, there were five USP students going to this wedding, four of us snugly dressed in our table cloth dresses. Tim got to wear a suit. The plan was we were to meet Lillian and her two friends at her hostel in Mukono, than another of her friends would pick us up and drive us to Kampala to the wedding. Well, apparently Lillian’s friend is not that fond of church services so purposely was late so he wouldn’t have to go to the ceremony. When he finally pulled up to the hostel, two hours late, there were nine of us that needed to fit into his five passenger Volkswagen. Also, Lillian and her two friends were wearing black dresses that could be worn to prom while the Mzungus (white people) were dressed in bright and shiny Ugandan dresses (plastic table cloths). So we all climbed in, two in the front (Tim and the driver), five in the back seat, and two in the trunk (not an actual trunk). Needless to say, we bottomed out all the way to Kampala.
We reached the church just as the wedding party was leaving the church. Of course, we were directly in their path and were just the slightest bit obvious because of our white skin and bright Ugandan clothing. The photographers took pictures of us as they passed. I can imagine the bride and groom looking through their pictures later wondering who all the white strangers were. But, we were there, and were embracing the culture.
The wedding was actually very western. The bride and groom were wearing western wedding apparel, the bridesmaids were wearing western bridesmaid dresses, but there weren’t any groomsmen. They all climbed into their tastily decorated cars and drove to the reception.
The reception was worth all the problems making it to Kampala. It was the nicest and probably fanciest reception I have ever been too. It was outside under a huge white tent. There were servers for every table, we could have any drink we wanted, there was an open bar (which was really interesting, we had been told that Christians don’t drink in Uganda, but Lillian said the couple were Christians). There was a group of Africans dressed in traditional tribal dress that lead the wedding party into the reception. They played drums, sang songs, and danced tribal dances for the wedding party and guests sporadically throughout the reception, it was incredible.
The reception traditionally lasts for about 6-7 hours, often ending around 2 or 3 in the morning. We weren’t planning on staying that long; we were going to leave around 10:30 via Private Hire (Ugandan version of an American taxi). Dinner was served around 8:00 and tables were escorted to the buffet where we had a huge selection of wonderful food. There was matooke (mashed bananas), millet (brown tasteless loaves of starch), beef, goat meat, chicken, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, spaghetti noodles, white rice with veggies, brown rice, beans, chapati’s, and fruit. I’m writing out all this food because it’s so rare to eat something other than rice, beans, and matooke, it was like Thanksgiving.
While everyone ate, the bride and groom’s families would give speeches. This took a good 2-3 hours and was often in Lugandan or Rwandan. Thankfully we were on the outskirts of the tent and therefore didn’t have to pay as much attention to the speeches. Though, once one of the speakers told everyone to go home to their villages and tell the villagers that at this one wedding, there were Mzungu’s from all over the world. There were two med students from Denmark, an older couple from Scotland, and then five of us from the US. But we were made to feel very welcomed and everyone was so glad that we got to experience a Ugandan wedding. We left just as the dancing was starting. We needed to get back to UCU before the gates closed at midnight.
Well, I’m off to bed. I have a ritual of washing my feet before bed to keep my sheets as clean as possible for as long as possible. The sheets are a pain to wash by hand. Anyway, I have come to really appreciate the biblical teaching of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. Feet are disgusting, especially after being in sandals all day in hot, dusty weather. My feet are so gross after walking around all day, I don’t even want to imagine what is on them. Then I think about Jesus and his disciples walking around camels, donkeys, and who knows what else, and then Jesus washing their dirty calloused feet. Tat definitely changes things from my visions of clean (though possibly smelly) feet coming out of their socks and tennis shoes. Yay Jesus.
Ugandan Choir
February 12, 2009 Thursday
It has been a very interesting last couple of days.
I can’t remember if I told you that I’ve joined the Chapel Choir here at Uganda Christian University (UCU). Well, UCU takes their extra-curriculars very seriously and expect high attendance and full participation. I usually go to practice every Tuesday and Thursday from 7:30 to 9. We are taught new songs which are often very obscure hymns or 90’s praise songs. I was forced to become a soprano because apparently there was a lack of sopranos, though I don’t see how my wimpy/off key/alto voice would contribute to the quality. But, I figured, I’m in Africa and have the ability to stretch out, many people in that choir do not have the most amazing voices ever, and have led chapel with off key voices, and I just thought it would be fun. So I’m in chapel choir, where my rhythm is often called into question when I have to sway, clap, AND sing all at the same time. All I can say is the Lord is working wonders in me, who knew I could actually clap in time, sway with everyone else, and get the words right when I sing.
Well, this last Tuesday (the 10th), Chapel Choir led worship in Chapel. We sang “These are the Days of Elijah” (a real clapping song), “How Great Thou Art” (played in the most upbeat way I’ve ever heard), A Lugandan Song (that I had never practiced before or heard, that was an interesting scene), and “Come to the River”. For all the songs but “How Great Thou Art” I was constantly looking over my shoulder to catch the lyrics on the screen behind me. I was front row of our lovely choir in front of a full house. I was working hard at making sure I wasn’t self conscious about being up in front of everybody but being more worshipful. It was pretty hard, especially for my first time and with songs that we hadn’t practiced. But overall, it was a great experience. Hopefully next time we lead worship I’ll be able to memorize all the songs and not be worried about knowing the words. Maybe I’ll even know the Lugandan songs.
One of the things I really like about UCU is that when you join a club, you’re not just a casual member. Everyone knows your name, you’re missed when you’re gone, and they meet outside of normal practicing time. Every Wednesday, the Chapel Choir has lunch hour fellowship just for Chapel Choir members. And every Wednesday, two people from the choir lead the group in worship, intercession, and a short message. Well, since my roommate and I were new to the choir, we were assigned to lead this week’s fellowship hour along with a Ugandan named Kenneth. Needless to say, we were a little freaked. I got the job of leading worship (that means I had to sing, alone, in front of people…), leading testimonies and prayer. Kelsey, my roommate, was to give the message. And Kenneth was to help out when we didn’t know what to do.
Wednesday came around, pretty quickly, and I was ready to lead worship. I made Kenneth stand up with me, because I was pretty nervous and didn’t know any of the songs he wanted to sing. So the leading worship was a little more Kenneth starting the songs and me joining in while standing in front of our little choir. Occasionally he would tell me I should start a new worship song. I was scared that I would start a song that no one knew and therefore be forced to sing a solo. So Kenneth basically led the worship songs with me standing next to him. And, apparently there is a difference between worship songs and praise songs. One of them is more upbeat, clapping, and swaying, while the other is slower and more somber, I’m not sure which is which yet.
After worship was over, I was to lead the group in testimonies by starting with my own. Again, the Ugandan meaning for testimony is different than the US word for testimony. I had always believed a testimony meant the story of your faith’s journey. How you became a Christian, etc. Well, a Ugandan testimony is more like: “I finally finished this paper that was due today, and I turned it in on time. Praise the Lord.” Or “Praise the Lord, I was struggling with a friend but Jesus has helped me see her side of the story.” However, Ugandans do often tell their life story but I don’t think it’s called a “testimony”. Well, I knew the difference between Ugandan and American testimonies but I figured I would tell my faith story anyway just so they would know who this Mzungu was that was leading their worship hour. I then introduced Kelsey as the speaker and prayed for her. She gave a wonderful message on a passage from James. We were both so out of our comfort zone, it was crazy. God is definitely working in us.
It has been a very interesting last couple of days.
I can’t remember if I told you that I’ve joined the Chapel Choir here at Uganda Christian University (UCU). Well, UCU takes their extra-curriculars very seriously and expect high attendance and full participation. I usually go to practice every Tuesday and Thursday from 7:30 to 9. We are taught new songs which are often very obscure hymns or 90’s praise songs. I was forced to become a soprano because apparently there was a lack of sopranos, though I don’t see how my wimpy/off key/alto voice would contribute to the quality. But, I figured, I’m in Africa and have the ability to stretch out, many people in that choir do not have the most amazing voices ever, and have led chapel with off key voices, and I just thought it would be fun. So I’m in chapel choir, where my rhythm is often called into question when I have to sway, clap, AND sing all at the same time. All I can say is the Lord is working wonders in me, who knew I could actually clap in time, sway with everyone else, and get the words right when I sing.
Well, this last Tuesday (the 10th), Chapel Choir led worship in Chapel. We sang “These are the Days of Elijah” (a real clapping song), “How Great Thou Art” (played in the most upbeat way I’ve ever heard), A Lugandan Song (that I had never practiced before or heard, that was an interesting scene), and “Come to the River”. For all the songs but “How Great Thou Art” I was constantly looking over my shoulder to catch the lyrics on the screen behind me. I was front row of our lovely choir in front of a full house. I was working hard at making sure I wasn’t self conscious about being up in front of everybody but being more worshipful. It was pretty hard, especially for my first time and with songs that we hadn’t practiced. But overall, it was a great experience. Hopefully next time we lead worship I’ll be able to memorize all the songs and not be worried about knowing the words. Maybe I’ll even know the Lugandan songs.
One of the things I really like about UCU is that when you join a club, you’re not just a casual member. Everyone knows your name, you’re missed when you’re gone, and they meet outside of normal practicing time. Every Wednesday, the Chapel Choir has lunch hour fellowship just for Chapel Choir members. And every Wednesday, two people from the choir lead the group in worship, intercession, and a short message. Well, since my roommate and I were new to the choir, we were assigned to lead this week’s fellowship hour along with a Ugandan named Kenneth. Needless to say, we were a little freaked. I got the job of leading worship (that means I had to sing, alone, in front of people…), leading testimonies and prayer. Kelsey, my roommate, was to give the message. And Kenneth was to help out when we didn’t know what to do.
Wednesday came around, pretty quickly, and I was ready to lead worship. I made Kenneth stand up with me, because I was pretty nervous and didn’t know any of the songs he wanted to sing. So the leading worship was a little more Kenneth starting the songs and me joining in while standing in front of our little choir. Occasionally he would tell me I should start a new worship song. I was scared that I would start a song that no one knew and therefore be forced to sing a solo. So Kenneth basically led the worship songs with me standing next to him. And, apparently there is a difference between worship songs and praise songs. One of them is more upbeat, clapping, and swaying, while the other is slower and more somber, I’m not sure which is which yet.
After worship was over, I was to lead the group in testimonies by starting with my own. Again, the Ugandan meaning for testimony is different than the US word for testimony. I had always believed a testimony meant the story of your faith’s journey. How you became a Christian, etc. Well, a Ugandan testimony is more like: “I finally finished this paper that was due today, and I turned it in on time. Praise the Lord.” Or “Praise the Lord, I was struggling with a friend but Jesus has helped me see her side of the story.” However, Ugandans do often tell their life story but I don’t think it’s called a “testimony”. Well, I knew the difference between Ugandan and American testimonies but I figured I would tell my faith story anyway just so they would know who this Mzungu was that was leading their worship hour. I then introduced Kelsey as the speaker and prayed for her. She gave a wonderful message on a passage from James. We were both so out of our comfort zone, it was crazy. God is definitely working in us.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Kampala Excursion
February 9, 2009
Monday
It has been exactly one month since flying to Uganda. The time has flown by, yet at the same time it has gone slow. May feels like years away yet it’s only three months.
Four of my friends and I headed into Kampala this last Saturday. We had to walk into Mukono town, which is about a 5-10 minute walk where we caught a “taxi.” In your head you’re probably envisioning a yellow New York Taxi. What you’re picturing is called a “private hire” here in Uganda. A Taxi is a 14 passenger van/bus that drives all over Uganda. There is a driver and a permanent passenger who calls out the window where they are heading. All we had to do was say Kampala, and we were thrown into a very crowded taxi. The drivers really like to get their money’s worth so there were often more passengers than seats. It only cost us 1500 shillings, which is about 78 cents.
We got dropped off near one of the malls of Kampala, called Garden City. We walked there to exchange our dollars into shillings and have a private hire pick us up to bring us to a restaurant. The main reason we went into Kampala was to celebrate. One of my roommates, Emily, was given an award from her college while she was in Uganda. Emily’s mom wanted to celebrate with Emily but couldn’t because of the distance. So we were “ordered” to go out to eat on her. Of course, we could not refuse such generosity.
The restaurant we ate at was called Sam’s Restaurant and they served “continental food”. It was the first time I’ve had American food since being here. We didn’t have rice and beans (which really aren’t that bad) nor did we have Matooke (mushed bananas) or Posho (condensed cornmeal). My meal made me so happy. I had a good portion of grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, vegetables, a side salad, and apple pie with a scoop of ice cream. I’m sure this sounds like an everyday meal to you, but it was like heaven to me. The vegetables were my favorite part.
After our dinner, which took about 2 hours to order, consume, and rest. We took a mini walking tour of the city. We needed to be back to campus by dark, which is about 7:30 and therefore needed to get on a taxi by 6/6:30. Catching a taxi was an interesting deal. We reached one long line of taxis all their drivers calling out their destinations. Whenever they heard we were going to Mukono they would shake their heads and quickly wave us on. Well, we reached the end of the line and there was no taxi heading to Mukono. So we wondered back and still found no taxi, the people told us there would be one coming soon. Mean time, five white girls walking around a taxi park is pretty obvious and distracting. Almost everyone waiting for their taxis knew we were heading to Mukono.
Finally two taxis pulled up but the drivers were speaking in Luganda so we couldn’t understand. One of the men waiting to board a taxi told us the drivers were arguing over who was going to take us to Mukono. We couldn’t tell whether they were arguing for us to be with them, or for us to be somewhere else. In the end we didn’t end up going with them, another taxi pulled up that was heading to Mukono and we were quickly pulled in.
Rush hour is pretty bad in Kampala so our driver took us on a scenic route to avoid “jam” and to make more money because we’re moving faster. We were on dirt roads that should never be able to hold vehicles, there were times I was afraid we’d get flat tires, flip, hit a person or a cow, or all three. Thankfully we made it home safely AND before dark.
Classes are going really well, I just got out of a class where we’re discussing poverty, specifically in Africa. It’s such a large and broad topic that can easily depress someone when looking at such a huge picture of despair. We’re going to spend about two weeks on poverty; I’m excited to hear what the Africans view of poverty is.
Here are some phrases you might find useful if you ever come across a Ugandan. (It took me a couple days and even weeks before I understood some of these phrases.
“I’ll give you a push to your room” or “I’ll push you to town”. Push means to escort. I was a little thrown off by that for a while.
“You look smart”. This is not a comment on your intelligence, but on your attractive attire. Or you are dressed sharp.
“You’ve been lost”. This means, I haven’t seen you in a while.
I’ve got to run now; I have an orientation for my service project. I’m going to be volunteering in Kampala every Tuesday now, working with youth and children who live in low income neighborhoods. It should be really interesting. Apparently the administrators occasionally ask their volunteers to give little impromptu sermons/speeches. I’m praying they don’t ask on the first week. I’ve never been the best at impromptu motivational speeches.
Monday
It has been exactly one month since flying to Uganda. The time has flown by, yet at the same time it has gone slow. May feels like years away yet it’s only three months.
Four of my friends and I headed into Kampala this last Saturday. We had to walk into Mukono town, which is about a 5-10 minute walk where we caught a “taxi.” In your head you’re probably envisioning a yellow New York Taxi. What you’re picturing is called a “private hire” here in Uganda. A Taxi is a 14 passenger van/bus that drives all over Uganda. There is a driver and a permanent passenger who calls out the window where they are heading. All we had to do was say Kampala, and we were thrown into a very crowded taxi. The drivers really like to get their money’s worth so there were often more passengers than seats. It only cost us 1500 shillings, which is about 78 cents.
We got dropped off near one of the malls of Kampala, called Garden City. We walked there to exchange our dollars into shillings and have a private hire pick us up to bring us to a restaurant. The main reason we went into Kampala was to celebrate. One of my roommates, Emily, was given an award from her college while she was in Uganda. Emily’s mom wanted to celebrate with Emily but couldn’t because of the distance. So we were “ordered” to go out to eat on her. Of course, we could not refuse such generosity.
The restaurant we ate at was called Sam’s Restaurant and they served “continental food”. It was the first time I’ve had American food since being here. We didn’t have rice and beans (which really aren’t that bad) nor did we have Matooke (mushed bananas) or Posho (condensed cornmeal). My meal made me so happy. I had a good portion of grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, vegetables, a side salad, and apple pie with a scoop of ice cream. I’m sure this sounds like an everyday meal to you, but it was like heaven to me. The vegetables were my favorite part.
After our dinner, which took about 2 hours to order, consume, and rest. We took a mini walking tour of the city. We needed to be back to campus by dark, which is about 7:30 and therefore needed to get on a taxi by 6/6:30. Catching a taxi was an interesting deal. We reached one long line of taxis all their drivers calling out their destinations. Whenever they heard we were going to Mukono they would shake their heads and quickly wave us on. Well, we reached the end of the line and there was no taxi heading to Mukono. So we wondered back and still found no taxi, the people told us there would be one coming soon. Mean time, five white girls walking around a taxi park is pretty obvious and distracting. Almost everyone waiting for their taxis knew we were heading to Mukono.
Finally two taxis pulled up but the drivers were speaking in Luganda so we couldn’t understand. One of the men waiting to board a taxi told us the drivers were arguing over who was going to take us to Mukono. We couldn’t tell whether they were arguing for us to be with them, or for us to be somewhere else. In the end we didn’t end up going with them, another taxi pulled up that was heading to Mukono and we were quickly pulled in.
Rush hour is pretty bad in Kampala so our driver took us on a scenic route to avoid “jam” and to make more money because we’re moving faster. We were on dirt roads that should never be able to hold vehicles, there were times I was afraid we’d get flat tires, flip, hit a person or a cow, or all three. Thankfully we made it home safely AND before dark.
Classes are going really well, I just got out of a class where we’re discussing poverty, specifically in Africa. It’s such a large and broad topic that can easily depress someone when looking at such a huge picture of despair. We’re going to spend about two weeks on poverty; I’m excited to hear what the Africans view of poverty is.
Here are some phrases you might find useful if you ever come across a Ugandan. (It took me a couple days and even weeks before I understood some of these phrases.
“I’ll give you a push to your room” or “I’ll push you to town”. Push means to escort. I was a little thrown off by that for a while.
“You look smart”. This is not a comment on your intelligence, but on your attractive attire. Or you are dressed sharp.
“You’ve been lost”. This means, I haven’t seen you in a while.
I’ve got to run now; I have an orientation for my service project. I’m going to be volunteering in Kampala every Tuesday now, working with youth and children who live in low income neighborhoods. It should be really interesting. Apparently the administrators occasionally ask their volunteers to give little impromptu sermons/speeches. I’m praying they don’t ask on the first week. I’ve never been the best at impromptu motivational speeches.
Jinja, the source of the Nile
February 3, 2009
I’m finally getting settled into the life of a Ugandan University student. I am no longer with my home-stay family any longer. Our last night was on Thursday night, the 29th. The day before, on the night of the 28th, Joy and I made an American meal for our family. We made Penne pasta with red sauce and garlic bread. It was pretty difficult cooking without electricity, it made me realize how much I’ve come to depend on electricity and modern technology. I really missed a stove-top, a microwave, and an oven while I was cooking over a tiny charcoal stove.
It took us about two hours to make a meal that would usually take about a half hour to make at home. We only had two charcoal stoves (that are pretty hard to keep at a steady temp.) The supermarket we brought our ingredients from didn’t have any Ragu (Imagine Africa not having tomato sauce!) so we used tomato paste, tomatoes, and onions. It turned out being rather tomatoey, the garlic bread was slightly burnt on the ends, and the pasta (which shouldn’t go wrong) was slightly overdone. But our family really enjoyed it and was really proud that their “American daughters” cooked them a meal. Our host brother and host father had thirds.
After our home-stay we were really happy to go to Jinja where the source of the Nile is. We came to a beautiful Ugandan resort. I roomed with a girl named Trisha from the Honours College. The intent of the retreat was for USP and Honours College (it’s where most of the USP students live with other Ugandan students) to get to know each other and become better friends. Anyway, Trisha turned out to be a kindred spirit; we had a lot in common. We even had appendicitis in the summer when we were 17 years old.
We played a lot of games to get to know everyone. We even played dodgeball, and you know that anything having to do with a ball and me does not work well together. My team was filled with people as talented as myself; we got out on the first round. I had fun taking pictures though.
It was wonderful eating a variety of foods. I’m used to beans and rice here at the university so when we had a buffet filled with chicken, chapati’s (Ugandan version of a tortilla), pineapple juice, fruit, and even more. It was a Ugandan heaven.
I went to the source of the Nile on a little boat and saw where some of Gandhi’s ashes were spread. I saw a giant lizard that made me wary of ever swimming in the Nile. I was also warned never to go to the bathroom while swimming in the Nile because of dangerous parasites that can infect you urinary tract. Apparently it is very common.
We came back from the weekend relaxed and ready to embrace Ugandan life once again. I was invited to go to a Ugandan wedding on Valentines day with a reception to follow. It should be really fun though I’ve heard they’re really long and usually spoken in Luganda. Nonetheless, I will be able to say I’ve experienced a Ugandan wedding and reception.
I hope you all are having a blessed day. I’ve heard it’s been really cold lately. Same here, it’s about 63 degrees and I’m wearing a sweatshirt. Ugandan temp has transformed me from a cold blooded Minnesotan into a wimpy southerner. Ah well, my new motto in life has become “embrace it”.
I’m finally getting settled into the life of a Ugandan University student. I am no longer with my home-stay family any longer. Our last night was on Thursday night, the 29th. The day before, on the night of the 28th, Joy and I made an American meal for our family. We made Penne pasta with red sauce and garlic bread. It was pretty difficult cooking without electricity, it made me realize how much I’ve come to depend on electricity and modern technology. I really missed a stove-top, a microwave, and an oven while I was cooking over a tiny charcoal stove.
It took us about two hours to make a meal that would usually take about a half hour to make at home. We only had two charcoal stoves (that are pretty hard to keep at a steady temp.) The supermarket we brought our ingredients from didn’t have any Ragu (Imagine Africa not having tomato sauce!) so we used tomato paste, tomatoes, and onions. It turned out being rather tomatoey, the garlic bread was slightly burnt on the ends, and the pasta (which shouldn’t go wrong) was slightly overdone. But our family really enjoyed it and was really proud that their “American daughters” cooked them a meal. Our host brother and host father had thirds.
After our home-stay we were really happy to go to Jinja where the source of the Nile is. We came to a beautiful Ugandan resort. I roomed with a girl named Trisha from the Honours College. The intent of the retreat was for USP and Honours College (it’s where most of the USP students live with other Ugandan students) to get to know each other and become better friends. Anyway, Trisha turned out to be a kindred spirit; we had a lot in common. We even had appendicitis in the summer when we were 17 years old.
We played a lot of games to get to know everyone. We even played dodgeball, and you know that anything having to do with a ball and me does not work well together. My team was filled with people as talented as myself; we got out on the first round. I had fun taking pictures though.
It was wonderful eating a variety of foods. I’m used to beans and rice here at the university so when we had a buffet filled with chicken, chapati’s (Ugandan version of a tortilla), pineapple juice, fruit, and even more. It was a Ugandan heaven.
I went to the source of the Nile on a little boat and saw where some of Gandhi’s ashes were spread. I saw a giant lizard that made me wary of ever swimming in the Nile. I was also warned never to go to the bathroom while swimming in the Nile because of dangerous parasites that can infect you urinary tract. Apparently it is very common.
We came back from the weekend relaxed and ready to embrace Ugandan life once again. I was invited to go to a Ugandan wedding on Valentines day with a reception to follow. It should be really fun though I’ve heard they’re really long and usually spoken in Luganda. Nonetheless, I will be able to say I’ve experienced a Ugandan wedding and reception.
I hope you all are having a blessed day. I’ve heard it’s been really cold lately. Same here, it’s about 63 degrees and I’m wearing a sweatshirt. Ugandan temp has transformed me from a cold blooded Minnesotan into a wimpy southerner. Ah well, my new motto in life has become “embrace it”.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Kampala
January 26, 2009, Monday
I wish you could come to Uganda and see all that I am seeing now. I wish you could experience Ugandan life, Ugandan Christianity, Ugandan hospitality, etc. It is so very different than anything I have ever experienced.
Side note: I GOT MY LUGGAGE!!! My luggage arrived exactly two weeks after I landed in Entebbe. My bag has almost seen more of the world than I have. Here’s a little course my bag has been on. Minneapolis to Atlanta to D.C. to Amsterdam to Ethiopia to New York to Amsterdam to Uganda (whoops, Uganda didn’t tell me it was here) to Amsterdam to New York to Amsterdam and finally back to Uganda (where it was picked up on Friday). I wasn’t able to unpack until this morning since I was with my host family all weekend. We’re not supposed to bring all of our stuff to our families since my luggage could be more than all of their earthly possessions. Thank you to all of you who put secret notes in odd places. It was so fun unpacking and finding little notes of encouragement hidden in my q-tips and glasses case.
This weekend was our first and last full weekend with our host family. Friday, January 30th is our last day. This weekend was completely full with going into Kampala on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Each day was full so I’ll give a synopsis of each day.
Friday, Joy and I had class until 1:00. We quickly ate lunch and then our house brother, Julius, brought us to Kampala. Julius is 29 and is a lawyer. He works for the government (he says to pay the bills), he also owns a travel agency (which doesn’t get much clientele), and he also started up a loan agency which gives small loans to poor women who have their own business. There is only a 3% interest rate so he is barely getting a profit. He says he’s more interested in loaning to women because he finds them to be more reliable. Also, he said that because they are taking the initiative to run their own little business, they will care for their children. He does loan to men, but if a woman comes to him and applies for a loan, she will get priority.
Joy and I went with one of his employees (Rosette) to the market where the majority of their clients work. Now, I have been to many markets around the world, but I have never experienced anything like this before. First of all, we had to walk across town to get to the market. This means crossing streets where cross walks to not exist. Taxis, Boda Boda (motorcycles), and cars do not stop for pedestrians. Also, cars drive on the left side of the road. Anyway, we crossed several roads and Joy almost got slowly rolled over by a taxi. Rosette who was to be our tour guide for the afternoon was walking casually, barely looking where she went. Joy and I were darting here and there to avoid speeding vehicles which were swerving to avoid potholes at the expense of the pedestrians.
Once we finally reached the market, we found several blocks blocked off. I had expected several little shacks along a road or path. Imagine a little shack with pieces of tin as a roof, the roof held down with bricks and tires, and the walls of random pieces of metal and wood, the floor was plywood, and rotten wood, with occasional areas of concrete. Now take that image and multiply it by 100. The market took up about 4-5 square blocks. There was an area for shoes, food, clothing, flour, bananas, meat, etc. There were hundreds of vendors each with a little tiny area to sell their wares. I wish I had pictures to show you, but we were advised not to bring any valuables to the market. I’m glad we didn’t. The “path” between the vendors varied from one foot wide to maybe two feet wide. We were constantly turning sideways to squeeze past shoppers and vendors. Joy and I were the only white people in the entire market so everyone noticed us. We heard so many different sayings, trying to get our attention. The most common was “Mzungu” which means white person. We also heard “Barack Obama”, “Obama”, “Beautiful”, etc. Some funny ones I heard were… “Hey, do you have a phone number… do you have a phone.” and “Marriage? Are you marriage?”
Rosette brought us around to several of the companies clients. She says they do this to build relationships with the clients. I really enjoyed meeting all the clients; they were all very welcoming and sweet. And they didn’t try to sell us any of their products.
One thing you should know is that this place was very crowded. If we weren’t constantly looking at Rosette’s back, we would be lost. The problem is the path is very lopsided, rocky, etc. Occasionally we would have to take a flying leap to avoid a puddle with questionable things floating in it. We were also used to pulling our arms away from overly zealous vendors who wanted to stop us. Once we even lost Rosette for a second. I think she may have grabbed my arm as I passed by her, but I was so used to vendors doing it, I just wrenched it away. It wasn’t until I realized that Joy (who was in front of me) had stopped and was looking around that we were by ourselves. Thankfully I didn’t have much time to dwell on the fact that we were two female mzungus in a labyrinth of vendors, alone, without a guide, a phone, or a friend. But then Rosette came up behind me and we were saved.
We were in the markets for about an hour and a half, I don’t know when my heart would slow down. We walked through the “food court” where they set up little tables and served Matooke (mashed bananas), rice, and beans. The pots they cooked with were right on the path and if you weren’t careful, you could scald your leg as you walked by. Also know that electricity is very expensive, so there were open fires and charcoal throughout the “food court.”
A note on driving in Uganda:
First of all, there seem to be no filters that keep hazardous smoke from entering the atmosphere or people’s lungs. I leave Kampala with my eyes red and my lungs black from the exhaust. Driving is crazy. It’s similar to the Philippines in that, you don’t stop unless you’re about to t-bone another car and occasionally a person. Pot holes are the size of a small pond at home and drivers do all they can to avoid them, including going into the other lane while a ginormous dump truck is barreling at them. I find it easier to close my eyes and embrace the “ignorance is bliss” way of life while being a passenger.
Saturday:
Julius brought us to Kampala again to give us a touristic time. We went to the tombs of the last four kings of Uganda. It was a very good historical and cultural experience, but not really worth the 10,000 shillings ($5) we paid for it. The palace was made of elephant grass and grass for a roof. It was very interesting. One of the kings had about 80 wives and the houses surrounding the court yard were for them. Now the ancestors of his many wives are actually living there. Keep in mind, this king died around 1900, so not very long ago.
Later in the day Joy and I went to a craft market where they sell authentic Ugandan crafts. I bought a Ugandan bag/purse so I wouldn’t have to carry my backpack around anymore. And Joy bought sandals. We were being practical and figuring out prices so we could go around other places and see if the prices are different.
Julius than brought us almost to Entebbe to see the land he has where he’s building a house. It’s a beautiful plot, out in the middle of nowhere but with an incredible view of Lake Victoria. He had gotten the land for cheap from a client of his (when he was working as a lawyer). He intends to build a house, rent it out, and put the proceeds into his lending business.
We got home around 7:30 and were exhausted. Dinner usually isn’t served until 9 or 10.
Sunday:
Joy and I went into Kampala with Mirika (the mother), Frederick (the Reverend father), and Julius. Frederick is an Anglican priest at a church in the slums of Kampala. The slums are located on a swamp so the roads are always wet and the stagnant water is the perfect place for malarial mosquitoes. The houses flood regularly and the area is densely populated, especially with children. World Vision had built the church Frederick serves at 10 years ago. Since then, the building has sunk into the earth, the windows are now ground level and the earth that had been cement at one time was now bare earth. There is a school next door that was also built by World Vision but it has not sunk as deeply.
The service was very interesting. They performed all the rituals of an Anglican church except no communion. I think that’s because it’s too expensive. The sermon was replaced by a traveling group. They were a group whose intent was to inform the public of how to keep from getting HIV/AIDS and to get tested, and offer counseling. I was surprised at the lack of knowledge regarding AIDS. I was taught from middle school about how HIV/AIDS was passed around. They performed a skit and made sure everyone understood it was very important to get a blood test, even if they believed they didn’t have it. The group was very blunt about abstaining before marriage, being faithful while married, and emphatically said to use condoms. The leader even had a shirt that said “Abstain, Be Faithful, and Use a Condom.” So the whole idea of making the public aware is very important. I had always thought, raising awareness was the easy way out. But it is extremely important. There’s been a rumor that if a man with HIV/AIDS has sex with a virgin, than he will be cured. Because of this rumor, more and more young girls are being assaulted and infected with HIV/AIDS. The group is traveling around Kampala and surrounding towns attempting to dispel this lie. They are an incredible group. Some of them are HIV positive and gave their testimony at the end of the service.
So this weekend has been really busy and interesting. There’s so much more to tell, but it takes a lot of energy on my part to convey to you what I’m seeing and experiencing. I hope you can get a glimpse into my life here and experience Uganda through me.
Thank you for your prayers and emails.
I wish you could come to Uganda and see all that I am seeing now. I wish you could experience Ugandan life, Ugandan Christianity, Ugandan hospitality, etc. It is so very different than anything I have ever experienced.
Side note: I GOT MY LUGGAGE!!! My luggage arrived exactly two weeks after I landed in Entebbe. My bag has almost seen more of the world than I have. Here’s a little course my bag has been on. Minneapolis to Atlanta to D.C. to Amsterdam to Ethiopia to New York to Amsterdam to Uganda (whoops, Uganda didn’t tell me it was here) to Amsterdam to New York to Amsterdam and finally back to Uganda (where it was picked up on Friday). I wasn’t able to unpack until this morning since I was with my host family all weekend. We’re not supposed to bring all of our stuff to our families since my luggage could be more than all of their earthly possessions. Thank you to all of you who put secret notes in odd places. It was so fun unpacking and finding little notes of encouragement hidden in my q-tips and glasses case.
This weekend was our first and last full weekend with our host family. Friday, January 30th is our last day. This weekend was completely full with going into Kampala on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Each day was full so I’ll give a synopsis of each day.
Friday, Joy and I had class until 1:00. We quickly ate lunch and then our house brother, Julius, brought us to Kampala. Julius is 29 and is a lawyer. He works for the government (he says to pay the bills), he also owns a travel agency (which doesn’t get much clientele), and he also started up a loan agency which gives small loans to poor women who have their own business. There is only a 3% interest rate so he is barely getting a profit. He says he’s more interested in loaning to women because he finds them to be more reliable. Also, he said that because they are taking the initiative to run their own little business, they will care for their children. He does loan to men, but if a woman comes to him and applies for a loan, she will get priority.
Joy and I went with one of his employees (Rosette) to the market where the majority of their clients work. Now, I have been to many markets around the world, but I have never experienced anything like this before. First of all, we had to walk across town to get to the market. This means crossing streets where cross walks to not exist. Taxis, Boda Boda (motorcycles), and cars do not stop for pedestrians. Also, cars drive on the left side of the road. Anyway, we crossed several roads and Joy almost got slowly rolled over by a taxi. Rosette who was to be our tour guide for the afternoon was walking casually, barely looking where she went. Joy and I were darting here and there to avoid speeding vehicles which were swerving to avoid potholes at the expense of the pedestrians.
Once we finally reached the market, we found several blocks blocked off. I had expected several little shacks along a road or path. Imagine a little shack with pieces of tin as a roof, the roof held down with bricks and tires, and the walls of random pieces of metal and wood, the floor was plywood, and rotten wood, with occasional areas of concrete. Now take that image and multiply it by 100. The market took up about 4-5 square blocks. There was an area for shoes, food, clothing, flour, bananas, meat, etc. There were hundreds of vendors each with a little tiny area to sell their wares. I wish I had pictures to show you, but we were advised not to bring any valuables to the market. I’m glad we didn’t. The “path” between the vendors varied from one foot wide to maybe two feet wide. We were constantly turning sideways to squeeze past shoppers and vendors. Joy and I were the only white people in the entire market so everyone noticed us. We heard so many different sayings, trying to get our attention. The most common was “Mzungu” which means white person. We also heard “Barack Obama”, “Obama”, “Beautiful”, etc. Some funny ones I heard were… “Hey, do you have a phone number… do you have a phone.” and “Marriage? Are you marriage?”
Rosette brought us around to several of the companies clients. She says they do this to build relationships with the clients. I really enjoyed meeting all the clients; they were all very welcoming and sweet. And they didn’t try to sell us any of their products.
One thing you should know is that this place was very crowded. If we weren’t constantly looking at Rosette’s back, we would be lost. The problem is the path is very lopsided, rocky, etc. Occasionally we would have to take a flying leap to avoid a puddle with questionable things floating in it. We were also used to pulling our arms away from overly zealous vendors who wanted to stop us. Once we even lost Rosette for a second. I think she may have grabbed my arm as I passed by her, but I was so used to vendors doing it, I just wrenched it away. It wasn’t until I realized that Joy (who was in front of me) had stopped and was looking around that we were by ourselves. Thankfully I didn’t have much time to dwell on the fact that we were two female mzungus in a labyrinth of vendors, alone, without a guide, a phone, or a friend. But then Rosette came up behind me and we were saved.
We were in the markets for about an hour and a half, I don’t know when my heart would slow down. We walked through the “food court” where they set up little tables and served Matooke (mashed bananas), rice, and beans. The pots they cooked with were right on the path and if you weren’t careful, you could scald your leg as you walked by. Also know that electricity is very expensive, so there were open fires and charcoal throughout the “food court.”
A note on driving in Uganda:
First of all, there seem to be no filters that keep hazardous smoke from entering the atmosphere or people’s lungs. I leave Kampala with my eyes red and my lungs black from the exhaust. Driving is crazy. It’s similar to the Philippines in that, you don’t stop unless you’re about to t-bone another car and occasionally a person. Pot holes are the size of a small pond at home and drivers do all they can to avoid them, including going into the other lane while a ginormous dump truck is barreling at them. I find it easier to close my eyes and embrace the “ignorance is bliss” way of life while being a passenger.
Saturday:
Julius brought us to Kampala again to give us a touristic time. We went to the tombs of the last four kings of Uganda. It was a very good historical and cultural experience, but not really worth the 10,000 shillings ($5) we paid for it. The palace was made of elephant grass and grass for a roof. It was very interesting. One of the kings had about 80 wives and the houses surrounding the court yard were for them. Now the ancestors of his many wives are actually living there. Keep in mind, this king died around 1900, so not very long ago.
Later in the day Joy and I went to a craft market where they sell authentic Ugandan crafts. I bought a Ugandan bag/purse so I wouldn’t have to carry my backpack around anymore. And Joy bought sandals. We were being practical and figuring out prices so we could go around other places and see if the prices are different.
Julius than brought us almost to Entebbe to see the land he has where he’s building a house. It’s a beautiful plot, out in the middle of nowhere but with an incredible view of Lake Victoria. He had gotten the land for cheap from a client of his (when he was working as a lawyer). He intends to build a house, rent it out, and put the proceeds into his lending business.
We got home around 7:30 and were exhausted. Dinner usually isn’t served until 9 or 10.
Sunday:
Joy and I went into Kampala with Mirika (the mother), Frederick (the Reverend father), and Julius. Frederick is an Anglican priest at a church in the slums of Kampala. The slums are located on a swamp so the roads are always wet and the stagnant water is the perfect place for malarial mosquitoes. The houses flood regularly and the area is densely populated, especially with children. World Vision had built the church Frederick serves at 10 years ago. Since then, the building has sunk into the earth, the windows are now ground level and the earth that had been cement at one time was now bare earth. There is a school next door that was also built by World Vision but it has not sunk as deeply.
The service was very interesting. They performed all the rituals of an Anglican church except no communion. I think that’s because it’s too expensive. The sermon was replaced by a traveling group. They were a group whose intent was to inform the public of how to keep from getting HIV/AIDS and to get tested, and offer counseling. I was surprised at the lack of knowledge regarding AIDS. I was taught from middle school about how HIV/AIDS was passed around. They performed a skit and made sure everyone understood it was very important to get a blood test, even if they believed they didn’t have it. The group was very blunt about abstaining before marriage, being faithful while married, and emphatically said to use condoms. The leader even had a shirt that said “Abstain, Be Faithful, and Use a Condom.” So the whole idea of making the public aware is very important. I had always thought, raising awareness was the easy way out. But it is extremely important. There’s been a rumor that if a man with HIV/AIDS has sex with a virgin, than he will be cured. Because of this rumor, more and more young girls are being assaulted and infected with HIV/AIDS. The group is traveling around Kampala and surrounding towns attempting to dispel this lie. They are an incredible group. Some of them are HIV positive and gave their testimony at the end of the service.
So this weekend has been really busy and interesting. There’s so much more to tell, but it takes a lot of energy on my part to convey to you what I’m seeing and experiencing. I hope you can get a glimpse into my life here and experience Uganda through me.
Thank you for your prayers and emails.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
So far
January 11th, 2009
I have safely arrived in Uganda, and it is beautiful. I was reading Poisonwood Bible on the plane ride over and one of the characters commented on the lack of a smell in the U.S.. So when I arrived in Africa I made a point to notice the smells. Believe me, there are smells everywhere. Mostly good, some bad.
I’ll give you a run down of what’s happened so far.
We arrived in Entebbe at 9:00 on Friday the 9th (1:00 pm your time), three people from our group lost their luggage coming from Amsterdam (I had already lost mine going to D.C.). We had no problem going through customs. They just had all of us give our passports to one person from our group and wait for them to go through it all. I could have easily given someone else’s passport and they wouldn’t have known the difference. They didn’t check the pictures with the person, it was pretty lax.
We proceeded to drive 1-2 hours (I’m not sure how long, I fell asleep), until we got to Mukono, the city where Uganda Christian University (UCU) is. On the drive we drove past Lake Victoria, which was awesome. The people are very nice in my group. We chatted on the way but most of us fell asleep on the planes and bus ride.
When we arrived at UCU we were split up between IMME (the missions oriented people) and the USE (Uganda Studies Emphasis). I’m USE. Five of us were sent to Sabiiti hall where we are going to live for the rest of the semester. I was one of the five and all the rest were split into the part of the campus called “Honours College”. Apparently I didn’t quite cut the academic line. Just kidding, there wasn’t room for all of us among the smart ones. But at Sabiiti we’re in the first year dorm so everyone is very nice and welcoming. We always have our neighbors come knocking on our door to say hi and introduce themselves. My roommates are great. I have two. One is Kelsey from Olivet Nazarene University and the other is Emily from Messiah (Jesus). They’re both very sweet and fun, I really like them. They’re kind enough to offer me some of their clothing and toiletries until my luggage arrives. They even bought me a mug from Mukono so we can have tea together. Across the hall are two other USP-ers named Kristin and Katie (there are about 5 Katie’s in our group). I really like being separate from the majority of the group, it makes me reach out more to the Ugandan students.
My dorm is better than I expected. There are three of us in one room that was intended for four. There are two sets of bunk beds, I’m on the bottom. The mosquito netting makes me feel like I’m a princess with lace falling around me when I sleep. Apparently the Ugandans don’t care about others talking when they sleep. We hear several early morning singers in the showers (early morning = 4 am), conversations in the hallways, doors opening and closing, roosters crowing, and birds chirping. I tend to sleep through it all.
Meals consist of rice and beans in ginormous portions with a side of either potatoes, condensed corn meal, fried bananas, and other stuff I’m not sure of. I’ve tended to ask for ¼ of what they offer and still can’t finish it all. We try to sit somewhat separately so Ugandans join us. If all the white people are at one table, it tends to make us look exclusive. I’ve met several people doing this (it’s really hard to remember their names though, they sort of look alike.)
Saturday was pretty busy with orientation. We got cell phones!!! And you can call me. I’ll give you my info at the end. They set up our internet (which apparently works pretty often if you’re in the right spot), gave us a manual on Uganda, set up our classes (I’ve changed mine to History, African Traditional Religions, Reading the NT in Africa, African Christian Theology, and Faith and Action. Creative writing was only with USP students, I wanted some natives in my class.
The temp is beautiful. It’s only 85 degrees and they say this is as hot as it gets. I was even a little cold last night. After orientation, we went to climb Monkey Hill behind campus and saw monkeys, Lake Victoria in the distance, Mukono, and other cities around. The landscape is beautiful, it’s very hilly (mountainous if you’re from MN). Dinner starts at 7. The Cafeteria is incredible! It’s like a huge patio. There are posts all around, one side has a wall where the kitchen is, but everything else is open. So while I eat there’s a breeze blowing against me. It’s great.
There was a worship service last night at 8:00 we could attend. I went with most of the group (though the IMME’s had already been taken to their families in Mukono, Chuck included). It was very interesting. I’m not sure how long it lasted; I left early (10:00) after my head hit my chest for the millionth time. But there was a lot of clapping, swaying, testimonies, impromptu solos, impromptu speeches/sermons, and singing in Luganda and English. I really liked it but couldn’t stay up much longer.
Sunday was a free day. We went to church, it was pretty interesting. I think they were sort of catering to the new students and especially to the Americans. The father basically gave a thorough explanation of an Anglican service and why they have it. I’m excited for next week when they give their normal sermons. There are two services with huge congregations. My roommates and I went to the 2nd service at 10:30 which is apparently the smaller service. The earlier service has about 900 people. Yes, 900 people. It’s huge compared to what I thought there’d be.
After a lunch of rice and beans several of us headed into Mukono. We had been eating lunch with a second year guy named Ken. When we told him we were heading into Mukono he offered to be our tour guide. He proved to be invaluable. He brought us to the ATM where we can get shillings, showed us where to buy certain things. Unfortunately for me, my card was eaten by the ATM. I took too long calculating the difference between Shillings to Dollars, hit “Not Ready” a little too much and the ATM said I was taking too long so it ate my card. I talked to Ken, our new friend and he told me to come back tomorrow when the bank was open. I wasn’t too put out; I figured if that would happen to anyone, it might as well be me. Everyone felt really bad for me and offered to let me borrow some of their shillings to get my basic needs. Therefore I got six pairs of underwear, hoping that by the time I’m through with them, my luggage will have arrived.
I came back to campus and talked to our leaders and they said it has happened before. Usually what happens is the bank will send the card to the main bank in Kampala. We’re going their on Friday so I’ll just have to pick it up there. But Mom, if you could email me my account number (Wells Fargo) I think that would help get it back faster.
I got back to campus around 4 or so and have been lounging outside, embracing the sun and shade. One of the dorms where some of the girls stay has a porch with a couch. I’m actually sitting there now with seven other girls. Most are finishing reading Poisonwood Bible while others are chatting about their schedules. We often sit here and listen to the birds. One of the girls named Naomi in USP is from Bethel. There’s also a large group of senior Bethel Nursing students. Two of them just walked by with Naomi and we’ve discovered several mutual friends. One of them even knew Erik. She remembered him because he got frost bit on his finger and one of the upper class nursing students told him he’d have to cut it off. That’s how she remembered him. It was fun connecting with Minnesota.
Well, I’ve got to run now. I hope this was informative and humorous for you. I’m sorry it’s filled with punctuation errors and short sentences.
January 16th, 2009
I have safely arrived in Uganda, and it is beautiful. I was reading Poisonwood Bible on the plane ride over and one of the characters commented on the lack of a smell in the U.S.. So when I arrived in Africa I made a point to notice the smells. Believe me, there are smells everywhere. Mostly good, some bad.
I’ll give you a run down of what’s happened so far.
We arrived in Entebbe at 9:00 on Friday the 9th (1:00 pm your time), three people from our group lost their luggage coming from Amsterdam (I had already lost mine going to D.C.). We had no problem going through customs. They just had all of us give our passports to one person from our group and wait for them to go through it all. I could have easily given someone else’s passport and they wouldn’t have known the difference. They didn’t check the pictures with the person, it was pretty lax.
We proceeded to drive 1-2 hours (I’m not sure how long, I fell asleep), until we got to Mukono, the city where Uganda Christian University (UCU) is. On the drive we drove past Lake Victoria, which was awesome. The people are very nice in my group. We chatted on the way but most of us fell asleep on the planes and bus ride.
When we arrived at UCU we were split up between IMME (the missions oriented people) and the USE (Uganda Studies Emphasis). I’m USE. Five of us were sent to Sabiiti hall where we are going to live for the rest of the semester. I was one of the five and all the rest were split into the part of the campus called “Honours College”. Apparently I didn’t quite cut the academic line. Just kidding, there wasn’t room for all of us among the smart ones. But at Sabiiti we’re in the first year dorm so everyone is very nice and welcoming. We always have our neighbors come knocking on our door to say hi and introduce themselves. My roommates are great. I have two. One is Kelsey from Olivet Nazarene University and the other is Emily from Messiah (Jesus). They’re both very sweet and fun, I really like them. They’re kind enough to offer me some of their clothing and toiletries until my luggage arrives. They even bought me a mug from Mukono so we can have tea together. Across the hall are two other USP-ers named Kristin and Katie (there are about 5 Katie’s in our group). I really like being separate from the majority of the group, it makes me reach out more to the Ugandan students.
My dorm is better than I expected. There are three of us in one room that was intended for four. There are two sets of bunk beds, I’m on the bottom. The mosquito netting makes me feel like I’m a princess with lace falling around me when I sleep. Apparently the Ugandans don’t care about others talking when they sleep. We hear several early morning singers in the showers (early morning = 4 am), conversations in the hallways, doors opening and closing, roosters crowing, and birds chirping. I tend to sleep through it all.
Meals consist of rice and beans in ginormous portions with a side of either potatoes, condensed corn meal, fried bananas, and other stuff I’m not sure of. I’ve tended to ask for ¼ of what they offer and still can’t finish it all. We try to sit somewhat separately so Ugandans join us. If all the white people are at one table, it tends to make us look exclusive. I’ve met several people doing this (it’s really hard to remember their names though, they sort of look alike.)
Saturday was pretty busy with orientation. We got cell phones!!! And you can call me. I’ll give you my info at the end. They set up our internet (which apparently works pretty often if you’re in the right spot), gave us a manual on Uganda, set up our classes (I’ve changed mine to History, African Traditional Religions, Reading the NT in Africa, African Christian Theology, and Faith and Action. Creative writing was only with USP students, I wanted some natives in my class.
The temp is beautiful. It’s only 85 degrees and they say this is as hot as it gets. I was even a little cold last night. After orientation, we went to climb Monkey Hill behind campus and saw monkeys, Lake Victoria in the distance, Mukono, and other cities around. The landscape is beautiful, it’s very hilly (mountainous if you’re from MN). Dinner starts at 7. The Cafeteria is incredible! It’s like a huge patio. There are posts all around, one side has a wall where the kitchen is, but everything else is open. So while I eat there’s a breeze blowing against me. It’s great.
There was a worship service last night at 8:00 we could attend. I went with most of the group (though the IMME’s had already been taken to their families in Mukono, Chuck included). It was very interesting. I’m not sure how long it lasted; I left early (10:00) after my head hit my chest for the millionth time. But there was a lot of clapping, swaying, testimonies, impromptu solos, impromptu speeches/sermons, and singing in Luganda and English. I really liked it but couldn’t stay up much longer.
Sunday was a free day. We went to church, it was pretty interesting. I think they were sort of catering to the new students and especially to the Americans. The father basically gave a thorough explanation of an Anglican service and why they have it. I’m excited for next week when they give their normal sermons. There are two services with huge congregations. My roommates and I went to the 2nd service at 10:30 which is apparently the smaller service. The earlier service has about 900 people. Yes, 900 people. It’s huge compared to what I thought there’d be.
After a lunch of rice and beans several of us headed into Mukono. We had been eating lunch with a second year guy named Ken. When we told him we were heading into Mukono he offered to be our tour guide. He proved to be invaluable. He brought us to the ATM where we can get shillings, showed us where to buy certain things. Unfortunately for me, my card was eaten by the ATM. I took too long calculating the difference between Shillings to Dollars, hit “Not Ready” a little too much and the ATM said I was taking too long so it ate my card. I talked to Ken, our new friend and he told me to come back tomorrow when the bank was open. I wasn’t too put out; I figured if that would happen to anyone, it might as well be me. Everyone felt really bad for me and offered to let me borrow some of their shillings to get my basic needs. Therefore I got six pairs of underwear, hoping that by the time I’m through with them, my luggage will have arrived.
I came back to campus and talked to our leaders and they said it has happened before. Usually what happens is the bank will send the card to the main bank in Kampala. We’re going their on Friday so I’ll just have to pick it up there. But Mom, if you could email me my account number (Wells Fargo) I think that would help get it back faster.
I got back to campus around 4 or so and have been lounging outside, embracing the sun and shade. One of the dorms where some of the girls stay has a porch with a couch. I’m actually sitting there now with seven other girls. Most are finishing reading Poisonwood Bible while others are chatting about their schedules. We often sit here and listen to the birds. One of the girls named Naomi in USP is from Bethel. There’s also a large group of senior Bethel Nursing students. Two of them just walked by with Naomi and we’ve discovered several mutual friends. One of them even knew Erik. She remembered him because he got frost bit on his finger and one of the upper class nursing students told him he’d have to cut it off. That’s how she remembered him. It was fun connecting with Minnesota.
Well, I’ve got to run now. I hope this was informative and humorous for you. I’m sorry it’s filled with punctuation errors and short sentences.
Ashley
January 16, 2009, Friday
Hmm, Africa is a wonderful place! I wake up to the smell of smoke from the dining hall and to the sound of early risers singing their hearts out in the showers. Thanks to you all who have replied to my email and are praying for me while I’m here. I will try to get back to you individually as soon as I can, which may be a while yet because of slow internet connections. Several of you have also asked for pictures to be posted. This may be a bigger problem. The internet is very slow and pretty unreliable so it takes a long time to upload pictures even though I would love to post them and show you a picture into my world here.
I am just about to complete my first full week of classes at Uganda Christian University (UCU). I have wonderful classes, though some of them can be a little dull at times. I find myself mentally exhausted after my New Testament, History of E. Africa, African Traditional Religions, and African Christian Theology classes. These classes are all taught by Ugandan professors with distinct and African accented English. They are generally 2 hours long and I find myself more focused on translating their English to my English so I can understand the content. I have one more class called Faith and Action, which is taught by an American. When I finally get to that class I find I barely need to pay attention but can grasp everything he says. Despite the slight language accent barrier I am really enjoying my classes. My favorite is African Christian Theology (I can also understand this professor better than the rest). The way Africans teach their classes and how the students respond is much different than in the States. For example, if I was taking a theology course at home I would be expected to have my own ideas and even dispute with the professor if I disagreed with him. But here in Africa, what the professor says is law. I don’t think they would be very offended if I asked challenging questions, but it would be very unusual. It is so fascinating to participate in different cultures and learning here.
I’ve discovered several cultural differences since being here. First of all, cars drive on the left side of the road. You think this wouldn’t be a big problem for me because I’m not driving. However, driving on the left side follows though to walking on sidewalks or pathways. Often time I do the awkward right, then left, then right, nervous laugh, and scoot around the Ugandan. I am a pro at awkward moments. I’ve begun saying in my head as I walk by people, “stay left, stay left, don’t go right, stay left.” I’m amazed at how much American culture has affected my walking habits. My first couple days here I would smile and nod at people to say hello but often received blank stares. Yesterday I discovered why the Ugandans weren’t responding to my hello. While I was bobbing my head like a bobble head, they were very confused. But if I had just raised my eyebrows they would have responded likewise in the Ugandan way of saying hello.
My roommate (Emily) and I washed our clothes (by hand) for the first time since being here. We scrubbed the parts we knew were dirty (armpits, stains, sweat spots, etc.) and let the clothes soak for a little bit. We got so tired after hanging everything on the clothes lines. We’ve decided that if we ever get tired of rice and beans, all we have to do is laundry and we’d be excited to eat it once again. Two of our friends did their laundry soon after us with one of our Ugandan friends (Sarah). Apparently Emily and I were lacking on our washing skills. Sarah scrubbed every inch of fabric multiple times and rinsed over and over than washed again. I don’t know if I’ll ever be as proficient as the Ugandans.
We’ve only been here a week and I’m sad to say I’m already dreaming of American food. Green beans, strawberries, carrots, green peppers, pizza, etc. Every Wednesday is meat day in the dining hall. Our whole group was so excited to get some meat with our rice. I’m doing my best not to talk about certain foods so I can enjoy our meals at the dining hall. Vegetables and fruit are pretty scarce, which surprised me since the climate is prime for growing most of the year.
We’re heading into Kampala today to see the city. My luggage hasn’t arrived but should be here any day (I’m hoping). So if we call the airport and it’s not here, I’m going to buy a couple outfits in Kampala and try to fill in all the holes of things I’m missing so I don’t have to borrow from the girls in my group anymore. I’m not sure if I told you, but my luggage has seen a lot of the world recently. The airline flew it to Ethiopia, realized it was the wrong country, so they sent it back to New York. Now it should be coming to Entebbe (Uganda) any day. I’m praying this is so.
Tomorrow we’re going to be placed in our home-stays. We’re going to be with a family for two weeks. Next time you hear from me I’m going to have a Ugandan mother and father and probably a few siblings.
Thank you for all your prayers and I will update you again soon. I don’t want to overrun you with emails.
-Ashley
January 20th, 2009, Tuesday
White people here are called Mzungu’s by the natives. I went into town the other day to look into buying some clothes since my luggage has yet to arrive (last notice, it was in Amsterdam). Anyway, I walked into town and was quite a spectacle. A Mzungu walking around by herself looking into little boxes where clothes are sold. Of course, the shop keepers see a single female Mzungu looking at their clothes and immediately assume she has money (which, compared to them, I have a lot). Anyway every time I asked a how much something was I got huge prices. I never would be able to bring the price down to what they would normally offer a Ugandan. I attempted to bargain the prices down and still know I got cheated but have two new outfits to my name and a pair of sandals.
My home-stay with a Ugandan family started on Saturday. I am with one other student from USP, her name is Joy and we get along really well together. I have a Reverend Father, Frederick; a Teacher mother, Mirika; a Lawyer big brother, Julius; a 16 year old sister, Irene; and an 8 year old sister, Phoebe. I’ve been eating vegetables and fruit at every meal, which is a huge improvement from the University food of beans and rice alone. Meals are very different from the US. Breakfast is at 8/8:30 with tea, bread and margarine, sometimes eggs, Break Tea is at 10/10:30 with tea and bread, Lunch is at 1 or 2:00 with rice or Irish potatoes, or Matooke (mashed bananas), or beans, or beef, or pork, or gizzards. Afternoon tea is at 7. Supper is at 8 or 9 or 10 with food similar to lunch. After supper we have devotions as a family. We read a psalm, discuss it, pray, etc. I really like devotion time. Joy and I sleep in a room with Irene. Ashley is a very hard name to pronounce for Ugandans so they decided to give us Ugandan names. My name is Kwagala which means love. Joy’s name is Shinu which means joy. All we need is a little Peace, Patience, and Self Control to add to our family.
As much as I love my Ugandan family, they’ve made me realize how glad I am to have chosen the Uganda Studies Emphasis (where students live on campus) and not the IMME program (where students live with a family for the whole semester). I definitely need my own personal time which is really hard to find with a family.
I’ve got to run now, sorry this is a shorter email. Love you all.
Ash (Kwagala)
I have safely arrived in Uganda, and it is beautiful. I was reading Poisonwood Bible on the plane ride over and one of the characters commented on the lack of a smell in the U.S.. So when I arrived in Africa I made a point to notice the smells. Believe me, there are smells everywhere. Mostly good, some bad.
I’ll give you a run down of what’s happened so far.
We arrived in Entebbe at 9:00 on Friday the 9th (1:00 pm your time), three people from our group lost their luggage coming from Amsterdam (I had already lost mine going to D.C.). We had no problem going through customs. They just had all of us give our passports to one person from our group and wait for them to go through it all. I could have easily given someone else’s passport and they wouldn’t have known the difference. They didn’t check the pictures with the person, it was pretty lax.
We proceeded to drive 1-2 hours (I’m not sure how long, I fell asleep), until we got to Mukono, the city where Uganda Christian University (UCU) is. On the drive we drove past Lake Victoria, which was awesome. The people are very nice in my group. We chatted on the way but most of us fell asleep on the planes and bus ride.
When we arrived at UCU we were split up between IMME (the missions oriented people) and the USE (Uganda Studies Emphasis). I’m USE. Five of us were sent to Sabiiti hall where we are going to live for the rest of the semester. I was one of the five and all the rest were split into the part of the campus called “Honours College”. Apparently I didn’t quite cut the academic line. Just kidding, there wasn’t room for all of us among the smart ones. But at Sabiiti we’re in the first year dorm so everyone is very nice and welcoming. We always have our neighbors come knocking on our door to say hi and introduce themselves. My roommates are great. I have two. One is Kelsey from Olivet Nazarene University and the other is Emily from Messiah (Jesus). They’re both very sweet and fun, I really like them. They’re kind enough to offer me some of their clothing and toiletries until my luggage arrives. They even bought me a mug from Mukono so we can have tea together. Across the hall are two other USP-ers named Kristin and Katie (there are about 5 Katie’s in our group). I really like being separate from the majority of the group, it makes me reach out more to the Ugandan students.
My dorm is better than I expected. There are three of us in one room that was intended for four. There are two sets of bunk beds, I’m on the bottom. The mosquito netting makes me feel like I’m a princess with lace falling around me when I sleep. Apparently the Ugandans don’t care about others talking when they sleep. We hear several early morning singers in the showers (early morning = 4 am), conversations in the hallways, doors opening and closing, roosters crowing, and birds chirping. I tend to sleep through it all.
Meals consist of rice and beans in ginormous portions with a side of either potatoes, condensed corn meal, fried bananas, and other stuff I’m not sure of. I’ve tended to ask for ¼ of what they offer and still can’t finish it all. We try to sit somewhat separately so Ugandans join us. If all the white people are at one table, it tends to make us look exclusive. I’ve met several people doing this (it’s really hard to remember their names though, they sort of look alike.)
Saturday was pretty busy with orientation. We got cell phones!!! And you can call me. I’ll give you my info at the end. They set up our internet (which apparently works pretty often if you’re in the right spot), gave us a manual on Uganda, set up our classes (I’ve changed mine to History, African Traditional Religions, Reading the NT in Africa, African Christian Theology, and Faith and Action. Creative writing was only with USP students, I wanted some natives in my class.
The temp is beautiful. It’s only 85 degrees and they say this is as hot as it gets. I was even a little cold last night. After orientation, we went to climb Monkey Hill behind campus and saw monkeys, Lake Victoria in the distance, Mukono, and other cities around. The landscape is beautiful, it’s very hilly (mountainous if you’re from MN). Dinner starts at 7. The Cafeteria is incredible! It’s like a huge patio. There are posts all around, one side has a wall where the kitchen is, but everything else is open. So while I eat there’s a breeze blowing against me. It’s great.
There was a worship service last night at 8:00 we could attend. I went with most of the group (though the IMME’s had already been taken to their families in Mukono, Chuck included). It was very interesting. I’m not sure how long it lasted; I left early (10:00) after my head hit my chest for the millionth time. But there was a lot of clapping, swaying, testimonies, impromptu solos, impromptu speeches/sermons, and singing in Luganda and English. I really liked it but couldn’t stay up much longer.
Sunday was a free day. We went to church, it was pretty interesting. I think they were sort of catering to the new students and especially to the Americans. The father basically gave a thorough explanation of an Anglican service and why they have it. I’m excited for next week when they give their normal sermons. There are two services with huge congregations. My roommates and I went to the 2nd service at 10:30 which is apparently the smaller service. The earlier service has about 900 people. Yes, 900 people. It’s huge compared to what I thought there’d be.
After a lunch of rice and beans several of us headed into Mukono. We had been eating lunch with a second year guy named Ken. When we told him we were heading into Mukono he offered to be our tour guide. He proved to be invaluable. He brought us to the ATM where we can get shillings, showed us where to buy certain things. Unfortunately for me, my card was eaten by the ATM. I took too long calculating the difference between Shillings to Dollars, hit “Not Ready” a little too much and the ATM said I was taking too long so it ate my card. I talked to Ken, our new friend and he told me to come back tomorrow when the bank was open. I wasn’t too put out; I figured if that would happen to anyone, it might as well be me. Everyone felt really bad for me and offered to let me borrow some of their shillings to get my basic needs. Therefore I got six pairs of underwear, hoping that by the time I’m through with them, my luggage will have arrived.
I came back to campus and talked to our leaders and they said it has happened before. Usually what happens is the bank will send the card to the main bank in Kampala. We’re going their on Friday so I’ll just have to pick it up there. But Mom, if you could email me my account number (Wells Fargo) I think that would help get it back faster.
I got back to campus around 4 or so and have been lounging outside, embracing the sun and shade. One of the dorms where some of the girls stay has a porch with a couch. I’m actually sitting there now with seven other girls. Most are finishing reading Poisonwood Bible while others are chatting about their schedules. We often sit here and listen to the birds. One of the girls named Naomi in USP is from Bethel. There’s also a large group of senior Bethel Nursing students. Two of them just walked by with Naomi and we’ve discovered several mutual friends. One of them even knew Erik. She remembered him because he got frost bit on his finger and one of the upper class nursing students told him he’d have to cut it off. That’s how she remembered him. It was fun connecting with Minnesota.
Well, I’ve got to run now. I hope this was informative and humorous for you. I’m sorry it’s filled with punctuation errors and short sentences.
January 16th, 2009
I have safely arrived in Uganda, and it is beautiful. I was reading Poisonwood Bible on the plane ride over and one of the characters commented on the lack of a smell in the U.S.. So when I arrived in Africa I made a point to notice the smells. Believe me, there are smells everywhere. Mostly good, some bad.
I’ll give you a run down of what’s happened so far.
We arrived in Entebbe at 9:00 on Friday the 9th (1:00 pm your time), three people from our group lost their luggage coming from Amsterdam (I had already lost mine going to D.C.). We had no problem going through customs. They just had all of us give our passports to one person from our group and wait for them to go through it all. I could have easily given someone else’s passport and they wouldn’t have known the difference. They didn’t check the pictures with the person, it was pretty lax.
We proceeded to drive 1-2 hours (I’m not sure how long, I fell asleep), until we got to Mukono, the city where Uganda Christian University (UCU) is. On the drive we drove past Lake Victoria, which was awesome. The people are very nice in my group. We chatted on the way but most of us fell asleep on the planes and bus ride.
When we arrived at UCU we were split up between IMME (the missions oriented people) and the USE (Uganda Studies Emphasis). I’m USE. Five of us were sent to Sabiiti hall where we are going to live for the rest of the semester. I was one of the five and all the rest were split into the part of the campus called “Honours College”. Apparently I didn’t quite cut the academic line. Just kidding, there wasn’t room for all of us among the smart ones. But at Sabiiti we’re in the first year dorm so everyone is very nice and welcoming. We always have our neighbors come knocking on our door to say hi and introduce themselves. My roommates are great. I have two. One is Kelsey from Olivet Nazarene University and the other is Emily from Messiah (Jesus). They’re both very sweet and fun, I really like them. They’re kind enough to offer me some of their clothing and toiletries until my luggage arrives. They even bought me a mug from Mukono so we can have tea together. Across the hall are two other USP-ers named Kristin and Katie (there are about 5 Katie’s in our group). I really like being separate from the majority of the group, it makes me reach out more to the Ugandan students.
My dorm is better than I expected. There are three of us in one room that was intended for four. There are two sets of bunk beds, I’m on the bottom. The mosquito netting makes me feel like I’m a princess with lace falling around me when I sleep. Apparently the Ugandans don’t care about others talking when they sleep. We hear several early morning singers in the showers (early morning = 4 am), conversations in the hallways, doors opening and closing, roosters crowing, and birds chirping. I tend to sleep through it all.
Meals consist of rice and beans in ginormous portions with a side of either potatoes, condensed corn meal, fried bananas, and other stuff I’m not sure of. I’ve tended to ask for ¼ of what they offer and still can’t finish it all. We try to sit somewhat separately so Ugandans join us. If all the white people are at one table, it tends to make us look exclusive. I’ve met several people doing this (it’s really hard to remember their names though, they sort of look alike.)
Saturday was pretty busy with orientation. We got cell phones!!! And you can call me. I’ll give you my info at the end. They set up our internet (which apparently works pretty often if you’re in the right spot), gave us a manual on Uganda, set up our classes (I’ve changed mine to History, African Traditional Religions, Reading the NT in Africa, African Christian Theology, and Faith and Action. Creative writing was only with USP students, I wanted some natives in my class.
The temp is beautiful. It’s only 85 degrees and they say this is as hot as it gets. I was even a little cold last night. After orientation, we went to climb Monkey Hill behind campus and saw monkeys, Lake Victoria in the distance, Mukono, and other cities around. The landscape is beautiful, it’s very hilly (mountainous if you’re from MN). Dinner starts at 7. The Cafeteria is incredible! It’s like a huge patio. There are posts all around, one side has a wall where the kitchen is, but everything else is open. So while I eat there’s a breeze blowing against me. It’s great.
There was a worship service last night at 8:00 we could attend. I went with most of the group (though the IMME’s had already been taken to their families in Mukono, Chuck included). It was very interesting. I’m not sure how long it lasted; I left early (10:00) after my head hit my chest for the millionth time. But there was a lot of clapping, swaying, testimonies, impromptu solos, impromptu speeches/sermons, and singing in Luganda and English. I really liked it but couldn’t stay up much longer.
Sunday was a free day. We went to church, it was pretty interesting. I think they were sort of catering to the new students and especially to the Americans. The father basically gave a thorough explanation of an Anglican service and why they have it. I’m excited for next week when they give their normal sermons. There are two services with huge congregations. My roommates and I went to the 2nd service at 10:30 which is apparently the smaller service. The earlier service has about 900 people. Yes, 900 people. It’s huge compared to what I thought there’d be.
After a lunch of rice and beans several of us headed into Mukono. We had been eating lunch with a second year guy named Ken. When we told him we were heading into Mukono he offered to be our tour guide. He proved to be invaluable. He brought us to the ATM where we can get shillings, showed us where to buy certain things. Unfortunately for me, my card was eaten by the ATM. I took too long calculating the difference between Shillings to Dollars, hit “Not Ready” a little too much and the ATM said I was taking too long so it ate my card. I talked to Ken, our new friend and he told me to come back tomorrow when the bank was open. I wasn’t too put out; I figured if that would happen to anyone, it might as well be me. Everyone felt really bad for me and offered to let me borrow some of their shillings to get my basic needs. Therefore I got six pairs of underwear, hoping that by the time I’m through with them, my luggage will have arrived.
I came back to campus and talked to our leaders and they said it has happened before. Usually what happens is the bank will send the card to the main bank in Kampala. We’re going their on Friday so I’ll just have to pick it up there. But Mom, if you could email me my account number (Wells Fargo) I think that would help get it back faster.
I got back to campus around 4 or so and have been lounging outside, embracing the sun and shade. One of the dorms where some of the girls stay has a porch with a couch. I’m actually sitting there now with seven other girls. Most are finishing reading Poisonwood Bible while others are chatting about their schedules. We often sit here and listen to the birds. One of the girls named Naomi in USP is from Bethel. There’s also a large group of senior Bethel Nursing students. Two of them just walked by with Naomi and we’ve discovered several mutual friends. One of them even knew Erik. She remembered him because he got frost bit on his finger and one of the upper class nursing students told him he’d have to cut it off. That’s how she remembered him. It was fun connecting with Minnesota.
Well, I’ve got to run now. I hope this was informative and humorous for you. I’m sorry it’s filled with punctuation errors and short sentences.
Ashley
January 16, 2009, Friday
Hmm, Africa is a wonderful place! I wake up to the smell of smoke from the dining hall and to the sound of early risers singing their hearts out in the showers. Thanks to you all who have replied to my email and are praying for me while I’m here. I will try to get back to you individually as soon as I can, which may be a while yet because of slow internet connections. Several of you have also asked for pictures to be posted. This may be a bigger problem. The internet is very slow and pretty unreliable so it takes a long time to upload pictures even though I would love to post them and show you a picture into my world here.
I am just about to complete my first full week of classes at Uganda Christian University (UCU). I have wonderful classes, though some of them can be a little dull at times. I find myself mentally exhausted after my New Testament, History of E. Africa, African Traditional Religions, and African Christian Theology classes. These classes are all taught by Ugandan professors with distinct and African accented English. They are generally 2 hours long and I find myself more focused on translating their English to my English so I can understand the content. I have one more class called Faith and Action, which is taught by an American. When I finally get to that class I find I barely need to pay attention but can grasp everything he says. Despite the slight language accent barrier I am really enjoying my classes. My favorite is African Christian Theology (I can also understand this professor better than the rest). The way Africans teach their classes and how the students respond is much different than in the States. For example, if I was taking a theology course at home I would be expected to have my own ideas and even dispute with the professor if I disagreed with him. But here in Africa, what the professor says is law. I don’t think they would be very offended if I asked challenging questions, but it would be very unusual. It is so fascinating to participate in different cultures and learning here.
I’ve discovered several cultural differences since being here. First of all, cars drive on the left side of the road. You think this wouldn’t be a big problem for me because I’m not driving. However, driving on the left side follows though to walking on sidewalks or pathways. Often time I do the awkward right, then left, then right, nervous laugh, and scoot around the Ugandan. I am a pro at awkward moments. I’ve begun saying in my head as I walk by people, “stay left, stay left, don’t go right, stay left.” I’m amazed at how much American culture has affected my walking habits. My first couple days here I would smile and nod at people to say hello but often received blank stares. Yesterday I discovered why the Ugandans weren’t responding to my hello. While I was bobbing my head like a bobble head, they were very confused. But if I had just raised my eyebrows they would have responded likewise in the Ugandan way of saying hello.
My roommate (Emily) and I washed our clothes (by hand) for the first time since being here. We scrubbed the parts we knew were dirty (armpits, stains, sweat spots, etc.) and let the clothes soak for a little bit. We got so tired after hanging everything on the clothes lines. We’ve decided that if we ever get tired of rice and beans, all we have to do is laundry and we’d be excited to eat it once again. Two of our friends did their laundry soon after us with one of our Ugandan friends (Sarah). Apparently Emily and I were lacking on our washing skills. Sarah scrubbed every inch of fabric multiple times and rinsed over and over than washed again. I don’t know if I’ll ever be as proficient as the Ugandans.
We’ve only been here a week and I’m sad to say I’m already dreaming of American food. Green beans, strawberries, carrots, green peppers, pizza, etc. Every Wednesday is meat day in the dining hall. Our whole group was so excited to get some meat with our rice. I’m doing my best not to talk about certain foods so I can enjoy our meals at the dining hall. Vegetables and fruit are pretty scarce, which surprised me since the climate is prime for growing most of the year.
We’re heading into Kampala today to see the city. My luggage hasn’t arrived but should be here any day (I’m hoping). So if we call the airport and it’s not here, I’m going to buy a couple outfits in Kampala and try to fill in all the holes of things I’m missing so I don’t have to borrow from the girls in my group anymore. I’m not sure if I told you, but my luggage has seen a lot of the world recently. The airline flew it to Ethiopia, realized it was the wrong country, so they sent it back to New York. Now it should be coming to Entebbe (Uganda) any day. I’m praying this is so.
Tomorrow we’re going to be placed in our home-stays. We’re going to be with a family for two weeks. Next time you hear from me I’m going to have a Ugandan mother and father and probably a few siblings.
Thank you for all your prayers and I will update you again soon. I don’t want to overrun you with emails.
-Ashley
January 20th, 2009, Tuesday
White people here are called Mzungu’s by the natives. I went into town the other day to look into buying some clothes since my luggage has yet to arrive (last notice, it was in Amsterdam). Anyway, I walked into town and was quite a spectacle. A Mzungu walking around by herself looking into little boxes where clothes are sold. Of course, the shop keepers see a single female Mzungu looking at their clothes and immediately assume she has money (which, compared to them, I have a lot). Anyway every time I asked a how much something was I got huge prices. I never would be able to bring the price down to what they would normally offer a Ugandan. I attempted to bargain the prices down and still know I got cheated but have two new outfits to my name and a pair of sandals.
My home-stay with a Ugandan family started on Saturday. I am with one other student from USP, her name is Joy and we get along really well together. I have a Reverend Father, Frederick; a Teacher mother, Mirika; a Lawyer big brother, Julius; a 16 year old sister, Irene; and an 8 year old sister, Phoebe. I’ve been eating vegetables and fruit at every meal, which is a huge improvement from the University food of beans and rice alone. Meals are very different from the US. Breakfast is at 8/8:30 with tea, bread and margarine, sometimes eggs, Break Tea is at 10/10:30 with tea and bread, Lunch is at 1 or 2:00 with rice or Irish potatoes, or Matooke (mashed bananas), or beans, or beef, or pork, or gizzards. Afternoon tea is at 7. Supper is at 8 or 9 or 10 with food similar to lunch. After supper we have devotions as a family. We read a psalm, discuss it, pray, etc. I really like devotion time. Joy and I sleep in a room with Irene. Ashley is a very hard name to pronounce for Ugandans so they decided to give us Ugandan names. My name is Kwagala which means love. Joy’s name is Shinu which means joy. All we need is a little Peace, Patience, and Self Control to add to our family.
As much as I love my Ugandan family, they’ve made me realize how glad I am to have chosen the Uganda Studies Emphasis (where students live on campus) and not the IMME program (where students live with a family for the whole semester). I definitely need my own personal time which is really hard to find with a family.
I’ve got to run now, sorry this is a shorter email. Love you all.
Ash (Kwagala)
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