Hello from Uganda

I have my first chance at the internet since leaving the States, so I am happy! I am Mbarara in the southwest right now. Another trainee and I have been on a visit to a current volunteer even farther southwest from here to see what life is like for a real volunteer. The public transport here is fun! ;)
Training is going well, I think. We stayed in Entebbe near the airport for almost a week, just getting used to things and having some preliminary workshops, then last sunday we went to Luwero and our homestays. Our training center is in Luwero. My host family and I are adjusting pretty well to living with each other. Training this week has been busy, but good. There are many adjustments for us to make. Not having electricity, running or clean water, taking bucket baths, squatting over a hole in the pit latrine are all things that have been easy to adjust to. The harder things will be the social, cultural, and language barriers. I am learning Runyonkore/Rukiga which are two languages very similar to each other and are spoken in the southwest region of Uganda, so I will be placed in this area somewhere. English is also spoken here, but knowing some language will help a lot. My host family in Luwero speaks Luganda and some English. I have a leisurly 20 minute bike ride to the training center from my host family's place. Uganda is very beautiful. Here in the southwest it is hilly and lush tropical vegitation. I think it is somewhat drier in the east and north. The temperature has been not too hot, but I have to say that I do break a sweat. Night is very comfortable. Everywhere we go, we are like celebrities. The kids wave at us and call to us and run after us sometimes. They want to touch us and they giggle a lot. Usually when I try to use some language, people bust out laughing. They aren't laughing at me, but rather they are amused that a muzungu is speaking thier language. They appreciate it that I am making that effort.
I am doing well so far. There are many adjustments to make, but I am making them so far. I really appreciate my training group and the trainers we have.
I have heard here that the mail takes more like 2-3 weeks for a letter and 3-4 weeks for a package, so it's a little better than I thought it would be.
I hope everything back in America is going okay.
Later,
Nathan

Goodbye Boston, See Ya Later America

I think this might be the last time I get on the internet for a couple months, so I thought I'd go ahead and post something.
We have completed staging, and tomorrow (Sunday) morning we head out bright and early for the airport and our ride to Uganda. We'll get there late Monday evening. It's a long way over there. When we get there we will spend about a week in Entebbe, where the airport is, then off to our training site and homestay families in a town a couple hours North of Entebbe.

So far my Peace Corps experience has been very positive. I've had fun meeting the other people in my group and the few PC staff we have met so far. We are all in this together and we all have many of the same ideals and thoughts and we have all been through the application and leaving process thus far, and we are all in this together. It's a good group. There's 37 of us of diverse backgrounds, ages, religions, a few married people. I like the group. We're having fun.

I was prepared for staging to be full of anxiety and nervousness, but it really hasn't been like that for me. I'm enjoying myself. Not to say I feel no stress at all, just to say that it is fairly minimal.

We have had workshops that have been kind of an introductory overview of some things like cultural adaption, what is development, how to stay safe, and malaria medicines. They've also started throwing lots of acronyms and abbreviations at us. This evening we went to the JFK library for the PC 45th anniversary celebration, and that was a cool event. We toured the library, had some group photos taken by the PC media services, attended a reception and mingled with returned peace corps volunteers (RPCV), some staff, and other related folks, then they had a program, part of which honored the first volunteer groups which went to Ghana and Tanganyika, and those groups symbolically passed the torch to our group heading for Uganda tomorrow. It was cool to meet lots of people involved in this PC thing, and some RPCV from Uganda who gave us encouragement and perspective on thier service, and we made some contacts that may come in handy someday during our service.

Here is my address for the next 10 weeks in case anyone wants to send me something. hint, hint. Note that it may take around three weeks for letters and a couple months for packages.
And just because I won't have much internet access, (or no access for a bit) doesn't mean you can't send me email. :)

Nathan Epp, Peace Corps Trainee
P.O. Box 29348
Kampala, Uganda

I hope everyone is doing well. Talk at you "soon". :)

Nathan

And We're Off

In about 20 minutes, my mom, dad, and I are heading out to KC. I'm in Independence, KS now, where I moved all my junk to and put in storage and in mom and dad's house. We are going back up to KC and will meet my sister there who is coming down from Iowa. We will have dinner, go to the Ash Wednesday service at my church in KC, then tomorrow morning it's off to the airport and a flight to Boston.

And I sold my truck today, so that's good that mom and dad won't have to mess with that.

Sunday I'll fly to Uganda with my training group via Washington DC, Brussels, and Nairobi Kenya. I very much appreciate everyones thoughts and prayers for me and my family.

This is going to be great! (I'm pretty sure)

I'm not sure when the next time that I will have a chance to update this thing will be, but I'll try to let you know what's happening when I get a chance.

Oh, and today is the anniversary of the Peace Corps.

See ya later, Peace.