Life as a Trainee

Today I am in Kampala! We are visiting the big city to see where things are that we might need and we have a little free time this afternoon. I had a cheeseburger for lunch that was awesome. I am in a mall, which is really nice. It's almost like an American mall. Stuff is expensive, though. There's a lot of other muzungu's (actually bazungu is the plural, and we are foreigners).

Every morning a little before the sun rises soon after 6, I am roused from my slumber by the sounds of the day starting. People are out moving around, the birds start singing, the roosters crow, and in the distance a mosque broadcasts the song-chant call to prayers. I wish for a bit more sleep, then hear my host sister call "Nat (like gnat), it is morning already.", so I crawl out from under my mosquito net, choose which of my clean and neatly ironed clothes to wear for the day (I have to look "smart"), grab my bucket and get some water to splash off my face, then I use the latrine and empty my pee bucket if I had to use it in the night. After breakfast, I grab my pack and set on my bike for my daily commute. I have a nice 20 minute ride on my black single speed bike which looks exactly like the many other bikes I pass. As I set out from my homestay family's house, I travel a dirt road through the morning sunlight filtered by banana trees, past a couple people working thier plots of sandy red soil with a hoe. I call out greetings, and they call back. I reach the main road and many children in school uniforms are walking to school. Some of them smile and wave, others call out thier own greetings. Sometimes they call "bye muzungu", sometimes they chant in unison "how-are-you mu-zu-ngu". There are always many people on the main road, which is the main North-South route. The boreholes are always busy with people filling jerry cans with water. People are walking; riding or walking bikes, some piled unbelievably high with bananas, pinapples, charcoal, or other goods; riding bike or motorbike taxis; minibus taxis stop to stuff more people in or let some out. The sides of the road are lined with small shops that sell everything, each one has a shopkeeper and several people gathered around visiting. There are stands to buy chapate or meat on a stick (my favorite), and a corner always has big piles of pineapple and mango. On my ride, I pass health centers, churches, mosques, cell phone stores, tailors, restaurants, petrol stations, goats, longhorn cattle grazing anywhere and everywhere, carpenters, fruit and vegetable stands, and bike shops.

The day's activities vary. Sometimes I sit under a mango tree for language lessons with the 4 others in my group, sometimes all the trainees are together or the health and education volunteers are seperate for workshops. We learn about the health, education, governmental and community systems and how we might be able to work with those systems. Last week we split up into small groups and visited organizations in the area to see what work they are doing and visit with them about thier organizations. We had the chance to see some more of life for the people in the surrounding areas. I have a lot of respect for a lot of people here.

Training is somehow good (that's Ugandan phrasing). There are good and bad things, but it's a positive experience.
After training is over for the day, I hang around the training center and visit, or play volleyball, or relax at a restaurant, or have evening tea at a friend's house, or go back to my homestay family and visit with them and whoever has dropped by or wash clothes, or once in a while I will try to study language a little bit. It gets dark a bit after 7, and there are no street lights, so when there is no moon, it is very dark. After supper at about 8:30 or 9, I fill my bucket with water from the rain barrel next to where the pet monkey is tied or from a jerry can by the chicken coop, take my kerosene lantern out to the enclosed bathing area next to the latrine and take a splash bath under the stars with the calf tied there watching me. Then, after I prepare for the next day, I say goodnight to God, crawl under the mosquito net once again, and fall fast asleep.

I have visited two churches so far, and they have been good experiences.
I wish I had more time to try to explain life here, and catch up with everyone by email, but alas, I am in Uganda. I will have the next couple years to explain life here. I do have a cell phone, so I have talked to family a bit.

Check out this blog that our training group has created for a group blog:
www.pearlofafrica.blogspot.com

Blessings to everyone,
Nathan