Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I’ve heard it is very cold with a lot of snow over in the
north east; where I am it couldn’t be more opposite! I’m literally always very
hot if not sweating.
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| Leaving Hoima Town (the center) to go back to my village |
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| My House |
For the past two weeks I have been
in Hoima, which is in Western Uganda, for language training (this is not where
I will be permanently). I am learning the local language of ‘Runyoro/Rutooro’. This is spoken by the Bunyoro tribes including
the youngers students I will be teaching (they start to learn English around
age 7). It’s fairly easy, but a lot of the words look and sound the same. On January 18 I will have an exam and it must
be passed to be officially recognized as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
I have been staying with a host family
and they are lovely. My host mother,
Vivien, is a teacher at a local school.
The first time we met she told me that she is 30 so I should call her sister
not mom. Yet, every time she has
mentioned her age it has increased, so who really knows, lol?! So my ‘sister’
Vivien has 2 kids with Kenneth, a taxi driver, and they are to be married this
year! He drives a taxi from Hoima to
Kampala (about 3 hours) and sometimes he is unable to fill his taxi so he has
to stay in Kampala some nights. Their two kids are AWESOME! Desire is 9 going
on 30 and Johnah is 7 & very curious about America. They also took in a young
cousin, Kimmy, who suffers from HIV and an orphan, Chrispus, who they use as a
houseboy but treat like one of their own. Lastly, there is an actual hired
house girl, Oliver, who is very sweet and a great cook!
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| My brothers and sisters |
I call all of these people my
brothers and sisters. They have truly
taken me in as one of their own and I cannot thank them enough (aka I’ve been
trying to wash dished, sweep, do any chores whenever I can but they rarely let
me).
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| They're starting to let me cut potatoes! |
They have taken me in so well, that
they’ve even asked me for money… 5,000,000 Shillings (about $2,000) : /. I debating telling this story but I believe it
truly exemplifies a reason why I am here.
I am not at all happy with this huge request that they have asked, as it
really makes everything awkward and uncomfortable. I guess I will start from
the beginning (sorry if this does not make complete sense, I really don’t want
to dwell on it so I am telling the extremely abridged version):
New
Years Eve morning I was saying good bye to my host ‘sister/mom’ after enjoying
an omelet, mangoes and delicious Ugandan Tea (it’s the MFing best). I was walking out of the compound when she
said she’d like to show me something. As
we walked down the driveway she started; her sister had died leaving behind 4
children all in secondary (high) school.
(At this point I could sense she was in need of money, not even thinking
she would ask me). She pointed to the plot of land in front of
her house and said she’d like to buy this land and make it into a ‘pigery’ to
earn extra cash as pigs are expensive here.
She continued by saying that the plot cost 10,000,000 Shillings and she
already saved up 5,000,000. She then
concluded by asking me for the remaining enormous amount of money.
Many times when I told someone I
was joining the Peace Corps they would congratulate me then immediately state
that they could never do it, and they’d rather just give money. This ALWAYS made my blood boil but I kept my
cool. Giving money does nothing but
create beggars; what happen to me is a perfect example. The family I stay with is a great family with
good morals and education/knowledge, but maybe they heard through the grapevine
that someone’s cousins, neighbors, sister got money from some organization now
everyone can do it (why not them!?). Additionally,
it wouldn’t be a complete day if a random person on the street demanded that I
give them money, or my watch, or in one case my water bottle?! Typically when a Ugandan sees me, they see US
Dollar$. This school of thought stems
from Muzungu’s (what Ugandan’s call an out-of-towner, were pretty easy to spot)
coming in and giving away something (usually money). Textbook classical conditioning.
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| Our classroom |
This is one the reasons that made
the Peace Corps stand out to me, it’s sustainable. For example, it’s not about giving food and
money to people who truly need it, it’s about teaching the people to farm and
sell their crops. Peace Corps isn’t the
quick fix, it’s the smart and lasting fix. I’ve told this to my Mom this a
million times because it’s also the reason that I am here for 27 months. Implementation and integration into the
community takes time. A real life
example that I will be implementing is HIV/AIDS awareness. Uganda is the only country that saw an
increase in HIV/AIDS over the past years.
The quick fix would be handing out condoms; however, I’ve already been
told that I will be planning HIV/AIDS curriculum for my elementary school and
the neighboring teachers’ college. The curriculum
would include, but is certainly not limited to encouraging abstinence and how
to use a condom (respectively) while totally including awareness education. Developing the curriculum and learning
materials will take a few months, then training the other teachers adds on a
few weeks so I probably won’t be teaching an HIV/AIDS lesson until early summer
(that’s about ~7 months into my service).
Okay enough of my rant… I just
really wanted to drive that point home.
“Da Place”
That was
the actual name of a venue that I went to on ‘Boxing Day’ (None of the Ugandans
I asked knew what this day is for but I Googled it & it’s the day after
Christmas that was once dedicated to giving away presents to the needy that
were just that received from Christmas).
I went there with my super cool neighbors. The family in front of my house has a bunch
of kids all around my age and they’re awesome! They always try to include me in
hip things that young people in the area would do & that includes going to
‘Da Place’ having a few drinks and dancing!
I think they get a few laughs out of my horrible dancing skills too!
They also introduced me to my new favorite song, ‘Personally’ by a Nigerian boy
band ‘PSqared’, check it out!
I live in a neighborhood with lots of young families too. There are a lot of kids that my younger
brother and sister play with whose’ families are way nice! They all welcome me into their homes with
open arms, let me hold their babies or are just straight stoked that I’m in
Hoima, Uganda and I know some of the local language.
One of the families is also Catholic (my family is
protestant) so they bring me to prayers (what they call mass). It’s pretty fitting that the mothers name is
Anna (it’s like going to MOQ with Gram and not paying attention, but just
admiring her jewwls). BUT can I just say that I’ve been in a church and
received the holy communion more times these past 2 weeks than I have been for
the past 6 months. I better be getting some good karma points for that,
especially because the services last for… wait for it… 2 HOURS! I’ve also
spaced out more times in these past 2 weeks than I have for the past 6 months ;
). I sat through a 30 minute sermon, in
the local language that I’m just learning, so I obviously didn’t pay attention and
instead I thought of the best bars I’ve been to in my life (Top 3: B-o-b
(Thursdays), Jackie Kapnis’s pre-games, and Marquee).
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| Add caption |
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| Mike, Ravi, & Rachel |
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| Brit, Jenna, & Madison |
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On Christmas I went to church, actually in English and I was
able to sing a few Christmas songs.
Then, I met up with my Peace Corps friends for stir fry & the WORST
red wine I’ve ever had in my life… I really miss good wine : /. New Years Eve was spent with the same people
after class for some beers and sparkling white wine that we managed to find at
a liquor store. It wasn’t half bad! I
then went to bed at 930 and woke up at 11:50 to see fireworks with my host
family, from our backyard. It was the most low key new years I think ever had
lol.
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| Poppin Bottles!! |
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| So excited to have something bubbly! |
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| Post drinking munchies! |
Okay, this is such a long post, with SO many run-ons, I need
to stop.
Xoxox Miss & love you: )