Amusing Conversations and Questions

Ugandan teenish girl: Hello, how are you?!
Me and Steph: Fine thanks, and how are you?
(this is the standard Ugandan greeting exchange - you need to ask how the other person is, the answer is always 'fine')
UG: Oh fine, fine.  You're American?
Us: Yes, we are.
UG: Are you born again? (strong accent, btw)
me to steph: uh, what'd she say?  steph: I think she asked if we were born again.  me: huh? seriously, like religion?  steph: yeah.
Me to UG: Um, sure. (trying not to rock the boat)

Now, this conversation has happened more than once, yes, we have literally been asked if we were born again or various other religion inquiries within 30 seconds of meeting someone.  My answer tends to vary, eventually I'll probably tell them I'm Jewish, or something crazy.  Religion is important to Ugandans, but supposedly they don't care what you believe, just that you're religious (haha, strike one for me!); however, we've mostly been asked about some form of Christianity. 

In the village where we've been doing the children's holiday (vacation) program, there is a young teacher we've made friends with, her name is Immaculate.
As we're having a conversation about weekend plans:
Imma: So, are you going for prayers?
Me: nope
I: Ohh, you don't go to church?
Me: nope.
I: ohh (laughing)
Now, really though - if you were traveling in a foreign country would you find a church to go to? where they likely don't speak your language? I think not.

Walking through the village with Imma:
I: So in your home country do you have houses like this? (referring to the mud, stick and other materials of the like, shacks)
Us: Um, no.  we definitely don't. 
Now, this girl is in university, so we're wondering if they never learn anything about other countries...?  I know she's seen American movies too...did you see mud houses in those!?

Watching the kids do activities:
Imma:  Do you have that in your country - shared labor? (referring to the children carrying their baby siblings)
Me: (laughing) hell no! we definitely don't have 5yr. olds carrying babies on their backs!  Typically only adults or older children would be allowed to carry someone's baby around. 
It really is crazy- in the villages the older (barely) kids carry around and care for the babies and toddlers all day.  I'm fairly certain I've never seen a 7yr old in the states even capable of this!

Convo with my wannabe Ugandan boyfriend (apparently he didn't want to be friends):
Him: So, I've been really giving what you said earlier a lot of thought (mind you, 'earlier' was like 45min ago), and I think I can and should be your boyfriend for your last week here. Seriously.
Me: (laughing) Uh, no. 

On the way home in the taxi:
Me: are you cold? why are you closing the window?
him: cold? no! .... you can't be cold when you're sitting next to a hot chick!
me: oh, very funny
him: no, really, there can't be coldness when there's hotness....you're not always getting to sit by a hot chick, blah, blah
I'm thinking: geez, call me a hot chick one more time and i am going to punch you!  Btw, he'd referred to me this way multiple times already, and it sounds really strange with the accent.  Clearly, my patience had run out for the day! ;)

Random guy on the street after we got Osama:
Standard greeting exchange
him: you're American?
me: yes!
him: Obama's your president!
me: yes he is
him: you got Osama!  Obama killed Osama!
Me: well actually, he didn't kill him, and the events to start this process started long before Obama...blah, blah...
Before I knew it I'd opened my mouth to start trying to explain this and immediately knew I should have just agreed and kept my mouth shut.  First, he doesn't care.  Second, he can't understand what I'm saying!  the only english he knows is: Hi, how are you, and Obama!

Music and Entertainment

*Disclaimer: I mean no disrespect to Ugandan culture or Gays with this post, it's simply observation and speaking in generalities, so don't flip out ;) *
Steph and I spent last weekend in Mukono to take a break and lay by the pool at the "mzungu" hotel.  Where we got sunburned, again, btw - that damn doxy!  Anyway - the music playing was like instrumental versions of 90's hits, for instance - Ace of Base, and the one and only - Macarena!  Awesomeness!
Celine Dion also seems to be quite popular here, go figure.  There is some sort of loudspeaker system here in Lugazi randomly playing music, and on more than one occasion I've heard Celine blaring over it; and not just any Celine, but TITANIC Celine!  And if that wasn't crazy enough for you, I've also heard music from Aladdin - yes Aladdin, the Disney cartoon.  Not joking.  I also got into a taxi one morning to the likes of Ms. Dion on the radio and actually started laughing - don't mind me, just the crazy mzungu over here.  Did I mention that all of the taxi drivers and conductors are men? (Side note time: I wonder if this has anything to do with the (what we would consider) rather feminine tendencies of the men here? They're typically pretty thin, have slender hands - which they make feminine gestures with, and hold hands with their male friends.  We actually asked our host mom about this, and she was like, "yeah, that's normal.  Don't you hold hands with your friends?  don't men hold hands?"  Um, no, typically we only hold hands with significant others, therefore men holding hands would signal that they were gay. Mind you gay is NOT okay here. On the flip side of this, the women are typically larger than the men, and have some serious, hard working man hands!  I don't know why they ever take any shit from their men, 'cause I'm pretty sure they could kick some ass!  end of side note)
Our house gets just your basic TV, a few channels; every once in a while there's something terrible in English, and if we're lucky we'll catch some news.  They seem to randomly play music videos - usually Ugandan - they are so budget, ridiculous and I don't know - 80's or 90's ish, it's often completely comical.  However, one morning we did start the day off with a little Michael Jackson, followed by Modonna, when the Ugandan morning show apparently started playing music videos instead of commercials - cool, I guess.  Speaking of the morning show - the hosts are awful, as are the hosts of most shows here, I'm constantly laughing at the unbelievable shit they say.  Oh, and the morning show has a segment that covers the headlines in the newspapers - literally they have all the newspapers and go through them on TV.....hmmmm?
The best though, is the soap operas. Our host mom has one that she aslways watches around dinner, so we watch with her of course.  What makes this special is that it's a Filipino soap opera, that has been dubbed in English, and then is narrated in Lugandan - it's a total cluster.  So we get some of the English, and then the narration will take over the scene; narration by a man, who will occasionally laugh at the drama - while he's talking.  It's nuts. 

I am thankful for my toilet and shower

Nice title right?
At the volunteer guest house in Mukono, as well as most of the volunteer placements, and other establishments and houses here - it's either a pit toilet or the lovely porcelain squatter.  These are not so bad once you get used to them, but really it takes a bit of practice before you become comfortable - er, less uncomfortable with it.  Oh, and the best part is the big cockroaches at night, I can't help but feel like they're gonna jump up and bite me in the ass!
So, I am very thankful that my placement has an actual western style toilet!
Now,  bucket showers - again, not so bad, especially since it's all cold water anyway - it's not like you're gonna stand under the shower.  Where the actual shower really comes in handy though, is hair washing.  I think we can be fairly certain that if I had to struggle with this mop in a bucket, hair washing would be a very rare occurance!

The 3 doors on the right, those are the toilets at the Mukono guest house.

To recap, dear friends and family, amongst other dirty things, I have now squatted over cockroaches - so....I do not ever want to be called 'prissy' again! ;)

The Mzungu Experience

I am a mzungu, which is technically a white person, however it's used for just about all non-africans here.  It's not meant to be derogitory, it's just what we are; and we are strange, foreign creatures to many people out here, especially in the villages.  You should see the looks on the kids' faces, sometimes you feel a bit like a zoo exhibit, and you are never incognito - never gonna happen!  Walking down the street is like your own private parade, kids literally run up to the side of the street, EVERYDAY as we walk by and yell "mzungu, mzungu, hi mzungu!"  Then you have to respond of course, we walk to town and back, at least once a day, smiling and waving and saying hi to people.  It's quite sweet, a little overwhelming and slightly embarrassing sometimes. It's mostly kids, but the occasional adult chimes in too.  It's mostly okay from the kids, but it gets a little overdone and annoying at times: for instance yesterday after spending all day in the rain and mud and trying to make it home without falling on my ass in more mud :)
On Saturday, the Bugandan King was in town to kick-off some soccer league, so we went down to take a look and see some soccer.  Haha.  We were the only two mzungus there and quite the spectacle ourselves.  First, the field had no seating around it, just a chainlink fence that people were standing 3 deep at - there was no chance of seeing the game, so we just stopped to take in and enjoy everything else:  guys playing drums with people dancing around, people selling souvenirs, the massive amounts of men sitting on the top of giant trucks - yelling at the game, and us (surprise!).  Then there was the kid that wanted to chat us up, and the other strange kid that was quite obviously taking video and pictures of us on his cell phone!  Then it became clear that the guy talking to me was buddies with this photographer, and I was like "you can please stop that now".  I mean, I know we're different and weird, but that was just obvious and awkward!
Oh, and thieves here get the shit beat out of them and then get stripped naked apparently.  (no, I didn't try to steal anything) While we were standing there, talking and being photographed, a mob came through that included police and people: the police trying to escort the thief out and keep him alive, while the people tried to attack him, and the control went back and forth - really nice. 
On the way out we stopped by the roped off VIP section because you could actually see a little bit of the game and the guy just held up the rope and ushered us right into the section - mzungu perk!  We got to sit in the grass in the shade and actually watch, but it wasn't long until we had kids all around us, practically in our laps.  One girl took my sunglasses off my face and put them on - kind of sweet and adorable.  Then the press walked by and actually stopped to take OUR picture....TWICE!  I felt ridiculous! 

I'm sure you're wondering what I'm doing

My placement here is with an organization called YOFAFO, which is Youth Focus Africa Organization, and they have a few different projects in the surrounding villages.  We are based in Lugazi, and live with the organizations founder and his family.  BTW, when I say 'we' I am referring to me and Stephanie, who is the other volunteer placed with me.  Stephanie is from San Francisco, and is awesome! 
My main project involves helping to start a public health program in the village of Bulumagi.  At the moment they are trying to figure out what is needed most, so I am making home visits with the local midwife to survey the families about what affects them.  It is quite daunting to see the very basic things that they either don't know, ignore, or their lifestyle and environment make it difficult to do, that would make a big difference in preventing some of their issues.  Basics, like not letting your children eat dirt, or fruit that hasn't been cleaned.  Or, not letting all the sick kids play with everyone else. 
Once done with the surveys, we'll be making recommendations on what is needed and hopefully setting up talks for the community to cover some of the topics + more.  Unfortunately I likely won't be here for much of this, a month is definitely not enough!
The other project we're working on is in a village called Kitoola where we are running a children's holiday program - which is basically doing activities with the kids during their break from school.  This is sooooo out of my realm, as I'm sure you can guess!  Besides my obvious lack of kid knowledge, there are many factors making this difficult - most of them don't speak english (thank god for the young teacher who joins us and translates!), there are NO supplies (we have to purchase anything we come up with), they have been very shy to start out, and many of them have to bring their very young, often sick siblings that they have to look after. 
But, I think we've done okay so far - I've even - don't stroke out- sung and taught twinkle twinkle little star and the itsy bitsy spider!  We've drawn, made paper airplanes, hopscotch (minor disaster), played tag and duck duck goose, amongst others!

Now, I haven't really asked for any donations for this volunteering bit, but now I'm going to.  Now I can tell you exactly where it's going and that it's a great cause, and even just $10 goes a really long way here!  We need some craft supplies and I would love to buy the boys a real soccer ball....or a few!  If you have any interest at all, please let me know! 

I'm running out of time, but there is an awesome women's program to tell you about too!

The anti-Atkins diet

Ugandans only seem to really acknowledge one food group, and that is carbs...unfortunately.  They have about 3 staples that they consider food - Posho - some kind starchy thing from maize (i think), Matooke - mashed unripened bananas, and Rice - white, but it has more the consistency of brown.  So, it's not even any grainy, good for you carbs.  Oh, and Cassava too, which they tend to chop up and serve with pinto beans.  Any kind of protein is extra or part of the sauce they serve with the food.  And, you're lucky if you get anything green!  And, they serve the most massive portions you've ever seen, even for American standards.  I think my eyes bugged out when I saw my first few plates, but then our "mom" started asking us how much - thankfully. 
It's also quite bland most of the time, rather difficult for the girl addicted to salt!  They call wheat bread 'brown bread' and it doesn't appear anyone really likes or wants it; our family usually has white bread with butter for breakfast, so we had to go buy peanut butter and honey, b/c that definitely wasn't going to cut it.  As, breakfast is usually around 9 and lunch isn't until 2 or 3 - lately 3pm!  Then dinner is between 8 and 9pm - usually later, it's all basically the opposite of anything we do in the States!  Aggghhhhh! 

But, I'll tell you about rolexes  next time - delicious!

I found all the Rav 4's.....

They are in Uganda!  Actually all of the Toyotas might be here, it's rather unbelievable - they don't die they just go to Uganda. I was picked up by the program director in her Rav 4, as we were driving I noticed that just about every other vehicle we passed was a Rav 4.  Then all of the taxis here, Matatus, seem to be some kind of old Toyota van from the 70's - at least the interiors - definitely some hideous 70's upholstery. BTW, anything and everything seems to be allowed in these - people get in them with their chickens - live chickens.  And everyone else drives a sedan, usually a Corolla, or a Corona(do we get that model in the States?).  But these sedans aren't just driven on the regular streets and highways, they are off-roaded too.  Mmm hmmm, that's right, they drive these damn, old ass sedans on the craziest, rutted out dirt roads you can imagine; stuff that we we would only drive the FJ on, we would never dream of taking a car on any of these roads, but they think NOTHING of it, while I'm sitting there thinking - Oh shit, we are so never gonna make this! 
The other typical form of transport is a Boda boda, this is a motorcycle, used to transport EVERYTHING!  We've seen tons of bananas strapped to one, a kid with a full size goat, 4 children, and a twin-sized bed frame to name a few.  Not to mention people in general, including me.  Stephanie, the other volunteer placed with me, and I saw all of this and figured it should be NBD for us, haha.  J/k, it went totally fine, little bit of a sketchy start but it's been fine ever since - even on the dirt roads out to one of the villages we work in.  Although it had rained all night last night and a couple times this morning I fully thought we were going to eat shit in the mud! Pics and video of this to come soon!
Btw, the power goes out here on a regular basis and the internet is maddeningly slow, hence the trouble getting these posts up!