We have been in Uganda coming up for 3 weeks now. We arrived late Wednesday afternoon on the 25th and headed for Busia. After stopping for dinner at a chinese restaurant (random right, the first thing we did in Africa was eat at a Chinese restaurant) anyway we arrived in Busia after midnight. We set up our beds in a house at the orphanage school where we are helping and crashed.
The next day was full of information and errands as it was our only day with our host before he went back to the states.
We have really hit the ground running with lots of things to learn and do as we try settle into this new culture.
Our main mode of transport is bikes. So our first big missions was to go down to the bike shop and pick them up. (Getting the bikes and the bikes themselves could be a whole blog by itself!!! but I will keep it short) They have definitely been trying especially at the begginning because every time a group went out, without fail at least one bike broke (in one day we had over 5 bikes brake), everything from the chains snapping or continually falling off, tires popping or nuts and bolts falling off. I still have a bolt and washer in the bottom of my bag from the first day I got my bike and I still have no idea where it’s from! They have been better after Jesse spent two full days touching them up but we still have brake downs; the other day one of the racks on the back of the bikes fell off as we were trying to carry boxes of water back from the store and Alison had to push her bike home while holding up two boxes of water, I don’t know how she did it!!! So please pray that our bikes will survive until May! 🙂
We stayed in the house at the orphanage school for the first 5 days while the builders finished our actual house. We have now moved into our house. It is a house that is split into two, Uganda 1 (our team) stays on one side and Uganda 2 stays on the other side. It’s a great house, we have 3 bedrooms, so two people to a room, a living space, a bathroom (which deserves it’s own blog with all the stuff that has happened there) and a small sink area. We have a great garden area, with some trees where we have hung up laundry lines and we have some tomato plants growing which is amazing and a lonely corn stalk. I will post pictures soon so you can all visualize our great compound.
We just got a fridge! YAY for cold drinks!!! We frequently make trips to the market to bata for fresh fruits and vegetables (but now thanx to the fridge we won’t have to go so often!) When we arrived we found a staple in flat bread which we would buy in the market where they prepare it fresh, we would eat it with eggs in the morning, peanut butter and jam for lunch and beans and corn for dinner until we were told that there is a cholorea outbreak and it is not safe to buy stuff prepared from the market because they don’t use clean water, haha so no more flat bread for us 🙁
Finding where everything is has been an adventure. The first time we set out to find the internet cafe we went our 4 different times and after being sent from this place to that, the fourth time we eventually found it. The same happened the first time we went to get water, we had to buy rope to tie the boxes onto our bikes and we were sent to 6 different stores before we found any.
We have settled in alot more now so we know where to get the common supplies we need, there is a small store here that kind of carries a bit of everything so we all call it Walmart! (that’s not it’s name but it’s just kind of stuck in our group and that’s what we all know it as now).
The phrase mazungoo how are you? Is the most common thing we hear whenever we go out. Mazungoo is swahili for white person. So little kids no older than 3 or 4 run out with arms flailing shouting mazungoo, mazungoo. And everyone knows the phrase “how are you”, and they always reply “I am fine”. My favorite was when a little boy ran out flapping his arms as if he was trying to fly as he chanted ” how are you, fine. How are you, fine…” in a chorus that answered his own question.
It is common whenever we are walking in the village to have one, possibly 2 sometimes even 3 kids holding on to each hand. As long as one is free, they will run up and grab it.
We have all had to master the “squatty potty”. Our first night we actually had a discussion about what is the best and most stable way to squat in the squatty potty. (Just to clarify a squatty potty is a hole in the floor 🙂
I am just realizing how random and all over the place this blog is but so much has happened that I want to tell you everything as it comes to mind so please bare withe me!
Our first week being here we were asked to kill a goat that the church wanted to cook for us. I couldn’t do it! I didn’t even watch. Noone in our team or Uganda 2 could do it so the pastor killed the goat and then he wanted us to help him clean it. I still couldn’t do it! I stayed inside with some of the other girls while the killing took place. Kathleen, Jenessa and John were the only brave 3 who could stomach it and help skin the goat! Thank you to those 3!!!!
I have so much more to say and tell you all but I am running out of time and just realized how long this blog is already, so I will write again soon!
Thank you so much for all your prayers, please keep praying for our teams, it is much needed at the moment!
mungoo akubarikee (God bless you)
Tara
