Random Notes on Ugandan Culture

• Breastfeeding in public is not just normal, it’s everywhere. Boobs everywhere. I’ve heard that male PCVs serving in Africa complain that for them, breasts lose their sexuality because they’re just out, all the time, feeding babies. I mean, that’s their function, but it’s so taboo to do out in the open in the U.S. that it’s a shock here to see it on a daily basis. Sometimes the women have finished breastfeeding but just leave the girls out, flapping in the wind. But God help you if you wear a skirt that shows your knees – completely inappropriate.
• Today, the nurse I was working with decided to play music out-loud from his phone. His choices? Enya and Celine Dion. Back to back. Not kidding.
• Small car taxis. These are the only vehicles which come to my village for which I have Peace Corps approval (we are not allowed to ride boda-bodas, the ubiquitous motorcycle taxis). They’re essentially an older Toyota Corolla that fits quite literally ten adults in it on a regular basis – 6ish in the back, 2 in the passenger seat, and – probably my favorite part – a passenger sharing the seat with the driver (who is driving a stick-shift). Definitely safe. There’s often a few small children sitting on laps and a poor chicken thrown into the trunk for good measure.
• I’ve been asked before such things as, “Are you from America or Italy?” as if there are no other choices. I even had one person in Kampala yell at me, “Hello, Japan!” Perception of foreigners is funny, and my guess is most people think that all muzungus are from the only country that they themselves have met people from.
• The security guard at a friend’s site offered me his 5-year-old son to take back to America with me. When I said, “Won’t you miss each other too much?” he replied, “I have three other children.” While I know he has his son’s best interests in mind (an education in America is an opportunity most people here would never dream of), his response shocked me.
• I've been told by several Ugandans, "Your English is very good." I usually think the statement is so ridiculous, English being my first language, that I just say "Thank you," but I think they mean I speak clearly and they can understand me. I adopt my own "Ugandan voice" when speaking with local people - speaking more clearly and slowly. Maybe that's what they mean. Some Americans/foreigners just keep blabbering at their normal speed and nobody understands them.
• The ideas determining what is rude and what is not are almost reversed from the U.S. It is rude to confront someone directly about a problem you have with them (better to go through a friend or relative), but it is perfectly okay to walk into someone’s house without asking (for instance, my house) while that person is eating or otherwise preoccupied – thus leaving me in a conundrum about how to tell said person to leave. It is rude not to greet someone, but it is not rude to inquire a perfect stranger about their religion, their marital status, and why they aren’t yet married. It is rude to eat while walking on the street, but it is in fact good manners to tell someone they are fat (it’s a compliment). It’s not rude to slap someone’s arm to get their attention, inquire how much someone else’s stuff costs, arrive two hours late to a meeting, or to stare openly. It’s sometimes very hard to remind myself the cultural differences and not get irate at certain behaviors I consider, from my American perspective, very rude.
• Ugandan English is funny and often throws me for a loop. It’s amazing how many variations of “English” there are in the world, and how even native English speakers from different countries sometimes struggle to understand each other. Words/phrases of note:

1. “Extend” – move over, we have to fit a 7th person in the backseat of the taxi, and no, you don’t get a discount for losing feeling in your left leg
2. Ugandans like to insert a rhetorical “what?” into the middle of a sentence to see if you’re listening. For instance: “We are meeting in Kampala to do what? To go shopping.”
3. “Hmm/ehhh” – I’m acknowledging what you’ve just said. For instance, if you ask someone “How did you spend the night?” and they reply “Very well”, you say “Hmmm” to prove you were listening.
4. “Smart” – well-dressed. “Clever” means intelligent.
5. “How do you find the place?” – do you like it here? How’s life?
6. “You increase” – you’re paying too little, you’re white and rich, please pay more
7. “You reduce” – you’re overcharging me, I’m white but I’m a volunteer, bring your price down
8. “It is finished/it is over” – we’re out of stock. This phrase is heard far too often in this country
9. Non-verbal "words" - instead of saying "yes", Ugandans often just quickly raise their eyebrows. I've started subconsciously doing this. I'm afraid I will be so weird when I try to have a conversation back in the U.S. Ugandans also will point with their lips when you ask where something is.

At my post office in Mbarara. This pretty much sums everything up.

Kasese and Queen Elizabeth National Park

This past weekend, I traveled to Kasese to meet up with friends. The town sits at the base of the Rwenzori Mountains, which form the western border with the DRC (Congo), and the views are absolutely stunning. I actually now, in reflection, find it a little strange that one of the biggest things I remember is the fact that Kasese has a quasi-grid system, so they have actual blocks and street names. Revolutionary for Uganda. That evening, we had dinner at Margherita Hotel in the foothills, and had beautiful panoramic views of the mountains as the sun went down. On the ride up to the hotel, with the wind whipping through my hair, surrounded by good friends and staring at the mountains in the pre-dusk glow, it was one of those perfect moments in life when everything feels right – just pure euphoria.

The Rwenzoris

On Saturday, we headed to Queen Elizabeth National Park. It was so nice to feel like tourists for a day. Along the way, we stopped for photos at the Equator – I was in two hemispheres in one day (actually I jumped back and forth a few times in 48 hours).

The Equator!

Once in the park, we took a $15 boat trip along the Kazinga Channel which links Lakes George and Edward. Definitely worth the money! For a couple of hours, we cruised within meters of hippos (reportedly the world’s largest concentration of them), buffalo, a big bull elephant, waterbuck, bushbuck, African fish eagles, yellow-billed storks, pelicans, herons, egrets, etc. When we reached Lake Edward, the sun was going down and the views of the fishermen on the lake, and the pelicans soaring over the water’s surface, were beautiful. The lake forms the border with the DRC (Congo), and it was insane to think how close we are to a place that is still in serious conflict. Honestly this has been one of the hot beds of conflict in the world – Uganda has weathered Idi Amin and had rebel groups killing people in the north until very recently, the DRC still has mass murder and rape occurring, Sudan to the north is famous for the genocide in its Darfur region and could see more conflict soon when the country votes whether to split in two, Rwanda to the south is famous for its own genocide, and Kenya to the east has had its fair share of conflicts. All the more reason Peace Corps, and other organizations, are here to help re-build communities.

Bull elephant in Queen Elizabeth National Park

Pelicans on Lake Edward

The excitement didn’t end after the boat ride – while driving back through the park at night to Kasese, we literally almost ran into a herd of elephants. Only in Africa – gotta love it.

Sunday was a lazy day around Kasese (including listening to Christmas music – totally surreal when the weather hasn’t changed in months and there is nothing around to remind you that it’s the holiday season), but the real event happened that evening – I was drifting off to sleep when suddenly I woke up to the bed shaking beneath me. We had an earthquake! Apparently it was a 4.9 quake centered near Lake Edward in the DRC, not far at all from where we had been on safari the day before. Crazy!

Random moment today: a boy walked into the clinic wearing a Santa hat.

Romance vs. Reality

Peace Corps has such a romantic image. Before coming here, I imagined such exciting and idealistic images like traveling the world, laughing all the time with local children, building schools and wells, spending my days in the field vaccinating cattle and helping livestock farmers, making a tangible difference every day, etc. Picture Angelina Jolie in aviators and khaki pants, working in a refugee camp, an independent, worldly woman actively fighting poverty – that’s the image of Peace Corps that comes to mind for many people, including my own pre-Peace Corps self. While it’s a wonderful experience, and I wouldn’t at all change my decision to come, this is not reality. Of course, it’s not reality anywhere – we aren’t always living meaningful thrilling lives no matter where we are. But I’d just like to dispel the myths.

The truth: nothing like that former vision. Village life is pretty boring. Not much to do for entertainment – good thing I grew up as an only child and know how to keep myself occupied. Work is excruciatingly slow right now (as I understand it is for most PCVs at first) – I’ve been trying to meet with my supervisor for weeks to create a workplan and re-evaluate my job description (aka I’m not here to count pills for the nurses) but he’s always off doing something else, or doesn’t call to tell me when he can’t make a meeting we have together. You really have to create your own work here, and I’m trying. While my Facebook status updates (and even this blog) always sound so exciting, those really thrilling days happen maybe once every two weeks – the rest of the time I’m just here, trying to find work to do, getting frustrated with my inability to understand most of the people around me (my Runyankore just isn’t that good yet), avoiding harassment from men, wishing I could be doing more meaningful activities and interacting with more people. And the food – oh! I’m afraid I’m becoming anorexic (not really, Mom, don’t worry) because of the monotonous diet. I’m not keen on making some of the local foods myself (they take hours and aren’t even that tasty), and have been subsisting mostly on rice, pasta, potatoes, PB&J, milk, eggs, bananas, and some other fruits and vegetables. The diet is just so routine. Case in point – you go into a local restaurant and they never have a menu because everyone knows what will be on it – matooke (steamed plaintain-like bananas), posho (maize meal), maybe rice, maybe millet, maybe meat, maybe groundnut (peanut) sauce. That’s about it. It makes sense to not have a huge variety of foods when most people here grow their own foods (and how many different things can you really grow in one garden?) but it’s still getting old for me. I’m convinced I’ll gain 30 pounds in the first month I’m back in the U.S. just because all I’ll want to do is eat!

But despite these challenges, that’s life – not every day is an adventure. This isn’t a vacation, this is where I live and work, and I’m learning a new rhythm of how to carry out my days. I’m learning that the little accomplishments, like understanding 30% of what someone says to me in Runyankore-Rukiga, holding a meeting on the same day we planned for it to happen, networking with another organization in the area, or learning to cook something new, are what really get me through. If I look at the big picture, I get frustrated by how slowly things are going – but if I live one day at a time, things are manageable, life is good, and I can see the small impacts I’m having that, over time, accumulate to be something truly meaningful.

Solar Panel!

Here's a photo of the solar panel on the roof! My house is the right half of the duplex. Once I get a little more furniture and decor, I'll take pictures of the inside.

The small window is my kitchen, and the blue door goes into the main house. Note the good-looking puppy on the porch. :)

Let There Be Light!

Thanksgiving was fantastic! On Friday, I headed through Kampala, where I did some Christmas shopping at the craft market (although no guarantees that packages will get there by Christmas, or ever even arrive), then headed back to my friend Becca’s house with Bryce, Alexi, Maggie, and Evan. We spent the evening marveling at her house (it’s huge! and has electricity!), eating Velveeta macaroni and cheese (heaven!), and a pumpkin pie given to us for free by the owner/chef at I <3 New York Kitchen, our favorite pizza/dessert place in Kampala (soooo good!). We bought a DVD on the street earlier that we thought would be the new Harry Potter movie since we couldn’t make any of the showings at the real theater in Kampala, but when we played it, it was just a cheap Bollywood film. Wahh wahhhhh...

Saturday morning, Becca and I woke up first, so we made banana pancakes, M&M pancakes, and scrambled eggs, with real Maine maple syrup! (Becca is a Mainer). I went to work with Becca for a little while, but was called away to go help gut the two chickens we were going to eat for dinner. It was pretty successful, although I’m sure my animal science professors would cringe at my technique. The rest of the afternoon was spent cooking – and man was it worth it! BBQ chicken, wine-and-herb chicken, stuffing made from bagel chips, mashed potatoes, vegetable medley, spicy pumpkin soup with cranberry jelly, yummy bread and butter, guacamole with chapatti, and a fruit salad with passion fruit glaze for dessert. Amazing!!! All of this laid out on a beautiful banquet table complete with candlesticks and autumn-themed napkins from the U.S.


After dinner, Maggie and Evan brought over the turkey piñata they made, and so for the next 20 minutes or so we watched as blindfolded, dizzy people tried to hit a cardboard turkey that kept falling, the broomstick broke in half, and the clothesline snapped, leaving us all in stitches. Definitely a new Thanksgiving tradition! Afterwards we had planned to stay up and party, but the food coma spell hit hard, and we fell asleep watching new episodes of Glee.


In the morning, Bryce made us delicious French toast (with more Maine maple syrup), then we all headed into Kampala. They all went to see Harry Potter at the theater, but I had to catch a 5-hour bus back to Mbarara, so skipped the movie. I also inadvertently skipped lunch, so was starving, and the first vendor who got on the bus to sell us food had only fried grasshoppers. So, naturally, that’s what I ate. I had tried them last week for the first time and they’re surprisingly pretty delicious... you just can't think too much about what you're eating. The woman behind me hesitantly says, “Madam, did you know those are insects?” probably expecting me to scream and throw them in the air upon discovering what I was really eating. I told her yes, I know, but thank you, causing her and a few others around us to start laughing.

On Monday morning, I went with a co-worker to his cousin’s solar shop in Mbarara for an estimate. He quoted me a price 300,000 shillings lower than another shop I had gone to (about $140 cheaper), and when I said I’d like it installed as soon as possible, he said, “How about today?” So I now have solar power at my house! As a thank-you to my neighbor in the next duplex unit, who always cares for my dog when I go away, I paid the relatively small extra charge to string a light into her house, too. She and her family were so excited, and that night we all just stood around staring at the light. They kept laughing and saying, “Kampala!” joking that now they live in the city, and when I eventually said, “No, America!” they all roared with laughter. We all celebrated by watching a movie at my house (The Princess Diaries, since it has nothing really culturally inappropriate here in Uganda, although it’s amazing how many things I had to explain while watching it. A movie is a whole cross-cultural exchange in itself). I even made popcorn! A huge thanks to Mom at home for helping me to make this happen. :)

I do have to say, it’s so weird after living at homestay and then at site for a total of 4+ months without electricity to now be able to charge my laptop and flip on a lightswitch. It definitely changes the experience, and a (small) part of me misses how basic things were when I based my day more around the rhythm of the sun, and how it was probably a more genuine Peace Corps experience. I feel a bit like a spoiled brat, paying to have solar power in a village where a fair number of people live in mud-walled houses. However, a number of people came to thank me for bringing solar power here, and I know that installing it in the staff quarters here will make it much easier to attract workers in the future. And to be fair, there are also a few other people in my village who have solar power, too, which makes me feel a little better. Also, on a personal note, I am ecstatic to be able to work on assignments for Peace Corps, do research online, catch up with family and friends more often, maybe write that book I’ve always wanted to write, and even just unwind with a movie at the end of the day. And if I feel too over-the-top with solar power, I remind myself that I still hand-wash my clothes, bathe from a bucket, and pee in a hole in the ground.

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving! Today is emotionally difficult since Thanksgiving might just be my favorite holiday, and thoughts of the whole family of 25+ people gathered around the table is almost too much to handle. Despite that, I just had two wonderful Skype sessions - one with my amazing friend Chelsea, who is studying abroad in Spain, and the other with Mom and Pappo. Definitely something to be thankful for! I'm hoping to get solar power at my house very soon so that I can stay in better touch with the rest of the world (already helped by my discovery of the BBC on a local FM station... world news! wow!). While I debated whether getting solar power is really in the true Peace Corps spirit, I reminded myself that a) most of my PCV friends have electricity at their houses (or at least do when the power isn't out), and b) that I will be much saner and happier, and therefore effective as a volunteer, if I can keep in closer contact with friends and family back home, be able to do research for work, do workout videos, watch movies, etc.

Two weeks ago, I enjoyed a weekend in Mbarara with other PCVs - some from my training group, and others I was meeting for the first time. It was great to swap stories from site, eat good food (although with ridiculously long wait times), and just be around other Americans for a while, with no one staring at the strange way we do things. However, when I returned to site, I surprised even myself when I got that wave of relief, that "I'm home" feeling. I think having a dog really helps with that, but regardless of the reason, it was great to realize I'm getting used to things and feeling like, in some aspect, I belong here.

Kibo, 10 weeks :)

As far as work goes, I've been busy doing lots of needs assessments, both within my organization and in the community. The highlight happened this past Saturday when I met with a group from the community who came after I requested the local chairman (mayor-type guy) to mobilize people for a needs assessment activity. I did two activities - Community Mapping (asking people to draw a map indicating the resources they value in their communities, what they'd like to see that isn't there, etc.) and Needs Assessment. The mapping exercise started out as a trainwreck, mostly because I followed one of the guidelines from a Peace Corps manual - "start with a familiar landmark, such as a river, road, etc." So, naturally, I asked them to start by drawing the road that runs through our trading center. This turned into the men and women collaborating (after I'd asked them to work separately) to draw a roadmap to all the neighboring villages. Not the goal. After reassessing again and again, we finally got a usable resource map, but by that point I just wanted to move on to the more straight-forward Needs Assessment. But! Despite all these difficulties, we came up with a list of priorities, ranked in order, that the community feels it needs. #1 was a technical school (#2 was to get Holstein/Friesian cows, which I hope to come back to at another time, but the meeting was already 4 hours long...). So, I explained that as a PCV I come with no money, only ideas, so how can we mobilize local resources to start a technical school? We started listing resources such as a brickmaker, land, teachers, etc., but then realized that construction would still be costly. So I proposed an idea: rather than build a physical school, why not try a community-based apprenticeship program, where students go directly to the carpenter's shop, the salon, etc. to train? They liked the idea and within a few minutes, we had a committee of women who would go out to find prospective teachers. Some people argued that we should first ask for "help" (aka money) before we start, but others reiterated what I had said - that if we wait for outside help, it might never come, so we have to act first, ask for help later if we need it. We're supposed to meet again in 2 weeks, and I really hope they follow through with their commitment - I couldn't believe how immediately dedicated they were to the idea of starting this technical school. That's my whole goal - have the community take ownership. That's a famous quote about leadership, "Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say, 'We have done this ourselves.'" (Lao Tzu, ~500 BC). Perfect quote for Peace Corps. But that doesn't exclude the fact that on the inside, just to hype up the excitement about the situation, I'm telling myself that I started a technical school the other day. P.S., I apologize for the length of this paragraph.

Also, I did teach handwashing and tippy-tap building (see my last post) at the two local primary schools this week, and it was a huge hit! The kids seemed really into it, especially when I got them to all sing "Happy Birthday" while they tried out the tippy-tap to make sure they washed their hands for the right length of time. I encouraged them all to go home and build tippy-taps at their houses so their families have somewhere to wash their hands. I even went so far as to promise I would visit their house if they came and told me they had built a tippy-tap (a promise I may soon be regretting when 83 children show up at my doorstep asking me to come to their homes), but I didn't want to give the kids candy, as some of the teachers and my co-workers were telling me I should do, as that would just reinforce the stereotype that white people bring candy and pens for kids (it's bad enough that I get asked for sweeties from kids in bigger cities when walking down the street). I asked the teachers to invite me back next term if they would like me to teach other health topics, and they expressed great interest - they also added they want me to teach PE, with lots of American games and songs. So, I'm going to try to find a creative way of combining health messages with fun games and songs. Their next term starts in February so I have a few months to start brainstorming.

I've read quite a few books in the past couple of weeks (having no electricity will do that to you), and one that I really recommend is Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux. A former PCV, he details his overland trip, by any means possible, from Cairo to Cape Town. He isn't afraid to offend the reader and dole out criticism, whether to foreign aid or local conditions, so reading this book is a trip into his uncensored mind as he traverses the continent. His attack on foreign aid definitely got me thinking, and the ideas that foreign aid makes things worse (which are not unique to Theroux) are definitely something I struggle with. Also, I'm halfway through The Horse Whisperer and thought it was hilarious that the husband and wife met when she was a VSO volunteer and he was in Peace Corps. However, I lost faith in the author's vision of Peace Corps when he first described the PCV as owning a jeep (ha!), and second when he said that "most [PCVs] are dope-heads or bores or both." Maybe that used to be true, but the majority of our group here in Uganda is amazingly motivated and qualified to be here.

I made peanut butter no-bake cookies last week (soooo good, especially after weeks of practically only rice, potatoes, beans, and sometimes pasta), and invited my neighbor and counterpart to come have some. At first they were very skeptical (and I'll admit, they look a bit like cow shit - flat, amorphous globs of chunky brown goo) but after tasting them they couldn't stop eating them, and practically demanded to be present the next time I make them, which I can tell you will be sometime very soon.

I've been getting up early to go running (okay, I'm pretty slow so I guess it's jogging, but running sounds so much more serious) and the views of the sunrise are worth every lost minute of sleeping in. If I pass kids on their way to school, they start running with me, which right now is pretty comical, but I enjoy running alone to gather my thoughts and have "me" time, so this will probably wear on me. But nothing can detract from the beauty of a sight like this out my front door in the morning:

I had a frustrating moment the other day when a complete stranger showed up at my doorstep, trying to pretend he wanted to have a conversation but was really just asking for money. It made me incredibly irate (and this wasn't a homeless man in rags, he was wearing a nice dress shirt and slacks), so I had to remind myself that most people here are more than generous towards me - a friend of my neighbor's bought me muchomo (grilled meat) and eggs for no apparent reason, people bring me fruit all the time, one of the primary schools gave me a HUGE bag of fruit and beans as a thank-you for teaching about tippy-taps... most people here show me their thanks for my presence in huge ways.

Ironic moment of the week: Seeing a young girl walking on the side of the road carrying a shopping bag from Bata, a big shoe store chain, but wearing no shoes.

Tomorrow, I'm heading through Kampala (meeting a friend for lunch at our favorite pizza/dessert place and shopping) and then meeting up at another friend's site, about an hour northeast of Kampala, for the weekend. We're cooking all day on Saturday and having our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday night. The proposed menu: chicken (few turkeys available and no oven to cook one in), homemade bread, stuffing, mashed potatoes, salad, cranberry sauce, spicy pumpkin soup, vegetarian gravy, rice, veggie medley, apple pie, mango crumble, and pumpkin pie. YUM! Next blog entry: detailing the success (and hopefully no lack-thereof) of preparing a huge Thanksgiving feast in Uganda.

First Few Weeks at Site

Wow, I haven't blogged in forever! Sorry, things were very busy at the end of training, and I don't have electricity at my house so computer time is very limited. But a lot has happened since my last post:

For one thing, I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer! We had a swearing-in ceremony on October 21 at the US Ambassador's House. All 45 of us who met in Philadelphia and starting training together made it to swearing-in, which is actually a big accomplishment - it's not uncommon for a few people to decide during training that Peace Corps is not for them and go home. We also held a Homestay Thank You event on the weekend before swearing in to thank the families that have been hosting us. The highlight was when our language group did a traditional Banyankore-Bakiga dance and probably 40+ Ugandans joined in with clapping, jumping, stomping, singing.... so much fun.

The whole training group - official Peace Corps Volunteers!

My language group, Runyankore-Rukiga, with our teachers

I moved to site the weekend after swearing-in, and things get better every day. I still have moments (that were especially numerous during the first few days) where I semi-panic, think "Why the hell did I come here?", and have thoughts of going home early. But those moments are short-lived, and I'm just taking things one day at a time. One of the challenges we have as Volunteers is that we don't have an exact job description, and some of our organizations don't really know what to do with us. You have to make work for yourself, which in the first month or two at site is not easy. So for now, I've been mostly dispensing drugs that are prescribed by the nurses in the clinic, and helping with baby immunization and weighing outreach events. We are encouraged by Peace Corps to "do nothing" for the first 3 months - and by that, they mean just learn, observe, do needs assessments, integrate into your community, etc. before you come up with grandiose ideas on what types of projects to start/implement. A project that I work on should never be entirely my idea - it should stem from the needs and desires of my community members. This is very difficult for me, both as an American not used to pursuing what I see needs to be done and as someone used to taking charge and getting the ball rolling.

However, a few ideas for projects have started to come out. I built a tippy-tap, a makeshift handwashing station, during my first week at site (since there is no easy way for me to wash my hands without running water), and my counterpart and others were very interested in it, and when I expressed my desire to teach hygiene and tippy-tap-building at local schools, they seemed very receptive to the idea. So that might be one of my first projects! Also, I've been doing needs assessments within my organization and one of the biggest problems at our small health clinic is the lack of ability to test for malaria - we simply don't have the equipment for either a blood smear or a rapid malaria test. The result is that anyone who has a headache, fever, body aches, or generally doesn't feel well gets diagnosed with malaria. As we currently have the drugs in stock right now (provided by the Ugandan government), we are giving them out to everyone showing these symptoms. The nurses don't really have a choice not to - if they don't prescribe the drugs, and the patient does have malaria, he/she could die. Everyone seems to know that some people are faking the symptoms, knowing they can get the drugs for free from our government-funded clinic now and stock up later for when they don't feel well at another time. We're about to run out of anti-malarial drugs (Coartem), and we won't get any for at least another month, when the government may or may not show up to deliver more. Thus, for anyone suffering for malaria after we run out of drugs, they have to buy them at drug shops/pharmacies at a cost of around 15,000 shillings (about $7.50), which is too expensive for many of the people who live here. Very tough situation. So even though as a PCV I am supposed to encourage mobilizing local resources instead of looking for outside funding/materials, this is a huge need and I'm going to explore the options to get a microscope (doesn't even have to turn on - we don't have electricity so you just set the microscope in the sun) so we can test for malaria.

In happier news, I am now the proud parent of a beautiful Ugandan puppy. Her name is Kibo (named after the main peak of Kilimanjaro) and she's now 8 weeks old. She came from a litter of puppies at my homestay, and since I got to handle them from 1.5 weeks of age, and I really like the mother's personality, I was hooked. I picked the most beautiful, biggest, outgoing puppy (of course!) and returned for her a week after getting to site (along with another friend who got a dog from his homestay). Public transport with puppies wasn't as bad as we anticipated - we were expecting negative reactions, since it's okay to bring chickens and goats on a shared taxi but dogs are feared and often have a negative connotation in this culture. However, people were all just curious and thought it was so funny, the bazungu with their dogs. Kibo has been settling into site great - my neighbors love her (they even let her sleep in their house when I'm gone! HUGE for a Ugandan family, never expected that), people now come to my house to see my dog and not me, she follows me everywhere when I'm home but surprisingly stays around the yard when I leave, which saves me from having to tie her up. She knows how to sit when she's paying attention or thinks I have food, and can be a bit stubborn, but she's affectionate and playful and just pretty darn adorable. So far she's been very healthy, and I hope it continues - my friend's puppy got parvo, a very nasty virus that often kills the dog, and we were very worried he wouldn't make it. I went to give him IV fluids and dextrose (he is only about 40-50 km from me), and when I had to leave my friend gave him some SQ fluids. And the little guy is doing great! He didn't eat for about a week, so he's super skinny, but apparently now he's running around, eating, and doing great. Amazing!

Kibo! 7 weeks old