Population Multiplication

In Uganda, the population is exploding at an incredible rate. This small country, about the size of the state of Oregon, has one of the fastest-growing populations in the world. The average number of children per woman is 7, and while that number is actually a decrease from a previous 10 or 11(!), it doesn’t change the fact that, by 2050, Uganda’s population is expected to grow from its current 33 million to 100 million. 100 million people in a country the size of Oregon! Kampala, the capitol city, is already very over-crowded – a PCV friend told me it was initially designed for 500,000 people but is already at around 3 million. The increasing population will burden Uganda’s already inadequate infrastructure and development solutions, including:

Land. The majority of Ugandans are currently subsistence farmers who are reliant on owning enough land to grow food for their whole family. Land is already becoming a scarcity for many farmers, and while most still have enough food, that could easily change for millions in the coming years. Subsistence farming is by definition extensive and has much lower productivity then modernized or commercialized farming. While modern, mechanized farming has caused many problems in the U.S., namely environmental, there is no denying that some level of scaling-up of agriculture is necessary to feed a growing population. But can this be done fast enough in Uganda, and effectively enough, to keep up with the increasing number of people?

Waste management. All Ugandan roadsides, towns, and cities are covered with trash because there is no formal waste management system. Even in the capitol city, there is trash strewn everywhere, clogging gutters and adding to an already-poor sanitation situation. While most rural Ugandans don’t produce nearly as much household waste as Americans, as they buy most of their food fresh and rarely buy packaged items, the influence of Western societies and increased urbanization is also increasing the amount of trash produced. I still find it shocking, 14 months after arriving here, when people throw their trash out the bus window or even into their own yard… but then I think, where else are they supposed to put it? The main method of dealing with rubbish here is burning it in piles. Even the U.S., with its reliance on landfills, does not have the perfect waste management solution, but at least we have some method to keep trash off our streets and out of our waterways.

Education. The education system is already rife with problems, with one of the biggest being too many students and not enough teachers. There is also a lack of actual school buildings and classrooms, with students often squeezed onto small benches in a crowded room that is not conducive to learning. Even within the next decade, there will be millions more children to educate than the system has to currently deal with. Without an education, people are forced to remain subsistence farmers, which, as detailed above, will become increasingly more difficult. Uneducated women will also continue to have many children. It’s hard to say how a timely solution will be found to this problem.

Electricity. Uganda already experiences regular rolling blackouts, sometimes for days at a time – and there are still many parts of the country which have no electricity at all. Not only will a larger population require more electricity, but people are increasingly moving to urban areas, and rural areas are demanding that they also be put on the grid.

Health. There is already a shortage of doctors, nurses, hospitals, medical equipment and supplies, etc. for the current population level. While an increase in population size will hopefully result in more people also being trained as health workers, it is likely that the increase will not meet the demand.

This list could really go on and on. While Uganda has problems now, I can only see them becoming much, much worse if the population continues to grow as it is. Honestly, within a relatively short amount of time (possibly a decade or two), I believe that there will be widespread chronic hunger and that Uganda will once again descend into chaos as people literally fight each other for survival. (And as a quick plug against foreign aid, can I just say that in 2010 alone, Uganda received almost $1.8 BILLION in foreign aid to fix these problems, and nothing ever seems to get better? And President Museveni can hardly blame this lack of results on his predecessors, a common American presidential tactic, as he's been in office since 1986 and has received $31 billion in foreign aid during that time)

What’s one solution to slowing down the population explosion? While the provision of family planning (contraceptives) is of course the main tool to reduce the fertility rate, it means nothing if people still desire a large family size. One of the most successful strategies at lowering fertility rates worldwide has not been provision of family planning, forced sterilization, a “one child rule”, etc. but rather increasing girls’ education. By ensuring that girls receive a full education, they are provided with an alternative to simply being a housewife. Women who are educated not only understand the health and economic benefits of having fewer children, but if they work outside the home, they also know that they must have fewer children or forfeit their career. Of course, men also have to be educated to see the benefits of a smaller family and to “allow” their wives to have fewer children, as many women in my village have to hide their contraceptive use from their husbands or risk being beaten. Many refuse to take The Pill, as it is easy for their husband to find out, and only come when the health center has Depo-Provera, the injectable contraceptive they get every 3 months. Gender equality is not just some feminist, 70’s, flower-power concept – it’s absolutely vital for development and even, in Uganda’s case, survival.

Kenya - Safari Njema

Since my last post, we had an All Volunteer Conference near Kampala where all the PCVs currently serving in Uganda came together for a couple of days to meet and greet, catch up, and share our stories and ideas. I thought I knew a lot of volunteers here, but it felt like almost half the faces were new to me (we have about 160 PCVs in Uganda). I presented a session on animal husbandry which went well, and we all ate delicious food and enjoyed spending time with one another.

After All Vol, I went with 4 other PCVs from my training group (Becca, Chelsea, Lisa, and Rashida) to KENYA! The trip was absolutely incredible. Nairobi was an impressively-large, much more developed city than Kampala. As we were passing through, I remarked, “Wow, look at all the traffic lights they have!” just as our taxi driver ran a red light. Oh well, nice try Kenya. The people seemed much less muzungu-crazed than in Uganda, and we were called ‘muzungu’ only a handful of times – a very nice break for us.

We saw many amazing things in Kenya, but our main objective was the Masai Mara National Reserve, which was probably the most amazing safari I’ve ever been on (and I’m privileged to have been on safaris all over East and Southern Africa). On our 4-day safari (with only two full days in the park), we saw 54 lions(!), 4 cheetahs, a leopard, elephants, giraffes, hyenas, ostriches, and hundreds of zebras. While this was all super impressive, the main reason we chose to go to the Masai Mara at this time of year was to see the wildebeest migration, which is featured in countless Discovery Channel and National Geographic documentaries. We were SO lucky to not only see the migration, with literally hundreds of thousands of wildebeest stretching up to the horizon, but we also saw them cross the infamous Mara River! After our safari, we had a chance to visit a Maasai village, which was interesting but of course touristy – at least it was a way for us to take unlimited photos without offending anyone. Overall, this was a once in a lifetime experience, and we are so lucky to have seen all that we did.

All those black dots? Wildebeest, as far as the eye can see

Wildebeest crossing the Mara River

Zebra being attacked by a crocodile!!! (surprisingly, the zebra got away and seemed fine)

An elusive leopard

A Maasai woman

The “Kenya Kitties”

When I came back to site after Kenya, the road into my village was flooded! I thought the taxi drivers had been joking when they said the road was impassable, but when I arrived at dusk, I had to wade through 100+ yards of water that sometimes reached halfway up my thigh (I’m short, but still!). Thankfully my house was nowhere near the danger zone and the water soon receded.

The water the next morning, after it had already gone done significantly!

I also recently had a chance to help train the newest group of trainees (who will soon swear in to be Peace Corps Volunteers). I talked about malaria prevention and what PCVs in Uganda did to celebrate World Malaria Day and raise awareness in our communities. I’m also coordinating with two local schools to do the World Map Project, through which the students will paint a giant map of the world on a wall of the school. One school is definitely on board, so we should start work next weekend. I’m really excited to get this going, as this is a project I’ve wanted to do since the beginning of service. The goal of the project is not only to increase the students’ knowledge about geography (which is very limited for even educated Ugandans), but to help them with critical thinking, creativity, mathematical methods such as drawing a grid system, and to build confidence by completing a big project that will be a beautiful, permanent fixture of the school. I’ll post photos as our map develops!

Camp GLOW

Last week was the most rewarding experience in my Peace Corps service yet – Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) for southwest Uganda! Camp GLOW is designed to help empower girls in their early teens and give them confidence, leadership skills, and help show them the fullness of their potential. It was started by Peace Corps Volunteers in Romania in 1995 and has been spreading around the world ever since. Uganda had its first nationwide Camp GLOW in December 2010, and this camp was meant to target girls from all over the southwestern region.

It was an intense week – the counselors all arrived on Saturday to prepare for the camp (there were 8 PCVs plus 8 young Ugandans who are studying to be primary school teachers (PTC students), then co-directors/staff that included 6 more PCVs and 3 Ugandans). The campers arrived on Monday evening in the school truck (a big lorry/truck where the students stand in the back), and even though it was cold and pouring down rain, all the counselors ran out to greet them cheering. Girls were assigned to groups named after animals, and each group was led by one PCV and one PTC student (we were the Elephants). However, chaos quickly ensued as the girls tried to find their counselors, we realized almost none of them had brought blankets and some of them didn’t even have sheets or sweaters, and we knew that night would be cold. Eventually, we got things sorted out, and went for dinner and a sort of “opening ceremony”, including a song that the counselors sang about GLOW and girls’ empowerment set to the tune of “Rude Boy” by Rihanna (awkward original lyrics for kids but really awesome new lyrics for

GLOW written by one of the co-directors – “Come on GLOW girl girl show us what you’ve got – show it show it, lady lady, show it show it, shinin’ shinin’!). More chaos happened at 3AM when yours truly went for a “short call” to the latrine – the campers heard the dorm door open and thought it was time to get up (none of them had watches or phones to see the time), so started bathing, getting dressed, etc. We were all sleeping in triple-decker bunk beds so when a few people are up, everyone gets woken up.

The days were so busy after that! Wake up call was at 6AM (unless the girls woke up early at 3 or 4:30 haha), then activities ran until 10PM every day. The camp was filled with sessions about health (HIV, reproductive health and sex, nutrition and sanitation), life skills (goal setting, decision making and assertiveness, self-esteem), leadership (gender roles, public speaking, bringing Camp GLOW home), and arts and crafts (making a team flag, piggy banks/money jars, and a vision board – “Picture Yourself in 10 Years”). In addition, we had tons of games and competitions like the human knot, telephone, a blindfolded obstacle course, relay races, sports, and more. All of them helped the girls develop leadership, communication, and problem solving skills in addition to being lots of fun. (Although for my team, the blindfolded obstacle course was a disaster – only two girls from the group of 8 led the blind-folded girl and didn’t really guide her, meaning she fell off chairs, aimlessly kicked at the soccer ball because nobody guided her

foot or held the ball, and when they got to the potato/rice sack, simply stopped her in front of it and told her to get into it…). The education system here is all lectures and rote memorization, even from the age of 4 or 5, and there’s really no critical thinking or problem solving to be had, so these skills are so important to foster in these girls. By far their favorite game was Capture the Flag at night – so fun! I felt like I was back at YMCA camp or band camp, haha. The best part was that the quietest girl in my group was the one who captured the flag – talk about a confidence booster! But we all joked that the PCVs had a disadvantage – it took moving to Africa to realize white people glow at night even when there’s no moon.

Blindfolded obstacle course

The Floor is Lava! Getting teams of 20+ people across the hall with two basins, two rice sacks, and two pieces of cardboard

We also had reading time, speeches by strong, successful women, trivia, and even a fashion show where the campers dressed up the 3 male PCVs in women’s clothing and the boys strutted their stuff – soooo funny (and I don’t think Ugandans have ever seen cross dressers before). We even had a Disney movie night and watched Mulan, which has a strong message about gender roles but unfortunately most of the girls didn’t understand what was going on. I think the PCVs may have enjoyed the Disney night more than the campers, and we realized we’ve been in Africa wayyy too long when the main male (cartoon!) character takes his shirt off and we all swooned hahaha. Whenever we weren’t doing a formal activity, we were playing little games, singing songs (each animal group made their own theme song), and trying to stay busy and energetic.

My Elephant Group

The most amazing thing was the change we could see in the girls. I really didn’t think we would see a tangible difference in 3 days, but it was like night and day. When they arrived, they were quiet, shy, didn’t make eye contact, and frankly looked scared (part of it just being in a new place, part of it being the way most Ugandan girls are). Over the course of the camp, you could see the girls making friends, taking pride in accomplishing something completely new for them (like any of the team competitions/games), and started to become more vocal. After the closing ceremony on the third day, the girls had so much energy, they were bouncing off the walls, danced without a care in the world, and even at 11pm it was hard to get them to stop talking, giggling, etc. to go to bed. It was so amazing to see this difference in them. My favorite girl, a very intelligent and well-spoken girl who always smiled at everything I said even when the other girls were shut-off and non-responsive, wrote me a letter at the end of camp that almost made me cry, thanking me for everything and saying I was “the best counselor of all the rest” and “I promise that I will always remember you and always take into account what I have learnt from this camp…I wish you a safe stay throughout your life till ends meet. Your loving elephant, Joventah.”

By the end of Camp GLOW – full of energy and confidence

During the camp, I felt like who I used to be before Peace Corps (a sentiment expressed by other PCVs, too). I felt like I was needed and necessary, constantly busy, and full of energy and enthusiasm. All of these were feelings I haven’t had in a very long time. I was exhausted by the end but felt like my sense of purpose had been refilled. Considering how low I’ve felt about service for a couple of months, this was just what the doctor ordered. I also enjoyed feeling like a little kid again for a few days – summer camp rocks. :)

World Spins Madly On

A couple of weeks ago, we got a TV and satellite at our Epicenter to act as an IGA (income-generating activity) for our programs. People are supposed to pay 500-700 shillings (20-40 cents) to watch a program, usually football matches, yet, unsurprisingly, there have been several times lately when nobody paid and so The Hunger Project is footing the bill for the generator’s fuel, rather than actually making money as is the whole idea behind an IGA. Regardless, I realized when we turned on the TV for the first time, and people were treated to music videos, news, and National Geographic, that this small window to the rest of the world changes everything. I watched as the villagers gasped at women wearing shorts, nice cars, and rich nuclear Ugandan families in commercials, and this view of life outside the village is one that most of these people have never had before. Viewing these things is exposing them to the modern world, which is a double-edged sword – on one hand they are learning about the bigger picture and gaining new ideas but they are also losing a part of their way of life along the way. Whether you think this exposure is positive or negative, it’s definitely a change that will be there forever.

Also, newly-named game popular among PCVs that I had unknowingly been playing for months: “Goat or Baby?” Here in the village, there are lots of goats and lots of children (the average family has 7 children around here!). I frequently hear loud, high-pitched wails coming from nearby, and it always causes one to pause and think, “Goat or baby?” because the two sound remarkably alike sometimes. Just another way to pass the time.

We recently had a 1st birthday party for Amanya, my next-door neighbor (Gertrude)’s daughter. I made a yellow cake with chocolate frosting all from scratch, and without a real oven! I’m using a tried-and-true PCV technique of using a dutch oven (big pot with a lid, then inside you put the cake pan on big rocks or sand for conduction and airflow), so I baked a cake over firewood! It was delicious. After having tea, popcorn, peanuts, and cake, we all watched Beauty and the Beast, although I think they found the movie just plain confusing (a big creature they've never seen before? Dancing candlesticks and clocks? What is this?).

Tiny baby, big knife

Baking the cake gave me confidence, so the next day I tried making pita bread using yeast (I have never made bread before in my life) – pretty easy and it came out super delicious! I dipped it in olive oil and basil with some balsamic vinegar that I splurged on in Kampala. If I can do all this in an African village with like 4 ingredients, imagine what I can do with access to an American grocery store!

Homemade pita bread… mmm mmm good!

Projects! I’ve got a few things going on, including trying to start a support group for HIV-positive community members. I decided to try to start a support group while at the funeral of a friend who died of AIDS. As I was at the burial, I looked around and saw at least 2 or 3 other people I know to be HIV-positive, and I’m sure many others were in attendance, and I just couldn’t imagine the fear, loneliness, and hopelessness they must have been feeling. I also asked people to submit proposals for a Peace Corps grant we can apply for, and the general consensus was to do a goat project, where we distribute goats, and those recipients pass on the first female offspring to another person in the community. I feel unoriginal with this since a neighboring PCV just did a similar project with goats, but I’m happy to have an animal project to work on! I’m still teaching health and life skills at the primary schools, and am planning to do the “World Map Project”, which was started by a PCV in the Dominican Republic in 1988, with one of the schools next term. We will paint a huge map of the world on the side of the school, increasing awareness of geography and the world but also instilling in the students a sense of accomplishment, leadership, critical thinking, etc. since they have never done anything like this before. I recently visited a friend’s site where they were completing the World Map Project, and I noticed that the girls doing the project were outgoing, independent, not afraid to ask questions, etc., which is very unusual for young Ugandan girls in the village. When I mentioned this to my friend, he said they used to be shy and never spoke up, but this project had completely changed them.

In true Peace Corps style, though, I haven't been super busy at site (although I've been attending all kinds of workshops, etc. away from my village lately), so I've gotten into quite a few TV shows - currently catching up on The Office and Grey's Anatomy, finished the 2nd seasons of Glee and Modern Family (probably my current favorite show), getting into 30 Rock, and have a few more on the docket.

Also it's official - I'll be home for Christmas!! Counting down the days - in just over 4 months I'll be State-side! I'm imagining holiday decor everywhere (especially wreaths on streetlamps, since we don't even have streetlamps here), hopefully snow for the true winter wonderland (come on Cincinnati), decorating the tree, eating amaaaazing American food, and seeing how I react to freezing temperatures now that I have turned African and put on a sweater when it's 68 degrees out. Can't wait!

Maama Wangye omuri Uganda

Mom’s visit was fantastic. She flew into Entebbe, then we spent one night at a beautiful boutique hotel before heading to my house the next day. When we arrived in my village, I was amazed by our reception – a big group of women (and a few men) singing, dancing, and drumming, and repeatedly saying how thankful they were that I brought my mother to visit them. My neighbors and a few friends also prepared a welcome dinner of traditional Ugandan foods for us. Amazing! I was so proud of my village and felt incredibly loved.

While we were in my village, we actually stayed pretty busy, which is rare haha. One day for lunch we went to the house of the Epicenter Chairman (basically the community leader for The Hunger Project’s work) for lunch and were treated to an amazing spread – matooke, posho, millet, potatoes, chicken, dodo (greens), and delicious pineapple fresh from his garden. His wife even gave each of us a handmade necklace. Another evening, we walked deep into the village to see a friend’s newborn baby who they named after me (Kamusiime). Mom also brought a donated microscope with her which we presented to the community – they are really excited about the potential to have malaria and TB testing in their village very soon. Mom also came with us to one of the immunization outreaches. Every night, we watched movies curled up on my couch – felt like old times from my childhood.

One of our adventures away from my site took us across the border to northwest Rwanda at the base of the Virunga volcanoes (most of which are inactive). First of all, Rwanda is so much cleaner and more organized than Uganda! The roads are paved with streetlamps and shoulders that have gravel (i.e. not muddy grossness). Every Saturday, people are required to close their shops for 2 hours and clean up their communities, so there is virtually no trash, whereas in Uganda the amount of ‘rubbish’ on the ground is disgusting. Also, the boda boda (motorcycle taxi) drivers wear helmets and safety vests, are limited to carrying one passenger (whereas in Uganda I have seen 3 adult passengers plus the driver on a motorcycle before), and they carry an extra helmet for their passenger! The president, Paul Kagame, has also outlawed plastic bags. These little differences are like night and day between Rwanda and its northern neighbor Uganda.

But the main highlight of our trip to Rwanda wasn’t the cleanliness or struggling through speaking French or remembering which way to look when crossing the street (I automatically now look right before I look left, but Rwandans drive on the same side of the road as Americans) – it was seeing the mountain gorillas!!! Our adventure involved an easy hike through farmland and then through the forest as we entered Volcanoes National Park (part of an ecosystem spanning Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo). We had heard that finding the gorillas can take hours of hiking through ankle-deep mud up steep hills and hacking through stinging nettles, but our experience was more like walking in the park on a sunny morning. After only about 45 minutes of walking, we found the Kwitonda gorilla group. Our first sighting was a young blackback male, and it was astounding to see this massive black ape sitting only yards away from us – no fences, no barriers of any kind.

During the next hour, we were continuously amazed by what was happening. While we are supposed to maintain a 7-meter distance between us and the gorillas (mostly to prevent disease transmission between humans and gorillas), at times the gorillas walked right up to us. One silverback wandered right through the middle of our group – I could have literally reached out and touched him had I thought it a wise idea. We saw three silverbacks, youngsters of all ages (including a five-month-old infant), mothers with ‘toddlers’ – all in all, the group has 21 members, the 3^rd largest gorilla group in the park. The gorillas were mostly moving around and eating and, incredibly, just about completely ignored us. We were entertained by watching one youngster hang from a vine and use his/her foot to push off from a tree to spin around, presumably just for fun. Gorillas make a deep “Hmm-hmmmm” sound to mean “everything is okay”, and it was amazing to sometimes hear it coming from all around us, even from gorillas we couldn’t actually see.

Just as our hour was almost up, the head silverback, Kwitonda himself, got up and walked within feet of us, all 400 or so pounds of silver and black bulk, and headed off for a new section of the forest as the rest of the group followed. The fact that they, too, were moving on made it easier to leave. I could have easily spent all day watching them, and it felt like we had just arrived when we started heading back to the trailhead. This was easily one of the most amazing animal encounters I’ve ever had.

After Mom left, it was a rough transition back to site. I had been frustrated with things before she came, then everything was wonderful while she was visiting until I got a phone call from my organization on Wednesday telling me to come to a staff retreat in Kampala on Friday, my mom’s last day in Uganda, prompting a huge wave of frustration (this is the first staff meeting they’ve ever asked me to come to in the 8 months I’ve been at site) and actually made way for waves of fairly serious depression in the week or two following that. At home, I’m a normally bubbly, happy person all the time, so depression of any severity is abnormal and a bit scary for me. However, now I’m getting busier again, and I got support from Peace Corps and other volunteers on how to push through this low (and talking to them, I realize most of us are in a rough spot right now, probably the “mid-service slump” a little bit early or the 6-month-slump a little late). It’s nice to hear I’m not alone.

Things have been getting back to normal now and I finally feel I’ve leveled out – part of it may be that I stopped taking mefloquine, the original malaria prophylaxis I had been on, which is known to have psychological side effects. I finally bought a guitar after talking about it for months and am starting to learn how to play – even though I’m just picking out a few notes and chords, it’s already fun and relaxing. I’ve been going on walks with Kibo through the village which are not only relaxing and fun for both of us, but also seem to be the only way her anxiety issues seem to get better. I am already researching how to bring her back to the U.S. with me – seems pretty straightforward, just need to get proof of rabies vaccination and an approved crate to ship her in.

This week, I’ve been at a Peace Corps conference with many of my best friends in-country to learn about malaria as part of the new Presidential Malaria Initiative (PMI). Some of the sessions have been disappointing as they often are when led by Ugandans – not sure why I expected anything different. One of the main speakers, the director for Uganda’s national malaria control program, was not only pompous, but was giving false information, including stating that DDT not only prevents cancer, but that it didn’t kill bald eagles, the “Red Indians ate them.” He also indicated that where you take a blood sample (fingertips vs. arm) affects whether you can detect malaria parasites upon testing, which is completely false. Thankfully, most of us knew this and called his bluff, but we all were quickly fed up. Perhaps it is because this man is so prominent in the public health field in Uganda, and that I kept calling him out, that the Peace Corps community health program manager told me I should get a Ph.D. in public health and write a book, haha. Some of the other sessions were much more worthwhile, and the conference is great simply from the fact that I get to see some of my closest friends who I haven’t seen in several months, and we get hot showers, DSTV, and a swimming pool, all on American taxpayers. Thanks!

We did bring up more issues of foreign aid and dependency at this workshop, though. We discussed how people given free mosquito nets (the norm from things like Global Fund and USAID) sometimes use them for things like bridal gowns or fishing nets, and the fact that the nets are procured abroad means that local businesses are severely hurt by this influx of free nets. There’s a small mosquito net factory in Kampala – how are they expected to compete in such an environment? Also, since malaria drugs at government health centers are free, people have little incentive to prevent malaria by sleeping under a mosquito net, covering their windows and vents with screens, clearing stagnant water, etc. Why make the effort to prevent malaria if treatment is free? I am now pretty much completely against any type of handout or free anything (including foreign aid in the form of grants, and possibly even loans since the debt gets forgiven) and think the future truly lies in investment and supporting local businesses. My friends and I joke that Peace Corps is actually making us more conservative (at least in the economic sense).

The next couple of months are busy! In a couple of weeks, I have a training near Kampala to teach me how to train the new group coming in August, then hopefully helping with a Peace Camp in the north, teaching the new group of trainees, going to the All Volunteer Conference (every volunteer in Uganda comes together for a few days), then off to Kenya for the migration in the Masai Mara and delightful modern delights in Nairobi (including several rumored sushi restaurants!). After that, it’s only a little while until our mid-service conference at the end of October. The days here move slowly but the weeks fly by.

Recent Photos

Waiting to go pick up my mom at the airport (she lands in an hour!) and our super-nice hotel has super-fast internet, so I'll upload some pics I've been meaning to for a long time:

Mural painted at the Peace Corps 50th Celebration

Queen Elizabeth National Park

Lioness, Queen Elizabeth National Park

Elephant with the Rwenzori Mountains, Queen Elizabeth National Park

Peace Garden - our team's project at the Peace Corps 50th

Children dancing in my village

Kibo

a HUGE puff adder at the agricultural college where I've been teaching (it's dead)

The kids at the Epicenter nursery school

My supervisor, James (left), with our Epicenter chairman at his matooke plantation

Women weighing their babies at our monthly immunization day

Banywani na Nshonga

PCVs currently serving have all heard stories of how rattling reverse culture shock can really be. Reverse culture shock refers to returning to your home country/culture after spending time abroad and finding that you don’t quite fit in as well as you used to, at least at first, and that the way Americans do things is actually now shocking to you. I’ve heard stories of RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) breaking down in the cereal aisle, amazed by the ridiculously huge variety before them. Others have become “that weird guy who greets everyone” because in many of the cultures where PCVs serve, greeting neighbors or even people you don’t know on the street is just what you do. I was watching God Grew Tired of Us, a documentary about refugees from Sudan who are relocated to the U.S., and I felt so bad for them when they went up to people’s houses just to greet them and ask about the neighborhood, and the homeowners were so nervous they called the police. Whenever a group of PCVs gets together at someone’s house, we spend hours raving if that person has a toilet and running water (I’ve even heard rumors that a few lucky PCVs even have things like ovens and one person has a fireplace?!), so I wonder how long I will marvel at modern conveniences when I get home – at our house we have three toilets, three hot showers, a refrigerator, a microwave, an oven, several TVs, heat, air conditioning, a fireplace, fast internet… even the thought of all those luxuries is overwhelming right now. It’s hard to say what will cause me to break down, but a cry fest at the grocery store or Target (another PCV and I have a specific fantasy – driving to Target in our own car while drinking a Starbucks latte) doesn’t scare me as much as the idea that I will be some kind of weird maladjusted citizen who doesn’t fit in.

Kibo is doing great – she’s now 8 months old and pretty big! I was worried about whether I’d be able to take her back to the U.S. because of how nervous she gets around new places and strangers, but I’ve discovered a few important things. First of all, she’s racist (lol). She is super afraid of Ugandan men she doesn’t know (barks her head off then runs away when they get too close), is curious about Ugandan women she doesn’t know, but she almost instantly loves any white PCV that comes to visit, man or woman, and is all over them right away! She’s already very affectionate with people she is familiar with, Ugandan or American, man or woman. And I think her anxiety with new places or walking through the trading center is the number of strange Ugandan men that she doesn’t know. I’ve been taking her on walks up little paths, between farms and where there aren’t too many people, and as soon as we’re away from the main road she visibly relaxes, becomes her happy-go-lucky self, and has a great time running around. The other evening we took a long walk and somehow picked up a caboose of 5 or 6 small children walking with us for over an hour. They didn’t say much but mostly just giggled at Kibo and ran away screaming if she tried to play with them. Definitely an “I live in Africa” moment when you walk through the village with a bunch of kids. Plus, I just don’t think I have the heart to leave Kibo here when I go back to the U.S. – she’s sometimes a piece of work but I love her and she’s coming home with me.

In my village, my best friend is probably my next-door neighbor, Gertrude, who is one of the nurses at the health center. She speaks the best English, understands most of my jokes and just seems to get me more than most Ugandans. She has a 10-month-old daughter named Amanya Ruth, and she is soooo cute! I’ve never watched a baby grow up like this, as I’ve seen her almost every day since she was 3 months old, and it’s so cool to watch her learn to stand, start to say words, learn how to smile, etc.

I was recently traveling by taxi (aka crowded minibus) to my friend’s site in the central region near Kampala. The woman sitting very close beside me kept nodding off to sleep, and every time her head thunked into my shoulder (not just brushed by actually head-butted me), she wouldn’t exactly pull away and would sometimes linger there. I know she was aware of what was happening, and was astonished because I know that I would be mortified if my sleepy head kept landing on a stranger’s shoulder. So I decided to start shoving my shoulder back into her head every time she lingered for more than a few seconds. Well, the ladies in the row behind me noticed it and burst into laughter every time I bonked the lady’s head away from me, and pretty soon my friend and I were also laughing hysterically. It was a very happy moment after a rough week – despite the fact that I didn’t want the lady to actually be sleeping on me, the fact that I had a moment with some Ugandan women without saying a word – a completely cross-cultural, all-humans-are-the-same moment – just made me so happy that I can’t describe it in words. It’s little moments like that, usually a shared laugh, that help put things in perspective and see the goodness in people, despite all the frustrations that naturally arise when two cultures collide.

I needed something to help me feel good about Ugandans and my life here, and remind me of the positive side of things. This last week was very rough because of so many different thing adding up to frustrate me. First of all, my counterpart and supervisor haven't informed me of very important things (such as not being able to translate for a women's health workshop or that the new country director was coming to visit). I bought a new lock for our rainwater tank (which is finally full! no more going to the stream for me for a while) and gave keys to my neighbor and the maintenance man, who sometimes does his laundry here, and who I thought I could trust, and found out that he had given more than 5 people full jerrycans of water without asking us about it (and most of the people who received water were young pretty girls...). The word on the street was that Kahinda was now giving everyone free water from the tank. I felt like my trust had been so betrayed and I was irate. Finally, I had already had greediness, etc. on my mind (see my previous post), so when an NGO came to build two 20,000 liter rainwater tanks for the community's use and asked people to help haul lumber and water for construction, and people were refusing to help without payment, I had just about had it. The community is getting a free source of safe water and they won't give up 10 minutes of their time to help?? And I gave up 2 years of my life (and delayed vet school by 3) to volunteer to help these same people? Ugh! I've rarely been so frustrated and fed up. This week was when I most seriously considered ETing (early termination - quitting) because of how frustrated I was by how irresponsible/selfish/whatever people were being. However, I'm happy to report that spending a few days with PCV friends has drastically improved my mood, so I won't be quitting anytime soon. It was just one of those weeks - they happen to everyone here.

And another mood booster - my mom is flying in today and I am soooo excited!! I’ll pick her up in Entebbe this afternoon and then head to my village with her tomorrow. Updates on our adventures together in a few weeks!