Sweeties for Museveni

 9 October 2015

Happy Independence Day!  Uganda’s that is.  Museveni is all over the TVs around town and people everywhere stop what they’re doing to watch the ceremony.

I’ve just come from Kyotera, the town about 2km from my village, just down the road.  I was on a mission this morning:  a RUMPs mission.  I needed to buy supplies to start teaching lessons on how to make and use RUMPs.  RUMPs stands for
Re
Usable
Menstrual
Pads
And they’re part of the initiative Let Girls Learn to help keep girls in school.  Regular pads you get at the store are expensive, and when a family has 5 girls, like my neighbors do, staying home a week from school while you have your period is cheaper than buying them.  Thus, RUMPs.  If it sounds gross, it’s not.  They’re made by cutting scraps of fabric (usually kitenge for the cool patterns) into a pad shape and sewing them together with ribbons on either end to hold in a towel or rag which can be washed and reused over and over.  Zing.  Girls stay in school another week, learn more stuff, take over the world.  Girl power.

RUMPs packets in the works

I’m back in my office now since I couldn’t write with 7 children pounding on my screen demanding for sweeties and threatening to break down the door.  I’ll explain.  When I came back from Kyotera, I had the three minions in my yard, Katherine, Benja, and Brenda.  Since today’s Independence Day, wouldn’t that be a good time to break out the Warheads mom gave me in a care package?  Yeah, I thought so, too.  Here’s where I throw in a cliché about bees to honey or flies to vinegar or something like that because these kids can scream, and when they scream, they call for more friends, especially when there’s sweeties involved.  So, with my camera ready, I opened the pack and put one in each of their hands as they eagerly downed the warheads.  These weren’t ordinary warheads.  These were extreme sour, make you cry, what-did-I-just-put-in-my-mouth?? warheads. 

Check out the damage:

Benja isn't a fan

That's the look of betrayal 

Katherine's not too sure about these.

Kevin and Brenda

It's ok, Katherine, I don't like them either.

And since I had just come from town, I had a bag full of RUMPs material (and some fabric I got to make a new dress).  The girls grabbed the fabric, wrapped it around them like dresses, and kept saying “Mugenda Kyotera, byeeee!” (We’re going to Kyotera) imitating me earlier that day.  They’re goof balls and I love them.  Ok, well I don’t love them when it’s 7am and they’re at my door and I’m wearing my pjs and am trying to make tea or breakfast, and I’m like what the actual hell are you doing here this early?  Then, I don’t love them as much.  And even when I say in Luganda, “I’m cooking now, I’ll see you later,” or “I have to go to work, bye my friends, see you later,” or something along those lines, I KNOW they understand me.  My Luganda isn’t that bad.  But they don’t care because they’re kids.  And the whole town is their playground.

Divas

So now I’m hiding in my office as I write this.  Hiding is the wrong word.  More like taking cover. 

This week has been weird.  I didn’t really have an itinerary of things to do but even without one, I keep getting shuffled around from church to school with a sister to introduce myself and tell them what I would like to teach their students.  Even though I’ve never contacted them prior to the meetings.  That’s all my org’s doing, and I’m really thankful for it.  The sisters here have been calling the headmasters of schools and the doctors of health centers to say they have a volunteer who would like to come and talk about HIV prevention and RUMPs making.  And without them doing this, I would have a lot of ideas with nowhere to execute them.  But at the same time, I’m starting to feel overwhelmed with the amount of places they want me to teach.  I try to keep reminding my org that I’m not a teacher, but I can give talks, workshops, camps, etc. about the material.  When it comes to coming back a certain time every week to the same kids to continue the lesson, that’s where I’m stumped.  But it’s still early, I’m sure things will fall into place over the next few months.

Monday was my birthday!  Wooo!  I got to celebrate with the Biikira Babes plus Andrei at our favorite local restaurant, Bonanza, in Kyotera (Yeah, Bonanza like the TV show).  They were so sweet to take me out and gave me a few gifts that I loved.  They also gave me a Smirnoff Ice.  Yeah.  I was iced.  Again.  This is the 3^rd time since being in country.  I mean, really?  C’mon.

This past weekend was great, too.  It was Welcome Weekend for the central region volunteers.  It’s where the veteran vols and the newbies come together to say hi, relax, eat, drink, and be merry.  We went to Entebbe and it was the first time I had seen it in the daylight (Last time I was there, I had just arrived in country and it was 11pm).  And wow, Entebbe.  It’s so different than what I’ve seen as far as cities here.  Entebbe has money, and it shows; it’s a big tourist spot.  We stayed at a modest backpacking hostel and got to eat Thai and Indian food, swim in this gorgeous pool with a 30ft diving board, and check out some local clubs at night.  The club we went to Friday night had music videos being played on a blank wall and Wiz Khalifa’s Black and Yellow came on.  I almost started crying when I saw all the shots of the bridges, Mount Washington, and the waterfronts' towers, but I had to keep it together to sing the whole song.  412 represent. 

The Masaka Clan surprised me on Saturday with a Hakuna Matata gift bag that had Pringles, Hershey’s syrup, and Snickers bars in it, and also a giant birthday hat.  The Clan is pretty great.  I wore the hat all night, even at dinner.  It was a good thing I did, too, since there was another table of Americans at the Indian restaurant and they bought a drink and sent it my way since they saw my hat.  Having a giant hat has its perks.  Overall, I felt really special for my first birthday in country.  Although, nothing can top last year’s fake dinner with the guys into a surprise dinner with Alex, book of Mormon, Southside drinking, and the Pittsburgh Zoo.  Sorry, Uganda.  You’re great, but the boy can’t be beat.

Hat!

 The next few weeks here should be pretty standard.  Help where’s needed, work in the HIV clinic Mondays, enter data files, teach at Kasaali HC Thursdays, work with Sylivia on a RUMPs schedule, and greet absolutely everybody.  That’s important.  My Luganda is great for greetings.  Go anywhere beyond that and I say, “Wangi?” a lot (yes, please? It’s like ‘wut?’).  I’m sporting my sheep skirt today and absolutely every time I wear it, I always hear “Oh, Nakajubi, you are smart!” meaning I look good.  Forget when I wear my modest floor length skirts and tops that reveal nothing.  It’s the sheep skirt that gets the praise.  But have they seen it?  It’s covered in sheep.  Wearing sunglasses.  It’s supposed to be a joke.  I don’t understand Uganda sometimes.

See? Sheep.

At the end of the month, I’ll be traveling to In-Service Training or IST with Sylivia.  She’s so excited to go and watch all the presentations.  I’m excited because this is the next water station in the marathon.  The one after that is in January, when mom comes to visit!! That’s going to be a blasty blast.  We’re going on safari in Queen Elizabeth National Park where we’ll see elephants, lions, and hippos.  Weee!

Last thing:  I’ve finished 4 seasons of The West Wing.  3 seasons of The Legend of Korra.  I’ve watched the King’s Speech and O Brother, Where Art Thou more times than I can count.  I’m on the Wild Thornberries now but I know they’ll be done soon, too.  Right now I’m waiting on Sister Priscilla to come back from Kampala, stop in Masaka at the post office, and bring me the packages, letters, and cards sitting there for me.  And one of those packages should contain more flash drives of President Bartlet and Blanche, Rose, Dorothy, and Sophia.  So a big thank you shout out to all yinz that sent well wishes, I just don’t know who you are yet.  I’ll have a follow up post when I get them to formally say thanks.  And then ask for addresses to send out thank you postcards.  Who doesn’t love post cards!?  Time’s flying by.  I’ll be back home before you know it.  Hopefully I’ll have accomplished something by then but it’s still up in the air at this point.

Benja's a cutie

Family photo kind of

Cheers,Kelly