Smile and wave, smile and wave.

 28 July 2015

Welcome back!  It’s been a crazy couple of weeks.  Ready for a recap?

This past month with my host family has been wonderful; I never thought I could feel so at home so quickly in such a different place.  What was great about staying with the Mponye’s was there was never a set schedule.  There were always so many people coming in and out of the house, some stayed for the weekend, others for a few weeks, sometimes just for a night.  But you always had someone around to talk to or teach you something.  I think my favorite things (besides washing my feet) were hanging in the kitchen with my sisters asking “Can I help with-“ and then being cut off saying no, no, Kelly, we are almost done.  And drinking tea at night with taata wange, watching the news, chatting about politics and health care.  I’m going to miss Mityana and my family a lot, but I’ll be back to visit.  If I don’t, Jemimah said she will hate me.  So I definitely have to.

Home Sweet Homestay - Mityana

When I tell my siblings to 'smile,' I get this.

Mackenzie and her host brother. He knows exactly what he's doing.

Hanging at the Equator with my "brothers," Ben and Peter

This is Gabriel.  I met him in church.  I'm most likely going to steal him.

The last weekend in Mityana, we had our Homestay Farewell Party.  Basically we got everyone’s families together along with the LC1 (Local council for our town), the chief of police, and the mayor was supposed to come but he couldn’t make it.  We started off singing the national anthems (poorly) and had a few speeches given by our teachers and a PC representative.  We played charades, taught the wobble, and had a fantastic lunch.  Plus we all wore our matching dresses/shirts/vests we got for our swearing in ceremony.  I was technically allowed to only bring 4 people from my family, but my parents were busy and couldn’t make it, Junior is 2 so for food purposes, that doesn’t really count, and the others…well my family was too big for me to just pick 4 people so I brought the lot.  Whoever was around showed up.  Late, of course, seeing as how my nickname for Luganda class was Boneka – to make a rare appearance.

Not the whole family, but a good bunch. Peter became the head of family rep.  Note Junior at the bottom.

 Yesterday, Monday, we traveled to our future sites for a 3-day visit.  I’m here in Biikira at the St. Andrew’s Health Center and will stay here working as a HIV Counseling/Maternity Ward volunteer for the next two years.  I am beyond excited.  On the way here, Peter, my host brother, drove me and the fellow trainees near my area to Masaka.  There, I was picked up by none other than my lovely Mama K (Linda’s mom!).  She drove up wearing her Pittsburgh Pirates shirt, looking as flawless as ever, and drove me and two others to her brother’s house for lunch!  She’s in country for her sister’s wedding this weekend in Kampala.  It feels great to have her close by for the next few days.  It’s like having a little piece of home here.  She calls to check in now that I’m at site and we’re coordinating our ride into Kampala on Thursday when she goes in for the wedding.  Anyway, I met her brother and sister-in-law, her mother, and a few of her friends.  Then we left to go see her dad’s house, where she grew up.  The best part was the picture of Baby Linda on the mantel.  And how Mama K showed me the place she wiped out on her bike when she was like 4.  Nice going, Lin.  Afterwards she drove me and 2 other trainees to our sites.  With a hug and a kiss, she was off.  Thank goodness I’ll see her again this week.  I love having mamas that take care of me all around the world.  It’s pretty cool.

Hi Mama K!

Ok, back to my site!  I’m at the health center and my house is literally next door to the clinic.  It’s a duplex house and my side is on the left.  I have a large entry room where I’m going to put a couch, a coffee table, and some wall décor.  I have a kitchen with running water, and I’ll add a gas stove, the 3 burner kind, when I get back from tech week.  My bathroom has a flush toilet and a shower, all it needs is some spider cleaning and a shower curtain and I’m good to go!  My room has a huge wardrobe to stash all my junk.  There’s even a storage room in my house where I can horde my suitcases and everything else I don’t need.  And there’s a guest bedroom!!  I’ll get an extra set of sheets and hang the mosquito net for anyone that feels like crashing with me.  So, who’s visiting?

Welcome home!  My side is on the left.

Pretty empty now, but I'll fill it up

I’m so excited to make it my little home for the next two years.  After being there and exploring the clinic, I can tell I’m going to be very comfortable here.  I got to meet some of the women in the children’s ward.  They were next to the beds of their little ones, some with malaria, some with pneumonia, and the appearance of a muzungu in this tiny village was a site to see.  My Luganda sucks right now, so after I say hi and greet everyone, there's a lot smiling on my part.  Smiling and nodding.  And then they laugh a little either because they're impressed by my language skills or because I butchered the greetings and told them I have a Ugandan name and am part of the grasshopper clan.  Let's be honest, it's the second one.  After a day, they kept asking “Where is our muzungu?”  So the word doesn’t always have a negative connotation.  It’s nice to be someone’s muzungu.  It makes me feel wanted.  I’m looking forward to really knowing how to work in this health center and having a good rhythm throughout the days.  Here’s the catch:  since I’m in a village, not a town, hardly any of the locals speak English.  It’s all Luganda.  So communicating will be a struggle until I can really work on this Luganda thing.  Oh, funny thing:  You think American doctors have sloppy handwriting?  Try Ugandan medical personnel; it’s half English, half Luganda, half “Is that a 1 or a 7, I don’t want to overdose someone on AZT."  And yes, that’s three halves.  I was a French major, work with me.

Because of my college background, I feel real under-qualified as I watch my counterpart give blood transfusions and TB vaccines, but I guess I’ll learn.  Mpolampola.  Slowly.  Give me a few months and maybe I’ll have a better hold of this Peace Corps thing.  Maybe.  We’ll see.

Thursday, I head to Jinja (the source of the Nile!) to meet up with some other trainees for our tech week.  After that, we have a supervisor/counterpart workshop outside Kampala (don’t ask me what we’re doing then, I really have no clue), and then the swearing-in ceremony is the 13^th, where we officially become volunteers!  That’ll be a good day.  Plus, my supervisor, Sister Priscilla, is coming to the workshop with her pickup truck which will help carry all my stuff back from my shopping day in Kampala.  I’m going to get the majority of things for my house there.

 Next time you’ll hear from me will probably be after swearing-in, so I’ll take some pictures to post on here for yinz.  All is well.  Still working on that postcard thing.

Bisous,
K