Finally, an update!

I now finally have regular internet access.  Woohoo! 

I have so much more I wish I could say, but here’s the brief version with a few highlights…   

Training is already a blur in my memory.  I thought the 10-week Peace Corps training program was about nine weeks too long!  I was so anxious to get out there and get to work.  During training, we each lived with Ugandan host family, which was wonderful but also very challenging at times.  This nightly occurrence at the dinner table is what I remember most about my host mother, Ruth:

 

Ruth: “You have taken very little matooke!  I add you more?”  (matooke = mashed plantains: the staple food in Uganda)

Me:  “Oh no, this is enough for me, thank you.”

Ruth:  “Sure?”

Me:  “Yes.”

Ruth:  “Sure?”  (bringing the huge spoonful closer to my plate)

Me:  “Yes.”

Ruth:  “Have more.”  (plop)

 

I tried to be a good sport and eat it, but it became a real problem.  Dinner was usually at 10 p.m. (which is common here), and I was going to bed with an absolutely stuffed stomach.  I woke up every morning with bad stomach ache, and I usually ended up running outside to the latrine.  Then something worse happened: halfway through training, I saw myself in a picture, and did a double-take when I noticed my bulging stomach from my huge overload of carbohydrates in my new Ugandan diet.  WHAT?!  I hadn’t seen myself in a full-sized mirror since I left the U.S.  This had to stop!

 

Aside from being stuffed with food, I had a good time with my host family.  I taught them out to make guacamole, which they loved.  They ate it plain by the spoonful, sometimes for dessert.  I’m not sure they ever learned to pronounce the word “guacamole” correctly—usually it sounded more like “quock-mo.”  I enjoyed answering their many questions about life in the U.S.  I was chopping onions one day with their 21-year-old daughter Doreen, and she said, “I don’t think people in America chop onions.  Don’t you have machines to do it for you?”

 

Then, on a day I thought would never come, training was at last over and I finally got my assignment.  I was going to a very rural district in western Uganda.  My job would be to build the capacity of an organization which works primarily on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.  The organization is a young organization which has had a lot of Peace Corps support, but my job is to help with strategic planning and staff training so that they will be able to stand on their own two feet after two years.  Sounds cool!  I was so excited.

 

My housing description read as follows:  “House is nice with four rooms, an indoor bathing area, outdoor latrine, and outdoor kitchen.  Rooms include a living room, a main or master bedroom, plus two other bedrooms.  House is located on a private compound surrounded by a living fence.  There is also an opportunity for a garden!”  WOW!  Sounds NICE!  (Haha… I was soon to learn that in Africa, things aren’t always the way they sound…)

 

We packed our things and went to a hotel in Kampala.  The next day we were going to be sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers.  A pang of anxiety was starting to boil up inside of me, subconscious at first, but growing more and more intense by the hour.  I was finally leaving the safety of my little training

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