Another Week in Uganda

On Thursday of last week, I went to visit Catie at her placement. Her placement is without electricity and some of the buildings of the school were made of wooden planks. Visiting her placement made me appreciate mine even more. I really do have a great set up at my school. Over the weekend I went clubbing and then headed out to camp at a site overlooking the Nile River. On Sunday, I went bungee jumping over the Nile and had an absolute blast. It was definitely exhilarating and I am glad that I was able to do it. The whole weekend in Jinja was a lot of fun but also bittersweet because a bunch of volunteers were preparing to leave. On Sunday, I headed back into Mukono and then went onto Seeta to go to have barbecue with Moses. Catie wound up coming with me and then came with me to my placement that night to stay the night. She helped me with PE in the morning and then left to go to the airport. I was very sad to see her go.

This week was a fairly normal week as usual. I taught classes and started reading some Dr. Suess books with the kids. They seemed to thoroughly enjoy the books. On Wednesday, I got to go and visit another school where two British volunteers who live really close to me volunteer. The more I see of Uganda, the more I realize how vastly different each area is. My school, I have come to realize, is extremely well off compared to other areas. The school that the British volunteers are at consists of three buildings made of wood slats. There is only one permanent structure and it is the staff room. None of the rooms have concrete floors and so a bunch of the children get parasites in their feet from the dirt. After seeing both Catie's school and the British volunteers' school I realize that my school has it pretty good, even though they are still hurting for money.

On Wednesday, another volunteer named Katie came out to my placement to stay the night. We went out to the local pub with Peter, Moses, and the two British volunteers to try the local brew. The local brew is served in a bucket with these huge straws that you suck out of. It is made out of millet and tastes extremely smoky. I didn't like it very much, but it was definitely an experience to try it. After trying the brew, we headed back to my place and made chaptis, guacamole, and rolex with the guacamole inside. It was a lot of fun and very delicious. The rest of the week was very calm and this weekend I decided to relax. I went into Kampala on Saturday and saw Transformers 2, which is a horrible movie by the way.

I look forward to next week. You never know what it will bring. And I think that I am going to do some more home visits. Speaking of home visits...Moses and I are going to try to help out Livingston (the guy who I met on the first home visits I did). We are going to try to buy him 2 piglets so that he can begin to generate some income. He made a pig pen because he was promised a bunch of piglets from an organization that never came through. Since he is in such bad condition, Moses and I thought that getting him two piglets would lift his spirits and give him hopes of making money in the future. I really hope we will be able to help him and I hope that I will get to see more of the surrounding villages on home visits. Well that is all for now. Until next time.