Visitors, Varnish and Vacation

Over the past week, I hosted my first non-Peace Corps visitor at my site.  Nearly three years ago, I studied French in Senegal for a brief stint.  Remarkably, my roommate, Tristen, rediscovered me on Facebook only to tell me that she was working in Rwanda right now!  For those of you who are geographically challenged (I'm not judging you!  My geographical knowledge is limited too), Rwanda is a bordering country to Uganda.  So, she suffered the 8 hour bus ride to reconnect.

Unfortunately, Tristen came into Kampala post-marathon, therefore we were all quite subdued trying to recover from our injuries, chafing and general fatigue.  However she may have been grateful due to her early morning start on the 5 am bus!  Traveling back to my site was an adventure, but we arrived safely.

While Tristen was in Uganda, she wanted to visit my site, but it can be pretty boring (no offense Butaleja) if we didn't have a project.  A volunteer nearby was planning on painting a world map, so I stole the idea for our resource center.  The resource center is supposed to be, well, a center for resources.  It should have all kinds of instructional materials to inspire teachers, sample lesson plans, even books.  My center is basically just that- a center, without any resources.  Although paper covers the walls, it's just notes from meetings.  Nothing inspirational in the slightest.  Sadly, I have neglected my duties of improving the resource room because I wasn't exactly sure where to start.  I have "blank page" syndrome sometimes, and I felt overwhelmed any time I thought about that stark room.  Painting an instructional material on a wall is actually a great solution to many of the problems faced by schools.  Posters and pictures don't stick to the walls very well here, either due to wind, humidity or water-based paint.  For whatever reason, these instructional materials tend to be stolen as well.  Painting can really add to the classroom environment, while avoiding those common problems.

In order to accomplish this task, I recruited Bethany, the volunteer, who had initially sparked this project idea.  She an artist, knowledgeable in local paints and had already printed the world map on 16 sheets of paper.  Bethany saved us because it quickly became apparent that Tristen and I were clueless.  Bethany had to explain multiple times the grid system we were using and how to freehand these complicated land masses.  The entire task seemed daunting, but we managed to finish drawing in less than three hours.

To increase the sustainability of the project and to encourage teachers to decorate their classrooms in a similar fashion, we used locally made paint.  The ingredients for the paint:

Clear Varnish (4,900 UGX/$1.50)
Flour
Hot water
Food Coloring (2,000 UGX per color/$0.75)

Although Bethany was the one who knew how to concoct this cheap paint, she had to leave immediately after we drew the map.  She tried to give us some pointers, but mostly just said, "Well, you know what latex paint looks like.  You want it to look like that."  Huh.  Well, ok.  Tristen and I mixed the hot water and flour together until it kind of looked like chunky paint.  No matter how much we stirred, it still had chunks.  Next, we added the varnish.  Tristen was the one doing the stirring, and suddenly became faint from the evaporating fumes!  Thankfully, we finished the job without any incidents, poured the mixture into different jars, added the food coloring and just prayed that it stuck to the wall.  The varnish certainly stuck to everything else.

Within four hours, we managed to cover the entire map in two layers of paint.  Our record speed may have comprised our health because the fumes were very strong.  If I ever do this project again, there will be mandatory "fresh air" breaks!  Despite our concerns, the paint looked pretty snazzy for under $5 of materials.  I'm looking forward to my teachers to see our work!  It felt good to accomplish a project and physically see results.  See for yourself:

Trying to freehand the world.  It's harder than you think.

The finished penciled map

The completed project.  Next week, I will add labels for all the continents.

East Africa!

Post-lunch photo with all the children in my "family" and our visitors

I may have been living in Uganda for too long, but having visitors was stressful!  In Uganda, a visitor is treated like a king, or in this case, a queen.  I was very concerned, borderline stressed, about catering to my visitors.  Even in my head, I realized that I should have relax a little bit, but I just couldn't.  Was the food enough?  Did we need fruit too?  Should I fetch water?  Is the latrine clean enough (well, it's never that clean)?  Should we watch a movie or just go to bed?  Ugh, power's out again.

But the most stressful part was the visitors' effect on my community.  By now, the community has gotten used to Audrey, my closest visitor, and it's not very exciting for them when she comes to stay at my house every week.  But two visitors?  This caused a field day!  Greeting is very important in this culture, and I was on lookout for the next person we had to formally greet.  If we formally greeted everyone, we wouldn't have gotten anything done!  And, the community put a lot of pressure on me to be a good hostess.  "Chelsea, the visitor can't walk in the rain!"  Well, how else were we going to get home?  "Chelsea, has the visitor eaten posho/millet bread/potatoes."  We haven't spent the whole day eating, so no.  "Chelsea, you can't feed the visitor beans!"  She doesn't meat... so do you want her to starve?  In the end, everything went great.  My family really helped out, and even cooked us a local lunch that was absolutely delicious.

Note: I hope this doesn't discourage anyone from visiting!  It was my first time hosting, and I think I've learned a lot.  Hopefully, I can chill out a little bit more next time.

One great thing about having Tristen come: she had no reason to shy away from photo taking.  I tend to avoid snapping photos because I don't want to create more distance between my community and I.  But Tristen got some great ones.

The main road in my trading center

Tristen's first papaya

All of the rice fields were flooded as we tried to leave my site.  The trip is usually an hour and a half, but we spent well over two hours on our way to Mbale.  The water flooded the floorboards of the vehicle.

Tristen's visit was short, but I didn't want her to only experience my site!  I wanted her to see something at least mildly touristy.  On Thursday, we headed to Sipi Falls, a beautiful valley with three waterfalls north of Mbale.  Accompanied by a guide, we hiked through the valley and visited each fall.  As climbed up, we fiercely battled muddy trails, which would only carry us back down.  We had to forge a freezing river with a disconcerting current.  The guide showed us coffee plants, wild banana trees and cabbage fields.  By the end, we were covered in mud but had thoroughly enjoyed our adventure.  Unfortunately, the "shower" was a very cold dribble, so we remained mostly dirty for the evening.

Cabbage is the prettiest vegetable in the ground

Bootleg chunky peanut butter

Although I am smiling, I am also about to slide down this rock face on my booty

In the end, Tristen's visit made me realize that I've been in Uganda for quite some time and that I've adapted quite a bit.  Apparently it's not normal to shove seven people into a Toyata Corolla.  Go figure.  The entire week was jammed packed with so many activities, which is very different from my usual pace.  Although I am dead tired and really looking forward to vegging out tonight at home, it was so much fun to have a week of girl talk and giggle fits.