Hot Dogs and Gutter Balls

In Peace Corps, you always have to expect the unexpected: phone calls to come to Kampala in two days, eating hot dogs off a stick bought through a bus window, legitimate Mexican restaurants with mojitos, bowling in a real bowling alley, becoming an interviewer… But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Last week was a very strange week and felt very “unPeace Corps.”  On Thursday, I got a phone call from my program manager asking me to come to Kampala on Sunday night for a week-long event.  She was a little unclear about what kind of work I would be doing, but I accepted to make the 5-hour journey and started packing.  Caroline and I travelled together on Sunday afternoon.  Half way to Kampala, we had the opportunity to buy meat through a window, which is always a good opportunity.  Along major Ugandan roads, there are “pit stops,” as I like to call them, that are flooded with attendants carrying all sorts of goodies: soda, water, chapatti, meat, corn, bananas, etc.  It can be very exciting.  Once Caroline and I decided on the questionable snack of hot dogs, she yelled out the window “HOT DOG!”  Three attendants come running.  Within seconds, hot dogs on sticks are dangerously shoved through the open window nearly poking Caroline in the eye.  In response, she starts screaming, “STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!” until she can finally make a decision without meat in her face.  Of course, I couldn’t stop hysterically laughing, which won me some dirty looks from the other passengers.  The hot dog was delicious, but I’m nearly certain it made us both very sick. 

Ends up the other three people, Caroline, Mary and Alex, were just as uncertain about our program manager’s expectation.  We had a place: The Rwandan High Commission Office.  We had a time: Monday morning at 8:30 am.  We just had no idea what the heck we were about to do!

Come Monday morning, we reach the Rwandan High Commission Office, which is the Rwandan Embassy in Uganda.  Within 15 minutes, we were filled in: the Rwandan education system is in the midst of a transition from French as the medium of instruction to English; however, their teachers need more training, supervision and encouragement to implement sudden change.  Therefore, the Rwandan government is recruiting Ugandan and Kenyan teachers with expertise in the instruction of English for a two-year mentorship.  Last week, they were interviewing over 400 applicants with our help as native English speakers to help determine their eligibility for the mentorship.  The Rwandan government has over 2,400 positions available for foreign mentors; therefore, the interview was a formality.  As long as the applicants were qualified on paper and competent during the interviews, they passed.

After our brief introduction, we dove head first into the interviews because we had to complete 400 interviews in 5 days.  We each worked with a Rwandan counterpart during the interviews, which was comforting because I wasn’t sure of my interviewing skills.  By lunchtime, I had fallen into a groove.  I knew what to ask, what we were looking for, how to read their documents, etc.  By the end of the week, I learned a lot about interviewing, especially about how not to act in an interview… However, I spent so much time talking during the interviews, I ended up developing a sore throat!  I guess I usually spend more time by myself, so I’m not used to speaking for hours on end.  And it was exhausting!

During the week, we celebrated Alex’s birthday with all kinds of festivities, including party hats.  We ate a dinner of nachos, fajitas and mojitos at a hidden Mexican restaurant in Kampala.  It has been over one year since I have tasted authentic Mexican food, so I may no longer be a good judge, but it was amazing!  To our surprise, we got half off on the pitchers of mojitos.  By the time the bill came, we were all full and satified.  Unfortunately, the bill was unsettling.  One item said “Pitcher 29,500 UGX,” while another said “Pitcher 59,500 UGX” (about $10 and $20 respectively).  AH!  I usually spend 60,000 UGX on food for week, and here the bill was claiming that price for a pitcher of drinks!  Apparently, the half off deal was only a 5-7 pm business!  Mary was so exhaserbated that she started pounding on the table and saying, “That’s not fair!  You didn’t tell us!”  As unfair as it seemed, we still had to pay the bill. 

Despite our misfortunate, we frolicked down the road in good spirits with the prospects of bowling.  I was shocked to discovery that real bowling even existed in Uganda, let alone as cheap as 8,000 UGX per game (about $1.50).  When we arrived, they were closing!  Another group of Americans tried to warn me that bowling wasn’t even an option.  I said, “We’ll see.”  Apparently I’ve gotten pretty good at sweet-talking my way into things because five minutes later we were bowling!  The computers used the same systems we have at home with the funny graphics for strikes and gutter balls.  I saw the gutter ball animation way more often than the strike on, to say the least.  After 10 frames, here were the results: Caroline-52, Chelsea-55, Alex-55, Mary-123.  I swear I didn’t used to be so terrible, but at least I had company.  Mary’s mastery came out of left field and put us all to shame!

This week, I attended a Mid-Service Training in Mityana with my training class.  It marked our completion of one-year of service!  We celebrated our successes, talked about our challenges for hours and shared some of our strategies for overcoming them.  We had the opportunity to show our last one-year through silly drawings on flip chart paper.  Even though it was a goofy exercise, once I finished, I couldn’t believe how much has happened in the last year.  Moreover, I can’t believe how much more I have planned for the upcoming year.  It was oddly satisfying and overwhelming at the same time! It was the shortest Peace Corps training yet, so it felt strange yesterday saying good-bye to everyone again.

Caroline eating street hot dog.... I think it made us both very ill

Party hats!

Caroline's granny roll... this might explain our poor performances