High Fidelity: Ugandan Edition

I don't know if any of you have had the pleasure of reading the book or watching the movie High Fidelity.  If you haven't, I would seriously recommend it.  I actually read the book years ago, and I'm not one to reread books, but alas, I did, and I fell in love with it all over again.  I couldn't exactly figure out what I liked about the book anyway.  The main character is pretty pathetic and not exactly the nicest guy in the world.  I finally figured it out though: he' a listomaniac, just like me.  What more could I ask for?!  Throughout the book, Rob incessantly makes "Top Five..." lists, so here's my top fives for all different kinds of things in Uganda and about my life in Peace Corps.  Note: the lists aren't necessarily in order, so number one isn't more special than number five).

Top Five Foods (that I make for myself)
1. Oatmeal with Peanut Butter
2. Popcorn
3. Tuna stir fry
4. Tortillas
5. Banana Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Top Five Things I do at site to feel good
1. Wash clothes
2. Run
3. Mop my floors
4. Yoga
5. Bathe

Top Five Hardest Things about Site
1. Pests (rats, maggots, spiders, cockroaches, mosquitoes, you get the picture.)
2. Loneliness and isolation
3. Lack of direction
4. Chores
5. Guilt

Top Five Moments at Site
1. Teaching fifth graders how to play hangman, and them actually enjoying it.
2. Passing a school recently, and having fourth graders shouting "Madam Chelsea, you come and you teach!"
3. Baking pineapple upside down cakes with my landlady's family.
4. Making friendship bracelets with the neighborhood girls.
5. The first time I realized all the women at the market know me by name.

Top Five Goals for the next few months
1. Visit all of my schools in my catchment area.  There are 12 government schools, and so far I've visited five.
2. Teach library hour to my center school's upper primary classes.
3. Choose three other schools to focus my work on and develop a work schedule around visiting them.
4. Work on developing the resource room at my school.
5. Paint my house.

Top Five Things I'm most grateful for
1. My support network at home.  They're the ones that have to deal with me after all.  That being said, I guess I should be grateful for having good phone service in my house too.
2. My landlady's family and all the love and guidance they've given me.
3. My wonderful PCV neighbors that don't mind hearing me vent about the same thing over and over again.  Plus, enjoy indulging in the same things, like popcorn.
4. The headteacher at my center school being so welcoming and willing to work with me in any way.
5. Easy transport Mbale so I can get my peanut butter and internet fix.

Top Five Words or Phrases I've picked up and can't drop (even when talking to Americans)
1. Trousers - American equivalent of "pants"
2. Chips - American equivalent of "french fries"
3. To pick - American equivalent of "to understand" (ie, "have you picked me?" means "are you getting me?")
4. Sir/Madam - I think you know what this one is.
5. Demands just general are the way to get things done.  Like "You come, and we go" or "You take now."  I may forget what please even means.

Top Five Things I wish I knew
1. Worrying about packing is such a waste of time.
2. You won't walk miles with your luggage, so take the 80 lbs and get over it.
3. Yes, you can find things here.  You're not going to the moon, so bringing two bottles of shampoo is a waste.
4. Men lose weight, women gain weight while in service.  It's a fact.
5. At least in the beginning, the work is slow... very very slow.

Top Five Things I'm happy I brought
1. My kitchen knives 
2. My iPod
3. My running shoes
4. My laptop
5. My travel quick dry towel

Top Five Songs I've been listening to
1. "What's My Name" by Rhianna
2. "Bird Song" by Florence and the Machine
3. "The Cave" by Mumford and Sons
4. "Let Go" by Frou Frou
5. "Animal" by Miike Snow
(alright, maybe my music needs to be updated.  I can just feel Jessica or Grant cringing when they read this list.  Of course, I would very much appreciate any CDs with new music!  Shameless plug, I know). 

Top Five Things I miss from home
1. Family, boyfriend, friends
2. The grocery store
3. The gym
4. Being in control
5. Privacy 

I encourage you to make top five lists for yourself if you've enjoyed mine!  Feel free to post them here.

Myth Busters

Unlike the experts on the TV show "Myth Busters" that always seems to suck me in whenever I find it on, my myth busting isn't exactly as glamerous, and I don't have nearly as many cool gadgets; however, I do feel like I'm making some kind of difference, even if it's only a few people at a time.  Myths seems to prevail here about America, and some of them are so outlandish, it's hard to believe that people accept them as truth.  Other myths could have serious health implications.  On the other hand, I know that there are lots of myths about life in Africa, which I'll have to shed some light on when I come home.  It'll be impossible for me to right the wrong of all the myths here, but I'm doing my best, whether that's through answering questions in the classroom or just having casual conversations with my neighbors.

Below, I've included some of the myths that I've encountered so far.  Just remember, there's no easy access to google here.  So, when someone claims to be an expert on something, people just take it at face value.

• Americans usually marry their brothers and sisters. No, that's illegal in America.
• If a Ugandan moves to America, their skin will turn white.  Skin pigments took 10,000 years to evolve, so it'll be a while before that happens.
• As I was introduced to a school, a colleague asked the pupils to guess which country I must be from because only white people live in America.  We have people of every nationality living in America.
• Americans can only have one child, so if we have more, we either kill them or give them away.  No, there is no limit to the number of children people can have in America.  Most people use family planning to have small, managable families.
• Family planning pills cause horrible side effects that never go away, so people don't use them.  This is still one I need to do some research on, but I'm wondering if medical professionals here don't tell women to expect unpleasant side effects the first three months, therefore they don't continue.
• Immunizations are the government's method to reduce fertility.  From my understanding, that's not true.  Uganda has a very awesome program, in which they offer free child immunizations, but some mothers don't take advantage because they don't trust them.  Sound familiar to the autism fear that is occuring in America?
• Poverty doesn't exist in America.  Not true.  You can see poverty in every major American city, but the face of poverty looks different than here.  Here, the family ties and responsibilities are so strong, if you've hit a rough patch, it's unlikely you would unable to find a relative to take you in for a while; however, in America, you're on your own.
• There is no space for farms in America.  Ever driven through Kansas before?  Lots of space.
• In America, we design a contract with our fiance for exactly how many years we want to be married.  Nope, it's still 'til death do we part.  We just tend to part a lot earlier than that, about 50% of the time.
• Posho (cornmeal bread) will make you stronger.  I honestly think it's all the water I have to fetch that's making me stronger, but we can agree to disagree about this one.

I'm sure there are others I haven't discovered yet, but hopefully I'll be able to find the right answers and the right way to confront them.  I don't think Myth Busters will contact me any time soon, but if they do, I'll let you know when the episode airs.

True Life: I'm a Hoarder

Alright, so maybe I am being just a little dramatic.  I seriously hope I wouldn't qualify for that terrifying show where people are hoarding something like 100 cats in a studio apartment.  Well, I wouldn't qualify yet at least.  It does sound really silly, but I feel like I am saving everything for a "rainy day."  Funny, it rains almost every day.  And yet, I still don't use so many things I've brought, I've bought or I've been sent!  I have clothes that managed to stay in storage all during training and still look so shiny and new.  So, I just say I'm waiting for a day that I really want to look good or for whatever special occasion I think I'll be going to while I'm here.  My family and boyfriend have been amazing about sending me all kinds of special goodies, treats, clothes, magazines, books, etc.  Yes, I do use some of it, but I also have a gigantic bag of protein bars, drink mixes, instant soups and oatmeal that I just can't bring myself to eat.  Only on really terrible days when I'm missing the states do I bust out something that tastes like home.  Otherwise, whenever I think about how good a Luna bar would be, I always think: Who knows the next time I'll get a package!  And yet, I just picked up six last week.  Yes, other volunteers are jealous and sometimes I feel a little guilty about being taken care of so well.  Even guiltier that I don't use so much of it!  I also hoard, although I guess a better would would be conserve, water like you wouldn't believe.  Fetching water isn't exactly my favorite chore in the whole world, although you should what kind of amazing muscles I've developing.  Not really, but hey I do feel a lot stronger than before.  But, fetching water is always such a process, especially if it's really hot or if there's tons of other people waiting for their jerry cans to be filled up too.  So, I use minimal water to bathe.  Only on special days do I treat myself to maybe eight liters instead of my usual four.  I reuse dishwater, laundry water mops my floors, and whenever I hear just a sprinkling of rain of my tin roof, I run out to position my basins just right so I can collect as much rain water as possible.  As for cooking, basically all the volunteers use a gas cooker, which is connected to a gas tank.  Apparently the gas tank would typically last a volunteer one year before they have to refill it, if they using it wisely.  Well, just how wise do you have to be?!  While I do cook for myself of course, I always try to avoid using too much gas.  Until I found a pressure cooker, I was going to give up trying to cook dry beans because it took over an hour to get them soft enough to chew!  And finally, the last thing I feel like I "hoard" is the charge on all my electronics, except my phone.  Because I don't have power, I can only charge my laptop and iPod at a cafe when I make my weekly trip to Mbale where I stock up on all the wonderful things the supermarkets here have to offer.  Obviously, carrying a laptop can only complicate my trips because then I can't carry as much home.  So, I basically don't use any of my electronics anymore.  Again, only when I've had a terrible day, and I need some immediate comfort do I even think about firing up my lap top to watch an episode of TV.

I don't know why I'm telling you all of this.  It probably makes me sound absolutely insane, even more so than usual.  The funny thing is I didn't even realize this ridiculous behavioral pattern until this week.  Honestly, I think I'm saving a number of these things because I'm still waiting for the real volunteer life to begin.  Honey, this is it.  I am a Peace Corps Volunteer.  Have been for over six weeks now.  I need to stop thinking I should save this for when I really need it.  If it's going to make me more comfortable, I need to just use it!

As for conserving water, I really just need to see it as a mini strength training exercise.  And the gas and power, I'll figure it out eventually.  It's not like I can't refill a gas tank or recharge batteries.

Now, the real question is:  Will the behavior actually change?  Stay tuned.

Job Description

Finally, the school term has started, which means, technically, my job has started too.  Even though the going is still a little slow, I finally feel like I can start to see what my day to day life will begin to look like here.  People keep asking me "So... what do you actually do?"  And honestly, I'm still not quite sure yet, but I'm definitely trying to figure it out.  In the education sector of Peace Corps Uganda, I feel like my position as a CCT is the most fluid, with the least direction, but actually the most potential if you really find your niche.  Well, I'm out looking for my niche nowadays.  As of now, the plan is for me to at least once a week, remain at the center and develop our resource room as best I can.  The resource room should provide teachers with ideas for lessons and teaching materials and inspire them to be creative on their own.  In general, literacy has been identified over and over again as the number one issue children face here.  So many students just don't know how to read or write on their own.  Maybe they can copy what's on the blackboard or read out loud with the entire class, but when it comes to taking a test on their own, they simply can't read or understand the questions they're being asked.  In effort to help the students at my center school and hopefully be an example to other teachers, I've decided to take advantage of their "library hour" to do literacy activities with the older primary school children once a week.  Currently, we don't have a library, so I'm going to need to be innovative in exactly how these activities will be conducted, but I'll figure it out.  If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them!  From there, I'll spend the rest of the week visiting my center's schools, supervising teacher's lessons and providing them with constructive feedback.  I know that not all the teacher's will listen to me, but the hope is that if I could help a teacher improve their teaching, it would affect hundreds if not thousands of students.

While I haven't exactly started on all of this yet, I was finally officially introduced to my center's primary school.  The staff was very excited to meet me, to welcome me to the community and to work with me in the future.  Already, they've asked me lots of questions about America, and seem really eager to share their culture with me too.  Then, I was introduced to the children.  Because only the upper primary students are taught in English, the headteacher gave a lengthly introduction in Lunyole.  When he finally invited me to say my names to the students, he was prepared to translate for me.  Not a chance!  I introduced myself to the large group of 500 students in Lunyole myself!  I even used the conventional Ugandan questioning, which goes something like this: My name is what?  Madam Negesa.  All in Lunyole of course.  Even though the students couldn't stop giggling.  A foreigner speaking Lunyole?  Crazy.  But, I know they really appreciated it.  And the staff was amazed.  Now, I need to learn a few more phrases.  I've mastered "My name is..."

It depends...

Have you ever sat down and thought about just how huge the United States of America actually is?  I mean, think about it.  To drive across the United States, it'll take you about a week.  I guess if you didn't stop, it'd take what?  60 hours?  And that's just the horizontal part.  From top to bottom, it's still a couple days.  Even to fly across the United States, from LA to New York is at least a 6 hour flight, and that's only if you're lucky enough to have a direct one at that.  How many countries can really say that?  Probably just Russia, China and maybe Australia?  Bottom line: the United States is GIGANTIC!  And, not only is it physically huge, and not only do we have a lot of people living there, but we are a country that supports and encourages a lot of diversity.  So, trying to make generalizations about Americans can be tricky.

Of course, somewhere, in the back of mind, I did know all of this before coming to Uganda; however, it becomes more and more apparent every day that I live here.  Everyone is constantly asking me questions about life in America: what do people do, what do people eat, what's the weather like, do you have this or do you have that, when do you get married, what are schools like, etc etc.  More often than not, my answer is always: Uh, well, it depends.  And, interestingly enough, when there are a group of us PCVs being asked these questions, we usually have very different answers.  The only few straight answers I can give people, that we all can agree on, is: no, we don't have matooke and basically everyone speaks English as their native language, but even that one isn't quite true.  Beyond that, all my answers really depend on what part of the United States you're from, how you grew up, where you're from originally, what religion you are, etc.  I'm supposed to be sharing American culture with Ugandans, and so far, the best I can do is just say, well, it depends?

Yesterday, one of the teachers actually called me out on it.  He said he wanted a definite answer, not something wishy washy.  I finally realized that I needed to explain just how big America is, how different we all are and how individuality is something that we value.  He was couldn't believe how physically big America is!  I think the biggest shock factor I could give him is that Uganda is the size of one of our states (Oregon), and we have 50 states.

So, from now on, I think my main goal in explaining American culture is trying to drive home the point of how diverse we really are, and how the American ideal is the acceptance of everyone no matter what.  I know that's not always the case, but it's what we strive for.  And, we do celebrate diversity, which I think is one of the best things about being American.  Just one small example: when I was in elementary school, we celebrated Hannakah, Christmas, Chinese New Year's, St. Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo, and so on.  You have to admit, it's pretty amazing how much we value all the different cultures that make up the United States of America.  This core American value is definitely something I've come to appreciate since coming here.

As for me and my well-being, things are going good.  Believe it or not, I've been at site now for one month, and in country for almost 100 days.  Next week, the school term starts, and real work will actually begin.  I'm still not exactly sure what that will entail, but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless.

Home Sweet Home?

For anyone keeping track, I've been at site for a little over three weeks.  It may not be surprising to you, but it is to me, I'm still working hard on my home feeling like, well, home.  For whatever reason, I thought my "settling in" period may have been a week or two, and then at least my home would feel like mine.  Well, that's not quite the case.  As of yesterday, my beloved window was completed, which means I can finally use that front room without feeling on display to the entire community.  Once I finally mop up all the dust left behind from busting out the wall, I'll definitely feel a little better because I'll finally be able to sit on my sofas and eat at my kitchen table.  Even after being in country for well over three months, I'm still living out of a suitcase, which is slowly driving me crazy.  Especially because I'll labor for hours to do all my laundry by hand, only to have all my hard work end up crumpled on the floor.  Thankfully, my carpenter just finished my wardrobe this morning!  I'll have to wait for the varnish to dry before I can use it, but at least I can see my life finally becoming organized in the near future.  I've got lots of other little things that are going to help me feel more settled in, which include but are not limited to: curtains, sofa covers, hooks to hang towels, figuring out how to store my food, etc.  Eventually, it'll all get done.  I just need to remind myself of the Peace Corps saying "Hurry up and wait" because patience is a survival skill here.

Besides trying to set up my house, I really haven't been up to much yet.  I did attend the workshop for CCTs last week, and here's what I learned.
1. One of the biggest challenges faced by Ugandan government schools right now is teachers and headteachers not coming to school, and time spent on task.
2. Some parents don't want their children to go to school because they want them to stay at home to work.
3. Making child friendly schools is one of the Ugandan government's big goals right now.  A child friendly school is somewhere that children want to be and where they feel safe, especially from corporal punishment.
4. Our counterparts seem excited to work on programs involving literacy and life skills.

Outside of sessions, I learned a few useful skills:
1. It's easy to peel a mango with your teeth.  No knife needed!  Toothpicks or floss are a must though.
2. "White ants" are really female termites that fly at night sometimes.  I learned how to harvest them.  You just need to stop caring about all the little critters crawling on you.  Then you sundry them, fry with some oil and salt, enjoy!
3. It's not common to see scorpions, and yes, you should be scared and kill them immediately.

Just an administrative note: I have changed the manner in which you post comments on my blog.  You must be a registered google user and I have to approve them before they are published.  Happy commenting.

Mail Time

As of today, I have a new, permanent PO box!  It can't be any more official that I live in Uganda now.  I have updated all the other pages that had the address, but I'll list it below anyway:

Chelsea Roberts, PCV
PO Box 1189
Mbale, Uganda

Of course, I'd love to receive letters and packages if you're so inclined to do so.  Thanks for everyone that did send me things during training!  If I haven't received them yet, I'm going to inform the Peace Corps office to forward them to my address here.  For future reference, just remember to look at my "Wish List" page that has mailing instructions.  I don't want you to waste any money or time because you didn't follow directions.

It's going to be a short post, but I'm on my way to a teacher's workshop!  Hopefully, I'll be able to update you all soon about how the workshop went, and how my village life is coming along.