day 5

welcome to jinja main:



today is sunday - the day of rest. I slept 12 hours and walked into jinja main to go to the internet cafe, flavours, which is where i am now.

yesterday was my first day of Suubi, and it was crazy but good. my job was to make sure the clasps work, and it was pretty easy and went well.

we also did acholi dancing yesterday both before and after suubi so maybe a good solid 3 or 4 hours of dancing like chickens, shaking our hips, and moving our feet ridiculously fast. I only watched the first time, but tried the dances the second time in the far back. It's like the whole village is surrounding the dancers, all of Danita watching and laughing as we muzungu (white people) people try to dance. One woman came and pulled me to the very front by the drums and gourds and made me do the butt shake from side to side. we definitely caught it on video and the women were hysterical. jaja margaret, or just jaja as we call her (jaja means grandmother) ran up and hugged me. She speaks very little english but probably one of the most expressive women out of the bunch, and most outspoken.

Our feet by the end of the day, kicking up all of the dirt, were red black from the ground. we were absolutely disgusting and all showered immediately when we got home.

although probably the best part of the day was getting home. Our van likes to hoot its horn randomly and was full on honking in varying decibels half of the way home. everyone was pointing, staring, laughing and shaking their heads at us. Crazy Muzungoos!

Betty surprised us with dinner when we got home, which was fantastic, my favorite part was the mashed matoke, and eggplant. I'm probably in love with the eggplant here. who knew i liked it so much.

OH speaking of food. omg, people set up stands all down main street and make rolex - which is probably the best thing ever. They're only 800 shillings (about 90 cents) and what they do is fry up egg and vegetables (generally cabbage, tomato, onion, & carrot, which if you have vegetables like avacado on you they will add it) and put it on top of this fried flat bread stuff - i do not remember the name of them right now - and then roll it up. they're great. they're cheap. they're fattening. they're the mcdonalds of uganda.

day 4

So I thought I would tell you what my time here looks like in a more concrete way. We just got out of community breakfast and week planning, and so here goes my calender:

Sunday – day of rest. We do absolutely no work related thing. Generally people go to the pool or to the nile, but I will be spending all of tomorrow doing schoolwork and laying in my hammock.

Monday – we are going to the market at 10am to find trunks to lock up belongings since we are hiring a new cleaning lady since betty will be in school full time starting in march or april for three months. There have been many incidences of people stealing, even people we trusted and that betty trusted. After that we’re going to walukuba (a neighboring village) from 11-2:30 to visit some suubi women and so I can get to know walukuba better. At 3 is necklace/beading class, where we teach the women the new product lines.

Tuesday – going with Andrea to see the Epoh tailors and meet them. Then we are off to see Zora, a suubi woman on our way to masese, to help with child feeding with renee. Then we hope to be moving the Epoh’s office.

Wednesday – We are going to Soweta at 11, which is an extremely poor village where some suubi women live. Their housing = huts, whereas most of the women have at least cement foundations. Then we are going to see / pick up Dorine. She is 20, and very intelligent. She was hit by a military vehicle when she was running from an LRA attack, which left her paralyzed when she was 9. We will be taking Dorine to English class with us at 3. That evening is volunteer bonding time where we have a movie night and make it a point not to do work.

Thursday – we are going to visit Getu, who lives in Babu. Then Christine has welcomed us over for chicken lunch (which is a big deal because meat is expensive) then we have community dinner with eachother and talk about goals and accomplishments.

Friday – Breakfast club in the morning. We take breakfast to a village of some of the suubi women, to have community time with them and promote community of the suubi women within their villages. The villages are on a cycle rotation, so we don’t go to the same women every week in a row. At 5pm are varnishing a desk at the tailors.

Saturday – meeting at 11 to discuss the next week. Acholi dance is from 1-3, and then Suubi at 3. Suubi is when the women bring the necklaces they made that week, and we inspect them, and then pay them. Which is a great day.


Any free time we have we either spend trying to get items we need, building and establishing new programs such as budgeting class and healthcare class, which we hope to be starting soon which is so great. Luo literacy class should be beginning again on Tuesdays. Everything is pretty not structured for the most part. Besides Suubi on Saturday, and English class on Wednesday, nothing else is really too set in stone. I’m highly excited for the future plans and all of the freedom for work. This is probably the best work environment ever. I know it’s only the first week but I feel as though I could stay forever, if I had a real job. It’s just so affirming to know that the work environment I want to work in the rest of my life is now tangible, and more than possible. Yay for the future!

day 2

I’ve slept 11 hours since Monday morning and I have cried 4 times

So today I woke up at 2am, and then waited for the household to awaken, and in the meantime I listened to the rooster crowing, doing school work, and listening to some music.

Brendan and I finally got to talk this morning. I cried like a baby. Just the sound of his voice overwhelmed me. But I feel much better now having spoken to him since Monday. I made my first batch of French press Ugandan coffee, and had one of the best mugs of hot tea I’ve ever had. Betty made it for us the night before and put it in the thermos, and it was still steaming hot this morning. All I know is that it has ginger and a mess load of sugar in it, but it’s SO good.

Then we went to walukabu, which is a village outside of jinja made up of blocks of homes. I hear it’s the biggest estate in east Africa, so says Emily. Emily is one of the Suubi women. Suubi means hope, and we call the section of LGH’s bead crafters Suubi. It’s like a sub category. And everything that has to do with the bag making is called Epoh, which is just hope spelled backwards.

So anyways, as a volunteer I make house visits to the 93 Suubi women, in their different villages. We take botas generally out to their homes and just join them in whatever they are doing. Most of the women will make you food, and you will just talk for hours and help them with chores.

Emily is an older woman, who is feisty, bold, and speaks really clear English. She is married to an old man named Stanley, who is white and from London. Picture your 80-something year old grandfather and that’s him. They married just a few years ago. Bear – you would have called him a creeper and would want to investigate him. It was an odd visit. They played abba music videos and we had smoothies made from yogurt and bananas (which I didn’t like – mainly because they were warm – but Marayah loved them). Emily and Stanley’s house is nicer than ours, which is extremely not the case for any of the other women. On a last note about Stanley – his fly was open the entire time we were visiting. That is all.

We went to see Mama Santa after that which was my favorite moment ever so far. We sat out on a straw mat under jackfruit trees for a few hours where I helped sort her beads, and even got to roll my first acholi bead! I also had my first Jackfruit, which was good, very sticky, very sweet and reminded me of flour. Don’t ask. All I know is that the suckers are huge, and hang awkwardly on trees. I secretly wished one would fall off the tree and kill a chicken, but that never happened. Just so you know Allison, I asked Santa if she had ever seen a jackfruit fall on someone and she said never. It would be a super funny thing to see.

Best meal yet – mama santa came out with hot cubed matooke (type of plantain) in g-nut sauce. Which the sauce is made from peanuts but doesn’t takes like peanuts at all. They put red onions and seasonings in it. It was love at first bite. I don’t even know why. I also was gifted my first necklace from Jiji Margaret, Santa’s mother-in-law and fellow Suubi worker.

We then took a bota back towards jinja to a hospital where a 3 year old daughter of a former Suubi worker was having a blood transfusion. Her name is maria and she has sickle cell anemia. Poor thing just wanted people to stop messing with her IVs (her fluids weren’t flowing fast enough so they had to stimulate the veins by rubbing her forearm).

From there we jumped in a van with 4 Americans, one of which is permanent in Jinja, is 23, and takes in sick children. She feeds hungry children Tuesdays and Thursdays and people frequently drop of sick babies and children at her house, where she works them into better health. She doesn’t have any formal medical training, but has been self-taught and seems pretty legit. I mean, no one else is going to care for them, so why not give it a go?

We went to the market - which was fantastically chaotic and full of bartering and yelling. I can’t wait to go back and get some more good produce and beans and rice. Around here, people try to charge white people double, triple, or more than what they would charge a Ugandan. So it’s like a game. You gotta be smart and confident. I’m learning my conversion rate pretty well, and I can’t wait to go back. It’s kind of a guilty pleasure. All these years of bargaining and bartering on yard sale, thrift, and salvages put into the mega champion prize cup, which is also called day to day life at the Ugandan market.

Tonight was community dinner & food was great. And I got to start making some jewelry of my own from rejected beads and scraps, which was real fun. I’m wickedly tired and really hope I can sleep all the way through the night.

overall, an impressive second day and first fill day in jinja

day 1

Flower outside of my window =]



This is the room I stayed in at the hotel/inn

I woke up (and when I say woke up – I mean I was up since 4:30 am and the dawn finally broke) this morning to the sound of hundreds, even thousands of birds. You would have enjoyed it mom. The weather outside the house is wonderful. It is cool like water and feels good on my skin. It is warm in the rooms – muggy if you will. And the flowers, there are so many of them, of all different kinds. The house is very nice – it feels way nicer than our homes in the states. Everything is made out of sturdy, beautiful materials. Our homes feel so fake, with hollow doors and linoleum flooring. But here – everything is thick solid wood, cool smooth tile, and rod iron. It feels nice. It feels peaceful. However, I am anxious for breakfast, and for Marayah to get here.

welcome to yooganndah

this was my first ride in uganda. LGH's van is the almost same one - only shabbier =] we don't like to wash ours. which is find with me

So tonight is my first official night in Uganda. I’m staying at the Airport Guest House. My thoughts getting off the plane were, first – it’s humid, and second - Uganda smells real good. But as I continue on, I realize it smells like Haiti, but not as near as bad as Haiti. I was surprised to find that they drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the “passenger” side. But then I realize that I’m retarded, I mean, why wouldn’t they?! They were colonized by Britain. I just hadn’t thought of it.

I totally love their vehicles though – bear I immediately thought of you. They got some LEGIT rides. Don’t worry I’ll bring you back one.

Turns out my bug spray completely busted – so I had the joy of washing a good section of my stuff out when I got to my room. I also showered without a shower curtain, which was kind of fun. It was just kind of like – hello bathroom! I can seeeeee youuuuuuuu. I am also sleeping under a full mosquito netting on a bed that’s definitiely not a full, but not just small enough to be a twin. I would say it’s a good cuddling bed.

I’m feeling a little lonely tonight. Probably because it’s my first night not sharing a bed in an outrageously long time, but I think it’s more because the driver said there was wireless internet, and when I got here – the modem was down. I kinda got my hopes up =[ I will learn quickly not to do that.

That’s all for now, I’m beat, which is great because I’m already right on track with the time zone here. It’s midnight and I’m going to bed. Although I must remind myself to tell you about the chaplain and the old man. Separate stories – but both mind-blowing and when I say mind-blowing I mean that from an anthropologist’s perspective, you’ll enjoy it tricia.

Much love family. You’re in my heart.

is this even real?

i'm not even on malaria meds yet, and i'm already having crazy dreams. haha
->for those of you who have taken some bad malaria meds, you understand completely.

last night i had a dream about my flight leaving for Uganda in 1 hour and I hadn't even started packing. It was terrible. i kept waking up with my arms flailing and then would immediately slip back into my dream right where i left off. it was torturous.

but the list making has officially begun and i have a designated "packing pile" in the living room. I have only a few more things to pick up and i'll be pretty set to go.

I'll be leaving Monday, Jan 25th at 8:30 p.m. and arriving into Entebbe, Uganda on Tuesday at 10 p.m, where i will then stay in a airport "guest house" which is basically a hotel with continental breakfast and then one of the LGH workers will arrive to come get me wednesday morning to take me to Jinja. It's a 2 hour trip and we'll spend the day learning the town.

I'm nervous, I'm excited, and overall looking forward to the journey. oh, and i found out today that i can go running and that i can text message from uganda for real cheap from an international phone. YAY!

thats all for now!