Deja Vu

We leave early in the morning for Kampala. We buy snacks for conference. The chocolate yogurt was warm by the time I ate it and tasted weird. I threw it away and Jeff and I starting eating our generic Pringles, which turned out to be nothing like Pringles at all but more like those rice cake health snakes. We’re disgusted. We catch three boda bodas to Kololo and I feel even more in a gang because these are actual motorcycles. After walking everywhere, it’s really fun to be on a motorcycle.

We sit down in church and get ready for the broadcast. And we see President Faust. Was it just a rumor that he had died? Then with the first speaker we realize that this is the conference from six months ago. We are so confused. We follow along with the Ensign we’ve been reading all week.

We asked and found out that because Kololo doesn’t have satellite, and for every stake that doesn’t around the world, they watch the last General Conference. They said eventually they’ll get a satellite. I ask what will do for the conference they will have missed if they start getting current ones and the missionary suggests they’ll have a makeup day or something. Ha.

Marvin is here. Did I write about him? He’s the kid who saw Meghan and I swing dancing and wants lessons because he’s supposedly in some music and dance group. I tell him we can’t since Meghan isn’t here.

I meet Madeline. She is has a Masters in Art Therapy. SVA offers this and I thought about going to school for this for just a while. She is with a group of people from the Chicago Institute of Art.

After the meeting we go to Kampala and get a person pizza. It is so so good and I wish I was eating it right now. The dough was fresh. It was a cheese pizza with tomato, green olives, and feta cheese. Madeline is friends with a Ugandan man named Simon and he’s come to eat with us. His English is very good. He is a teacher at school. We get into a conversation about caning and it’s pretty surprising how he defends the practice.

“Africans are stubborn. They will not learn any other way.” He talks about how when he was in school they would take tests and for every question you got wrong you were caned. I ask him if he was familiar with learning disabilities. Three Americans vs. a Ugandan on the ethics of corporal punishment.

He also said that if you do not beat your wife, you do not love her. He says if you don’t beat your wife, then she asks why you don’t love her. We told him how ridiculous that sounds. He seems to be such a rational person otherwise.

We decide to go to Mukono instead of staying in Kampala for the night. It will be about 30,000 sh cheaper. We check into the hotel that is the floor above where I use the internet. The room is nice sized with a bathroom! And a showerhead by the toilet. No hot water, but it didn’t matter because I didn’t end up taking a shower. I hang up my mosquito net, talk to my mom on the phone, and go into town to look for real Pringles.

Pringles are the only snack food that you can get here that’s familiar. I think the reason they’re so popular is their packaging allows them to be imported without crunching all the chips. I go to four stores looking for bbq and settle with cheezums. True story.

Stay In School, Kids!

Rebecca, Kelley and I visit a hospital. One of the nurses shows us around. She has a very tiny nurse hat on top of her head and I ask to take a picture, but she says no. I have one of her in front of us as we follow her through the hospital. Pregnant women everywhere, obviously. We hang up just a few nets and aren’t allowed to hammer in the wall for the others. We tell them how they can buy lumber and make four posts to hang the nets. We get the hospitals promise that they will hang the nets and that the pregnant women can take the nets home with them.

We go into a three-story building that looks just like the one Jeff and I explored yesterday. The stairs slant and there are no outside railings to keep people from falling off the ledge of each floor. Each level of the building has patients on mattresses on the floor. There is a little girl in a Hello Kitty nightgown. She looks like any familiar picture of a hungry African child. Her face is sunken, her arms terribly thin, her belly bulging. With her weak arms she lifts a large cup of porridge to her mouth. I smile when she looks at me, “Oli otya?” (How are you?)

She whispers, “Gendi.” (I’m fine, or, I’m here.)

I ask the nurse on the way out if she will be alright. The nurse says the girl has a liver problem. I’m comforted that she had three family members around her who I can tell love her, but I’m still upset.

We are going to visit one of the Volset volunteers for lunch. She is the headmistress of Nakaseke Parents Primary School. The walk is long. We pass a mansion belonging to the owner of the college across the road from him. It is a two-story, bright orange house with white trim. I take a picture and Rebecca laughs

We meet up with Jeff, Geoffrey and the Headmistress on the way to the school. When we arrive she shows us around her school. As soon as some of the kids see us from their seats in the classroom they erupt in screaming and cheering.

The school has a program for new mothers. They meet and talk about nutrition and health care. Some of them live at the school. Kelley and I hang nets in one of the dorms on the beds of students with HIV.

The Headmistress really wants us to address her school. We can tell it’s important to her, and she has already assembled the 400+ students into the main building. We walk in and they are completely quiet. There are chairs for us in the front. The headmistress says, “Good Afternoon.” to the children, who immediately stand and in unison answer her greeting.

“Good Afternoon, Headmistress. How are you?”

“I am well, and how are you?”

“We are well, thank you.” They sit down in unison and smile in our direction.

“How many of you want to be friends with these Americans?”

The rush of their hands going into the air is audible.

We each get a turn to address the students. We keep the comments very brief. Jeff says, “Stay in School, kids!” haha. Kelley and I follow his lead. I tell them that getting an education is one of the most important things they will ever do. I tell them I am so impressed with them already and hope they continue all the way through S6. “Your life will be so much better with an education than it could possibly be otherwise.”

The headmistress translates of American English into Ugandan English for the children in case they haven’t understood us.

After lunch, Kelley and I head off to the Nakaseke Primary and Secondary schools to take pictures of the sponsored Volset students and get thank you letters for their sponsors. The Headmistress (is it obvious by now that I have forgotten her name?) pays three boda bodas to take Kelley, Geoffrey and I to the schools.

I start laughing on the ride to the schools because I feel like I’m in a scooter gang.

When we get back to the house Kelley goes to the trading center to get her hair washed and conditioned. Jeff and I sit in the house reading. Kelley gets back and has a towel over her head. The beauty salon told her to let the conditioner sit and come back in 30 minutes.

Jeff and I go to get a rolex. I miss the ones in Ntenjeru – these aren’t as juicy. We hear some commotion and go the side of that building we explored. There is a group with some speakers, a keyboard and microphones. They are singing and doing skits about HIV. They want to encourage people with HIV to come to their hospital to get treatment.

All the kids in the village are right up front dancing away to the songs like it’s their job. I laughed so hard. I felt bad at some points of the performance because a quarter of the audience was facing the opposite direction, staring and the three muzungus.

Omwana Asula Wa?

I wake up and go into the living room. It has two upholstered chairs, a small coffee table and a bench. Rebecca is there. She has brought eggs and Gapati for breakfast with fresh milk from a cow. It has been boiled and is hot in the thermos. I add it to my Soya and it is wonderful. (except for some floatees.. like the skin of cooled soup.)

Have I described hanging mosquito nets? Jeff goes with Rebecca. Kelly and I go with an L.C., Godfrey. L.C. stands for “Local Council,” elected officials that act as sort of mayors of the villages. We split up to cover more ground so we can meet our goal of 100 nets in two days.

Godfrey takes us around to different houses with pregnant woman and families with young children, and some suffering from HIV - the most vulnerable to the harmful effects of Malaria. We first want pregnant women, because Malaria in pregnant mothers can cause birth defects in the baby.

Godfrey doesn’t understand much English. He takes us to an old woman who must be nearly 100 years old. As we follow this woman to her house Kelley asks, “Godfrey, does she have HIV?” He says no.

“Is she pregnant?” I ask, although it’s a ridiculous question. We explain to him again that we first want to provide all the pregnant woman in the village with nets and then after them we can give to the others in need. It is sad that we have to look at it this way, but we don’t have enough nets to give to everyone and we want to help those most at risk.

We are happy to give this woman a net though, because after seeing her home we realize that is she got Malaria, she probably couldn’t afford the medication to treat it.

One house we went to already had nests. We are confused why the think they need another one. Another house has a net, but it is filthy and has holes in it that they’ve tried to patch. We are glad to give them a net because we know that they will actually use it.

Some houses are mud and sticks, some are concrete. Sometimes we have to nail into the walls. Usually the concrete is soft and is easy, today it seems to be difficult. We use a “jinja” (rock) to hammer them in.

Godfrey is understanding now and taking us to the right houses. He teaches us to say, “Omwana asula wa?” (the baby sleeps where?) We always make sure we’re putting the nets over beds the babies sleep in. Now we hang nets over the parents’ bed as well as the kids’ because we don’t know if when we leave the parents move the net over to their own beds.. who knows.

At one house we go to, or sort of block of houses, we put up a net over the bed of a woman with HIV and a pregnant woman who is “deaf and dumb” – as they say in Uganda. Though this woman was not dumb. She had her own sign language and the L.C. seemed to know some of it. I used some basic universal signs from ASL – like tracing the outline of a house with your hands. She kneels on the ground and takes our hands laughing and thanking us. She is a very happy woman.

We meet back up for lunch and stick together to hand out the remaining nets. Geoffrey comes with us. He helped with construction of the school when the Irish were here. We give him a net as well because his wife is pregnant. (we were half way through putting it up when he let us know this woman was his wife. We thought it was another villager he took us to.)

We finally finish around 5 o’ clock. We’re exhausted. We get so much sleep and work a few hours and get so tired. I don’t know if it’s the sun and our position, so close to the equator or if it’s the doxycycline I take for Malaria prevention. My Florida pride says it isn’t the sun.. but maybe I’m wrong.

We go to the trading center and walk around. There is a three-story building that is deserted. The entire wall on the backside has fallen and the insides are exposed. There is a painting on the wall of the first floor. A mural of some California town. Palm tress and water. A big diner on top of a hill. The wall is dirty and paint slightly faded.

It looks like those building you see in WWII photos of cities where there was fighting or bombs. Jeff and I climb the concrete steps, which slope towards the opening. We explore the second story, going into rooms and carefully walking towards the edge. Birds are the only tenants here and swoop in and out of the room into nets they've built in the corners and doorways. One grazes Jeff's arm as it swoops into the room we just left.

It is eerie and shortly we decide to leave, feeling like we’re going to somehow fall or get sucked out of the opening.

We later learn that the construction workers were supposed to put concrete columns on all sides of the building but put in fake ones on the back. When the building was falling the owner’s wife was running back and forth rescuing children and the building crushed her to death.

100,450sh

Wake up. Put the clothes on the line in the back to the one in the front to get some sun. Eat breakfast and talk to the nurses. We’re going to Nakaseke today. We’re staying until Saturday morning and then going to Kololo for General Conference. I guess last week they had it in the States and we’re watching it this weekend.

We get to Kampala on the way to Nakaseke and eat a Western restaurant. Wacky Wednesday hamburgers. Delicious.

After lunch, I stop at the place where I exchanged my money exactly a month ago. I have my receipt and decide it won’t hurt to see what can be done about the 100,450 sh that wasn’t given to me.

I get out my notebook and turn to the page that I wrote all the numbers down exactly a month ago when I figured out what had happened. I sat down and explained what happened – how I was suppose to receive 783,000sh but really only got 682,550.

I don’t know if this is the same woman I spoke with a month ago. This time there is a moan behind the glass with her. “That is why I gave you a receipt,” she says, “so you could count the money.”

“I realize I should have counted, but there was so much money that I put it in my bag right away, trusting you that it was the right amount. I live far away and was in my small village when I realized what had happened. This is the first chance I’ve had to come back here.”

“Do you have the money now?” She asks.

“No, I had to pay the place where I stay and have such little left over now.”

She talks in Luganda to the man for a bit – I know there’s no reason I should expect anything. She looks on the receipt and punches 783,000 into the calculator and asks how much I counted when I got home. I tell her and she subtracts from the calculator. As she hits enter I say, “That’s 100,450sh.”

She talks to the man just a bit more and takes out two 50,000 bills and a 500sh coin and slides it under the slot!

I’m disoriented for a second and fumble with my notebook. I thought at best she might give me half and her is the whole thing – in face 50sh more! I try not to look too happy and suppress laughing. I tell her she doesn’t know how much this means. I thank her and tell her I’ll come back here and tell everyone to go here as well. She just raises her eyebrows (a way Ugandans say “yes”).

I go to the sitting area and show Jeff and Kelley. They’re speechless for a second. “That never happens.” We wait to get outside before we really freak out. I feel weak. It’s only $58, but I need it. I can’t believe I would be taken at my word when they would be justified in telling me I had no proof.

Jeff and Kelley can’t believe it. “First your luggage and now this? Did you pray about it, cause we didn’t. We never thought you’d have a chance.”

I just smiled as we walked through traffic to get to the shop where Jeff buys the nets.

“My grandparents pray for me everyday. I think this one is because of them.”

And I smile some more.

(I know more people than my grandparents pray for me and I am so grateful.)

-

Everything goes so smoothly in getting the nets. Each huge bag has 50 nets and weights about 75lbs. one short man puts them both on his head and walks to the taxi park through buildings or “shopping arcades” and our matatu has a rail on top! We get inside right before it starts to rain.

We arrive in Nakaseke trading center and people stare. I help Jeff and the conductor unload the two huge bags from the top of the van. A man meets us to take us to where we are staying. The African’s laugh and are impressed as Jeff and I each take a bag. I carry mine on my head and can’t imagine how that man carried two.

We drop the bags off at the Nakaseke Volset office and go to the house where we will be staying. It has a nice sized living room and dining room, three bedrooms, a bath area, a small kitchen area and a garage. It is not totally finished – no kitchen or latrines outside and no electricity. So the owner has not moved in yet. The ceilings are decorated with large shapes inside each other in plaster. (I forgot to take a photo).

We put up our own mosquito nets and then go to the trading center to relax before our day of work tomorrow. There are three rolex stands. One has a sign that says pizza and we get excited, but they don’t have the ingredients. We go to the guy who has a fancy large umbrella over his stand. He is wearing an apron and has assistants, and a spatula! (instead of a large knife) He even chops up some onion into our eggs – we are so confused.

I say to Jeff as we ate our rolexes across the street (and Kelley eating her two eggs in a plastic bag) staring at the rolex stand, “Maybe he went to business college..”

Dinner is late as usual. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before but Ugandans (or maybe just the Buganda tribe) eat dinner right before they go to bed. 9 – 10 o’ clock at night.

Rebecca, the woman taking care of us from Volset, brings us some hot water and Soya (this coffee substitute made from tropical soy beans, with protein and other vitamins). I bought some last week and didn’t like it – but I realized it was because I was putting way too much in my cup AND that’s news folks!

Fun Times in the Front Yard

Gracie, and every kid in Uganda, is amazingly strong.

Just before this, she picked Kelley up and took her

from the back to the front yard. True.Story.

The miniture version of what the guys play

in the Ntenjeru trading center all day long.

A Sketch Book and 6B Pencil

At lunch Joe asks me about America and if things are easier there. I tell them that people have to work for what they have in America and being a Muzungu doesn’t automatically mean that you have it made. I say, “Just like in Uganda, some people live in Kololo and some people live in Ntenjeru. Some people in the US have a lot of money and some don’t.”

But I explain that school before college is free, and even then there is government aid. I tell him people usually live in much better conditions that most live in here and that schools are more than four brick walls.

He asks me what it takes to get to America and I tell him right away, "I have absolutely no idea.” Maybe it’s a little short. He looks surprised as if I’m lying. “I grew up in the US,” I tell him, “I never had to get in somehow, I was already there. I think you have to have a specific reason for coming that has to be approved – a visa. Other than that I don’t know.”

Joe says, and has been saying, that he is going to give me some of the 15 acres of land that he has inherited from his father. He talks to me about starting an NGO or building a school on that land for disadvantaged youth. I tell him I have no money, but I’ll think about it and may be someday I can do some fundraising. We’ll see.

I go into town and buy a 60-page sketchbook and a 6b pencil. I asked the boys this week if any of them take art. Patrick showed me some drawings. I knew right away what each one was – a jackfruit and a clay stove. He told me that he isn’t taking the class anymore because the teacher told him he needed to have a sketchbook, not loose paper, and specifically a 6b pencil.

I get upset that this would keep a child from having art class – just because his paper is not bound and pencil not the right softness. It’s art class for crying out loud! I talk to Festus and he tells me that the kids understand what supplies they need and it is up to them to get all the necessary materials. I don’t know if Patrick can’t afford the supplies or if he just hasn’t taken the initiative to find them. Either way, these are kids – teenagers with no parents to push them in the right direction. 2000 sh is no skin off my back.

I walk home to Nsumba. I think about taking a boda boda but decide the walk won’t kill me and I’ll save some money. I get to the house just as I realize that it will probably be locked. I am right and have to wait outside.

I sit on the porch and read with my sunglasses on. A car pulls up and I remember we’re getting two new volunteers – retired nurses. The car parks, Festus and Lydia get out. The driver goes around to the back and starts unloading seven suitcases and some water jugs from the trunk. I go over and help the nurses with their groceries and bags.

The nurses are from Canada – Ontario and Nova Scotia. Marilyn and Fran. They are probably in their early or mid 60s. I give them the grand tour and answer questions. I tell them things I wish I knew when I got here. It is fun having new people. They sleep in what will later be the clinic. It’s connected to the girls’ dorm, not the white house. They don’t like that, because at night they will have to walk outside to eat in the living room and they don’t want to be bitten by mosquitoes. I tell them I don’t remember ever being bitten and Marylin says it only takes one.

They settle in and I call Patrick into my room to give him the sketchbook and pencil. He is so happy to get them. I go outside and do some laundry. I have no clean clothes for the trip to Nakaseke tomorrow. I hope they dry in time. I use a brush like the Ugandans do on my denim and then on some of my shirts. I don’t think my blue button up has ever been so clean.

I get pretty wet in the process and go out front to play duck-duck-goose in the sun to dry off. I washed my hat and just put it on my head wet. After duck-goosing it the top of my hat has clay fingerprints all over.

Erin comes over for dinner tonight with another Peace Corp friend, Jessica. She brings NO BAKE COOKIES! They taste just like the ones my mom makes – with some peanut butter. The Peace Corp has a little cookbook they give to volunteers that has familiar recipes from the States, using local ingredients. Great idea.

Marilyn and Fran went to nursing school together and have worked in practically every area in that field. Fran has a yogurt maker at home.

After dinner I go into the study room to tell the kids “Gyebale” (well done). Patrick is there and calls me over to show me the two drawings he has already made in his sketchbook, using an old newspaper for models and design ideas. Just $1.15 can mean a lot to someone.

Are they both men, or is that one a Lady?

I ate two rolexes for lunch. They were delicious.

I charge my laptop in the Volset office and watch some Mighty Boosh. A guy who helps with Volset comes in and watches half of it with me. I try to explain to him that it is suppose to be funny, because he is not laughing. He asks me if Vince is a woman or a man. Hah. It’s the island episode and they are stranded. They build small straw huts for shelter. The volunteer asks me where the show is from. I tell him it’s from England. “Oh, so they build homes like that there too?”