First Two Days

Jambo, loved ones!

I am safely in Uganda. It is amazing, I totally love it! I live in a
small village called Kyabirwa, which is pronounced "Chabirwa."

What to tell you... okay, so my lodgings are at Moses' house in a
cement block structure next to the main house. It is a small room
(but, I still think it is a smidge bigger than Kathy's room in our
apartment in New York!). I have a bed with a foam mattress and a
mosquito net (even though I haven't seen any mosquitoes), a table, a
chair, and a set of shelves. Taking a shower involves taking a bucket
of boiled rainwater out to a open air cement structure in the back
yard and pouring it over my head. This is actually less awful than it
must sound. I brought nice soap and shampoo, so it is all good. The
bathroom is a latrine, which is really a pit in the ground in a mud
hut a bit away from the house. To get there, I need to maneuver around
a large cow, but other than that it totally works.

Moses is incredibly nice, as is his wife Florence. They have eight
children and I adore them, especially the four year old, Daniel. They
are teaching me Lusoga, which is the native dialect. So far my
favorite word is chicken, which is n'koko. I can also say good
morning, how are you, I am fine, good afternoon, and a host of other
important words- like jackfruit. My goal is to learn 1000 words before
I leave, and to be basically conversational in lusoga. Wish me luck.

I adore the school. I will be teaching English (which is really
English as a Second Language) to Primary 5 and Primary 6, which is
basically students who range from 12-16. I'll be standing in for and
tag teaming with their regular teachers. There are about 100 students
per class. I'm working really hard to learn their names. Today we did
prepositions in Primary 6, which necessitated a rousing rendition of
"The Wheels on the Bus." Envision 100 15-16 year olds singing while I
jumped around at the front conducting. It is hard to engage 100
children at a time, but they were into it-- they went to lunch singing
the song and teaching it to other kids. Anyway, I really hope I do a
good job. The expectations for the volunteers are quite low, so I need
to figure out another way of figuring out if I am doing a good job.
The teaching they are used to is mostly rote instruction and copying.
The kids do not know how to answer the question, "Why?" This whole
thing will be quite challenging, I think.

One thing that is interesting is that it gets really dark really early
here, so even if I go out in the afternoon after school (and by "go
out" there are very few places to go... but I mean, to Jinja where I
am now, to use the internet, for example), I have to be home by 7 pm.
Then I am in bed by 9 pm. I am very glad I brought 3 LED lamps with
lots of batteries, and a bunch of books. I am also journaling a lot,
which I love. The roosters start cock-a-doodle-dooing at 5:30 am, but
it isn't light until 7 am, so it makes for some great thinking time as
well.

The food is pretty good so far. Yesterday for lunch we had rice and
beans, and then for dinner I had the best french fries ever with pork.
Today for lunch we had mashed plantains, sweet potato (which is not
orange, but is somehow still different from "Irish potato"), and
cabbage with tomato sauce. The portions are huge. Please don't expect
an emaciated Shannah upon return.

So, my life has pretty much found its rhythm for the next five weeks.
It's all pretty simple. The one aberration will likely be that I will
go on a 3 or 4 day safari to Murchison Falls National Park sometime in
the next few weeks... both to see the waterfall and to see some large
game. I'll keep you posted.

I miss you guys. Pratt, the children were fascinated by pictures of
Speaker on my phone. They had a hard time understanding that in the US
we have dogs as pets... here the dogs are wild, and you don't keep
them as pets. Animals are also not named here (probably because we eat
them). When I asked Florence what the name of the calf was, she looked
at me quizzically and said "calf." Of course.

Lots of love, and thanks for your patience with my adventure.