Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Thought I better put an update on my blog for this holiday weekend. As Thanksgiving is a very American holiday, the Ugandans don’t know about it so I wont really be celebrating. There are turkeys here but they are not worried this week and will likely be saved until Christmas when I have heard there is lots of slaughtering of animals!

I am going to try to make a pumpkin pie from scratch (no canned pumpkin) and without an oven. Should be interesting. J

Have a few pics to share. More are on facebook for those who are connected that way!

First one is some o the women from the womens group cooking maatoke (green bananas). Maatoke is a staple in Uganda and people like to have it daily. I didn’t used to like it, but it is definitely growing on me and I have even peeled and boiled some myself. People like to give me food and this is one thing they like to give me. The maatoke is wrapped in banana leaves and basically steamed and then mashed in the leaves and served with sauce. The women were cooking all of this for a burial. I think they said it took about 12 hours to steam all of this and they transported it by truck. It had to weigh hundreds of pounds!















Here I am crashing a graduation party! Actually, this is my supervisor Betty and her family. Her son graduated from college and this was his party! We had delicious food in a bag, soda, and peanuts. It was fun to meet all Betty’s children and I know Patrick(the graduate) as he has been home as he looks for a job!











Last week it rained and I went to our trading center after it rained and as the sun was setting. This is the street between my house and the trading center. Random chicken in the road, but I thought a beautiful picture.

























Here I am with the womens group after we built a nursery bed. Some of the women did not think it was necessary so we planted seeds under the bed and next to the bed to see which ones grew the best. We had to walk about 3 miles each way to get to this womens so this was a VERY exhausting day! She fed us cassava and beans so that helped us have enough energy to come back!















This ladies property was amazing as she used all her land and used it well! She was growing coffee seedlings in bags everywhere which she sells to the government agriculture program. She is also growing me a passion fruit seeding and also has coffee, maatoke, and lots of gardens as well as pigs! I didn’t know what coffee looked like before I came here so I thought I would share a pic. They harvest the pods and then dry them before selling them.














Here is a banana plant in its glory! This is when they pick the bananas for maatoke- when they are still green. Tonight a girl at the school is going to come over so we can make maatoke with g-nut sauce. G-nuts are peanuts and you buy them crushed, boil them with some spices and tomatoes and eat. It is delicious!




















Here are also updated pics of my newly painted adobe. I painted the bottom brown and then searched for ZAIN pink which is EVERYWHERE! ZAIN is a cell phone company which is all prepaid. Anywhere that sells ZAIN “top-up” cards seems to get this bright magenta paint. I have been eying it for awhile and thought it would be easy to find. Not so, but after about 10 shops and some good negotiating skills, I got 1 quart. Painted the flowers in my kitchen area and taped a line and painted it as a border in my bedroom. It is definitely a mediocre job, but with no ladder, poor tape and brushes and walls that are missing chunks of concrete anyways, I think it looks good.














Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!!!

first month at site

I have been at my site for over a month and realized I haven’t updated my blog in awhile. So here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Things at my site are going well and I am getting busy. Things started a bit slow so I took the opportunity to paint the inside of my house and plant my garden. My seeds are coming up quickly with the help of daily rain showers and lots of sun. Some seeds cannot handle the hard rains so I planted them in cut-up water bottles and move them inside when I leave as the storms come quickly. I will harden them soon so they can be transplanted.
My other great accomplishment was making a shower. Yep, no more bucket baths for me! I picked up the plumbing parts I needed and melted a hole in my jerry can/bucket. Had a shelf made to hang in my bathing area and fill the bucket with a mixture of boiled water and cold water for a hot shower in the morning. Its wonderful and I somehow feel cleaner. Thanks to all of you who sent advice to me on building a shower.

Most of my time working here has been spent at the local Primary (Elementary) schools. I have taught quite a few lessons on hand washing and nutrition and have made some games to reinforce teaching. We have also built tippy-taps which are handless hand washing stations made using local materials. It is believed that hand washing can prevent more illnesses/deaths than immunizations so it is an important lesson to teach here, especially since the health care system is not so stellar. At the schools I was working at, there were no facilities for washing hands so the tippy-tap will also help the kids put the lessons into practice.

I have also been working with a school to restart the craft program. They have wanted to do it for awhile, but did not have the funds to buy the materials to do it. I helped them by giving them about $30US for supplies and that bought materials for the students to make baskets, rugs, doormats, brooms and mingling sticks (used to make posho). We are planning on selling some of these items at the upcoming speech day to raise money to buy more materials. Here are a few pics of the kids doing crafts. Their school uniform is bright pink.

Was in Kampala to pick up some of the art supplies we needed and had a chance to try the fried enseenene (grasshopper). We had learned about these delicacies while we were in training but they were not yet in season. As the rains have come, so have the grasshoppers. I must say, they weren’t all bad, though they look horrible. This is me trying my first one. I was offered white flies this week by some kids and haven’t had the guts to try those. They are small insects with big wings and they eat them alive, wings and all. I don’t discourage it as I figure it is a good (and free) source of protein.

Had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to go out with a group visiting from the UK. We did a number of health talks at primary and secondary schools as well as a tea plantation, and a health center. Here are some pics of some of the schools we visited and taught at. All of the locations were very far from the town and had pretty questionable roads connecting them. We should have gotten stuck a number of times, but only got stuck at a secondary school where the girls pushed us up the hill.

We also dedicated a building that the group from the UK raised funding for. I will be working with the Mityana Community Development Foundation at the new community center to develop programs and put on training for members of the community. There are still some finishing touches but it is well on its way to being usable. The dedication was great as there were students from many schools in the area performing for us. The school I was most impressed with was the school for the deaf. In a country where almost everyone is in need, the needs of the disabled are put at the bottom of the ladder. There are few schools for the deaf or blind but this is one in Mityana that takes great care of the kids. Many of the kids stay at the boarding school year round as they have a difficult time managing at home where their parents do not speak sign language or try to communicate with them. Here are a few pics of them performing for us at the dedication.

The last pics to share are the kids in my village I play with every day. They are so fun and I get great big hugs from them daily. They love to color, sing, play games, etc. I was trying to teach them red light/green light, duck duck goose, and tag the other day with my broken luganda. Mostly involved random running, chasing, etc. I have since learned some vocab to help me explain the games.