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.