Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! The new year came without much excitement but it is nice to be in 2009 as finishing Peace Corps in 2010 seemed really far away when we were still in 2008.

I haven’t updated this since Christmas so I will start with that. After spending Thanksgiving alone at my site, a group of us decided to go visit another PCV on Lake Bunyonyi, a lake in Southern Uganda. Sarah, the PCV is working on an island that has a resort which funds development projects in the area so that is where we celebrated Christmas. Christmas was quite low-key with a gift-exchange in the morning followed by a game of scrabble, sitting on the dock and swimming in the only Bilharzias-free lake in Uganda, made spaghetti for lunch, spent some time painting and ended with a great dinner and talking to family.

It was about 75F out and the only sign of Christmas was a small Christmas tree at the lodge, but they did play Christmas music for us and it was a very rejuvenating time for all of us. Uganda does not commercialize Christmas so you had to look fairly hard for signs of Christmas which made it easier to be away from home on the holiday.

Here are a few pics from the island

The bus ride to Lake Bunyonyi was about 10 hours each way. On the way back I got very ill so it was not a pleasant trip for me or my friends sitting next to me. When I got back to my house I had to new roommates in the form of rats. One was IN my bed and the other in my kitchen. My bike then broke and I had to walk it 5km to town to get it fixed. I think that this was getting all the bad stuff out in 2008 so that 2009 can be great!

For New Years my friend Kristen came to visit me at my site and was my first guest. We had a great time cooking, playing cards, watching movies, etc. New Years Eve the power went out at 7pm so we cooked and played cards by lantern until 10pm and then went to bed as we were exhausted. It is hard to entertain yourself and have energy without electricity. The Catholic Church nearby had generators and a party/mass to bring in the new year so we heard it come in from our beds.

After Kristen left, my two brothers from my homestay family came and they are here for a few days. I am really glad to have company as the college campus I am living at is pretty much empty. There are 3 students who have stayed, but overall it is quiet and a bit scary at night. They are now working on painting a mural in my sitting room and will soon ride my bike, an exciting thing for them to do as they don’t have bikes.

Before Christmas I let some of the kids I play with come to my house. I made cookies and wrapped them up for them and let they color and play. It was a HUGE deal for them and we had to wait an hour before they came as they all changed clothes, washed their feet, and put oil on their face. They brought the babies they take care of and both babies peed on my floor. Lovely.

My work here will hopefully pick up now that the holidays are done. We are working on an economic development project that will help and train people on how to raise chickens in larger quantities. As income level is directly related to education and health here this should be a good project for the people in my village. We will start having meetings and workshops next week. I am learning that things just move very slowly here. However, it seems that it is better for it to move slowly and last then to push projects through that are not initiated or built by the people and that will end when I leave.

I have taken a lot of pics here, but these are some of my favorite. THis is during the bean harvest and teh kids come carrying these in from the gardens. I am not sure how they see, but they somehow manage.

Wishing you all a very happy 2009.