A Friend Named Sharon / Robinson Mocks Irene

Hello and welcome once again to my blog, the best blog in the world. I regret to inform you all that I am alive and well, and potentially kicking and screaming if the circumstances warrant such behavior. Jinja is sufficiently distant from Kampala that any latent flying debris will not reach me, although the far more interesting question is how such debris managed to defy gravity in their perpetually hovering state. Just thought you all might want to know.

Anywho, it has been an interesting number of days since I last posted, and a few things have happened. But first, the requisite explanation of my blog post. This post's title is shared between two things as both are entertaining experiences I have had since I last plagued you all with my blarney. The first half of the title refers to a time last week when Aashish and I were walking home, and a high school girl asked if she could be our friend because she had once met and befriended a few mzungus (foreigners), and enjoyed the experience. The friendship lasted for approximately two and a half blocks, when she turned for her home and we continued to walk straight to our home. She left a lasting impression, and I will greatly miss my dear friend Sharon for eternity. The other half of my title refers to an occurrence on Monday at TASO when Irene asked a question of our boss, Robinson, and his response to Irene was to repeat the question back in a mocking tone while he signed papers. He then answered her question. We all thought it rather funny, and appreciate that Robinson and the TASO staff have gotten used to us egg-headed Americans around.

So, getting on with it. Much has happened since I last posted, as I have mentioned. The thursday after we met Nora, we put together a preliminary budget that got torn to pieces, and then on Friday we made a much better budget that remained intact through multiple, rigorous rounds of scrutiny. We got ourselves an oven maker named Ben, and he is building us a local oven. He actually began today after we were able to pay him an initial installment on his work. It will be done this Friday. But back to last week-

Friday after work Aashish and I hung out at home because we were very tired, and then I made a huge mistake in lifting one of my host nephews in an awkward position and kind of hurt my back a bit, so I called it a day, and by Saturday it was feeling a lot better. Saturday Aashish and I spent at Flavours, a mzungu cafe with free wifi, and then at a bar watching the 3rd place match. The place we went to had a projector and screen set up outside, so they moved chairs to the sidewalk, and it was really nice and chill. Sunday a bunch of people from the other villages came to town to go bungee jumping, and we all hung out for the afternoon at this place called Adrift, which is located along the Nile. That evening we went for Indian food at Leoz, and watched the final match at 2 Friends, a mzungu restaurant near my house, but with a really big screen, and it was packed to the gills with people watching. Unfortunately it wasn't the year of the Dutch...

This is the part when bombs go off in Kampala, which is NOT near me. I did not discover that anything had happened until the next morning, and at that point internet was down for Eastern Uganda if UTL was your provider, which I think all of Eastern Uganda uses UTL, or almost all of it... not important.

Moving on with my thoughts:
Monday we spent most of the day waiting for money to arrive from our grant from FSD so that we could go shopping as training for the bakery began yesterday, and we needed ingredients and a few supplies.
Tuesday Sue and I went to Naminya with Nora and we had a 5.5 hour session, where we taught how to make donuts, cow pea samosas, and daddies (they are small, tasty, and deep fried, and I can't come up with what they are in English, or if they have a name in the States...). Then last night the community sold the goods we baked. It was a lot of fun, but the internet where I am is about to be shut off, so I feel a need to hurry right now, so no more description.

Today I have simply done accounting for our project, which is boring.

Later! Maybe tomorrow I will get a chance to type more.

****Right, so I couldn't post this yesterday, so now it is tomorrow. I only have a moment, but I want to discribe my host aunt who is staying with my family right now because she is AWESOME. She currently runs a farm, two businesses, and a second hand sale business with items she collects in the US. She used to live in Manhattan and work for the UN, and she has been all over the world. I took tea with her yesterday, and spent hours talking to her. It was a wonderful evening, and I hope she is still there when I get back because I want to know more about her life.

Things still going well.

TTFN

NATUPLWAS Community Bakery. Mind your Business!

Good morning! And a wonderful morning it is. Why, might you ask? Because this morning it was raining, now it is cloudy, and overall it is cool, not hot humid and gross! I didn't sweat my ass off this morning walking to TASO! Anyway, this excites me...

So, since Saturday... Much has happened.

Starting with Sunday, FSD took all of us Jinja GESI folk to Kampala to watch a show of traditional dance and music. It was a fairly good show, even though the MC talked far too much. Also, he made an awkward joke about the North aht the Acholi... But aside from that it was fascinating to see the traditional dances of Uganda. Around the country, all of the dances involve an amazing motor, with their hips moving side to side for minutes on end. All of us were highly impressed at the core strength required to maintain such a dance for as long as the women did.
Of course, Sunday was the Fourth of July, and at the end of the show the MC asked for birthdays. One girl in the audience shouted out that it was America's birthday, and all of the Americans proceeded down to the stage where we sang Happy Birthday to America, and also one other girl who was in the audience. All in all it was a very good day.

Which brings us to Monday. We went wit hRobinson, our boss at TASO, and his trusty sidekick Martin to Naminya, the community that we will be working with. We had a meeting with NATUPLWAS (the HIV positive group formed by TASO in Naminya) to gauge the community's interest in different projects. They were very interested in forming a bakery, and after much deliberation internally, my fellow group mates and I decided to move forward with the Bakery project. On tuesday we had an FSD meeting to discuss the bakery project, and tried to do some market research for the bakery, though Sunrise Bakery in Jinja wasn't working.

Which brings us to yesterday, a breakthrough day. Robinson put us in contact with a woman named Nora, who is a client of TASO and bakes, and she joined Martin and us when we went to Naminya to discuss the bakery further. We then did some budget research by checking prices on materials and a whole bunch of misc. stuff. Nora cut us sugar cane to chew on while we discussed the technicalities of creating the bakery.

In other news, Netherlands won (YAY) , and Germany lost (Boooooooo), and the world cup continues. Aashish and I found a place in town where they project the game on a big sheet, so we can watch games on a big screen. Jorum now has Malaria, and while Joseph is getting better slowly, he apparently also has sickle cell, which sucks. Blessing is still totally fine. All three now like me becuase I can bribe them with candy and pick them up. Things are going well, and I have more or less run out of news.

Oh, one more thing! We met Menonites! They live across from where NATUPLWAS meets, and they have been there for just short of three years on a mission. They were very nice.

Now that's all.

Lehit!

God is a goat?

Before anything else is said, I feel that I need to clarify something from my last blog post: NOT ALL UGANDAN FOOD IS BAD. My host mom, Mama Robinah (or just Mama), is an amazing cook and I truly enjoy eating meals at home.

Now that this has been established...

This week has been an interesting one. Orientation went until Wednesday at mid day, when we went for lunch to Mama's house. She hosted all of GESI because she has a large compound close to the Zamo hotel, where we were staying. It is a big, old house, and I will take pictures of it for the future, as well as some of her amazing plants and trees. After all, she is in the plant business, one would hope lots of green might be present...

Mama is 56, with 5 children. Her husband died in 1984. Her oldest daugher, Irene, is a primary school teacher, is 36, recently married, and with 3 children. Joseph is 7, Blessing is 5, and Jorum is 1.5. All are very cute. Jorum is afraid of Aashish and I, Blessing is busy extorting candy and being picked up out of me, and Joseph has Malaria, but this morning I did manage to have a short conversation with him.

The next two sons live at home, and they are Dennis (34), and Daniel (30). Dennis went to institution for Information Technology. He is currently unemployed and helps Mama with chores and the flower business. Daniel just finished exams for business school. He has one more year.

The last two brothers are abroad. David just finished studying law in London, and Duncan is studying law in India.

Mama is Pentecostal, and very devout. She has been to the States for a Christian conference, and is very active in church life at her congregation. At some point this summer I will go to church with her. She also loves gospel music, and most nights she takes her dinner in her room to watch gospel tv before bed.

Thursday was my first day at TASO (The Aids Support Organisation), the NGO I will be working with. They are kind of in a mess right now because a colleague is in trouble and our boss has to deal with it, but we were able to get a good sense of how the organization worked, and we were informed of what we will be doing this summer. We will be working with a community called Naminya, not far from Jinja, in implementing an Income Generating Activity to help widows affected and infected with HIV/AIDS. We will meet them on monday and begin to identify the project that we will eventually implement.

In terms of leisure, on Tuesday we visited Bujagali falls, a beautiful section of the Nile that will soon no longer exist as a hydro dam is being built upstream. We were very happy to see the falls, especially since their fate is doomed.

*I just tried to upload images, but it takes more time than I have to wait... Maybe later*

Continuing on, Thursday after work we met a woman named Judith who works at TASO for drinks. We also met Sue's (one of my GESI coworkers) friend from William and Mary who is traveling through Africa. And then last night. We went to Backpackers, a hostel near our home stay, to watch the World Cup games. the St. Francis GESI group came, as well as Luna and Bruna from KORD. Bruna, being a Paulistana, was crushed when Brazil lost to the Netherlands. Personally, I liked KLM as an airline, good for the Dutch. It was a great game. BUT all of Jinja seemed to favor Brazil, and things only got worse for Pan-Africanism when Ghana lost as well...

That's about all for now. This morning I slept in, read some of my book, Aashish and I had lunch with our host sister Irene before coming to Indulge, the cafe in which I now sit, because it has the best internet according to an FSD intern named Maddie.

TTFN!

If anyone ever asks to take you out for Ugandan food, politely but firmly refuse immediately

So I am now in Uganda, in Jinja, in an internet cafe, having just eaten lunch, getting oriented to my new surroundings. To be clear about the title of this post, Ugandan food is edible, there is just not a single damn thing unique or special about it...

In other news though (and I am sure my mom is wondering why the hell I bothered mention the food as my intro to this post, so this part must come as a welcome change in topic), the weather is great, it is sunny but not too hot, and Uganda is a beautiful country. we arrived last night shortly after sunset in Entebbe, and from the get go the process of getting used to Uganda was jump started in getting our visas. The immigration people decided to collect our passports (23 of us) together, go through them one at a time, and then they tried to send us to baggage claim, saying they would bring us our documents in a little bit. Needless to say, that didn't fly, and we took turns standing there and pulling our luggage off the baggage claim because they took so long. But we got out, got our luggage in order, all have our passports, and drove to Jinja. We got here around midnight, and there were some hotel issues involving space, so 12 of us had to go to a different hotel (myself included), which is now going to house the rest of us as they are moving there this afternoon, and... Everything is kind of organized chaos.

My host mom, Mama Robinah, is hosting the entire group for lunch on Wednesday, and I am excited to meet her. She apparently lives very close to our current hotel.

Not to be abrupt, but I am out of time.

Later!

Coming soon to an internet browser near you:

Next week begins my adventures to Uganda, which will be listed on this here very blog, assuming I find an internet connection nearby.

Just an FYI

Hello from the comfort of my home in Lincolnwood, IL. I have been home for a little under a week, and I am finally getting around to doing this.

Here is the photo montage I made for IHP during the retreat.

Enjoy!

Massively revised game plan!!! YAY for Brazil!

New game plan, final revision. Ask me in person about Vietnam, I am going to talk about Brazil now.

Whatevs, I am lazy.

Brazil:

Brazil is a wonderful country full of color, life, and sunlight (stark contrast to Hanoi b/c of the pollution). Sao Paulo is no different. I will admit, it is an odd city with crappy sidewalks, and it is HUGE, but it is also really beautiful in an unexpected, hodge-podge kind of way...

My host parents are interesting people. My host mom is an IT journalist and French-Portugese translator. My host dad is a retired high school philosophy teacher and avid astrologist for the past 25 years; he still studies as well as teaches astrology. The two of them are eccentric, but nice. They just moved apartments, and apart from periodic spats with the cable company over the TV, internet, and phone line, they are moved in. She is a wonderful cook with an affinity for schnitzel...? Whatever, it tastes good.

Our country coordinator Glenda is Ballin! She is a translator professionally and has gotten great stuff lined up for us. She is married with a small daughter who is sooooo cute and never seems to run out of energy. Her assistant is Sylvia, a linguistics student about to graduate, and she is so helpful and young and energetic and willing to show us stuff to do. The two of them are a fantastic duo that have logistics down pat. They are also no-nonsense, which is soooo0 nice as IHP students are so rediculous some times (as students are wont to be... I admit it...).

Our first full day in Sao Paulo we went to a churascaria, sooo much fun. There were endless skewers of meat in rotation, and although some of it was actually legit raw (or as close to raw as possible while stil not entirely raw), the rest of it was delicious. I also discovered a dessert beer, Brahma Malzbier. It is so sweet and delicious and dark (I missed dark beer sooooo much in Vietnam, land of the Pilsner)! There are a number of good beers in Vietnam, and I will get there in a moment.

Actually, I will get there now... The first weekend we were in SP (Sao Paulo) I met like half the group at this bar in Vila Madalena (fun place to hang at night and on weekends) and we went to this great bar that only serves beer if it is a domestic micro brew. With one or two other people we would share 600 ml bottles of various brews so that we could try as many as possible. I split a REALLY good dark (don´t remember what kind) called Cheers. We also tried a Thank God, which was really bad and tasted kind of like bananas and beans. The last one we shared, I forgot the name, wasn´t bad either. Fun, early night for a bunch of exhausted travelers.

That Wednesday night the Med School we are having our classes at, Santa Casa, threw a party at a bar and club, and we all got invited. Fun night, lots of dancing and all. They had a live band that kind of sucked, but they had a good dj and things picked up. Odd students, we left at like 2 or 3 because we had class the next morning... not the culture in SP, here it is party till 7, don´t go to bed, and go straight to class... Students here are insane. But in a good way. And they throw good parties. There is another one in May, but we won´t be here. Too bad.

There have been other fun times around Sao Paulo after class and on weekends, last vignette on the matter is what I have come to consider my after class hang out spot. So I live in Oscar Friere st, two blocks from a street called Teodoro. A number of students are in homestay off of Teodoro street, and it is fun times. With Joel, my home stay room mate, I go and meet Alex, a girl from the program who lives near us, and we meet at this bar attached to a Japanese restaurant on Teodoro. Two days ago I discovered the Xingu, another dark beer that is tasty and less sweet than the Brahma Malzbier. Anywho, every so often we (Joel, Alex, and I) meet up after class for drinks there and just hang. It might be huge, but Sao Paulo is a very accessible city.

Speaking of managing a city, The Metro is wonderful. It is R$2.65 per entry, and it runs all over the place. That is how Joel and I get to class every day and back, and how I get around. We live off of the Clinicas train stop on the green line. Class is at Santa Cecilia on the red line. Everything is on the red line, the green line, or the blue line that connects them plus extending further in each direction. Also, they are fast and efficient trains, even if at rush hour they are like cattle cars... So much better than the bus as far as I am concerned.

Last week IHP took a trip to Ituverava, a town in Sao Paulo state five hours out of SP city, home of the owning class of the local farms and sugar cane processing factories as well as the population that has grown about that faction. We were special guests of Mayor Matsubara, which was awesome because they were having a Rodeo and Festival and we got full access to the events for free as well as space in his box at the Rodeo for concerts and for the Rodeo itself. I had never been to a rodeo before, and it was a lot of fun. Nobody was hurt. The cutest is when the 4 year olds ride the sheep, it is so funny... There were also concerts, but no artists I had ever heard of (to no surprise). They were fun anyway. Things went way early into the morning. I was hosted by a lovely family. The mom was an administrator for the hospital (and actually gave a presentation), the sister was 24 and worked at the hospital, the son was 17, and the dad a truck driver. They had a huge family, and one night we had a bbq at a cousin´s house, who as it turned out was hosting IHP students too. Was it necessary for the Brazil leg of IHP? No. Was it worth it anyway? Most definitely. Ituverava was a ton of fun.

I am out of stuff to say for now, I am going to go back to working on a project for my methods class on the social marketing of condoms in Brazil...

Adios,

ME!