i've decided that our roommate is the shit. she's gotten sean and i into eating salads all the time, and into jogging.
so after three years of not jogging for sean, and one year for me, we're on the run. so sean and i went three days ago, and were joined by six ugandan kids. they taught us some luganda words (sean knows mostly lusoga), and kept up with us for the entire ~3km's. heh, they were absolutely hillarious! they were running backwards, racing each other, hitting their heels with their hands,... almost laughing at us for being so tired, and definitely getting a kick out of us.
two days ago erica and i went, and we had seven kids with us. they jogged us all the way home, and asked us if we were going again. i said, yeah!!! six oclock!!! see you then!
and yesterday sean and i were just chilling at home, him with a cough, so we decided to stay home and drink orange juice (and made weird-ass chappati pizza). and they rang our doorbell! even though i'd decided not to run, i figured... hey, these guys are good motivation... might aswell, right? so there were three kids at the door. and another three hiding around the corner in the stairs. and then another four just outside with the eskari (the guard outside our appartment building). we picked up another few along the way, which made me feel an awful lot like that running guy with cancer.... terry fox. by the end of the run, about4km's later, i had 14 kids with me. and -man- are they ever pestistant. and they're not the best-fed kids either. they just have tons of energy.
other than running around, not too much is new here. we're chilling.
sean decided to apply for a piece-of-shit job at a shitty NGO, just for the hell of it. well, for the hell of having an actual big-boy adult job on his resume. our roommate works at this NGO right now, and comes home with a good mouthfull about her boss, who would become sean's coworker... i think. so he'd be working with a douche, basically. but he's got confidence in his ability to deal with bullshit (thinking of the water-mamas at BH, i kinda believe him :S). and job opportunities here are few and far inbetween.
so i'm hoping that he doesn't get the job, because it's just downright shitty... but hoping that he does, because the experience is pretty handsome on paper.
anyways. at this point i'm just killing time on crackbook while sean skypes with his dad. i'm entirely out of things to say.
lots of love :D
10.16.2008
10.02.2008
poop
a few too many mouthfuls of Nile water, and both sean and i had a case of the shits yesterday. so, we're going to the school for the P6's today instead of yesterday.
i'm attempting to upload pictures to facebook right now, but the computer at this internet cafe doesn't have the right plug-in. so i'm using the five-pictures-at-a-time version of the application. pfltth...
we'll see if any of these pictures make their way onto the internets. it might end up being one at a time...
i'm attempting to upload pictures to facebook right now, but the computer at this internet cafe doesn't have the right plug-in. so i'm using the five-pictures-at-a-time version of the application. pfltth...
we'll see if any of these pictures make their way onto the internets. it might end up being one at a time...
10.01.2008
monday monday!
we had our first day with the kids on monday. it was pretty kick-ass :D! all we did is play two games with the P7's. they're the smallest class, and the one with the best english, so it was pretty easy to get along with them. the first game was one i picked up at camp, and we used it to get to know our kids and learn their names. we got them to throw my hacky-sack around, and the thrower had to say the name of the catcher, and say something they liked about them. we were surprized by how easily they complimented each other, the vocabulary they used, and the fact that the boys didn't mind throwing to the girls and vise versa. cool.
then we played red rover. for hours. we had such a good time with that one. one thing that i find so charming about kids here is that they get so engaged with games, and their teachers don't mind being thrown to the ground. they were competitive in a playful way. by the end of the day, i think sean and i somewhat knew everyone's names, and had a feel for most of their characters. we're mostly happy about how easily they warmed up to us, and how honest they were.
on a very different note, yesterday sean and i went white-water rafting. it's an entire day thing,.. you show up at backpacker's for breakfast, get a run-down of what the day is going to look like, and get fitted with lifejackets and helmets. then jump on a "bus" (the kinds of trucks they use to cart soldiers around... pretty much a trailer with a metal frame to hold onto). so we split up into groups, thank god, that suited us well. on our raft there was sean and i, a scottish guy, an italian guy, and a couple of girls, one from the UK and one scottish. on the other raft: a group of obnoxiously talkative and loud,... incredibly typical americans tourists.
we went through 11 rapids, most of them seperated by a couple of kilometers of still water. they conveniently start off easy and end with the hardest. so for the first one, we flipped over the raft, practiced the safe way of floating through a rapid without the raft (they call it the crusifix, you go down feet first with your arms in an X on your chest), and then after the rapid we practiced getting back on.
our raft, for some reason, mastered fucking up incredibly easy rapids (we flipped at the grade 2.5 rapid, and not at the grade 5 ones :S). at one of the rapids i got the shit scared out of me. well, at all of them, but particularly one. it was a grade4 rapid, and i got thrown off the raft, and somehow ended up far below the surface, with no idea of which way was up... i remembered, though, hearing the instructions, "when you're underwater, don't move or try to swim, just let the lifejacket bring you back to the surface." but shit! when you're down there, and you don't see people, or the raft, or the sky, you downright panic. regardless of the instructions i knew, i kinda tried to swim for what i thought was up, which i still don't know if it was up, and eventually gave up and let my lifejacket save me.
i showed up at the surface way after i ran our of breath. at took a good gasp when i got up. and turned out to be right in a standing wave. right next to the upside down raft.
the way they set it up is that for every raft there's a handful of kayakers who are there to rescue you. because everytime the rafts flip, a decent number of people end up pretty far away from it. and swimming in the Nile's current is pretty much useless. one thing that i still don't get about these kayakers is that as soon as you get to the surface of the water, one of them is -right- next to you. it's like they know exactly where everyone is going to show up. the same guy saved me three times.... we got to know each other through our chatting while he was carrying my back to the raft...
you should have seen, though, the skills of the guides and the kayakers. they know every nook and cranny of the Nile for a stretch of like 20km. the way the kayakers skillfully work the waves is absolutely insane. and the instructions of the guides are pretty impecable. the only instructions we had to remember were, "FORWARD!!!" "FORWARD HARD!!!" "GET DOWN, GET DOWN, GET DOWN!!!!" and "LEAN IN!!!"
my personal favorite was "foward hard" when we were trying to gain momentum climbing into a huge ass wave. your paddles barely reach the water, and you're looking up at this 8ft wave, thinking, "shit, when is he going to yell at us to get down so that i can hold on for dear life!!!"
Silverback, the best rapid we hit, had one huge dip, and then three ~7ft standing waves. and we miraculously made it through without flipping. man, if anything fosters team spirit, it's making it through something like that.
alright, enough about rafting. we didn't bring a camera to that bc it's not waterproof, but i'm going to bring the camera to this internet cafe next time we come, and put some pictures on facebook.
we're thinking of playing the Human Knot game with the P6's today. and the radar game. let me know if you can think of any games we should play with the P5's tomorrow.
i think that's all i wanted to say today..
see ya!
then we played red rover. for hours. we had such a good time with that one. one thing that i find so charming about kids here is that they get so engaged with games, and their teachers don't mind being thrown to the ground. they were competitive in a playful way. by the end of the day, i think sean and i somewhat knew everyone's names, and had a feel for most of their characters. we're mostly happy about how easily they warmed up to us, and how honest they were.
on a very different note, yesterday sean and i went white-water rafting. it's an entire day thing,.. you show up at backpacker's for breakfast, get a run-down of what the day is going to look like, and get fitted with lifejackets and helmets. then jump on a "bus" (the kinds of trucks they use to cart soldiers around... pretty much a trailer with a metal frame to hold onto). so we split up into groups, thank god, that suited us well. on our raft there was sean and i, a scottish guy, an italian guy, and a couple of girls, one from the UK and one scottish. on the other raft: a group of obnoxiously talkative and loud,... incredibly typical americans tourists.
we went through 11 rapids, most of them seperated by a couple of kilometers of still water. they conveniently start off easy and end with the hardest. so for the first one, we flipped over the raft, practiced the safe way of floating through a rapid without the raft (they call it the crusifix, you go down feet first with your arms in an X on your chest), and then after the rapid we practiced getting back on.
our raft, for some reason, mastered fucking up incredibly easy rapids (we flipped at the grade 2.5 rapid, and not at the grade 5 ones :S). at one of the rapids i got the shit scared out of me. well, at all of them, but particularly one. it was a grade4 rapid, and i got thrown off the raft, and somehow ended up far below the surface, with no idea of which way was up... i remembered, though, hearing the instructions, "when you're underwater, don't move or try to swim, just let the lifejacket bring you back to the surface." but shit! when you're down there, and you don't see people, or the raft, or the sky, you downright panic. regardless of the instructions i knew, i kinda tried to swim for what i thought was up, which i still don't know if it was up, and eventually gave up and let my lifejacket save me.
i showed up at the surface way after i ran our of breath. at took a good gasp when i got up. and turned out to be right in a standing wave. right next to the upside down raft.
the way they set it up is that for every raft there's a handful of kayakers who are there to rescue you. because everytime the rafts flip, a decent number of people end up pretty far away from it. and swimming in the Nile's current is pretty much useless. one thing that i still don't get about these kayakers is that as soon as you get to the surface of the water, one of them is -right- next to you. it's like they know exactly where everyone is going to show up. the same guy saved me three times.... we got to know each other through our chatting while he was carrying my back to the raft...
you should have seen, though, the skills of the guides and the kayakers. they know every nook and cranny of the Nile for a stretch of like 20km. the way the kayakers skillfully work the waves is absolutely insane. and the instructions of the guides are pretty impecable. the only instructions we had to remember were, "FORWARD!!!" "FORWARD HARD!!!" "GET DOWN, GET DOWN, GET DOWN!!!!" and "LEAN IN!!!"
my personal favorite was "foward hard" when we were trying to gain momentum climbing into a huge ass wave. your paddles barely reach the water, and you're looking up at this 8ft wave, thinking, "shit, when is he going to yell at us to get down so that i can hold on for dear life!!!"
Silverback, the best rapid we hit, had one huge dip, and then three ~7ft standing waves. and we miraculously made it through without flipping. man, if anything fosters team spirit, it's making it through something like that.
alright, enough about rafting. we didn't bring a camera to that bc it's not waterproof, but i'm going to bring the camera to this internet cafe next time we come, and put some pictures on facebook.
we're thinking of playing the Human Knot game with the P6's today. and the radar game. let me know if you can think of any games we should play with the P5's tomorrow.
i think that's all i wanted to say today..
see ya!
9.28.2008
bloggidy blog blog bl
this town is deserted on sundays. church here isn't just a two-hour deal on sundays, it goes on all day. especially in the villages, it's an all-day event. most of the shops are closed, as are many of the internet cafes. a lot of the store-fronts here are the income-generating side of christian projects. cool idea, but it sucks on sundays.
has bridgehead moved yet? i'm kinda nervous about coming back to a brand new bridgehead. and hoping, fingers super crossed, that i'll still know most of the staff. anthony, megan, jjess, phil, bryce, mark, jamie.... you'd better still all be there. well, unless you go insane, jamie. in which case we all understand. without the insanity, though, you have no excuse. :P
ever since i had that nightmare, i'm scared shitless of what it's going to be like to go back home. i'm sure i'll adjust. but i'm starting to understand that the culture shock of coming back home might be a lot more difficult than the one you get leaving home....
christine, i wanted to tell you all about our trip to visit derrick. as much as sean and i wanted to just hang out with derrick and his grandmother, we spent the entire day either travelling (on the bus or in WV's car), or talking to WV people. the drive into kampala was... probably about as bad as trying to get into toronto during rush hour. but it's always rush hour in kampala. so we woke up at 6am, and didn't get into town until 9am. there we met with a few World Vision people at their office, who briefed us on the project that derrick is in, and on how to behave while we're there (basically, wear appropriate clothing, and don't sexually abuse the child, and don't take pictures without their guardian's consent). from kampala, we drove to derrick's town, about another two hours away, and talked there with the people working on the project.
there are about 3000 sponsors for that area. all of their money doesn't go straight to the children, but goes to providing schools, shelters for people who don't have them, and a community of people who provide AIDS/HIV knowledge. i'm not sure about this one, i'll have to check with sean, but i think they also provide family's with potential sources of income. derrick has three goats, a few coffee plants, and some banana trees. overall, i think that their goal is to provide communities with all the means to have more productive and successful lives. encouraging them to make money, go to school, eat proper meals, and be educated in HIV/AIDS.
our visit with derrick himself was very brief, only fifteen minutes perhaps. it was difficult speaking with him and gramma (we had three WV people translating for us), because of the language barrier, and because derrick was so shy. other kids of his age have very functional english, and he seemed to understand what we were saying, but mostly just seemed shocked at our presence. christine, you should have seen how happy gramma was to see us! even though she couldn't understand us, she seemed very touched by the visit. that's one of the things volunteers and visitors like so much about uganda... they people here have a very good relationship with visitors. people contiually tell us that our presence makes them feel hopeful, that they're so happy to have us here, that our help is very welcome...
so, mostly, we drank tea, ate meals with, and spoke with the WV folk. they seem to have a pretty solid way of putting their projects together. sean might have something different to say on that front, but he's more educated and more critical about projects around here.
oh yeah, i don't know if i mentioned this in a previous post, but sean and i are going to be teaching lifeskills to the P5-P7. we tested their basic knowledge of HIV/AIDS on friday, took the anonymous tests home and analyzed them. this coming week we're just going to play games with the kids, ice-breakers and stuff, and get to know them. monday with the P7, tuesday P6, wednesday P5. we've decided that we're going to focus on basic AIDS knowledge with the P5 level. the older grades already have basic knowledge of the disease (unlike the P5, they don't think that you can get AIDS by playing with or sharing clothes with an infected person). so with P6+7 we're going to focus more on self esteem, confidence, and especially trying to break down the stigma surrounding infected people. of the ~100 tests we handed out, only two kids said that someone with AIDS is not different from themselves. and about 2/3 said that they have seen people being treated poorly because of their disease.
anyways... i should be off. i spent 20 minutes waiting for this page to load, so i've been here fourty minutes now. it gets expensive after a while.
bye now!!
wish us luck with the school!
has bridgehead moved yet? i'm kinda nervous about coming back to a brand new bridgehead. and hoping, fingers super crossed, that i'll still know most of the staff. anthony, megan, jjess, phil, bryce, mark, jamie.... you'd better still all be there. well, unless you go insane, jamie. in which case we all understand. without the insanity, though, you have no excuse. :P
ever since i had that nightmare, i'm scared shitless of what it's going to be like to go back home. i'm sure i'll adjust. but i'm starting to understand that the culture shock of coming back home might be a lot more difficult than the one you get leaving home....
christine, i wanted to tell you all about our trip to visit derrick. as much as sean and i wanted to just hang out with derrick and his grandmother, we spent the entire day either travelling (on the bus or in WV's car), or talking to WV people. the drive into kampala was... probably about as bad as trying to get into toronto during rush hour. but it's always rush hour in kampala. so we woke up at 6am, and didn't get into town until 9am. there we met with a few World Vision people at their office, who briefed us on the project that derrick is in, and on how to behave while we're there (basically, wear appropriate clothing, and don't sexually abuse the child, and don't take pictures without their guardian's consent). from kampala, we drove to derrick's town, about another two hours away, and talked there with the people working on the project.
there are about 3000 sponsors for that area. all of their money doesn't go straight to the children, but goes to providing schools, shelters for people who don't have them, and a community of people who provide AIDS/HIV knowledge. i'm not sure about this one, i'll have to check with sean, but i think they also provide family's with potential sources of income. derrick has three goats, a few coffee plants, and some banana trees. overall, i think that their goal is to provide communities with all the means to have more productive and successful lives. encouraging them to make money, go to school, eat proper meals, and be educated in HIV/AIDS.
our visit with derrick himself was very brief, only fifteen minutes perhaps. it was difficult speaking with him and gramma (we had three WV people translating for us), because of the language barrier, and because derrick was so shy. other kids of his age have very functional english, and he seemed to understand what we were saying, but mostly just seemed shocked at our presence. christine, you should have seen how happy gramma was to see us! even though she couldn't understand us, she seemed very touched by the visit. that's one of the things volunteers and visitors like so much about uganda... they people here have a very good relationship with visitors. people contiually tell us that our presence makes them feel hopeful, that they're so happy to have us here, that our help is very welcome...
so, mostly, we drank tea, ate meals with, and spoke with the WV folk. they seem to have a pretty solid way of putting their projects together. sean might have something different to say on that front, but he's more educated and more critical about projects around here.
oh yeah, i don't know if i mentioned this in a previous post, but sean and i are going to be teaching lifeskills to the P5-P7. we tested their basic knowledge of HIV/AIDS on friday, took the anonymous tests home and analyzed them. this coming week we're just going to play games with the kids, ice-breakers and stuff, and get to know them. monday with the P7, tuesday P6, wednesday P5. we've decided that we're going to focus on basic AIDS knowledge with the P5 level. the older grades already have basic knowledge of the disease (unlike the P5, they don't think that you can get AIDS by playing with or sharing clothes with an infected person). so with P6+7 we're going to focus more on self esteem, confidence, and especially trying to break down the stigma surrounding infected people. of the ~100 tests we handed out, only two kids said that someone with AIDS is not different from themselves. and about 2/3 said that they have seen people being treated poorly because of their disease.
anyways... i should be off. i spent 20 minutes waiting for this page to load, so i've been here fourty minutes now. it gets expensive after a while.
bye now!!
wish us luck with the school!
9.27.2008
me minus some metal
two brief new things:
sean took my tongue rings out, so i now have no metal in my face.
and i had my first fear-of-leaving nightmare. apparently sean used to have the same ones. i dreamt that i somehow accidentally made my way back to ottawa, and was absolutely devestated. i was talking with the buddies, thinking nothing was wrong, and slowly realized that, "heyyyyyy, i was only in uganda for three weeks! it was supposed to be four months!! how did i get back here?!" devestating.
and i had no more money left to get back to uganda... :(
gotta run!
sean took my tongue rings out, so i now have no metal in my face.
and i had my first fear-of-leaving nightmare. apparently sean used to have the same ones. i dreamt that i somehow accidentally made my way back to ottawa, and was absolutely devestated. i was talking with the buddies, thinking nothing was wrong, and slowly realized that, "heyyyyyy, i was only in uganda for three weeks! it was supposed to be four months!! how did i get back here?!" devestating.
and i had no more money left to get back to uganda... :(
gotta run!
9.23.2008
s23
at a few points in every day, i notice something, or something happens that makes me think, "wow, that's something worth writing down and remembering." and when i get around to writing anything down, my mind goes blank. there are two things i can think of right now: traffic, and language.
yesterday we went to kampala. people say it used to only take a bit more than an hour to get there. it took us an hour and a half to get to the outskirts of town. and then it was traffic jam. an hour of inching along, trying to get into town. but, that's expected. most cities don't grow in a way that will make traffic good. once we were in town, though, holy.. it was insane even trying to cross a road. there was a ridiculous (extravagant, even) of all variety of travelers. people on foot, on bicycles, on bike-bodas, on boda-bodas, in cars, mini-taxis, buses, and sometimes an oldschool greyhound bus. it took me a little while before i could figure out exactly why everything was so hectic: it's the combination of the sheer number of people moving around... and that every single one of these people (regardless of their mode of transportation) thinks that they have the right of way. pedestrians just barge accross streets, bike and bodas almost never wait or slow down before crossing a jammed and fast intersection...
as entertaining as the traffic is in that city, i hate kampala. it's basically a huge version of jinja. if you look 150 jinjas and crammed them all together, without widening the streets for traffic, you've got kampala. and might as well throw another 10,000 bodas into the equation. crazy!
language. so every once in a while, when i forget that i'm in uganda, and i'm somewhat sleepy or disoriented, i'll be incredibly surprised when i tune into the sounds around me, and the talking that's happening, and notice that none of these people are speaking english.
i'm heading out now, but just a quick note: i took a D in a long drop for the first time!!!
yesterday we went to kampala. people say it used to only take a bit more than an hour to get there. it took us an hour and a half to get to the outskirts of town. and then it was traffic jam. an hour of inching along, trying to get into town. but, that's expected. most cities don't grow in a way that will make traffic good. once we were in town, though, holy.. it was insane even trying to cross a road. there was a ridiculous (extravagant, even) of all variety of travelers. people on foot, on bicycles, on bike-bodas, on boda-bodas, in cars, mini-taxis, buses, and sometimes an oldschool greyhound bus. it took me a little while before i could figure out exactly why everything was so hectic: it's the combination of the sheer number of people moving around... and that every single one of these people (regardless of their mode of transportation) thinks that they have the right of way. pedestrians just barge accross streets, bike and bodas almost never wait or slow down before crossing a jammed and fast intersection...
as entertaining as the traffic is in that city, i hate kampala. it's basically a huge version of jinja. if you look 150 jinjas and crammed them all together, without widening the streets for traffic, you've got kampala. and might as well throw another 10,000 bodas into the equation. crazy!
language. so every once in a while, when i forget that i'm in uganda, and i'm somewhat sleepy or disoriented, i'll be incredibly surprised when i tune into the sounds around me, and the talking that's happening, and notice that none of these people are speaking english.
i'm heading out now, but just a quick note: i took a D in a long drop for the first time!!!
9.20.2008
pillows
we moved into our place today. after waiting for a couple of hours for the landlady to copy keys for all of us, for a guy to clean the place (so we could move our shit in) and for an huge armoir to be taken. so it's erica, sean and i. and maybe brooke, if she can keep her job here.
at some point sean went to talk to the landlady to make sure that our electricity bill would begin on the day we move in... one of erica's friends had in another situation payed four months' worth of the previous tennant. ehh. so sean came back with the biggest grin on his face, and said, "you guys have -got- to check this out!"
it turns out that this appartment has more perks than we'd thought. the staircase we take to get to our place goes straight up to the roof, where we have a choice view of lake victoria and the source of the nile, and very much of jinja. it's only three storeys tall, but that's taller than most things around. heh, as howa said, "ehhh, you canadians... you will do anything for a nice view.."
and it's true.
so today we're on a search for mattresses (sheets and nets), a countertop gas stove thingy, and we've all decided that we'll just furnish the place with pillows. and i wasn't even the one to suggest it!! erica and brooke did!!
today's probably going to turn out to be one of the more eventful days here, what with moving and furnishing our new place. and breaking it in later with some chilling on the roof.
oh hey, megan, if you can at about noon (your time), that's 9pm (our time). so if you happen to wake up before 2pm (hahahahha, it's not summer anymore! you have to pretty much every day!!!!), call us. anytime after then is probably too late for us. so like, you're not burning out with school and work are you?! take it easy, alright?
alright, i'm off. lots of love
at some point sean went to talk to the landlady to make sure that our electricity bill would begin on the day we move in... one of erica's friends had in another situation payed four months' worth of the previous tennant. ehh. so sean came back with the biggest grin on his face, and said, "you guys have -got- to check this out!"
it turns out that this appartment has more perks than we'd thought. the staircase we take to get to our place goes straight up to the roof, where we have a choice view of lake victoria and the source of the nile, and very much of jinja. it's only three storeys tall, but that's taller than most things around. heh, as howa said, "ehhh, you canadians... you will do anything for a nice view.."
and it's true.
so today we're on a search for mattresses (sheets and nets), a countertop gas stove thingy, and we've all decided that we'll just furnish the place with pillows. and i wasn't even the one to suggest it!! erica and brooke did!!
today's probably going to turn out to be one of the more eventful days here, what with moving and furnishing our new place. and breaking it in later with some chilling on the roof.
oh hey, megan, if you can at about noon (your time), that's 9pm (our time). so if you happen to wake up before 2pm (hahahahha, it's not summer anymore! you have to pretty much every day!!!!), call us. anytime after then is probably too late for us. so like, you're not burning out with school and work are you?! take it easy, alright?
alright, i'm off. lots of love
9.19.2008
a place to live
as of tomorrow, sean and i will have a place to live. we were hoping to find someone through on of his friends here, but had no luck with that. one of them, marky, told us about an post he saw on a billboard at Two Friends. we checked that out. two american girls, both working with the same NGO found a kick-ass house (huge, balcony, no smoking inside, in town... kick-ass, basically), for 400,000UGX. pennies. for three months for both of us, that's $375CAD. lucky, is what i'll call that.
yesterday we went to mbiko to check up on a school that sean had worked on last time he was here. he'd left them with all the tools they needed to continue recruiting volunteers, and he was curious to see if corruption (all too common) had had its way... or if (unlikely) it had been doing well. the unlikely latter was the outcome. the school has a whole lot of kids, all brilliant (and beautiful), 10acres of land that they grow matoke (a kind of banana), maize (weird corn), some beans, and potentially cabbage. we talked a lot with ernest, the headmaster, about his vision and his plans. this man is definitely the soul reason the school is still intact and doing so well. sean and i are hoping to attach his very underfunded school to a partnership with a school in ottawa. i don't know if you know what that is, but basically the students from both schools correspond and send updates, and the one in the developed nation does fundraisers and stuff for their partner school. ernest's plans for the school are very optimistic, and though they seem far too optimistic at times, it's clear that it's his vision that has kept the school looking up in harder times.
oh, by the way, we decided to -walk- to mbiko. hahaha, a one hour walk out of jinja, over the nile, and down a long highway. at high noon. sorry mum, i got a sunburn, but not a bad one. today, i'm wearing sunscreen for the first time in years. anyways, sean calls this highway the "aids highway".... it's the main artery from everywhere else into kampala (the capital of uganda), so there are a plethora of bus stops, truck stops, boda boda stops... and much like any other port or main artery where there are many travelers, there are tons of locals with aids. that, is how it spreads. think of how it got to america: via a shipping port. these communities along highways are the ultimate shipping port.
the most frightening thing about learning all of this was the sobriety with which ernest explained it all. it's just a fact of life.
alright, it's time to hit the town. we're meeting with brooke and erica (our roommates to be) at 4:30 to sign for the house. gotta run!!!
yesterday we went to mbiko to check up on a school that sean had worked on last time he was here. he'd left them with all the tools they needed to continue recruiting volunteers, and he was curious to see if corruption (all too common) had had its way... or if (unlikely) it had been doing well. the unlikely latter was the outcome. the school has a whole lot of kids, all brilliant (and beautiful), 10acres of land that they grow matoke (a kind of banana), maize (weird corn), some beans, and potentially cabbage. we talked a lot with ernest, the headmaster, about his vision and his plans. this man is definitely the soul reason the school is still intact and doing so well. sean and i are hoping to attach his very underfunded school to a partnership with a school in ottawa. i don't know if you know what that is, but basically the students from both schools correspond and send updates, and the one in the developed nation does fundraisers and stuff for their partner school. ernest's plans for the school are very optimistic, and though they seem far too optimistic at times, it's clear that it's his vision that has kept the school looking up in harder times.
oh, by the way, we decided to -walk- to mbiko. hahaha, a one hour walk out of jinja, over the nile, and down a long highway. at high noon. sorry mum, i got a sunburn, but not a bad one. today, i'm wearing sunscreen for the first time in years. anyways, sean calls this highway the "aids highway".... it's the main artery from everywhere else into kampala (the capital of uganda), so there are a plethora of bus stops, truck stops, boda boda stops... and much like any other port or main artery where there are many travelers, there are tons of locals with aids. that, is how it spreads. think of how it got to america: via a shipping port. these communities along highways are the ultimate shipping port.
the most frightening thing about learning all of this was the sobriety with which ernest explained it all. it's just a fact of life.
alright, it's time to hit the town. we're meeting with brooke and erica (our roommates to be) at 4:30 to sign for the house. gotta run!!!
9.15.2008
jinja!!
sean and i have successfully made it to our destination: uganda. we ended up spending a couple more days than expected in kenya because our host there was so damn cool. so we hopped on the bus (a very old version of you standard greyhound bus) at 7am and got to jinja a long and scenic 12hours later. it's absolutely beautiful here. i was expecting to be surprised at how it is here, but the image i had in my mind before leaving canada (pieced together from random stories, textbook case studies, and all that...) was pretty much right. i didn't expect, though, all the "towns" that were basically rows upon rows of 'houses' constructed from odds-and-ends materials... corrugated metal, some brick, some mud... with a bunch of 'shops' along the street. sean says they're called trading centers. there are a few companies that advertise by painting these shops in bold colours. so every village we went by had these hot pink buildings, painted by zain, and lime green ones, painted by safaricom, and in uganda there's also bright yellow ones. i think it's the only time that i've seen attractive advertizment... it adds so much colour to these otherwise brown and metal places. well, i guess the orange soil does a bit, too. the contrast bt the blue sky, rich green landscape, and bright red soil is beautiful.
so today sean and i had a couple of errands to run. i got a phone. (my number is 011 256 779 350 898, call me!!!). we're about to get me some malaria pills (there's no shot, so you take preventative pills). we had some breakfast...
we're staying at the busoga trust house, and sean's on the prowl for a cheaper and nicer place for us to stay. we went out last night to meet with a couple of his friends at a restaurant called Two Friends. it's owned by elin's mom, and apparently she offered him a job there. inflation has made things more expensive than we previously thought, so we're on the look out for payed work.
overall, i like it here a lot. jinja itself is a more modern town, by african standards. it takes ten minutes to walk across the town, and another ten to get to where we're staying. it seems to be very touristy, there are many shops with doo-dads... carved stuff, clay stuff, woven stuff... all very nice in the way that tourists like nice things. there are also way more mzungu's than i expected. we see them on the street now and then, and there are a few at the guest house where we're staying.
i should run for now, and get some malaria medication.
lots of love!
so today sean and i had a couple of errands to run. i got a phone. (my number is 011 256 779 350 898, call me!!!). we're about to get me some malaria pills (there's no shot, so you take preventative pills). we had some breakfast...
we're staying at the busoga trust house, and sean's on the prowl for a cheaper and nicer place for us to stay. we went out last night to meet with a couple of his friends at a restaurant called Two Friends. it's owned by elin's mom, and apparently she offered him a job there. inflation has made things more expensive than we previously thought, so we're on the look out for payed work.
overall, i like it here a lot. jinja itself is a more modern town, by african standards. it takes ten minutes to walk across the town, and another ten to get to where we're staying. it seems to be very touristy, there are many shops with doo-dads... carved stuff, clay stuff, woven stuff... all very nice in the way that tourists like nice things. there are also way more mzungu's than i expected. we see them on the street now and then, and there are a few at the guest house where we're staying.
i should run for now, and get some malaria medication.
lots of love!
9.13.2008
touch down
uhhhh, i just did that thing where a long post just got deleted... so you're getting the incredibly truncated version.
first and foremost: we flew, we landed, we're safe.
i'm in sensory overload, we're happy. my word of the day is juxtaposition. the contrast between the various lifestyles within kenya is... baffling.
mum+dad, sean got a new sim card, so the number you have is wrong. we're 11timezones apart, so your 11am is our 10pm. his new number is 011 254 738 098 130.
i think we're off soon to have dinner. sean and i just accidentally took a six hour nap, and its time for supper. we'll be waking up bright and early tomorrow to head for jinja. sean's face lights up anytime jinja is mentioned. all i can think about is how excited i am to be in and learn about this place that defines sean. *smiles*
lots of love.
first and foremost: we flew, we landed, we're safe.
i'm in sensory overload, we're happy. my word of the day is juxtaposition. the contrast between the various lifestyles within kenya is... baffling.
mum+dad, sean got a new sim card, so the number you have is wrong. we're 11timezones apart, so your 11am is our 10pm. his new number is 011 254 738 098 130.
i think we're off soon to have dinner. sean and i just accidentally took a six hour nap, and its time for supper. we'll be waking up bright and early tomorrow to head for jinja. sean's face lights up anytime jinja is mentioned. all i can think about is how excited i am to be in and learn about this place that defines sean. *smiles*
lots of love.
9.09.2008
t minus 2days
time's been speeding up for the last couple of weeks. our bags are mostly packed now, we've both worked our last shifts, sean found us new tickets to london w aircanada after zoom bummed out... i suppose we've gotten to the point where everything we could have done to prepare has been done. except for throwing our toothbrushes in our bags, and saying, "goodbye (for now)."
it's neat seeing and hearing of things that are going to be happening here after we're gone. those little moments where i realize, "hey, we're not going to be here for that, we're going to be.... somewhere else. cool." i just called mum and dad to say bye, that's the biggest slap int he face. mum, don't be surprised if you get a couple of five a.m. home-sick phone calls. same to you, megan. and and and and. i, uh, i've got to admit, even though it's only for months, it's hard not to get all sentimental about saying bye to the fam. and extended fam.
but that's that! bye!! keep in touch!!
it's neat seeing and hearing of things that are going to be happening here after we're gone. those little moments where i realize, "hey, we're not going to be here for that, we're going to be.... somewhere else. cool." i just called mum and dad to say bye, that's the biggest slap int he face. mum, don't be surprised if you get a couple of five a.m. home-sick phone calls. same to you, megan. and and and and. i, uh, i've got to admit, even though it's only for months, it's hard not to get all sentimental about saying bye to the fam. and extended fam.
but that's that! bye!! keep in touch!!
8.17.2008
t minus 25 days
it's hard to believe but we're pretty much ready. airplane tickets, visas, bags. all a result of sean's work. here's to the (un)official trip planner. *bows*
but seriously though. sean's done this before but i'm scared shitless. or at least i was for the first five months of the countdown. now that it's nearing, and i'm reading academic journals of random projects carried out in uganda, i'm starting to get a feel for what it might be like. but really, how on earth does one prepare for this?! i suppose everyone has their own way of mentally preparing to do something they've never done before. here's my idea: keeping an open mind. that's that. and, having sean as the best guide -ever- is the best gift i could ask for. :D
he knows the places worth checking out and the places to avoid (which we'll probably check out anyways), and how to get there without getting get ripped off. he's hooked us up with a couchsurfer in nairobi and a hotel in jinja. basically our first few days there are figured out. he's given me the task of getting us from nairobi to kampala, which should be an adventure of its own... and hopefully won't end up taking a week to do.
i'm looking foward to taking things as they come, and learning as much as i can about this entirely new place. now... how does someone -not- look like a tourist in uganda...
but seriously though. sean's done this before but i'm scared shitless. or at least i was for the first five months of the countdown. now that it's nearing, and i'm reading academic journals of random projects carried out in uganda, i'm starting to get a feel for what it might be like. but really, how on earth does one prepare for this?! i suppose everyone has their own way of mentally preparing to do something they've never done before. here's my idea: keeping an open mind. that's that. and, having sean as the best guide -ever- is the best gift i could ask for. :D
he knows the places worth checking out and the places to avoid (which we'll probably check out anyways), and how to get there without getting get ripped off. he's hooked us up with a couchsurfer in nairobi and a hotel in jinja. basically our first few days there are figured out. he's given me the task of getting us from nairobi to kampala, which should be an adventure of its own... and hopefully won't end up taking a week to do.
i'm looking foward to taking things as they come, and learning as much as i can about this entirely new place. now... how does someone -not- look like a tourist in uganda...
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