Hello friends, family, and faithful blog readers,
This morning I headed to UNAD for the first time all by myself. I walked there from where I’m staying, which took about 25 minutes. I learned that if I walk on the side of the road in the opposite direction of traffic, fewer men on boda bodas (mopeds, a main form of public transportation) will yell muzungo and want to give me a ride. They like to drive white people because they think they can charge more (and they usually can).
I went in today knowing that today I would meet Florence, the coordinator for HIV/AIDS training and education (Her real title is Program Officer for Gender and Theatre coordinator, but they educate using theater). If you want to see her picture, go to http://unadug.net/general/secretariat.php. The other people you can see on that page that I have gotten to know are Joseph (my contact from before I got to Uganda, he’s actually in charge I think because Alex Ndeezi is the first deaf member of parliament and I doubt that he’s in the UNAD office often), Deborah (who was actually the first person to respond to my original batch of e-mails back in January), Noah (who likes to point out when ASL signs are the same as USL and encourages me to keep learning USL), and Olivia (who interpreted for me today even though she just meant to stop by and say hi).
So Deborah introduced me to Florence. Florence doesn’t know any ASL, and I don’t know much USL. But Olivia volunteered to interpret. I expected that I would ask questions, but Deborah started talking about the programs and talked for an hour and a half. She confirmed a lot of my predictions about the similarities of American and Ugandan Deaf cultures. In Uganda, as in the US, deaf with a lower-case d describes someone that can’t hear and Deaf with a capital D describes a culture.
Florence invited me to four or five conferences on the education (about HIV/AIDS or in general? I don’t know) for people with disabilities in Uganda. The first one is tomorrow and held in Kampala, so I am going, bright and early. The others require travel to other regions of Uganda and are longer. I couldn’t seem to convince Florence that I would rather for to the 3-day conference than the week-long one. She said I could share a hotel room with her. Luckily, tomorrow’s conference is only one day.
Once I left UNAD, I took a long walk that was half practical and half exploratory. I walked for about 45 minutes along Lugogo By-Pass (yes, I know the names of a couple streets in Kampala even though street signs are uncommon. I sleep with a map under my pillow). I then went shopping at Game, which is like Target. I bought disposable cameras for taking to the areas that are more risky to bring a camera and pens and notebooks, because despite my mother’s advice, I only brought one of each and promptly lost both. And speaking of my mom, I then bought phone minutes so I could talk to my mom for the first time since I got here!
This evening consisted of that much-needed chat, as well as dinner and brainstorming ways to change my BA project based on what I have already learned and the resources to which I will have access. I intend to be on gmail for another few hours and then a good night sleep.
I feel one hundred times better since writing yesterday’s blog entry because of all of the encouraging notes I have gotten from so many of you. But you set the bar high, my friends. Keep that in mind. Tomorrow (Friday) I will be on gmail for most of the day; the conference ends at 14:00 (which is 7:00 am for Ben and for East Coast family members, and 6:00 for everyone else). So I expect to hear from you all bright and early. Keep in mind that Katie Bailey got a gmail account just so she could chat with me.
Keep me posted about your adventures in the US.
Sarah
No comments:
Post a Comment