My Lucky Day

What a day.

I walked to UNAD this morning, and I think everyone in Kampala got together and decided to acknowledge me more. It was crazy! Twice as many people as usual yelled “muzungo” and tons more cars/bodas honked at me. Two boda drivers actually pulled up next to me and stopped their bikes to try to convince me to accept a ride, offering to drive me for free. They didn’t seem to believe I liked “footing it.” But I walked all the way there.

I got to UNAD around 11:00 am. I hadn’t been there yet this week. I walked in right as everyone was going to a meeting, so I went to a couch and starting reading. Three or four hours later, the meeting ending. In the US, people would tell you to come back because the meeting would be long, but I got another lesson in Ugandan sense of time. They didn’t need to mention it because no one minds waiting. I was actually fine; thank goodness I brought a book.

Florence came back and gave me the details about next week’s conference on HIV/AIDS education for disabled populations, which I decided to attend. It is in Masaka, which is south of Kampala and about 30 miles south of the Equator! I am going south of the Equator! I am so excited; the only sad thing is that I don’t know if there will be any flushing toilets for me to see it drain in the opposite direction from the Northern Hemisphere. If you go to the Equator in Uganda, they totally show you the toilet demonstration. Anyway, I am excited to see another part of Uganda. Masaka is right on Lake Victoria, which hopefully I will be able to see.

Since I hadn’t been at UNAD in a while, one woman asked me if I had “been lost.” It is a Ugandan phrase that means someone was not around for a while, but I still haven’t quite figured out how to respond to it. I wasn’t around, but I wasn’t actually lost. So I just smiled.

Florence invited me to a meeting in the afternoon, and I decided not to attend because I had some other UNAD people I wanted to talk to. After Florence left, someone casually mentioned that the meeting was on HIV/AIDS education, so I ran to catch up with Florence. I’m super glad I went. I met the head honchos of a bunch of DPOs (Disabled Persons Organizations) who I heard speak at the conference a few weeks ago, and they all agreed to meet with me and gave me their cards. The meeting started about 1 ½ hours late…I don’t think I will ever get used to Ugandan time. In addition, the meeting was held in a small library of materials on HIV/AIDS education for the disabled!!! Needless to say, I am going back there soon. It was quite a lucky day.

Tonight we had waffles for dinner, so I will be in a good mood for the rest of the night. I am currently compiling notes and questions from today’s meeting and trying to read the news…those webpages are the hardest to get to load. So let me know is something big happens in the world because I might miss it.

Sarah

Heinz Ketchup

Hello,

The power is back on, the internet is working, and I am ready to blog.

Yesterday was a unexpectedly crazy day. Brian (he is a missionary, he is the one with 5 kids under 7, I might have messed up that age before, but Julie is 7) told me that there were some kids in their program (Hope Alive!) that were from the deaf school. So Dorothy (who is a Ugandan that works for Hope Alive!) took me to the deaf school because she has been their contact. We went via public, taking a taxi (remember that is actually van that runs like a bus) to the school…in the pouring rain. We waited about an hour to talk to the headmistress. I told her about my project and she seemed skeptical. I am not sure exactly what she is skeptical about, but she sure seemed it. Skeptical that she will be able to help me? That I can do this research project? I don’t know, but after some convincing she agreed to meet with me next week. So that is the plan.

So shortly after I got home, I got another call from Brian. He invited me to dinner with his family at a restaurant in Garden City (the mall). I’m sorry, I don’t remember the name of the restaurant, but I remember that its theme was Native Americans. No joke. It had a ton of things for kids to do – two trampolines, a kids movie playing, three videogame consoles, places to color, and probably more. So needless to say it’s a great restaurant for a family with 5 energetic kids. I had a cheeseburger and chips (French fries). But I need to tell you about the horrible realization that I had during this meal. I have forgotten what American Heinz ketchup tastes like. This is how I know: Heinz ketchup is hard to find in Uganda, but I’d had it a couple of times and noticed that it was good, but just a little bit off. But yesterday, the ketchup tasted normal. So I have forgotten the taste of ketchup! But I would take Ugandan Heinz ketchup any day over what is much more common: Top Up, the common “equivalent” is actually tomato-flavored water.

This is Abby. She is two. And she pretty much always looks like this, even when she’s not on a trampoline.

Here is a picture of Brian and the youngest two kids, Emily and Christian, who are both 1 year old. They are climbing out of the enclosed trampoline.

So today has been incredibly low key. I went to the bank and bought airtime for my cell phone. But for the rest of the day I have been working on my research and reading for pleasure.

Pineapple is so much better here; it is a lot sweeter. We had it with ice cream tonight. The ice cream was vanilla, strawberry, and lime flavored. It was actually a really good combination.

So that’s it for tonight. Tomorrow looks like it will be another eventful day. And a shout out to Grandpa – get better so I can come visit in September (I love you too Grandma)!

Sarah

Most Welcome

Here is the moment you have all been waiting for…today’s restaurant was I Love New York Kitchen! I am totally serious. It is a restaurant that serves pizza, bagels, milkshakes, burgers, and everything else American. It is on the ground floor of the parking garage at the mall, Garden City. It has outdoor seating, which means you are sitting in the parking garage. I went with a big group of people. First the family, parents: Brian and Renee, kids: Julianne, Hannah, Abby, Emily, and Christian. Then three other people approximately my age, Kate (in the middle in the photo below), Jenny (on the right), and GJ (he took the picture). Kate leaves tomorrow morning after being in Uganda for 8 months, so we took her back to her apartment to say bye and take all of her remaining American candy sent from home. I got gummy worms and a Symphony bar.

Church was also good this morning. We sang one Happening song (I will call upon the Lord) which was a nice reminder of home. A remarkable number of people there remembered my name, but since Ugandans speak softly out of respect, I never learned their names in the first place. Ugandans are incredibly welcoming though; they always, always say “You are most welcome” especially the first few times you visit. Brian preached; the sermon was an hour long. I am not joking. And we were so squished in the pews that a Ugandan girl was practically on my lap. So I only heard about half of the sermon.

Tonight consists of leftover soup and working on my research. Any company online would be greatly appreciated.

Sarah

Hope Alive!

Hello,

Today I went to the Hope Alive! Saturday club. Hope Alive! is a sponsorship program for Ugandan kids living in poor neighborhoods, which seem to be called slums here. They feed, clothe, and pay the education fees for these children. The Saturday program is breakfast, playing, Bible study, a mini class, and lunch. I spent pretty much the whole time observing and taking pictures. As I have said before, nothing makes me happier than taking pictures of children, especially when they are playing outside in the sunlight. I plan on going back to help out for the rest of my Saturdays here.

I have finally learned more about the Ugandan food I have been eating. Check out the picture I took of my plate. At the very top of the plate is shredded cabbage. Then, going clockwise, is rice covered in g-nut sauce. This is a peanut sauce (they are called ground nuts here), that actually looks much more lavender in real life. Next are beans. Then a piece of Irish potato (there is one other type of potato in Uganda but I don’t know what it’s called and Irish is definitely better), and finally posho (which kinda blends in with the cabbage). Posho is made from cassava and has absolutely no taste whatsoever. You have to mix it with the other food on your plate. All of the Ugandan children eat all of the food on the plates with their hands. My portion was actually a bit smaller than what is given to the children (I was given a “muzungo portion”) because a lot of these kids will only eat the breakfast and lunched provided on Saturdays.

Tune in tomorrow to hear about the restaurant I am going to after church. I have been hearing about this place since the day I got here…but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what it is!

Sarah

Pizza, chocolate, and American movies

Hello,

Today was another packed day in Kampala. I always dread the days I begin without plans, but I am always pleasantly surprised. I spent the afternoon doing internet research about people I want to interview. I found an amazing website that lists all the contact information, including mobile number and e-mail, for all the Members of Parliament in Uganda. This is really amazing because 4 of them specifically represent persons with disabilities. And one of them is the first deaf member of Ugandan parliament, and I have been reading about him since this whole project started. And he is in Kampala, so hopefully I will be able to meet him.

This evening John and Cindy had three young women that work for Focus over for dinner, Joy, Gabrielle, and Audrey. I spent some time with them; they are incredibly nice. Talking to Audrey was also really helpful because she is finishing a master’s thesis on NGOs so she gave me her opinion about what she doesn’t like about the NGOs in Uganda and also the common perception of disabled individuals in Kampala.

Then, I went over the Brian and Renee’s house for dinner. They have five kids under the age of seven. Friday night is movie and pizza night. So we had homemade pizza (the crust was made from the Giordano’s recipe) and watched the movie Royal Wedding. Once the kids went to bed, it was time for the double feature; we watched Runaway Jury and ate homemade chocolate ice cream, but unfortunately the power goes out a lot in Kampala so the cream was a bit spoiled. Most Ugandans don’t like chocolate, so this meal was 100% American. And I wasn’t dropped off until almost midnight! (The latest I have been out since I got here was about 5:00 pm.) It was a really fun night.

During the past two weeks I have heard a lot about one of the projects here called Hope Alive. It focuses on helping orphaned children and fragile families. So I am going to the Saturday program tomorrow to help out. They also have two deaf children that are part of the program, but the good news is that they think one of them is over 18 years old, so I might be able to interview him. That would be too good to be true.

Goodnight.

Sarah

Yesterday and today

Hello,

Yesterday (July 23), Sam, Alice, and their nine-month-old Timothy came over to the house for dinner. Sam works for FOCUS and Alice is a textile designer. It was a really wonderful evening. Timothy and I played (surprise, surprise) with a teddy bear and blocks. Alice brought over her sketch and design books from college; she is an incredibly talented artist.

Today was a very productive day for my BA thesis. I worked on most of the internet things that I needed to do before heading out to start interviewing. Mainly, I googled the organizations that I learned about at the conference last week. Then Jenny (the very first missionary I met at Kampala Baptist Church) helped me find them all on the map and figure out how to get there via public, as it’s called.

I also walked to UNAD today, but no one was really there. So I borrowed the enormous USL dictionary they have there (different from the one that was mailed to me) and went on my way. I ended up taking a 2 hour walk, circling the entire neighborhood I live in (Kololo). It was great because I passed by NGOs that are applicable to my research that I had never heard of. There are a ridiculous number of NGOs in Kampala. I won’t have time to visit all of the NGOs specifically for disabled people; there are just too many. But I will make it to the important ones.

I am going to go to sleep early. I was woken up this morning by two girls, Hannah and Abbie, that are six(?) and two years old (there are three more kids in the family, all under the age of nine). Their mother stopped by to talk to Cindy, and she told me that her husband has a contact at a deaf school and he has already agreed to meet with me. So that will be good.

Goodnight. Thanks for all of the continued support via e-mails, facebook, blogs, etc. You can’t imagine what a difference it makes.

Sarah

Lazy Tuesday

Hello,

Today was a very, very low-key day because my stomach was acting up. It was inevitable. But I am fine, I just needed to stay where I knew there was a bathroom. Nothing unique to Africa. So I just read a novel and told myself that soon I would work on my research. So it’s 10:30 pm and I should get started any minute now.

I did take a walk today to go to an atm. In Uganda, if you can afford it, you have to hire a house lady. It is considered giving back to the community. So Deborah did my laundry; she washes the clothes, hangs them to dry outside, and then irons them thoroughly to kill the things that got on the clothes while they were drying. So I went to get money to pay Deborah. And on that walk I took some picture of where I am staying and the surrounding streets. Cindy and John (and I) live on the left side of the house (when you are facing it, like in the picture below). The large window on the second floor is my room. I just realized that it is covered by the tree in the picture. Oh well.

Goodnight.

Focus and photographs

Hello,

Today I went with John and Cindy (the couple I live with) to Focus, which is the organization they work for. So this is what I learned: John and Cindy are missionaries sent by the mission organization World Venture. But they knew about Focus and asked World Venture if that could be their project in Uganda. Focus is run by Ugandans and caters to helping students grow in their faith and become young adults. If you want to know more about it, go to http://focusuganda.org/.

I went to morning devotions, which was all of us telling the highs and lows of the week and which Bible passage had spoken to us during the week. Well, I said that getting my research started was a high and homesickness was a low . . . and that God was teaching me patience and how to endure challenging situations. Thankfully, they did not point out the fact that I did not mention a Bible verse. Then they sang two African songs, I think one was in Luganda and one in Swahili. They were the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. They all harmonized and improvised; I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Cindy took some video and she is going to make me a copy.

Next, I went to the home of Beatrice and Vincent on the Focus compound. Vincent is the director of Focus and his wife got her masters in the US in family and marriage counseling (he was also getting a degree, but I don’t know what it was). They have two children, Stephen, 3 ½, and Zoë, almost 2. Stephen is autistic and the family just got back from the US getting him help. So I played for the whole morning and took a couple hundred pictures. Nothing makes me happier than taking pictures of children playing outside. Beatrice made breakfast, African pancakes made with bananas instead of sugar. They were really good. Beatrice was also great to talk to because she is the first Ugandan I’ve met that understands how hard it is to be living in a different culture.

Then I had lunch back at Focus headquarters. This time I was able to learn the names of what I have been eating for the past week. Matoke is mashed plantains (bananas) and tastes/feels a lot like pashed potatoes. Also, there was posho, which is a maize/cornmeal paste-like food. It is not as good as matoke. Both are mixed with whatever meat or bean dish is served with the meal. Today we had a beef stew type thing, plus a cabbage salad and very small bananas.

After lunch, I went to another house on the compound to meet Elaine. She is 2 and hard-of-hearing. She had two hearing aids, but one fell in water and the other shattered. So they have to buy new ones (they are very expensive) and have to stop speech therapy until she gets them again. Her father asked me lots of questions about cochlear implants, and luckily we learned about them in ASL class.

Once we got back home, I promptly fell asleep until dinner. Tonight, I have been brainstorming places to visit for my research and chatting online. Tomorrow will be more laid back, including exploring, shopping, and picture-taking.

One random last thing. A couple days ago, a (hearing) law student asked me if I was for McCain or Obama. She was VERY excited to learn that I live 6ish blocks from his house. A lot of people here support him and are very excited at the prospect of his presidency.

Sarah

Lugogo Baptist Church

Hello,

Another busy day in Kampala. I went to Lugogo Baptist Church this morning, which is different from the Baptist church I went to last Sunday. I was meeting some of the mission girls that are around my age, plus I knew some Ugandans that attend that church. I had been warned before I got here about Ugandan’s concept of time, but I still haven’t begun to get used to it. Since I was getting dropped off at church and others in the car were going to church elsewhere, I arrived early at about 10:35 for an 11:00 service. They have Bible study/Sunday school that starts at 10:00, so I thought I would go join the young adult group. Well, I was the first one there. A few people came shortly, including Robert, who I learned was one of the three original contacts given to me by Ben’s dad’s friend. So I didn’t contact him, but I met him anyway. We started at 10:45 and people wandered in until 11:00. The service didn’t start until 11:15 and the people I was meeting came at 11:20. It was a great way to meet Ugandans in the community.

After church, I went with Megan and Kate, who are missionaries around my age, but they are leaving this week. We met up with other missionaries they know at a restaurant called Sam’s in town. There were only three Ugandan dishes on the whole menu; most of the food was Western or Indian. Then we went to Garden City, the local mall. The group of us went cosmic bowling. I am not kidding. There were only six lanes, but it looked like any bowling alley in the US. I learned that cosmic bowling is really hard to photograph, but this should give the general idea.

That is a picture of me laughing because I got a gutter ball. But I did get two strikes, believe it or not.

The other option besides bowling was ice skating. But not on ice, on plastic. Again, I am not kidding. People were skating with real skates on plastic that is like the top of an air hockey table. It looked completely normal, but then you remembered that it was 80 degrees and they were skating on plastic.

After that I cam home and had dinner. Tomorrow I am going with the couple I live with to Focus, which is the mission organization they work for. I am going to devotions in the morning during which there probably will be traditional Ugandan singing, so I am very excited. Then, I am going to meet a Ugandan woman and her children that are affiliated with Focus. One of the sons is Autistic and they need someone to play with him, so I am going, ready to play. There is also a deaf two-year-old in the building that I will meet either tomorrow or in the future.

I am excited about the upcoming week because I am planning on exploring Kampala both for research and for pleasure. I am going to go to the surprisingly numerous organizations that work with the disabled in Kampala to interview people there. It will be really good to see more of the city, and I am itching to take lots of pictures.

Sarah

Disability Conference, Sugar, and Volleyball

Hello,

Yesterday (Friday, the 18^th) was a really rewarding day. I went to a conference on AIDS and disability with Florence and Barry, who thankfully is hearing and speaks English. The whole event was in English and interpreted into USL, but it was helpful in communicating with Florence. She is one of the nicest people I’ve met here. She grabs my hand when we cross the street. Keep in mind that crossing the street is no easy feat here. The most helpful part of the conference was the handout that included a list of acronyms of all the organizations that focus on disability and/or HIV/AIDS in Uganda. So I am making plans to visit these other organizations within the next 2 weeks. As part of the conference, we were given lunch. All of the times that I have had Ugandan trips two things are true: it is a buffet so I am able to try everything, but also, I am with deaf people, so I still don’t know the English words for the food.

Random observation. Sugar is different here. The grains are much larger, so you can feel it crunching when you eat a brownie. I am not a big fan. On the other hand, sugar improves soda. In the US, soda is made with corn syrup, but here it is made with real sugar which is much better.

Today (Saturday, the 19^th) was a surprisingly busy day. Sometimes the days you think will drag because there’s nothing to do become the fullest and fastest days of all. I slept in until 10 and ate lunch and read until mid-afternoon. Then Liz, a missionary that usually works in southern Uganda, stopped by the place I am staying to visit and use the internet. We ended up talking all afternoon and she invited me to a volleyball game at the house of yet another missionary family. Youth from Lugogo Baptist Church play volleyball everyday Saturday night. I have learned that, in Uganda, the word youth describes someone who is not yet married and does not have kids. So in Liz’s youth group, the youth range from six to thirty years old. The guys playing volleyball were all in their late teens through late twenties, I would guess. I watched with the girls, and they taught me about the Ugandan school system. One girl is studying forestry at a local university and lives at a hostel nearby.

Then, we followed the children to where they were playing. There were nine children of missionaries between the two families on the compound, all under the age of nine. I was handed the youngest, (“Who wants a baby?” I’m totally not kidding) and he hung out on my hip the whole night. Christian, who is one year old, would not let anyone else hold him and was very content to observe the playing. After most people left, we were given homemade pizza. I know that I haven’t been gone long and haven’t eaten Ugandan food that many times, but I really missed pizza. And it was a highlight of my day.

Tonight I am chatting with my mom and Ben while researching organizations that I learned about at the conference yesterday. I am finding them on the map and planning routes to get there. I am basically creating a scavenger hunt to collect data for my project. The prize is getting to write the actual BA paper!

I should be on gmail for the majority of my evening/your day tomorrow. Thanks for the continuing notes of encouragement – they are more helpful than you know.

Thursday, 17 July 2008

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

first week in Kampala

I left Chicago Thursday afternoon (July 10) and flew into Brussels, where I had a 3 hour layover (12:30-3:30 am Illinois time, might I add). Then I flew into Uganda, arriving on Friday night. I was picked up by a taxi driver sent by the Red Chili Hideaway, the hostel in which I stayed. It was a pretty nice place and a good price. They had a restaurant there, which was very helpful in preventing starvation until I worked up the courage to attempt public transportation. I couldn’t sleep that night so I stayed up listening to audio books on my ipod.

Saturday (July 12), I did venture out of the hostel compound to find an atm (no easy feat if you have a mastercard) and a cell phone store. It was a successful, but surprisingly tiring adventure. That night, I had dinner with a couple, Dave and Rene, who were passing through Kampala on the trip of a lifetime. They were exploring the cities and bush of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. It was nice to have the company.

Sunday (July 13), I had the Red Chili call me a taxi (called a special hire, the vans that run like buses are called taxis) and my driver and I headed out to attempt to find Kampala Baptist Church. Here’s why: my contact in Uganda left for a month the day before I arrived (which I found out via her blog). Ben’s father’s friend knows a pastor in Detroit who was a missionary in Uganda for many years. The friend got contacts from the pastor, including the pastor of Kampala Baptist Church. I had no idea what time the service would start so I just headed out as soon as I was ready.

Well, my driver claimed that he didn’t know where the church was because there are so many Baptist churches in the city. But he picked one and it was exactly the one I wanted. I walked into the sanctuary about 15 minutes before the early service ended. Unfortunately, it was held in Luganda, so I couldn’t understand a single work. But fortunately, very few white people attend that service, so I stuck out easily as someone who needed friends. (The later service in English was relatively diverse). At the end of the service, a woman (named Jenny) approached me and introduced herself. Long story slightly shorter, she and her husband are long-term missionaries in Uganda and his parents, who were visiting, were missionaries in Pakistan. And they were all from Wheaton. I know that Wheaton is a pretty religious place, but what are the odds? So they brought me to Sunday school and invited me to their house for lunch. I also stayed for the English service, where I was introduced to other missionaries and Ugandans.

Susan, another missionary who has lived in Africa for decades, offered to pick me up, help me check out of Red Chili, let me sleep in her guest room, and drive me to and from UNAD on my first day (I am working with the Uganda National Association of the Deaf, both volunteering and researching for my BA thesis). Needless to say, this was both incredibly generous and incredibly helpful. Then yesterday (Tuesday, the 15^th), I moved into another home of missionaries relatively new to Uganda, Cindy and John. It looks like I will be staying here my whole time here. It is the PERFECT location because I can walk to everything I need: UNAD (which I didn’t know was within walking distance when I agreed to live with them), ShopRite (groceries, milk is sold in bags), Game (sort of like a Target), an atm of the only bank in Uganda I can use, a mobile phone store and numerous roadside stands where I can buy phone minutes, and the place to catch a taxi (like a bus stop, but unmarked) to go anywhere in the city. But the BEST part of living here is that they have internet in their house (most of the time). In Uganda, the power goes out very frequently, between every other day and every four-ish days, depending on the neighborhood in which you live. When the power is out, the internet does not work.

So Monday was the first day that I went to UNAD. I arrived mid-morning to the most pleasant surprise: a number of people who work for UNAD know American Sign Language, which makes communication much easier. I signed with a weird mixture of ASL and Ugandan Sign Language, and they continually taught me knew words in USL. This actually developed into a type of game where we tried to think of and use as many words as we could that were the same in ASL and USL. Two of the men took me out to lunch at a Ugandan restaurant. Honestly, I have no idea what I ate because they labeled all of the food on my plate in USL, so I don’t know the English words yet. One thing about Ugandans, they stare. And the sight of a muzungo (the word meaning white person that is constantly yelled at me by people on the street) and two deaf Africans must have been quite the sight. Because everyone wanted to watch. While in the office before and after lunch, I chatted with two of the employees and read through a different USL dictionary than the one I had been sent that was much more complete. I am going back tomorrow (Thursday) to meet with the woman who does the HIV/AIDS education for UNAD.

Today (Wednesday, July 16), I went with the first missionary family I met at church into town, the heart of Kampala. They drove over to where I am staying and we took public transportation from there, so I could learn how to do it. Public transportation is crazy. They pack 13-14 people into a van and drive into town. The people get off right before the taxi enters the taxi park because it can take 1-2 hours to get in there, even though they right by it. Although there is an organization to the madness of the taxi park, you would never know it at first glance. Google image: taxi park Kampala. We went to fabric stores and Aweno, a used-goods market. Stuff that is made in Africa often has “made in China” written on it because they think that makes products more appealing. The center of town is very crowded and you bump into 90% of the people around you. And more staring and shouts of “muzungo.” But everyone was really friendly and eager to engage us in conversation.

So that’s pretty much everything. I promise that none of my future posts will be this long. Please keep in touch. I do feel pretty disconnected from everyone and nights are a bit lonely, especially when the power goes out and I read all night by flashlight (stupid jetlag). But please don’t send e-mail with any large attachments because Ugandan internet just can’t handle it. I have a gmail account, sarahmarguerite@gmail.com, that I use to instant message. Once I have my schedule more set, I will post when I plan on being online and ready to chat.

Omukwaano (love), Sarah