Busoga Trust America

This week has been extremely out of the ordinary for those of us in the Busoga Trust Masindi office. It began on Saturday afternoon with the arrival of Reverend Andrew Pearson. He is a delightful older gentleman from the UK who came up with the entire concept of Busoga Trust 26 years ago. He came to visit and see how the project is running under Ned, who is the new operations manager. On Sunday afternoon, the founders of Busoga Trust America (who fund the Busoga Trust Masindi project)  joined Pearson. Six Americans (the founders with a few friends and family, none of whom had ever been to Africa) hung out with us in the village for four days. We had a great time, discussing the best ways to approach hygeine and sanitation, contemplating potential changes to our practices and all manner of trivial things as well. It was a wonderful time with good people, concerned about making a difference in Uganda. I enjoyed meeting with those people who have made this experience happen for me.

I’m coming to the end of my last week in Masindi.  I will be spending this evening with my new friends who work with the Peace Corps, and I will have a little going away party tomorrow night with the staff from Busoga Trust Masindi, who have become my dear friends. i’ll spend Saturday packing, I’ll fly back to the States on Sunday and will arrive on Monday morning.

So… this is it.

…for now.

Harry Potter

For me, life in Masindi is relatively relaxed and predictable, now that I have a grasp on what to expect from life in Africa. So there generally isn’t a ton to blog about. However, last weekend was a bit outside of my normal routine. I decided long before actually arriving in Uganda that if there was any possible way of seeing the sixth Harry Potter movie while here, I would make it happen. So when I found out that it would be playing at the Cineplex in Kampala, the capitol city of Uganda, I was ecstatic.

I planned the trip weeks in advance; I would ride a bus cross-country from Masindi to Jinja for the weekend and have Johnson (the country-wide program manager for BT) review my project. On the way, I’d stay in Kampala for a night. It was solid! After all, Kampala is on the way! (…I mean, depending on which way you take…)

So, armed with a few changes of clothes, my camera, and my computer, I headed to the Link bus station. Now, I’m going to shoot straight with you- Link busses rock. They are WAY more comfortable than mtatus, which are the (extremely rickety and crowded) standard public transport in Uganda. So I get to the bus station at 9 on Wednesday morning, and I am assigned a window seat about three rows from the front. I squeeze into my seat (picture a charter bus, only the seats are about half of the size), and hunker down for what I’m told will be a three hour drive. Shortly after I sit down, the bus fills. Men selling chapatis, toothbrushes, samosas, necklaces, bottled water, and all sorts of other goodies swarm the windows, hoping that someone will thrust a 500 shilling coin in their direction. Suddenly, the bus speakers come to life, and a very energetic Ugandan song starts to blare “Talemwa, Katonda wafwe talemwa…” A woman with a chicken in her lap sits across the aisle from me. The man right beside me has already fallen asleep; the music doesn’t cause him to stir. I take in the scene around me with a small smile, enjoying the sounds, the smells, the closeness of the people, and the bus begins to move.

Two hours and about 200 speed bumps later (seriously, there is a speed bump literally every twenty feet during one stretch of road), I no longer feel the contentment with life that I began the trip with. I’m sweaty, I’m annoyed by the constant jostling of the bumpy road, and I’m SO over listening to Ugandan praise and worship music at this volume. I can’t take my mind off of the trip by reading because of the movement, so I put in my ipod, thankful that I decided against being too hardcore for western conveniences. Suddenly, my seatmate leans away from the aisle, a look of disgust on his face. I notice that others have shied toward the windows as well. I notice a liquidy substance running toward the back of the bus down the aisle. I take out my ipod and ask the man next to me what is going on.

“That man there has fallen ill. He has vomited.”

Now any of you who know me at all know that I’ve always kind of had a thing with vomit. More than revulsion, almost a phobia. I’m so glad I’m getting over that. I roll my eyes, and try to crack my window open. My neighbor helps me when I can’t get it (Ugandans are so helpful that way… or maybe he was afraid that I was going to puke, too?) and I am once again thankful for my ipod… I would probably have had a harder time if I’d heard it happen.

We continue for another two hours before approaching Kampala. I can see buildings (buildings!!!) in the distance, and I know that I’ve reached relative civilization.

It takes another good half hour from the time that we get to Kampala before we reach the bus station, just because traffic is so out of control. I think I may have actually seen a stop light, but the novelty wore off when I realized that nobody actually obeyed it. The streets are just… thick with people and motorbike taxis and cars that are falling apart and UN suburbans. As soon as the bus pulls into the crowded terminal (just a dirt lot packed to bursting with buses and people), people start tapping the window, saying, ‘Mzungu, I take you?’ One really ballsey guy actually boards the bus to collect me, holding up his car key and saying, ‘Madame, we go?’ Gotta admire tenacity like that. I gather my things, avoid the pukey mess, and follow this man through the mass of people trying to get me to go with them. I get into his car, and after being trapped by mtatus for about fifteen minutes, we squeeze through and onto the road. I ask the taxi driver (who is named Richard, as it turns out; he loves Obama and admires me for working with a water source NGO and has three kids and needs money to send them to primary school. Shockingly enough.) to bring me to Garden City. Twenty minutes and about fifty brushes with fiery, car accident-ey death later, we pull into our destination.

Garden City. It is really very appropriately named… it is like a city. It is essentially a mall- three stories of civilization-ey goodness. A coffee shop, a MASSIVE grocery store (that I bought barbecue sauce in!! Barbecue sauce!!!), an internet café, a food court, a place where I can develop pictures, a jewelry shop, and… A movie theatre!!! I could quite easily and very happily live here. I make a beeline for the third floor, and to the Cineplex. I feel like such a rockstar!! I’m in a developing country, and I have managed to make it to Harry Potter on opening day. I am positively floating, until I see a sign posted in the ticket window that advertises a MIDNIGHT SHOWING LAST NIGHT!!! This completely bums me out… I would have totally come a day early if I had known… because I’m that much of a loser. Once my complete nerdiness occurs to me, I force myself to be a bit less depressed and purchase my ticket for the next showing. 4:00 in the afternoon… this gives me two and a half hours to myself in this wonderland of a mall!! I immediately go to the grocery store to pick up some lunch. Walking down the aisles, I get kind of overwhelmed. I end up with only an apple and a bottle of water when I’ve finished perusing… which is exactly what I would have gotten at the Lucky 7 in Masindi. I force myself to approach the cheese counter and get a piece of cheddar. As I’m checking out, I grab a Snickers bar, too. Laden down with my treasures, I head to the second floor, where there are some tables. Let me tell you, cheddar cheese and Snickers have never tasted so good. It’s not that I eat either of those two things on a really regular basis in the states, but just the fact that for the last two and a half months I didn’t have the OPTION to have them makes this opportunity so much sweeter.

I wander around for a while, meandering between the seemingly endless stores, reveling in the… vastness of it all. And make no mistake, this is not anything like the malls Americans are used to; it would be considered extremely humble by most standards. But to me, it’s an absolute palace. I head up to the internet café for a bit, and soon enough, it is time for my movie.

I enter the theatre, only about a quarter of the way full (the notion is a bit crazy to me, considering it’s opening day), and sit by myself. I always think it’s kind of sad to go to the movies by myself, but I actually loved it. I can be as internally nerdy and excited as I want, and nobody has to endure my geeky grin and constantly listen to me discuss plot details.

It’s weird, during those few hours, if I could mentally rip myself from the movie long enough to think about where I was, it kind of surprised me for a second to remember that I wasn’t at the AMC on Rochester Road. I have to hand it to the Ugandan Cineplex people- I felt exactly like I was in a theatre in America. It was even a bit uncomfortably cold, lol.

This blog is not for spoilers, so I’m not going to discuss the movie. Suffice it to say that I am as big a critic as the next weirdly involved book fan, but I very much loved it and didn’t regret the trip at all.

The rest of my trip, from the crazy mtatu ride to Jinja, to the fun I had saying for the weekend with my friend Priscilla and her Ugandan family, to the great times I spent with the Jinja team while I was there… it was all blog-worthy. But another time.

I can’t believe that I am only here for three and a half more weeks. Sigh.

Coming Up to Week Three in Masindi

I am currently sitting in the office, and from a loudspeaker in the market a few kilometers away, I can hear an upbeat African song playing for the masses. I can only understand a couple of words… something about America, and the chorus strains- “Ooooooh- bama!” (Stephen, one of the guys in the office, just translated for me; the chorus says ‘Obama, the African Hero’. LOL) I’m going to have to look that song up and download it at the first opportunity I get.

…Anyway…

Not much has changed here in Masindi, but I do have a few bits of news (for all three of the people who read this, haha).

The first is that the new operations manager has arrived. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks living and working with Rob Waugh, who is currently the head honcho at Busoga Trust’s Masindi branch. His contract, however, is up at the end of next week and his successor, Ned Morgan, has just arrived from Boston. He’ll spend the next week or so learning all that he needs to know in order to run the place, and then Rob will head back to Scotland.

The second is that I’ve asked the guys from Busoga Trust America if I can add some more to my workload. My main project while interning here is writing a standard guidebook for the HIC, but I would also love to work on the BTA website. So I’ve asked if I can be in charge of updating it for the duration of the summer. There is a lot that both Rob and the team have accomplished here in Masindi, but not much has been displayed on the website; I’d like for people to be able to see what awesome things are going on here. I’ll begin work on that this week, so be sure to check out http://busogatrustamerica.org whenever you get the chance!

The third thing is that all of my friends in America seem to be having weddings and babies without me. I’m thinking that’s got to stop.

The fourth thing is that I’ve stopped biting my nails again. We’ll see how that works out for me this time.

Other than that, it’s the same old, same old here in the big Af. Speaking of Africa in general, I’ve been thinking about Uganda a bit lately, and maybe I can articulate this here…

The love I have for Uganda has become kind of like how most people feel for relatives. It’s not this romantic love like I used to have for her… It’s more of the kind of love you have for family. I usually enjoy being with her, but sometimes she annoys the crap out of me. But no matter how I feel about her at any given moment, I have no choice but to have her in my life. She’s not going anywhere; it’s almost like she’s a part of my blood. That sounds kind of intense, but it’s true. Last year, I think that the way I felt about Africa was more like boyfriend/girlfriend love. But when you break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, life can go on without that person in your life. Don’t get me wrong; I know that that kind of love is real, but it is different than family love. This is less idealistic; it’s the kind of love where you know about the other person’s idiosyncrasies and have no problem admitting that the other person can completely piss you off… but no matter what, there they are. So that’s how I feel about the big ‘Gand.

Does that make sense?

Anyway. Just thought I’d drop a line to let you all know that I’m still alive and this project hasn’t swallowed me whole. I have loved my time here so far, and I dread the moment I’ll have to leave. The only thing that will ease the parting blow is the knowledge that I will be seeing all of you. I miss you guys; know that you’re all in my thoughts and prayers.

at the office

I am alone at the office today. The guys are in the field, and I’ve decided to stick behind to do some more research on African-native plants which naturally repel mosquitoes.This has been difficult, as our little internet USB thingy has been particularly uncooperative today.

Most of the people who read this blog are in America, therefore they have spent the last six hours sleeping. I, however, have been sitting at the desk in BT’s little cement office building, listening to birds, bees, frogs, and kids playing at the nearby primary school while enjoying the breeze that this building seems constructed to catch. I haven’t gotten a ton accomplished, since most of the work I need to do at this point is online research, but I’ve very thoroughly enjoyed my morning and early afternoon.

My only current complaints are these two: I am a bit hungry, and I could go for a shower.

I can remedy the first in a little while; there is a little restaraunt called Wika which is just a short walk from here, and they serve fantastic fish stew with beans, rice, and greens.

The latter might be a bit trickier… Our water went out yesterday. Rob decided to ghetto-rig a makeshift shower… which is actually pretty innovative. He wedged a 2×4 between the shower pole thing and the toilet tank to hold the pole steady. (So, basically, there is a huge piece of plywood running through the length of our bathroom, lol.) He secured a jerry can to the top of the pole with a couple of zip ties that he conveniently was carrying in his back pocket (clearly he’s lived here a while), and stabbed a couple of holes in the bottom of the jerry can. To use the shower, all you have to do is fill the jerry can with water and hang it from the pole. Rob told me that he thinks this is actually an improvement on the original, since you can boil the water that you put in the jerry can before you use it, and elect to take a hot shower. I didn’t have any problems with it cold… it’s so hot here that a cold shower feels like a dip in the pool.

My only concern is whether or not the water will last long enough to rinse out my shampoo… we’ll find out!

Aside from that, not much to report. My project is coming along pretty nicely. It feels like I’m back in school, doing a research project. The real differences?

a) My work is actually going to be used to benefit other people, not just to get me a grade.

b) Location, location, location. A butterfly unlike any I’ve ever seen just floated in through the open door next to me and landed on the edge of my cup of water.

Masindi

I have been in Uganda now for three weeks. It’s funny; last year, three weeks was my halfway point. This year, I’m only a quarter of the way through my internship. I say ‘only’, but these three weeks have absolutely flown by. I have completed my short stint in Jinja- it was great. I loved being there; seeing my old friends, meeting all of my new friends from the BT guest house, spending some time at my old hangouts. I got a lot accomplished for my research project, and I really just had a great time.

But it’s also great to move on to something new.

I am sitting in the field office for BT in Masindi, doing some reading on the Home Improvement Campaign. I arrived in town yesterday afternoon, after a long, hot, and speed-bumpy ride. I’m sharing the guesthouse with Rob, the BT Operations Manager, who has been very accommodating for Muto and I. Oh, yes, did I mention? I have adopted a Ugandan Street Kitten. She is called Muto, which is the way that one would say ‘small’ in Lusoga. Her job is to chase away the rats at the guesthouse. Speaking of rats in the guest house, here is a fun little list.

Things I’m going to have to get used to:

-The heat (It’s much hotter here than in Jinja)

-The critters (I’ve already killed my first cockroach! Woo Hoo!)

-The power outages (I’ve been told to expect to go days, and even weeks without a fan, refrigeration, charging laptop or phone…)

-Water temperature that varies depending on the time of day (…yeah, lol.)

-Boredom (One other person for company as opposed to a whole houseful of people)

-Unfamiliarity (I’ve only spent one day in Masindi before coming here; I really don’t know my way around at all yet.)

Ahh. An adventure, you say? Bring it on.

Disclaimer: despite the great time I’m having, I really do miss all of you at home. Don’t go thinking I’ve forgotten about you… you are all the reason I’ve been able to do this. Oh, and leave me some love! Very little brightens my day more than seeing that people are checking up on me.

I’m in Jinja!!

Hey, everybody!! I made it to the ‘Ja, and I’m currently sitting at Mark and Lori Manry’s desk. Lydia Jane is doing flips behind me, asking if I can babysit them soon, and Tessa is babbling about Tom somewhere behind me while the boys watch a movie on the laptop. I am going to head over to the Source Cafe for some Samosas, a chipati, and a Mirinda Pineapple in about a half hour, and I hope I’ll run into the rest of the Jinja team… I’m most excited to see the Garners, but I have definitely missed everybody else as well.

It’s kind of weird; last time, I felt a huge rush of unfamiliarity and excitement when I first got here, and this time it feels different. Still exciting, but in a different way- like I’ve come back home. Not like I’m on some crazy wild adventure, but that I woke up in exactly the place I was meant to.

I have a few days to let the jet lag wear off, catch up with friends, and get settled at the guest house (which is awesome. I have a tiny, cute little room with a balcony off of the roof, and there are a bunch of really friendly British students who are just my age also staying there.) before I get started to work with Busoga Trust on Monday.

Overall, I miss you all back home, but I’m super glad to be back here!

I should have fairly regular internet access while I’m here in Jinja. I’ll be heading to Masindi on June 6th, where I’ll live for the duration of the summer. I don’t know how often I’ll be online when I’m there, but rest assured that I’ll update you all as much as I can.

Peace!

:)

I am currently sitting in the Amsterdam Schippol Airport. I’m about halfway to Jinja… I have gotten absolutely no sleep, and I’m bordering on zombie status. Hopefully I’ll catch a few z’s on this next leg of the journey… Uganda, here I come!  

 

I don’t know how much internet access I’ll have this summer, but trust that I will update as often as I can. Check back up on me, and leave comments! Let me know that you’re following me!  

Know that I already miss all of you at home, but I can’t wait for this adventure to unfold!

It’s My Birthday!

I turn 22 today. It feels like any other day. Just like it will probably feel like any other day on Monday, when I board the plane to Uganda. Weird how that happens. I feel like it SHOULD feel momentous. It’s probably better this way, that way I don’t completely freak out.

So last week was chorus tour. Now, each tour is great, and creates a special bond between the members of the group, but I think that this tour was different, somehow. It was shorter, and we stayed closer to home, so by all accounts, it should have been less cohesive and less eventful for us. But the presence of God has never been so evident on any tour I’ve been on during my four years in this chorus. It was beautiful. I can’t wait for next year. 

I am currently sitting on my very favorite overstuffed red suede chair in Brent and Renea’s little house in Waupaca, Wisconsin (and yes, that is just as backwoods as it sounds). They have shown me all of the sights… the schools that Brent went to, the football field, the covered bridge, the Life is Good giftshop… the gas station… haha, like I said, pretty backwoods. But it is really beautiful, and very peaceful. I could see spending a few weeks in a quiet place like this just to escape the noise of life. 

Speaking of backwoods, Brent and I went for a walk through the woods (where he showed me his deerstands, lol), and I came back covered in ticks!! I had never even seen one… it was pretty crazy. All I can think about is that one episode of House… guhh lol. 

I’ve honestly loved every minute of this visit. It just feels like I popped over to their apartment in Michigan for an afternoon… it’s like nothing has changed. I missed them! 

So. Africa. It’s coming up. I am literally still a thousand dollars short of the goal that I set. Which makes me kind of nervous. But God has it figured out. I’m going, either way… it’s just a matter now of creative budgeting while I’m there to take care of food and travel and lodging expenses. It will happen. 

T minus five days. And counting.

Summer begins!

Alright, everybody. I finished my last project this afternoon, so I am officially done for the semester.  

Not only do I feel a million times lighter, but I also have so much coming up to look forward to! 

In two days, I will be leaving for Chorus tour. We’re not going anyplace too exciting this time due to budget cuts- We’re just going to stay in the Michigan/Ohio/Illinois/Indiana area. But the highlight is that we are going to Holland! I’ll get to stay the night with my grandma, and hopefully some of my other relatives will be showing up as well. We’ll be on the road for exactly one week. 

The morning after we get home from tour, I will be taking a train out to Wisconsin to visit Brent and Renea… I haven’t seen them since they moved in January, so I’m super excited to see them!! I’ll be there for four days, and then I’ll come back home. 

While in Wisconsin, I will be celebrating my 22nd birthday (Or my first anniversary of turning 21, haha). I will be expecting a big party when I get back to the house.

After I get back, I will be in Michigan for three days, and then I fly out to Uganda! It has really snuck up on me… I can’t believe that it’s only 17 days away! 

I’m still about a grand short of the amount I need for the internship… I will be doing a big pop bottle fundraiser on the 16th, so everybody, please pray that this will all fall into place!

Twilight

Okay, let’s talk about the Twilight series. Just like Harry Potter, just like The Golden Compass, this series of books has been relatively controversial. I’ve had a great many people tell me how wonderful the books are, and just as many tell me what a waste of time the series is. The story is a modern teen-geared love story between a high school girl and a vampire. It sounds so… adolescent. 

And to be quite frank, it is. Yes, that’s right. I caved in to the pressure. I’m reading Twilight.

Don’t judge me. 

After hearing so many people with so many different opinions, I just had to try it on for size and form my own opinion. I decided to read the first hundred pages, and if that kept my interest, I’d finish the first book. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that this is not Earth-shattering literature. It is not particularly well-written, it is not a brand new plot… it is the old recycled story of two people (sort of) who fall in love, but shouldn’t be together. 

I started reading them about two weeks ago. There are four 600-800 page  books, and I am currently about a quarter of the way through the third one. I’m a pretty fast reader, but for anyone to read any book that long, that fast (especially during exam week) is pretty crazy. 

So why do these books stand out? Why are so many people drawn in? I’ve heard some people speculate that in a post-Harry Potter world, young readers are searching for the next best make-believe world to dive into. And I can see that, to a degree. (Don’t take that as my concession that this even holds a candle to Harry Potter- it doesn’t.) I’ve heard that this is just a book for teeny-boppers… only good for tween girls who wouldn’t know good literature if it smacked them in the face. Maybe. 

I would submit, however, that these books are a bit more than that. Sure, the plot is not anything brand new… but maybe people keep writing this genre of story because it works. It speaks to people. It transcends culture, status, generation… People will always relate to a story about people who love each other and can’t really be together. The books are shockingly captivating, maybe not in spite of, but because of the fact that the story is unoriginal. 

Another arguement against the book is the whole vampire thing. It turns people off. I get that… however. The character of Edward Cullen (the main vampire, and one of a family of vampires… all self-proclaimed ‘vegetarians’ who don’t kill humans) is perhaps one of the best-written fictional characters that I’ve read in a while. His internal conflict (I love the girl, but I am dangerous to her, so I want her to stay away from me so she is safe, but if I stay away, it will hurt her because she loves me, and around and around it goes) is very well communicated by the author… it makes him much more… human, I guess. 

I don’t know. Call me crazy for getting sucked in. Like I said, the writing itself is not spectacular, the plot is not really all that original… but give these books a whirl. Maybe you’ll be able to better figure out why I like them so much.