I love Uganda!

It's official... I love Uganda!!

I have just completed one full week of classes in Uganda and have been staying with my host family for about the same amount of time. Before coming to Uganda I had been worried that I would not like the food. I am happy to say that I like the food here. Its not as tasty (to me) as west african food, but it has something about it that is just wonderful to me. The main food crop here is a plantain based something called matochie (spelled wrong...of course) that is served with different soups or beans. A typical dinner for me consists of some soup/beans, the matochie, spaghetti and a chipati. I will try to upload pictures later so that you all can see what the food I am eating looks like.

I think i mentioned my Language classes before? But ill mention them again. I am learning soo much luganda everyday and I really enjoy greeting people in the streets with my limited knowledege. My typical school schedule is like so: I wake up early in morning around 6:20 to 6:30 and get ready for the day. I eat cereal (corn flakes) with hot milk....which is random but really delicious. And then my host mom, little brother and I leave. We wind our way down the unpaved roads of our neighborhood and if lucky miss the early morning traffic jam and are able to drop my brother off at his school. After dropping my brother we enter another traffic jam and slowly slowly slowly make our way into the city center. *On Friday, one man try to jump the curb to cut traffic but ended up breaking the sidewalk and getting his car stuck --- which only made the traffic jam even worse!!* Once we reach my host mom's job I then walk an additional 10 minutes to reach the SIT resource center where I have classes. After luganda classes in the morning...all of us who have classes @ the resource center are driven 5 minutes away to the Makerere University where we listen to lectures on different topics by different people every day. My favorite lecutre so far was the one given by Andrew Mwenda (owner of a local newspaper called the Independent) who spoke on how development for African countries is negatively impacted by too much foreign assistance and intervention.

After a long day of classes I walk back to my host mom's job. We brave the traffic jam (one time we got stuck for a full hour and never moved an inch!). Due to the traffic jam we always pick my little brother up late and so we have to pay 1000 shillings (about 50 cents). I am proud to say that I am his official picker upper....and so have the honor of explaining (mostly I just smile) why I cannot pay the 2000 shillings they want since they had to wait with my brother for so long. lol

Anywho, As I said i am really enjoying my life in Uganda. And I have learned how to brave the traffic! I don't even think twice anymore before crossing....but that doesn't mean Im not careful it just means that I have gotten over my debilitating fear of Kampala traffic.

Well I am running low on minutes. So Ill TTYL

Cynthia