Yesterday morning I moved out of Jeliza hotel and prepared to meet my host family. Our group piled into a couple of vans (with one extra van for all of our luggage) and first went to Makerere University to take a driving tour of campus. When we were finished with this, we drove over to the largest public hospital in Uganda. Our program staff have been warning us all week to never ride a boda boda motorcycle in Kampala, so today they took us to one of the wards at the hospital to see some of the people who have been injured in boda accidents. Going to the hospital was a very interesting experience. In the ward, I was immediately struck with sadness as I saw such incredible overcrowding, poor sanitation, and crumbling facilities. There is nowhere for families to stay, so they literally bring mats and towels and sit around the beds. They have to bring their own food and water, so there is junk scattered everywhere. The whole scene was incredibly heartbreaking, and it really made me want to think about issues of public health more seriously.
After this site visit, it was time to meet our host families. We drove to a very nice hotel in Kampala and met them in an outside area with tents set up and food laid out. The whole experience was kind of hilarious. As we (the students) entered the grassy area of our meeting place, we stood in a straight line, shoulder to shoulder. Our host families fashioned themselves the same way facing us. One by one, each student’s name was read aloud into a microphone along with the host family’s. The student and family would meet in the middle, embrace (with pictures being snapped by an program assistant), and then walk over to the tent area for a snack and something to drink. My name was one of the last ones called, but eventually I met my family in excitement and anticipation.
After a little while we left to return home. My host mother briefly mentioned “the compound” a few times, and I finally found out what that meant. My host father is a Protestant Reverend and he has a good deal of power and responsibility in the community. We live in a humble home, but on the land composing our compound is his church, a clinic, a school, a dormitory for girls, a small plantation, and a bunch of houses for a lot of other people.
The day was incredibly exhausting, yet unbelievably amazing. If you were to ask a Ugandan woman how many children she has, she might reply, “We don’t count our children here.” Ugandan families include both biological and ‘adopted’ children. Adopted children to us might be cousins or nieces or nephews, but to the Ugandan people, they are all their children, brothers, or sisters. In my new family I have five other sisters, ages 26, 21, 7, 4, and 8 months. My “mommy” is 30, and my dad is 35. Since I am now part of the family, they gave me a name that signifies I am now part of their tribe: “Nalule” (pronounced nah-lue-lay). When I first heard it, I could never remember it, but I am often called by my new name that I actually remember to respond to it now.
In our house we have electricity, but no running water and no toilet. We use a pit latrine, and I use about a gallon or two of water to shower with. I scoop a bucket onto a cup to pour it on myself. Ugandans are very clean people. My host family requests that I shower at least every night before I go to bed, and I am invited to take another shower in the morning or earlier in the afternoon if I wish. Last night was my first shower, and I misjudged the amount of water. Today was much more successful. I have a room in the house that is used for my “shower”, but it doesn’t have a light in it, so I place my headlamp on a bench to light it up. The rest of my sisters bathe in an outdoor shower in a room next to the latrine.
The kitchen is located outdoors in a small building of sorts next to the house. We cook using a small charcoal stove, and some things are heated up with a gas stove inside the house. There are ants (of various sizes), cockroaches, and lizards inside the house and all over. These huge ants climb on the table in in the sugar, and there are at least two spots on my wall where hundreds of small ants are climbing in a straight line to some undetermined location. The first time I used the pit latrine was last night, and when I shined my headlamp inside, a cockroach came running out at me. This afternoon my host mom was sitting in a chair next to the wall and a small lizard appeared right next to her head. I actually squealed with delight and everyone thought it was very funny that I had never seen a lizard quite like that before. My older host sisters and mom label all these things as “harmless,” but I think it might take me a while to get used to some of them, namely, the cockroaches.
Our compound is really cool, and you can see Lake Victoria when you stand in the plantation. I asked my host mom if I could see inside the school sometime, and she asked me if I wanted to teach! Maybe I’ll be doing that in the future? We shall see. I’m also really interested in learning about the clinic. After going to see the hospital yesterday, I’m curious to know what it’s like. Also, we apparently live down the road from the president’s daughters, so I’m keeping an eye out. Even though I have absolutely no idea what they look like.
At several times during the past two days, I just smile with disbelief. I’m living in Uganda in a house with a family that is so very different than anything I have ever known. I carry around an adorable African baby, eat fresh pineapple with my fingers, and watch Mexican soap operas dubbed simultaneously in English and Luganda (like, one character speaks English, the other Luganda; I only understand half of what is going on at any given moment and my host mom whispers to me the plotline and what the characters are saying, thinking, and feeling). I’m currently sitting in my bed under a mosquito net listening to the crickets and the sound of the TV in the living room (that thing is on all day long). Driving through town, I see chickens walking on the side of the road and skinny cows with HUGE horns being herded around by an even skinnier man. I relieve myself in a hole in the ground.
I arrived here a week ago today, and sometimes it seems like I’ve been here for much longer. I’ve already learned so much, but the more I learn the more I realize I don’t know.
til next time
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