Wherever you go, go with all your heart

I would like to believe that I did exactly that during my time as a Peace Corps volunteer here in Uganda.  The past few weeks have been full of a lot of changes and differing emotions.  On July 31^st, I moved out of my compound for good.  This was a long process considering I managed to collect a lot of CRAP over the past 2 years.  I ended up giving away A LOT of things to my friends around me as there’s no space for it in my bag - the only thing I am leaving Uganda with is my backpacking backpack!  Leaving my compound was really difficult.  The kids are too young to fully grasp the idea of me leaving, although little Shaima said with a frown “Kyomugisha, you are going?!” after I gave her a big hug and kiss.  On Monday August 1^st,  I headed to Kampala to begin the 3 day COS (Close of Service) process at the PC office.  It was surprisingly less stressful than I was expecting it to be, although a lot of running around getting signatures from different people, going to the bank to close my account, getting my ID card hole punched and last but not least, saying a small speech and “gonging” out.  It is a tradition for a PCV at the end of their service to hit a gong at the office to signify the closing of their service and becoming an RPCV (returned Peace Corps volunteer).  I have to say, hitting this gong didn’t make me feel any different…..as if I was expecting to feel some overwhelming change or difference? Even still, 2 weeks later I still feel as though I am a PCV.  I guess the only difference really is that I can “legally” ride boda-boda motorcycles (don’t worry mom, im trying not to!).  ;)  OH, also, on my last night at my house I dropped my iphone in my toilet and it has refused to turn on even after putting it in rice.  I guess it could only take so much – after dropping it in water 3 times here, I would say it lived a good, long life.

            The evening of gonging out, I hopped on a bus heading to Rwanda with some other PCV’s from my group and made the long 12 hour journey through the night.  We reached Gisenyi, Rwanda in the morning and I mostly spent the day sleeping as I got NO sleep on the bus….of course just my luck, I got the ONE seat in the entire bus that had a broken handle for making the seat recline.   We shopped for snacks and water to pack for our climb the next morning.  We headed out early the next morning to the Rwanda-DRC border where, thank God, everything went smoothly (for once!) and we headed into Goma to the base of the mountain, Mt. Nyiragongo.   Mt. Nyiragongo is an active volcano located in Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  It is one of the world’s most active volcanoes with an elevation of 3,470 meters.  It last erupted in 2002, completely wiping out homes at the base of the mountain and reaching the city center of Goma, leaving 200,000 people homeless.  At the base of the mountain you could clearly see the dried up lava rock and as we drove through these communities, there was a dark eerie feeling throughout.  Recently a new vent opened on the eastern side and there is fear of a possible eruption in the near future….Glad it didn’t happen while we were there! It’s basically a ticking time bomb. From Goma, we hopped back over the border to Rwanda…crossing back over wasn’t as easy as leaving was.  We encountered difficulties with the immigration people who were just being jerks.  With our Peace Corps passport and work permit, we have resident status in Uganda which means we can travel freely through Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya via the interstate pass (we don’t have to pay for a visa in these countries).  Well, when we were trying to enter back into Rwanda from the DRC, they wanted us to pay for a visa, even though we are residents of Uganda.  We ended up having to pay $30 each (it could have been worse, I guess) after a LONG time of arguing with these men at immigration who were clearly on a power trip and overcompensating for something (yea, im still a little bitter).  It really sucked for me because I was literally hopping right onto a bus back to the Uganda border and paid 30 bucks just to be able to get to a bus in Rwanda.  They had no option for a transit visa. 

So after all this, I was extremely delayed and ended up reaching the RW-UG border at 6pm.  I felt so bad because I had told my driver who was picking me for gorilla trekking the following day to be at the border by 3pm.  He kept time (very unusual for Uganda) and waited for me at the border for 3 hours….oops!  We immediately made the journey down a very bumpy and windy dirt road.  I asked the driver how far the hostel was and he said 3 hours.  He was FLYING down these roads that had hair pin turns (it’s a miracle we made it there).  I timed it and we ended up reaching the hostel in 1.5 hours (yeah, you can see how fast he was driving!).  I took a refreshing hot shower, which was well needed after two days of hiking and no bathing, ate a yummy vegetable curry and passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.  The next morning I was up bright and early to eat breakfast and enjoy the beautiful scenery around me before heading out to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest park entrance.  I joined a group of tourists and we headed out with our guides to find the gorillas. We got lucky and within 1.5 hours we came across our gorilla family, the Bweza group.  I have to say this was honestly the most amazing thing ive ever done and WELL worth the $560 spent.  This group had 2 silverbacks, several regular adult gorillas and many babies.  It was a great family to track.  At one point we were literally only 2 feet from these gorillas and I nearly had a heart attack!  There are only 3 places in the world you can see mountain gorillas – Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC.  I HIGHLY recommend (if you have the money) to step outside of your comfort zone and instead of taking your next vacation in Europe or the Caribbean, you venture out here.  You won’t regret it.  After spending one hour with the gorillas, we climbed back to the entrance and I hopped into the car, heading to Kabale.  I went back to visit my first site, in Kitanga, for one night.  It was nice to see everyone and say my final goodbye.  It helped to bring about a lot of closure and tie up my Peace Corps service. 

After all of this, I returned back to Jinja to spend time with my favorite people and close up my life here in Uganda.  My youth’s chicken project is still going strong (I thought I had blogged about it in the past, but I guess it slipped my mind!).  We are on our second round of chickens,  however, we decided as a group that the original type of chicken (broiler) was too much for the boys to handle while in school and changed to rearing kroilers.  Boy what a difference this has made!  After 2 months, the chickens are fat, happy and healthy…what more could you ask for?!  Tomorrow we are going to open up a savings account at the local savings cooperative in our village so that they have a safe place to keep the money.  Im really proud of how hard these boys are working on this project and how badly they want to be successful.  I have found another PCV living in Jinja who wants to work with my boys for the next year of his service help them with their business.  This has helped relieve a lot of stress on my part, I am happy to know they will have several great mentors to help them continue one when I’m gone. 

As my Peace Corps service has ended and my time here in Uganda is coming to an end, I have mixed feelings.  It is going to be extremely hard to leave a place I call home and people who have become my second family.  I continue to tell everyone that it’s not “goodbye” but “see you later” as I know I will be back to my second home in the future.  I fly out on September 3^rd, head to Zimbabwe to visit Victoria falls for 2 days and then fly down to Cape Town, South Africa for a week before reaching LAX on September 16.  See ya’ll in a month!

Gonging out!

Very hard leaving my compound and these ones!

Mt. Nyiragongo volcano, DRC

Coming to an end

April was a busy month as I was away from my site for half the month with COS (close of service) conference and YTT (youth technical trainings).  COS conference was amazing.  We spent a week at one of the nicest hotels in Uganda, the Speke Resort, overlooking lake Victoria, with buffet all you can eat meals, huge dinners with appetizers and deserts I could not come close to finishing, and several tea breaks scheduled in between.  My stomach wasn’t used to so much food in one day that unfortunately I wasn’t able to eat as much of this good food as I would have liked to!  The purpose of this conference is to prepare the volunteers who have only a few months left in their service for those remaining months and for life after Peace Corps.  It was definitely a bittersweet feeling, sadness knowing I will soon leave a place that I call home and people who have become my family both within and outside of Peace Corps, but also excitement thinking about returning to America, the land of hot showers, constant electricity, comfy beds, no mosquito nets and lots of yummy food!  As I sit here typing up this blog post, my 2 youth I have come to know very well (Fazil and Remison) are practicing typing using the Mavis Beacon program I also used to learn how to type with.  We try to meet at least a few times in a week and these are the moments I look forward to every week….we sit and joke, laugh and tease each other in Lusoga.  Our friendship has come a LONG way since I first met them.  In the beginning, they had the mindset that most Ugandans do when they first meet a foreigner – what am I going to get from this person?  After spending time together and building our friendship, they now realize and value the importance of gaining knowledge and skills from me and not money.  They showed me this the other day during their youth club at school when they informed their fellow classmates of the importance of gaining knowledge and skills to better their future and not to have the mindset of expecting money from me.  Its moments like these that I am going to miss and wish that I had more time to spend with them.  In a way I feel like I kind of got ripped off in my Peace Corps service.  Having gone through a site change just over a year ago was a good thing, however, I never got the full PC experience of living in one place for the full 2 years.  At times, especially recently as I think about my impending departure from this place I call home, I feel angry and sad that I didn’t get the full 2 years with all these wonderful people. I try to remind myself that starting off at the wrong site allowed me to meet some pretty awesome people who I would have never met had I not gone there first.  As I remain with less than 2 months before closing my service, I am trying to come to terms with many things such as this and not feeling like I was extremely successful in my 2 years here.  People may not remember or put into action the things I taught them like how to properly put on a condom or how to hang a mosquito net or how to make a re-usable menstrual pad, but one thing I hope people wont forget is the friendships we formed, the bonds we made and the laughs we had together.  For me, what I will never forget about this journey are the people I met along the way who made an impact on my life and have forever touched my heart. 

Chickens chickens chickens!

Some few months back, 3 of my youth, my counterpart Sam and myself started a poultry rearing project, thanks to the help from some of you in the US!! Thank you again, we really appreciated it!  My community counterpart, Mr. Kanhiriri first spoke to all of my youth about rearing chickens and the different types of chickens out there (broilers, layers, kroilers).  They decided they wanted to try rearing broiler chickens, which are a type of chicken reared solely for their meat.  If done well, rearing this type of chicken can be extremely profitable.  So, once I knew they were serious, I had them create their goals and objectives for this project and had my mom work to help find us funding.  We started out with 122 chickens (which in hindsight was WAAAAYYY too many to start out with).  Unfortunately, we experienced a significant number of challenges along the way and in the end did not make any profit.  This business can be profitable as I said, however, it is a very high-risk business as the start up cost is expensive and this type of chicken is extremely fragile.  Some of the challenges we faced were the chickens getting sick several times (and dying),  not growing to their full potential weight due to sickness, trouble finding a ready market at the time to sell and therefore being forced to sell at a reduced cost and just all around a lot of stress!  Although we faced a lot of challenges and were not as successful as we hoped, this project definitely taught ALL of us a lot of lessons and was a great learning/ growing experience. 

Some of the thing we were able to take away from this were:

1)     Rearing chickens is NOT easy. Plain and simple (remember this next time you are enjoying eating your chicken breast)

2)     It takes a significant amount of time, care and responsibility

3)     Don’t involve family members in your business (in an extremely collectivistic culture, this can bring about unnecessary problems)

4)     Starting up a business is not as easy as it may seem, whether on a large or small scale

5)     Teamwork and involvement of every person in the group is key

6)     And lastly, start small and grow!

After selling off all the chickens, Sam and I sat down with them and discussed the challenges and learning points from this experience as well as how to move forward with the remaining money.  That last point is where we are right now.  As much as we wanted to continue with chickens (a different type- free range), we are facing the problem of having a safe location to house the chickens.  The original home we started with has decided they want to use that room for something else, which means we can no longer use it.  We are trying to think creatively and come up with a more manageable project.  I hope after reading this you don’t feel disappointed or give up on us!  Starting a business is not easy in the US and it’s surely not easy in a village in Uganda where resources and money are the ultimate barrier.  Although the original project idea wasn’t as successful as we had hoped, it taught my youth the important skill of how to rear broiler chickens, which they themselves have said they want to use once they finish school.  They (even myself) learned so many valuable life lessons that no one could have taught them; they could only experience for themselves firsthand.  You gave them an opportunity no one has ever given them – experiencing responsibility on a level I don’t think they have ever experienced and understanding the immense challenges of starting a business.   The greatest lesson I think we all learned and I continue to pound into their head is: you will have to work tirelessly and struggle now in order to reap great benefits for your future.  I think this is best said by this quote - "Be willing to do whats hard now to enjoy whats beautiful later."

Sam counting the chickens

Building the brooder 

Preparing the charcoal stove

Fazil and Remison - 2 of my awesome youth!

After several weeks

Ready to sell!

Transportation

Who run the world??? GIRLS!!!

Thats right, we women and girls run the world ;)  Last week on Tuesday was International Women's Day (IWD), which was celebrated throughout the world and around Uganda as a national holiday.  As you know, I started a project teaching school girls how to make re-usable menstrual pads, as it's a big problem here with girls skipping school during their period.  We still had a lot of supplies left so we decided to open it up to teaching women within our community.  We organized an event for IWD, but this culture makes it very difficult to hold a successful event, unless you are literally handing out money!  We organized with a man in our village to advertise this event and get the word out.  He was paid by my health center to ride around on his bike throughout the entire village announcing this event through a loud speaker.  We decided this was the most effective way to get the word out to people specifically within my village.  So, on the day of, of course no one arrived at 9AM as our advertiser had told them. Apparently women were telling him, "we will come but not until 10AM".  This has been a frustrating aspect of the culture during my entire service that I have had no other option than to accept.  By 10AM they still had not come and majority did not arrive until around 1130-12!  As annoying as this is, there's not much we can do!

So once we had several women arrive, we gave them the supplies, instructed them on how to begin and they set off sewing!  Most of the women who came were in their 20's with a couple younger girls and one older woman in her 40's.  My counterpart Sam, our lab technician Livingstone, a former intern Elsie, and my local counterpart Mr. Kanhiriri all helped me make this possible.  They taught the women about HIV prevention and the importance of using condoms not only for HIV prevention, but also to space their pregnancies and plan for their families.  I was so surprised at how well received the condoms were - especially the female ones! Sam and I did a female condom demonstration, as they had never even seen one before (they are not as common as male condoms).  After, I assumed we would skip the male condom demonstration, as it seemed the women weren't interested, but Mr. Kanhiriri didn't even think twice and immediately began demonstrating to them how to use a male condom. (A side note on Mr. Kanhiriri: He is probably in his late 60's and yet one of the most active, kind and generous men i've ever met. He is constantly moving around working with different groups of people helping them in different ways.  He has been a huge support to me since I moved to this site, introducing me to schools and different people in the village as well as offering his knowledge in my projects.  He is also very Catholic, however, a strong believer in family planning.  This is hard to find around here, especially amongst the Catholics! He constantly talks about family planning and the importance of planning for a family you can successfully feed, care for and send to school.)   He explained to them the importance of a woman also knowing how to use a male condom because her partner may not know and put it on incorrectly, therefore leading to possible accidents!

 I think the most amazing part of this day was having 3 MEN, not women, teach these women everything and be involved, while I sat on the sideline offering minimal support.  Sam and Elsie have been with me from day 1 in the RUMPS project and were the ones to assist the women in making them.  Sitting back and watching everyone else implement an event, albeit small, made me SO happy.  The number one goal in Peace Corps is sustainability; transferring knowledge and skills which people can then go on to teach and implement in the future without the need for your help.  This creates sustainability and continuation of this knowledge and skills, long after you the volunteer has left.  For the first time in my entire service, I finally felt comfortable to just sit back and watch everything take place.  Im so grateful for the wonderful, passionate people i've had the honor of working with throughout my service.  These are the kind of people who will help to bring about positive change within this country.

Sam teaching the sisters of one of my friends in my village about HIV.  They were the only ones to come on time (we actually walked there together).  Sam is also the only one I work with who ever keeps time (He's becoming American!)

Some of the first few ladies to arrive

Talking to the women about HIV (Livingstone, Sam and Mr. K). Although it looks like they aren't really paying attention, they had LOTS of questions after, so they must have been listening a bit!

Sam and I demonstrating how to use a female condom 

Mr. K teaching how to use a male condom....I told you he's serious about family planning!!!

Demonstrating how to use the RUMP

Election Chaos

Every 5 years Uganda elects the leader of its country and for the past 30 years the same leader has remained in power, President Y.K. Museveni (due to his changing the "term limits" within the constitution).  Since mid last year the country has been preparing for February 18, 2016, the day in which most Ugandans are praying for a peaceful change in power.  Everywhere you look, there are campaign posters of people hoping to fill local government positions all the way up to the presidential position.  As elections have gotten closer and closer, the overall setting has become a bit more chaotic.  There are constantly giant trucks and buses full of people shouting, dancing and singing blasting through the villages and towns; people marching through the streets drumming and shouting to support their favorite presidential candidate.  There are several candidates running, but the main 2 which the election will come down to are Y.K Museveni and Dr. Kizza Besigye.  Most Ugandans you talk to, especially the younger generation, are ready for a change in power and complain about the extremely high unemployment rate, a lack of jobs for even the most educated individuals, poor roads and infrastructure, schools and hospitals which lack even the basic necessities, unreliable electricity (and the list goes on and on).  Of course as a PCV, i am not allowed to express any opinion on these elections, so everything which is written here is not my opinion, but simply accounts from the people around me and things i see.  I can definitely feel the tension rising as the days near closer.  Just yesterday in Kampala, Besigye was arrested which caused chaos and turmoil throughout the city as his supporters were outraged.  The city was filled with police and military who we have continually seen throughout the campaigning period, have no qualms about using tear gas.   Peace Corps has put in place an emergency action plan, and for now we are not allowed to leave our sites for 2 weeks.  So, i spent the weekend in town stocking up on food and preparing my emergency bag to be prepared for the worst but we are hoping for the best!  My plan is to spend election day at my house and stay far, far away from any of the polling sites!  I truly believe the safest place for me to be is in my village where i have a strong support network around me.  We are all hoping here that the elections go peacefully and whatever the results may be, that violence doesn't come about.

 \

Road just outside my house

The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love....

and sometimes hate!!

Before leaving for the Peace Corps, I heard this slogan over and over and knew this experience was going to be no walk in the park.  Things such as cultural differences, language barriers, questionable things coming out of every opening of your body, not knowing why your body is allowing this to happen, and of course being seen only for your skin color, were all going to be challenges.   As i reach the end of my service, i have spent a lot of time reflecting on this crazy and exciting journey.  The group i came to country with (June Health/Agriculture 2014) is now the oldest group in country, which scares the crap out of me! I keep asking myself, where did the past year and a half go?!?!  When you say "2 years" out loud, it sounds like a long time, but let me tell you, time flies by and you wake up one day wondering what the heck happened! That's where i am right now in my service.  My head is full of jumbled thoughts, emotions and stressors knowing that this experience will soon be over and just a memory I will look back on with happiness and also relief to be over! Every peace corps volunteers' experience is different. Every country, program, region, community and individual are different.  No two experiences are the same and I think that is the beauty of being a PCV.   There is SO much unknown and you never know what each day is going to bring!

I decided to start this post off with positives but lately i have reached a point where i am simply put, BURNT OUT! I love this country and i love its people (well most!) but ive become so tired of the everyday annoyances.  Ive been here long enough that being called "muzungu" or "white person" or more recently "brown person" for the past 598 days (i think thats how long ive been here??) can get PRETTY darn annoying.  Being stared at, shouted at or cat called by stupid young men who have nothing better to do than piss me off that day can make you reach a point where you don't even want to go outside because being in your house is so much more comfortable!  Besides the everyday annoyances of stepping outside my house, i've also been experiencing challenges within my work.  This is not the "toughest job" because the work is physically challenging....i am not lifting 200 lb. patients from a bed to a wheel chair, im not changing the diapers of incontinent patients, im not trying to reason with a dementia patient about how i promise there are no kids smoking weed in the room next door to her (examples from my old jobs).  No, this is the toughest job because you are literally let me say "ON" 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year.  The way i present myself, my words and my actions are constantly being watched by those around me.  It is mentally draining.  As silly as it sounds, in my community i represent all of America and let me tell you, i wish i didn't!  It is exhausting, as if im the spokesperson or representative for every American citizen.  My work has been VERY slow lately and im constantly thinking to myself "Why am i here? Most of the time i feel like im doing nothing".   My main work lately has been meeting with my youth group which began with about 16 people and is now down to about 8 serious youth.  I think you can see my frustration? Over time, numbers slowly decreased as some of these kids realized they weren't getting money or any tangible things from this group.  Im now left with those serious kids who see the value in learning and expanding their horizons, so i guess this is for the better?   We are now trying to work on starting a project in rearing broiler chickens in which the youth will sell for a profit.  We are still working out the logistics and will hopefully soon be seeking donations from you all back home to get this kick started.  Our goal is to fundraise money (about $200) to start up the business and then use some of the profits to continue the business in a sustainable way.

So although lately things have been difficult and ive reached a low point in my service, i am trying to find the things each day that make me happy because i know that in a short time those people and things will just be memories from my past.  I am trying to cherish every moment i have with the people i care so much about here because they are the reason i am here, they are the reason i crazily gave up 2 years of my life to leave my home.  Even in my lowest of lows, not once have i regretted my decision to join Peace Corps and id do it all over again if I could.  Thank goodness i have some pretty amazing people in my life - my counterpart, my children in my compound and neighbors, my youth, my community counterpart, my family and friends back home and of course my fellow PCV's who help me get through this wild journey.  So here are some of the faces and places that keep me going...

Behind every face is a story

This past week, I spent two days at the National Forum on the State of the Ugandan Child, which took place at one of the fanciest hotels in Uganda with over 1,000 guests invited.  This forum was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and its purpose was to bring together beneficiaries and children from all over Uganda to discuss this urgent matter of the state of children in this country.  At times it was truly inspiring, as children were given a platform to speak and ask these people in high level positions what they are doing for children in this country.  It was also at times very bleak as dismal statistics were repeated over and over reminding us how much work must be done to improve the well being of children here.   To hear these statistics and watch an amazing and very real video made by the embassy, copy and paste this link:

https://web.facebook.com/video.php?v=901203323262510

As I sit here writing this blog post, I am shedding tears.  Most of the time I post happy things, as most of my service has been happy and rewarding due to the amazing people ive met.  I have yet to post about some of the negatives, but I have decided today that this is something important for people to know.  Life here isn’t always easy and it surely isn’t easy witnessing some of the awful things I have seen.  It eats away at me inside witnessing and hearing things such as domestic violence, children being beaten or a child crying on my couch telling me how his drunk uncle was shouting horrible things at him and his sister.   So many of these situations and things are out of my control due to culture, society and my own safety which makes it the most challenging part of my service. 

So, this blog post is dedicated to a truly amazing, kind, loving, smart and witty child who I am lucky to call my best friend, Tonny.  Tonny is 12 years old and a bright young child who always has a smile on his face.  I met him when I first moved in as he was helping out in my compound and came up to introduce himself to me.  He then asked me some questions, which I thought were very random, only to find out they were homework questions he was given.  I told him to bring his books over and from that point on its all history! Every day he would come to my house, we would chat and id help him with his homework.  It became our routine.  Our friendship has really grown a lot over the past 6 months.  I expect a visit from him each day, knowing that something is wrong if he misses a day to see me.  Him and his sister Nora are orphans.  They lost their parents in a car accident several years back and are now being cared for by their grandmother.  She is a beautiful, strong and kind woman who I have also become close with.  She is like my grandma here, always welcoming me into their home with a hug and preparing some tea with a snack.  Almost every night she sends Tonny with some food for me even though they themselves don’t have much at all (I swear I think she thinks I don’t know how to cook!).  Her oldest son (tonny and nora’s uncle) also stays with them, but in a small house on the side of the main house.  I am now recently learning and witnessing for myself that unfortunately this man has a serious problem with alcohol (as many men in this country do).  Up until recently, he has stopped beating the children due to the grandma’s push.  Probably most of you don’t know the situation here, but children are treated like second class citizens, and it is the worst for girls.  Beating children is so prevalent that most people don’t see any problem with it and see it as the only way to keep children in line.  I was happy to hear Tonny’s grandma doesn’t beat them, but knowing that their uncle used to kills me inside.  If you were to meet these children, you would see they are the most well-behaved and well-respected children you have probably ever met.   Tonight Tonny came to my house after we spent the day together in town shopping and eating.  He sat down on my couch and kept quiet, which is very unusual for him.  Me being my nosy self, I started questioning him and he eventually began to cry, telling me “Uncle Fred took too much booze and was abusing us”.  I questioned him more asking what he said to them.  He said, “He told us we are stupid and that our mother is dead”.  He began to tell me more, which I had trouble understanding through the tears and upset in his voice.  I immediately told him that they are NOT stupid and sat with him as he continued to cry, trying to hide his face and tears from me.  Never have I seen this child like this.  He told me “if at all I get the chance to leave and go somewhere else, I will.”  It makes me so sad to think that the situation is so bad that he would rather be anywhere else but at his OWN home that belonged to his parents.  This is just ONE child’s story, but unfortunately it mirrors the stories of many children throughout this country who live in even worse situations.  So every time you see a picture I post of children (which is often, lets be real!), behind that beautiful face and bright smile there is a story to be told. 

Since its unlikely any of you will ever meet this amazing boy, here are some photos for you.  He aspires to go to university, become a pilot and one day come and visit California!

Digging and planting our seeds! (carrots, onions, broccoli, zucchini, spinach)

Practicing times tables, the 9's trick :D

Being silly with a chunk of my muzungu hair ;)

You are lost!

You are lost! A common phrase said to someone here when they have not seen you in awhile, a phrase i have been receiving quite often this past week from all the people along my walk to work, as i had been away from my site for about 3 weeks.  As i walked with my friend Tony to go buy eggs from people who rear hens in their homes, I heard a man call out Chelsea! I had met this man, Patrick, walking home one day from work and recognized his face as someone i had recently traveled on a taxi with to a town outside Jinja.  We became friends chatting, him curious about my work and me also curious about him as he was so friendly (not in that way where he wants something from you!) and never once called me "muzungu".  Anyway, i stopped to chat with him and the first thing he says to me is "ah but you are lost these days! We have not seen you around Nakabango and we were all beginning to think you had left and went back to America."  I laughed and explained to him that i had been in Kampala and Mukono for some work trainings, reminding him that i still have 1 year left here in Uganda.  I had gone away for a few days sometime back and had not told my friend Tony that i would be gone.  When i returned he said to me "I was so worried you had left back to America!" with a concerned look on his face.  So, this time i made sure to inform him i would be gone because i can not imagine the anxiety that 3 whole weeks would have caused him! There is really no sense of privacy here, everyone must know your business and your whereabouts.  Just yesterday my neighbor said to me "ah i did not see you yesterday so i thought you had gone to Kampala since we had no electricity!".  As if i am not used to having no electricity sometimes?  I find it funny that because i had been away in kampala for sometime he now assumed i would just pick up and leave for the capital if he didn't see me around for one day (by the way, i was at work that day).

When i finally made my journey back to work after being gone for 3 weeks (in the US for my sister's wedding, and then after away for PC trainings), it was as if i was having to integrate into this community for the first time.  Kids were shouting muzungu, forgetting my name, yet i had worked tirelessly everyday for the past 3 months to teach them my name and not to call me muzungu.  Anyway, i guess this is what happens when you are lost for a long time! It only took one walk to work and a few reminders for them to remember my name and continue shouting "Kyomugisha, Byeeeeee!" as i returned in the evening.

I have also realized that i have been "lost" from blogging. Sorry sorry! The past month has been so busy with visiting home, all volunteer conference and then mid service conference (MSC).  Its hard to believe i have been here now for 15 months, to be quite honest it has FLOWN by.  MSC reminded me that my time here is short, although to people in the states 2 years may seem like forever, it really is a short time to volunteer and try to create some sort of sustainable impact in your community.  I struggle with this everyday, thinking to myself, "is what im doing here making an impact and will anything im doing actually continue on after i leave?"  The two biggest questions every PCV struggles with.  Anyways i am trying! The next week will be busy busy busy.  I received 100 mosquito nets through PC to be given to my community and health center.  I am working right now with 2 local counterparts going door to door identifying homes that do not have a net.  These homes then receive a voucher i made for 1 bed net and must come to the health center next Tuesday where they will receive health education from the nurses, my 2 counterparts and myself on malaria symptoms and treatment, bed net maintenance and repair and the importance of sleeping under a net every night.  This coming up weekend i will be traveling out far east to Mbale for welcome weekend - a fun weekend hosted by older PCVs to welcome the newest PCVs to Uganda.  I will then rush back home on Sunday, prepare myself to look "smart" and head to my neighbors wedding!  Then in just over a week i will be receiving my final visitors to Uganda, my mom and dennis.  I am so excited to see them and travel around Uganda.  Lots to look forward to this month!  Enjoy the random pictures of my babies.....

My little family 

Sweet baby Abdul

If i leave anything behind here it will be teaching these kids to make silly faces :D

In the middle of a stare off with Shaima ;)