Adjustment

Hello everyone!  Sorry it has taken me some time, internet is ridiculously slow here and at the moment I'm sitting outside trying to get a wifi connection...which has been unsuccessful. I've been in country now for about 1 1/2 weeks, so far most of this time has been spent at our training center in a community called Kulika, about 1 hour west of Kampala, the capital. Adjusting to living in Africa again has been going well and so many things remind me of being in Ghana and yet so much is different as well. I'm back to taking bucket baths, hand washing my laundry, and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. We've had training basically every day from 8am-7pm on everything from safety and security to common health issues you may experience such as malaria, schistosomiasis, and of course everyone's favorite, diarrhea. Luckily we have two medical doctors who are on call 24/7 and there for all of our health needs, which is comforting. 

The staff put on a ceremony for us to receive our site assignments. They played drums and danced for each region of the country and then had a "sorting hat " (like in Harry potter) where each of us sat to receive our assignment! I'll be living in the southwest region near the Uganda-Rwanda border in a village called Kiita (located near the larger town Kabale if you want to look it up on a map!). This is supposedly a very green and beautiful region, as well as cooler weather than the rest of Uganda. I'll be working with a community health center called Kitanga Health Center, doing community outreach with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS prevention, working to strengthen psychosocial support groups for HIV positive individuals and maternal child health activities (immunizations, nutrition edu, antenatal care, malaria prevention, school health edu).  The language of this region is runyankore/rukiga, which I must say is pretty difficult! I really hope I'll be able to pass the oral language exam at the end of pre service training. There's a group of 9 of us heading to this region, so we will all be leaving wednesday for 1 month at our homestay families. I'm really excited to get out of kulika to see Uganda and be immersed in the culture and language! My homestay family consists of a retired reverend, school teacher, and 3 kids- 2 still living at home and under the age of 18. They speak runyankore/ rukiga which will help me with learning
the language as well as going to language training mon-sat all day. Anyway, stay tuned for more about my homestay hopefully soon...love and miss you all =) 

Our entire group at staging

The sorting hat! 

Southwest region group 

Christina and I 

All the children in the village came out to greet us on our 3 hr hike :) 

Final Days in California

Well, the time has finally come.  I leave tomorrow morning to begin the next chapter of my life….Peace Corps Uganda!  I have spent the last week packing, then re-packing, and packing again to make sure everything is the right size and weight limit. I think packing has by far been one of the most stressful parts of this process! How does one pack and prepare for 2 years?! A lot of thought and time went into this.  Before heading off to Uganda, I first fly to Philadelphia where I will stay for two nights and attend what is called “staging”.  Basically Peace Corps puts everyone from the group up in a hotel and we spend a day doing registration, orientation and tying up any loose ends.  I fly out of JFK with my whole group on Wednesday June 4 to South Africa (15 hour flight) and then South Africa to Uganda (4 hour flight).  This will be a much longer travel time than when I moved to Ghana…..i’ve got my compression stockings ready to go!!  I have been waiting so long for this day and now that it is finally here I cant help but feel so many different feelings…excited, nervous, sad.  Saying all of my goodbyes these past few weeks has been difficult, but knowing that I have so many people who love and support me makes it that much easier.  I am dreading the good-bye to my mom tomorrow at the airport, which will probably be one of the hardest good-byes of all.   I'm not sure when I will be able to post anything in the future, so I wanted to make sure I got one in before I headed off…..i guess now I should probably try and get to bed as we must be up bright and early to head to the airport…not sure im going to get much sleep tonight!!