July is slipping away

This is my house! and if you look at the photos in the Flickr link you will see the back, the inside, the outdoor kitchen and the pit latrine! I kind of went crazy taking the pictures because I wanted it to be like a virtual tour. So now you can imagine what it's like to live in Uganda!

Well, the past month has been very eventful. So much so that I hardly know where to begin. Let's start with the sad news. My best friend in Peace Corps Uganda just went home on the 12th of July due to medical reasons. I totally miss hanging out with her at site; life just isn't the same without her around. But I'm a trooper and I'm hanging in there. I'm just really jealous that she gets to eat really good food whenever she wants!!

Also this month I have presented HIV information to boda drivers in our town (they carry people on the back of their mopeds rather than cramming in a taxi). It was a great sensitization and they seemed excited to carry on the conversation. I hope to move it to a peer educator model because they don't like to take time away from the stage (that's where they wait for customers) but they have plenty of downtime to discuss HIV and risk reduction behavior while waiting for customers to come and get a lift.

Then I went with my counterpart and another local volunteer to a primary school called Alpha and Omega to teach P5-7 students about "Life Skills". Which basically tells students about how to make good decisions, form good relationships in positive peer groups, etc. Basically, the program is meant to help youth avoid things like HIV/AIDS and early pregnancy by giving them more than just knowledge. While the kids have a lot knowledge about STIs they don't really have the skills to say no to sex and make the right decisions so that's what Life Skills is all about!

Plus we recorded our radio program on the local radio station and I had a training with Peace Corps this last week. So, I've been quite busy this month. Which is nice so that I don't stop and think about Carrie! I also made an oven so I could bake a cake...it was chocolate with gooey chocolate icing...and banana bread. So, I guess you all in America aren't the only ones eating good food!! :)

And another month flies by!

Ok, so another month goes by. Some of it exciting, most of it involved a lot of reading! After my last update Carrie and I had an exciting time getting back to our site. See, the roads around us are all made of marram (dirt) and they have been adding marram to make the roads a little less treacherous. The problem with doing this during the wet season is that when it rains (and it rains heavily) the roads become almost impossible to pass on unless you have a 4-wheel drive vehicle. Well, sadly, our taxi was rear-wheel drive and had a problem climbing some of the hills on the way home. So, we got stuck and Carrie and I got out to push...which is a huge deal because most of the people around our town were shocked that we could walk and ride bicycles (they have only seen white people riding through in vehicles). It was great to give my toes a mud bath! It's been a long, long time since I last stuck my feet in the mud and there was a lot of mud to play with! It was a crazy long evening, it took us about 2 hours to push the taxi about 1 km (needless to say we weren't going very fast)! Every time it seemed we were about to get it unstuck the vehicle would slide to the other side of the road and get stuck again...very sad. By the time we reached the 1 km mark, we had blown and tire and the road seemed to b getting worse. Lucky for us, Carrie's organization has 4-wheel drive vehicles so someone came to pick us up...after we walked another km (or so) to meet it on a part of the road that wasn't so bad!

The next week we had an emergency visit to Kampala because Carrie was sick with what seemed to be malaria. Not good! So, I went with her to Kampala for a brief stay and on my way home had my phone stolen! Not exactly a good time because I was looking forward to talking to family and I hate to miss their calls. So, I had to buy a new phone. But the new phone I bought came with a bad battery which was a constant reminder, for one week, that I had been careless and got my phone stolen in Kampala. On the plus-side, at least that's the only thing the guy got because my wallet was just under my phone, phew!

Life at site has exciting moments. Right now we are planning to work with the guys who drive the motorcycles/mopeds and taxis because they want education about HIV/AIDS. I think it will be a lot of fun. Plus we continue to look for ways that our groups can make some money and start to get some good projects going. Right now, we are doing a lot of planning and I hope that in the future we can really build the Resource Centre!

Life in the village

So, life in the village is nothing like life in the Serena Hotel but at least I'm comfortable. Things at the organization have been a little quiet but that's mostly because we can't test people for HIV right now because we don't have any test kits (the entire district is without). January to March we tested a village testing outreach project that was overwhelmingly successful in the villages. My organization has submitted some proposals in an effort to raise money for transport and for allowances for people who provide the services. I hope that we have a chance to implement the project because we tested so many people just by going to them. I assume most people are like me and you know a service is good and you should use it but it's just that much sweeter when that service is delivered to you (it's like on-line shopping)!!
When I returned from the Serena I had to readjust to life with a lantern and a pit latrine but it didn't take long to get used to village life again. April flew by with the drama group coming to practice and the board of directors being redesigned. In May, the drama group performed for local officials at the Labour Day celebration. I hope to have pictures of that on flickr in about a month. And Carrie and I started a collaboration. She goes to villages to train Community Resource Persons (CRPs) about HIV and how to help encourage their community members to go for HIV testing without freaking them out and my organization's drama group goes to present a play, songs, and traditional dances for the CRPs. So far, they have performed at 3 of her trainings and have done a great job!
I continue to present with Stephen on the radio program that we have once a month. And help with the health talk we give to the Post Test Club.
As always, I miss the food from home but I'm beginning to get used to cooking the local food. Mpora mpora (slowly by slowly), I am making my way to preparing things on the local charcoal stove. Haven't quite given up my gas cooker, though!
Evenings are still uneventful. Most of the time I am in my home by 730 pm (that's when it gets dark) and I stay there until the morning! Which means I have a lot of time to read books. I think this is the most I have ever read in my life! But I must be learning a lot...somehow.