Adventures in Africa: First day of Work!

7/12

Woke up, turned on CNN and saw the tragedy that happened in Kampala last night. When I got to work, Tara told us that we are going to make a detour to the internet cafe to contact everyone and let them know we are ok. I’ve talked enough about the bombing so I’m going to just keep blogging about what we’re doing besides discussing the US Embassy. I’m not trying to be disrespectful or naive it just starts freaking me out if I talk about it too much.

OK, moving on... so we hopped in our van which was I swear the same van from “Little Miss Sunshine” horn and all. So through my long fits of laughter, I was then completely grossed out by the breakfast Peter (our translator) was eating...chicken gizzard and chips. mmm Who would want Cheerios when you can have that? On we went to about 10 min. outside of Jinja to meet and assess the teachers that we would be teaching. We visited about 8 people who brought us in their home and showed us what they do. Emma was great: an extremely crippled man who just loved to sew! He taught free classes, did alterations for only 200 shillings (about 10 cents) and made custom garments for 1000 shillings (about 50 cents.) He seemed very enthusiastic about what we were going to teach him.

Another place that touched my heart was a small barn room. One side was raising turkeys the other side sat 10 women making necklaces, mats, pillow cases, and other crafts. One woman even made her own knitting needles from bicycle spokes!

The last place we went to was a school for the deaf. The kids were SOOO sweet. They even gave me a sign language name. My hair was braided in the front so they took their right hand in an “L” (for Lindsay) and brushed it from left to right across my forehead. (Although now that I think of it that could’ve just been for “loser.”..dang.) I learned a lot of Lusoga signing; it was truly special to see these children.

After a long day of traveling to the teachers’ homes, we came back to the office and started setting up our classroom. We cleaned and set up 3 sewing machines and got our room ready for Wednesday class. We hopped on a boda boda which is basically like a small motorcycle/big moped that they use as taxis here (think Yamaha Exciter circa 1981...) (As a side note, the first time I rode on one I fell off, not while driving only after we stopped. My backpack was so heavy and I couldn’t get my foot off. The large turtle shell on my back pulled me back so fast and I got a big cut and scrape on my leg. I mean seriously, when was the last time I got a scrape?! I’m so B.A. ) After we all debriefed at a nice dinner at Gately. Time to sleep...hopefully.