Only 5 more days until something other than pineapple, watermelon, and bananas for breakfast!

7/20

Officially less than a week until I am back on soil other than red clay! I can’t believe how fast the time has gone here!  Work was really good today. We had a great breakthrough.  One of our women really stands out from the crowd and is a great leader so the last lesson of the day we were able to have her give the demo! It was so wonderful to hear her speaking Lusoga to the women, explaining what to do, and seeing the others listen and follow her.  On a small scale, this is our goal: to teach teachers.  So that was pretty cool.  

My major low for the day was at about 10pm as I was dropped off at my hotel by the boda boda driver.  He literally drove me 1 block and demanded 500 shillings (I gave him 300.)  It normally is 700 to get downtown.  I know it’s not a big deal but it’s the principal: they always charge mzungus WAY more than Ugandans and I can speak for our group by saying it is extremely annoying.  If we want to donate money to you, we do, but otherwise we want to be treated the same.  So to get back on track, I, along with two guards from my hotel, had a screaming match with the boda driver.  They agreed that the bodas shouldn’t be charging that much.  I ended up giving the guy an extra 100 shillings but firmly placed it in his hands, looked at him in his crooked eyes and said, “you know you’re overcharging me because of my skin.” He sped off into the night after that one.  Jerk.  I thanked the guards, after, for having my back.  The thing is if some mzungus give in and give them what they want, then they end up charging those here year round that high price.  It’s not fair.  So as word to all you traveling to 3rd world countries out there, don’t give money to those who are purposely overcharging or begging.  It doesn’t help either party.  Ok... that was my rant.  p.s. I still love Uganda and all of you should still visit! :)

My sidewalk that sometimes exists as I walk to work.  I walk in the street a lot too!

Speed bumps to slow down traffic.  Speed limits don't exist here.  Scary!

One of the million chickens clucking around here...talk about free range!

This is a very small pothole in the city.  I should've taken some pics when I was in the village.  They are crazy big!

Main St.  The road is being repaved. I think this gravel may potentially be the final product not sure though...

Grace's shop.  If you enter in the front, walk through the store, we are in the back.

Corner of the Source cafe.  My hang out for lunch most days and delish coffee and church coincidentally.

Tires tires and more tires

Victoria working on the cuff of her sleeve.

Sewing on the front pocket.

Miriam's adorable baby that we all hold and hug. She's the cutest.  Baby's don't wear diapers here so that's been fun...but they wear bracelets and beads around their waist to make them "beautiful."  Yesterday Tara accidentally undid the beads and I was like, "get them back on there! She won't have a defined waist; she'll have a potbelly!" This is what the women say.  Quite funny.

This is how the women hold their baby.  No Baby Bjorns here just a sheet and 2 knots in the front.  I can't imagine that's comfortable.  You should see them put the babies on this way; it's quite incredible! 

I just in a fight with a boda driver...

I'm leaving it at that for now.  I'll write more tomorrow.  Literally screaming match in front of the hotel. Crooks I tell you...crooks! Just because of my snowy white skin! haha lol

Translating, and babies, and mice, oh my!

7/19

Tonight we discussed at dinner our highs and lows for the day.  Let’s just say that the biggest low for me was seeing a mouse scurry across our office floor during Lusoga language class.  Polly and I nearly died.  Other than that, today was quite a challenging day.  The women bring their babies with them everywhere so we had two little kiddies in the class and they would not stop crying.  And I’m not talking a whimper or a normal baby cry, this was blood curdling, choking on their own tears, screaching crying. So everyone was talking louder than normal to hear each other.  I was trying to write and teach at the same time and the second I wrote something not to do to the deaf woman I’m working with, she did it again.  I completely lost it and I was mouthing and flailing my hands saying “No no no!” I quickly apologized and recomposed myself.  I stepped away for a moment and saw Tara looking at me like “Ah this is crazy!” Over lunch, we all laughed about it and came up with a game plan to pull the class back together in the afternoon.  My high for the day was finally seeing Victoria understand the patterning concept I was teaching her and me writing “much better” and “perfect!” on our communication notebook.  I’m praying that I get a translator for her tomorrow!  Sign language in English is hard enough but throwing Lusoga signs on top of that...yeowza. I hope I’m retaining some of these languages! :)

"Everybody's workin' for the weekend!"

7/18
     Saturday morning, I went into downtown (Main St.) Jinja to do some souvenir shopping.  I actually practiced my Lusoga which was a major success.  Luckily I didn't get much past "good morning" and "thank you" but regardless, I pretty much could've passed for a Ugandan.  After that, I attended Lusoga lessons which was a big clusterf@$^!  After learning the 6 basic personal pronouns, we moved on to verbs and putting words together.  The sound for "n" means "i" or "me" here and unfortunately it changes a ton of other sounds of letters.  All 4 of us Americans just looked at each other like, "come again?"  Tomorrow is my 3rd lesson and hopefully things will be a bit more clear.  After that, Polly and I got a drink (passion fruit mojito!) after too much talk about terrorism, scary books, and rafting the Nile. We then met Jamie for dinner at the only Chinese restaurant in Uganda I think.  Since Polly studied chinese history and lived there for a while, she did a phenomenal job ordering!  I woke up this morning (Sunday) shakin' in my Trekker Janes, thinking about where I would go for first aid post rafting trip.  I lugged my 55 spf and my 98% Deet in my cargo pockets, threw back a passion juice and chapatti, and headed off into the sunrise as I decided to face my day as a rafter of the Nile.  After about 10 minutes of "what to do if the raft flips" we literally got into a Grade 6 rapids and held on for dear life.  After that, we hopped out, practiced and swam. The water is great! And Mom, all of the bad things you heard (unmentionable on my blog) are untrue so all is well. :)   For the rest, we only did a Grade 3.  Much more relaxing! The last rapids we did flip the boat and although I swear I wasn't paying any attention during the morning briefing, I, instinctively, hung on to the rope, pushed back from the boat, got slammed under a few waves and came out of the thing virtually unscathed.  Bobbi's oar hit her on the nose and she bled a bit but other than that we were good.  As we floated down the Nile, we ate pineapple and biscuits for lunch and stopped at the Hairy Lemon.  This is honestly a paradise little tiki hut/campground owned my some South African men.  Let's just say a raft full of women paired with many South African male accents equaled us staying there for quite a while sippin' on our fruity beverages. This place was out of a movie; quaint little streams and footpaths, jungle like trees, vines, and flowers, people lounging around in bathing suits, no make up and dreadlocks.  I could've stayed there forever! After we got back on the boat, we headed back to the camp where they had a HUGE barbeque for us that overlooked Bujagali Falls.  All of us agreed that we couldn't think of any better place in the whole world that we'd rather be.  It was simply amazing.  Unfortunately we couldn't take our camera but honestly, pictures wouldn't have done this place justice.  It will forever be in my memory as one of the best places ever!  Tonight, Bobbi and I headed to Betty's again to pick up our laundry.  We only wanted to stay for 5 minutes.  Needless to say, it turned into 2 hours because they wanted to cook for us!  Betty got very sad when we said we were going to go; she said she missed us and wanted us to visit more.   Although we expressed how full and stuffed we were, they insisted and proceeded to make us matoke, beans and cassava, this omelet thing, and G-nut soup.  It was honestly the best African food I've had.  Shamilla brought out her patterns and garments and I critiqued them and gave her tips. I told Shamilla and Salima that I would be back on Sunday to say goodbye and that they could cook again.  They were so excited to hang out again.  I love those two girls.  I think if an American 15 and 16 year old would spend 2 hours cooking and discussing sewing/patterning with me I would fall over.  They are so mature and loving.  It's so refreshing!  Back to work tomorrow!

Bujagali Falls

Lori blowing out her birthday candles! 

A tailor shop that I stopped in and checked out. He pulled out a ton of his garments asking for suggestions.  I had so much fun!

Making a rolex: chapati with egg inside. mmm

My room straight outta the 30s. 

Every night thousands and thousands of bats fly every evening. We've been trying to figure out from where to where but haven't been successful. 

Happy Birthday Lori!

7/16

This morning I got up and worked out.  Carly met me for an early morning run which was nice to catch up with her for a bit.  She’s headed to Kampala tonight so I told her to be safe and wished her well.  After, headed into the office to meet the women. I worked mostly with Victoria today writing, translating, signing, and miming the directions to make a men’s shirt.  I think I’ve officially developed carpal tunnel.  I felt bad because a lot of details are missed when you cannot hear certain words during a lesson.  I kept asking if she understood and she consistently wrote “trying.” Hopefully next week things will click better for her! After work we celebrated Lori’s birthday.  We went to Bunjagli Falls about 20 min. away.  It overlooks the Nile and is a super yummy restaurant.  I had a steak for only about $9!  Tara got a cake for Lori too; we had so much fun!  The location on the Nile is where we end for rafting on Sunday.  Needless to say, I am absolutely terrified to do this rafting.  Apparently it’s the #1 place for rafting in the WORLD.  (i.e. probably most deadly...)  Although my friends assured me that they are not in the business of killing people, I am still a bit nervous! Eh, I guess I’ve dodged a few bullets already, why not add another? Knock on wood... :) Happy Weekend! 

Wasuze Otya!

7/15

Oli Otya! Well today was my first lesson in Lusoga, the language spoken here in Jinja.  Luganda is the language spoken in Kampala and is used more often but we thought we’d tailor it a bit more to the location where we are.  Luckily most people understand Luganda and Lusoga and they are very similar so hopefully they’ll understand SOMETHING I manage to say! I will say though that this morning I greeted the boda boda guy by saying “Wasuze Otya!” (Good Morning!) and he was so chatty after that and didn’t whine about me giving him 700 shillings for the ride.  Lately they’ve been wanting 1000 shillings from Mzungus but I think my newly found Lusoga along with the flashing of my pearly whites ensured that I only would have to pay 700.  :)   Anyway, the language lesson went great! Ali, our teacher, met us at the Keep which is a new restaurant in Jinja.  (This restaurant is medieval style only 2 weeks old created by a former computer hacker.  Basically he used to hack for the government in the US and now works for charities doing computer stuff. After his wife visited here once, he was sold.  He quit his job and moved his family here.  Pretty cool.  I got a Kit Kat milkshake...mmm delish!) We’re having our next lesson on Saturday morning.  Sula bulungi! (Goodnight!)

Emma working on his shirt with Polly

Victoria making final stitches on her bag.

Ziria and Olivia seam ripping a shirt apart for patterning.

A picture of our backyard...our "facilities" are behind that blue door.  We'll leave that part to the imagination.

Victoria modeling her bag!!

Rehema workin' it with her bag.

Salha loves her bag! It really makes the brown of her outfit pop!

Throwback to the 1800's sewing machines...

7/14

Happy Bastille Day! Oh wait. that’s France... Anyway, this morning started off with a firm discussion between myself and ole’ Gilbert (the head of the gym.)  I stated that I refuse to keep getting up this early to come and work out if he wasn’t going to open the gym or was 30 minutes late.  I told him that Uganda time wouldn’t be acceptable.  He laughed, then assured me that he would be there to open it.  Today was a success but we’ll see tomorrow! :) After that, I got into work, went for my first supermarket run by myself, large African tea in hand, for some last minute materials.  Let me tell you, if you want to make some serious dough in this country open up a store that sells only duct tape and 1 inch wide masking tape! It doesn’t exist in most places, and if it does it’s ridiculously expensive even for American standards!

We started off the day with the women and one man coming into the office.  There are two women who are unable to walk at all so we set up some spots for them on the ground with their own sewing machines and ironing boards.  There were two more who were crippled, one was deaf and two women with babies (one who was screaming the whole time because she didn’t feel well.)  We had very low expectations for the class starting off.  After we got the new/ancient Singer machines set up, we began with having them do a french seam and flat felled seam.  Major success! After lunch we decided to split them into 3 groups.  I taught a class on how to make a special bag to 3 women.  They ended up catching on extremely quickly. By the end they were laughing and beaming ear to ear.  We had such a great day; time truly flies by when you’re having fun!  

Side note: The baby that was there today had tiny wooden sticks in her earlobes that looked like earrings.  I had heard about this but never saw it.  It’s for protection from child sacrifice; they won’t be abducted because they are now imperfect.  I can’t believe that still happens!

Olivia on our brand new machine!

Polly teaching

Polly working with Erina who cannot work on an upright machine so she brings her own to work on the ground.

Tara working with a deaf student Victoria. We've been learning many new signs!

Innocent working with Salha on a bag project I led.

Peter, Emma and Polly working on knocking off a shirt.