Huge Blog!

Hello Everyone,

This entry has the potential to be huge, but a lot of people have been emailing me, so I guess this is the best time to update... Stay strong, I know you'll have the endurance to get through it all ;)

Plane Ride: The trip here was good. Amazingly everyone showed up, and no one's luggage was misplaced. It was a long trip, but good, and I was glad to be here. I had never flown internationally before, and never on a plane bigger than a business commuter jet, so it was quite a nice ride. The seats were bigger, the food pretty good, and the hospitality of the KLM flight attendants was amazing. We got here at like 8PM Uganda time... it was dark here already(it gets dark at like 6:45) so it was hard to see much of the landscape and houses. They gave us some food on the bus to campus. We had these things that were called "chipotes"(I have no idea how to spell that) which are like tortillas except way better, and some bananas. They have many different kinds of banana's here, some like we have at home, and some really small ones that are like half as long as what we have.

One kind that we eat often is called "matoke" (pronounced: matokay) and this is often boiled or fried and either served as solid banana yet, or mashed and served inside the leaves of the plant(this is tradition). It seems like it might not taste very good, and some do not like it, but I find it quite edible and filling. Depending on how it is made, it really doesn't have a lot of taste, but often something is added to give it a little spice. We also often eat, potatoes(which are very buttered and tasty), beans, rice, cabbage, and a dish called "posho" which is white and made from corn-flour. It does not have a lot of taste, but if mixed with beans it provides a good amount of filling. For breakfast we usually just have bread, butter and eggs. The eggs are often mixed with onions and peppers, which is very good. Basically all are meals are just really big and you eat a lot, which is great, and necessary, since meal times are a long way apart.

Typical day and meal times(for Ugandans): up at 4-5AM, maybe eat breakfast and then head off to work somewhere. Come back around 11-noon and prepare lunch. Eat lunch at 1-2PM depending on how long it takes to cook. Then go back to work and work until 6-7. Then prepare supper and eat anywhere from 9-11. My host-family regularly eats at 9PM, but many others I have heard eat at 11PM. Tea times are mixed in between meal times to serve as a "snack" and they often make their tea with warm milk, which is very, very good. You should all try it sometime.

A little about my family and home: My home is just outside of campus, so it is a very short walk, 15 minutes at most. In fact I can see the campus from my home as it is just across the road from the south side of campus. My home is a brick home, and it has a separate kitchen house, and bathroom/shower area. Also, there is electrical wiring run inside the house, but no electricity running to the house, so that is a bit of an adjustment as well, but I am getting used to it. Another big adjustment is bathing out of a basin. I am definitely getting better at it, but the combination of cold water and trying to splash water on myself with my hands makes it difficult, but I am getting better. They gave us washcloths now, which makes everything immensely easier. The dorms on campus do have running water showers, but it is cold water only... really once you get used ot it, though, it's not that bad.

My family has 8 children in it of very differing ages. The youngest is about 10 I believe, and the oldest is 32, so, yeah, quite a disparity. I'll try to give you the ages and names of the ones I know, as the oldest are not at home anymore. The youngest is a boy named Joshua and I think he is like 10. The next is a girl named Kevin, and she is 13 I believe, getting ready for high school, and is somewhat nervous about that :) The next oldest is a girl named Sara who si 15 or 16 I believe. Then there is Sam, who is the boy I am sharing a bedroom with, and I think he is 19 maybe. The other older ones I do not know as well, but I know that 2 are married and one is not, but works as an engineer in Kampala as he is finishing his studies there as well.

The mother of my family, I believe is named Betty, but I'm not sure, as she has only told me to call her "Toto" which means "mom" or "aunt" in Ateso, which is their mother tongue, I'm not sure which one it actually is, but it's one of the two. There are 32 different languages spoken in Uganda, so every time you meet someone they probably know a different language, most people I have met know 5-6 different languages so it is difficult to get a grasp on any one. But, my whole family knows English, which is good; sometimes accents make it difficult to understand, but we work through it. My host-mom used to be a teacher in grade school, but now she works in their gardens and at home. Her husband is a teacher as well, and he is away at another tech school closer to where they are originally from. If you're interested in checking it out, I am in the Mukono region, and they are originally from Soroti, which is just to the north. They speak Luganda in Mukono, and Ateso in Soroti. Apparently before Uganda Christian University came into existence the campus that they are on used to be another University where my host-dad used to teach at. Then it closed down, and my family had live on campus, but then they built their house off-campus, and he found a job in Soroti, where he teaches now. Kind of interesting I thought.

I think that is a pretty good overview of my family.

The campus is quite beautiful here, as well as the countryside. It is very hilly here, with many trees, which wasn't what I was expecting but it is great. It is usually quite nice here temperature-wise. It gets a little warm sometimes in dress pants and long-sleeves, but there is always a nice breeze and it usually rains for a short time each day which cools it down nicely. The University has a pretty strict dress-code, so I am usually in dress clothes, which I am sure is a surprise to some of you who know me well ;)

They have a beautiful red dirt here that composes much of the roads and landscapes, much like the southern U.S. The roads are very bumpy, so I'm glad I don't have to ride down them much. They also drive on the left-hand side, which is the first time I have ever experienced that, and it was quite strange to say the least.

I think that's all I'll say for now.... Feel free to post questions if I forgot something you wanted to know. I have a huge Rwanda trip to blog about sometime, but I must try to do some homework now.... I will try to post more pictures later, but I'll add a few now to reward those who made it all the way to the end ;) Well, anyways, the electricity and Internet connection is not cooperating with my uploading, so I'll put pictures up later...

Peace,
Justin