Life in Fort...

I have officially come to my site.  The school in which I am supposed to be working, Canon Apollo Demonstration School, is about 7 or 8 km outside of a town called Fort Portal.

Canon Apollo is a village.  The land is beautiful. It is spread out over farmland at the base of the Rwenzori Mountains. Most days when I walk down the dusty road, people can be found digging the land with hoes, walking their cattle to a place to graze, or working diligently to finish household chores in their yards. Life is simple, the place is beautiful, and the people are kind.

Right now, I live about a 5-10 minute walk from the school and its only another 5-10 minutes from there to Canon Apollo Core Primary Teacher’s College (where another volunteer named Mike works). I say right now because, as with some rural schools in Uganda, there is a shortage of funding and housing at Canon Apollo Demonstration School. Though they have been trying, they have not been able to find permanent housing for me. I am currently living in the boy’s quarters (servant’s quarters) behind a board members house. Sadly, due to the lack of housing, I will probably have to get a site change. They are working hard to keep me in this region, so I may not have to go far and I can continue to have such beautiful scenery to walk by each day.

Okay… sorry for that aside. I promise to keep you updated as things change, but back to my life as it is right now. I also live about a 20 minute walk to Karago Market, which has produce and goods on Tuesdays. It runs along a main road called Bundibugyo. On days when the market is not there, you can find some items you may need at local dukkas, or shops. However, the pickings are slim at the dukkas. You have to be smart about shopping and there are times you might have to make the trek to the next town.

My best bet is Fort Portal. If it wasn’t so difficult to get there, I would be absolutely broke. Why you ask? For Portal has FOOD. I’m not talking local beans and rice… I’m talking PIZZA. My new favorite place in Uganda is a Dutch run restaurant called The Dutchess. They bake fresh bread, have the best pizza, and keep their ice cream cold. COLD. I don’t think you understand how big of a deal this is for me. I’m so thankful.

The problem (and I’m sure this part gives my sweet Momma a heart attack) is getting there. The major form of transportation here is boda boda (motorcycles) and we cannot, by proclamation of the Peace Corps, ride bodas. At times there are vehicles that go to town from the college and I can snag a ride, but those are few and far between. I could call a private hire to pick me up but it is extremely expensive. There is also no taxi park in Canon Apollo, so in order to get a taxi you have to wave one down. They only stop if they are not full, which is a rarity.

So… I walk down to Bundibugyo Road and I hitchhike.  I stand and motion to each car that passes, waiting, sometimes not so patiently, for a vehicle to stop. Before you freak out, it’s pretty safe here. If a Ugandan has room, they don’t hesitate to pick someone up.

The last time I went to town, I waited about 45 minutes. Only those in Uganda can understand the extent of that kind of wait. Even though you tell boda drivers that you cannot ride with them, a hoard of them circles every two minutes to check and see if you have changed your mind. The people all stare at the weird white girl trying to get a ride. The boda drivers laugh.

On this day, I was standing near a man called Amooti, who I am positive was taking pictures of me on his phone. I decided I would ask him questions about the cars coming and whether he thought they would be full or not. After many failed attempts, one of the boda drivers yelled across the road,

“This is the sign!”

He beat a fist against his open palm above his head for me to see. I turned to my new photographer friend and asked,

 “Is this the sign that will tell them to stop?”

I thought it was just waving your hand at your side, so I wanted to do it right. He nodded his head yes, so for the next few cars I beat my fist to my palm, begging people to stop. Now… Ugandans laugh at me a lot. They laugh when they are happy to hear me speaking their language. They laugh when I walk by because I’m white. They laugh when they hear I’m from America. They love to laugh. I have become immune to Ugandan laughter.

This is why I didn’t think twice when the boda drivers were laughing. Finally, another circled by me and stopped to say in the best English he could muster,

“Madam, this means full not stop.”

I turned to my photographer friend and said,

“Why did you tell me it meant stop???”

He nodded his head yes so I tried,

“Omanyire orujungu?” (Do you know English)

He laughed and replied,

“Nangwa, Abwooli.”

I had been talking to him for a long time… He had no idea what I was saying. I love Uganda. Needless to say, I finally found a taxi that would stop. It probably didn’t have enough room for me but I looked pathetic and they let me squeeze in.

Moral of the story is… I’m not sure how often I will make it to the pizza oasis called Fort Portal, but you better believe I would make a fool of myself to hail a taxi every once in a while for a wonderful slice of that pie.

At long last...

This is our last week of pre-service training. Let that soak in. Okay, I still don’t think you understand. This is our last week of pre-service training!!!

This means a few things:

1)   All my friends are coming back together after a month apart for language training

2)    Hot showers

3)   This week I will swear in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer

4)   Hot showers

5)   At the end of the week, all my friends have to leave each other again to go to our sites

6)   Hot showers

Our swearing in ceremony was at the Scott DeLisi’s, United States Ambassador to Uganda, home. He and his wife graciously opened their doors to us, our future site supervisors, our trainers, and other various guests.

We quickly got seated and the program started! I have some news that will shock those of you who know me best…

I sang the national anthem in a quartet.

Yes you read that correctly. I sang in front of people for real. I’d like to thank my mom for singing to me during bath time when I was little. I’d also like to thank C Dash for bearing with me in the car as we belted out “Wide Awake”. I’d like to thank my siblings for always encouraging me to sing…

That last one is a joke. They groan when I sing. I don’t blame them. Despite my complete lack of faith in my own voice, my friend Marvin swore my voice was perfect for the quartet. Honestly, I think that the other three (Marvin, Emily, and Matt) just beautifully drowned me out. I love them for making me feel good about it, though. Me singing the national anthem was not the highlight. There were many speakers. Then we were recognized and stood together to repeat an oath that swore us in as OFFICIAL VOLUNTEERS! My favorite part, however, came after the swearing in.

One person from our group is actually a returned Peace Corps Volunteer. I believe he served with his wife in the 70’s because his service was interrupted by political unrest. He has talked about how he was excited to come back to Uganda because he felt he didn’t really get to finish his work before.  Nonetheless, we asked Carl Muhlhausen to speak because he had a beautiful story to tell.

Carl reached the podium and talked a little of his history with the Peace Corps. He then went on to speak about his time in training. During our training, we had to go to our soon to be sites for a future site visit to make sure we knew our supervisors, saw our schools, and checked our housing. Carl made his way to a National Teacher’s College (NTC) in Kabale district in the southern part of Uganda.

When he arrived at his school, the principal greeted him and had to leave, handing Carl over to the Deputy Principal. It’s tough for Ugandans to say Muhlhausen so Carl, on the tour around the school, introduced himself as Mr. M. The Deputy Principal and Carl got to talking and it came up that when the Deputy Principal was in school, he had two white teachers. Believe you me, they don’t forget the white people they meet in Uganda. Anyway, Carl asked who they were, on the off chance that they had crossed paths while he was living in Uganda before. The Deputy Principal replied,

“Mrs. Muhlhausen taught English and Mr. Muhlhausen taught Chemistry.”

Carl, a little stunned, asked him to repeat what he had just said and the Deputy Principal replied the same way.

“Mrs. Muhlhausen taught English and Mr. Muhlhausen taught Chemistry.”

Carl said he jumped up and yelled,

“I’m Mr. Muhlhausen!”

The Deputy Prinicpal then took him back through the school tour introducing him this time as “Mr. Muhlhausen, my Chemistry teacher”. My favorite part of this story is hearing Carl say that now, after only a few months here, he could leave feeling like his work is done because he met one person that said he had made a difference.

Isn’t that the best story?

Another beautiful part about swearing in is that they served awesome food on skewers. We are talking marinated meat. Not the stringy, tough stuff you usually find stuck in your teeth a week after eating it. And…

There were brownies.

Brownies and friends, singing and speeches. Overall, I’d say swearing in was a success.

A peek into language training...

Ibara lyange niinyowe Jenna. Empaako yange Abwooli. Nduga Illinois omu America. Hati nyikara Bujumbura East omu Hoima omu Uganda. Ndi Peace Corps Trainee. Ndi omu kutendekebwa. Nsoma Runyoro/Rutooro n’ebyobuhangwa. Hanyuma y’okutendekebwa, nkwija kugenda Canon Apollo Demonstration School kusomesa orujungu na kutendeda abasomesa.

Omu America, nyina taata na maama. Taata wange nuwe omunyoro Miles na maama wange nuwe omykarro Theresa. Abazaire bange baikara Illinois. Nyina abagenzi bange basatu. Nibo Kristen, Michael, na Jackson. Kristen aikara omu Florida baitu Michael na Jackson baikara Illinois. Ngonza eka yange.

Just a little of my new language skills for all of you!!! It’s basically just an introduction and me telling a little about my family. I have decided that I absolutely love learning a new language. I hope I come out of Uganda fluent in Runyoro/Rutooro and that I can tackle a couple more languages in my lifetime. 

A not so snowy Christmas...

Christmas away from home is the absolute most terrible thing in the world.

I know plenty of people do Christmas away from their family, but for me… even the idea of it was unbearable. My family can tell you I cried pretty hard on the phone. I made whoever was holding the phone give me a play by play as little Jaxin opened gifts at the Marcotte house for the first time or as my siblings worked through their stockings that Santa still so kindly brings us. I made my dad talk to me while he made coffee cake for breakfast and I let Aunt Candy cry on the phone and tell me she missed having me there. I let my mom be silent with me as we realized that this was only the first of three Christmases that I would miss. Life was the worst that day.

You’re probably thinking this is the most depressing blog post ever. Up until this point it has been pretty disheartening. However, I need to tell you about a Peace Corps Volunteer named Lori.

Lori is a former nursing instructor who felt the Lord tugging at her heart, telling her it was time to quit her job. She did and, with no prospects of another job, she spent months faithfully looking for an answer. The Peace Corps sort of landed in her lap and she left her two kids (both around my age) to set out for the dusty roads of Hoima, Uganda.  Hoima is the town in which I have been doing language training. The Peace Corps was worried about my group of trainees because we would arrive at our language training satellites three days before Christmas. They asked the Volunteers who were near our sites to be available, just in case we needed a place to go.  Lori got to work.

A couple trainees headed to Lori’s on Christmas Eve. I decided to stay with my homestay family until Christmas Day. I wasn’t sure I could do this holiday away from home. I missed the snow. Instead I was walking 45 minutes in a country on the equator. I missed making cookies with my mom. Instead I had made rice, beans, and cabbage on an outdoor coal burner called a sigiri. I missed my home. Instead, I came across an atmosphere I had never expected.

We had all talked to Lori once or twice before we came that day. An outsider looking it wouldn’t have a clue. She treated all of us as her own children. Her house was decorated from top to bottom in Christmas decorations. She had invited two other nearby volunteers to join in on the festivities. She let us open every present that was sent to her from the states because she said it brought her more joy to watch us open them. She also used her own money to buy us each a couple small gifts that were perfect. On top of that she organized a white elephant gift exchange (for which she also bought all the gifts). Lori cooked up dinner and nailed dessert by trying out homemade funnel cakes. She let us stay at her house and then cooked us breakfast and sent us home full of food and love. I told her when I left that I bet my mom would kiss her for taking care of her baby girl.

Was it as good as being at home? Never. Nothing will ever be the same. However, I am nothing but grateful for Lori. I am thankful she listened to the Lord that day long ago when he told her to quit her job. My first Christmas away from home quickly went for unbearable to survivable because one woman was faithful enough to listen and kind of enough to love. Thanks Lori! 

Home away from home...

My family loves the movie Pitch Perfect.  We might actually have an obsession with it if you account for every time that it has been played in our household. I know that it seems strange for me to bring to the surface one of my family’s many quirks, but it has relevance, I promise! In the movie, Beca (the main character) says to her potential crush, Jesse,

“You have a habit of making yourself at home, did you know that?”

I think he responds with an “uh-huh” or something really profound. If Beca was indeed a real person and we were indeed friends and she said that very same sentence to me, I think I would also mutter “uh-huh.” Actually, I’d probably go with the indisputably more intelligent response of “yeah.” I know, I know. I’m pretty deep.

I think the ability to make yourself at home is both a curse and a blessing. The downfall is that I almost always feel as though I am having to leave home and in turn the ones I love. My true home lies with my family in Allendale and forever will. However, I vividly recall a brutal cycle of missing home while away at college and then going home only to miss my new college home with the same intensity. I made it even harder on myself by moving in with the Ackerman family after college. It is so strange to have the same feeling of coming home as you drive into a multitude of driveways. It should only be one driveway that makes you feel that way. Somehow I have managed to snuggle myself into people’s lives in a way that makes me feel like I am truly home.

A couple days before Christmas this year, I didn’t find a paved driveway, but I stumbled across a dirt road that would lead to my next home.  You see, out of the group of forty-some people in our training group, 7 of us would be eventually living in working in western Uganda. Uganda has a plethora of languages that are spoken within its borders. The western region speaks two, almost identical, languages called Runyoro and Rutooro. The Peace Corps requires that we go through 4 weeks of language training before we head to our final sites. The 7 of us who would be in western Uganda (Brittany, Madison, Mike, Rachel B, Rachel C, Ravi, and myself) were sent to Hoima, Uganda to complete our language training in Runyoro/Rutooro. The Peace Corps also requires that during our language training, we live with a pre-selected family to help us learn the language and cultural intricacies of the Ugandan people.

We all were dropped off at a school in Hoima called St. Bernadetta’s. There, we were ushered into a main hall where some of our parents awaited us.  This is where I met Maama Akiiki.

**Side note: Those who live in regions that speak Runyoro/Rutooro are unique. Part of the region’s culture is that when you are born, you are assigned an empaako, or pet name. The region has a list of twelve names from which you can choose. My mom’s real first name is Teddy, but she is known by her empaako, Akiiki, as well.**

We sat and talked for a little bit, exchanging introductions and all that jazz, and then we decided to head to her house. It’s an interesting thing to meet someone you are going to live with for the first time…

Maama Akiiki is a hardworking woman, still strong at age 65. Her husband, who taught blind students at a nearby school, died in 1999.  They had built a home together, cultivated the land, and raised many children.  She birthed 9 children and five are still living. They all have kids and Maama Akiiki, at one point or antother, has taken care of all of them.  One came with her that day- a grandson named Pascal. He is 15 now, but he has lived with her since he was 3 months old. I also found out that another of her grandchildren stays with her. Her name is Vivian and she is 3 years old. In return for all the love that Maama Akiiki has given, her family often sends people to come and take care of her. A nephew of hers, Michael, is 20 and he comes during his school holidays to take care of the household business. On top of that, it is common for families to have a house child. Christina is the house child at Maama Akiiki’s. She is 16 and takes care of most of the household chores and cooking.

I’m diverting… Pascal and Maama Akiiki took me home to meet the family.

By meet the family I mean everyone in the neighborhood comes by to see the white person. Most of them thought I was from Germany. They always think you are from Germany, Italy, or the UK. I gently corrected them in the little bit of Runyoro/Rutorro that I knew. They showed me to my room, which in my mind was absolutely perfect and left me to kind of unpack.  Unpacking is hard to do when you know you will be leaving in just a few weeks.

 I emerged from my room to find that dinner preparations were in full swing.  That night was some of the best food I have had in Uganda. Maama Akiiki is legit.  That night also began the slow process of getting to know my new family. Immeadiately, Maama Akiiki made me feel like her daughter. The kids took a little longer to get to know. At first I thought Maama Akiiki was a slave driver because of all the work that everyone (including me) had to do.  However, I came to understand that it is a part of their culture. They love coming to work for Maama and she is loving toward them. Many hands make light work.

I found that Michael wants to be a doctor someday. He is maybe one of the most literal people I have ever met (he never got my jokes..) but he also might be the most helpful person I have ever met. It was like he could read my mind if I was uncertain about how I was supposed to do something. Next thing I knew, he was quietly demonstrating exactly what I needed to do.  Christina is full of life. I don’t always understand the dynamics of a house child with a family, but I do know that Maama Akiiki is kind and treats Christina like one of her own as well, and because of that, Christina is light-hearted. Vivian… She is our 3-year old pistol. She has dimples and knows how to use them! When she is happy, she is the cutest thing on the planet earth. When she is unhappy, she lets you know, usually by a glare that insinuates if she doesn’t get her way soon, we are going to be sorry. I love it. That brings us to Pascal, who is the most sarcastic Ugandan I have met yet. He is the exact opposite of Michael in personality and they compliment each other well. Pascal also loves to pester Vivian. She talks the most when she is talking back to him. He does it playfully and she would follow him anywhere because of that. Pascal would often send me in to fits of giggles.

Visitors come and go in Maama Akiiki’s house, but it is important that I tell you about one visit. Her youngest brother’s wife (please keep up) came to visit one day, bringing her daughter, Flossy. It is like pulling teeth to get that girl to talk to you. PULLING TEETH. For a while, I thought she didn’t know Runyoro/Rutooro or English. Then her mom announced that she was going to leave Flossy to help with household chores for the rest of break and Flossy turned to tell me she was so happy that she got to spend more time with me.  After breaking the barrier, she turned out to be the sweetest girl you will ever meet. Once, when everyone else was gone except for Christina and I, she asked if they could show me their favorite dances. Who would have thought?

 I came to learn in the next few weeks that everyday living is an extensive process. You see, at our house, we had no electricity or running water. You walk carrying twenty liters of water (the girls do it on their heads) uphill to the house. At night we light kerosene lamps and eat dinner in the dark except for the soft light emanating from the lamp set in the corner. We take hours to prepare for dinner and cook the food, using a wood burning stove and sigiris, or coal burners. When it gets dark, you cook in the dark. We have pit latrines. For those of you who don’t know, at pit latrine is a hole in the ground that you use when you have to go to the bathroom. Lets just say my thighs better be ripped from all the squatting we have to do… To bath you use a bucket, splashing water over yourself to get clean. We wash clothes by hand.  You wash dishes in buckets of water, using sand to clean the really dirty ones. Did I mention we had to carry water uphill to do all of these things. All of these tasks take so much time. I can’t imagine having a job and having the responsibility to finish all of these tasks for a family. It’s no wonder we eat dinner at 9 o’clock each night!

 Maama Akiiki and her family took the time each day to patiently show me how life is done in Uganda. They loved me even though I was different. I can’t imagine a better homestay experience and I owe it all to the love of one family. They are forever in my heart and I will always call that house outside of Hoima home.