Nourish goes to Uganda

It has been almost two weeks since our last Blog and a lot has happened! First of all we are now in Mityana, staying at Kolping House. We are sharing rooms in a quieter area of the property since they wake up here and begin cleaning at 6am every morning to blasting music, and until midnight the restaurant/bar is filled with men watching the Euro Cup. We are a full group of eight now that Dillon and Alanna have arrived, and we usually have our friends and guides Robinah and Moses with us. They help us at school translating from Luganda to English and back again, and displaying their wide range of skills in gardening and soccer and interacting with children and surveying parents and pretty much anything you could ever ask of them. We would be lost without them and are so grateful and appreciative of their help and support and company!

We are getting used to the living conditions. There are frequent town wide power outages, which are fun. Most places have their own generator and so things are up and running relatively quickly. We bought an electric kettle so we can make hot water pretty fast – which we make tea with; cool and bring to school to drink instead of buying bottled water; brush our teeth with; and some of us use it to bathe with hot water. Most of us, however, just take cold showers after our strenuous bike rides home from school. We wash our clothes by hand, and dry them out on anything we can hang them over – railings, clothes lines, and pegs. Sometimes we pay for somebody to wash our clothes when we do not have enough time – you have to soak the clothes for one to 2 hours and then scrub for another hour and then hope it is sunny to dry within 2 days. Washing machines, dishwashers, our own kitchens, running water, enclosed showers with raised draining systems (instead of a drain for the entire bathroom) are all things we are learning to live without. Food is generally not very diverse. There are two good restaurants in town, and one of them tried to cheat us on the bill, so we only go to one – it is called “Winners” and they have delicious cold passion fruit juice. We usually order chicken and chips, rice and beans, when they have them, and cabbage, when they have it. I think most of us are craving some more vegetables. We also usually get some food from the market which is all day everyday. They have roasted maize – which looks like corn, but has the consistency of chewy roasted chestnuts and tastes like popcorn and you have to pull a kernel of one at a time. We also get roasted small bananas, chapatti, and something called a Rolex – which is a chapatti with egg, tomato, onion and cabbage rolled into – something like a breakfast burrito. There is also a lot of fruit – mangoes, bananas, and pineapples. So that is how we are living – pretty well, I would say.

And now to the school: Naama Millennium Preparatory School is one of the happiest schools I have ever seen. Honestly, the children are always laughing and giggling and playing and learning and running around. It is a primary school, but ages range from nursery age to eighteen. There are about 330 students this term, split into 8 classes – nursery, Primary 1 through Primary 7. The children are very obedient, respectful, welcoming and helpful. They often kneel as a sign of respect and appreciative if we offer them some of our food. On the first day, we have a wonderful welcoming party attended by all the students, teachers, many parents, and many local leaders. There was even a reporter from the local radio station who interviewed us. They clapped in sync as we came out into the school’s yard. We all sat outside under a make shift shade, made from wooden poles and tin roofs, and desks from the class rooms. They sang the Uganda anthem, followed by the Buganda anthem (the kingdom that Mityana and Kampala are in, headed by the Kabaka (Buganda King). Then the school choir sang us welcome songs and danced the traditional Buganda dance, the younger children played musical chairs to a drum, and the nursery kids played a Uganda version of Simon Says for all of our entertainment. It was very adorable. Then the MC (the dorm master, P7 class, and science and math teacher) headmistress and board members made speeches to welcome us and then we spoke to the group an introduced ourselves and project. It was all very well received and everyone was quite happy and excited to work with us. Then they served us lunch and soda and we rode our bikes home.

(The Bike Ride: We have learned a shortcut along a dirt road, rather than the main highway which has much steeper and longer hills). It takes us thirty to forty minutes one way, but I think we are getting better as we leave earlier in the day when it is less hot and we master dodging the potholes, cow herd, children, other bikes and motorcycles. As we ride by the homes, children run up to the road and yell “Bye Mzungo!” which means “Bye White Person!” even to those of us who are not white – which is half of us. And they call the brothers and sisters to come look and they squeal with laughter and I have even seen a few roll in the grass laughing. So we wave back to them and feel like celebrities. We usually arrive at the school hot and sweaty, but it is generally a good work out.)

Since our first day we have been very successful with many of our projects. We have just completed a full scheduled week of music and nutrition classes; we have selected school soccer and netball teams to play in an all day village wide tournament on Monday; we have cleared a garden plot about 30 by 40 yards and planted maize and beans; we have created a shaded nursery out of sticks and banana leaves and banana logs and ashes to protect our cabbage and tomato seedlings; we have employed parents to create the cement seats for rainwater harvest tanks, which the tanks we had made will soon sit on, into which gutters around the tin roofs will drain rain water; and we have had our first of six vocational workshop Saturday mornings. We employed two parents who are tailors to teach the children how to sew every other Saturday. We bought two sewing machines for the school so that they can continue to practice, repair uniforms and make clothes once we are gone. The other three Saturdays we have arranged carpentry for the boys and basket weaving and mat making for the girls. These teachers are also parents of the school so we are really happy that we are helping out the economy of the community as well as with the school. We have also surveyed the older children about their opinions of their school and health and wellbeing of their community, as well as some parents. Some major health problems reported include malaria, malnutrition, HIV/AIDS and complications in childbirth.

All of our projects we have worked with the children and with the community. In fact, we probably would have little idea how to do any of the projects without the help of the teachers, our friends and guides, the parents and the kids. The children are also helping us out a lot with our Luganda, which is pretty poor, but everyone is very appreciative and laughs when we at least greet them in Luganda: “Oliotya? (How are you?) Jendi (Fine)” “Mulimutya? (How are you all?) Jetulli (We are fine!) (note: the spelling is probably very off there). We have been branching out into the Naama community – walking to the Naama trading center for food and water, using the shared football and netball courts, and attending various religious services. Sometimes we hear our names being called by children in their homes (those names that are easiest to pronounce it seems). We visited the Anglican Church today and saw many of the parents and teachers of the school. There is also a Pentecostal church we have been invited to, and we want to go to the Catholic church and the Mosque too. It is hard to understand the Luganda services, but someone usually translates and afterwards members greet and welcome us. Though we obviously stand out a lot, the community really makes an effort to make us feel welcome and so even though I am so far from home, I personally, feel quite at home.

And now I can go to the internet café and post this since the electricity just went back on. Hooray! Hopefully, we will be loading pictures soon, although the internet connection is very slow and we pay to use it by the minute…

Stay tuned!

Our Weekly Schedule

Week 1: Kampala

We have been exploring the city and having Luganda lessons with our mentor and guide, Moureen.  We had a late start since half our group’s flights were delayed and decided to stay in the city until Monday.  We have had a total of 3 Luganda lessons and we have learned some simple greetings and phrases, the alphabet, vocabulary, verbs, body parts, and numbers. 

We began by staying at the Red Chili Hideaway, which is a popular place for many tourists.  The prices for food were relatively expensive and it was a little far from the city.  Moureen found us another place, the Green Arrows Guest House, to stay that was closer to the city and the same price, expect breakfast is included in the price.  Our budget is getting very tight with things, especially ground transportation, being much more expensive than predicted. 

The city has been a surprise to all of us.  It is extremely crowded with lots of traffic.  Moureen has been the best guide and has found us everything we have needed.  She also advises us on prices so we are not overcharged.  Everywhere we go people point and yell “Mzungu” which means “white person”.  We wound our way through the red mud side streets where there were thousands of vendors – selling everything from pens, paper, towels, pots and pans, clothes to raw maize (similar to corn on the cob), fruits, phone airtime cards and even grasshoppers! Our favorite part was the textile area where many tailors sat out along the market streets and made clothes. We each picked out fabric from Moureen’s friend Jane, and had dresses and shirts made. We picked them up three days later, and we were all quite surprised at the turn out. We, nevertheless, wore them to Moureen’s church Sunday morning as we promised that we would! The church service was at Makerere Full Gospel Church and there was about one hour of singing and dancing before the kids went to Sunday School, and a modern day skit was adapted from the bible and then the Pastor delivered his sermon. It was all very lively and the pastor was a good story teller. Later, we walked around Makerere University grounds in the greater Kampala area, before driving to Mrs. Kigongo’s sister’s house where her niece and our friend Robinah lives for a delicious lunch!

On Saturday, Moureen invited us to lunch at her house and cooked us a tasty meal and we met her mother, two nieces, Baashala and Angela (3 and 4 yrs), and adopted daughter, Allen (16 yrs).  We all then drove with our friend and driver and Green arrow manager, Mr. Nsubuga, and  explored some tourist sites of Kampala including the Kasubi tombs, a Ugandan museum and the Parliament.  We learned a bit of history of the kings (kabaka) of the Baganda Kingdom and visited the tombs. The houses around the tombs are inhabited by descendants of the late king’s wives, who continue to tend to the tombs. The museum was closed because there was an elaborate wedding taking place, but we were able to see the many different styles of thatched roofs and houses of the different Uganda tribes.

The food has been good so far.  In the beginning we ate a lot of chips (French fries) with every meal.  Since we changed hotels we have been eating a lot of rice.  We have also had chicken, fish, pork, and lots and lots of mango and pineapple.  We have even tried some of the local food such as matooke (mushed green bananas), nakati (a green vegetable), jack fruit, raw maize, paw paw and chapat (flat fried grain that tasted like a pancake pronounced chapati)  So far only one of us have gotten sick with the food. 

We are still in the process of preparing for our first days at Mityana.  We will meet with Margaret, the headmistress, Monday afternoon and visit the school to have an idea of how to gain parental consent and conduct interviews.  We plan to meet with the parents at the school on Tuesday evening and get parental consent for children to participate in the surveys. 

We have purchased bikes to travel between Mityana and the school each day.  The bikes were extremely expensive at 210,000 shillings for each bike with an additional cost of 70,000 shillings to pay for the transportation of the man who sold us the bikes; however, private transport and fuel is much, much more.  We had to bargain a lot to get the bikes at that price and it really put a strain on our budget.  Total, the cost for all 8 bikes exceeded $1000.  We hope it will pay off since there are no taxis in Mityana and we would have had to hire a driver which would end up being much more expensive than the bikes.  We hope to have Alanna and Dillon bring helmets from the US since they are approximately 40,000 to 60,000 shillings here, which is much more expensive than they would be in the US. 

We are all very excited to begin our work in Mityana and will update more soon.  Internet has been limited as we have to travel into town to the internet cafes. We had free internet at Red Chili, but the frequent power outages mean the system often goes down. Hopefully, we will have more regular access in Mityana.

Oh, and we almost forgot all of the animals we have seen: monkeys, massive cranes, longhorn cows, goats, sheep, chickens, 3 cats, lazy dogs, many birds, bees and mosquitoes! Don’t worry, we are all using lots of bug spray and taking our Malaria pills regularly!

More to come later!