In Uganda!

Hello from Uganda!! Today is the first day that I have had a chance to get to the internet café…so here goes my first blog post! I arrived in Uganda on Friday morning. Fortunately I was pretty well rested, as I had a chance to sleep for a few hours at Yotel in Heathrow Airport – I would highly recommend Yotel if you have a layover that is longer than four hours…so worth it! By the time we made it to Mpigi, though, I was starting to feel the jet lag…but the kids here figure that if they see you walking around, you are well enough to play football (soccer) with them! It was fun – the boys in the children’s homes spend much of their free time on the field playing, and they are pretty good (definitely better than I am, and the jet lag wasn’t helping me at all!)

I’ve been spending lots of time with the kids as I get settled in here and as I let my body adjust to the new time zone and the humidity here. On Saturday it poured rain, so I spent a couple of hours in the older girls home as we all attempted to stay dry. The girls put me through the Ugandan version of “Are you smarter than a 5th grader” by writing out their lessons from school and getting me to do them…then they would dutifully mark what I did and write a comment such as “v. good”. I also did a puzzle with them – with 10 girls working on it, the 100 piece puzzle kept them busy for a good hour! For the last two nights the girls have been putting on performances at their house in the evening – songs, dancing, and skits – it is very fun!

I am also attempting to learn Lugandan (the local language here). Most of the kids on the property only know a few English words, so after I say, “hello, how are you?” and they respond “I am fine” the conversation pretty much stops. So now, the kids walk around with me, point things out, and say “In Luganda, enkoko (chicken)”. One of the older boys, Lawrence, has started to make me a Lugandan-English dictionary in one of my notebooks – so far, we’ve covered body parts, plants, animals, and are starting some phrases like “Todduka ogya kuggwa – don’t run, you are going to fall down.” (apparently they think that is an important phrase for me to know??) In the previous two times that I have been here, I really haven’t attempted to learn Lugandan, so I think I definitely should give it a good try this time!

That’s all for now…I will do my best to get another post up in the next week or so. And no pictures today…that will have to wait for next time (and hopefully faster internet!). Take care!