I got nothing but pictures

So not much of an update...yet again, been playing a lot of yahtzee this weekend. I'm trying to get into a habit of posting something whenever i'm at an internet cafe....so here's some more pics for your viewing pleasure.

I did recently have a "madman" (which the father likes to refer to the drunks as) come up on my porch in the middle of the night. He pushed over anything that was sitting on my window sill (my window was cracked open) and also dragged my stool to the other side of the porch and sat there and drank my jerry can of water. I didn't hear anything but woke up the next morning to find my stool arranged next to the empty jerry can and a few things on the floor that had been on my window sill the previous night. The father informed me of the happenings of the night.

anyway, here's some pics.

this is a street on one of the many hills in Kampala, this one is a residential section. Actually just down the street from the vice president's residence. on the opposite hill on the left is a school for deaf children....very cool location and architecture

bowling in Kampala...we had to buy the red socks since we both had sandals.

....she beat me

...painting windows in Kampala

...class at Kitebi Secondary School (my original site in Kampala), not sure where the teacher is....you can see the netball goal to the left (basketball hoop with no backboard) this is a game played by the girls and is similar to basketball but has rules kind of like ultimate frisbee instead of dribbling

...fellow PCV's prior to swearing in ceremony. From left: sabrina, melissa, baxter, kel, me, and sunshine. (i'm in a kanzu which is a traditional formal wear for the buganda tribe)

stay tuned....
love and miss everyone,
eric

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy mother's day to my mom, grandma mag's and helen, and any other mom's reading this blog!!

Not much update from here as of yet. We are wrapping up the holiday term with the S4's this week, and I have gained an english class and a physics class. So I am now teaching 3 physics classes (same class but 3 80 min sessions), a biology class, and 2 english classes. So needless to say I am staying quite busy during this "holiday". The Senior 4's (equivalent to sophomore's in high school) have stayed around school for extra classes as they prepare for their national O-level exams this october. The rest of the school (S1-S3) will begin classes on the 26th of may. I am not sure what my schedule will be like, as the timetable has not been decided on, but I'm sure I'll be extra busy with more classes for the term. I'm excited to start teaching the S1's and S2's, as these are a little younger kids and will be excited to have me teaching no doubt.

Things are going well at the parish, I have a new PO box! which I've added to the right. So anyone holding a sweet care package, wait no more :) In all seriousness thank you all for these, I have not received any yet (although there is one in Kampala waiting for me to pick up at the office) but I have heard of many being prepared or sent....so thank you from the bottom of my heart. It means a lot to me knowing you all are thinking about me and will surely be an exciting day when I get them!

Also thank you to anyone who has sent emails. I am trying hard to respond to them as quickly as I can....I have found a new internet cafe in Fort Portal which is substantially faster...which is where I am blogging from now....(btw, there is a american pop country song playing on their radio right now...kinda strange...made even stranger by the ugandan who is running the cafe singing along to it ;) never a dull moment.

btw, this picture to the left is from the end of training. We did a Homestay Family Thank You Day, where our language groups put together skits and local dances for the families that hosted us during training. This is the Luganda group doing a traditional dance. From left is Vance, Tim, Me, and my adopted peace corps dad John (who also served in Malawi and who I traveled with for our PCV visits during training). We were dancing for the country director (in pink at the table), some other peace corps staff, and the Local Council Charmain for Luwero district....who later joined us. There's a video of this to :)

And speaking of non-dull moments, since I don't have much as far as news from here i'll give a few of the more non-dull ones i've had recently:

1) washing clothes at the parish...which I do by hand in wash basins...and am not very good at. They have this stuff called omo here, which is like a laundry detergent with a really strong stain removing chemical in it...which wreaks havoc on my hands if i don't wash it off soon after...so i know its strong. My strategy is to soak the clothes in a bucket of water and omo over night to lift out the stains, and then i rinse a couple times in different basins of water. If need be i'll scrub a little if the stains are taken care of by omo. So one day i was washing clothes and I went to hang up a shirt on the line which is nearby and when i turned around the calf that likes to graze in my backyard has proceeded to empty both of my basins in two big slurps. Probably not the best water for a cow to drink, but it gave me a laugh, and i had to drag him by his rope out further into the yard. (this sequence of events was repeated several times until i finally dragged him to the other side of the house). Like i needed anymore challenges while washing my clothes.


2) I broke my matatu record recently. I talked about the minibuses in an earlier post, which are supposed to carry up to 14 passengers. On one of my trips to Ft. Portal we hit 28 people! now granted, 3 were babies, and a couple of younger kids also made up the total, but I still don't see how this one is going to be broken. On my row there were me and 3 adults across the seat, then 3 babies in laps, then the conductor was standing (essentially was in my lap) in front of me and leaned over the seat back in front of us so he could fit under the ceiling.

3) Not as lighthearted of an event, but definitely not dull, and gives me a chance to outline one of the struggles the Ugandan's face...and reasons they say "we are living on borrowed time". The other night a house near the parish caught fire. The "house" was a small building which was rented as apartments, much like the parish i am staying in, and apparently a candle had caught fire in one of the rooms. Now, there is absolutely no form of a fire department in the country, and very few people have fire extinguishers, and this house didn't even have any running water. So about 10 people from the community were helping empty all of the furniture from the apartments in order to salvage what they could, and remove any fuel for the fire (ie: mattresses and wooden furniture). There were also about 10 people helping to carry basins of water from a nearby shop to extinguish the flames. 2 bodas (motorcycles) positioned themselves on the street and shone their headlights on the house to give the people some light. And then about 40 or so onlookers (including me) watched and speculated as to what had happened. Very sad, luckily no one was hurt, and although I didn't stick around to see, I am told the fire was put out after a couple hours. The police never showed up while I was there, but supposedly were coming sometime to investigate the cause. It is a very tough life here sometimes, and they truly are "living on borrowed time"

a sidenote to this: one of my immediate projects, in light of this event and the recent fire at Budo Primary School in Kampala which ripped through the dormitory and killed many students (20 or so), is to get fire extinguishers and bells for the two dormitories at our school. I am currently writing a grant that will be presented to the Rotary Club in Ft. Portal to hopefully get the funding for this. I'll let you all know how that turns out. Oh and the picture below here is of my other project. This is the exam room during one of the many gorgeous sunsets i get at the parish. I was told it was hard to see this building in the previous post's picture, so i'm hoping this is better. My real project is a library for the kids, but the exam room has to be completed first, and still needs a roof and a lot of other work to it. I'm finding out the total estimated costs soon, and have a few ideas for fund raising but am most definitely open to suggestions.


Also, I'll mention one thing about how my life has gotten a bit more challenging since moving here, just to give you some perspective. Now, this is not even close to the same category as the fire, but has been something I've had to get used to. The parish has solar power, which is used to run the lights in the apartments at night, but that is all the batteries can handle. And they actually don't work in my room, so I used kerosene (parrafin as its called here) lanterns at night. So one of my activities about ever other day or so is to take the 5 km walk into town and drop off my cell phone and ipod at the "charging store". There is no electricity in our town, but they have certain shops that use generators and about 15 surge protectors (talk about a fire hazard) and you pay 500 shillings to have them charge the batteries in cell phone and other electronics. So i bring my ipod (which the guys are finally understanding what it does....or at least they remember its called an ipod and plays music somehow) and 2 cell phone batteries and drop them off. I usually hang around town and go have a soda or beer and 3 hours later pick up my fully charged toys, then make the 5km walk back to the parish. So when you plug your cell phone in tonight in the kitchen or next to your bed, think about how convenient that is and how lucky we are in the states to have such crazy things like home electricity.

I think that's about it from here for now. I'll keep the updates coming, and keep your comments and emails coming my way, it really brightens my days to hear from you all.

Love and miss everyone.
Thank you moms!
-Eric