Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Week 1: Homestay and first week of real training!

On Monday we moved out of Lweza and went to our training town where we put some of our stuff in a storage room and met our homestay families. I’m staying with a first time family with 6 children, the youngest being around 8 and the eldest 24. They all live in our compound, which is pretty nice. The youngest is still in Primary and others are in Secondary. I think only two of them go to University in Kampala. The mother works at home and the father drives for the Ministry of Education in Kampala. They seem really nice and anxious to please me; we’re both figuring out this homestay thing together right now.
The week consisted of language from 8-10, break for tea at 10, and lectures the rest of the day with a break for lunch at 1230. We had two more shots on Tuesday, rabies #1 and yellow fever. We also were issued bikes on Tuesday. They look really nice, but we’ll see how much I’ll ride it. The roads are much different than the roads back home, bumpier and less stable, and I’m convinced the drivers, especially the boda boda drivers (motorcycle taxies) want to kill me. I walked it home. It’s about a 40 minute walk each way to the training center, and I really like the walk – lots of people to see, the landscape is beautiful – so I don’t think I’ll miss riding the bike or mind having a longer trip each day. On the walk home I noticed many trainees with bike problems – chains coming off, peddles falling off the bike mid-ride, etc… I guess the bikes weren’t as nice as we thought.
On Saturday I did laundry for the first time. What a process! I miss my washer and drier! We wash everything by hand here and it’s quite time-consuming. But my clothes are relatively clean, although it’s nearly impossible to get all the soap rinsed out and hand washing tends to stretch things out.

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