Beginning of the end

Friday, July 11^th:
I changed my flight! Well, Tom changed my flight really. I now depart Uganda the morning of August 1^st, connect in London, and spend the night in NY. With EMILY!!! I have a flight booked from LaGuardia to Raleigh the next morning, but Emily and I might meet Tom partway south (probably DC) and make a little road trip out of it.

I am really excited. I would like to see Rwanda, and it’ll be hard to say goodbye to Lucy and the rest of the volunteers. Still, the thought of arranging the trip and storing my stuff and doing the traveling is a little much for me right now, and this gives me a week to get over jetlag and readjust to the US before starting grad school. It also eliminates a costly night in London on the way back. I looked at pictures of Kigali online today and I have a feeling it would be really cool but also quite a bit like Uganda. And as much as I love everyone here, the thought of more of the same just isn’t that appealing to me at the moment.

I’ll get in late, but I kind of want to go out that first night and spend my first night out of Africa on the town in New York City. If that doesn’t shock me back into life at home, nothing will.

This also makes is suddenly very real that I’m about to head home. Shaving off that extra week really puts things in almost-time-to-go perspective. I have mixed emotions about leaving. It always seems like you have to pack up and leave right when you get comfortable and things start running smoothly. My tolerance for certain things has been whittled away, but the last few weeks of work have been really great too. It’s hard to know how I’ll feel when I step onto that plane.

Monday, July 14^th:
By the calendar, it’s supposed to be the dry season again, but we’ve been getting more rain lately than we have for the last six months. I was just putting out my bucket to collect rain water and slipped and fell in the mud – luckily there were no kids around.

The weekend flew by and was a lot of fun. A group of us spent Saturday night up in Buyende at Rich, Orlando, and Rachel’s placement. Orlando officially “quit SPW” on Saturday to go traveling, and we got to see him briefly on his way out. Theirs is the most remote placement, and the landscape looks a little different than it does near Jinja. It seems flatter, bushier, and the buildings are much more spread out. They’ve had to deal with quite a bit a resistance from their community but they have a huge house and it was a really relaxed, if a little lonely, setting.

Behind their house is a run-down two-room concrete building where the headmaster (or somebody) keeps their goats. One goat struck me as particularly personable.

I’m feeling really happy about the next few weeks. I can’t wait to go home – I’m really excited about seeing Tom, playing bass again, training for a tri, Mom and Dave’s visit, starting grad school. It makes me want to put a lot of effort into the remaining work and really make the most of my last days in Buwenge. Dennis and I are going to do something fun for our last lessons in our schools and I’m looking forward to the VCT day on the 22^nd. I want to do something nice for the people that have really made this experience for us. It will be hard to say goodbye.

Tuesday, July 15^th:
I love the P7 class at Kagoma. Dennis and I did a lesson on Communication this morning, and it was pretty hilarious. We had the kids draw a house and a dog in pairs, with both partners holding the pen, and some pretty ludicrous animals were produced. Dennis held them up at the end and one girl actually fell out of her desk she was laughing so hard. A row of boys came up to the front of the class and had to arrange themselves in order of their birthdays without talking, which included some classic miming, and we did a little game of Telephone where the phrase started out in English and ended up in Lusoga. There was some brainstorming on the board in the lesson too, but the kids got really into the activities. We told them that next week we are going to have review questions with prizes and the kids got pretty excited.

Lucy and I had planned to go to the district music competition after lunch, but it turns out it’s happening tomorrow. We walked up to Buwenge to check out the new supermarket and then caught a taxi into Jinja on a whim, where we had a nice dinner, used the internet, and I got an awesome package of treats from Tom! There were so many perfect snacks in there: instant oatmeal, nice tea, chocolate, protein bars… my mouth wouldn’t stop watering when I opened it. I only have to wait a couple more weeks for “home food” but any kind of quick, tasty food on placement is enough to make my afternoon.

Dennis and I got stuck in a rain storm down at Muguluka yesterday; we had to wait inside a shop in their trading center for an hour while the ground flooded and everything shut down. It was a muddy walk back. My clothes were out on the line but they just got wet instead of falling down into the mud, so no harm done.

I got another email from UNC and I have pretty full days of orientation from the 11^th-14^th. I’m glad I’m no longer getting home on the 9^th! One day of readjustment wouldn’t have been quite enough, I think. I also have a Physical Chemistry placement test the week after I get back. Hope those notes from Thermo are lying around somewhere at home…

Thursday, July 17^th:
The music competition at Muguluka was pretty cute yesterday. One of the long classrooms had been converted to a performance hall by stringing a couple of curtains across one side. A guy with a rolled up paper megaphone did the announcing, and the panel of judges sipped their sodas.

We saw Mutai, Kalebera, Kagoma, Muguluka, and bunch of schools we didn’t know perform. It was a random assortment of Western and traditional songs, poems, and skits. Kagoma was pretty rough on their harmonized Western piece but did an awesome traditional piece with drumming and some cool stop-time. Mutai pulled off the Western song nicely and we found out today that they won and will be performing at the district competition on Saturday.

Dennis has something going on in Jinja today, so Lucy accompanied me to the final lesson with the Mutai Primary kids. I wrote up a long list questions reviewing what we’ve covered in the last six months, and kids that answered correctly got sweets, balloons, markers, and stickers as prizes. It was a hit. I really tried to call on different kids but the same ten or so managed to answer most of the questions. The head girl delivered a really sweet thank you address and we left our contact info for the teachers.

I had my second health center visit today, so I confirmed with the nurse when we got back, then played toss with the primary kids on the field for a half hour or so. Toss is one of my favorite games.

It was a special lunch at St. Gonzaga today – rice instead of posho! I even got some avocado. After lunch, key teacher Godfrey and I took 24 kids over to Magamaga Health Centre, where they had a talk about STIs, family planning, and testing services. The nurse told the kids about a couple who had seen a condom demonstration using banana, then gotten upset when the wife became pregnant even though they had been putting a condom-coated banana at their bedside each time they had sex. The kids had tons of questions about contraception, and Godfrey was delighted with how much the nurses’ knowledge and the resources available. They’re planning to have more visits or maybe bring the nurses to address the school in an assembly. The kids fought over the biscuits I brought at the end, but other than that it seemed really successful.

I made some posters for our VCT day last night and brought one to St. Gonzaga with me. The teachers seemed really excited about it and had lots of questions. The answers to their questions were clearly outlined on the poster, but at least they were interested.

I went over to Sandra’s after the health center visit to see the little pussycats. They are full-on kittens now. They’re cute, but pretty fearful so they’re not that fun to play with. I love hanging around with Sandra; it really makes me sad that there’s no good way for us to keep in touch after I leave. I can call her, but our verbal communication is always a little rocky, and her family doesn’t have a post office box.

Dennis is still in town, and Lucy’s accompanying Georgia to Kampala. I just caused a mini-riot making balloon animals on our porch, but it’s getting dark so the kids have started dissipating.

Instant oatmeal is the greatest thing ever! Two weeks from now, I’ll be spending the night in Entebbe, waiting to catch my early-morning flight. As the leaving date draws nearer, I feel more attached to placement and less attached to Uganda as a whole.

The rats in the ceiling tonight sound like they are about dog-sized.

There’s a big event in the parish on Saturday – something to do with children and missions. The whole Jinja diocese will be here. The kids are practicing the entertainment portion over in the church right now and it sounds awesome. I’m looking forward to it.