Posted by Laurie under Feelings, The Basics

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Me and my village English class.

The end of the year! When I think back to what I was doing last New Year’s, I knew I wanted to get to Africa some how but I definitely never thought that I would be here one year later! Yay!

I haven’t been blogging as much as I did when I was in Liberia because I’ve been busy doing real work! I have been teaching English classes to adults and working on the website for Sprout Care Foundation.

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Me writing some stuff. I never thought I’d teach outside under a tree! What a joy!

Sprout Care Foundation, the organization that I’m currently volunteering for, is a community development organization that works to help their district of Uganda by doing many things. Some of the things are sponsoring children’s fees in local schools, helping poor families with various types of assistance, doing community education and awareness of stuff like HIV, waste management, nutrition and also adult education classes like English and Career Development.

I teach two different English classes, each two times a week. I really haven’t taught much in my past, but I’m loving this. I have a book that is helping guide me on who to teach English, and I’m also taking a lot of cues from the students in teaching what they want to learn. They have a tradition here of giving fruits and vegetables to the people that help them. Today I got a three paw paws (which I’m pretty sure are the same as papayas, but they are huge), an avocado, some yams (different than American yams) and cassava. It felt so awesome.

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Me and my first bounty from teaching.

For the New Year’s celebration, the whole family we are living with are at an all night church worship service. Literally from about 7 pm to 7 am. Lucy, myself, Doreen (who is probably about 12) and the youngest son stayed behind. We’re watching some TV (including my telenovela Broken Angel!) and playing some card games. It’s a much less exciting New Year’s than I’ve had in the past, but that’s ok, considering my life is way more exciting than it’s been in the past!

Tomorrow my class is at 3-4 pm. I think I’ll try to go to the hotel down the road (by the way, the walk is 30 min and I can make it now without getting lost!) to do some work on the website in the AM. Every time I go to the hotel, I get at least one beverage since they are letting me use their wifi for free. One of my favorites is English coffee, which is a pot of hot water, a pot of hot milk (the good kind, with the thick skin on the top which tastes like butter… oh yeah… it probably is…) and a can of instant coffee. The cost is 6,000 Uganda Shillings which is probably about $1.80. $1.80 for a really good coffee drink and hours of wifi while chilling at a beautiful, tropical hotel? Wonderful.

By the way, my breathing has improved a lot, so I think it was just a cold and not allergies. Yay!

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A very clean, very nice, Ugandan toilet.

This is unrelated to anything but I think it should be mentioned the kind of toilets that are most common around here. A hole in the ground. In Liberia it was all toilets that you sit on. Here, it’s mostly toilets that you squat over and try not to pee all over your feet (if you’re a female). Thank goodness the bathroom at the home I’m staying is the kind you sit on. These hole in the ground toilets were obviously invented by men. I’m getting used to them. Learning things like, I should put my hair up so it doesn’t accidentally dangle on the ground (I did NOT learn that the hard way by the way) and that “slow and steady wins the race”, which I actually find very annoying. Is any of that too much information? You guys need to know what it’s really like over here!

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