Emma in Africa

I just got an email telling me that I have been accepted to IU SPEA in the MPA program, yey me! I’ll be hearing back later about the fellowship I am competing for, but for now I am feeling fabulously accepted. It comes at a great time, as I got my cell phone stolen and was feeling like a big jerk.

Other than that I just trained the new Peace Corps trainees in comprehensive HIV information, it was really great. There is nothing like new volunteers to make you feel like you pretty much have it together. It also gives you a sense of continuity. Even though I am leaving Uganda soon, a whole new group of people will be here trying to promote development. It makes me feel like even though my impact on Uganda may be small, it is part of something a lot bigger. It’s a good feeling.

For everyone who sent me some money for my friend Tapither to go to school to become a nursing assistant, she has finished up her courses and is now doing her practicals at the hospital where I work! Here are a few pictures to show you where your money went, always a good idea when you send money into the black hole, aid to the developing world. All donors: demand accountability for your money being spent! 

Here are some other pictures from a party at the hospital.

This is from an voluntary counseling and testing outreach we did to Naluwande village, here Boniface is doing group counselling in the local language Lumasaaba.

The circumcision season is over, as of New Year’s Day! I am actually quite happy about that, it is so intense, so few people work or go to school during October through December that my job was not really very happening. It is awfully interesting though, and I have a bunch of images and videos I’d like to share. Unfortunately, the videos won’t upload. So you’ll just have to imagine yelling and singing when you look at the photos. Most of them were taken by my fiance Emmanuel, he’s a fantastic photographer and doesn’t get as scared around people partying with machetes as I do. Enjoy!

So I thought uploading pictures onto this thing, but it isn’t. So I guess you’ll all have to enjoy the one that worked. Sorry. I am sending a CD full of pix home to my dad, maybe he can figure it out. xo
Angie and me on a spice tour in Zanzibar, being a tourist owned!

Hi everybody,
I’ve been cloistered in the village for some time and I just wanted to apologize! I want to look at this blog when I’m done and not be totally embarrassed, but dang if Eastern Uganda isn’t the slowest internet ever.
It’s circumcision season in Bagisu, the tradition that makes the Bugisu who they are. And everyone else in Uganda scared of them. I don’t have any videos yet, but I will soon. I haven’t even seen any cutting, but there is a lot of dancing and parading that i have seen, and heard (at all hours). My friend Josh took some video that he posted on facebook from the opening ceremony (that I missed). Maybe you can watch it.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=6844294#/video/video.php?v=516794786983
I’ll do my best though, most of Emma’s (my fiance) clan circumcises in December, at his house, so i am hoping to get some video and pictures then.
I’ve been staying way busy, most of the time at least. I organized an outreach testing in a nearby village yesterday, 51 tested for HIV and NO POSITIVES. Pretty good for a country with an HIV epidemic.
9 months left, and I am starting to get excited about the next chapter of my life. If Emma and I can just get through the visa process. We have to go interview at the embassy in Nairobi, yikes! I am totally scared of Nairobi, it is apparently a lot scarier than Kampala and Dar Es Salaam.
I’ll be back with awesome videos and pictures, someday, I promise!

It’s been awhile I know, hope y’all are doing well in summertime USA. I miss it bigtime! It’s always summertime here, and it gets a sister missing the seasons.
The Jaajaa warrior spirit showdown is a income generating project I am planning. It mixes traditional African beliefs and WWF.
I am going on vacation in the beginning of June to beautiful Zanzibar, oh word! I am going with my homegirl Angie and meeting Sarah Cahillane of Bton infamy. She is closing her service in Botswana and climbing Kilimanjaro(hardcore?!) and then to the island. I am super excited and can’t believe how little I’ve travelled since I got here. I haven’t even been west of Kampala. Oh well. But I can make a pretty killer gnut sauce with pumpkin leaves.
I am chugging along at work, two steps forward and two steps back is about the best I can expect. But PC does say that when you’re expectations drop you become much happier, and by golly they’re right! I mean you have to be completely crushed of any hope you have for Africa, but then you can come back from it and see the small things and be happy. Like today on my way into town the taxi conductor stopped the taxi for the oldest lady I’ve ever seen and took her a few miles down the road for FREE. Okay, this may not seem like much to those outside of Uganda, but taxi conductors are evil and greedy and I have seen them push pregnant women out of moving taxis when they don’t have enough money, so this was a minor miracle. I did have to spar with him later when he tried to overcharge me(I won), but you take what you can get!
I found out a few weeks ago that my super home girl Anna Hieronymus is coming to visit and I am so happy. She’ll be coming at the height of circumcision season so hopefully we’ll get to go to some fun parties. Bugisu bali ingo awe (Bugisu are in their house!). It’s a good time with dancing you can’t believe that you are actually seeing. I really want a video camera. Somebody in my TC (village treading center) is selling one, but he wants like 200 bucks. It’s just an old Super8 and I don’t think it’s worth it. We’ll see. I really want video of Emma’s grandparents. They’re old. Kuka(grandfather) is 94, and he fought “for the Queen” in Germany in WWII.

Sorry I can’t seem to keep up with this thing!
I don’t know what my problem is. Actully I do know. It’s living in a village with little to no power or internet access, the nearest town is 2 hours away, and the internet there is too slow to let me write posts on this fancy website. Oh well.
I’m in Kampala right now, and the Peace Corps office has a computer that seems more like a rocketship than anything else. I guess I’m used to the teradactyl in the back, punching all the 1s and 0s like they have in Mbale.
Anyway… I’m getting freaking married!! Here is the love of my life. His name is Emma also. It’ll be easy when you meet us, we have this Heathers-esque ability to tell who someone is talking to at any given time. Anyway, we need to jump through a bunch of hoops, for anyone whose gone through immigration you can relate, I’m sure. But hopfully it’ll be sorted by June 21st, 2009 and you can all come to lovely Bloomington for our wedding!

Things are going well for me here, I finally have work to do…. most of the time. The kids love me and I’ve managed to coordinate a bunch of school’s Straight Talk youth groups to make the Hospital I work at a center for activites. Straight Talk is a government youth organizaton that has a newsletter that reaches all over the country and talks (straight) about all kinds of things kids are taught not to talk about like sex, their bodies and HIV. I heard my name on the radio during the “Khukanuikha Lubuula” show which means “Straight Talk” in Lumasaaba. Actually they said “White lady Emma at the Hospital”. I am talking letters that the kids write in response to questions on the show and forwarding them to Straight Talk. They can win a year’s school fees(school costs money here), and that’s a pretty big deal. My youth group called The Young Stars have been working on a coffee tree nursery and dramas/music. They love it, and it’s a way to get the youth involved as teachers and mentors for other youth. Sweet deal! That means I don’t have to teach evryone in the village about HIV myself!
So things are going pretty good, though bombs have been shaking my house cause Kenya has started bombing the Saboat militia that is hiding out in the mountains. Kind of nerve racking, but PC tells me I’m safe. I’ve never lived in a war zone before, so I’m just taking thier word for it.
I also want to go visit Zanzibar with the lovely and charasmatic Sarah Cahillane, formerly of Bloomington, and about to close her service in Botswana. I pretty much need a vacation. Bad. So wish me luck, I hope it won’t be as long til the next time I write, I am coming back for a Mid-Service Confrence at the end of the month(that means I’m halfway done!).

That’s right this is an EDUCATIONAL blog, so it’s not actually fun. Kind of like math in that way.

1. Don’t argue about taxi prices with the taxi conductor if no one else is. I know you came to Africa to “fight for the peoples’ rights”, but all you’ll be fighting is citizen’s arrest and a bunch of angry Mamas.

2. The rat will eat your knickers. I don’t know about you, but aint no rat eating my knickers! So chase it around the a closed room with your boyfriend for like an hour. It’s gonna jump a LOT, since it fears for it’s life. Catch it under the tablecloth and hit it with a massive book. Then let the boyfriend finish it off with a metal ruler to the neck.

3. If the crazy lady that threatens to beat you unless you give her money grabs your bag and carries it to your house for you, just let her. Give her a 100 shilling tip(5 cents).

4. If you have to hold a baby with no nappies on, balance the kid so that any waste products drop between your knees. This is hard when you are wearing a skirt. Just another reason why the dress code in Africa sucks.

5. Just go ahead and use the pee (sou-sou) bucket. It might take a few dark lonely nights to convince you. But after a visit from a demon? bushbaby? nightdancer? what the hell was that? You’ll change your mind fast. Believe me.

So maybe I was a bit remiss to say that Marberg’s was the new Ebola. ‘Cause clearly, Ebola is the new Ebola. At least this week. There is something about an Ebola outbreak that makes my everyday work with HIV seem like a walk in the park. We also have some other outbreaks, all in the same area of the west, I’m so glad to be living in the east:

Bubonic Plague (yes that one, it didn’t go out of style with jousting, like you may have thought), Cholera (nothing new), Menegitis (sounds not so bad), and Hepititus A (me, I’d do that on a Tuesday). But no fear, the CDC will be here by the end of the week, and I’m sure all this outbreak needs is a good dose of American sunshine.

The whole country has gone mad with CHOGM fever! Don’t worry, it’s not the hot new Ebola(that’s called Marberg’s disease), it’s the Commonweath Heads of Government Meeting. It is going down in Kampala right now, and I hear it’s all the rage these days. Heck, the queen of England even came. But mostly it’s just funny for us in the villages. I have been cracking up at the radio ads leading up to the meetings, becuase they had some PSAs encouraging resturants to have their staff look clean and be nice to patron, have enough glasses for everyone and have the items that are actually on the menu. Also, hotels were encouraged to wash sheets, so the guests don’t get bedbugs.  The motto since last summer was “Are you ready for CHOGM?”. I have to say that I have been, considering it gave us two national holidays last week, and I am always ready for that.

Next hottest thing: Circumcision season! Boys of 20 getting circumcised in front of their 200 closest friends and realitives, getting tanked on local brew, and doing the booty shaking circumcision dance. Stay tuned!