A Lesson in Perspective

Thursday morning at 8:45 am, I went for my first field visit with a trained counselor named Pasco. Pasco is a Ugandan student majoring in the sciences and he is finishing his third and final year at a university in Kampala. He has been doing these field visits for five years as a volunteer through Meeting Point. A field visit involves going to visit sick patients and clients of Meeting Point, and these people are either in the local hospitals, if things have gotten very bad, or in their homes, which for the most part are in the slums of Kampala. Many of the children who are students at the Learning Center or live in the foster home come from the slum just below the school in the Namuwongo district.

The city of Kampala spreads out over six or more green hills. Very nice and posh houses can be found, especially near the top of each of these hills, with large tiled rooves and sweeping views. My cousin lives in Muyenga which is on the top of one such hill, and as you progress down the hill, the poverty becomes more and more apparent. The area where Meeting Point’s main office and Learning Center is located is on a stretch of dirt road with shabby houses and goats, sheep, and even cattles wandering the streets. When I first saw the area, I was struck by the poverty I saw, such poverty has I had never seen before. And now, after my visit today, those same houses look not half bad afterall. As you progress just down the hill from the Learning Center towards the swamp that is formed by the channel of water that cuts into Kampala just over the railroad tracks, there is a distinct shift from orange tiled rooves to shanty tin rooves that perch on crumbling brick and mud houses—huts really.

Pasco (who probably had to endure some taunts for walking with a muzungu!) walked me through the tiny alley way and twisting caked dirt paths, over rivets of trickling purple-brown sludgy water, past rotting wood doors covered with filthy faded colored cloths, past the tiniest of children playing in the red dust. Each and every child and almost as many adults looked towards me as I walked with Pasco. Muzungu, hello, muzungu, how are you, muzungu, muzungu, muzungu was all I heard over and over again. The little children would crawl after me with their tiny palm outstretched, thinking that as a white person, I had money to give, Pasco explained. Never had I felt the eyes of so many upon me (except maybe the NYC marathon but then I was too delirious to appreciate it fully). The surprising thing is the tones in which it is said, somewhere along the lines of teasing, mocking, curiosity, and reverence depending on who is saying it, or often all of those at once! I felt like the oddest kind of celebrity, as (white) foreigners rarely if ever venture into these areas. I’m so used to living in New York City, where my cashier at Zabar’s would manage to ring up all my groceries and have me pay without so much as a greeting my way, where people rarely smile at each other as they hustle down the sidewalk, where real celebrities wander the streets relatively unbothered. Here in Uganda I must rewire my brain to handle all the attention shown my way. The little children on the walk home smile and giggle when I reply to their “Hello, how are you?”, they reach for my hand, they gaze up at me wide-eyed. In NYC I couldn’t have been less noticed, and here I couldn’t attract more attention if I tried.

The first housevisit was to a woman named Judith. She is HIV+ and has three children. She lives in a small shack located in a small dusty clearing from the winding alleyways of the slum. Meeting Point has helped pay for two of her chidren to attends local schools, as well as granting her a small loan with which she started a tiny business selling tomatos. She repeated again (via Pasco’s Lugandan interpretation) that she was very happy to see me and very grateful for all that Meeting Point had done for her and her family. She thanked me for coming. A little girl sitting near by, who must have just learned to walk, wobbled over and reached up for my hand as her mother watched and than kneeled down. Pasco said that is what they have been taught to do with a muzunga. Such a strange feeling.

Next, we visited a man, Frank, who spoke very good English. He is one of MP’s few educated, literate clients who got sick, could not longer work, and came to meeting point to ask for asistance. He was bedridden not so long ago, but now thanks to medication and food provided by MP he is well. He thanked me for coming into his home (a small, dark, cramped hut that was about 8x8 feet with low ceilings, and objects piled high to it) and told me he loved Americans (“America is like my mommy and daddy, they take care of me.”) which was refreshing to hear when so few people seem to feel positively towards Americans these days! He was so jublilant really just to be feeling well, even though he was still dirt poor and unwell.

Among many others, I met a young mother who had almost died before MP intervened with a doctor visit and provided proper medication and the food to make such strong drugs palatable. There was a woman, Maria, who was given a small loan to start a sewing business, in addition to training classes. There was a man who was abandoned by his family when he had a stroke and his leg was paralyzed so that he could not walk. MP provides food for him, and took his soon into the foster home and learning center where he is in P-2. I met another young mother whose daughter, Noelina, is in P-3. I will be doing art with her class on Monday. To see where these kids come from is a real revelation and makes you appreciate their ability to be “carefree” and happy and loud and energetic at school despite the lack of almost nothing, no running water, small broken down homes.

I returned to school around 11 am to find that the Nursery teacher was missing and two volunteers, Judy and Medde, were trying to handle the class. I stepped in to try and help, and all the kids drew a picture of a house with some crayons. But in general they conquered us, running around the classroom, in and out the front door, hitting each other, and fighting over crayons. It was clearly “substitute teacher day” and we had no authority. We were trying to conserve crayons (because I wasn’t sure I’d get them all back, and the supplies are limited to what I brought and just a few other markers and crayons lying around) and so each set of 4 students on a bench row were given one red, one green, one blue, and one yellow crayon. But they didn’t know how to share. Correction: they didn’t know what sharing was! And I realized it was for the exact opposite reason that many American children do not know how to share beause they have oddles of their own toys and do not think they should have to. These children, however, have nothing at all. No toys, no possessions really save their clothes, and so they’ve never had anything to share. Judy and I did a (quite pathetic) demonstration of how to share (“Judy, would you like this crayon? Because I would like to use your crayon.” “Yes, Laura, that sounds great. I would like to use your crayong.”) There was a glimmer of progress made on this account, but add this to the To Do List.

At 1 pm the baby class was dismissed for the day (thank goodness!), and I went to lunch at the local cafeteria that is run by graduates of MP’s vocation school. In the afternoon, I finally finished rainbows with P-1. I’m going to hang the many pages of rainbows up in the Nursery and P-1 classrooms next week and then not look at a rainbow for a good long time!

This morning, Friday, I’m off with Kim & family, and some of their friends to Murchison Falls for boat rides and safaris! First a six hour drive through the African bush awaits…

Lots and Lots of Rainbows

First, a confession: I clearly should have done my own homework and made sure I had the word “muzungu” spelled correctly before I started my blog muzungalo.blogspot.com. However, in my great excitement to detail my new surroundings and experiences, I’ve failed my editor parents and made quite a blunder. Not quite sure how I’m going to fix it, but I need to figure our how to change the name. In any case, I’ll post the new website on here when I correct it. It’s funny because Kim’s husband, David, who grew up in Uganda, told me that the translation of muzungu is essentially "one who goes around in circles." I thought that to be a very apt definition, especially in this case for myself!

In any case, on to more important matters, i.e. the children and their artwork/the reason I’m here in the first place! Everyday, or really every hour rather, is really a rollercoaster of emotions based on various interactions with the children. They are just so happy and smiley, incredibly loud, attention hungry, and joyous, that I just wanted to make their lives all better in one day. But as anyone knows that just not possible. Many challenges these kids face are not unlike those of schoolchildren everywhere--as any teacher would tell you, and I’m now being reminded—learning reading, writing, math, and science can be so confusing. I’m glad I’ve been there and done that (although one can argue on the subject of math!). But in many other ways, these children lack the resources that would give them an ability to really focus on learning, and inspite of this you can still see their desire to learn and that is what keeps you going.

Some of the children in the school come from the orphanage that is another Meeting Point project, while others come from the slum area that stretches below the Learning Center and is essentially built on a swamp. I have yet to see these community, but from what I’ve heard from the other volunteers, it contains true poverty. (I go tomorrow to do homevisit outreach, so I will be able to confirm that then I’m sure.) And this poverty is quite apparent in the children’s daily appearance. They wear uniforms that are tattered, dirty, and torn, often held together by pins. Some have old shoes, some have shoes that seem to cling to dusty feet for dear life, and some have no shoes at all and just walk around on the red dirt, rocky paths with hardened soles. Many of the children are sick, either with either HIV or AIDS, or their family members are sick. The children are quite filthy and often smell quite pungent with a stale, sticky odor that takes hold in a class of 50 kids or more. They are reminded almost daily at group assembly to practice proper hygiene by bathing, washing their clothes, and brushing their teeth, but you have to wonder if they have the means to make any of these things happen each evening. They are dealing with learning certainly a second, and possibly even a third or fourth language by day, and probably speaking Lugandan or another dialect by night. They have no books of their own, no toys (save some plastic bags wadded into a ball to play catch), and of course no access to, or probably even knowledge of computers. But still, they are excited about learning, and work diligently in their notebooks (when they’re not goofing off of course, as they are children and not saints) and love any attention they can get which they repay with shy smiles or sometimes fits of giggles.

Last Friday, just on a whim, I started taking children from the Nursery and Primary 1 classrooms either individually or in pairs or at most a group of three, and reviewing colors and then drawing rainbows. Lots of this children, even those that are 7 or 8 don't seem to know their basic colors, whether it be a problem that is conceptual, language-related, or both. Some 96 rainbows later I’m nearing a finish line, at least with the nursery class of 57 children—a huge class, although that is nothing compared to the 65 that are in P-1. (I’m a bit rainbowed out to be honest, but need to keep on going!) It’s just staggering the number of children in each classes. How ever could one teacher manage all of those children and give them even an ounce (excuse me, milligram, as I am in a British system) of attention a day?? And so children are missing from the volunteer lists. The teachers had given lists of all the students in their classes, but unfortunately more than a dozen were left off from the list of P-1 and half as many from the nursery class, so the volunteers haven’t even known to call on them. So hopefully soon we will have them all accounted for on our lists. I think the children have liked the rainbow exercise, mainly just because they so rarely have a chance to use markers or just be experiencing bright colors and drawing. The school building is really nice and new but also quite bare and drab, especially the dirt playground and concrete walls and metal fence. I hope I can bring some more color and decoration to the school in an attempt to make it a more stimulating place to learn and have been brainstorming all sorts of ideas for murals and the like.
Aside from rainbows, I had the P-2 class this afternoon for my first “art class.” It went, um, okaaaaay. Not spectacularly, but I learned some important lessons and isn’t that what it’s all about?! Mainly, don’t give the kids too much choice! We made a giant bug with colorful pipe cleaner legs and fuzzy puffs (clearly a technical term) on its back. I think the children had a lot of run, and the completed bug was certainly the brightest object in the room. But I could not keep them seated and/or quiet, they took forever choosing the color of the puff they wanted to glue on, and some kids got the chance to put on two legs while others on got to do one—yikes. I was especially harried because I had to go into the classroom before my allotted time. Some of the teachers don’t quite understand English completely and so despite my plans to do the project during the last time slot of the day, I was asked to come down right then, an hour early. So there are quite a few kinks to iron out. (Let’s hope) I’m up to the challenge! ;)

More from the field visit tomorrow, and then I’m off on safari this weekend in Murchison Falls (I have been told to expect hippos, etc.!)—wooohooo!!

Weekend Wrap-Up

I must say, my first weekend in Africa was quite terrific. It definitely feels a little bit like I’m just on a short holiday right now, especially as I’m staying with Kim and David and they are a lot of fun and have quite an active social life here in the expat community. So they have been bringing me along to all of their events which have been a lot of fun.

On Friday night, straight after work, Kim, Ben, and I attended a potluck at Ben’s school. The school is an international one and was really nice, with a very diverse community of parents and children. Then David joined us (and Ben was sent off to bed back home with the driver) and we went to a friend’s birthday party that was being thrown at another aquiantance’s house in a compound high up on one of the hills surrounding Kampala --although I can’t remember which one (I must really work on that)! The apartment was very nice, but even better was the view from the two levels of terraces that overlooked the dark hills sprinkled with bright lights. Dinner was not served until late, but what a feast it was: grilled hamburgers, sausages, goat, potatoes, salads, and three different birthday cakes, complete with Pimms and sprite, and Club beer (a very good Ugandan lager). Then David’s driver from the office drove us back to our compound around midnight. I’m telling you, if I had to pick one of the virtues of living here, I would vote for the driver, especially considering the various traveling anxieties (see above post re: taxis) that it woud save you from having to ever take!

On Saturday afternoon, there was a going away party for Kim and David’s friends who are leaving Kampala next month. The party was in their compound, actually just behind my guest cottage. There was a big white tent, a moonbounce for the kids, and lots of food, including a whole roasting pig on the grill. Then I found out that the Yom Kippur dinner that I had been invited to attend thanks to some family friends back home was starting at 4:30. There I faced quite a difficult decision: stay at the lovely party, lounge comfortably in the gated compound of palm trees, drink a beer and eat some roast pig, or brave the streets of Kampala to find a special hire that would take me to the Garden City Area of town and then hopefully meet up with this family I didn’t know who would give me a ride to a Yom Kippur dinner with people I didn’t know. Ah, choices! Not to mention I had been fasting on Saturday, so that pig and accompaniments were looking especially delicious—the devil on my shoulder. But I mustered whatever “good Jew” tendencies I had and went with the angel on my shoulder, left the compound, wandered down the street as bodabodas called after me all the way down the hill. I found a special hire (what we would call a taxi, but it is just a normal, usually fairly beat-up car with no taxi marking really), but he wanted to charge me 10,000 shillings (the equivalent of $6), but I had strict instructions to only pay $5000-7000. Oy. So I got out of the car, though I was already running late mind you thanks to the short notice. Some other guy came running over and said he’d take me for $7000, but when I got in the car he said he would need exact change, second Oy. Then my cellphone (which was my sole means of contact with my connecting ride) ran out of minutes. Oy oy oy. No good. So I pleaded that the driver stop at a gas station that sold Celtel prepaid cards, ran in bought more minutes, and got him some change. I finally made it to meet the family, a woman Insaf who works at the US embassy, her husband and sons, and another American who was in Kampala on business. We arrived at her friend’s house, an Israeli who had cooked an enormous feast to break the fast. Pumpkin stuffed with rice, chicken phyllo pie, roast chicken, pirogies, cakes, cappucino, wine, and after dinner drinks. The angel on my shoulder had not let me down afterall, and I had a very nice evening and good company to boot.

Then on Sunday I was in for another treat! Kim and David’s friend lives right on Lake Victoria and was taking a boat ride with their other friends to see the plot of land that they have recently purchased on one part of the lake called Murchison Bay. We took a motorboat ride across the lake to that particular spot and had a picnic. But this was not ordinary motorboat—it was a long wooden one that held 10 of us and all these coolers and could have held many more. After eating lunch complete with the largest, most perfectly ripe avocados I’ve ever seen, we hiked around the grounds and saw mud huts still left from previous squatters of the land, and spectacular views of lake. There is also a school that the local community there is trying to build and these families are trying to help with that as well because it is on an adjacent plot. I will try to post pictures of all of this soon, but it was quite a weekend!

Until then, here's the first five pictures that I've been able to upload:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14053968@N04/
This took hours! Kampala is not known for it's internet connections, but what can ya do! I'll keep trying.

My First Day of School

On Tuesday Kim took me to meet with Noelina, the director of the Meeting Point organization, whom I’ve been in indirect touch with since last spring. We went up to the new learning school building to meetwith her. She was incredibly warm and welcomed me, explaining that Meeting Point is called that because it is where happiness, joy, sadness, all these things and many more come together. She also said she had begun to fear that I was never going to come because she hadn’t hear anything of my arrival—this has been a long time in the planning. So it was terrific to finally meet her and see the place that I first heard about back in February! We discussed the bag of art supplies that I had brought and a tentative schedule to test out some of the many different programs that Meeting Point Kampala (MPK) operates. My starting date was set for Thursday.

Today I woke up early—really! And was all ready to go to the school around 8:30. I met with the new head school teacher briefly (she just began on Monday, nearly like me, but she is from Kampala and a skilled teacher I think, so therefore, not at all like me!)and several regarding a schedule, and settled on a temporary schedule for the next week or so that would include three days a week at the learning center getting acquianted with each of the four class levels—nursery, P-1, P-2, and P-3—as well as a couple days doing fieldwork where I will join trained counselors who venture out into the community to make homevisits to those who are HIV+ and check on their health and progress. There is also a vocational that trains older children—sewing for the girls, shoe and brick-making for the boys. In fact, I was impressed to learn that the older children sew the green uniform smock dresses and shirts and shorts for the younger school children. So that the vocational school is yet another possible option for teaching some English reading and writing.

Then the head school teacher, whom the children call Madame, took me to each classroom starting with the Nursery class. We walked into the room, and the teacher welcomed us, and upon Madame’s greeting and allowing me to introducing myself as Laura from the USA, they chanted in unison something along the lines of “Welcome to our school, we are the nursery class, we are happy to have you here,” and then did a multi-clap rhythm of sorts that made for quite a finish. It was just so darn cute—I wish I could come up with a better description, but that’s all that really comes to mind, maybe that and earnest. The nursery children are so young, about 5 or 6 mainly and all seem to have some variation on all bald or nearly bald heads (in the case of the girls mainly who have just the roots of short black hair), beautiful big eyes that seem so full when they look at you, and bright smiles that are even brighter against their dark smooth brown skin. They just smiled and waved at me so genuinely as I stood at the front of the classroom in front of their rows of school benches, ten deep in two columns. There over 40 children in that class, but that is one of the smaller ones. P-1 has 66 children, and the teacher seems understandably swamped. I was introduced to all the classes and sat in on some of the teaching and observed some of their workbook writing.

I also met the other volunteers: the Chevy Chase couple Lew and Judy who have been at MPK since July and whom I had met on Tuesday, and then also two Danish girls, Pia and Mede (I’m sure I just destroyed that spelling!) who have been at MPK since August. I was very pleased to get some knowledgeable advice from people who’ve had some time to really get a sense of the school and hadn’t even really thought about the possibility of other volunteers, so that has been a nice surprise! The five of us left for a lunch break and walked down to the market down the street for a rolex—no, not a fancy fake watch, but rather fried egg with tomato, onion, and cabbage rolled up in a flat, wide pancake. I could definitely have that for breakfast any day. Although it was really quite filling! We took our sandwiches to a café up the street and sat outside. Between the coke and the rollup I was stuffed. I couldn’t even finish the rollup, I promised you: Me! I couldn’t finish the last bite, very troublesome! The whole meal set me back 1100 shillings—approximately 65 cents maybe. Just ridiculous. While it is nice to have such a cheap meal, one can’t help but feel strange in knowing that for most people there, that would not be a small amount of money. It’s just staggering to consider. So much like in London, except for opposite reasons, you must distance yourself from the cost of things to maintain your sanity.
After lunch, I shadowed Judy and Lew has they took a couple of the children out of classrooms for some more individualized attention. Judy has begun trying to plot the current abilities of all the children—a daunting task. They come from so many different backgrounds, languages, and educational situations, and even though the teaching staff is dedicated, with such large classes and the childrens’ varied learning levels, many children struggle greatly with English and are lagging behind. The 7 and 8-year-olds from P-1 that read with Lew and Judy could not identify colors, calling a red shirt blue, and the like. I’m hoping this is where art projects may be able to help, at least going over the colors with the younger children. There is so much to be done, and even after my first day (which felt like it could have been a week!), I feel both intimidated by all the help that is needed and idealistically hopeful that these eager and obediant children can certainly succeed with ongoing instruction.

These children have been through so much, and yet you would have almost no idea watching them wreak joyous havoc on their barren dirt playground or accept their allotment of rice and beans scooped out of large green buckets (that would no doubt make any American schoolkid turn up their nose, or adult for that matter. I’m no better as I didn’t venture it today, but actually, you know me, I’ll probably like it!) Lew told of two little girls in particular on our walk to lunch. One was of a little girl, Rose, whose parents had taken her and returned to Rwanda, but became sick and passed away, but not before the father begged the grandmother to return the little girl to MPK where he knew she would be looked after. She now lives in the foster home, as does a sweet little girl named Evelyn who is HIV+ and whose parents died of AIDS. She was able to transfer to a private school, but because she is on ARVs to treat the virus, she falls asleep and so she could not keep up in her new school. But inspite of these sad tales, how can one not feel somehow optimistic with three uplifting experiences at the end of the day. First, I talked to Evelyn about drawing animals and people the next day and her eager smile nearly made you forget that she was not just another carefree child. Joseph, the P-3 level teacher, explaining, “You remember yesterday, but you hope that tomorrow will be better,” in reference to the children’s learning struggles. And finally, and I am not making this up, an end-of-day assembly where the children are encouraged to keep learning, be smart, studious, clean, quiet, and respectful, and then following a group prayer, march out of the schoolyard chanting, “We are marching in the light of God, we are marching in the light of God!” over and over. It was like I was in a Save the Children commercial come to life, but so genuine and um, real life! Just mind-boggling. (Al, you would have just been bawling after the first verse!)

But then I did get to go out for some beers with Kim, David, and some of their friends—and I had a chance to talk with RachieP (thanks for calling!), so the long, good day ended on a high note. So there we go, another mouthful from me, but there just seems so much to tell. The other volunteers are gone tomorrow, so I’m going to try to take some students on my own to read or draw and color. Wish me luck!

Major Adjustments

So, I'm at the US Embassy in Kampala using some (slightly) faster internet, while I register here and get extra pages added to my passport. My cousin, Kim, whom I am staying with works for USAID, which has their offices in the Embassy.

I walked to the embassy this morning because I overslept and missed my ride here with Kim (new country, same Laura apparently), although in my defense, I have been sleeping irregularly as is to be expected I guess. I'm sleeping under a mosquito canopy net, and I keep psyching myself out about mosquitos landing on me, biting me, and giving me malaria! So last night I had trouble falling asleep just being all wound up, and then I woke in the middle of the night with a stomache ache, but too scared to get up and run to the bathroom for fear of mosquitos. I finally did, but felt like such a wimp the whole time!

Tomorrow I start teaching at the school, Meeting Point, where I will be volunteering, although I will probably spend the first week trying out a few different things: assisting a current teacher, doing some community outreach, before I start teaching art classes on my own. There are apparently two other young female volunteers and also an older couple who are from, you won't believe it--Chevy Chase--small world!! The wife teaches the nursery school kids, and she was excited to hear about the massive bag of art supplies that I brought with me. She thought I might be able to do some art projects that tie in with her curriculum, so that could be really good.

On the whole, this place is just completely overwhelming. I knew I would be overwhelmed, and it has certainly lived up to expectations! Kim lives at the top of one of about six hills that surround the city center of Kampala, and while some of the roads are more or less paved (but often have massive potholes), many are not at all and are just grassy or dirty ruts that are not really charted on any map. Kim lives in a housing compound that has 4 other houses within it, behind a gate that is watched by a guard, which is very common and the safest way to live here. I'm living in a small guest house with a living room, bathroom, and bedroom (with all important mosquito net!), but I go to Kim's house to use the shower and kitchen and eat meals with her and her family: her husband, David, and 3 year-old son, Ben.

Tonight I'm going to look at one of two possible housing options. It is with a friend of Kim's who has a young child. I would rent a room, and it is just a short walk from the school. However, I will probably go with the apt I saw last night unless I am wowed. That one is not as convenient to the school as it is across a swamp (!!!) but i would be living with a young British expat girl (who moved here to start her own safari company! Talk about brave!) in a quite nice and spacious apartment. Anyways, I will just have to see.

Then I think we are going out for pizza tonight--that should be interesting! On the whole, the food I've had has been quite good if rather hodge-podge. Kim has a nanny and also a cook who has made dinner for us both nights--not exactly Ugandan food I think, but one night was shepards pie and last night was a chicken curry and rice. I also walked down the street yesterday to explore just a bit beyond the gate, and found some Italian gelato that was really quite good, for just about the equivalent of 60 cents! I will have to try a flavor a day. I took a chance on trying it, and while it may have been the cause of my stomache ache in the night, I have to take chances sometimes to try to get my system accustomed to food here. The tap water is off limits, so I have to be careful to brush my teeth with bottled water, etc. It is definitely one of those things we just take for granted in the States!!

I am certainly the only white face I saw on my short walk, which was quite an odd experience. This morning on my walk to the embassy I had a similar experience. And heard distinctly being called a "muzunga"--foreigner--for the first time. No one was rude or jeering really, but I did get some looks, especially from the scooter drivers who expected me to want a ride rather than to walk along the road (there aren't sidewalks here per se, just the edge of the road). Those scooters are called boda-boda, or something to that effect. You basically just hop on the seat behind the driver and off you go, as they can weave through traffic, etc. They seem a bit unnerving, so I'm not quite sure when I will get up the courage to try one, but I will probably have to sooner or later! The other cheap form of transport is by taxi--but this my friends is no New York taxicab! It is basically a variation on a white van that holds up to 14 people (Uganda sets a limit on that unlike in some other places apparently). There are no bus stops; instead you just stand by the side of the road and flag one down that is going in the direction that you want to go! So because Kampala is essentially made up of neighborhoods arranged like spokes on a wheel, you take a taxi into the center and then get on another one depending on where you want to go (kinda like the DC metro and lacking a circle line? then of couse not at all like that!). So these "taxis" are make up the Kampala bus system so to speak. Then "special hires" are what we would consider taxis and will take just your party to your destination.

Wow, I just wrote so much and it seems like I have a million things more to describe, but that is what any new environment inspires, I suppose.

I hope to load my first round of pictures in the next few days!

Here's my contact info at the moment:
Laura Plattner
c/o Case Family
Plot 209 Zzimwe Road
Muyenga, Kampala
UGANDA

And my cell phone number (when calling from the states) is +256752391383. I don't really expect any calls, but feel free to suprise me! ;)

To New Beginnings

As today is Rosh Hashanah, and I am currently visiting my dear friends in Glasgow, Kelly and Dave, who are the proud new parents of a beautiful baby girl, I thought there could be no better time to start the blog that will document my adventures this coming year. (I hope--let's see if I can keep up with it this time--this will be one of many resolutions per usual!)

So just what are my plans? Still quite unclear, and I'm enjoying that fact! I do have a flight to Uganda booked for Sunday, September 16th, arriving Monday, September 17th in the capital city of Kampala. I will be staying with my cousin who lives there and works for US AID, and hopefully beginning to teach art & crafts at Meeting Point, a Ugandan NGO consisting of an orphanage and school serving a very poor neighborhood, including many displaced people from northern Uganda, at which education, vocational, and health services are provided for HIV-infected mothers and widows, as well as their children and orphans.

That's the brief run-down. Obviously there is much more to know, but unfortunately, I do not. Hopefully I will get a ton of information upon my arrival in Kampala and will hit the ground running.

So what am I doing right now? I left on Saturday evening from Washington, DC for London, although it turned into a Sunday morning flight thanks to a shutdown of all Virgina Atlantic airline's computers worldwide. Luckily, our flight was not canceled, and the VA staff diligently checked all passengers in manually. I arrived at London Heathrow safely and, even better--with both of my meticulously packed bags (thanks to sheer maternal brilliance), one being my huge new backpack, and the other, one chock full of art supplies for my future art students!
My brother, David, was kind enough to trek out to Heathrow and help me with my bags, and I'm not quite sure what I would have done without him, as evidenced by the picture here. And he and Nora were also kind enough to host me for the week--I am one lucky girl.

Since then, I've been wandering the streets of London, watching random British television, crocheting a baby blanket, eating some terrific food, and trying to not go broke in my first week abroad--not an easy feat in London!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070912/ap_on_re_eu/britain_costly_eating

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FOOD
Nando's:
This is technically a South African "fast food" chain, but boy, does it put our American fast food to shame. You order at the counter and they bring the food to your table when it's ready, and the setting is actually quite nice (at least at this location), with wooden tables, high ceilings, and rustic chandeliers. The specialty here is the chicken. The menu board claims that the birds are marinated for 24 hours. Then they are dosed in a delicious blend of spices, peri-peri, that can be served at mild, medium, or hot levels. Apparently the hot really is seriously spicy, so we opted for the medium, which definitely makes your lips tingle, but doesn't destroy your taste buds for the night.
Now my brother is a big eater like me, and Nora can hold her own as well, so we packed away quite a bit of food. Following an order of olives, complete with whole garlic cloves (I think I consumed 4), two orders of six peri-peri chicken wings and one 1/2 chicken was delivered to our table. Each main dish came with two sides or a salad, so we opted for one salad, an order of chips (Brit word for French fries, and good ones at that--so crispy but still very potatoey on the inside), coleslaw, roasted corn on the cob, and garlic bread. The only side dish we missed was the spicy rice, but we had quite enough spice as it was. The chicken was delicious, very juicy and flavorful with a nice black spicy coating on the crisp skin. Even better, there are several different dipping sauces to add even more flavor to the chicken, which while totally unnecessary were really quite good. The wild herb flavor was my favorite, while the garlic and hot varieties were a little to "bold" for my tastes, but I am very attached to my taste buds, so that's just me.There was nothing but a pile of wing bones before long, and the sides were destroyed as well. To top it off, because who wants to walk home when you can roll, we had a small dish of toffee crunch cheesecake and an order of bottomless frozen yogurt. I went back twice, and would have gone back a third time--with Nora's support--but David was getting embarrassed.
Nando's gets high marks in my book not only for the quality of the food, but for it's "cheap" prices. What does cheap mean? Well, a meal for three set us back 38.50 pounds (i.e. about $80). Now that's a bit tough to swallow--and that really is "a deal" around here! But David also informed me that they have a Nando's in Kampala, so it's good to know there is already a sure bet that I will have food to eat there (not that that's ever really up for debate with me). Check it out: http://www.nandos.com/

Mem & Laz
This family-run Mediterranean restaurant is owned by the same people who run Levente's in downtown Washington and Bethesda, MD. The food runs the gamut of Turkish, Italian, French, Spanish, etc. Nora and I started with some delicious soft puffy bread topped with a tomato rub, and then shared two starter dishes: one of roasted eggplant filled with onions and peppers and melted fresh mozzarella served over a sweet tomato sauce, and a plate of three kofte (lamb patties) served over rice with a spicy tomato cucumber relish. Then out came an entree-sized portion of large mussels laid half-shell open on a plate while a white wine cream sauce. While I'm not used to them being presented this way, they were quite good. However, there were two different color mussels, one variety that was pinker, and upon composing a (very scientific) closed-eyed taste-test, were determined to be much sweeter. When we asked the waiter if they were two different kinds of mussels he said he'd check with the kitchen and came back to report that the pink ones were in fact males and the browner ones that were more chewy were females. Yep, we like the males better we agreed!
We also shared a delicious bottle of Sicilian pinot grigio, so we decided to forgo dessert and nurse our last glasses. All in all, Mem & Laz serves up European comfort food in a fun, cozy atmosphere.

Busabi Eathai
David was not impressed (that's an understatement to say the least), but I actually really enjoyed my dinner here. It's set up like a Wagamama's with communal dining tables, but the ones here are square as opposed to long rectangular ones, which I think makes the place feel cozier. The philosophy of the place is that all dishes are served at the same time whether they be appetizer or main course (they do not serve dessert). I ordered a mango lassi which was great, densely orange is color, creamy and flavorful. Then we embarked on our culinary adventure which was not perfect, but highly interesting. The appetizer we ordered was a fried peppery calamari. While David complained that it was not crispy enough, I though the large pieces had a nice bite to them but were not too chewy. Our main dishes consisted of a huge bowl of galanga lemongrass coconut chicken soup with greens and glass noodles, a ginger beef dish with peppers, and a thick massam curry with chunks of potato and onion, and an almost cinnamon-like flavor.
I think David, Nora, and I are quite spoiled by some of the Thai food we've encountered at Bangkok Gardens in Bethesda and Malaysian Grill on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, so the soup seemed a sad runner up to the version at Malaysian Grill, and the others, while very good I thought, were not "best Thai in ages" memorable. But it's still a fun place, casual and "Brit cheap," and I think you'd like it.

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Now I'm in Glasgow hanging out with Kelly, Dave, and little Kenzie. We've been relaxing at home in Knightswood, continuing aforementioned crocheting (Kelly is knitting, we are officially 25 going on 80), and trying to figure out how we got so old so fast. Kenzie is a rock-star of a baby and is already outgrowing some of her onesies, even by day 6. And I even changed a diaper--small step for parents everywhere, giant leap for me! After a tour of Glasgow, and a spirited attempted to find a Rosh Hashanah service (I said a few prayers in the courtyard of a locked, but beautiful, synagogue), and a delicious trip to I.J. Mellis Cheesmongers Shop (you MUST go if you are here, samples galore :) ), we headed home to feast on the goods. Full from our cheese-gorging, everyone else headed to bed hours ago, and per usual, I'm still up--but this gave me a chance to finally get this thing started!

Back to London tomorrow evening, and then Uganda-bound a mere 48 hours later. The nerves are starting to kick in (just barely), but I'm also awfully excited.

Goodnight, and l'shana tova!