Our program has ended and I'm alone in Uganda working with Softpower, an organization that supplements local education by painting schools, providing after school activities, and providing health care.
This Uganda place is pretty nice. The kids get so excited when you walk by that the literally jump up and down while they yell Mzungu! Mzungu! The country is poorer than Kenya but people are incredibly generous. It's not uncommon for someone to invite me to try some of his mangos or jackfruit. Jackfruit looks like something out of Avatar. It grows to be about as big as a droopy basketball (how's that for an image?) and has small green spikes all over it. Inside it looks like what I picture the inside of a small intestine looking like. It has a bunch of fruit with little fruit feely fingers popping out. It tastes like banana and pineapple.
We've been working at a primary school painting. They have signs up all over the school reminding the kids about such basics as, "Say no to gifts for sex," "Change your behavior now!" and, "Faithfulness is good."
Class is not in session so all the kids come and paint with us every day. They are really terrible painters. I turned around a few days ago and a kid was painting the ground with a roller. If you don't watch they go and paint the desks and often each other.
But what the lack in painting ability they make up for in entertainment. I've taught them to actually use my name instead of just calling me Mzungu. They always want me to stop painting and take pictures of them and they've started staging fake fights for me to film. They run up to me and say, "Let me photo you!" I say, "No I will photo you now. Later you can photo me." They get very excited. If you sing the "Waka waka" song by Shakira they start dancing. I have a video that I'll put on Facebook soon.
For the last few days the only volunteers have been me and an Italian girl named Cecilia. (pronounced Chechilia) She's funny. A few days ago we were in town leaving an Indian supermarket. She said, "There are so many Indians in this town. They have so much power. They are like the Peesians in Italy." I said, "really?" She said, "Oh yes. They are everywhere in Italy. In the park, in the city. They are everywhere. I really hate them." I started thinking
Who are the Peesians? Is she saying Persians? Do the Persians even exist anymore? Is she just talking about Arabs? This girl is racist. After about ten minutes of ranting about Peesians I finally asked her what Peesians were. She made a flapping motion with her arms and I realized she had been talking about pigeons the whole time.
I'm staying at a touristy place but I plan to go to a homestay next week. My room shares a border with a Ugandan shop. Last Saturday they had loud music playing. Really loud. I thought there was a full live band right outside my window. They would play about 10 seconds of a looped beat for 20 minutes. At 1 am I tried to go to sleep with the music playing. At 4 am I went to check out what was happening. The shop is a small shack made of uneven planks of wood. There were 5 people there and 2 speakers that were taller than me. They were not dancing. I went back to my room and they turned the music off at 6 am. I have no idea what was happening.
But as they say here, it's nice. I miss home still, but Jinja is an unbelievable place. Went rafting yesterday on class 5 rapids, flipped about 6 times. On the last rapid, Melissa, who is visiting from WashU, flipped out of the raft up in the air and landed on the overturned raft, all of which was caught on film.
Goodnight and goodluck,
Aaron
