More to come...again

Not sure why I always seem to have problems uploading pictures in Mukono, but I do.
Just a quick update...sorry no pictures this time.
Term 1 of school has started. I am volunteering at a primary school created to serve orphans in the area. I teach P3 and P4...mainly P3 because they behave the best. The subject I prefer is math. I do English every once in a while, but really it is not my strength, never really was...seems to be language period, but that's besides the point.
So my job with my organization is to work with schools organizing and teaching their Sanitation clubs/committees. One school has grown over the last two years to be 60 members. I just went to another school and we had elections for the first time and I counted about 75 members-probably more, because they have to sit so close together and some get lost. How many ands did I just write...anyway.
Any I guess since I don't have enough to do, I told the main women's group I work with that I would begin teaching then English. I am kind of excited about it because the way I am going to teach them is through the lessons of other activities...such as cake baking.
I attended a conference about integrating WASH into Home based care and I think the counseling cards they provided with be a great addition to what I can teach while teaching English. We'll see how it goes.
I was having meeting every day somewhere, including 2 days of teaching...
After four days I found out I was not going to be able to keep it up, so I reduced my school teaching (P3 &P4) to Wednesday mornings and took back my Mondays to concentrate on other things I need to do... i.e. some type of research. Wow, so much to do, so little actual time to do it.
Enough blabbing from me for now. Have a good weekend.

Until Next Time...

The second wedding I attended

We took a wrong turn and ended up on a ledge between some water and soggy ground.

The reception area...pretty heh.

More reception, the center where the cake is located on a raised platform. Fancy eh?

The entertainment was really great. And you could tell they were having fun doing their job. Good stuff.

Some of my other family members and friends

I always refer to her as the Brown cow because I can never remember her actually name. She recently returned from her trip to a friend's farm. The going was slow, much stopping, starting, mooing, swerving, stumbling, jerking, at dusk fun. She is safely back home now and is eating up a storm every time Anna calls for food.

This is Anna. Maama Gertrude says she's stubborn. Mind you stubborn actually encompasses a whole list of other adjectives to describe someone's behavior. If someone isn't doing quite exactly you would like them to do...they're stubborn. Anna makes two very distinct sounds, a loud long moo to let everyone know there is no food in the trough and that somebody better do something about it because she is hungry. The other sound she makes it similar to what any normal person after consuming WAY too much food would make...kind of a moaning 'I'm so full' groan. It could be one of two reasons...she did eat way to much or...

This is a crazy picture of our late friend the mama goat. She was having problems one morning that I was leaving for school...wasn't the usually goat droppings dispersement. But she was just hanging out under the dish drying rack. Half way through my day at school, Raymond shows up to tell me that the mama goat is no longer with us. I guess she was experiencing paralysis of her entire body and the lady next door kept wanting it slaughtered (hearsay from me), so now we are one goat less on our compound. Her son cried and cried...it was one of the saddest sounds. He cried so much he was getting hoarse; so pitiful that sound. Maama Gertrude couldn't take it anymore either and sent for a companion goat. I kept thinking about all the trouble Sis went to for her rabbits to like one another and that was definitely not the process here. The result of this match was a headbutting young female who liked to eat all the food and keep the little guy away. A few times they were seen frollicking across the compound, but most of the time it wasn't buddy buddy.

I do want to tell you about mama goat since I brought up the topic of rabbits. One day we went to collect the goats from the area by the police station and they were proving quite difficult for just me to run down. As I was trying to get close enough to grab the rope, they of course would run off. There was a large group of goats at the time and during the chasing process mama goat took a running leap and totally did a binky. Anyway, I figured at least Sis would enjoy that little tidbit. Let me tell you, mama goat definitely had some air time on that one too. Didn't know they could do that. I've seen the little kids do some cute little excited manuevers, but that was cool.

This is the little boy who is no longer with us. He was sold off. However, before he left he managed to get himself tied up in a corner of the compound. He was definitely stuck there. I did help him out of his predicament after I took this photo. I thought it quite humour.

Welcome to My little corner of Uganda

Welcome...this has been a long awaited visit, sorry I did not invite you to come see my place sooner. This is the street I live on. As you can see, if there is a camera, there are children running to get in the picture. Okay, we are infront of Maama Gertrude's clinic so let's turn around and go inside the compound.


I live in a gated compound, so I feel pretty secure at night. During the day people are coming in and out to visit Maama Gertrude, bring food for the cows and goat, and collect water in their jerry cans for 100/= (USG) each.

My new friend Joyne here is going to begin out tour with the open courtyard. Beyond her, you can see two rainwater harvesting tanks...mine is on the right, well the one I use anyway. The building in between is the kitchen. The goats like to sneak in there every once in a while.

If we go in and look to our left we see Maama Gertrude's house. People are always coming and going, but a few people are ever there like my friend Raymond, who is completing is university work, Noah, who does all sorts of jobs around the place and out in the 5 gardens Maama Gertrude has, and Brenda is the newest of the household help, she helps with basics like cooking and cleaning. Of course I cannot forget Nalongo and her twins. She is the main helper to Maama Gertrude in maintaining the compound...and she does it while watching her two little ones. They are pretty good too, except one likes to cry often.

Okay so sweeping around to the right a little you will see the dish washing/drying area and beyond that is where the cows live (eating, sleeping, and poo-ing). It only took me a couple weeks to migrate to using the washing area, but I have my system down now.

Now here we come back to the kitchen and if you look closely on the very right you can see a lace curtain. That my friends is my door.

Unfortunately I need to cut the tour short here due to time. I invite you in and show you where all the fun stuff is next time.

I'm running out of cool new titles

Tippy tap

Newly constructed school rainwater harvesting tank

Sunset over the sand mine...one of my favorites...not the sand mine but the sunset.

21 Months Left. Hope I can get something done

Our training group has just completed our first three months at site and finished our in-service training. Now we are all excited to get back to site and start working on projects...well except for the few that have already started projects, guess they get to continue, right?
Christmas and New Year were good...not the same as at home, but good having friends here to share the holidays with. I definitely didn't miss out on one aspect of the season...eating way too much food. It didn't help that someone else was doing the cooking. I feel I eat less and enjoy the food more when I cook for myself; might have something to do with it taking a significant amount of time to prepare. I do tell my mom that I will be an expert onion dicer, maybe even develop an immunity to the juices causing my eyes to burn and tear up. I doubt it, but we'll see what happens. Maybe that can be one of my side experiments.
Picture from the holidays to come. Just wanted to say Hi and ask for prayers that the next wedding I go to is either at a comfortable volume or I am no where near any of the speakers...behind them is where I'm thinking will be the best spot.
Hope all of you had a good Christmas and beginning to the New Year.

Until Next Time...

YAY Pictures! Yay, Peace Corps Office.

Some boat on the Lake, tied to the landing.

Now, please do not be jealous or feel forgotten, but I do have to let my little cousin Sierra know there is one little Ugandan girl born a week before Christmas Eve very early in the morning. Her mother asked if I would give her an American name. I thought and thought going through relative after relative. My goal was to find something unique that I had not heard yet here in country (and because the mother wished for something unique as well) and something that could be pronounced with Ugandan English. I have always found Sierra to be a very pretty name and being as I was quite on the spot to come up with the perfect name, I think the result was appropriate. Living in a compound with a midwife will probably provide other opportunities to name babies, but I wanted to let you know about this special first naming. Of course I had the privilege for no other reason than being a muzungu, but that's okay with me.

Making roasted G-nut paste (Ugandan peanut butter). Turned out pretty good, just a tad burnt.

The bakery up the road from my village. These little morsels are delectably rich in cooking oil, but they are rather tasty too.

Me preparing my beans Maama Gertrude gave me to be dried so I can enjoy cooking them for a day before eating them.

Inside my organization's maize mill. Yummy yummy posho...

Bicycles are used to transport just about everything from charcoal (seen here) to people. *And for taking on the go photos as well...hehe

Children from the next village over carrying water back to their homes...Their water hole is literally that too, not good.

Maama Gertrude and one of her friends on the veranda on their way to church.

A smiling goat...at least I think so...

One of the monkeys over by the police station, on the hill overlooking the landing. It's a neat place.

Ducks and Pig....someone asked to see wildlife (Dad) and this is what I got. Monkeys that snatch food out of your hand and roaming chickens, ducks, pigs, goats, and cows....

More cute, adorable ducks. But I must say, they are definitely cuter when they are young because some of the local species are as attractive as turkeys.

Here is Korie and Medi, my two chapatti guys, that's about all I have to say about them. They're nice too.