Give Me the Time To Show How I Have Grown

CLICK ON ME PLEASE: Donations for Science Laboratory Refurbishment and Construction of Basketball Court at the NTC, Kaliro


***THE WEBSITE ABOVE IS EXPLAINED IN THE FOLLOWING POST,BUT PLEASE VISIT IT***






I am nearly positive that the buildings that I live and teach in are technically condemned—even by Ugandan standards. If they are not and I am potentially wrong, then by all means they should be and should be fenced off with bright yellow caution tape and be secure from trespassers 24 hours a day…that is not the case though. I live in a house with asbestos roofing; I teach in classrooms with asbestos roofing, and the cement walls are peeling and even have mysterious beige fuzz growing on them. You should especially see this place when the students are on a school holiday—you would think that it was simply the aftermath of a bomb or war-stricken area. Welcome to the National Teachers’ College, Kaliro—my home for the past 18 months—and I would not have wanted to be anywhere else. We push through though, we find a away to make the best of the situation here, and like always we are open to whatever comes our way to make our lives better. Aside from the classroom where I teach Biology to both 1st and 2nd year students, I spend my time and talk with people. If I were to say at this point what my job has been as a Peace Corps Volunteer it has been a professional listener; or a professional laugher; a pro at eating copious amounts of food mainly in the forms of carbohydrates, or maybe even a professional walker (I walk everywhere; and people here tell me that I walk as fast as a man can ride a bicycle). Living as a Peace Corps Volunteer is a job in itself and any responsibility atop that (teaching, building, etc.) can be seen as the secondary activities.
Our students have just returned for the beginning of their next school year and therefore a new group of minds to mold and get to know are ever-present. Amazing that after 1+ school years here at the NTC, Kaliro I have grown to have expectations for the behavior and attitudes of both the 2nd year and the fresh incoming 1st year students. I have found my way to responding to their uncertainties of having a mzungu around, and that is being myself. So much of the first year was spent holding back, trying to appease these thoughts of what I was suppose to be, and now having relaxed a bit and feeling like I am somehow in the comfort of ‘my own home’ have been able to be more of the strange, odd, unusually American that I have grown up to be. Less than 1 week ago a fellow colleague at the college even told me that she was excited how I have changed, and become so much more integrated as myself and not holding back so much. That was a happy awakening. I have truly made ‘a’ home here, a place that I feel that I could come back to, be excited about and know how to be.
In the recent weeks we have been developing a few projects to better promote our college and to further improve the morale of the students and staff that often tends to be rather low due to the standards of the college. Having mentioned that the entire institution is essentially condemned, we have been looking for ways to at least aesthetically improve the college’ image and we have begun to develop projects that will promote that cause. These projects not only will assist in the aesthetic appearance of the college but also assist in boosting the morale of both students and staff to show the pride and loyalty to the college as a whole. These first two projects being worked on are constructing a new and improved Basketball Court and Rehabilitating the Science Laboratories. These projects are described below in an excerpt taken from the website promoting these projects and seeking funding.

Through the joint efforts of the National Teachers’ College, the local community and friends in the USA, we desire to completely rebuild our basketball court and refurbish the science laboratories concurrently. As all of us here at the college have seen the dirt foundation erode and the hoops lean more and more towards the ground on the current court and students and visitors alike express their incredibly discouraging views on the conditions of the science laboratories, we developed this joint project with a matching dollar agreement. As these two tasks show little connection, the college has agreed that a monetarily equivalent match will be made available from the college of the amount equivalent to the construction of the basketball court. The refurbishment of the science laboratories will aid in increasing the current low level of morale and provide an improved atmosphere for the teaching and learning of sciences, which also includes education on HIV/AIDS. Aside from the obvious recreationally athletic benefits of the basketball court, the students of the sports science combination will have a better opportunity to learn and teach the sport to their fellow students and outside community as well as incorporate the sport in to the teaching of Life Skills as an example of team-building and support for one another. Through the implementation and completion of these two tasks, the National Teachers’ College will prove to be a frontrunner in the development of facilities aiding in the education and morality boost that the students of Uganda need.

I can happily say that the college has already pulled some of its weight and this past weekend (October 3rd and 4th) two staff and five students volunteers used funds acquired from the college to repaint one of the laboratories and I can tell you firsthand that it looks amazingly different from before! These are projects that need to be accomplished, and in hoping that we can quickly and efficiently finish these facelift operations, the potential to do even more in the months to come is a sincere possibility. Please, as you can see fit find your way to the website below, and if we can make these small changes below, more changes could be possible in the near future! Your help is indeed necessary and deeply appreciated by the National Teachers’ College, Kaliro.


CLICK ON ME PLEASE: Donations for Science Laboratory Refurbishment and Construction of Basketball Court at the NTC, Kaliro

I love you all...

Cheers,

Daniel Koza




The Current Basketball Court at the National Teachers' College Kaliro. Through these projects we will create a tarmac court and create improved hoops.




The completed Guidance and Counselling Office at the National Teachers' College, Kaliro which will also be used to host the developing Peace and Human Rights Club.

Granny

So it is no mystery to the lot of you that I secretly ventured back to the United States for a 3 week stint—and I must assume that the majority of you saw my journey as a gluttonous week holiday from the dirt and grime of Uganda filled with pints after pints of microbrews and as much food as the heart could take (without submitting myself to cardiac arrest). Granted, I succumbed to the copious amounts of beer and non-diabetic nutrients America has to offer, but the reasons and the eventual facts-of-life held the true weight of my sudden escape from my current life…

Amidst the mayhem of Kampala; literally climbing atop the bumpers of matatus lined up outside the old-taxi park I safely was received by the nearest sidewalk, only to find that my phone, and its existence ended by the crushing rubber of one of these vehicles-of-death as they began to move through the muddy streets. Yes; my phone was crushed by a taxi…Hectically attempting to purchase a new phone and acquire my old phone number through the incredibly incompetent and lazy employees at the Zain Point in Iganga, I began to receive numerous text messages, many of them from the United States. Granny; the mother of my mother, had succumb to an ‘accident’ and was in the hospital and I was over 7500 miles away. Of course in making the decision to spend the next 2 years of my life in a distant country—putting myself in to having potentially devastatingly emotional breakdowns due to the difficulties in communication and the lack of those specific family and friends—I could never have imagined the feelings to have entered my mind and body as they did this day and the months to come.

I felt so alone; so distant from anyone who could comfort me from the pains I was feeling. I thought I had prepared myself for this. I had talked myself through this for months that there was a chance; a fairly good chance that something would happen to someone at home. None of that mattered in the end. I could not help either to imagine what all of my family at home were feeling, those who were there to see Granny; those to witness her looking to be some sort of extra-terrestrial science experiment with tubes and monitors surrounding her frail little body. Is it not strange how something that we know to be inevitable can pain us so much? Fortunately having Lisa by my side for so much of the time allowed me to vent, allowed me to be self-depreciating from time to time, but also permitted me to find a way out of these moments. Many times I felt so alone; unable to communicate even with those who I had come to trust and call my friends here. I felt scared, alone and had to find a way out of these feelings. Many of you who know me very well know that I tend to keep my thoughts to myself, I like to keep myself and my plans hidden away often even hidden from myself. This was very much the case with my plans to return home. Thanks to the support of Lisa here in Uganda and the efforts of Sarah in the US to look online for the best way for me to get back to the US the schemes were in motion for my return to US soil. The next person to come in to the picture was my brother; who would be the last to know of my trip home until my landing in the Minneapolis International Airport. If I had myself attempted to purchase the tickets; my parents would have seen a large purchase, and my cover would have been blown, therefore my brother was the best solution to allow things to be kept quiet. Why did I want to keep my coming quiet you might ask? Especially when the route of this sudden trip home was to chase a last-ditch effort to see Granny before the inevitable? For purely selfish reasons; I wanted my time to be my time. I wanted to do with it what I deemed necessary for myself to cope with the stresses that I deal with here and all the stresses that I had dealt with since hearing of Granny’s accident. If my journey had been made known prior I would have dealt with an extensive amount of planning minute to minute the events that would take fold over the 3 week period. I would have pushed more stress on to my already frantic self and knew that to come home I would need to first and foremost make it a selfish venture…I wanted to see Granny, I felt that something would have been missing in my life and would have regretted it had I not come back. At this point nobody else mattered and having made the trip already I would not have changed at all how it had been done.

Amazingly I was graced by many kind souls on my nearly 36 hours of traveling back to Portland…

Sitting between and aid worker from the UK and a grad-student from Zimbabwe on her way to volunteer in the UK for 6 months, I had the comfort of 2 complete strangers, to talk to and learn about different perspectives on our lives and to suddenly feel alive again, able to communicate with someone other than my own inner dialogue.

The waitress at the bar in Heathrow airport in London might have thought I was crazy, but to me she was such a comfort. Sitting idly at a table with a limited number of pounds to my name, I saw a quaint little couple on the end of their honeymoon walk to their table each holding a large glass of water. I was confused, for the life of me I could not recollect if water was free, or if it was safe to drink, or how to even approach receiving such a life-saving liquid. I had grown so accustomed to boiling water or treating it chemically or buying expensive bottled water that I could not accurately comprehend whether or not the water could be free. I slowly approached the bar and asked hesitantly if water was free or not. The waitress kind of snickered and assured me that it was free and even stepped up to the plate by offering me a cute little lemon wedge in this cool glass of goodness. I sauntered to my table, carefully carrying this first sense of reverse-culture shock and began to tear up, as I couldn’t help but to feel that I had forgotten how things work at home.

And nothing could have prepared me for this last woman, and I wish that I could somehow express to her how much this meant to me at this time. Maybe one day she will come across this page, in all likelihood she has completely forgotten about me, but this was just amazing. As I wandered through the Minneapolis International Airport, having just spent nearly 30 hours of flying from Uganda to Kenya, then Kenya to London/Heathrow and London/Heathrow to Minneapolis, I found myself without any money at all. The few Ugandan Shillings I had could not be exchanged, and I was remaining with only a few pence from London, therefore I figured I was left to pace the terminals for the next 4 hours before I took off, and still no one knew that I was coming back to Portland except for my brother who I could not even call because I had no money. Glossy-eyed and overwhelmed by the extravagant airport storefronts and restaurants, I found a set of payphones, which I figured this is the time that I should call Anna and let her know that I was coming home, and would be arriving in nearly 7 hours. Reading the instructions on the phone it said that long distance calls were 25 cents a minute. After carefully approaching a gentleman, telling him of my plight and needing to make a phone call, he granted me my wish of on quarter. I attempted the call and soon found that there was a $1.00 minimum, so I was SOL and couldn’t get myself to go around and find 3 more quarters to make this call. Feeling defeated and having this lone quarter in my pocket, I found a woman sitting on a bench quietly and something came to me that this was the woman who would help me. I approached her softly, describing my situation having just come from Uganda, having no money, and the only thing that I needed to do was make one phone call to my sister to tell her so that she could pick me up in Portland. For much of the past few months I had been stupidly planning to arrive in Portland at 11.30pm without anyone knowing, make my way to a Denny’s on public transport, and wait for daylight to walk to my parents’ house. At this point I knew I wanted someone to be there to find me. The woman at the Minneapolis Airport looked at me as if I was crazy, and claimed to me that her phone battery was dead. I said to her ‘Miss, but as you have your phone plugged in to the wall to charge it is possible to make a call at the same time’ and at this point I think somewhere in her she took me as not being some devious young craftsman but just desperate to finally break the silence, and tell someone that I was coming home. Not knowing that she had blocked her number as I pulled out my phone from Uganda and read her my sister’s phone number to call her, she handed me the phone and fortunately my sister did indeed pick up this (unknown number)! Thinking that I was simply playing some game, my sister did not believe that I was actually in the Minneapolis Airport but soon she came to her own senses. As I did not want to infringe on this woman’s generosity to allow me to use her phone, I made the conversation as quick as possible, and as looking up could see this woman having one of the most genuine, sincere smiles on her face, finally knowing for sure that she had helped me in such an uncanny way and that I was by no means going to run off with her phone. As I finished talking to Anna, the woman offered me her phone to call anyone else I wanted to call, but having overcome the stress and pressure of having held in this little secret for nearly 2 months, I was so relieved that I just wanted to then again, but happily have my piece of mind and not break in to conversation with others. Then the woman, out of the blue asked if I had any money, and saying know she immediately pulled out her purse and gave me more than enough money to purchase a hamburger dinner and a drink at the airport while also apologizing that was all that she had. I could not believe what had just happened, how sweet this woman had been and to have been so generous. I couldn’t help myself, but I immediately reached in to my bag to give the only material item I had, the only thing I could think of, but a paper bead necklace from Uganda, which she eventually accepted, and giving her a hug walked away feeling so much better about this world that I had just flown back in to.

The rest is history; history to be told at a later time. I made my way to Portland, friends and family surprised as ever heard of my being there and I was able to spend time and talk of all of our stories. More importantly I was able to be there for Granny; and even more so for myself. I spent weeks with her, seeing her trying albeit struggling to regain all that she had lost. Everything she had created though was right in front of her. All of her family coming, giving there all to help her get stronger, even though we all knew eventually our efforts would be defeat by some Greater Force. From her bed with all the tubes and monitors she made her way to taking steps, making jokes asking questions and showed an eagerness to pull through to the next day, but something else was calling her. You could tell she was tired, you could tell her body was tired, you could tell that it could be any day. I left America, back to Uganda, where my life was waiting, where so much in me had changed on May 27th. By June 10th Granny was away from the confines of hospitals and elderly homes. She was removed from the hands of a world determined to prolong life whether or not it could be considered a happy life. Granny was back at 1023, in Portland, an address coincidentally identical to her birthday of October 23rd. The home that I grew up in for 18 years and the home that my parents have lived in for 30 and now Granny’s place to call home before she left us. In the wee hours of June 13th, Granny left us to that Greater Force. She left it at home, with her family and love all around her. I so wished that I could have been there; but had I not gone to her before I could not have had her look at me and recognize me, to talk to me to hear her tell me that she loved me, and I could not tell her the same in this capacity. Had I not gone back I would have regretted my entire decision to have come, I would have felt a constant pain and pressure in me, that I do not know if there would have been any remedy for.

I love you Granny…


The picture above is a picture from Uganda. The afternoon of June 13th, shortly after I was informed of Granny’s passing, I placed this flower in to the waters of the Sipi River in remembrance of Granny…

I Stepped on an Airplane in Uganda and Ended up in Portland in Oregon

I sauntered through the Customs Desk at Entebbe International Airport and immediately headed towards the seats near the eventual boarding gate...

I walked along the tarmac, up the stairs in to the Boeing 757 and waited patiently in my seat...

36 hours (16 of that layovers), 6 miniature bottles of wine, 5 international airports and 1 phone call to my sister allowed everyone at home in the US know that I was back on American soil—and was a surprise to everyone but myself.







To be continued...

Imbalu- 17th December 2008

GRAPHIC CONTENT!!! WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK

Hello All! Here is an extended version of the Imbalu Circumcision Ceremony in Mbale, Uganda. The the second two of the three boys are sons of my colleague, Mabonga Deowood at the National Teachers' College Kaliro while the other is a nephew. The boys names, in order of appearance are: Deek, Bernard and Ambrose. Thank you to Mabonga Deowood for allowing this footage to be available.

Beautiful

Walking out the door
I find the skies
Caught my eyes
And I want more

Someday I'll return
Find you gone
When it's all done
I'll cure that burn

But when it comes down to this
The best thing that we can all do
Is to try, and do and live for ourselves
Leaving you alone is not what I meant
Because in leaving you found yourself
So let's try this again and see anew

Call with no answer
Losing the hope
You have no scope
To be a dancer

On the day I come
You've found yourself
Our things on the shelf
That'll be our sum

But when it comes down to this
The best thing that we can all do
Is to try, and do and live for ourselves
Leaving you alone is not what I meant
Because in leaving you found yourself
So let's try this again and see anew

Marching Bands of Kampala: The Last Year in Motion

Marching Bands of Kampala
Walking from the taxi park up to Kampala road one day I heard a lot of commotion...tada! A Marching Band was walking right down Kampala road! This happens, oddly enough, from time to time that a marching band for some cause or another is just cruising on down the road. Actually I get excited every time I do see this, but the sound that is being produced (much to the sad condition most of the instruments are in) is as if it has come from some 1960s Soviet Propaganda film...





Driving to Kaliro
This is just a short clip of the drive between Iganga and Kaliro. Not much to it, just givin' you all a little glimpse what the villages look like.




A Rainy NTC, Kaliro
From my office window, I became stuck for a few hours until I could go home because of the torrents of rain that were disturbing me!




Dancing
In my first few weeks here at the National Teachers' College, Kaliro, I was treated to nearly 8 hours (it was a long day indeed) of the music students of NTC, Kaliro performing for their end of year exams. This is just a short little clip, but believe me when I tell you I have nearly 3 hours of footage from this day!




The Library at NTC, Kaliro
This is the library at NTC, Kaliro. Also this video was taken just after we began to transport all the textbooks donated graciously to the college by KPCB and Mari Baker.




Burn Piles
Just me...burning my trash...acting dumb like I usually do.

Sunsets and Textbooks

Local Brew Break:
Lisa, myself and some of the staff at the National Teachers College, Kaliro are taking an evening to relax from our busy days out and about. We are drinking local brew (malwa) which is made from millet and drank from a communal pot with long straws. The local brew, especially to someone who has not become accustomed to the taste might describe the taste as warm, watery bread, but many people after taking a few times find at least some pleasure in relaxing and bantering over some malwa. These drinking circles often last for hours...




New Books:
After transporting the books to the Library at the NTC, Kaliro, many staff and students took an opportunity to get themselves acquainted with the new materials. Next to me are the librarians whom were marking the books with the college's stamp so that they are officially marked as being owned by the college, so to avoid unwarranted theft of the materials. NOTE: I was not intending to be pointing at the camera, the picture was just taken at the most inopportune time!




Students Aiding with Book Donation
Thanks to the many efforts of the people at KPCB and Mari Baker, a generous donation of textbooks was awarded to the National Teachers' College, Kaliro. Here we have a number of students taking time out of their day to help with transporting and organising the books at the college. The excitement on their faces in peering in to the bags was amazing and seeing these students (and staff) so enthralled in new materials was incredible.




Sunset over the River Nile:
The River Nile and its Mother Sun setting...I think that is all I need to say.

Zanzibar!!!

Jambiani "Resort" Restaurant: Last morning at the Shehe Bungalows (NEVER STAY THERE) before heading to Stonetown for a couple of days. No one can deny the beauty (of us and) the Indian Ocean...



PALACE MUSEUM-STONETOWN: Me atop the Palace Museum overlooking the Indian Ocean in Stonetown, Zanzibar Island, Tanzania. The salt-water really did a number on my hair, making it frizz out for the next few weeks.


NEW YEARS EVE: Taking our dinner and drinks with the strong coastal winds flowing in, we were all preparing to countdown to 2009! As 3 of us set our cameras up next to eachother on timer some women with her 'man' ten feet further back must of thought we were all incredibly attractive people or something because she proceeded to also take a picture of us with her camera.


A ZANZIBAR SUNRISE: Although looking like a sunset, this was our first sunrise in Zanzibar! The mornings would always be calm and surreal with the sun rising and the nights would bring strong winds and a choppy sea.


MT. KILIMANJARO AIRPORT: Our flight went from Uganda to Mt. Kilimanjaro Airport to Dar es Salam to Zanzibar...So we had about a 30 minute wait on the tarmac in Kilimanjaro to wait to fly out, and unfortunately when we were flying I was on the other side of the plane so I could not get a good picture of the mountain...

Christmas Hens and Footballs

A WHITE CHRISTMAS: The closest we could come to having a white Christmas was for me to sit outside my window and sprinkle ashes in front of the window and peer out...kind of sad, huh?!


MAKING COOKIES: Much of Christmas Eve day was spent making cookies on this sigiri with Lisa..Honestly we were as American as we could be often just sitting and eating the cookie dough uncooked until we could make another batch...


THE GIFT OF A CHICKEN: In Mbale, prior to the Imbalu ceremony, a Mzee had his children come and thank me with the gift of a chicken. Just months prior I had filmed and documented his children's ceremony and created for him a DVD video that the village could show in their videohouse, and were incredibly happy. This chicken though, sadly, had its life come to an end on Christmas Day...it was rather tasty I tell you!


MZEE'S CHICKEN GIVERS: These were the children whom I had filmed in August, and along with my colleague from the NTC Mabonga on the right, we took to his village in Mbale again for his children's ceremony just after I was given the chicken.


FOOTBALLS:Thanks to a generous donation from home, the NTC acquired nearly 40 soccer balls, pumps, jerseys and socks for their use in Sports Science and generally conditioning and play. Myself along with many of the ministers from the college and college staff are here excitedly displaying the amazing gifts!

Giardia and Hope for USA

So 2008 came and went faster than I could have ever imagined. Just nearly a year ago I was sitting in Corvallis, Oregon, wondering where my life was going to take me. Yes in essence the decision had been made to move to Uganda and join the United States Peace Corps for the next 26 months of my life, but there was absolutely no way to honestly foresee what my life had in store for me. Absolutely no regrets enter my mind on the decision to have taken this giant leap in the journey that I call my life. From Oregon to Australasia and now to Africa the years have taken me and I cannot imagine having taken any other road. Even me, I look back at decision that I have made over the years and how they could have, and would have altered where I stand right now…What if I had not transferred from USF to OSU. What if I had not left New Zealand to finish things up at OSU and move on with things? The fact is none of that happened, and looking back is the wrong way to go, and pushing forward is the best laid plan.
My time spent thus far in Uganda has been one of the most compelling and fulfilling experiences of my life and the end is no nearer than when I began and that is a good thing. True at times I wish I could run to a Taco Bell and gourd myself off the ‘Dollar menu”; I wish I could spend a Sunday evening Monte Carlo Bowling or even spending an entire evening and night filling my house and roommates nasal cavities with the smell of hops and barley as I brewed some new ale, but God only knows what sorts of things in 16 months I will crave and desire. Maybe I will crave Posho (which for those of you who do not know is a mixture of ground maize and water cooked to a consistency of an ever-too thick mashed potatoes-and incredibly bland at that) and beans for a meal, or maybe I will crave Matooke (which again is green, unsweetened bananas steamed to a mashed potato consistency). Who knows what the world will hold for me! But enough of this philosophical nonsense, now to tell you whatever comes to my head from the past few months.
I think the last time I really wrote anything or posted anything was right around when the election was going on, and amazingly in just under a week another historical point, the Oath of Office for President-elect Obama! So next week I plan to meet up with a few other volunteers at a guest house that has promised us to have CNN on all night for us so that we can sit on the edge of our seats, eyes tearing and mouths hanging open for the all-too-surreal moment when we officially have a new president! In fact I am getting the chills at this moment just thinking about it! Back to the past couple months though…School ended for the holiday break in early December, and this is also when the in-service students come to take classes. The past two in-service terms I have taught these students, but with all the chaotic stressful hard-work put in during the first 8 months of being at site, I was much in need of a change of pace. I opted to take a ‘holiday’ as well, and hold off teaching again until the ‘normal’ students returned in mid-February. During that time though I have still done quite a bit and kept myself busy.
Again I attended Imbalu (Circumcision Ceremony) in Mbale district, only this time two of the candidates were the children of one of my friend and colleague at the NTC. Such an incredible experience, and again soon I will have photos and video of the experience. I was also treated to a gift of a chicken, which is an honor to be given as a gift. The family who I had spent most of my time taking photos and filming the first time around in August presented me with a chicken for providing them with photos and videos of their ceremony. The Mzee (elder) of the family was so grateful and thankful, it is rare for someone, especially in the village there to have visual documentation of their life there, and especially of such globally-unique tradition. After spending a couple of days in Mbale, it was nearly a week until Christmas was to arrive.
For Christmas Lisa, the other volunteer in Kaliro, and myself chose to remain in town and celebrate at the NTC with my neighbors. Greg also made an appearance, so we could show the Ugandans some of our traditions. Christmas even we spent drinking local brew (I think there is a picture on this blog of me sitting around a pot with others, drinking an odd-looking substance) which is a a locally-brewed alcohol made out of millet and yeast and is drank around a communal pot with long straws. While drinking this brew with my neighbors we sat and watched African music videos and weird-boy band music videos from the UK and chatting while slowly realizing that the local brew was going to our heads! Ugandans love music videos, and could sit for hours watching the same ones over and over! After a nice little meal of pork and potatoes and greens, Greg, Lisa and I made our way back to my house for a good nights rest before a long day of cleaning and cooking commenced on Christmas Day. An early start to Christmas Day was necessary as in the late afternoon a family from Lisa’s organization was going to be coming over for supper. After spending the day cleaning every nook and cranny (actually we got lazy and didn’t do that much cooking), slaughtering a couple of chickens, boiling potatoes and eating deviled eggs, all while having the movie A Chistmas Story going on in the background, we successfully made enough food for 8 people, and had a nice meal! Even Gizmo, my cat, was provided with his own plate of food, which the locals looked at me like I was crazy giving Gizmo a plate of chicken and mashed potatoes! And so Christmas came and went, oddly enough, and was difficult as ever to believe that I had just celebrated Christmas. The boxes from home containing Christmas lights, and decorations refused to arrive, and the best I could do for a tree was some random bush that was growing in my front yard that had these little red berries on it…it was worse than a Charlie Brown Christmas tree!!!!
Anyway with Christmas come and gone, it was time to prepare for my next holiday in Zanzibar! Zanzibar is a small island off the coast of Tanzania where about 12 of use were going to vacation over the New Years’ holiday. Now slowly during Christmas I had begun to feel somehow tired, and my appetite was small and disappearing as the days progressed. Come the evening of the 27th, I did not sleep a wink! Nearly every 10 minutes I was up running to the toilet, fearing that some sort of bodily fluids were going to escape me! The pains in my stomach and the extreme water loss from the flushing of my intestines was somehow making me delirious…then I burped, and I swore that my burp smelled like rotten eggs…Giardia?! The next morning, after consulting my doctor, I acquired a few days worth of medication to cure what we assume was Giardia. Now Giardia is common, but to me from that point, and even in to being in Zanzibar surprised me how I could wake up feeling almost 100%, and then by the early afternoon was exhausted and even water going down my throat was painful and made me feel nauseas…now that I have that story out there, a little side note: I was going to be descript with this story, but I will leave this for your imagination…We have this saying in the Peace Corps that you are not officially a Peace Corps Volunteer until you have ‘crapped’ your pants; well I became an official Peace Corps Volunteer while walking…yes walking to the taxi park to head to Entebbe…
So Zanzibar! I must say it was strange getting on to an airplane! Felt like a completely different world. Every time in Kaliro that I hear an airplane I look up and am excited when I see them! Our flight stopped off in Mt. Kilimanjaro, Dar es Salaam then made its way to Zanzibar! We had an incredible view of Mt. Kilimanjaro and finally arriving in Zanzibar was such a relief! Immediately we made our way on a few special hire taxis to Stonetown to get a bit of money then made our way to Jambiani! Now I will not go until all the little weird stories that went on, as this entry is already long enough, but after a few struggles in getting our reservations and bookings settled, which just like how things go here in Africa aren’t always as solidified as they should be. Let me just say that our group ended out splitting in half due to accommodation issues, even though all of us had booked rooms. This ended out working fine though as having smaller groups of 7 worked out better, so we were less dependant and stressed in trying to get everyone together for meals and activities! Much of my time in Zanzibar which is amazingly gorgeous was spent lying in the sun, swimming in the beautiful turquoise Indian Ocean and walking the white sand beaches to find different little restaurants and shops. We also went out snorkeling on a dhow one day which was amazing! The water was so warm and at low tide the surf was nearly a kilometer out, so often we would walk out nearly a kilometer from the beach and find swimming holes to relax in. One day we came across a large group of children running and screaming! We noticed that they had caught a large snake maybe 8 feet long and much thicker than a grown mans fist and they had it tied around the neck with a rope and were running, dragging it along the ground. Unfortunately I was not able to get the exact story of all this, but the children would continuously run and jump over the snake and would try to make it touch people, but they would all get freaked out. When Eric and I approached the children they began to chase us with the snake and tried to make it touch us, but we successfully leapt over it! After sometime they began to dig a small little trench as if they were going to bury it in the sand, but then they stopped and started dragging it around more, which by that point we left. After about 5 days in Jambiana we left to go to Stonetown, which is the historical little town on Zanzibar island with amazing winding streets and architecture. We spent a couple nights here as we walked the streets and shops and were as much tourists as everyone else, even though we had just flown a few hundred miles to get here! It was amazing to finally be in Zanzibar and to eat seafood! Being in Uganda one does not really get seafood, so being able to have fresh prawns, calamari and octopus was amazing! If one ever goes to Zanzibar you must check out the night street food where there are tables upon tables of seafood for an amazing price! We stuffed ourselves two nights here until finally we had to wake up, and jump on a plane back to Uganda! Also on the last day in Stonetown, I was just taking a walk along the beach when I was confronted by a police officer telling me I had to turn around a leave. I was confused as ever, but it happens that I had walked on to the premises of the house on Zanzibar of the President of Tanzania…Of course no photography was allowed and I was immediately forced to leave!
So…wow…back in Uganda, was that all just a dream in Zanzibar?! Did that all really happen?! Of course it did, and in a heartbeat I would do it again! So back here in Uganda means back to work, back to the old life, back to the village, and although difficult to return to this world, it was surprisingly comfortable and was not shocking at all, which makes me feel happy. The feeling to me shows how comfortable and happy (in many ways ) I have come to be here in Uganda and how it truly does feel like I live here, not just visiting here. In about 5 weeks school will reconvene but until then I still do have much work to accomplish. In thank to all of your hard work my project was fulfilled and I am able to access the funds to complete the renovation of our Guidance and Counselling Office at the college. We have also received a very generous donation of textbooks which will be amazingly helpful to the students and staff at the NTC.
I just want to thank everyone for their hard work too in making many of my and my counterparts visions here in Uganda come true! Without all of you this would not be possible! If you truly did read through this whole message I thank you and if you did not, I still thank you for having at least supported me sometime in my life, because that is probably while you were directed to this page in the first place! Happy holidays to everyone again and I will write more soon, when we have a new president! Feel free, like usual to send me any questions you have, and I will do my best to answer them!

Cheers!

Life Skills Training

Here we are working on an activity at our Life Skills Training in Kampala. We were all told to draw an animal with using any words, and only actions. The difficulty typically was the group trying to agree on an animal because usually everyone has their own idea of what they want, fortunately ours came pretty easy and we all worked well creating our gorilla!