Wild Dogs and Laundry Flies

Hey! It's good to hear news of home. I am jealous you got to cuddle with the dogs, mom. I brought all kinds of pictures of the dogs here, and the rest of the family, and then when Mama Joyce looked at the pictures I realized she pretty much hates dogs, which was a turn off for her to the pictures. She was like "I don't understand you people and your dogs." I have seen a few dogs here, but mostly wild, and it's best to avoid them. So I miss having pets...but I guess the cow could count as a pet? even though she isn't exactly petable...people don't really domesticate animals here. Even when they have farm animals, they let them run pretty wild, so I walk by lots of chickens and goats on my way to school. They just wander around, and people don't really mind them, and surprisingly, people don't seem to steal them from each other. There's even a family who keeps some ducks, even though there definitely aren't any ponds or lakes near here...just puddles.

School is going well. I am not too swamped with homework yet, but I will have quite a bit in coming weeks, starting next week and this weekend. It's a lot of reading and papers. I made a make shift calendar in my notebook to try to keep track of everything. And from what my friends who have been here before say...I should be able to get away with some skimming and strategic skipping of some reading, so we'll see. And writing papers will be hard because I am used to shutting myself away from the world and having lots of privacy and time to work...and air conditioning, oh air conditioning...but I won't have those luxuries here. I am going to need to learn some serious time management! And I'm going to figure out how to make my brain work even though it's like eighty degrees outside and I am sitting here sweating in these heavy skirts...I keep having the urge to strip, but that would be quite the scandal here. Heck, women in shorts is kind of a scandal...which is hard for me. I put shorts on the other night, in the privacy of my locked room at night, and it was the greatest feeling ever...after one week of solid skirts, I was really way to excited about the shorts. The moment was truly monumental--I guess that's part of this experience, learning how to appreciate the small things in life, like shorts and showers, toilets, toilet paper, and air conditioning.

Today is our trip into Kampala, which is the closest large city to the school. Mukono is the closest town, but it's kind of like the Frankfort to Kampala's Lousiville. We are going to get to eat at a restaurant (another thing that nearly never happens here) and I am torn between trying some crazy Ugandan food and using one of my few chances to eat a hamburger and fries. I might do a bit of shopping, but Mama Joyce says it's a bit early, so I think I'll take her advice. The other exciting thing is that I'll finally get to exchange money. So dad, the answer to your question, is I am doing great with money, because so far I pretty much haven't had any because this is our first chance to exchange. Once I exchange money, I have to pay for my books, which will put an 85,000 shilling dent (about 40-50$) in my funds, but I guess that's not bad compared to the 500$ cost of books at Milligan. When I have money, I will be able to have more minutes on my cellphone, and to eat in the canteen on campus, which has food slightly more exciting than beans and rice. And there's a lady named Lydia who makes smoothies as a business, and she's very close to the canteen, which is nice, and she's also very adamant that you buy a smoothie, which is hard when you don't have money.

This weekend will be exciting for me. Tomorrow I am going to learn to handwash my clothes, which is good timing, because most of them are dirty. But it's going to be quite the chore. You have to hand wash, hang dry, and then iron anything. The ironing part is good for looks, because Ugandans hate sloppiness of appearance, but it's also because there are these flies that will lay eggs on damp clothes, and then burrow into your skin if you wear the clothes, so ironing will kill them. So I will also be learning to iron. Being presentable is so important here and it's something I am generally not, so it's a challenge for me every morning to get up, take a basin bath, put on skirts, wash my shoes, put on jewelry....the one blessing is that makeup really isn't necessary because the climate here definitely isn't condusive to makeup. So I have that down pretty well--no makeup, Check!

Also this weekend I get to help teach Sunday school for the first time. They ask that we do some kind of service while we are here, so Mama Joyce got permission from the teachers at her church to let me help. So that's exciting. They even said they would like for me to teach the class (give the lesson) at least once, which might be kind of challenging because the kids will probably speak English at varying levels. But we'll just face that hurdle when it comes. And in one of my classes, I have to do a project, using the Bible from an African perspective, so there you go--teaching a Sunday School lesson to African children.

Well, it's time to get off of the internet and begin to read, and get ready for Kampala. And also I have to pee...and the closest hole is like a ten minute walk away on campus...