Life in Uganda

After the hour and a half taxi ride (with several close calls) we made our way to Butebbe, in Mukono Town. Our home is on the second floor of a concrete building. The lower level has two shops—one a general store, the other a clothing store, with a woman always hard at work sewing beautiful material. Many crafts are sold outside including mats, baskets, chairs, and wicker dressers. A few women are normally outside weaving mats all day. Esther, our housemaid and one of my new dear friends, taught me (tiff) how to weave. She is working on a large mat for her family. Esther is busy cooking, cleaning the wash room, and washing clothes. She let me go to the market with her, where we bought all of the produce that we needed for today and tomorrow. On the way back from the market we rode boda bodas (me for the first time). I feel like a celebrity; the little children love to wave at bazungu (white people) and get waved at. They are so precious. My two favorite little girls that come and play with us at the house our Natalee and Christine; they go to the school that I will be teaching at. We’ve spent many fun times with them already—and it’s only been two days!

Chris and I are getting used to the new ways of bathing and going to the bathroom. The latrine is the wooden shack-like place outside that we go to the bathroom. There are two blocks that you stand on and squat. I want to be a boy sometimes. This may be the least enjoyable part of out trip, because of the smell and . . .cockroaches. Yes, there were three cockroaches, each about two square inches, resting in front of me while I was trying to go to the bathroom. Bathing is done in a 5x5 concrete room. We each have our own plastic basin, in which we pour water from the jerry cans. Then we wash with a cloth or splash it onto our bodies. Washing my hair is the most difficult part. Living without running water isn’t too bad. Every morning all of the kids go down to the water and fill up their jerry cans. Esther gets our jerry cans for us; she is buff.