A Day in the Life...

Hey all!

I know you're dying to hear from me, so I thought I'd sit down and write you a nice long blog since I am in Kampala for a bit. My daily routines have changed so much in the last month, that it's hard for me to remember what is 'normal' and what isn't back home, and what shouldn't be normal to me here. So, I thought I'd give you a narrative of my daily life here in Luweero at training.

Wake up around 6:45 am to the rooster crowing his brains out. Lovely. Push aside the mosquito net and grab my toilette paper, heading for the pit latrine. Next, return the tp, wash hands with sanitizer and grab my toothe brush and paste. Pick up my nalgene which I put boiled drinking water into the night before, and head to the concrete space next to the pit latrine where I brush my teeth. Get dressed and grab some breakfast, which generally consists of avacado, green beans, and cut up spaghetti noodles with some strange but tasty reddish sauce on them. Grab my helmet and bag and jump on my bike to head to the training center.

At the training center, its 4.5 hours in the morning and another session after lunch break. Break is about an hour, and generally I head to the little stand next to the people selling fruits/veggies and grab a rolex. This lovely creation is not a watch mind you but a tortilla with an omelette wrapped in it. The omelette usually has tomatoes and onions, but sometimes even cabbage is included! Its quite the Ugandan delicacy.

Training usually ends at 5pm, and depending on my mood for the day, I'll either play volleyball, pretend like I can do yoga, or head to Travellers, the local watering hole. When finished with any of these activities, I throw my helmet on once again and bike back home. Once home, I put on my lesu (a wrap used to walk to the outdoor shower), grab my bucket and soap (thanks Dode), and grab the jerry cans that have water in them for my 'shower', and get going on my bucket bath. I'm getting really good at it now. After my bath I take tea, which is actually boiled milk with a slight discoloration from the tealeaves that it was boiled with, and wait for dinner. This always has the lovely dish of matooke involved, which is steamed plantains (so mushy and tasteless it's criminal), gnut sauce (peanuts to you), beans, rice, cassava, potatoes, etc. Mostly starches. Occasionally we have meat with the evening meal.

After eating what I can, I take my leave of the family and head for my room, where I do some homework, or more often than not reading, by flashlight and kerosene lamp. When I'm tired enough, I lock the windows, close the curtain, and tuck in the bug net so not rats or other lovely creepy crawlies can snuggle in with me for the night. Then, the process is repeated.

Oh and for those of you were worried, I am getting very good at riding my bike in a skirt. I've only flashed the entire marketplace of Luweero once.

And I"m trying to post some pictures so you can see my experiences so far. Its not easy, but I'lls ee what I can do. For now, here's one of me from this morning in front of the sunrise, with my new haircut.