Uganda! for real this time

Well, with my health better and my email finally working I can take
some time for a post.

The rest of the trip was pretty miserable, the Addis Abada airport
was dreadfully cold (as it was outside) and then I was in the back
row of the plane, feeling sick and with a fever, where there's
bathroom and kitchen noises and smells and the seat doesn't recline.
But I got to Uganda, and I had all my luggage.

I'm in Mukono Children's Home, which is for the most part an
orphanage (sponsored by a Danish organization) that also has needy
children with one or both parents and a few who live nearby and pay
to go to school there. The grounds are modest but there are
dormatories with triple bunks (the bed wetters sleep on bottom),
gardens tended by the older students as their agriculture lessons,
the building with classrooms, a kitchen, and a few other buildings.
I'm teaching from 8:30 until 1, when they serve lunch and I go
home for mine. I'll be seeing a bit of every class, from Nursery
and Kindergarden to P-7. I decided this, because I was sick of
doing math day in and day out. Today was great fun, I did stories
and geography and then hangman with countries for P-5 and then went
and sang songs with Nursery and Kindergarden and had Nursery draw
pictures. The kids are absolutely adorable and very, very well
disciplined compared to CBW - but they do beat them here. Mostly
I'll be doing age appropriate activities, a variety of outdoor games,
indoor educational games, stories, art, etc - fun stuff.

School is half an hour's walk away, through village roads and up and
down a great big hill. Or I can take a bota-bota, passenger
motorcycles that along with minibus taxis (trotros!) comprise the
public transit here. The afternoons are free. This cafe is pretty
slow but 10 minutes from the flat, and just past here is a hotel
with a pool (and western toilet and shower that you can use as well).
There's even time for a trip into Kampala - which I did yesterday
and...

VICTORY IS MINE...on the 18th, and it could have been the 16th, in
Uganda, I purhcased a copy of Harry Potter. And finished it in 8ish
hours. And was quite disapointed in the storytelling, though not
the plot. It's my least favorite of the 6. Oh well. Still for sure
worth having bought and read so soon, and I had to force myself into
another book today so I wouldn't immediately read it again - I'm
going to take a break and then do it again in a few weeks and see
if I like it better. A sub-par Harry Potter is still a compelling
and fun read.

The volunteers here, in the more laid back situation, are more laid-
back. The flat that I'm staying in has 4 people and the house girl
who cooks 3 meals, does laundry, etc. Then there are 5ish other
volunteers in nearby villages that often stay in the empty beds on
weekends. There's plenty to do, I don't know what I've mentioned,
but gorillas are way too expensive so I'll compensate with a 3 day
safari on which people usually get to see 2-4 of the 5 big game
animals, and rafting the Nile (class 5 rapids, a waterfall) probably
my last weekend here. I expect time will fly by and it's also
just so much more relaxing and less stressful than camp. I enjoyed
and learned a lot from my time there but this is a nice way to wind
down and avoid severe culture shock when I get hime.

Comparisons...well, it's cleaner. The people are as friendly, the
men like to stare but more quietly, I find the children cute instead
of annoying when they say "Muzungo," there's plenty of tempting
cheap jewelry to spend money on as in Ghana, the capital city is
more modern and cleaner (no open sewers in the city that I've seen)
with more ice cream joints but slower internet - no broadband - and
the cars are all newer and don't look like they are about to fall
apart (did I ever mention seeing a tire fall off a taxi in Ho?).
However pedestrians have zero rights here, it makes New York City
look like a small town in the midwest and my jaywalking skills
acquired as a lifelong Bostonian are pretty useless. It's scary to
just cross the driveway of a gas station let alone a street.

I'm about out of time but I am definately enjoying myself. When I
arrived sick I was a bit pissed to be here and not home, to have to
start over, but there's no culture shock and now that I'm better and
into the swing of things it's really nice.