learning

What I learned in Uganda so far; How to ride a boda boda with just holding on with my legs. And I learned how to wash my clothes by hand. I guess im doing an ok job considering the water turns a reddish brown color. But have you ever tried to get red dirt out of white socks? And don’t hang your clothes out the day your neighbors plan on burning the garbage. I have to wash most of those clothes again cuz they got smoked instead of dried. The soap is the same for dishes and clothes and floor. One soap cleans all. Also, geckos bite. Not hard or pinchy, but they do bite. I caught a medium size gecko who was crawling around my clothes while they dried. I wanted to wait till a bigger one since I was scared I would crush a little one just by picking it up. So I caught a decent size one, and it bit me. Wretch. i have learned how to understand ugandan accents. how to be ok with being the center of attention. how to ride a boda sidesaddle when wearing a skirt (not very often). how to spot someone planning to pick my pocket. how to bargain for a non-mzungu price. ill never be as good as john paul and bryce, but getting better. how to keep a straight face when something stuns me.

like the other night; we came home in the dark and everytime we walked under a light, there was a literal cloud of bugs. they were so thick that we could see the air currents inside the cloud. when i got to my room, i found that maureen had left the light on for me. therfore a cloud of bugs inhabited my room. i managed to clear my bed of most of the bugs, but getting all of them was impossible. the mosquitoes had a field day with my skin that night. the next day i asked maureen about it and asked that she turn off the light when she goes to sleep so it doesnt attract bugs. thats when she told me she didnt know the light attracted bugs at night. that revelation stunned me.

It isn’t paradise here. Being in Uganda is cool and all. its beautiful for sure. But not all goes well. Getting tools here is probably the hardest. If it isn’t cheap Chinese sub-standard equipment, its second hand and might not work. Also, the plug-ins might short. You can get good tools if you shop at the south African store and spend 2 or more times the price in America. The lumber here is another problem. Its hardwood which has been rough hewn to generally the right size, generally being the key word in that sentance. The sides might not be parallel or straight. And 2x4s aren’t really 2x4. They are bigger and heavier. One 2x4 here weighs as much as 5 or 6 2x4s in the states. Good luck drilling thru one by hand, or pounding a nail thru the wood.

All of us are seeing first hand how to accomplish logistics better. Do you have any idea how much food 10 construction workers can eat? Maureen is busy all day just cooking for us. Food, transportation, materials, power, tools, etc. any one of these things and a dozen others can go wrong and interrupt work. Also, we have to buy all our water for drinking. Sheesh, we could have one person permanently in charge of fixing issues that delay us. None of us want that job placed solely on our shoulders. So we all work at it, but there is no way to “fix” a day of storms or a power outage. Our site is fully uncovered, so any rain delays us. And sorry everyone, our internet was down again this week.