Gas Stove Adventures and More

I almost singed off my eyebrows last night. In order to light the gas stove, you turn on the gas, light a match, and then you have a fire. My problem is having the necessary coordination to turn on the gas and light a match at approximately the same time. It’s a lot harder than it seems.

Attempt #1: Could not light the match. I’ve never been good at it, and I usually opt for a lighter. I broke 2 matches.

Attempt #2: Match is lit. Turning the gas on required a little more effort than I realized (I learned to push in and twist to the right), but by the time I turned the gas on, the flame was burning my fingers.

Attempt #3: I tried turning on the gas and then lighting the match. I leaned in, lit the stoe and WHOOSH! Way too much gas. I made a fire ball rather than a flame and could feel the flames almost licking my face. I had to double check that I still had eyebrows. I did, but I learned my lesson on sticking my face too close to the stove. Then as I tried to turn the gas down, I accidentally turned it off completely.

Attempt #4: Light match. Turn on gas slowly. Light gas with match while keeping my face far from the stove. Success!!! I thoroughly enjoyed my noodles after all that work.

As for work, I’ve been working on database templates for the M&E tools the community health workers will be filling out for their clients. I have to code certain parts of the tools in order for them to be graphed, and make sure I make the databases straight forward so I can teach the community-based organizations (CBOs) to use them. The point is to help the CBOs build up their M&E capacity and help them create a sustainable system to use even after our program is over. As always, I am quickly learning that this is easier said than done.

I’ve been reading a great book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn. The book focuses on three significant abuses women face throughout the world: sex trafficking and forced prostitution, gender-based violence, and maternal mortality. The authors emphasize how fighting global poverty needs to involve empowering women and helping them contribute to their economies. I highly recommend it.

Learning to Cook

My culinary skills are limited but I'm learning while here in Uganda! I didn't burn the house down!

Making cabbage on a charcoal stove at my supervisor's house.

Rains Down in Africa

We had a light thunderstorm today, which was a very pleasant change from the intense dust we experience in Sembabule. Any time a car or a boda flies down the road, it is followed by a large cloud of red African dust. It is a delightful experience to walk in, especially when you're wearng white. Now with some rain, the temperatures have noticeably cooled and there is less dust!

Instead of having the weekend off, we trained community health workers on how to use M&E (Monitoring & Evaluation) tools that were created. 40-some community health workers squeezed into a primary school room with their tiny desks for several hours of training. It was fun watching how my supervisor keep people engaged and participating throughout the day. There are rhythmic clapping sequences and stretching exercises. This was especially helpful after lunch! I was mostly an observer, since my grasp of Luganda is limited to "Hello, my name is... Welcome home. Thank you very much. How much is this?" But it has been a very interesting learning experience; I only wish I understood what people were saying. Then I could be of more help.

MILK. If you want milk here, you get it straight from the cow. Well actually it’s straight from the cow shack. There is a white shack here that has the words “FRESH MILK” painted in black on it, where you go to buy your milk. It is fresh cow’s milk; no skim, 1%, or 2% here! When you take the milk home, you have to boil it multiple times to ensure that you don’t get brucellosis (which by the way, presents much like malaria- fevers, headaches, etc). Bring your milk to a rolling boil at least three times: boil, lift off heat, cool a little, boil again, lift off, cool, boil, lift off, and cool. No brucellosis here!

Jessica vs. Bob the Frog

Last night, I found a little visitor in my room. Since there was no power and out of the corner of my eye, I see something bouncing across the floor, I may or may not have panicked a little. After I flashed a light on it, I saw that it was a small yellowish-green tree frog. I followed it around my room for a while, just staring at it, watching it breathe, and talking to it. I named him Bob. He seemed harmless enough, but I didn’t really want a sleeping companion or it to jump onto my mosquito net in the middle of the night. So I searched for a way to get it out of my room. Now if I was not so much of a chicken, I probably would have taken my dad’s suggestion: covered my hand with a plastic bag and grabbed it. But as a child, I was never the adventurous one to touch slimy, mushy, cool-looking amphibians, insects, and worms. It hasn’t changed much now that I’m older (I have to interact with them, I’d rather do it at a zoo or even as a piece of food to eat.). Bob seemed to know I was after him and jumped into spaces in the room that were impossible for me to reach. After looking around my room to see what the best tool to shoo a frog from my room, I decided upon the spatula I bought the other day. With a spatula in hand, some screaming/shrieking on my part, and much panic on Bob’s part, I started herding Bob toward the door. He landed on the toilet paper, the boxes of gifts I brought to take to people, squeezed between the wall and my bed, climbed onto part of my bed, was on the wall, under the bed, and even in my purse at one point. Finally I slowly prodded him out the door. Bye Bob!

Thus ended my entertainment for the night without electricity

Settling In

(Written July 22) About an hour after I posted on the blog yesterday, the power went off. So much for the electricity excitement. Actually it’s not too bad. It kind of comes and goes. Sometimes we have power. Sometimes we don’t. Hey, it’s better than no power. I just know to charge the necessary items whenever I know the power is going.

Last night, I was kindly invited to my supervisor’s home. She is staying in a house here in Sembabule, but she also has a home in Kampala. It seems like many of the people who work out here have similar living situations. My supervisor has a daughter staying with her who is only a little older than I am. She is about to enter her fifth and final year of medical school (the medical school system works differently in Uganda than in the US). She was a lot of fun to talk to. She taught me a little Ugandan geography, discussed the process of how Ugandans get engaged, and shared how Ugandans love to party and enjoy life. We flipped through pictures of her family and friends on her laptop, listened to some fantastic South African music, and watched a Tyler Perry movie. I really enjoyed getting to know her.

As for the work I am doing in Uganda, it’ll be constantly evolving. But as for right now, I will be working on a PEPFAR (President’s Emergency plan for AIDS Relief) funded grant that is meant to improve HIV/AIDS care, prevention and testing by increasing the capacity of local organizations to reach people living with HIV/AIDS (PHA) and orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). If there’s one thing I need to do while I’m here, it’s to learn many, many acronyms. My project is just starting to collect baseline data, so we have lots of paperwork that has been translated from English to Luganda. These forms will be distributed to community caregivers (CCGs) to help use collect information from the PHAs and OVCs in the community. Later I should be working with a family planning/ child spacing program that is aimed to increase information, knowledge, and access to family planning methods in rural Uganda. “Family planning” has a certain stigma attached to it when discussed in the community, so we use the phrase “child spacing,” which seems to be better accepted.

The day has started here in Uganda with no power, but I learned my lesson and charged everything last night that needed electricity. Now I never know if I should end this saying good night or good morning, but I guess it all depends on where you are reading from. So, to those on the other side of the Atlantic, sula bulungi!!!

Maganda Uganda

As a tribute to my almost trip to the Philippinnes, "maganda" means beautiful in Tagalog. And it is true. Uganda is beautiful. Yesterday I traveled to the site where I will be living from now on. The drive passed through the Ugandan countryside which is amazing. Green trees and rolling hills make for gorgeous scenery. The drive was typical of Africa, but brought a smile to my face anyway. Most of the way, we traveled on a one lane, dirt road that fits a vehicle comfortable. Now if you see another car coming at you from the other directions, it is quite a squeeze to bypass each other. There are bumps and then there are speed humps. Yes, humps. They are American speedbumps on mega steroids. They are intense to drive over and make sleeping nearly impossible unless you can sleep like the dead. Also there are holes everywhere. Therefore drivers swerve to miss the giant ones and just drive over the small ones. Drives here are always an adventure. I have learned this: drink as little water as possible- bathroom breaks are difficult to come by; try not to eat anything- better to feel hungry than to get carsick and vomit on the side of the road. I finally arrived at Ssembabule last night, a fairly remote town about 4 hours away from Kampala that sits at the top of a hill.

I have my own room in the enclosed office compound, which is rather nice because I got to truly unpack for the first time since I've been here. I finally dug out my sunscreen! And impressively nothing exploded in my bags except for my shampoo. Good thing my mom was smart and wrapped everything in individual plastic bags! Thanks Mom!! We don't have a refridgerator, so I drank an entire quart of juice last night that needed to be refridgerated after opening. Finding out how to live without a refridgerator will be quite interesting. I'll just have to be creative! There is no running water here, but I got a jerry can full of water to bathe with and to use for any other needs. We have pit latrines to use, which make me smile. They are an adventure to use. The ones here are pleasant smelling, which was a fantastic surprise.

Today is Day 1 in Sembabule. I had chapati and fresh passionfruit for breakfast. Chapati is just fantastic. It's essentially dough that is rolled flat. Sort of like Indian naan but thinner. Fresh, hot, and delicious. I sat at the front of the office and ate. I got to watch all the children walking to school and became the main attraction. "Mzungu mzungu mzungu!!" I just waved and smiled. Today at the office, I have been copying Luganda by hand on about 100 sheets of paper. We printed about 700 registration sheets for OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children) to be used for our project, but they didn't print correctly. Thus I am filling in the missing information by hand. I have severe writer's cramp, so I'm taking a break and am able to use the internet.

Observations of Uganda

Since I have been to Uganda before, some of the cultural differences between here and the USA are not as shocking to me. But they still take a little getting used to. I spent my entire day with American students yesterday, and the topic of different frustrations and marvelings of Ugandan culture came up.

An example:
People here do not use future tense. It seems like there is no differentiation between the future in one hour or the future in one day. For example, if you ask a taxi driver how much farther your trip will take before arriving at your desired location, they will either be confused on what you are asking or the answer will be a random amount of time "20 minutes." Whether that 20 minutes is a true 20 minutes or 1 hour and 20 minutes is left to be discovered. I have always been taught to set goals for the future and work slowly to reach those goals. That mindset does not seem to exist here, at least I have not seen it. It can be rather frustrating when you are trying to make plans. As an American, I have to remember to exercise a lot of patience.

Ugandans are, for the most part, very helpful to foreigners. When I'm wandering around lost, people will kindly give me directions. When a taxi driver tries to rip me off, other passengers will tell me how much they're paying so I can pay the same amount. I really appreciate it!