Our One Month Anniversary

How to say "Thank you very much" in just a few of the 50+ languages spoken in Uganda. Our group is divided into quite a few language groups, we have at least a few volunteers learning each of these.

I've lived in Uganda for one month today! 

It still doesn't feel real, that I live in East Africa. This has been my dream for so long, and I look around and here I am, with no return flight booked. 

We're kept very busy here with our training, so I don't have much time to think. But there are some things that just make me stop in my tracks and realize that I moved halfway around the world. 

Seeing my name next to a different phone number—especially one that begins with +256—in my contacts is strange. My Verizon phone number is suspended, I have an Africell SIM card in my phone. Data is bought on an as-needed basis here (instead of a monthly plan, like in the USA). Way back on November 14th, when we went to the mall to get our new SIM cards, buying two gigs of data to use for the next month made me feel a bit more settled. Data seems like such a small thing, but it's something tying me here—and it prompted a realization that for the whole next month, I'll be here, using this data to call my loved ones back home. 

We also received a "burner phone" from Peace Corps. It's a Nokia phone where texting is still done by pressing each number a certain amount of times (it actually reminds me of the phone that my dad stubbornly kept using until recently, when he finally agreed to get a smart phone so that he could communicate with me while I'm here, haha!). The point of this phone is that it can be used in crowded areas without fear of it being stolen. We're instructed to keep it charged and near us always, in case Peace Corps needs to contact us. So here, I have two phones, two phone numbers—neither of which I've had time to memorize yet. 

We also opened bank accounts here, and I have a fancy no-fees passport (different from my personal passport) with a diplomatic visa inside it, and a Peace Corps ID. I'm really here! 

I found out today that, for the next two years, I'll be living in Eastern Uganda, teaching at a Catholic school and living inside the Catholic compound in a house next to the house that the priests live in. My house was built in the 1930s, but I've heard that it has both electricity and running water, which is exciting because there are several sites that don't have these luxuries! Also today, we started our month of intensive language training. I'm learning Ateso, a Nilotic language spoken by the Iteso people. "Yoga noi! Ejokuna, aria ijo?" That means "Hello! All is well, how are you?" 

For the next week we will be teaching in the mornings, studying language in the afternoons, and lesson planning at night. Then, in two weeks, we have our future site visits! I will travel to my future home in the East, and be able to see the area briefly and hopefully meet some of the teachers. After that I will travel to my homestay family, who I will live with for the next few weeks to gain more cultural knowledge while I continue language lessons, as the other PCVs learning Ateso will be at with homestay families nearby. 

This past month has gone by so fast! But I don't feel pressed for time... It's slowly sinking in that I live in this country now. Of course, I feel like I want to observe everything... But I also have the feeling that if I don't quite notice every detail of what's around me, that's alright too. I have time. 

My favorite tree at the last training center we lived at! We moved last week to live at a teacher's college near the primary school where we're practice-teaching.