Camping Wanale

Never had I ever… camped on top of a mountain. 

That changed yesterday, when some Volunteers conducted a little shindig called Wellness Weekend. 

It started on Saturday morning with some yoga… but Kara and I slept through that, whoops. We did manage to join the group at a local coffeehouse called Casa, where we were all meeting up before the hike. 

Now, Kara and I have hiked Wanale before, way back in early February, when we had first gotten to site. We barely made it up the mountain that time, and as our jobs require a lot of standing but not an exorbitant amount of physical activity, I didn’t think we were really any more in-shape than the last time we’d hiked. 

A picture I took when we hiked Mount Wanale in February (during the dry season)

Exact same angle, a picture from this hike in May (wet season)

This time, we knew we’d be camping at the top of the mountain with the rest of our group… but as we had to carry whatever we’d need, we didn’t bring many blankets. 

Our friend Miles, who is a yoga instructor and about 100 times more in-shape than I ever hope to be, was super sweet and carried our rented tent up the mountain for us, so we at least had some guaranteed shelter!

We surprised ourselves and made it up the mountain with a lot more ease (and fewer muscle aches!) than the previous time! Unfortunately, we froze our butts off that night. We’d neglected to even bring socks. Let me tell you, even on the equator, even when it’s a small mountain, the top of a mountain at night is COLD. 

However, it was a beautiful trip and definitely worth becoming a popsicle. We thawed out during the breakfast fire, and had a great hike down the mountain—although we were still wrapped in our blankets for most of it. 

Miles, on the ground. Because apparently, as great as he is at hiking, he is not equally great at getting his jeans on without first taking his shoes off. 

We cooked dinner by placing cans of beans and tomatoes close to the fire, and then mixing them together to make "chili." Sounds weird, but after a day of hiking, it was delicious!

Sunset with Leo, Karaboo, and Mike

What I get when I say "Hey guys, look cute!" haha

Wayne made it into The Pineapple Club at the top of Wanale! (membership is obtained when one eats an entire pineapple in one sitting. The pineapple must be roughly the size of the eater's head)

In-Service Training, Already?!

First, some Peace Corps jargon: In-Service Training (IST) is a meeting that PCVs in every country have roughly 3 months after Pre-Service Training (PST) ends. 

I had been looking forward to IST, because once PST ended we were spread out across the country and I hadn’t seen most of my cohort in months! 

The other fun aspect of IST is that each of us got to bring along a teacher from our school to attend the whole week of workshops with us. We were encouraged to bring our counterpart, which is the teacher that the school assigned to be our main resource at the school, answering all of the random questions that an American thrown into the Ugandan school system is bound to have. Mine, of course, is Rosemary (who I’ve posted about on this blog before). She was delighted to attend with me, especially since the town where we were having the training was across the country—about 9 hours of travel from the Eastern village where we live—and she’d never been there before! She's incredibly dedicated to her pupils as humans, not just as learners or students at school, and I'm learning so much from her. 

Rosemary and I, together in Masaka!

We stayed at a hotel in Masaka and our trainings covered a variety of topics—everything from a session on establishing libraries to two days of sessions on utilizing consequences for misbehavior to use at school that don’t involve corporal punishment. 

The best part of IST was—as I knew it would be—seeing my friends! I am happy to be able to say that I genuinely like everyone in my cohort. Once I had been accepted to Peace Corps, I read absolutely everything I could get my hands on about it. I did my best not to establish any expectations for my own service, and reading as many perspectives as possible helped with this, as each person’s service is so vastly different. But one thing that cropped up relatively consistently was that PST is full of drama. My own cohort had our fair share of interesting (at times, drama-filled) experiences… but to this day, we aren’t what I would describe as cliquey. Everyone has their own natural friend groups, but I really feel like I can sit down next to any member of our cohort and have a genuine, deep conversation. 

During IST, I got book recommendations from Emily, shared clothes with Kristen, and watched She’s The Man (again, haha) with Chantelle. I posed for pictures with Isabelle, took naps with Apey and Kara, borrowed Katherine’s leesu (Ugandan scarf), and was grateful to Ren when she fixed my broken locket. Sheila shared her Sour Patch Kids with everyone, Kenneth showed us pictures of his grandbabies, and I listened to Kevin tell stories about the multitude of countries he’s lived in. Allie led us to a vegetarian restaurant in Masaka, where I discovered that Hannah and I are both nervous about turning 23 soon, and that Randy is observant enough to discern emotions from a brief facial expression. 

To sum it all up, I’m surrounded by a beautiful assortment of the most interesting humans I’ve ever met.