Praying for a Solid

I just passed the two-week mark at my site, but even more celebratory is going two weeks without any digestive woes, which feels like a small feat. Caitlin and I have taken a small and much needed break from Ugandan cuisine, which is, ahem, starchy. We’ve been cooking three meals a day over our new (fancy!) propane stove. Limited resources means that we have to get creative with food and make everything from scratch. For example, with a little honey, cinnamon sugar and groundnuts, you can make candied g-nuts.  We’ve eaten a lot of pasta. We tried (and failed) to make mac n’ cheese. How hard could it be, right? Wrong. The local gouda (yes, you can get gouda here!!! There is a god!) just turned into a gob of goo that refused to coat the pasta. It still tasted delicious and salty, but it was a bit awkward to eat. I did however successfully make paneer, an Indian type of cheese, a bit like haloumi or feta. It was super easy to make—I took the local milk that our milkman Justice delivers each morning, curdled it with vinegar, separated the chunky part from the liquid and let it sit all day. For dinner, we fried it in hot oil and served with curried rice.

Did I mention that we have a milkman? Caitlin and I went with Justice down to the paddy to milk the cows last week, it was quite the experience. I’ve never milked a cow before, and these creatures have massive horns on their heads which could splice you open in a second. But milk has never tasted so good, especially when you milk it yourself!

The school term begins on February 4^th, so needless to say Caitlin and I have had two very quiet weeks at our site. The term “cabin fever” comes to mind, and we realized we desperately needed to get out of the house after playing with candle wax and burning cardboard (and slightly ruining our table…) for Thursday night entertainment. We are quite lucky to have each other; I can’t imagine spending these initial two weeks by myself, I think I would actually lose my mind. For those who don’t know, Caitlin and I are paired together at our sites; she will be training teachers at the Primary Teachers College (PTC) and I will be co/model- teaching at the local demonstration school. My role is a literacy specialist, like a literacy coach. We are looking at ways to integrate literacy and critical thinking into everyday learning since it is severely lacking in schools. My worst fear (aside from spiders! And maybe giardia…) was living alone, in a remote village five hours from the closest Volunteer. This is not at all the case, since I’m paired with Caitlin; in fact, I think I will be more successful as a Volunteer to have a counterpart and collaborator so close by. And there as well for moral support.

Every new living situation has its growing pains; this week we’ve faced numerous power outages (which call for romantic candlelit dinners!), our water is off for the next few months so we’ll be fetching our water in Jerry cans, and cooking over a kerosene stove (and almost singeing off my eyebrows.) 

My house has still not been renovated so I’ll be living with Caitlin on the PTC while they add amenities such as doors, screens and flooring to my house. This, however, may be wishful thinking.

Last week, the three of us (there is a third Volunteer living in the area, Aaron) hiked up to the hilltop behind our village and looked across to the Rwandan border. Or, at least we think we did. Believe it or not, there’s no neon sign pointing “Rwandan is here!!!” but the locals tell us you can see the Rwandan hills from the top.

Finally, my dear readers may have noticed I recently cut off all my hair, super short. I’ve been getting a lot of messages saying “I’m sure because it’s so hot!” but in fact, that’s not the true reason why. Here in the Southwest is my definition of perfect weather—80° and sunny, with a lovely breeze most of the time. We lived on a hill at the PTC so there’s always a cool breeze through the window (even as I write this post!) In fact, we spent a night at a nearby lake and at night got very chilly, I was freezing my butt off, something I never thought I would say in Uganda.