Day 7 - Lugazi

As we set out today, we had new plan in mind to make sure that we’d be able to survive in Lugazi as far as language is concerned. The last couple of days we have been supplemented with the mayor and the town council to help translate for us and communicate our ideas in a way they’d understand. We soon realized that we needed to be able to communicate with them on our own or all of our volunteer service would be wasted because with without communication, how in the world is ANYTHING supposed to get done!? It won’t! So we made some contacts today and discovered that we really can communicate enough with the people in order to help them the most. Mission accomplished.

We set out today early in the morning for Mukono Town Academy, a primary school, to get all of our things out of storage and cleaned up. It was by far one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do as far as cleaning and heebie-jeebies. There were spiders and their webs absolutely everywhere, the beds covered with droppings, dust, a dead smelling putrified rat, a dehydrated yet living gecko, and this list goes on. We had to ditch the mattress that the rat had died on, it was saturate with dead rat guts and a smell that nearly killed us. We also had to get rid of a mosquito net or two, what a shame. I took the responsibility of taking the wooden bunks out one by one and cleaning them up, scrubbing them down with water and a brush to get rid of all the webs, spiders, and cockroach droppings. I got 5 1/2 beds done before we had to leave. Jackie cleaned the plastic chairs while Ashley worked on taking all the sheets off the the mattresses to be washed. There were a lot of supplies that will be very useful to us so we were happy about that.

After finishing at MTA, we went and caught a taxi to Lugazi. We had a small meeting with Bill, a guy that we met a couple days ago who has lived on and off in Lugazi for 5 years now, about 6 months out of the year. He was so great to us, I really enjoyed talking to him and I have a good feeling about him. Unfortunately, he’s leaving in the middle of the month so we only have him for a short time. He returns at the end of July which sucks because I will have left town. We asked him many questions and got a lot of extremely good information about the town, it’s people, and what to expect. I feel like we got information that will be beneficial to us as we work with the people here. We had mentioned that we wanted to go to lunch and when we got there we realized that he had his house lady fixing us some food, it ended up being so delicious. We had squash, chicken soup, chapati, watermelon, amazing pineapple, irish potatoes, and an orange Fanta. The meal was great and so was the talk. From there he took us up to Hope Children’s Home where he is supporting many many children, a total of 90 kids, not all in this school however; they had 38. The grounds was great, the kids were so warm and nice. When we got out of the car, Bill initiated a string of hugs, I got a hug from every kid that was there, it was heart melting. They were so sweet and all I wanted to do was help them. We got a tour of their living quarters and they were well kept and pretty nice (as far as things Ugandan). We were then showed the gardens which covered immense ground, it was stunning. So lush and green and full of great food. They grow bananas (both matooke and sweet), passion fruit, mango, papaya, pineapple, beans, tomatoes, and cabbage. I learned some things about the different fruits that’s pretty interesting. It takes a full year to get bananas from a tree as well as a pineapple. We made our way from the kid’s quarters to where the school/church is located. We watched as people worshiped in this church that was open, no walls, except on one side and it was made of bamboo. There were benches inside and a type of podium up from. After observing, we were invited to watch what they do when they worship. The are two drummers and a person that gives the “sermon.” There was singing, dancing, and clapping of hands all involved. It was unbelievable experience to be a part of a group of Christians half way across the world basically in the middle of the jungle worshipping God. Again, it was very surreal, and experience I will never forget. We later introduced ourselves and I introduced myself in Lugandan, they got a pretty big kick out of it.

After having been dropped off by Bill’s driver back in Lugazi, I returned my pepsi bottle and then we made our way to the bank. We had to check out the bank to make sure that it accepted all types of cards so that we wouldn’t have a problem getting money out while we are there. We were a little bit nervous being a couple of muzungus walking in a bank to get money. The people here know and expect that we have money, so it can be scarry. We then went to an internet café that ended up being pretty ghetto, the internet crapped out on us so we got out of there and got on a taxi for Mukono. I was super drowsy in the taxi and did a bit of drifting off. We finally got back to Mukono after a TON of stops on the freaking taxi. We went to another internet café because we didn’t get finished in Lugazi. I didn’t get any e-mails from the family, kinda sad. Oh well, not to worry, they have lives too. After internet we went home and Jackie and Ashley went up and talked with Deo.

WE GOT THE HOUSE!!! We have been negotiating with these Indians to get a decent price and we think we have so we are extremely happy about it! The house is REALLY nice for Uganda and will help us feel a bit more westernized which is important because we need a resort after a long day’s work. Deo and the town council have offered to get us a guard as well as 6 dorms if we were to need them during the second wave. We have seriously been hooked up in Lugazi and we are very excited to be working there. I’m going to do some research to see if I can get us some internet for the house. We were told it is $60/month which is definitely doable with all of us pitching in. It would be beyond nice to have internet at home. I and others would be able to have much more communication with family and we’d be able to contact HELP via e-mail and do research if needed. Deo has given us a truck to use tomorrow and it will be here at 9:00am to pick up all of our things. We are planning on getting up around 8am to get ready and have breakfast before we load it up! It’s going to be so nice to be in a house and settle in, it’s not fun to live out of an unorganized suitcase and deal with all of that. We are going to clean the crap out of it and make it all nice... pardon my French.