Our kim chee experiment

Me and rasta man Big Brother at Pirates beach in Kenya. He is the cheif of the beach

Clothes after they have been burried and dug up because of the kalimajung raids

I had this many kids gathered around me every day I went to the villages

A woman killing a snake she found in her house

I miss this African sky

Some of my new friends and behind them are the mud baskets they use for preserving cassava and sweet potato

One of the beautiful boar holes that we used for water

Learning Thumb piano from a pro

Some of the Fashionable Ugandan children in the Katawi District.

Back

I made it away from Kenya more alive than I went in, and have arrived safly back in Tulsa Ok for Christmas. I will work on putting up photos of my trip now that I have high speed internet. I'll write soon.

My Last Days in Soroti

I have had sooo much fun teaching at the school the past two weeks and am sad to see the students going home for their two month break, but I did a project with them this week that will be waiting for them when they return. I spent about 30,000 schillings on two beautiful hand made clay pots, 13 heads of cabbage, 3 kilos of onions, 6 heads of garlic, half a kilo of ginger, 8 bunches of carrots, 5 packs of chili powder, 4 packs of seed and bark seasoning, 6 piles of cassava, 1 kilo of French beans, 2 handkerchiefs, a bag of salt, and 7 caveras which are plastic bags. In dollars it equals about $15. We made about 10 gallons of Fermented Vegetables or some call it Kim chee. We buried it under a tree and will be ready after about 2 months I hope. The kid’s teachers and other pilgrim staff are very excited to see and eat the results. The biology teacher is now ready to have a series of experiments to find the best way to preserve fresh vegetables in Africa through fermentation. I said my goodbyes but will be back tomorrow for the teachers. I have decided to call the us embassy in Kenya to talk about my travel plans and find out if the precautions I and using will be enough, because of the warning posted about terrorism in Kenya. I am also getting home sick tremendously. I feel like it increases the closer you get to leaving. I only have 8 days left until my return to Tulsa where the Christmas song won’t feel so out of place as they do here. Everyone is singing carols and songs about Christmas but is it dry dusty hot and sunny. I really need some cold weather for a change. See you soon.

Pamba Municipal School

I just got back from the school teaching the prefects about what I will be doing and finding out were people are at as far as knowledge. It was soo much fun, they took some time warming up to me but after the end they could understand my accent and enjoyed my attitude alot. I will be teaching the senior 1 class tomorrow on turkey day and talking with the teachers in the after noon then roasting a turkey. I will buy a new turkey because the two I have I am attached to and are for mating eventhough buster seems uninterested in that. I will be teaching in the morning and counseling in the afternoon untell the 5th and then I will leave for kenya. I also found out what they do if you impregnate a girl before you marry her. You put a bunch of money in an envelope and the girl decides if it is enough allowance for her to start with in their life together. next you pay money for her Breasts (breast feeding), after that money for her thighs for taking her virginity. Then you have to pay a fine of about 2 million shillings for the baby before marriage. Then the dowry which depending on the value of the woman can be 2 cows to 10 cows plus afew million shillings, all that goes to the parents. The aunt gets a male goat, the uncle gets something and made the brother or sister if they did alot in raising you. The wedding happens last. They used to decide how many cattle by having the strongest man in the wifes clan throw a spear along side the group of cows and then they would get all the cows behind that line. But after all that the husband owns the wife and if she leaves him she has to pay back everything, so if the man is mean to the wife some times the parents wont let her leave because they can't afford to pay back the dowry.

a couple weeks to go

I was sick for a whole week, as it turns out the doctor said I had a break through infection of Malaria. The anti biotic I was on was the weakest on the market so he treated me for malaria and in 3 days I was feeling so much better. I went to Kampala on saturday to see my old friends there and get some supplies for Thanksgiving. There were no Thanksgiving supplies to be found, but I did fall in a ditch. My knee is almost completely recovered. I am planning on going to Kenya on the 5th of Dec and take two days busing into Mombasa through Nairobi. I will spend 3 days in and around Mombasa on the south coast surfing and seeing the wild life then fly into kampala on the 10th and leave for the U.S. on the 11th at almost midnight. I am going to start teaching at the school today and am really excited. I only have 6 days to talk about gardening, water catchment, and come up with a play to inspire them to start planting. The sad thing is that they still have 3 months or so untell the next rainy season.

From Katawi and Beyond

Sorry for the last couple of weeks without writing there has been too much work in a place with no power. So I am currently sick and tested negative for malaria, I am on my third day of illness and felt good enough to come into town and write another blog. We have finished the IRS part of the program and have covered more than 150,000 people. The MDA program will still be running through next week. Since the last blog I have started a Turkey farm. The girl is Stella Rose Mary and the boy Buster. I also arrived at a village the day after the kalimajung stole 6 cows from them and a solder when looking for them got lost for 5 days then shot himself. I got to see the search partly to. It's amazing that people could get lost in Africa it feels like such a small place with homes and villages spanning the flat landscapes and the tall grass, short trees and low clouds almost make you feel Closter phobic. I have tried a new type of banana to they are big and green but then turn yellow but you still have to boil it before you eat it. I also killed, cleaned, and carved my 4th Chicken. And found out that one of my neighbors little girls is actually a servant. and that many families us servants. They wash clothes, do dishes, prepare food and take care of the kids. But they are often kids themselves like the neighbors servant is 9. They get them from the IDP camps for free and just have to take care of them, some this they have to pay but only if the parents are reluctant. Instead of having a dish washer or laundry machines the have servant girls and it seems as though they have to if they want to earn money or live a productive life out side the home. And often they put the servants through school but only when they aren't needed at home.

Life in Katakwi

I have been living in katawi the last 3 weeks where their is no power running water or internet. I have really enjoyed life their I stayed at an in for a few days and then found a roomate who had a place in town. We poop in brick sized holes in cement and drink from Bore holes. I have gotten to learn cooking on a carcoil stove and kerosene. almost every body in they district lives in mud brick houses with thatchet roof. Every day a come back from the field with new crazy stories of things that happened. I have gotten to work in my first IDP( Internally Displaced People) camp that has been around moving for 18 year and at it's largest held 8 thousand people but now only a hundred or so. They were there because of the kalamajung who are a neighboring tribe that believe all cows belong to them. There is more to the story than that and I will write about it later. I have become a veterinarian and de wormed 4 puppies and one kitten on separt occasions. One of our Spray teams has been shot at by the kalamajung but that sub region was far from where I have been working in Magoro. Magoro has been my favourite place in Africa because on the People the location and the food. It has 5 mountains around it and 4 lakes. People have been teaching me many games and I have become a very good motorcycle rider. Lots of new things and experiences counseling mothers with children with deformity and all sorts of other issues that are surprisingly similar to the US. I how the elections go fairly. Out for now.

Break Down

After we finally got out of Kampala with allll of the supplies in a big big big truck we broke down. It started such a nice trip with kabobs on the side of the road, grilled bananas and a stony tangowizzy which is amazing ginger ale. and then the clutch when out and we got a mechanic from a near by town and I got to play with some local kids the clutch started working again I gave the kids some Duo cotexin pens which were really cool and away we went. a half mile later the clutch died completely and we hailed a bus and let the driver deal with the truck. I arrived late last night and have been having an excellent morning in soroti. I will be arriving in Katawi tonight and starting training tomorrow morning. I also meet two people from seattle in the guest house and one man from bartillsville oklahoma. Amazing

Back to Soroti

After all this time I am going back to soroti riding in a giant 8foot by 30 truck with supplies for our work in the district of Katawi in the teso sub region. We have enough supplies to get started and we are starting soon. The training begins on Monday the 13th and by Tuesday or Wednesday we will being delivering medication to over 150,000 people in about 21 day's. We will have 10 teams of 10 and will be serving about 5,000 people a day and spraying their homes which I am not to happy about but I did get to write the training and education material to make sure everyone knows how dangerous indoor residual spraying is and we are also using Arco which is at it's final stage of testing and this is only it's second time being used in mass drug administration, so I got the forms for side effects and will make sure that we know if anyone is having problems by doing check backs with the people receiving it. But the plan is very through and the strategy is very conscious of age, sex, pregnancy status, and Malaria status. We are definitely comprehensive about it all.

Drive

I get so inspired where ever I go in Uganda. Yesterday I when to Entebbe and driving along you see some amazibng things, people making couches, Metal gates, beds, signs, cleaning second hand clothes to make them like new. This place seems to be completely self supporting if it wasn't for fuel. If you buy clothes here it would ither be shiped in second hand from Europe or the U.S., or made right at the shop by the guy sitting on the front porch talking with people while he belts out dress after shirt. Same with shoes, furniture, stoves, beds, and anything else you can imagine. Everything made here is also on a small scale with no more than 15 people working. A mechanic shop can fit into a box about 8 feet tall and 4 foot squared. Absolutely no wasted space. When I looked out at the country side in between the urban strips you could see that the land was plentiful and clear with all of the local favorite foods like matooke, millet and corn. And all the houses made out of the same earth than they rest on. You see towers of hand made bricks with a fire underneath them for days untell they become hard and all the need for mortar is sand dirt and gravel. You see very tale buildings made in this fashion with sticks for scaffolding. The only down side has been the advertising, on over a 3rd of the buildings they let coke and cellphone companies and paint companies paint their homes; on the plus side it is all hand painted and looks pretty cool. People here have countless skills and there is always a way to make profit for them.

Soroti

After a 4 hour long bus ride over a mix of dirt gravel and paved roads we made it to soroti. I found it interesting that the dirt roads were much smoother that the paved, and that most of the time on the paved roads bus seemed to be driving on the shoulder. It is as if the cars here are allergic to cement. It was marvelously hot in soroti and the sun was very powerful. We walke around and got some fruit and ate some lunch. Here most meat you eat is goat ut they don't do anything else with the goat, I asked if they have goat milk and everyone looked discused at the idea. I got to see my friend Rita and that was very nice she has a hurt nee from her 8th boda boda accident. Her house was by the swamp so their was hundreds of bugs that where flying around and when they land on you they dont know what to do they starts scwemming around and look like they have a million legs and horns. When I asked rita if they would hurt you she said no so I swashed them. The boda bodas in Soroti are bicycles which I am excited about, because I think I will get one. I have also finished the training material and went to the market yesterday since I arrived back in kampala on Monday night. A bag of Organic carrots was about 75 cents us and the biggest head of cabbage you've ever seen was 1 dollar. But here things are priced in terms of shillings so it sounds like a lot more. Any way Back to the ministry today to take care of getting the drugs released to us and then to the pharmacy's to try and scrap together 30,000 pregnancy tests for the Move on Malaria.

Danger Zone

I just got a cell phone number for uganda if you want to call me think of the time zone difference and their is no voice mail. From the us dial 011 256 777-813971. I had my first experience yesterday on boda bodas which are Motorcycles and the fastest transport around. They are everywhere and constantly trying to get you to ride with them. The first boda boda I took had never given a muzungu (white person) a ride before so we had quite an experience. It was a bit scary at first because where I am staying is like a dirt bike track, but once we got on a flat not as dusty road it felt safe untell we hit traffic and the boda bodas weave in and out of everything they can to get you to your destination as fast as possible. It made the crazy chase scenes is the movies look like bumper cars. So I learned a few tricks, if I git on a little boda boda it can't go as fast because I am so big which makes it a little safer. I also need to get a helmet because they don't have them for passengers. They also go to boda boda school to learn how to drive the way they do so that they have communication with cars and other boda bodas with honks and flashes of the head lights. I also decided not to ride the boda bodas at night.
Three people from pigrim have already got Malaria since I have been here, it is not as big a deal here as in the us. I also learned that the sweet annie that heron made for me is about to take the lead as the first line against Malaria and it grows in africa, but now one at the department of health seemed to know that because they have been buying it from china. But Dr. katie is excited about the possibility of growing it and using it later in their malaria campaign.
Yesterday I ordered chicken gizzard but it is so popular here they were all out so I had fish instead which had the texture of jerky but the flavor of salted fishy chicken, very good.
I am off to soroti tomorrow and might stay their for a while but I feel quite free to work on what ever I please and I will miss kampala but I think soroti is where the real work will begin.

Meeting the big wigs

Yesterday I met one of the top people at the minisrty of health and we almost ran into a heard of cows in the road and I got to learn how to do laundry by hand without a wash board. I also had possible the best fruit in the world called jack fruit. I have been learning so much every day about culture and division of labor and cooking and malaria. Culturaly I have learned that the guests here are not expected to do anything. I also don't get to eat with the 12 other people living at calvins house. Everybody has jobs and things to do around the house and it is all done by hand. cooking is often done outside of the house in a small metal cillinder the size of a family size can of soup. It is also used in combination with the stove which has a propane can attached. All the water goes into a water tower for a resever because the water often stops working. People here are so used to working all day thyat doing dishes cooking from scratch washing clothes and cleaning are not a burden but just a way of life. It also feels strange to see kindness as letting people wash your clothes and cook your food with out your help or exchange of work. They did however gratiously accept the chocolates I got for them in sweden. And still no luck on the sponsor front.

Miracles

So The first miracle of today was meeting Doctor Katie She is from Seattle and has been living in Tulsa Oklahoma the past 3 years which is where I am from. The Second miracle is meeting Josh because my brother was the best man at his wedding. Two Miracles and I have been here less than a day. I have already started developing a training for the volunteers of Pilgrim to start the implementation of malaria drugs and teach was of preventing rexposure to it. I really feel like I belong.

I made it!

Last night I arrive in Uganda and was greeted by charles david and simon 3 of the nicest people I have meet in the last 3 weeks. We dorove an hour from entebbe into Kampala and I stayed at Calvins ouse the director of pilgrim. He was not their but all the rest of his family seemed to be and some other volunteers from pilgrim. I have been walking around kampala and saying hello to every smiling face I see which is alot. I look a mess compaired with all of the locals, here they where dresses and suits which is a sight because most of the roads seem to be made out of dirt. I will be helping develp a trainging today for the malaria volunteers and soon will find a ride to soroti so I can see my new home.

Credit! Is it really worth the effort?

I have 11 rejections and 0 support for my internship contract for study abroad in Uganda. I leave on Tuesday and tomorrow I surf. Maybe Monday will be my lucky day.