Shoot Me Now

Peace Corps life is full of highs and lows, today didn't hit the extremes of emotion that Peace Corps life has but certainly had a shape resembling the same graph. I started out the day at dawn hiking 2.5 miles with my backpack to the main road. I then flagged down what I assume was a taxi??? and made my way into Masaka where my organization operates an office. I met local officials in the morning, got my Warid modem fixed, got a ton of settling in items (I now have a cutting board... real food is in site), and then headed back to Nakyenyi. One particularly low point of the day came when the carpenter I had been working with supplied me with the quote for my kitchen unit. 1,000,000 Shillings. Our entire settling in allowance is about 1.2M shillings.

When I returned to the compound I was intent on heading to the local market as Tuesday is market day in Nakyenyi. I was informed by our director that the market here does not start until almost evening. Disappointed, I did desperation laundry outside my door. I've been trying to hire someone to do it but it is progressing slowly and I am out of clothes. My house is right next to the girls dormitory, and they watched me and laughed as I struggled with my clothes.

Walking though town later I noticed a street I had never walked down and after about a 10th of a mile I found a man working on wood and a sign that said Omubazzi!!! It was a carpenter!!! I had been told there was no carpenter in Nakyenyi. I quickly drew up a picture of what I wanted and he quoted me at 190,000 for the same thing the other carpenter wanted me to pay 1,000,000 for. I put down a deposit for the first piece of a 3 piece set and told him if he did a good job and kept giving me fair prices I would buy a lot more furniture from him.

On my way back I found the market, it was disappointing but I think next week I will buy some mugs and a knife or two from there.

I headed home discovering along the way I did not have my keys. After backtracking for an hour I headed home. What I dreaded the most was that after the lock to get into my home, I believed I had my bedroom locked, and my latrine locked, and all my luggage locked, and the keys were of course all on my key-chain. Well after about 10 minutes with a huge hammer and chisel, one of our orphans got through the lock. On that note... I highly recommend Master Lock. I was getting sworn at in Luganda for putting that thing on the door. After 5 minutes the thing barely had a scratch on it. He joked it would have been easier to knock the door down.

Upon getting into the house I discovered my bedroom door open and my keys inside, meaning I was sleeping in my own bed, wearing my own clothes, pooping in my latrine, and only having to replace one lock in the morning.

To add a little icing to the cake, Michael my counterpart told me that he found someone interested in washing my clothes and that we could talk in the morning. I'm calling it a good day although at one point in the day I was envious of daffy duck in the above picture.

Why You Don't Run On The Pool Deck

This hip injury was incurred following swearing in. I waited a couple days for it to swell up nice and good before taking pictures. I think it actually looks smaller in this picture than it really is.

And that is why you don't run on the pool deck. In other stupid news from that evening I caught a cold after hanging out with my friends till 1 in the morning while I was soaking wet. Am getting over it now

Phase II: Part 1

The Peace Corps refers to the first 3 months at site as Phase II training. The main objective is establishing your home, getting to know your organization, and getting to know the community you will be living/working in. This series will document my experiences in Phase II.

I was pleasantly surprised by how complete my place was when I got here. Not only was it complete, but it was beautiful. Dark stain on the doors, molding, curtains hanging, walls painted. I have a desk, a chair, a full sized bed, a mosquito net, and was allowed to borrow two stools to set my gas stove on while I get kitchen furniture made. The carpenter who did my interior is preparing an estimate for my kitchen unit. If he gives me a good price I will try to get him to do the rest of my furniture.

I picked up some basic groceries but without some more supplies/prep area I'm avoiding any real cooking. Am hoping to be able to prepare a real meal in about 2 weeks. Right now I'm living off the basics, bread, tomatoes, eggs, green beans, rice, and beans. I also dipped into my emergency stash for the first time on the trip, enjoying the dark chocolate peanut butter my Fluor associates gave me in my goodbye gift bag. Never before have I squeezed a bag so intent on getting every atom of goodness out of something. I have found a rolex stand in town so I'm not likely to starve to death. For about 75c I can purchase 2 rolex, a full meal by any standard.

My luck with the internet appears to be running out, and I may be restricted to access once a week or so very soon. My Warid modem stopped working about a week after I got it, Zain is ultra expensive and slow, and my Orange modem is tapped out and no faster than Zain at site. I've been fighting the net all morning trying to get some emails sent and work done.

Today my objectives are to answer a few emails from friends, do basic laundry to get me through when I hire someone to do it for me, clean my dishes, head into town to restock some basics, and buy a broom!

I hope to have some pictures up sometime in the next two weeks.

Other Tidbits From This Week

Thursday, the day of the VAC election (see previous post) I also elected to take my Language Proficiency Interview, taking it a day earlier than scheduled. I pulled an all-nighter with a insulated carafe full of instant coffee and box of cookies and gave myself a boost in my language skills. Today I was informed that I jumped two levels since my mock interview and achieved a passing score, meaning I am now exempt from further language tests.

Also today we wished our home-stay families goodbye in a luncheon. I served as master of ceremonies alongside another volunteer. It was a nice event that allowed us to thank the families that invited us into their homes during training. There were several speeches delivered by volunteers, staff, families, and the local community. Each language group we have made a presentation of their choosing. I expect pictures of me dancing in a traditional Bugandan grass skirt to surface on the internet in the next few days.

Now packing up at my home-stay.

Last Week In Wakiso

In our last week at Wakiso I've been uncharacteristically happy. Things are good. I'm excited about my assignment, I really like my core group of friends, and I greatly increased my cred this week by obtaining a set of ping pong balls and 25 plastic cups. :)

This week I ran for and was elected as one of three representatives from our training class on the Volunteer Advisory Committee. (VAC) The VAC meets once every three months in Kampala and acts as an envoy to the Peace Corps staff, presenting security, training, and administrative issues raised by volunteers in country. I had conducted a month long campaign as the Anti-BS candidate, with aspirations to increase volunteer involvement in training, create a new committee to correspond with invited candidates, and to facilitate better communication to volunteers.

And my favorite story from this week, last night, I chased a rat out of my room at around midnight. I was awoken at around 11:30 to the sound of rustling and things being knocked over in my room. A bit later I saw the silhouette of a rodent walk across my desk, illuminated by the glow of my surge protector light on the back of my desk. I got out of bed, turned on the lights, organized the room a little and then later found him still on my desk, behind my pile of books. He jumped down, climbed up my bed and jumped onto the window ledge (he was one athletic little punk). I opened the window on one side and rustled the curtain on the other, he ran across the window ledge and jumped out.

In related news I'm thinking of buying a cat. I'll gladly take suggestions on names. Leaning towards Milo right now, but CJ is also in the running.

The Lucky Lion

Just a small tidbit from my future site visit. People here do not have last names and first names, but do have essentially two names. A name is given by the parents, and a name is given that corresponds with when, where, under what circumstances someone was born. My host father, for example, is named Musisi because he was born during an earthquake. The point of all this is that they sometimes get confused when we give them two names. On another note there are no real 'R' sounds in the language, and even though 'R' is commonly found and written in words, it is almost always pronounced as an 'L'.

For this reason my organization is now calling me and introducing me as, "the Lucky Lion."

My Place

Here are the photos taken of my place also is a link for hosted full size images of the diagrams I posted previously. Hopefully they finish it before I move in.

Dimensions Layout

Conceptual Furniture Layout

Permanent Address - Cue Care Packages!

I have just received a permanent address, and thought I'd just throw out there that now that I have an address, you have the privilege of being able to send me a care package. So see the address below, which is also being added as a permanent fixture on the main page.

Ryan Luckie, PCV

BUSODA

PO Box 1796

Masaka, Uganda

So in celebration of now having an address, below is the top 6 things that would be awesome to receive in a care package.

6) Foodstuffs - Candy, Chewy Granola bars, instant oatmeal Packets (apple cinnamon is my favorite but variety is the spice of life), junk food type stuffs. My pants are starting to sag so help me out.

5) Starbucks VIA or other Coffee Products (instant or grinds)

4) Stickers - I'm not really a sticker person, but everybody here has the same stuff and I need to differentiate mine. So Clemson Tiger Paws, South Carolina Flags, Dilbert, Mitt Romney for President, or anything else creative I would like that has an adhesive side would be great.

3) An American Newspaper - Preferably ones on Sundays after the Gamecocks choked and Clemson won. (Though that seems to be in short supply these days)

2) A Flash Drive With Illegally Downloaded TV! - This one is specifically going out to Shannypooh. If you would send me HIMYM, maybe the Office, Fringe, you'd shoot right by the newlyweds and become my favorite member of the family. I'll pay for the Flash drive if you load it up! Might make sense to hide this inside of something else.

1) Random Sauces - In France they have incredible food that they eat small portions of, in America we have darn good food that we eat until we can't, and here they have food with no taste or nutritional value that they eat past the point that they are in pain because they think it is bad to be hungry in the morning when they eat breakfast. The operative part of this was the food with no taste. Sauce packets from random restaurants would be incredible and are free! The more random and more variety the better! Make sure they don't need to be refrigerated and put them in a safe container that won't destroy everything in case of a failure.

That's it for now. Random surprises are always nice too. Pictures of friends, a letter that tells a funny story I've missed out on while here, or anything to remind me of home.

Anyhow, I miss you all, ... all 4 readers :)

Layout of my site assignment

Below are quick sketches I did in Excel of the setup at my site and my future plans. Should be pretty self explanatory. The sun indicates a light switch, the lightning bolt indicates a power outlet. I'm not sure how well these will show up on blogger. In the next few days i'll post pictures I have taken while I was here. The apartment is still under construction so i'm crossing my fingers hoping it will be ready in 2 weeks when I am due to move in.

Site Assignments

Organization Name: BUSODA - Buddu Social Development

Location: Masaka, Central Region

View Larger Map

Vision: To bring together community groups to be able to identify, plan, implement and evaluate their development activities.

Mission:

Formation and training of community groups that promote human dignity and progress address poverty reduction, health, HIV/AIDS, farming, environment conservation, human rights protection and the welfare of vulnerable children and orphans.

Goals:

1) Advocacy and networking on orphans, children and human rights issues.

2) To establish information adn system for communities.

3) To promote social ecconomic development of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC)

Objectives:

1) To establish a vocational training college to cater for orphans and other children in Lwengo District and beyond.

2) Training 100 OVCs at Nakyenyi vocational center

3) HIV/AID prevention campaign through public awareness held in schools.

Job Description:

-Health program work on HIV / AIDS in schools

-Water and sanitation work in homes

-Work at the vocational school for OVCs

-Teach agriculture

-Teach building skills

-Teach mechanical skills

-Teach metal works / fabrication

-Teach sex education

-Do outreach work in areas in Masaka town campaign on child rights

-May work in Rakai District in our field offices spreading the "Be faithful" message to married couples.

-Do home visits to OVC homes

-Follow up program for graduates

-Give out start up kits

-Teach welding

So far I know very little about the home I have been assigned to. Do not appear to have electricity, or access to a viable internet service. The home appears to be unfurnished. I'll be visiting on Wednesday so I will know more then.