Friday, July 10, 2009

Sorry I have not been able to update this in a while. I attempted to post one
earlier in July but it never got on for some reason. But hopefully now it is.

Things are going well here. We are finally starting to do some more hands on
work within the communities which has kept us very busy. I have not been able
to come back to the hotel here before eight o clock yet this week. This is the
first day I have been able to come back earlier. We usually leave TASO around
10:30 every morning in the back of one of their vehicles. One time it was just
the three of us but recently they have been becoming more and more crowded.
Once we are out in the community, we are either helping with drug distribution
or home-based counseling. Many of the homes we go to are an hour away from
Kampala and about thirty minutes from any paved road. Some of the houses are
so far back that the roads are just simple trails. The way the vehicles are
set up, the passengers in the back sit facing each other along the sides. To
make it even more uncomfortable, there are no seatbelts. So half of the time,
we are hanging on to the bottom of the seats trying to keep ourselves from
falling off of them. The roads themselves are in pretty bad shape, but the
drivers continue to go about 60 miles per hour on them. Since we cannot
understand the language very well, we are unable to communicate with many of
the people. So instead we simply wait outside the vehicle while the counselors
talk with the people. We don’t really mind it since it gives us a break to
stand up rather than sit inside the car.

In the local dialect here in Kampala, white people are called “mazuno.” So many
times whenever we are traveling in these remote villages, you can hear people
saying “mazuno!” That is code for “Everybody come outside and look at the
white person.” In some cases, the people will gather around our vehicle so
that we cannot open the door to get out. When we finally do get out, everyone
acts like they came to gather around the vehicle for some other reason. Like
looking at the shrubbery on the side of the road, or admiring the many banana
trees. Every time we stop at a house to talk to the residents, a crowd gathers
on the road to watch. But all of this attention isn’t always a bad thing.
Whenever we are out in the communities and pull over on the side of the road,
people run up to the windows with beef sticks, roasted corn, and roasted
bananas. Because of this, we never go hungry. I am able to get a beef stick,
2 ears of corn, and three bananas for one dollar. Not to mention we always get
some form of fruit at every house. One time, the residents came up to the
window and dumped a basket full of peanuts on the floor. So as we drove down
the narrow dirt road, we ate peanuts and threw the shells out the window. One
of the people in our group attempted to hold on to theirs in order to keep from
littering. The counselor across from her just took them and threw them out the
window. So no one really seems to mind doing this. As for the finished ears
of corn, those are thrown out as well with little regard for what is coming
ahead. Many times a car is forced to swerve in order to miss being hit by it.

As for the pictures, the fruit that you see that as Erin puts it “a body organ,”
is called a Jackfruit. It actually tastes very good but it has sap on it that
makes your hands very sticky. You can also see it as the giant green ball
sitting on the floor of the car.

The roads here are in very bad condition which creates a lot of accidents, like
the overturned truck in the pictures. We saw three of trucks like that within
5 miles of each other along one road. Luckily I have not seen one since. But
we have seen several other accidents involving the taxi vans.

Everywhere we go outside of the city, banana trees, sugarcanes, tea bushes, and
coffee trees are all over the place. In some of the homes, you can see a pile
of coffee beans laying on the ground, and drying in the sun along with the
peanuts.

Many of the houses are made out of bricks which are being made in one of the
pictures. So in front of most houses is a pit, or what is left of one, from
where they dug up the clay to make the bricks. I haven’t got a picture of this
but the roads are made up of red dust which, due to the constant driving that
goes on, paints the surrounding vegetation red. So along the side of the roads
all you see are red trees, and red bushes.

Along with the brick houses, some houses are round with straw roofs as you can
see in the pictures. Those houses are located in a refugee camp in which we
went to and delivered medications. It is guarded by the military who, in
return for allowing us to go inside, received a bag full of condoms.

Many of the households have several chickens and goats. The chickens roam free
which includes inside of some houses. Some of the better homes have cows,
which to my surprise, have horns. Some of which are as big around as my leg
and about 3-4 feet long. I have yet to get a picture of them since we usually
see them as we are driving along the dusty roads at 60 MPH. However, I was
able to get a picture of one of the horns which I found while walking around in
a banana tree forest.

Sorry it has taken so long to put another post on here, but the internet is very
slow and will not allow me to upload anything. So I have to email the blog
posts to Erin along with the pictures. I will put another post up hopefully
around the beginning of next week. That is my plan

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