First Week and Homestay

I made a video with a lot of information about the city, the food, and the transportation here, but I have not had enough internet access to upload it. So I will supplement with a blog post for now. 

My first full week here has now passed and the best adjectives I can are are that it has been fun, confusing, difficult, delicious, and HOT. We spent Sunday through Friday in the hotel Bativa, a block from Makerere University and three blocks from SIT recourse center. The hotel was a kind of halfway point between the way we live in the US and how we live in our homestays. There was running hot water and a delicious breakfast prepared every morning, but no AC. We spent the week driving and walking around the city to get oriented, eating at delicious restaurants (some of which were fancier than any I've been to in the US), and learning key cultural differences and some Luganda so that we could get by in our homestays. Kampala is a modern, growing city that globalization has heavily effected. There are adds for cell phones and internet providers everywhere and skyscrapers scattered throughout the city. It is much more familiar for me than I imagined, and I mean that both physically and in regards to the spirit and mood of the city. 

I have been in my home stay for two days now and have messed up enough times I've lost count. I knelt down and they assumed I was praying, I ate meat with a fork instead of my hands and they laughed and called me a Muzungu (white person), I needed thirty minutes to take my first bucket shower because shampoo is a lot harder to get out of your hair without running water. The list goes on...Even so, I understand that they do not laugh to mock me. I just do things very differently from them. I am trying to see it as funny every time I mess up but I have to be honest and say that it is challenging to not know how to do anything and to not know why people are doing things. 

Like this morning I went to church with my host mom and 6 year old brother, and the pastor was talking about me for two minutes before I understood. And that was only because every head in the room had turned to me. Then she asked me to stand up at the alter and address the congregation. Not only did she have to ask me 5 times because it was in Luganda and I only know 30 words, but she also gave me no direction on what to say so I just kept thanking them and saying I loved it there until I got enough nods and claps that I was allowed to step down. It was mucho embarrassing but everyone laughed with me and were very nice about how confused I was so I didn't completely mind.

My host family is very kind and welcoming. My mother is 60 and has 6 grown kids. There are 4 others living in the main house with me and countless others who pass through and say hi. I haven't yet figured out who is my family and who are just friends. Next week I have to do an assignment on my family tree so hopefully I will be forced to figure it out from that. The most difficult cultural difference to overcome is alone time. I am constantly surrounded by people and being touched.  My 6 year old brother follows me everywhere. I love them but it is a huge adjustment from spending so much time in solitude over my extended winter break. He goes off to boarding school this week though so I will definitely miss him. 

I am not certain but I think I would call the family lower- middle class. They live on a farm with pigs and goats and chickens and a cow. The house is small but very well kept. There is a communal shower and pit latrine (which is actually not as scary as I thought it would be), and a kitchen outside. We live right next to a hospital and across the street from a grocery store so it is a very convenient location.

Our group outside the Bativa hotel

The homes of the local police that are across the street from SIT resource center

A pretty view of the city

We finished orientation week by going to a traditional dance show that was definitely a tourist trap but also honestly impressive. This is from one of the dances at the show; it featured costume dance from Rwanda.