Happy Holidays to America! Here is my cohort’s Holiday Video filmed during In Service Training. I am dressed as Santa in it, so I got a bit of airtime. I took off my fake beard for my scene with a sign, and with my gaunt face and goatee, I look like the Billy Bob Thornton creepy character “Bad Santa”. Harmony coaxed a little enthusiasm out of me for the backing Christmas song by INSYNC, which will make my kids laugh because in my daughter’s teeny-bopper years, I loathed INSYNC. Anyway, enjoy!
Meowri and I are settling into a routine. In the afternoon before sundown I read on my front porch and let her run around the compound, chasing the chickens (which don’t belong to my neighbors) and running from the seven children who live next door, and are finally not terrified of her. Here is a brief chicken attack (about my limit to upload to my brother via WhatsApp). The other day my neighbor bought a nice fat hen to slaughter for dinner. I had to keep Meowri inside because the hen was anchored by a brick and couldn’t run away. I’m not sure what will happen if she catches one. Short-sighted of me I know. She seems satisfied to just scare them at this point.
Everything at my org has slowed to a crawl during the holidays. I hope to be teaching farmer groups again soon. This slowdown is pretty common among all the volunteers. I don’t mind, most of my year has been pretty frenetic. Peace Corps introduced ATEFO to another NGO looking to fund a partner to cluster maize farmer groups. They are negotiating a contract.
Starting Monday, Taxi prices will double or triple, as families go home to their villages for Christmas visits.
I did get to go to a deep village for the end of year share-out of savings of a VSLA group. They asked me to hand out the envelopes with the money. They each had to sign for their envelope, and about half of them used their fingerprint.
We are hearing about refugees in Europe, and the US taking in 10,000 of them in the next year. Uganda is an impoverished country with 37 million people the size of Oregon surrounded by countries with conflicts. As pointed out here, Uganda took in 90,000 new refugees and hosts a total refugee population of 500,000. Aruna says April will be the best time to visit his childhood camp.
So did anyone take the practice Foreign Service Exam?
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We went to a couple of more mobilization meetings for WASH. At the meetings we stress that the new water and sanitation facilities have to be maintained by the community. This is a constant problem in the third world. Sometimes people see facilities get vandalized but they don’t do anything about it because of the interpersonal relationships between the families and neighbors. Both Rotary and Peace Corps want sustaining change. Nita is from the sponsoring Ntinda Club. She stands in front of a water tank which was installed to catch water via piping off the roof. However the roof line ends below the top of the tank, rendering it useless. …Uganda!
President Museveni is bringing his campaign to Bugiri on Monday These are campaign posters of my friend Esega from Bugiri Rotary Club who is running for Parliament. I’ll have to ask him about the chair. The posters look the same for all candidates. I questioned why not something different to stand out? I’m told its because these photographs are on the ballot. I will have more to say about the elections after tomorrow, probably by special email.
I took a different way to my Rotary meeting the other day and passed by this coffin maker. Sad to see the child-size. The one on the left is the cheapest, at 50,000UGX (less than $20 US) and the fancy one next to it with glass and mirrors is $250,000UGX ($80 US).
Matthews took me to a field belonging to Adams. He has planted hundreds of sticks to allow starter vines of passion fruits to grow. In a few months he will replace with larger sticks and spread netting across the top to allow the fruits to grow on the top of the netting. He says he should be able to harvest passion fruits for 3 years once the vines are established on the sticks and netting. In between the sticks he is growing beans.