The Nightgown :s

Hello from the land of extreme heat and perpetual sweat.

Here is a post that I'm excited to write as I am sure many of you are wondering the different things that I have encountered in the culture department on my trip in Africa. You may be wondering why the title of the nightgown, and I think it is the perfect place to start in describing my preparation for the trip. We were told as a group to bring to Africa a conservative nightgown that covers your knees and shoulders, as we had no way of knowing what type of family we would be put in. So if you have any experience shopping for a thing like a nightgown you understand that they are impossible to come across in the US. So after much struggle I finally found a hideous nightgown made of blue silk and hideous lace. (it reminds me of something my mom would wear to bed:) Anyway, on my arrive to Uganda my host sister went to bed in shorts and a tank top. As I looked down at my nightgown I understood that I really wasn't prepared for this trip!! The other thing is it was too embarrassing to go outside to the sqautty potty in so I have to change before I leave the room!

To relate this to my trip:
THE LACE: There are many things that I am working on adjusting to culturally. I ended up cutting the lace off my nightgown. Also, people here drive on the left side of road. I forgot this fact until I was walking to the dining center and almost ran head into a woman walking to other way. I kept trying to step to the right only to realize she was stepping the same way. I'm getting better.
One thing I had no problem getting used to is tea time. We have tea and bread for breakfast, campus has a tea break at 10:30 am, and I get tea as soon as I get home from school with g-nuts. It is a fabulous time of the day, and is helping me adjust to the meal times (lunch at 1:00 and supper at 10:00-11:00 or whenever it is ready) I always feel hungry although the food portions are HUGE and full of carbs.
That leads me into food. I'm doing my best to enjoy the diet. I'm finding great ways to make the food good. Living with a family is great because we have a lot of variety and the cooking is good. We eat matoke every day which is a banana mash and the staple of Ugandan food. We also usually have rice. There is always a type of soup/broth stuff that when drenched all over the food makes everything pretty good. Also we have a lot of cabbage mixed with other things like greens (greens are anything that is green.. they have over 12 varieties but they aren't named) And the greatest thing every is the juice. Yum.

UNPREPARED: Just as I didn't have the right kind of nightgown there are somethings here that I just wasn't quite ready for. The first are the squatty potties. The first time I asked for the bathroom I was lead to the showers. You must ask for toilets. The most annoying thing is the lack of toilet paper. My worst squatty potty experience happened in Rwanda. We got lost and had been driving in the countryside for about six hours with a couple more to go. We stopped in random town at a church to see if we could use their toilet. I don't think the people in the town had every seen a white person. No joke the church was on a hill and we could see children running from miles away towards our bus. When I went into the bathroom it was a tiny hole with a chunk of grass and a nasty stench. There was poop on the ground and no wood steps to stand on. My favorite part was the lack of door. So the entire country side is running up to see us and I'm squatting with no door. Fabulous. The first time I saw a cockroach crawl out of the toilet I screamed. Luckily at my house they are quite clean, although I walked in on grandma once.

DEALING WITH IT: So my nightgown. I wear it every night and am beginning to embrace life with my nightgown. I even went the bathroom in it (I did wear a big sweater, my sister assures me soon I'll be running around in my underwear) There are some things here that I am learning to adjust to because that is the way it is. One of those is lines. Here there is no concept of a line. You will wait for 20 minutes and someone will come and cut in front of you without batting an eye. So after waiting at the water during lunch I started getting aggressive. Another is the concept of respect. If a Ugandan phone rings during anything, the person will answer it. Our pastor was even texting during his service! They leave speakers and class. They also will be really loud when you are sleeping with no concept of it disturbing you. Finally, they are never on time. Ever.
Lastly I'm learning to live with peoples reactions to me. Little kids come screaming and running when they see me shouting MZUNGO MZUNGO (which means white person) I have been asked for money countless times. Men here are really touchy and will hold your hand while talking. One guy today in the dining center talked with Kiersten and I for 15 minutes and had his arms around us the whole time and kissed us when he left. Guys also tend to shout things like, 'white women' or whistle or wink. Jeepers.

Well I'm running out of time. I could go on for hours. I'm heading to my first basketball practice today! Yay!