Ants- You just kind of get used to living with ants here. My Ugandan roommate says that here you just co-exist with the ants. In the US it would be looked down upon to have ants in your kitchen and you would spend time and energy worrying about how to get rid of them, but here, you simply learn to take it as it is and frankly it's kind of nice to not be expected to spend so much time and energy figuring out how to change the situation when it's really not doing any harm. (Now, if the ants were in our food stores or cabinets that would be a whole other story!)
Rain/Weather Apps - I laugh every time I look at the weather apps because it always says ~26C and rain. Which is probably true somewhere in Uganda even if it is bright and sunny down here in the village.
Weather 2- The weather here is amazing. Literally perfect everyday minus the daily shower (it is currently rainy season so it's expected). I thought I would be cold (seeing as I was always cold in the office which was kept around 73) but really haven't been cold here at all. There's no heating or cooling systems and windows are pretty much always open with a slight breeze passing through.
Clothes - I pretty much made a capsule wardrobe out of my normal work clothes to bring - 2 skirts, 3 dresses, 3 short sleeve work tops, 3 long sleeve work tops, 3 cardigans (again back to the always cold thing).
Pork Adventures: One Sunday we adventured to a pork restaurant called Avocado Tree in Kigowa for lunch. We ordered a traditional pork platter for the table which came with matoke, mboga (like cabbage) and veggies, Irish potatoes, fried pork, plantains, posho, and ndaggu (like yams). This traditionally eaten with hands so right before the food came out the server brought a pail and bucket around to wash hands and once the food came out we just dig into the platter. The food was great (my favorite was the plantain) and afterwards they brought the bucket and pail back around to rewash your hands.
Cake: Ugandans typically don't do a lot of dessert...but when it's time to celebrate, they LOVE their cake. For one occasion or another we typically have cake at least once a week whether it is a birthday, leftover wedding cake, new babies, engagements, etc. Chocolate, raisin, red velvet, strawberry, white, gooey butter, german chocolate, oreo, cake - we've had it all!
Needs: One thing about moving over seas is learning what you absolutely need to survive but also to settle in. Obviously we all have the basic needs of food, water, shelter, and purpose but it's been really interesting to figure out what those secondary needs are. Here are a few of mine:
-Meat
-A hair dryer (can't go to sleep on wet hair)
-Grayl water bottle (peace of mind when clean water is scarce)
-Mosquito net (keeps out all the other creepy crawlies too)
Decisions decisions: Some nights there are a ton of mosquitos around my net buzzing so loud it wakes me up. I am not currently on any anti-malarials so this makes me really nervous. So normally at 3am I have to make the decision between trusting the net to hold all of them back (not 100% effective) or dousing my room in bug spray and then hoping I can get back to sleep through the strong smell. It's not ideal, but it's the reality with the resources I have on hand at 3am.
Noise: Even being in a village on the outskirts of the city, there is just constant commotion and noise. Mostly from kids and animals (sometimes we play a game at dinner of "kid or Kid (baby goat)?" when we hear a ear piercing scream) but also because people just do life outdoors here. It feels like in the U.S. when your neighbor is throwing a loud party and there's that energy and noise that comes along with it...but here it's like that from sun-up to about 3am.
Fire Escapes: My roommate made the comment the first day to be very careful about my electronics because there is very little hope in Uganda if a fire breaks out and I didn't really get what she meant by that. It wasn't until I was mentally making escape plans of how I would get out of the apartment if an emergency arose that I realized the only way out of the apartment would be through the front door. All the windows are barred shut with little or no space in or out and the walls are cinder block so there really are no other options. Talk about trusting in the Lord's protection!
Language: English is the official language of Uganda however there is such a strong tribal influence in the country still, everyone speaks their tribal language as well. Here in and around Kampala we are in the Bantu-kingdom of Buganda so everyone speaks the language of Luganda - some exclusively speak Luganda, so my perception that understanding people over here would be easy because "everyone speaks English" was wildly inaccurate.
Rain- The whole village pretty much shuts down when it rains – especially public transportation. Bodas don’t drive and taxis are few and far between. But once the rain stops it turns into a chaos of pent-up travels and people needing to get places. The streets and traffic jams are crazy. Sometimes when I wake up and its raining on a morning, I need to go into town I pray for extra patience and know to allow for at least 3 hours to get downtown.
Chapati- Timothy (one of the Ugandan interns) taught us his family's ways of making chapatis (basically a Ugandan tortilla for all my SA friends reading this) in the compound one day. There was not a single measurement or definable quantity of ingredients mentioned once and the dough mix and cooking times all depended on how it looked and felt. Ha! The basic process was mixing oil, flour, water, salt and cooking it on a flat pan.
Thanksgiving: We had a lovely Thanksgiving at the compound with neighbors and other expats in the area. We had quite a few of the favorite dishes with turkey, stuffing, rolls, green salad, mashed potatoes and gravy, cheesy potatoes, etc. It truly was wonderful to know what everything was on my plate for once and it tasted like home despite being half a world away. I used to eat turkey everyday and I miss it dearly so to have it for Thanksgiving was truly a treat...even if that said turkey had been running around the compound for a month in preparation for Thanksgiving Ha!
Uniforms: People LOVE uniforms here.I think it goes back to the cultural value they place on community and being part of something together rather than individualism. But it is pretty funny because workers in carpentry or other skilled craftsman wear bright orange jumpsuits.The first few times I saw men walking along the side of the road in the orange jumpsuits I slightly freaked out because I was like “Ah surely they don’t just let criminals walk free on the streets?!”
Spring Rainy Season: The fall rainy season felt like a bit of a letdown compared to this spring rainy season. Since March (currently it's end of April) we’ve had rain 6-7 times per week. It has been great because most of the rains have been coming at night/early morning so they don’t disrupt too many plans. It’s also nice to wake up and hear the calming sound of rain and it’s so peaceful (and almost quiet in the neighborhood) during the showers. A nice state of bliss…until you remember that you will have a steep and slippery walk down to the office!
Cultural Bias in Words: Even after being here 9 months, I am still can’t tell you how many times I am still asking people “Sorry, can you explain that?” because of how different they use certain words and phrases in the local context. Like here if someone asks you something and you say, “Ah, that’s okay” – typically in the US that means “No thanks” but here it means “Yes” (As in, I’m okay with that). Another example is when someone says “Maybe you just {x,y,z…]” that’s a direct command to do whatever they said - not a suggestion. They use "Maybe" to soften a command rather than the word "Please"(the word "please" doesn't exist here). And last one – slope only means downhill – you can’t slope uphill
Thunderstorms: During thunderstorms here, it seems like a lot of the thunder and lightening is towards the tail end of the storm.It typically goes giant wind gust, 30 seconds of soft rain, torrential downpour, light rain, thunder and lightning, drizzle, clear skies.I feel like in TX/KS we get thunder and lightning towards the beginning of the storms.
Spelling: Completely made up here and doesn't matter. Even official government documents and correspondence has grammatical and spelling errors. My favorite are the creative spellings for a "Broker" - typically spelled "Blooka" here. [I'll get a picture of the advertisements one of these days!]
Great Quote: One of the funniest quotes from this term was from one of the local Ugandan staff, he said: "You muzungus are crazy. I don't understand why you like throwing yourselves out of planes, flying down mountains, or diving off cliffs. That is so risky! Why do you go looking for chaos?!" We all found this hilarious because there is so much inherent risk and chaos in everyday life here that locals just perceive it as normal.
Music: Most of the other international places I have traveled have had mixes of local music and music from the US, but here in Uganda, it is extremely rare to hear Western/US music. Most of the music that is played is Afrobeats and house music. If there is music from the US it always seems to be old country music, Celine Dion, or hits from the early 2000s. I mean I'm not complaining when I hear some classic Backstreet Boys, but it is super unique to all my travels so far.
International Travel: Why does it seem that so many US franchises I find overseas are the ones that are mediocre at best in the US? Yeah you have the normal heavy hitters like McDonalds and Starbucks, but surprisingly KFC is huge over here - both in Uganda and Dubai. Stores like Hollister and Abercrombie are big over here and I even saw a few new Forever 21's popping up even though all those stores have been closed in the States. We saw multiple Chili's, Dickies Barbeque, and Denny's which...
Margarine Containers: There is something so universal about opening the refrigerator door and seeing a ton of margarine containers full of leftovers.
Martial Expectations: One of the most relatable discussions I've had with some one my Ugandan friends has been about the societal/familial pressures to be married already or have a long list of professional accomplishments. A lot of us are on a different timeline than our parents and peers in terms of marriage/starting a family, and we don't subscribe to the notion that to be successful means to be making a lot of money or have a ton of accolades or a flashy job title. But at the end of the day we all feel that pressure. It manifests differently between the cultures but it still plays a role in our lives.
Customer Service: Here the customer is NEVER right...even if they are. One of the clearest examples of this was once we went to a restaurant, ordered off the menu, then when it was time to pay the check, all of the prices were almost doubled - increased by about $3-4 each. Our Ugandan friends were appalled when we asked the waitress why the prices went up. The waitress replied that she gave us old menus and that the prices printed weren't right and had gone up. We argued that we would be more than happy to pay the prices on the menu +$1 but that it was not fair to pay the doubled prices because we were 1. not informed of the price increase before or at the time of ordering and 2. some of us did not have enough cash on hand for the increased prices. Our Ugandan friends almost crawled under the table from embarrassment and upon leaving the restaurant informed us that we just were the rudest customers they had ever seen. It's the idea here that people can run their business how they want and you can't say anything about it if they are providing you the service.
Change: It is up to the customer to provide exact change for a transaction. The seller is not obligated to give you change back if you can not pay in exact cash. A lot of people in our village are very kind and will help you get exact change, but the expectation that the seller is not responsible for change is still valid.
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