Week One in Uganda!

It has been a whole week since our arrival in Uganda and we have been very busy meeting many new people and seeing new places! Fr. Prosper said the drive from Kampala to Jinja could take anywhere from one to six hours, depending on the traffic jams. It ended up taking us around three hours; the drive gave us the perfect opportunity to see and observe the cities and terrain of Uganda. The landscape is pretty mountainous, I would say it is similar to being in the foothills in Boise, where you are driving up and down hills. There are mountains/hills all over in the distance, often with houses built up them. There were also several open plains - but they are more like swamp lands - and many fields of corn. The earth is red everywhere, and all the buildings are very colorful. Driving through the cities, there were about three times as many boda-bodas are cars. People selling things in small market-like storefronts lined the majority of the streets. People sell everything from food to clothes to beds. There were many young kids walking from their schools; most of them had on uniforms. There were also lots of animals, such as cows, chickens, goats, and dogs. Driving into Jinja, we crossed a large bridge that went over the Nile River! Jinja is the source of the Nile, and the lake here is named Lake Victoria.

We turned off the paved road onto a very bumpy dirt road. We drove up a large hill, and there were now people’s houses alongside the road instead of shops. We arrived at Holy Cross Lake View Secondary School, and Fr. Prosper gave us a quick tour around the grounds. The school is very beautiful, and everything is mostly outside because the weather is so nice! The school also has several gorgeous views of Lake Victoria (where it gets its name from!) and the surrounding mountains. Then Fr. Prosper took us to the house we will be staying at.

My room is very nice, with a bed with white lace mosquito netting, a desk, and my own bathroom and shower. There are two other priests and a seminarian living here as well. They are very joyful and genuine people and I am very happy to be staying with them. Dinner consisted of chicken, rice, and chapati (Fried tortilla/bread — super delicious and my favorite so far!) There are also lots of animals at the house including bunnies (and baby bunnies), chickens, dogs, a snail, and a Turkey!

On Friday, I woke up early at 6 to call home (which is nine hours behind); it has been somewhat confusing because sometimes when I call late at night and then again in the morning, it is still the same day back home! We had morning prayer/mass at 7 am. It was very similar but also different than our mass. The main difference was that before the first reading and after communion, we said a series of antiphons. I was thinking during mass though, that it is amazing and comforting to know that I listened to the same readings as every other Catholic in the whole world. It really put a new perspective on the “universal” aspect of Catholicism.

After mass, we had breakfast: cooked bananas, eggs, toast (with homemade peanut butter), and coffee. I liked the breakfast a lot.

Then we drove to the school. It is a very short drive - about five minutes. The drive made us realize that the bumpy dirt roads probably make riding boda bodas easier than driving cars. We received a tour of the school. There are labs for all of the sciences (physics, chem, and bio) and many classrooms for all the classes. I am learning how their school system works. They have primary school, secondary school, and then university. Secondary school has six forms - Senior 1-6. Senior 1 is somewhat equivalent to seventh grade, and Senior 6 is similar to senior year of high school. So the youngest children in the school can be 12, and the oldest can be in their twenties! After lunch at the school, we got to sit in on a Senior 1 English class which was a great experience. The students came up to us after class to ask our names. All of the students have been so friendly and wonderful to get to know.

Saturday was June 3, which is Ugandan Martyr Day. It is a national holiday celebrating twenty-four martyrs killed between 1885-1887. We woke up at 4 AM to drive back to Namugongo, just outside Kampala. This is the site of the Shrine where it is believed the martyrs were killed. Every year over a million people gather at the site to celebrate mass and the holiday. Many people also make a pilgrimage on foot to the site. This year over 5,000 people walked from Jinja to Namugongo (over 100 km)!! Many people travel even further (some on foot and others not) from all over East Africa. The drive took around two hours and we found parking by 7 AM. Then we had to make it through the crowd to our seats. There were so many people trying to get into the site, and there were so many people who were already there. The priests are very respected by everyone, and so Fr. Prosper was able to get us through the crowd. We sat with all the religious brothers and sisters. The whole place was beautiful, and the mass, singing, and dancing were incredible to see. We got to our seats around 7:30 and mass didn’t start 10 AM. It was ok though because the choir was singing and the dancers were dancing the whole time. The mass lasted almost three and a half hours. The homily was translated and given in six different languages! There are many different languages spoken all over. Most people speak some English, and Swahili is also pretty common. Then which language most people speak depends on where they are from. In Jinja, Lusoga is spoken, and in Kampala, they speak Luganda. We ended up leaving the site around 2:30 and started the drive back to Jinja. We stopped at a pork shop on the way home since none of us had eaten all day. This was my favorite meal so far! We ate everything with our hands which was kind of fun. The Kuchumbari (tomato/onion mix) was my favorite and probably my favorite food so far.

On Sunday, we went to mass at the school. It was so energetic, and everyone was singing and dancing. After mass, we met and talked with a lot of students. It was really cool to get to know some of them. One student in senior one even sang for us. She is so talented! For dinner, I ate tilapia, and we had freshly squeezed juice.

On Monday, I taught for the first time. All four of us got assigned an English class to teach all alone; I got assigned a senior one class (basically seventh grade). Mine was the first class we knew we were going to teach alone, so we decided to co-teach the class. I was SUPER nervous to teach, but after we all did it together, it seemed like I would be able to handle it. At some point on Monday, Fr. Prosper took Avery and I to visit the medical clinics we will be working at. St. Benedict’s is run by the St. Benedict’s sisters. Their monastery is down the road and we met Sr. Benedicta (the abbess) there, and Fr. Prosper kept joking that he was going to leave us there to become sisters! At the monastery, we saw a monkey (and I coincidentally caught it on video)! Sr. Benedicta said the monkeys steal all of their mangoes. St. Benedict’s Health Centre is over twenty years old and is very busy every day. St. Andre’s is a brand-new clinic and less well-known in the community.

On Tuesday, Avery and I started working at the clinic. We walked to school for the first time so that we could be picked up. It was a very peaceful walk, and the view of the mountain and lake is breathtaking every time I see it. Sr. Benedicta gave us a much more in-depth tour of the facilities. We worked in the pharmacy, opening pill packages and putting them in larger bottles. We got to talk a lot to the sisters and people who work there about life in Uganda. At the end of the day, we helped clean the floor with a bucket of water, a broom, and a squeegee. While we were waiting for Fr. Prosper to pick us up from the clinic, Bright, who works at the clinic and whom we talked to for most of the day, showed us around the neighboring nursery and primary school. All the little kids were so adorable and we also saw baby ducks. We also saw a jackfruit tree, which was super cool.

On Wednesday, I taught my English class all alone for the very first time! I am proud of myself for doing it alone because I was very nervous that I would not be able to teach the students very well. I hope that I can have at least a little bit of a positive impact on one of the students’ lives. I watched Avery teach her class, and her students were trying to imitate her American accent, which we all found very funny. The students in my class also said that I spoke very fast and it was sometimes difficult to understand me. I also sat in on an upper-level geography class. They were learning about river erosion which was pretty cool to hear about. After school, we had mass with all the students which was very lively and refreshing. We walked home again, and it was nice to get some exercise. At dinner, Fr. Prosper brought us grasshoppers to try, and I ate quite a few! They kind of tasted like fried popcorn shrimp if you took the shrimp out and just had the sort of airy, crispy crust. Once I got over the fact that it was a whole grasshopper, it was actually pretty delicious.

Today is Thursday, and I started the day again with 7 am mass and breakfast (matoke, toast, and coffee). Fr. Prosper took us to St. Andre Clinic. We learned how to take patients’ vitals, and we got to take vitals for any patients who came in. Lots of children came in, and I am thinking now that being a pediatrician might be fun! Most of the day, though, we just sat and waited for patients to come. There were very few who came in. (the second picture below is Avery and me after taking our first patient's vitals! The third picture is a sign about COVID at LakeView.) We had avocados and chapati for lunch. We stayed at the clinic until 8 pm (ten hours!!) For dinner, we had chicken, rice, and chapati (one of my favorite meals), and I learned that they eat the whole chicken in Uganda. I also learned that the gizzard is given to the most important person at the table. Both Avery and I had a gizzard. I was kind of scared to try it because it was very rubbery and grey, but it tasted ok. I might not eat it again, but it was not horrible. The student’s retreat started this afternoon and continues tomorrow, and throughout the weekend, so I will be at the school participating in the retreat for the next couple of days!

One thing I am learning and working on is having patience and being okay with not being busy. Life is not as fast-paced here as back home and especially at school so I have been working on having patience and grace with a flexible schedule.

Overall, I am loving spending time here in Uganda, and I am learning so many things about myself, about Uganda, its culture and history, I am seeing incredible sights, and I am meeting so many amazing people.