Thanksgiving and Kampala

Last week all the trainees, trainers, current Volunteers, and lots of PC staff converged on PC Headquarters in Kampala for PC Thanksgiving. The neighborhood where HQ is sits on one of the many hills with a beautiful view of the city. Lots of red roofs, red dirt roads, palm trees and giant storks, and miles (or kilometers, rather) of hills.

Backtracking a little bit, on Sunday the 24th we all went to Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. Normally, Volunteers don't travel in the city for safety reasons, but we were all in groups getting a city tour. We saw a couple of malls, and figured out where to go to get to the PC HQ, and had to sort of find our own way back to the training centre. I say sort of, because the trainers showed us the taxi park and where to go.

The taxi park was completely packed, and we went to the New Taxi Park, which was very slightly less crowded than the old one. Taxis in Uganda all look exactly the same. They're imported vehicles that look like a mix between a minivan and a VW bus with Asian language characters printed all over them. Sometimes the seatbelts work, sometimes they don't. They also have pulldown seats in the middle of the aisle we're calling jumpseats. When they're all down, the aisle disappears.

I walked through the city with my backpack slung around my front because they recommended it. I don't currently have a purse that zips, just a backpack or a tote bag. It was not recommended to go to the city with a bag that doesn't close. It felt strange, but a large group of non-Ugandans are consp

The city is very busy. There were boda bodas (small motorcycle taxis) zipping around between all the matatus (bus/van taxis) and the cars and the larger coach buses and the many supply trucks. In short, the visit made me happy that I will be going to a rural site in the north rather than a larger city site somewhere urban. Though it was nice to have modern malls and flush toilets and cellphone stores, I think I will prefer the slower pace and fewer people of rural life.

We've since moved from our initial training site to a Primary Teacher's College (PTC) where we are doing school practice (student teaching) for two weeks before moving on to visiting our future site and staying with our homestay families. I have a lot to talk about regarding teaching but I'm going to leave that for a future post because at this point I am super tired and happy it is Friday. When we're not teaching, we're observing other Volunteers and Ugandan teachers teach, so our days are pretty full. 

P.S. If there's anything you are curious about, feel free to ask and I can elaborate!