Wednesday 6/9/10

Woke up this morning feeling a tremendous amount better. We went to the coffee shop to have lunch and see Joan. We had an interesting conversation with her because her ex husband’s parents had died recently and they had kept her children with then in the village to go to school, so they were very involved. She attended the funeral was showing us pictures from the funeral. We asked her about how people were buried, and it sounded pretty normal until she said that it was a bad omen for people who hung themselves. People would just dig a hole underneath, cut the body down, let the body fall directly in the hole, and cover the body as it lay. No one would touch the body at all. A little melancholy but interesting.
Stopped at the market to buy a fake red Juicy Couture purse. I’m pretty excited, mostly because it’s red. We went home afterwards because my body just isn’t up to par yet.

Thursday 6/10/10

For the life of me, I could not get out of bed this morning. Meagan had to come and wake me up because Mary wanted us to meet her an hour earlier for a school observation. The observation itself went really well. We went to a school that used an integrated learning model for children with learning disabilities. The classroom was mixed with two regular children for every disabled child in the classroom. The classes were very small, and everyone worked under the philosophy that everyone had something to learn from each other. The idea really appealed to me, using school purposely to teach compassion for people who are different by learning to work together. It is so different from the American model, which is often critiqued for segregating “special ed” students because they never learn how to integrate into normal society and people never learn how to interact with people how have special needs.
The mentor was really good with the children. He told me that he had been walking seven miles each day to work with the children in this part of Kampala. Mary had us over to her house after the observation. We had a fantastic time and stayed for the remainder of the afternoon. My favorite part was probably watching her make juice by hand and listening to her tell stories about her children and her late husband. Later her son stopped by to meet us, named Julius. He seemed to be pretty nice.
For lunch we had most of the typical dishes, with the addition of posho and pumpkin. Posho is something like grits, but with a lot less water. I ate until I felt like I was going to pop, but still not to the satisfaction of Mary. She commented that I didn’t eat enough, and Meagan, jumping to my aid, said that I ate more at home. I also said that I wasn’t thin after all, and Mary agreed, saying that I had “big legs” (smile).
After lunch we drank the delicious juice that she had made herself and looked at pictures of her family. We sat and looked at pictures for at least two hours and had every picture explained to us in detail. I didn’t think that we were ever going to get out of there. They sent us home with some chilies, a papaya, and on the street the bought each of us what is called a rolex. Clearly it is not a watch, but something comparable to a breakfast burrito. In the evenings vendors stand by the road side and make fresh chapatti, which is an type of Indian bread that is flat and round and dense by cooking them on a hot flat skillet. Then they crack two eggs, mix them with onions and tomatoes. And pour it on the skillet to make like an omelet. The man who was doing it was very good, he could use his knife to both cut things and as a spatula. Then they place the chapati on top, lifted and flipped the whole thing and then wrapped it over on itself. Then you ate it just like that. We waited till we got home to eat them, and even though we weren’t hungry we each ate the whole thing. I feel like I’ve eaten enough for three days.

Friday 6/11/10

Spent the whole day trying to catch up on writing. Grace is here and I almost can’t stand it because she pecks at me continuously. Looking forward to tonight, we are meeting some friends to watch the next world cup game. We have been watching the opening ceremonies and the Mexico/South African game as we have been working. Think it’s going to be a blast!