"You are welcome"

Glacier International Airport, 8: 15 am on June 12--- another gorgeous Montana morning bids me goodbye. No fellow Peace Corps Volunteer travel companions, no family members to quiet nerves about the program ahead, no personal ties to abandon at home… and no regrets.

Entebbe/Kampala Airport, 8:15 pm on June 13---warm Ugandan darkness welcomes me back to Africa. A certain vow occupies my thoughts as I step off the plane: remain open, brave, positive and dedicated to being as useful as I can to the community I am here to serve. Oh the possibilities of second chances, the opportunity in a fresh start!

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I have been in Jinja now for a little over two weeks. The first thing I have to say…. I absolutely LOVE it here! The next thing I must note is how much easier African culture shock is the second time around (bucket baths included).

I woke up very early on my first morning in Uganda to the sound of torrential rain; in the strangest way it was comforting and familiar. Lying under my mosquito net listening to the rain pouring down on the tin roof of the Guest House that I had checked into the night before, I felt more content and “at home” than anxious. I had the luxury of being able to remind myself, “Hey, you’ve done this before.” Actually the majority of my daily journal entries since touching down in East Africa begin with a statement about how excited, grateful, and content I am to have another shot at living and volunteering on this beautiful continent.

“You are welcome” is a phrase I now hear incessantly. It is not an acknowledgement of a “thank-you,” but rather offered to me by Ugandans whenever I arrive at work, return home, sit down to a meal, speak in the local language, or even decide to move from one chair to another. I think the phrase says a lot about Ugandan culture. I have been received so warmly by so many people and continue to be impressed by the friendly nature of my host-family, new friends, co-workers, and even strangers I greet on the street. Ugandans give hospitality a whole new meaning. Sure the children still get a kick out of screaming “Mzungu” at me wherever I go, pointing out the foreign white person who definitely sticks out from the rest. But, rather than being a negative response, I have learned it’s simply an observation of fact, of a plain and simple reality. Not unlike how my host-family continually tells me, “you are going to get SO FAT,” or “When you go back, everyone will say, Erica you are SO BIG and FAT!” Yes, like in Cameroon, being full-figured in Uganda is considered the highest beauty ideal. Time will tell if in a year I can measure up!

After a fairly uneventful week of training, the four other Foundation for Sustainable Development interns and I moved into our home-stays the weekend before we started work with our respective host NGO’s. Well, I guess it wasn’t so uneventful, as I did manage to walk through a park with monkeys at my feet, see crested cranes, crocs, African buffalo, rhinos, mambas; drove through Mbira forest; crossed over the Nile; rode on a bicycle boda boda (the common taxi form here); picnicked at Bujigali Falls; took a boat (canoe) tour on the Nile; cheered on the Cranes during their football match against Angola; went running by the “Source of the Nile;” got acquainted with the local cuisine; tried the local beer and learned some basic Luganda!

In other news, I completed my first workweek at TASO. I am thoroughly impressed with the organization as a whole, and also with the staff and patients. My first Monday was spent meeting my supervisor and beginning to absorb all the activities TASO does. In the afternoon I sat in the waiting room and chatted with clients waiting either for their ARV’s, counseling, or medical appointments. I heard several very powerful stories, simultaneously sad and inspiring. The next three weeks at TASO I will spend in observation and needs-assessment. I am so new to Uganda, the culture, TASO and the population it serves that I can’t pretend to know right away how I can be most useful. After this month-long period, I’ll develop a work plan and submit a grant to FSD’s San Francisco office. I feel so lucky I could commit to a year here in Jinja so that I can ease into the work plan gradually. In one week I have already learned so much. I’m reminded often of how I felt in Cameroon, with each day seeming to bring a whole lifetime of new, colorful experiences!

A few highlights from the week:

-Accompanying the TASO drama club to visit Wanyange Girls School, outside of Jinja Town with a view of Lake Victoria, where they did an HIV/AIDS sensitization. The 200 or so girls in the room were so excited, hootin' and hollerin', getting up off the benches to dance, as the drama club was singing, dancing traditional Ugandan dances, performing a play and poems about the realities of HIV/AIDS for Ugandan youth. I had chills watching the performance; it was so moving to watch a real attack against this killer disease.

-Cooking outdoors over an improved cook stove (basically a pot on the ground with a cavity to load charcoal and for smoke to exist) with my host sister. So far I’ve learned how to make chapatti (a thick fried tortilla equivalent), matooke, and groundnut sauce.

-Meeting with a local student about an AIDS club he wants to work with me to start up at his high school.

-Editing a TASO newsletter...I knew an English degree was the way to go!

-Attending TASO’s newly formed adolescent drama club’s Saturday practice. I had tears in my eyes watching the kids, all HIV positive ages 12 to 18, dance, sing and recite poetry under a big mango tree about how to prevent infection and live positively after infection. They are so full of hope and life that one would never guess they are sick. I am so proud of them and am in awe of their strength. Even though I have always felt absurdly lucky in my life, hanging out with these kids has just breathed new life into that feeling. I am truly speechless, dumbfounded for the lot in life I’ve been given.

I knew I was going to learn much more from my experience with TASO than I could ever imagine giving, but I don’t think I could have prepared for this. These kids’ smiles say it all.