Officially Volunteers!

On January 23rd, 2014, Kris, I, and our fellow volunteers were sworn in as official Peace Corps volunteers at the house of the American ambassador to Uganda, Ambassador Scott DeLisi. Our two years here has now begun! It feels good to finally be Volunteers, and no longer Trainees, but our work at the Primary Teacher's College (PTC) and Demonstration School has not started yet. Actually, for the next three months, our main job as volunteers will be what is called the School Profile Tool - weekly assignments set by Peace Corps designed to help familiarize ourselves with our schools and their staff, integrate into our community, and assess the needs of our schools and community.

There will be other important initial tasks too, however, like administering the Early Grade Reading Assessment, designed to both gather data on early grade literacy in Uganda and inform my decision on which students to select for reading intervention, and a week-long HIV workshop at the end of February. We are also currently attending a School Health and Reading Program (SHARP) workshop. SHARP is a new program set out by the Ministry of Education and Sports (MOES - also, so many acronyms!) and USAID to promote literacy, and my school has been selected as one of the pilot schools.

So there are many exciting things, hopefully, to come, but for now, it is mostly the settling-in period. That means that there are pictures of our house also coming soon! For now though, here are some snapshots of our transition to becoming official volunteers.

 Street meat!

 Amanda in her tree-climbing lion costume. Yay for opening the bags we stored away a week into country!

 Our awesome, official invites.

 On our way!

 Singing the National Anthem, and beautifully, I might add. 

 Kris and three other friends of ours represented our group with an awesome spoken word.

 Southwest represents with the Ambassador and Country Director!

 Our amazing language trainers.

 Kris's counterpart and my supervisor.

 This is what happens when Codie steals my camera.

 Oh, the North.

 We're thinking of starting "Dipping Around the World" themed pictures.

 Celebrating our momentous occasion, Titanic-style.

Enjoying our moment with some awesome Peeps that Kris's mom sent to us!

"We need someone with the boldness of a pioneer, the resourcefulness of an inventor, and the faith of a sword swallower."

- Ambassador DeLisi, quoting a Peace Corps saying

Language Training

Since my last post, dear readers, Kris and I have headed to the Southwest with our language group – the other volunteers who will be living and working around us – and have been studying hard to reach an Intermediate level in Runyankore. We have been taking intensive language and culture classes six days a week from roughly eight to five. Peace Corps insists on their volunteers obtaining at least an intermediate level in the local language because it is such an important part of security, integration, and a volunteer’s success during their service. Plus, it’s fun! (And a lot of work, but hey, let’s focus on the fun.)

Runyankore Fun Facts:

-          Enyoni means both bird and airplane. This means that the cry of, “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Superman!” would be slightly more confusing here.

-          Airport is ekishayi ky’enyoni, which literally translates as “playground of birds.” Pretty much the best thing ever.

-          There is no winter and summer here, just the rainy seasons and dry seasons. When it rains here, it really rains. This is illustrated by the fact that kuteerwa means both “to be caught in the rain” and “to be beaten.”

-          Greetings are extremely important and there are many different ways to greet someone. It is polite to inquire after how someone has spent the night, how their family is doing, what news they have…and that is just when you pass by them in the village. When you finally want to leave someone, a common way to say goodbye is ogumeho, which is extremely illustrative in that it literally means, “Stay there!”

-          Amaizi, depending on how it is pronounced, can mean either water or feces. No awkward moments at the local market there at all.

-          Cute one: egaari y’omwika, which means train, translates literally as “bicycle of smoke.”

-          When asking for sauce (emboga) in a restaurant, someone in my group accidentally asked instead for buffalos.

-          There are at least five different words for bananas, depending on their size, type and ripeness.

-          The most embarassing one: Yesterday in class, when trying to describe how long it took me to get to my site, I accidentally stated how it had taken me six hours to impregnate someone.

In our little bit of free time, we have been enjoying the beautiful scenery here in the Southwest, bonding with our group, and having a great time with our amazing homestay family (who gave us our Ugandan names! I am Rukundo, which means love, and Kris is Nimsiima, which means grateful). Pictures to come later, when I hopefully have better Internet!

In Runyankore:

"What did you do before you came to Uganda?"

"Because pineapple."

           - Fere and Jay