Goats

Disclaimer: Basically this blog is for my mom and other people who know me and want to keep up with me, and for me to be able to write things out as I see them. :)

I've never been anywhere in Africa before. 

I like it here already. There are a lot of things that are different from both the US and from the Solomons in ways I wasn't expecting. For instance, they have cooking bananas, which are known in the States as plantains and here are called motoke. But while in the Solomons, they would just throw the bananas on the fire to roast, here they're boiled and smashed. They have banana leaves over the top while they're boiling, then after they're cooked you smash it down with your hands while the banana leaves are still covering it.

There are a lot of bananas in Uganda. There are also a lot of goats. My MK friends who told me that there were a lot of goats in this part of Africa were not wrong, although I have yet to see a goat in the back of a truck. All of the Uganda Studies Program (USP) students were taking a walk one day, and we came across someone herding a host of goats down the road at a run. Or on my walk to and from school, I pass tons of goats, black, white and brown, tied in peoples' yards grazing, or just wandering around bleating. 

But it's not the goats or the food that make a place what it is, it's the people. And so I think I'm in good shape, because there are some fantastic people here. My host family is so gracious and patient with me. I want to learn everything, and they are willing to do things like repeatedly tell me how to say phrases in Luganda when I forget how they go. Also, Luganda is cool because a whole phrase in English could just be one word in Luganda, which is quite practical really. I'm trying to learn not only the language but everything, like how to sit, how to wash my hands, and how to cook. It's definitely not all coming to me perfectly; like this morning I put about six times too many tea leaves in my tea. But it's coming, and I'm enjoying the ride, which is half the fun, right?

I'm just glad that I get to be here. It was hard to say goodbye to friends and to my family, but now that I'm here I'm going all in - even when it's hard, because it's totally worth it. And I think I am going to love it so much, and I think it will be hard to go back to America where things are not green and warm and sunny, and where things run on clock time, and where there are hardly any stars, and where there is too much of everything.

Not that America is bad, just that I'm seeing a lot that I like in Uganda so far.