Day 1

We arrived at our host family today at 3pm. Mrs. Margret Ssekalongi or Mama Margret is my host mom. She insists I am her son and she is my mom, so I am. I met her son Sebastian, who helped me to move my stuff in and organize my room. Before I unpacked, we ate lunch – muchete (rice), matoke (steamed mashed bananas), and nyama (meat/beef). It was wonderful and plenty. Hawa is mom’s daughter of 30 years, and is taking care of 3 children – Dina (5), Subi (3), and Angela (1).

After dinner I unpacked and set up the mosquito net. The ceiling hooks were too high so that the net didn’t touch the ground and there were only three, so I had to tie ropes to extend the net down to touch the floor and hammer in a 4rth hook (nail) with a pipe. After securing everything and looking over one of my first small innovations in Uganda I realized there were two quarter sized holes in the net… so I sprayed those with one of my three cans of mosquito repellant and hoped it really did last 8 hours. After getting my stuff settled (mostly), I went outside to play soccer with Sebastian and a local boy named Edward. They were good, and we had a lot of fun playing keep away and just passing around for about two hours. We played Frisbee as well (which I had to teach them) until dusk. We were soaked in sweat but with big fat smiles on our faces the whole time.

I then came into take my first shower/bath from a bucket. Closing the bathroom door (different room than the toilet), I realized that there was no light, and the sun had already gone down (there were some lights in other rooms, but bulb was gone in the bathroom). So I set up my rechargeable flashlight in the best spot I could so that the light would bounce and hoped it would last the whole time. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I filled my tub with rain water from a catchment outside and first washed my fair with a bar of soap, using an empty butter container to pour water over my head; not too bad so far. It was easier than I thought it would be and proceeded to the rest of my body. I sat in the bath tub naked with the tub of water between my legs and used the butter container to pour over me (cold bathtub to sit on naked while pouring cold water on you is not pleasant). I lathered up and proceeded to dump water to wash it off… it didn’t work. I couldn’t get a constant flow of water to wash the soap off, and when I tried to rub it when pouring (not so easy), it just spread it more. I tried standing up, kneeling, sitting again (cold!); nothing was working. By this time the soap I had so effectively covered my body with was drying. I could keep pouring and risk running out of water (I only had about 8 gallons) or humbly walk out and ask my mom how this whole bathing thing works. I decided to stick it out and hope wouldn’t be fetching more water. I had my Shamm-wow with me to dry off with, and decided to use it to soak up the water and wipe off the soap with. Because it could hold water and wipe the soap off, it worked wonderfully. WOW! My first Ugandan shower was over in only 35min. After that I asked Sebastian how he did it, and when he acted out almost exactly what I had tried to do the first time I just smiled and held my sham-wow like a good muzungu (white person).

I later had tea (a snack-like meal eaten before dinner and sometimes breakfast consisting of tea – milk and hot water with a teabag – and bread with a butter like spread) around 8:15pm. I talked with mom about Lugandan (the language of the Bugandan people in Uganda) words and tradition for a bit, then discussed rules for the semester, expectations she had, and any questions or concerns I had. I took this chance to explain my low-fat vegan preference, which she readily understood and agreed to do her best to accommodate to (that was easy). After we talked she showed me how to wash the dishes and put them up (similar to the shower in that we fill butter containers and spill onto the dirty dishes, lather with soap, and wash off into a basin that we then poured outside). She then put dinner on the kerosene burner and said, “We now wait for dinner to cook.” It was 9:30pm. The smell of kerosene filled the house, so I made sure to keep my room closed. We began eating dinner (leftovers from lunch - matoke, ynama, and potatoes) around 10:30pm.

We headed to bed around 11pm. Bushing my teeth with no running water and in the dark was a cake walk after the shower. I tucked my mosquito net into my mattress and slept a sound night. Day 1 down.