It's Official... I'm a volunteer!

Well tomorrow I will be anyway!  So right now I am a little outside Kampala at a 5 star hotel complete with pool and HOT showers!!!! We are being seriously spoiled.... and I kind of want to move in just so they can feed me, the food here is awesome!

So what the hell am I going to be doing for the next two years now that I am a real life volunteer?  2 weeks ago after holding onto where we were going for 2 months.... they finally told us....  St. Katherine's Girls Secondary School in Lira District!  I am really stoked to be at an all girls school and my counterpart is a "Super Teacher".  Super Teacher Wendy Grace can't fly or read people's minds, but she is quite the progressive woman especially for ugandan standards and that is just as special!  So myself and my fellow lango lovers braved the trip back up to the north to visit our sites the next day and this ride went much smoother!  Stella, Liz and I took a more reputable bus company who's wheels were safely secured... and we made it there in under 5 hours.  I stayed at Mango Tree Guest House again because my house wasn't ready and the next morning I got picked up in the school's vehicle for a visit.  Enwat the driver is my new best friend because shit... how else am I going to get to town when you can't ride a boda!

Where I Am:  So I am only 7km outside Lira town which is pretty convenient and I am only 2km away from a fellow volunteer.  That is pretty damn lucky, some volunteers have to travel 2 hours to get to a PCV and I can walk to her site in 10 minutes!  My house is on the school's compound which is completely gated in, in a town called Boro Boro!

My House:  I have electricity and running water!!! wasn't expecting that at all so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it.  The house is really simple, the first door enters into 2 rooms, a living room and a bedroom, and a bathroom that is right off the bedroom, complete with toilet and shower!  That doesn't mean I have hot water but in Africa you can deal with that... The second door opens into the kitchen which has a counter and a sink! I know these things sound ridiculous to get excited about but seriously I'm pretty set up compared to a lot of volunteers here with my ammenitites and accessibility to town.

Who I Work With:  So the school is really nice and the they are well staffed.  They have about 40 teachers or so, maybe more.  The school is made up of 900 girls (pretty big) from S1-S6.  My first reaction was "What the hell am I doing here?"  I mean they had the ability to print out tests, they had a library, they had enough room for students to sit, they had a whole building dedicated to lab and it was pretty well stocked and organized.  This may sound like a given but it is a REALLY nice school in Uganda and Super Teacher Wendy is one of the best teachers in the country (as decided by the ministry of education).  I was only there for a day so though I'm not going to make any conclusions until I spend time there, and I know I can do some good, it's just not what I was expecting.  The staff is really nice thought especially my counterpart, supervisor and head teacher.  They were a little standoffish with me at first, I'm not sure if it is because I am replacing a volunteer, but they warmed up to me once I started speaking the language.  I am going to be teaching S5 organic chemistry and calculus, and 4 classes of S2 math!

I will write much more about site in the future but for now I am exhausted and am feeling the daunting weight of having to re pack all my shit again before moving to site on friday!  Tomorrow is our last night together and we are really happy all of us made it through... so naturally it should be a shit show!  But aber!