making a hotel a home

So after swearing in on April 21st... which I am proud to say all 44 of us made it to... we all left the comfort of what felt like summer camp and moved to site.  I was one of the lucky ones that got to take public transit! horray for me though all my shit made it to the north!  There was a nasty flood though that held us up getting out of Kampala and the trip took about 6 hours.  So the fun part was realizing my house is not ready!  I'm not the only one though.  My friend Rachel has to squat at a volunteers house for a few weeks and there are others in my group hanging in limbo like us as well.  

So I have been up in Lira for a few days now, but since mi casa is not yet ready, I have been staying at a guest house in town.  This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I got to hang out with two of the nicest ladies in the north, Christine and Barbara.  They run the guest house and have been saving me from starving, overpaying in the market, culturally embarrassing myself and the general boredom that comes from living alone in a room.  They bring my sim sim in the morning, and make me fish for lunch!  I take tea with them and we watch ridiculous ugandan music videos.  Today I met Barbara's family and they found me a puppy!  It is a german shepard mix and I am so excited to take it with me to my house in a few weeks!  Right now it is about a month old... and get this the dad's name is Obama! Their house was HUGE about 18 people which include extended family stay there.  With what the north has been through I sometimes wonder when siblings are staying with aunts and uncles but I don't ask although sometimes the effects of the war are brought up in conversation.  For example Christine told me the night commuters were sleeping on the veranda of the hotel near the end of the war when Lira was really getting hit hard.  But the people here are resilient and you wouldn't know what they have been through when talking to them unless they bring it up.  So all in all I got to learn a lot about the culture here from two pretty understanding ladies.  Some things I learned are I should stop smiling so much because it will be misinterpreted for flirting/ prostitution, blowing on hot food or tea is seen as committing some voodoo act upon it, and people here like to poison dogs so make sure the people who can access your dog like you.  

On Easter Sunday I went to visit Rachel's squatting grounds, aka Burnadette's house!  Another volunteer Heather who stays in Kitgum was also down and she made a pretty awesome dinner.  Burnadette's house is super cute and is only a 30 minute drive away from town, and I met her counterpart who has the coolest name ever.... FRESHER! She is as sweet as her name is.  For payment in staying the night we went to collect water for her at the borehole.  That was an EPIC FAIL! I don't know how she does that on her own... balancing those 2 huge jerrycans on her bike alone... rachel and I could barely get them back without the bike toppling on one of us and we were a fun spectacle for the village to have a good laugh at!  But I digress.... we are laughed at all the time but at least we weren't alone!  So I tried to upload a total of 6 photos but it is taking tooooo damn long so only these 2 finished.  If you want to see photos, again refer to facebook they upload 1000X faster!  Should be putting more up this week from swearing in week and my new house!

 The house where we had our swearing in ceremony, seriously nice digs... I am now considering a career in Foreign Service

Just a silly picture of some Lango girls pretending to be models, which to us I guess means eating our fingers or looking spaced out... I love us!