Very late update

Sorry for the tremendous delay in updating this blog  As it turn out living without electricity or an internet café in your village makes it very difficult to keep a blog updated, who knew.
Since a significant amount of time has passed so let me ‘splain what has happened……. no, there is too much. Let me sum up.
Training:
Well training went on, and on, and on, and on..well you get the idea. It was a long process covering many things, including much language training. Some of my difficulties with training may have actually resulted from the wonderful pre-training I received from my Incredible professors at MTU while I was there. Many of the difficulties trainees face along with a good portion of the material covered in the “Tech” training sessions were covered very well by Blair Orr and others. So while this preparation was really helpful in dealing with some of the stresses that many trainees feel it may have also led to a certain amount of complacency and perceived extra ability. These in turn may have led me to be a little more social than was prudent during training. And by that I mean I was generally out socializing everyday after training.
Now before some of you begin disparaging the way I spent my little free time you should know that the time was extremely valuable in forging some great friendships with my fellow trainees, the regulars at my host family’s shop, and the very friendly servers at the “New Friends Guesthouse”, They only act like the hate us there. In addition I took many walks throughout Wakiso town and the surrounding villages observing the daily life of the people of the area. And last, but not least, I developed a deep appreciation for some of the finer things in life(in Uganda) such as; Alcohol sold in 100ml plastic pouches, Uganda waragi with Krest, and Eagle beer-cold or warm.
Much of training went by in a non-descript blur, one day blending into the surrounding ones, but there were a few notable times I will share with you. First is when we went for our ‘Language Immersion’ trip during our 4th week of training. Because there are currently no volunteers working in the region where Lugwere is spoken our language group traveled to 2 destinations to satisfy our training for the week.
The group of us who were learning Lugwere traveled to the east to Tororo, a nice town near the Kenyan border that’s 2 most notable features are a huge volcanic rock that rises out of the landscape right outside of town, and the largest cement factory in Uganda, Tororo Cement. We spent 2 days living in relative luxury at the Crystal hotel in Tororo, with electricity, hot showers and sit-down toilets. In case I didn’t mention it I had none of those things during my 10 weeks living in Wakiso. During those 2 days we visited with 3 current volunteers to try and learn a little more about what the daily life of a volunteer is like. These volunteers were education volunteers, and it just so happened that school was on break when we were there so the volunteers were not actually working, and so our view of daily life may have been slightly skewed from what we have now found at our sites…but only slightly for some of us.
Since the people of Tororo do not speak Lugwere we then proceeded to Budaka town, the district hub for Budaka district, a small town inside a small district that lies about 30km west of Mbale-get an atlas. Budaka is the center of the Bagwere kingdom, the Bagwere tribe being the ones who speak our target language of Lugwere. We stayed for 3 days in this small town, barely above a village really, and were back to living without running water, sit-down toilets or showers (hot or cold). During this time we had formal language classes as well as many smaller assignments which involved going into the community and practicing our very minimal skills, as well as meeting the leaders of the community to introduce ourselves. When our time was finished it was back to our homestay families in Wakiso with an afternoon layover in Kampala for some western style food, ice cream and internet.
The second notable event some of you may be aware of is when riots erupted in Kampala, and surrounding areas, for 3 days beginning on September 10th. The riots, and riot control by police and army, left 21 dead and many more injured. The riots spread as far as the village of Wakiso where we were getting ready to celebrate the birthday of one of our trainees at the Desert Paradise bar. Jenny, one of our trainers saw the crowd and stopped to tell us that riots had broken out in Kampala and had reached the next town over from Wakiso and we were all advised to go immediately to our homes and await further communication from Peace Corps staff.
Most of us did exactly as told and immediately left and went directly home to await further communication. But at least 3 trainees, who shall remain nameless, did not follow the rules exactly and had a slightly more up-close experience with the riots in Wakiso. One particular trainee left the bar with very good intentions of going straight home when he met a fellow free-spirited trainee walking through town. She had not heard the news and was on her way to get a rolex-best food ever and I’ll talk more about them later- for dinner. Well the 2 looked around wakiso and all appeared calm, so they thought no harm could come from a 10 minute journey to their favorite rolex stand for some dinner. As it happens this rolex stand, Nassar’s Fast Foods, sits on the side of the major road from Kampala to Hoima, the road the riots were spreading along.
The scene played out something like this:
Walking through town approaching Hoima road-People gathered around the few shops with tv’s watching the news stories of rioting in Kampala and surrounding areas. Many, Many people lined up along Hoima road watching as smoke from burning tires- being used to barricade the Hoima road- began appearing very close to town.
PCV#1 “it sure seems pretty crazy. Maybe we should skip dinner and head home?” its about a 10 or 15 minute walk from there.
PCV#2 “Don’t be a pansy. Look at all these people. We’ll be fine” she says
PCV#1 “Yeah, I’m sure your right. Nassar is still open even so it must be fine” he says as they step in front of the food stand to place their order. “Hi Nassar.” They say.
Without responding to their greeting Nassar simply stares past them, down the Hoima road towards Kampala-and the riots-and then pulls the clear display case off his stand and begins frantically gathering his things, trying to pull them back towards a store front where he can secure them.
Bewildered the 2 PCV’s look around and realize that in an instant everything has changed. Where shops had been open their owners were frantically pulling their items inside and locking them up, where people had been standing along the roadways they were now running away from town or yelling and running towards a brand new burning tire barricade only a few yards away, where only a minute ago there had been calm spectators there was now a mix of angry protestors-soon to be rioters-and frightened people.
PCV#2 “Wow, I guess you were right. Let’s get out of here.”
PCV#1 “Holy Shit.”
They begin quickly walking back the way they had come realizing that in less than 2 minutes everything had changed around them. Shops were closed, people were running away, and some were running towards the burning barricade. We would later learn that the vice president and his wife were travelling that stretch of road and the rioters were intent on stopping their motorcade with the burning tires and flying bricks…lots of bricks.
Once a few blocs were between them and the main road the panic in the air had dissipated slightly, although it was still there, and some shops were still open, although they were all in the act of closing. So our 2 PCV’s decided that they could at least stop for a few samosa’s at one of their favorite stands. The old lady looked at them as if they were retarded and gave them almost twice the amount they had paid for, then she immediately pulled everything inside her building and began locking it.
PCV#1 “ok, so maybe we should just take them with us and eat them when we get back to the village.”
“Agreed”
Another few blocks and the road opens up on the left and provides a nice view overlooking the Hoima road and much of the main town. “Let’s eat a few of these here and see if we can watch what happens” “Cool”
So out comes the bottle of Top-up Chilli sauce and they stand on the side of the road eating samosa’s covered in chili sauce while watching people alternately fleeing and running towards the main intersection and the now very large tire fire. Other people in the same area were moving more deliberately and so the PCV’s again felt that they were a safe distance away and that if things were going to be dangerous the people around them would be behaving differently. Such slow learners. Again everything changed in an instant.
Gunshots. For anyone who has spent years training to be a soldier, or maybe even just spent a lot of time shooting automatic assault rifles, the sounds are unmistakable. A few short bursts from the main intersection in town. “Oh Shit!”PCV#1 says “Let’s get the fuck out of here!”
“Those are gunshots aren’t they?” PCV#2. “Yes, let’s go” People all around them are running for their homes. Then, more shots-very close to their location. They begin to move very quickly towards their homes, away from the craziness. A taxi speeds up and skids to a stop next to them “Get in!” the driver shouts. They do, along with several other people in the immediate area. The taxi immediately speeds off towards their village and away from the riots.
“What were you thinking?” the taxi driver says. “It is very dangerous”
They simply look at each other. What could you say to that question? Neither of them gave the only correct answer “Well it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Instead they thanked the driver profusely when he dropped them in their village near their homes. Things here were still calm and it seemed most people were not even changing their daily activities. Children were still wandering, people were talking, everything seemed mostly normal.
A short walk to their homes as they both expressed their amazement, fear and excitement over what they had just experienced.
The story of the 3rd trainee will have to be told by another, but if you get the chance it is a great story. One that actually made at least one person from this story a little jealous because he felt the other persons story was cooler. Oh well, maybe next time.
Training ended with a 3 day workshop at a fancy hotel near Kampala. It was a very fun time for most of us. Finally finished with the daily tedium of training and heading out on our own to do actual work! But before that there was bourbon, wine, a sweet swimming pool, beer, good food, hot showers electricity and sit-down toilets for 3 days. Good times.
It was during this time that the PCV’s got to meet their supervisors and counterparts. These are the people from the host organization that would be working directly with the volunteer over the next 2 years. This experience was, well…an experience for some of us. More to come.