Ok, so I'm officially a Peace Corps volunteer. Shoutout to me! The ceremony was as the Ambassador's house and was strangely moving. There were some incredible speeches by two of our volunteers as well as by the PC country director and the ambassador. 10 weeks of long, streneous training lead down to this moment, and admittingly, I got a little teary eyed!
After the ceremony, along with our future supervisors and a LOT of luggage, we headed off to site. I rode in a van owned by a hospital that my org. sends it's nursing students to for practicals. They crammed 6 volunteers as well as 4 supervisors in this van with all our stuff. It was cramped. The ride was boring until on a muddy dirt road heading to my house, we spun off the road...twice! That was an adventure! I made it ok and all was well.
My first week at site as been rather boring. My org. doesn't have a lot of work for me yet and has been letting me settle in. The hardest thing so far is getting used to infrequent and inconsistant transportation...wait, scratch that. The hardest part is figuring out effecient systems to deal with everyday tasks, taking out the convienance of electricity and running, treated water. It's not horrible not living without out these things, but I haven't gotten a system down yet. I spend a lot of time dealing with candles! Keeping my phone charged is diffucult. My house is thankfully free of annoying pests like rats and bats. I have a couple of lizards that hang out and take care of other bugs for me. No huge spiders, either! I bought a bike and will be able to use it to get around the sub-county. My org. will have a new school building opening up soon, and it's a bit of a haul to get there, so a bike will be clutch.
Since my place and more generally, Mbale is at a cross-roads of many different cultures and languages, most people speak English. It's amazing that even the most rural people know like 4 languages. I can barely speak English!
Overall, things are good. I'm not completely overwhelmed or lonely yet. It's nice that there's a lot of us in the east so meeting up and socializing is no prob. That's all for now,
Wes
My 27 Months as a Peace Corps Health Volunteer in Uganda
DISCLAIMER:
The contents, comments, and posts on this site are product and creation of Wesley Carter alone and do not reflect or represent the opinions of the Peace Corps, the United States government, the government and people of the Republic of Uganda or anyone else...so don't listen to me!
1 comment:
Hi Wes ("Official Peace Corps Volunteer"),
Glad to hear you're doing okay. I have a new Dell laptop at home and have been fiddling with it trying to get settings, links, etc. in place.
I suppose after a while you'll get (somewhat) accustomed to not having the conveniences of home like electricity, clean water, flushing toilets :-). We all take those things so much for granted. I can remember getting so annoyed one time when my remote wasn't working and I had to actually get up to change the channel on the T.V. -- and I grew up having to do just that! What do you use for cooking and what kinds of food are you eating? How do you sanitize drinking water or do they have bottled water like here at home? If there's anything you'd like to receive from here in the States (that the rest of the family and friends aren't providing), let me know and I'll put together some kind of a goodie pkg to send you.
This is such a meaningful and memorable experience for you. I'm sure things will pick up and become more interesting as you get settled in.
We're having quite a bit of rain and cool weather(for mid-May) here in N.E. (sort of like Seattle!).
I'm thinking of you and hoping you stay healthy and safe.
Love, Aunt Cheryl
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