Recap - Cassandra

So yeah, we're in Uganda now.

Our first little stint was training, which was at a site about 45 minutes outside of Kampala. The family that we stayed with was great, but I think I struggled with it a lot more than Caleb did. Its hard for me to live in someone elses house, and not have much of a say in what I do everyday, and when I do it. I did have a good time getting to know some awesome people in my training class, and enjoying the initial excitement of living in Africa.
Long story short, Im freakin glad its over.

On to site.

Caleb mentioned a bit about our housing issues, but he left out the best part. Wait, let me back up. the first place we lived in wasnt finished, and was the Mecca for lizards. Not the cute little geckos that eat bugs, these were the ones as long as my arm that excrete waste the size of my little finger. They were all over the house. At any given time of day I could stand in the middle of the house and look up (no ceilings) and see somewhere in the ballpark of 10 lizards just chillin on the walls. Aside from the large amounts of crap that we had to sweep on on a bidaily basis, the lizards would run along the rafters and the tin roof and make a horrible scratching noise. Oh, and they seemed to really enjoy divebombing off the roof into the house. I'd be sitting in the living room reading, only to be scared out of my panties by a stupid-ass lizard flying at my feet.
So back to the best part. Im in the kitchen one night makin some food when I hear Caleb call from the hallway, "Cassandra stay in the kitchen". I instantly know this is bad. I climbed up onto one of our plastic chairs, only to see in my periphery Caleb dragging something out the back door. I knew what it was. The only thing he would tell me to stay in the kitchen for. A damn snake! I hate snakes!! Caleb had grabbed the live thing by the tail, drug it out back, and whacked it over the head to kill it. Well, we found out the next day when Caleb's supervisor over to check it out that the snake was actually poisonous, and apparently if Caleb had been bitten he would have needed medical attention swiftly to stay alive.

I called Peace Corps the next day. It wasnt just the snake or the snake food (lizards) that was the problem. The house wasnt finished, and there were security concerns. So we moved, and are loving our new place. Except the goats making weirdly humanish moans outside our window all night. We think its because the goats are in heat, so hopefully they'll stop soon.

Christmas is in less than a week, and I've been making Caleb listen to the same 18 Christmas songs every day, at least once a day for the entire month. He likes to tell me what he finds most annoying about each song. Mariah Carey and Celine Dion ruin the songs by diva-ing them up too much, Jewel is too nasaly, the Frank Sinatra songs have the overzelous horns, the classical version of God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen is too choppy, and dont get him started on the song with the lyrics about being a gentleman's lady (we think the song is about prostitution). The music is really all I have to remind me that Christmas is soon. There's no snow, no decorations, no family hanging out, and I sweat my ass off daily. We were in Kampala a week or 2 ago, and i was so excited when we went into a big store that had decorations and Christmas music playing. I turned to Caleb and said " I feel like we're at Walmart during Christmas" and I was so happy. Then I realized just how white trash and sad that sounded, but I didnt care. I basked in the whitetrashness of it all.

So I think the big thing thats happened lately, was the Piki incident. A couple of evenings ago I really wanted to get out of the house, so we decided to go for a walk to enjoy the sun setting. Our area is really pretty. We dont have to green rolling hills like in the central or western parts of the country, but the flatter land really opens up the sky, making it seem huge, so the sunsets are amazing. We were walking a little ways from our house when we heard a motorbike coming up behind us. Not too uncommon. We started stepping off the road to let it pass when I found myself on my ass in the mud with a ton of pain in my right calf. I turned to look at the man expecting him to stop, he turned to look at me, then he turned back to face forward so he could drive off effectively.

My leg hurt like hell! I was pissed that the man looked at me and drove off. What did he think, he was going to hit the only white woman for miles and no one would notice? While I was crying loudly on the ground, Caleb called his supervisor to come take us to the hospital. The hospital was pointless, they cleaned my cuts and poked the bruised muscle and sent us on our way. Well they wanted to give me a tetanus shot, but Ive had one very recently, and they wanted to give me a shot in the ass for the pain, but Peace Corps advises against intramuscular shots, so I didnt get it. The doctor who saw me didnt bother to ask about my allergies, so he prescribed an antibiotic that Im allergic to, and they were out of the kind that I requested in its place, so really it was pointless to go to the hospital.

So I've been limping around the house for the past 3 days feeling lazy and useless as all get out. Today I actually left the house to watch a football game. My stupid leg ruined our plans to go to Sipi Falls this week, we we're planning on chillin in the village for Christmas anyways, but my leg better be ready to party it up in Kampala for New Years. I'm trying not to be bitter. I do have a kankle which makes keeping my bitterness at bay difficult.

Caleb is giving me crap about writting "The Great American Novel" so I guess I'm done.

Hi family and friends, I love you and miss you! Have a good Christmas!

Recap - Caleb

Maybe I'm just a procrastinator, but this blog is like the dishes.
I need to recap about 3 months worth of events and I'm not sure how to do it. I begin:

We touched down in Uganda in August and after a few recovery days at Lweza (near Kampala) started with our training. Training lasts for 10 weeks, which we spent in Wakiso town, at the home of Jackson and Karen. The homestay itself was fine, except for the standard complaints of not being in control of bathings or feedings, and overall I would say that our homestay was as good as could be asked for. By the time 10 weeks was up, we had both had enough of sitting all day, only to rush home past the hordes of Muzungu-screaming children, to make it before the sun went down (which is when the boogeyman comes). We got some intensive instruction in Lugwere, the language spoken in our future sites, which prepared us quite well to look like fools (our instructor, Mica, was quite good, and his class was one of the things to look forward to each day, but you never really start learning the language until you are consistently embarrased in it). For the most part training was a series of training sessions and activities designed to make sure we could at least function on a base level once we hit the ground. Forgive the lack of detail, but the memory fades, and the typing hands tire.

So on to Site. We landed in our village, Uganda in mid-October. The house we were first in was somewhat unfinished, and there was another house in a smaller village (nearby) that had been prepared, but we decided to stick it out and try to make the first place work. After about a month or so we decided to relocate to the other house, and we were allowed to move. The move itself was an overburdened-truck, dudes-riding-on-top, stare-inducing, pampered-white-people debacle that introduced us to the community as "those muzungus that have way too many things".
We have been her now for about a month, and things are going well. My Lugwere is more embarrasing than ever, but our longsuffering neighbors are always willing to happily look confused and ask me in english what I am trying to say. Our neighbor, Paul, is also very good at policing the area, and we have only had one person come the the house asking for money. The person was later tracked down by the same Paul and reminded how to act with us.

Lets see... frisbee instruction to the children, kids playing with toys made out of old jerry cans and soccer balls made of plastic bags, beautiful lavender sunsets, the double-handed greeting wave, trees that grow every way but up, the red/green/blue of dirt/trees/sky, millions of lizards, smiles and men stomping around in mud to make bricks, people saying "well done" when you've been sitting on your ass for a few hours, Legit indian food in Mbale... there are some snapshot memories of mine from here.

If I wasn't battling what I'm sure is Giardia i would relate Cassandra's "getting clipped by the out-of-control boda" story, but right now it's a trip to the pit latrine for me......Adios!

San Diego Pictures

So, every year Cassandra's family takes us on a trip to San Diego for a week on the beach playing, boogie-boarding, swimming, and such. this will be the last year for quite awhile, and we are trying our best to live it up before we make the big move to Africa.

Check out some of our San Diego trip pictures

Milford Visit

Here are some pictures from our visit to Milford, UT. You wouldn't expect it to be so pretty there, but we went to several completely fantastic places.

Yard Sale!!

CALEB: So we loaded the front yard with our stuff and invited the whole world to come scrutinize our existence. They complied. We made out ok, but it was a bit weird having erbody root through our goods. Next step, trashing/donating what didn't sell, storing the memorables, and packing up tight for the big move.

CASSANDRA: I was shocked how excited everyone seemed about our boxes o' trash. We had 50 cent, $1, and 2$ bins full of absolute garbage, and people went nuts with it! Someone even bought a bottle of used scented hand soap for 25 cents. Our house is weird now, we have our bed, a piano chair and piano, our computer, and a camp chair still and thats really it. We did the sale a bit early cause we're gonna be out of town for half the month of July, and wanted to get everything gone before it was too late.

The Invite!!!

Caleb: We got the official Peace Corps Invite today to go to Uganda on Aug 2, 2009. We are both totally stoked and can finally start shedding all of our unnecessary belongings. It has been a long process, but we are finally headed down the home stretch. It's crazy to think that we will be standing in Uganda 2 months from now. Now we just need to hammer out all of the paperwork, and we're home free.

Cassandra: Finally yay! Wholly year of uncertainty. We just got back from a Utah Peace Corps dinner in Salt Lake, and it was so awesome to talk to people who are in a similar situation to us. I don't think most people realize how much stress, uncertainty, and patience are involved with the application process. When I tell people that we got the official invite, they're like "I thought you were already going to Africa". It still doesn't seem real, but I'm sure it will in 2 months!