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| Baby Lynne |
The last few days have been pretty good here in Bwindi. Eve and Denis are still gone so work for R4W is slow right now. I have finished all of the brochures and am halfway done with the new website. Friday was somewhat of a lazy day as I just did a half day of work and then helped Brian do his laundry and watched a movie. On Friday evening Barnabas and I made some noodles and played with the little boys next door before heading to bed.
Saturday was another lazy day. Barnabas left early in the morning to see his mother and attend his cousin’s give-a-way party. I spent the day hanging out with Hubert and Brian. We watched another movie, played a few hours of volleyball, and then went to a party that evening at the guest house where I stayed last year. A few volunteers that have been here from the Mayo Clinic were leaving so of course we had to have a dance party.
Sunday morning Barnabas returned to Bwindi from home early in the morning and we spent the day doing laundry, cooking eggs for breakfast, matoke for lunch, napping, and then we hosted two volunteers from the US for dinner. They wanted to learn how to make chapatti so Barna and I got some flour and I taught them. In between washing, napping, and cooking, baby Lynne and just about her whole Batwa village came to my small room and delivered pineapple to me and we had some tea and bread. It was pretty funny having so many people crammed into my room.
Being an “African woman” is hard but also rewarding because everything you accomplish takes work… I have a few blisters on my hands from ringing out so many clothes but I think our clothes are cleaner than if they had been washed in a machine. It is also a little chilly trying to bathe in a bucket of cold river water in a small wooden room with the wind blowing in through the cracks. I understand why no one washes their hair everyday or shaves… it is just too cold and too much work.
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| Haven, a friend |
I felt bad because it was so dark the other night, I couldn’t see what I was doing and I dropped the bucket and broke it. A bucket here is like a pot of gold…everything you do requires a bucket (cooking, bathing, washing, etc.). You also learn things here the hard way… like when you are doing laundry and you spill the water on accident and have to hike all the way to the spring to retrieve a new jerrycan of water. Or when you don’t sweep the bread crumbs up right away and your room becomes full of ants. Or when you don’t charge your torch (flash light) when there is electricity available for the short time and then you have to go to the pit latrine and try to squat over a tiny hole in the dark because your light is dead. All of the experiences bring laughter and good memories though.
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| Hubert, during hike |
Yesterday, I hiked with Hubert, Haven, and another volunteer to the Congo for a health outreach. It was a long hike and I was exhausted from climbing over the mountain but it was beautiful and really fun. The village we did the outreach at was on the boarder of the Congo and Uganda and is pretty small and very poor. All of the kids in the village lined up and we measured their arm circumference for malnutrition and gave them anti-parasites and vitamin A. I have had my yearly share of Vitamin A from having to bite open the capsules before squeezing the Vitamin A into the children’s mouths. Many of the children were terrified of me since I am white so their mothers had to hold them down and open their mouths for me to get the medications and vitamins into them.
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| View into Congo |
After the hike, I went and took a bucket bath and then napped at Barna’s because I was locked out of my room for a few hours. I had left my key at the R4W office but the guard at R4W lost the key to the office which was locked. It was kind of funny trying to figure all that out but it worked out. Last night, I watched a movie with the little boys next door and Julia (a volunteer for BDP) while Barna cooked us Irish potatoes for dinner. I am amazed the boys next door sat through the entire movie since they don’t even speak that much English. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to sit through a movie I didn’t understand.
Today is just another day working on the website for R4W and soothing my soar throat with hot milk tea. Tonight is bible study for the village and then hopefully an early bedtime.
Sutter Allen, undergraduate, Human Development, UC Davis
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