st.charles

heeey everyone,

so i'm back in kampala and then off to luweero after my internet time. last night i got in from kumi after staying at my future site for 2 days. crazy!! the past fews days have been a rollarcoaster of excitement then followed by the thought, i can't do this. day by day.

so here's the lowdown on my site:

i'm in the middle of nowhere. seriously, i'm in between villages, off the main road a bit. then you come to the school compound, which is where some of the students live (the orphans) and the 20 teachers and me. i can walk to the classrooms from my house in 30 seconds...their playground is my backyard. there is also a church on the grounds too which is very beautiful. they have daily mass/prayers and i went on thurs. Father Charles (who is my supervisor) dedicated the mass to me and my family in america, which was very nice. He's awesome, I really like what he's doing and he has a great vision for the place. He really wants me to work with the orphans and the children. the orphans that stay on the compound are from the north. father charles worked in the camps in the north for 5 years and then started st. charles borromeo. he brought the orphans here and he said he wants me to work with them because they are traumatized from the wars. so i will be doing counseling and building self confidence and the like with them. he wants that to be my primary focus i think. but then they also want me to be a drama teacher/art teacher/health teacher and apply for grants to get new classrooms and then teach all the teachers there to use computers. so i think i'll be doing a little of everything....oh and he also wants me to travel out to the villages and do family visits and teach the community about sanitation and personal hygiene and hiv/aids. i'm a little overwhelmed right now, to say the least. but the students were adorable...960 of them welcomed me with a song and speech and then i had to give a little speech as well. this much is for certain...i will definitely be fluent in ateso.


my house. i share a "duplex" with my counterpart, who is the headmaster, and his family. he's really nice and so is his wife. i think they will act as my "parents" while i am there...although, he's already mentioned a few times he has a son my age who will be staying with us during the holidays. multiple people have told me that i must get married to an ateso man and stay for at least 4 years....but i'm straying from my house. i do not have water or electricity, which is kind of a bummer. i'll have to take my bike to the bore hole and carry the water back on that. i have a pit latrine that is far enough from my house that a few times i had to literally run there and almost didn't make it. my bathing area is awesome though! except that it doesn't lock. but there is no roof and it's outside...so the first night a took a bucket bath under the stars and there was a storm in the distance so the sky was lit up with lightening...that was awesome. and in the morning i took one while the sun was rising. and if it rains, i can just take my soap out and shower in the rain. so yeah....i'm pretty rural, as rural as we get. oh and there are about 100 cockroaches living in my house....they said they would fix that before i come back...ummm yeah, cause i can't live with that. adam is in the same situation as far as housing goes. the people in soroti (an hour away from us) are running water, a toilet, and electrictiy. i think i'll visit them a lot.

so we have one week left in luweero with our families and then we head to kampala next week to visit the embassy and then we are sworn in as volunteers on thurs, april 10th.

i miss you all like crazy....i'm buying an extra bed for my house for visitors....that means you. so please come.