Adventures in Eating

Probably one of my favorite things to do when traveling is trying out new foods. However, since I have been to Uganda before, one of my favorite things to do is eat the food I loved during my last visit. I can’t say I’m the most adventurous eater—I still haven’t tried the fried grasshoppers they sell along the roadside—but I’m not a picky eater either, which means I’ll try anything that is known by most people’s standards to be edible J. So, without further ado, here’s what I have been eating.

Rolex—No, it’s not the fancy wrist watch, rather a fancy egg roll-up. They whisk the egg with some cabbage, onion and tomato, then they fry it over a charcoal stove. Once the egg is almost cooked through, they place a chapatti (kind of like a thick tortilla) over it, flip the whole thing over, and warm up the chapatti. After it’s warm they roll the whole thing up like log and then I get to eat it!  Yum!

Indian—I have to say, Uganda has some awesome Indian food! My favorite is the spinach kofta with sauce, but I like pretty much everything. Plus, I love dipping the naan bread in the sauce and scooping up the meat and veggies. If I eat out in Uganda, 90% of the time I’ll try and get some sort of Indian dish. Man, my mouth is just watering thinking of it… The picture below is of my fabulous fish marsala as well as an unusual, and uninvited, dinner guest—a bunny. He must like Indian food too.

Steamed matoke with groundnut sauce—My friend Gloria came over for Ugandan’s Independence day (which was last Thursday) and she made this for us. Matoke looks like a green banana and tastes sort of like a potato. Usually I see it mashed and cooked in banana leaves, but I think this makes for a sticky or tacky-like texture. Steamed is probably my favorite way of eating it. Plus, I am a huge fan of groundnut (gnut) sauce, which is basically like crush peanuts with sautéed onion and tomatoes mixed with some spices. To the common, American eye this dish probably looks unappetizing; it is quite the opposite—full of flavor, even though it’s a simple dish.

Well, that's all for now folks. If I ever manage to talk myself into that whole grasshopper eating thing, I'll be sure to post that picture too :) because I'm pretty sure eating fried grasshoppers will be a one time thing!

Week 1: Start of classes...well, sort of...

I woke up last Monday having no idea what my day would entail. Unsure if, where, and when I would be teaching, I headed over to the office to find out. Instead of getting my questions answered, I ended up in a department meeting primarily focuses on reviewing last semester’s grades and discussing the disorganized time table (aka the class schedule was not accurate). Despite initial impressions, I was rather glad to be part of this meeting. It gave me insight into typical course grades (which I was unaware of), garnered insight into the time table timeline, allowed me to connect with colleagues, and provided a rather nice tea and lunch!

In reality, this experience is rather typical of the beginning of the semester. Many teachers and students are not yet on campus for various reasons. Teachers may not come because they do not have class rooms assigned or class times assigned and their is a lack of student attendance. For students, as far as I can tell, lack of attendance is due to seeking money for school fees (they can’t start until they’ve paid some tuition), transportation, "disorganized time tables", and lack of professor attendance. However, next week everyone is “serious” and classes truly begin. 

Keeping this trend in mind, I did not “seriously” begin classes this week. Handing out mostly introductory materials and frame-working class for the semester, I managed to create my own slow start. I am proud to say that in one course I taught, up to 15 of my 20 students managed to attend.

As the coming week of classes stands before me, I hope my current energy level can be maintained, if not slightly exceeded. I’m looking forward to a more certain schedule which will likely continue to aid my transition into Uganda. My most encouraging discovery this week was a lack of anxiety regarding my teaching. I finally feel comfortable with more of the material and lecturing before students, which of course is an answered prayer. So, thank you to everyone who has been praying for me! Likely, you will hear from me again next week about my first actual week of class J

In faith, hope, & love

In the spirit of learning more about Uganda---
I spy with my little eye: Two birds
Enjoy :)

Return to Uganda

I have arrived!

Late Thursday night I landed, once again, in Uganda. Not much has changed since my departure last December, unless you account for the mandatory health screening worksheet and enforced hand-sanitizing at the airport before being allowed to proceed to immigration (i.e. Ebola prevention). I'm not sure of the effectiveness of these measures, but then, I'm uncertain what would be effective prevention. I digress.

On Friday morning, Vanessa, the university's hospitality coordinator, and her daughter, Maxine, picked me (as they say here) from my guest house. The rainy season has arrived, slowing traffic, and delaying both their pickup and our return to campus. Since I came to know Vanessa and Maxine from my previous time in Uganda, I was very pleased to see some familiar faces greet me on Friday. Also, it made for a pleasant journey back to campus.

After settling me in my living quarters (a small apartment that is basically like my previous one I stayed in last year), Vanessa and Maxine said their goodbyes and I began unpacking. My half-hazard technique of unpacking meant my things were everywhere at once, but eventually I overcame the temporary ADD for the more needed, and just as temporary, OCD. Although I still see a few items in need of a home, I am mostly settled.

What is still unsettled is what Monday will look like. I'm not even sure if I'm teaching on Monday because I yet to receive a class schedule. Apparently classrooms are at a premium due to the number of students and the lack of completed classrooms (one is still in progress of being built). Therefore, class times have yet to be decided. Yet, that is Uganda! So while this situation might frighten me at home, here I laugh and just go with it. Amazing how location changes one's perspective :).

Well, I will give you an update on my first week at some point next week. Until then, actually for the next 3.5 months, I would love your prayers. I am too tired to list them all right now, but use your imagination--it's probably spot on at this point :).

Thanks everyone for you support! So glad to be on this journey with all of you behind me,
Joy

Day of Thanks

Yet again I am celebrating another American Holiday while living abroad. Before you start feeling sorry for me, let me inform you that my Ugandan American Thanksgiving was quite wonderful! The expats on campus got together to celebrate in the evening (after a normal Ugandan workday) with most of us contributing either food or money for the feast. My contributions were stuffing (60 servings worth) and dessert (3 pans of pumpkin gooey cake). Since stuffing and dessert happen to be two of my favorite parts of the Thanksgiving meal, I was pretty excited to make them. I have to say, I kind of rocked the stuffing  J, we even found some celery to put in it (a surprisingly hard vegetable to find in Uganda). 

The dessert tasted fine, but for one reason or another each pan looked completely different from the others (see below). But, Uganda makes you flexible, so I just had to laugh it off and remember that my dessert was among a table full of others. 

Besides the food, the Thanksgiving meal brought together good company. It is always interesting to hear what everyone is doing in Uganda and what brought them here in the first place. Plus, it’s wonderful to be surrounded by a community of believers. The celebration also made me really thankful for my time in Uganda. I am amazed at all God has done in me and through me during my stay. Especially encouraging was seeing my students do so well during their practical physical assessment performance exams this past week. I could see that they had been practicing hard and that they really had been listening all semester long (which I was not always confident in)! Teaching these eager students has be a humbling job these past two semester. I find it difficult to believe that in two weeks this experience will all be over and I worry that when I get home it will feel like this reality was only a dream. Whatever time brings, though, I will always be thankful for the reality of living out a God-given dream: to teach and impact the lives of Ugandan nursing students.

                             Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving from Uganda!

Unspecified challenges in clinical

Clinical in Uganda has met me, and my students, with some challenges. Though I am the teacher, I am also a constant learner, particularly at the clinical site. Students, 22 in all, are split between 4 wards (as a comparison, in the US I would normally only have 8 students). I rotate between all these wards trying to understand the layers of culture and clinical practice clinging to every surface of this experience. In the midst of directing students, I find myself trying to understand the different levels of expectations and boundaries that reside with my presence on the ward (both for the students and the staff). Such complexities fluctuate my emotions throughout the day, impacting my perceived success. Grace, of course, is required in such tricky situations and I am very thankful that God's grace and love manage to overcome self-degradation!

The more I teach, and the more I see at the hospital, the more I understand how important it is to develop nurses who are willing to do something about the problems they see in practice. When they see other health care workers accepting bribes or not showing up to work or ignoring patients, I want my students to be the ones to break this cycle. I want them to be leaders in their work place, to be knowledgeable nurses who care for their patients with the grace and love of Christ.

My students after their first day of clinical.

Please be praying for my students as they finish this last half of the semester. Also be praying for me and my Ugandan colleagues, that we would be strong examples of what nurses and nursing care can be. 

First week of class

"First Day of School' Outfit

Since everyone on Facebook was posting their 'First day of school' pictures, I thought I'd post mine. This past week marked the first full week of classes for UCU. Though officially we started the week prior, the culture of many Ugandan institutions is that you don't really need to go to class the first week (however, UCU is trying to change this mind-set). For me, this meant that I showed up to class as scheduled with basically no one else there. Thankfully, at least half of my students came on the second day of class and, also thankfully, God has made me quite flexible. I had anticipated this 'no-show' to be a possibility, so I just laughed it off and revised my second lecture a bit to not get behind.

Students thus far seem attentive to my lectures, though I am not sure if this is due to my teaching skills or the fact that they find my accent difficult to understand :). I'm hoping for the former, of course. Thanks to my colleagues back home, I have some excellent class material to draw from. This way I'm not starting completely from scratch. 

Part of my class schedule will include taking students to the clinical site to do patient interviews and health assessments. They seem very excited for this and it will be a great opportunity to get them more hands-on experiences right in the beginning of their program (a luxury we often do not have in the US due to various restrictions). Besides clinical, they also come for 4 hours of lecture and 1 hour of lab practice each week. Having never taught a class completely on my own before (at Bethel we do a lot of team-teaching of courses), it has been a little bit daunting. I find myself obsessing too much over a lecture and worrying that I'm missing important content. Hopefully these feelings will abate as I settle into my work.

Clinicals will most likely start this week. The facility we are going to be at is new to me, which will make this experience some-what more stressful. So, I will be thankful for any prayers you send my way :) 

Hard to believe September is already half gone. Without the cool Fall weather to mark the changing season, I mostly just feel like I am in a perpetual summer. What a shock it will be to return home in December having to face the cold and snow of winter without the pleasant Fall transition. For those of you in the upper Midwest, drink some apple cider for me :)

Two weeks with Karna

My friend, Karna, came for an extended visit, leaving just last Saturday. Upon her initial arrival, I felt like I was just walking around in the states with my friend rather than that my friend was walking around in Uganda with me! It was just such an odd experience, seeing her in this context.

Having Karna around was quite wonderful because, frankly, Karna is such a wonderful friend. She’s laid back, introspective, knows how to laugh, and is just plain fun to be around. While she was here, we split our time between Jinja, Mukono, and Murchison Falls National Park, so that’s how I split up my descriptions below.

Jinja:

Karna & I at the source of the Nile, apparently there is an underground spring right by where we are standing.

Besides taking the obligatory visit to the source of the Nile and walking around the small downtown of Jinja, we also volunteered at Amani Baby Cottage (http://amanibabycottage.org/). Amani an orphanage that takes care of roughly 60 children ages 0-5. Often they try and reunite the kids back with someone from their extended families, but they will also help to facilitate adoptions. Being in the orphanage was very interesting, but also exhausting. They have quite the system down for the kids making everything go rather smoothly considering the numbers and ages of the kids they have to corral. And though they certainly don't get all the individual attention they need (it’s hard to recreate a real home), overall they certainly are at a good place, are well-cared for, and, most importantly, are loved. We were only there for a few days, but serving their ministry was enjoyable.

Karna, hanging out with one of the little ones at the bonfire (a special activity that the kids talked about all day)

Mukono:

In between Jinja and Murchison we spent time at UCU, mostly cooking, relaxing, and watching some TV episodes (Call the Midwife, mostly). Karna tried chapatti, jackfruit, passion fruit, Ugandan pineapple (which is sweeter then back home), fried chicken (the equivalent of the hamburger here—in my opinion), cooked cabbage, Stoney (ginger-flavored soda), Krest (bitter-lemon flavored soda), African tea, Irish potatoes, and the Pioneer Women’s cinnamon rolls (not Ugandan, but we made them for the first time in Uganda so it makes the list). We also visited Vision for Africa (http://www.visionforafrica-intl.org/en/aboutvfa/index.html where they have vocational schools and then you can buy their work--pottery, ect) and Bajo Glass (this great place that collects recycled glass then blows it into glassware).

Karna & I at Bajo Glass--The floors & walls are all decorated with melted, recycled glass.

Murchison:

Murchison Falls National Park is a beautiful park in Northwestern Uganda with a good amount of game (animals) and, of course, an amazing water-fall. Getting to the park is always a bit of a challenge as roads are not well kept here, and dirt roads less so. As a result it takes about 2 hours to go the 30 miles from the town of Masindi (located just outside the park) to the Nile river running halfway through the park. For a particularly bad stretch it took about 15 minutes to go a little over a mile. Despite these trials, we had a nice time. Groups of giraffes and elephants and tiny deer (can't remember their official name) dotted the savanna and wandered near the roadside. At times they posed quite perfectly, allowing Karna and I to snap their portraits. My favorite part was getting to see the lion! At the park they usually only see 1 or 2 lions a week, so we were quite lucky. Plus, we were able to drive up really close to it and were probably around 5 feet away from the young male lion when Karna and I popped up through the open sun roof to take pictures. The lion just looked at us then laid back down for a nap, but it got my heart racing a bit :). 

The other major activity of our park excursion was a hike up to the top of Murchison Falls. It only took about an hour, but it was beautiful. The rock on the path is formica, so it glistened in the sunshine and covered my chacos with some nice little sparkles. Eventually the path took us so close to the waterfall that we could feel the cool spray of water issuing off it. This also provided the perfect circumstances for lovely and complete double rainbows! Though there was no gold at the end of it...just formica.

The bottom of Murchison Falls

A little worse for the wear, but here's us at the top of the falls and at the end of the rainbow :)

Now Karna is safe back home and I have begun preparing for classes which start next week. Since I just received the syllabus a few days back, there is a lot of work for me to do -- so vacation officially over.