Oh man how time seems to stop and last forever! I cannot believe I've only been here for just over one week! That cannot be right! (I mean, look, I'm not complaining about it, I'm just saying... ) I'm not sure how well y'all know me but if there is one thing I LOVE to do, is it to make a good list. To- do list; places to go list; movie list; book list; "things in Uganda that are from America" list. It doesn't matter what the list is for-- I love to make them. There is nothing quite like crossing off something that somehow makes it more fulfilling than it already is.... ya know what I'm saying?
So, due to my love of lists, I decided to make you TWO lists: 1. My favorite things (about Uganda of course) and 2. Lessons learned. So let's get on with it!
My Favorite Things:
1. Butterflies! I'll take a picture of them someday but there are a million butterflies here... that was one bit of wildlife I was not expecting. They seem to me to be a gentle reminder of God's infinite creations and His love (probably because of the Children's song "He gave me my eyes that I might see the color of butterfly wings....").
2. Keeping on topic, BUGS BUGS BUGS!!! I'm not sure what my fascination is with African insects but I love them... and I have to take pictures of them..
<--- Check out this cool caterpillar we saw walking just the other day.
3. Making people laugh. When I can make a Ugandan laugh... not laugh AT me but laugh WITH me, then I feel good (If the song started running through your head just now, we are bosom buddies).... Yesterday, I was talking with Josephine about her students that drive her CRAZY sometimes. We talked about how kids can be and Brady walks over... "Whatcha talking about?" "Killing children" I said nonchalantly. Brady looks and says "What?" and Josephine starts laughing. YES, I thought, I made a joke! HA! :)
4. Last but not least, I love it when the professors come into town. From Thursday till tonight, our two professors, Comrade Dan and Mike, have been with us. It is so wonderful to learn from their vast knowledge not only about experiments and development and Africa but also about life. They shared with us the long journey to them becoming professors, we watched them in action as they met with UNICEF officials, and they taught us valuable like lessons like how video games can be addicting ("Pixar Cars should be called Pixar Crack" - Comrade Dan).
The best part about having the professors come into town---- FANCY EATING! :) We ate out for just about every meal and boy, was it good food. Ghanaian food, the BEST Indian food I have EVER had in my entire life (seriously though, it was heaven wrapped up in a slice of naan), game meat like crocodile and springbok (the boys said the best was the kudu wrapped in bacon) (see picture -->), and hot fudge sundaes. Now it is back to homemade curries and pasta..... :)
5. Just as a PS. I love walking in the RAIN. It was lightly raining when we got out of church today and so Peter, Matt and I decided to walk home. Of course, as soon as we left it started to rain harder and harder but it was worth it. I LOVE walking in the RAIN.... there is something childish, renewing, and artistic about it. We of course got DRENCHED because it is about a ten-minute walk home.
..... to be continued.........
Lessons Learned:
1. Debating without trying to win, or without getting angry, is the best kind of debating. Simply an exchange of intellectual conversation and facts and different viewpoints. We had about a two hour "debate" about US businesses overseas and who should regulate them, the upcoming election, homosexuality and gay marriage. We all finished feeling just a little bit smarter, a little bit more well-rounded.
2. Men and women are not that different... and yet we are worlds apart. I've spent the last week trying to put my finger on what exactly is different between men and women and .... ladies and gentlemen, the difference between men and women, illustrated in a story:
All I can say is that I have learned that if I end up having all boys for children, and I am surrounded by this thing called testosterone, I will HAVE to have me some girlfriends before I start making up some imaginary friends to talk to.
3. UNICEF is a really good organization... and some NGOs need to be held more responsible for what they are doing.
Our contact at UNICEF told us the following story: One day, UNICEF received a text message (part of a new U-Report program they have started up here... it really is amazing! You can read more about what it is by reading this U-Report article) from a person saying that there is a 6 year old boy abandoned by his father, his mother has died. Apparently the villagers were leaving their left-over food outside the house for the boy to eat. When UNICEF arrived, the boy was very sick. They were able to find him a good home up North and he is doing well. YAY UNICEF.
The distrubing part of this story is that before calling UNICEF, the villager had called two NGOS.... one of which was a NGO focusing on children. They said they couldn't help because they didn't have the money. The other NGO said "we don't work with children"..... SERIOUSLY!?!?! Find your humanity people, we are talking about a little boy!
Anyways, that was a good reminder for me that not all NGOs are good... and that sometimes big organizations like UNICEF really are making a difference.
4. The last lesson I have learned this week is that experiments can be kind of exciting... I might actually be liking this whole "surveys- renting spaces- creating controls and treatments- randomizing populations" thing. I mean, I used to think that research meant observing the people and interviewing them. Now, I have realized that the BEST COMBINATION EVER would be qualitative data supported by scientific research (meaning you use the scientific method to test a hypothesis). Now let's just see if I can get the lingo down and learn how to use Excel.......
...... to be continued..........
Here's to ONE WEEK DOWN, ELEVEN TO GO! :)
Corrine
Oh... Picture of the week: We got to help out with the Polio/Measles vaccinations at a local health clinic.... The Church volunteered us. This is me administering the Polio vaccine to the kids (just two drops in their mouth). Those poor kids were SO scared... even of the drops. I think they heard kids screaming from the next partition over and it freaked them out. I switched later on and helped hold the kids while they got the Measles shot :(
I have never done anything like that before and it was a WONDERFUL experience. I'm glad I got to work with a wonderful nurse named Ruthy who was at the clinic from 9am till 6pm Sunday giving out vaccines. I'm grateful for agencies like USAID that donated those vaccines for these kids. And I'm glad I got to do something worthwhile with my time here.
So, due to my love of lists, I decided to make you TWO lists: 1. My favorite things (about Uganda of course) and 2. Lessons learned. So let's get on with it!
My Favorite Things:
1. Butterflies! I'll take a picture of them someday but there are a million butterflies here... that was one bit of wildlife I was not expecting. They seem to me to be a gentle reminder of God's infinite creations and His love (probably because of the Children's song "He gave me my eyes that I might see the color of butterfly wings....").
2. Keeping on topic, BUGS BUGS BUGS!!! I'm not sure what my fascination is with African insects but I love them... and I have to take pictures of them..
<--- Check out this cool caterpillar we saw walking just the other day.
3. Making people laugh. When I can make a Ugandan laugh... not laugh AT me but laugh WITH me, then I feel good (If the song started running through your head just now, we are bosom buddies).... Yesterday, I was talking with Josephine about her students that drive her CRAZY sometimes. We talked about how kids can be and Brady walks over... "Whatcha talking about?" "Killing children" I said nonchalantly. Brady looks and says "What?" and Josephine starts laughing. YES, I thought, I made a joke! HA! :)
4. Last but not least, I love it when the professors come into town. From Thursday till tonight, our two professors, Comrade Dan and Mike, have been with us. It is so wonderful to learn from their vast knowledge not only about experiments and development and Africa but also about life. They shared with us the long journey to them becoming professors, we watched them in action as they met with UNICEF officials, and they taught us valuable like lessons like how video games can be addicting ("Pixar Cars should be called Pixar Crack" - Comrade Dan).
The best part about having the professors come into town---- FANCY EATING! :) We ate out for just about every meal and boy, was it good food. Ghanaian food, the BEST Indian food I have EVER had in my entire life (seriously though, it was heaven wrapped up in a slice of naan), game meat like crocodile and springbok (the boys said the best was the kudu wrapped in bacon) (see picture -->), and hot fudge sundaes. Now it is back to homemade curries and pasta..... :) 
5. Just as a PS. I love walking in the RAIN. It was lightly raining when we got out of church today and so Peter, Matt and I decided to walk home. Of course, as soon as we left it started to rain harder and harder but it was worth it. I LOVE walking in the RAIN.... there is something childish, renewing, and artistic about it. We of course got DRENCHED because it is about a ten-minute walk home.
..... to be continued.........
Lessons Learned:
1. Debating without trying to win, or without getting angry, is the best kind of debating. Simply an exchange of intellectual conversation and facts and different viewpoints. We had about a two hour "debate" about US businesses overseas and who should regulate them, the upcoming election, homosexuality and gay marriage. We all finished feeling just a little bit smarter, a little bit more well-rounded.
2. Men and women are not that different... and yet we are worlds apart. I've spent the last week trying to put my finger on what exactly is different between men and women and .... ladies and gentlemen, the difference between men and women, illustrated in a story:
Comrade Dan is telling us about how his brother proposed. His brother and then-girlfriend went to a restaurant and he gave the waiter a dozen roses so that throughout the night, the waiter would bring his wife a rose. On the last rose was tied a diamond ring. (Please note, at no time during the story telling does Comrade Dan tell us what restaurant they were eating at, when this took place, his brother's relationship history with this woman, where in the restaurant they were, what the dinner conversation was about, or what his brother said in the proposal... NONE of these "important" details were mentioned.) So, he tells this story and there is silence afterwards. The only sound is me, going "Aw... I just got goosebumps. That is so cute... I mean, I didn't really get goosebumps cause that would be silly [voice trails off].... " I stopped when I realized that NO ONE ELSE was reacting! There was no collective "AWWWW", no commentary on how romantic that was, or how I would've liked it like this... nothing. I guess men just don't react the same way women do.
All I can say is that I have learned that if I end up having all boys for children, and I am surrounded by this thing called testosterone, I will HAVE to have me some girlfriends before I start making up some imaginary friends to talk to.
Our contact at UNICEF told us the following story: One day, UNICEF received a text message (part of a new U-Report program they have started up here... it really is amazing! You can read more about what it is by reading this U-Report article) from a person saying that there is a 6 year old boy abandoned by his father, his mother has died. Apparently the villagers were leaving their left-over food outside the house for the boy to eat. When UNICEF arrived, the boy was very sick. They were able to find him a good home up North and he is doing well. YAY UNICEF. The distrubing part of this story is that before calling UNICEF, the villager had called two NGOS.... one of which was a NGO focusing on children. They said they couldn't help because they didn't have the money. The other NGO said "we don't work with children"..... SERIOUSLY!?!?! Find your humanity people, we are talking about a little boy!
Anyways, that was a good reminder for me that not all NGOs are good... and that sometimes big organizations like UNICEF really are making a difference.
4. The last lesson I have learned this week is that experiments can be kind of exciting... I might actually be liking this whole "surveys- renting spaces- creating controls and treatments- randomizing populations" thing. I mean, I used to think that research meant observing the people and interviewing them. Now, I have realized that the BEST COMBINATION EVER would be qualitative data supported by scientific research (meaning you use the scientific method to test a hypothesis). Now let's just see if I can get the lingo down and learn how to use Excel.......
...... to be continued..........
Here's to ONE WEEK DOWN, ELEVEN TO GO! :)
Corrine
Oh... Picture of the week: We got to help out with the Polio/Measles vaccinations at a local health clinic.... The Church volunteered us. This is me administering the Polio vaccine to the kids (just two drops in their mouth). Those poor kids were SO scared... even of the drops. I think they heard kids screaming from the next partition over and it freaked them out. I switched later on and helped hold the kids while they got the Measles shot :(
I have never done anything like that before and it was a WONDERFUL experience. I'm glad I got to work with a wonderful nurse named Ruthy who was at the clinic from 9am till 6pm Sunday giving out vaccines. I'm grateful for agencies like USAID that donated those vaccines for these kids. And I'm glad I got to do something worthwhile with my time here.
No comments:
Post a Comment