One day

When my friends have studied abroad I am always curious about the regular parts of their life because they are just so different from the regular parts of my life. So I assume you are also fascinated with mundane details of life here… no? Well this is what a day looks like for me.

5:30 – Wake up to hear the rain pouring on the roof. It is so loud that if I wanted to talk to someone I would have to yell to be heard. I lay in bed and wonder what is going on for a minute, figure out its rain, and fall back asleep.

6:30 – Hear my sister (who shares our room with me and Mary) wake up and start making tea or doing dishes or something.

7:30 – I finally wake up for the day. Wishing I had gotten up earlier because I have already missed 30 mins of daylight. Crawl out of my mosquito net cave and start getting ready. Find an outfit that isn’t wrinkled (wrinkles are NOT ok here). Grab my water bottle and brush my teeth in the front yard. Take tea and bread and butter for breakfast. Greet everyone in the family. Then walk to school.

8:30 – Various classes on African traditional religions, East African history, and cool stuff like that.

1:00 – Lunch of rice and beans in the outdoor dining hall OR Chipatti in the canteen!

2:00 – Work on homework for the afternoon OR head to Mukono (the local town) or Kampala (the capital) on a “bus”. And by bus I mean a 14 passenger van that is the size of a minivan and regularly has 18 people stuffed into it. 18! Whatever happens in the afternoon it inevitably involves a Ugandan friend coming to find me or running into a Ugandan I barely know and becoming friends with them. Ugandans in general are very friendly and social. Yesterday I did a little social experiment to see how people would react if I walked around looking at the ground, not making eye contact or greeting anyone. I still got 5 greetings on my short walk home.

6:00 – Walk home. Stop at the store and look around… sometimes buy a cold drink, always buy airtime. Sit in the back alley behind my house and chat with my sisters as they cook. They usually give me an onion, green pepper, and a tomato to chop and that is my contribution to dinner. It starts to get dark in the house as the sun gets low outside.

7:00 – Mary plays the guitar and we sing worship songs. Sometimes we try to cook American snacks on the charcoal stove. We have mastered popcorn but not kettle corn. It starts to get dark and I go get my headlamp so I can see what I am doing.

8:00 – Hang out with family. Tease my brothers. Get teased by my Toto. Text friends from school and from America. Headlamp gets taken off my head by a family member who needs it more than I do. I sit and enjoy the dark. We hear cheers coming from the street and can tell that someone scored in the football game. Neighbor kids walk down the path and stop for a bit to stare at the mzungu sitting in the dirt (fyi my Toto hates that I sit in the dirt and always tries to bring me a chair or a mat). The neighbor kids stare more depending on what I am doing. If I am cutting cassava or cooking or cleaning they stare more.

8:45 – Dinner is served. Matoke and rice and beans and g-nut sauce. And oil.

9:30 – Get out my laptop that I charged at school and set it up so my family can watch episodes of Lost that I have on my hard drive. I head outside and try not to fall in the dark and the mud and go take a bucket bath in the shower room.

10:30 – Crawl into mosquito net cave and wonder how my sheets get so much dirt on them.