Splish, splash, I was washin my clothes!

Even after one and a half years of living in Uganda, I still find it a challenge to do my wash by hand. I scrub, and scrub, and scrub and the clothes still don't seem to get very clean. When I was living in Rakai, I would do my wash every Sunday accompanied by a group of girls from our primary school. We put on music and have a rocking time dancing and washing. I try to chose a different group of kids each time and am often bombarded with requests to be chosen to help me come clean. Kids here love to clean and because they do, the average Ugandan can do their laundry approximately 100 times faster than I can even attempt to do. Despite my lack of talent in this task, I find myself enjoying the ever present task of scrubbing my clothes. You use far less water and the only energy you waste is your own.

The other day, Melody (a volunteer from Canada) and I brought our clothes outside to begin washing. We were preparing ourselves for a couple of hours of work ahead of us.Almost before we could get the buckets in place to begin, four of our COU high school boys came over and demanded that they could help us. Thats right, highschool boys, demanding to help, without being asked!

Serenjerogi rocking the washing.

We tried to tell them that we were very capable and could do our wash, but they insisted, so we had no choice but to permit them to help.
The wash was done in under an hour and we had a blast trying to help the boys as they made our clothes smell as fresh as the day we bought them.

Melody looks on as the boys show us how it's done (really, we did do some work!)

It's days like this that I find myself absolutely loving life here. Not because I didn't have to do much work, but because of the kindness the boys showed us. It is yet another example of how service to others seems to shine through in so many people here :-)

Since I am able to get so much internet these days I thought I would post some more random photos:

Sabina School, P4 class

Goretti, me, Flavia and Bena listening to music.

Lisandro and his very curious neighborhood kids.

Till next time! Happy end of April!
Love and peace,
Sarah

This is Just a Tribute

Our PC group, Nov06 Swearing in Ceremony at the Ambassadors House

Amanda, Hannah, Brett, Courtney, Me, Christina

Tiffany, Erin, Alexis, Jess, Nora, Carrie May

This blog is a tribute to my Sep06Uganda group. Peace corps is a job unlike any other. You apply not knowing which country you will be going to. You go to the country not knowing what kind of organization you will be working with. You go to work at your organization and are usually the only American for a radius that always seems just a bit to big. They say it is the toughest job you will ever love. Toughest is a light word… We struggle against/with cultural differences. We combat worms and intestinal parasites. We spend a lot of our time camped on public transport, twisting our bodies into shapes we never thought possible all for the cause of fitting that extra goat or chicken into the already crowded car. Yet, most of the time, we love the job because of so many reasons. When I came to Uganda in September 2006, I came with a group of 12 extraordinarily strong women. We are now a group of 7 as some have decided to leave the Peace Corps and return to America. First Nora, then Alexis, Carrie May, Tiffany and most recently, Jess who left Uganda for various reasons, but will never leave our hearts, nor the heart of the communities they worked with! They have given so much to their organizations, their communities, Uganda and to me. Their positive (and sometimes, but as equally appreciated sarcastic and realistic) attitude has helped me get through on so many occasions. We have grown so, so much together: two months of training, learning how to ride bikes in skirts (Alexis), learning how to use the impossibly small facilities (Nora), learning how be alone and still have ‘fun’ (Carrie May), learning how to be okay with talking to the lizards (Tiffany), learning how to open bottles with out a cork screw (Jess) the list could continue for miles. They will forever be part of our small, but mighty PC group and part of my heart. I love you girls, get ready for visits from me in the states starting January 2009!