First shout out from Uganda!!

Hey everybody, me (and my precious luggage) have made it to Lweza, Uganda! I am currently shopping in Kampala, where I just bought a bathroom bucket for night "short" and "long" hauls, and am using a computer in my first internet cafe.

I arrived at the Lweza training Center Saturday night with 31 other volunteers who will be serving in Uganda as well. We are staying at the training center until tomorrow, when we will be given to our host families. Each volunteer is placed with a different host family for the duration of training, which is roughly 2 months. I am very excited to finally be meeting them, even though I don't actually have any details about them, and am anticipating some quality family bonding time as they teach me to properly wash my clothes by hand.

At the training center, we have been taking culture, safety & awareness, survival Luganda (one of the main dialects here) and health classes in order to prepare us for homestay. It can get a little overwhelming, just because the classes are so long, but it's really nice how thoroughly they are preparing us. I now know about five phrases in Luganda, but anything beyond that will get a bright smile and a confused look.

That's about all that has happened in the last week. I won't know where my site will be until the end of training, but I will begin language classes in the dialect that is spoken there starting next week. I hope to be able to update this somewhat regularly, but if not, I loooove getting letters! *cough, cough* You know, I reeeeally love letters. *wink, wink* Did I mention snail mail is my favorite ?

I hope you all are having a good time in the states. TTFN ( :
~Rachael