Thursday, November 21, 2013
On Tuesday we got to visit our first schools! I loved it. Granted it was a long day, but I enjoyed myself. We split up into two groups - one toured the PTC first and the other the primary school first and then we switched. The PTC was an all girls Catholic college, but the primary school was mixed. The PTC was pretty nice and had beautiful grounds. We talked with some of the admin and teachers and then got a tour. There is also currently a volunteer at both the PTC and primary school, so we got to meet and talk with them and we saw the PTC volunteer's house - it was so big and nice! We were told not to get our hopes up, though, because most of our houses will not be that nice. When we went to the primary school, the students greeted us with songs. It was so beautiful. Not going to lie, I teared up a little bit. I loved it! Again, we talked with some teachers and learned more about how things run at the school and then a student gave us a tour. It started raining halfway through the tour, and to my surprise a bunch of students just came out and stood outside the classrooms. We learned that when it rains, some schools - the ones with tin roofs - have to stop class because the rain makes it too loud to continue teaching. But I just loved meeting all the kids and it made me so much more excited to start teaching!!
Onto today. . .guess what I did!? I got to visit the US Embassy! It was pretty dope. We pulled into a gated area and then got all our passports and persons checked. There was a beautiful green lawn and a big building. With air conditioning. They served us coffee and snacks – both were deliciously amazing. They served us these mini eggroll things and oh man were they good; I’m pretty sure we all got thirds. And the coffee. Delicious. Amazing. So good. I’m a big coffee person; I very much enjoy a good cup of coffee. My mom got me hooked on espresso after she bought an espresso machine when I was in high school. First two years of college I had a hot pot to boil water for instant coffee or got coffee from the dining hall. With an apartment junior year, I had a coffee pot, which was definitely a step up, and then when my boyfriend at the time ruined my 21st birthday he decided to make up for it with a bunch of presents, one being an espresso machine. From then on the rest of college was a little tastier. My morning coffee was my me time. During the school week it was while I was getting ready or on my walk to class; on weekends or during break it was relaxing on the couch with my most recently recorded tv show or outside enjoying the weather with a good book. Either way, it was the best part of my day. So this surprise of deliciously amazing coffee after instant for the past ten days made me pretty happy. (It’s the small things nowadays.) I had at least four cups. The caffeine also helped with the next three or so hours of lecture. We met some different people from the embassy, learning their story and about what different aspects of the embassy work with the Peace Corps. Very intriguing.
On Tuesday we got to visit our first schools! I loved it. Granted it was a long day, but I enjoyed myself. We split up into two groups - one toured the PTC first and the other the primary school first and then we switched. The PTC was an all girls Catholic college, but the primary school was mixed. The PTC was pretty nice and had beautiful grounds. We talked with some of the admin and teachers and then got a tour. There is also currently a volunteer at both the PTC and primary school, so we got to meet and talk with them and we saw the PTC volunteer's house - it was so big and nice! We were told not to get our hopes up, though, because most of our houses will not be that nice. When we went to the primary school, the students greeted us with songs. It was so beautiful. Not going to lie, I teared up a little bit. I loved it! Again, we talked with some teachers and learned more about how things run at the school and then a student gave us a tour. It started raining halfway through the tour, and to my surprise a bunch of students just came out and stood outside the classrooms. We learned that when it rains, some schools - the ones with tin roofs - have to stop class because the rain makes it too loud to continue teaching. But I just loved meeting all the kids and it made me so much more excited to start teaching!!
Onto today. . .guess what I did!? I got to visit the US Embassy! It was pretty dope. We pulled into a gated area and then got all our passports and persons checked. There was a beautiful green lawn and a big building. With air conditioning. They served us coffee and snacks – both were deliciously amazing. They served us these mini eggroll things and oh man were they good; I’m pretty sure we all got thirds. And the coffee. Delicious. Amazing. So good. I’m a big coffee person; I very much enjoy a good cup of coffee. My mom got me hooked on espresso after she bought an espresso machine when I was in high school. First two years of college I had a hot pot to boil water for instant coffee or got coffee from the dining hall. With an apartment junior year, I had a coffee pot, which was definitely a step up, and then when my boyfriend at the time ruined my 21st birthday he decided to make up for it with a bunch of presents, one being an espresso machine. From then on the rest of college was a little tastier. My morning coffee was my me time. During the school week it was while I was getting ready or on my walk to class; on weekends or during break it was relaxing on the couch with my most recently recorded tv show or outside enjoying the weather with a good book. Either way, it was the best part of my day. So this surprise of deliciously amazing coffee after instant for the past ten days made me pretty happy. (It’s the small things nowadays.) I had at least four cups. The caffeine also helped with the next three or so hours of lecture. We met some different people from the embassy, learning their story and about what different aspects of the embassy work with the Peace Corps. Very intriguing.
We headed to Peace Corps headquarters, which is awesome btw, for lunch and then into Kampala (Lugogo Mall) to do some business. We needed to get the bank situation finalized, look for phones, and just do some general shopping. After over an hour at the bank I went to look for a phone, but because I can’t ever make decisions, I decided to wait. A phone would be nice, to call home and whatnot, but then again it’s also kind of nice not to have that distraction. Because it’s Kampala, there are real supermarkets - Walmart-esque supermarkets. Taylor had already so kindly bought me a cup for bucket bathing so since I didn’t technically need anything else, I just bought some chips, chocolate, pop, and a bottle of wine and called it a day.
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