Last day before Tomorrow

Today was our last full day in Kampala. Erika is set to arrive tonight at 9:40pm, and she will have less than 12 hours in the country before we set off for Nyabyeya tomorrow morning. The past few days have been busy and fruitful. Yesterday we spend the entire afternoon meeting with facilitator of the agriculture course. I feel that we made progress, but at the same time it was challenging to work with the pedagogy here which highlights lecture, while the focus of a TOT is on practice and participation.

Today, we spent a hot and exhausting day walking through the crowded streets of downtown Kampala, searching for bargains on the many items needed for our project. We will get many of the heavier items in Masindi tomorrow (such as hoes for the agriculture workshop), however today saw bargaining for plates (75 of them!), silverware, washbasins, stationary, photocopies, flip charts, and seeds.

I have heard that the city of Kampala is one of the worst in the world for pedestrians, and it certainly seems that you take your life into your hands every time you try to cross a street. The sidewalks are full of people - open shops stocked with rows and rows of wares from floor to ceiling many times over, colorful people selling peanuts, gum, airtime, socks, (or many other things), young men lounging around on top of the wares they are unloading from lorries stacked high with cardboard boxes tied with twine, big plastic gunny sacks, and the occassional bunches of plantains. Of course there are the pedestrians too - lots and lots and lots of them - women wearing beautiful fabrics, men in suits and soccer jerseys, young women in sharp looking suits or fashionable tanktops (and always wearing high heels), and every other get-up you could possibly imagine. We shove and push and bump into eachother and we make our way down the street, pausing at corners until the coast is (mostly) clear and we can dash to the other side before the endless stream of taxis (public minibusses), boda bodas (motorcycles that carry one or two people on the back for a fee), lorries, busses, and private vehicles continues.

Hopefully, I will get a chance to upload pictures soon. Until then, I will likely be out of internet touch for a bit as we head upcountry and away from the city. The town of Masindi has internet options, but has been powerless for the past three weeks, and we will be working from Monday-Saturday anyway. Much love to all!