More entertainment for procrastinating family members will be available starting in late June! As many of you know from the family grapevine I'm heading to Kampala, Uganda this summer. (http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/maps/uganda.kampala.jpg) Right now I'm busy preparing--buying stuff, doing research, learning a little Lugandan...
While most people speak English, Luganda is a "native" language that pretty much everyone I'll be working with speaks. (Most Africans speak 2-5 languages...makes me feel pretty dumb) So currently I'm trying to learn some very important phrases like:
Ki kati- Hi/whats up?
Weeraba- Goodbye
Oyogera oluzungu- Do you speak English?
Nsonyiwa nniga abuze- Excuse me I'm lost.
Nedda, simanyi oluganda- No, I don't speak Lugandan.
Have fun practicing those ones at home kids!
Feel free to facebook me and email me while I'm gone, I will have internet access! I'm not sure how great it is though so I'll have to get back to you about Skyping since that uses up a lot of bandwidth. (an additional impediment to talking is that Uganda is 6 hours ahead) I'll try to make it to an internet cafe every couple of weeks since those have the best internet; that will probably be my only available Skyping time!
My travel plans: I'll be leaving Omaha June 20th and heading to Dublin where I will have a one-week layover to do a mini-Euro trip with one of my best friends from high school who is living there. I'll be crashing on her couch, so I'll have plenty of Euros left for sightseeing!
Then I leave Dublin on the 28th and head to Kampala from then until August 20th!
I'm staying with the very generous friends of a professor in Kampala, Maureen and Ivan, who seem really amazing, friendly and basically like nice people. They both work in the international NGO scene and have a young son about two who seems adorable.
And as far as the boring stuff--I'll be working on political science research that will mostly center on the coming presidential elections (in early 2011) and the youth voting movement in Uganda. I may try to do a little volunteering in my free time to assuage my inevitable culture-shock guilt and also give me something to do besides reading books!
If anyone wants souvenirs from Dublin/Kampala let me know what, or else you're getting some cheesy wooden bead bracelets or a dashiki.Weeraba readers!
