blender chicken

Blender chicken. No, that is not some weird type of Ugandan smoothie. It is actually in fact a breed of chicken that looks, believe it or not, like it went through a blender. Blender chickens usually have no feathers on their heads or necks, and then the rest of their body is sporadically covered in a spotty coat of decrepit, dirty feathers. Easily the strangest domestic animal.

Wednesday night: Scarlet and I are back in Kampala. We left Kampala early Monday morning to go to Katosi for field work for the past three days. This weeks work consisted on initiating pen-pal programs in two primary schools in Katosi. The program is called "Postcards for Peace" and is an initiative to use art and music to promote relationships between children in different countries. The 55 students that we interviewed and collected postcards from will be paired with students from Rwanda where another UNC student is working on the same project. The first day we went to Katosi C/U Primary School where we met with Christopher, the head teacher, who helped us immensely with coordinating the students and their music. We recorded the whole class singing a few songs such as their school anthem and their sanitation club song. Then Scarlet recorded each individual student singing their favorite song while I worked with the class on creating postcards with a picture on one side depicting something that represented them or their family and a letter on the other side introducing themselves.

It was really fun to work with all the kids and they drew some great pictures and wrote even better letters. Things got a little chaotic when I brought out the stickers and then even more so once I brought out the camera, but it was still enjoyable despite feeling minorly claustrophobic as the kids crowded around me to see their picture on my camera.

After working all afternoon, Colleen showed Scarlet and I this awesome path up to the top of the cell-phone tower hill overlooking Katosi. We sat on some big boulders at the very top of the hill and just enjoyed the view for a while. After we returned to the KWDT compound on the main strip of Katosi (downtown Katosi is the equivalent of approximately 100 little shacks selling random things; either produce, kitchen goods, CD's, food or some other random necessity. Our Ugandan friend Dorothy came over and we had dinner and watched the movie "17 Again" with her (Katosi finally got power back this past Saturday!)

Tuesday morning we went to Trio Primary School to set up the pen-pal program there also. I spent the morning assisting kids with decorating and completing their postcards while Scarlet recorded their personal songs. After the kids realized that I could record videos on my camera they all wanted me to take videos of them doing Kung-Fu fighting? At first it was funny and then I felt somewhat uncomfortable condoning violence so I ended that by telling them that my battery was dying (sorry kids!), but I did get a lot of good pictures of the kids working on their postcards.

In the afternoon we went to St. John Bosco to help Colleen and Avery work on some keyhole gardens with the sanitation club their. We were hoping to build 4 gardens on Tuesday, but one took a long time and a lot of effort, so it looks like it's going to be a longer process than expected. Although, this is good because it gives the sanitation club an ongoing project they can work on! Colleen bought seeds for them to plant, but the P-5 teacher, Martin, said it would be better to wait until August to plant after the rainy season has started because the soil is too dry now.

When we got home from St. John Bosco, Mama Gertrude showed us how to deep fry some small plantains and cut up some avocado for us to enjoy. Typical Ugandan snack!

Today's Matatu ride was one of the more uncomfortable 4 hours of my life due in part to the immense heat, the persistent dust cloud that stained my face and my blue t-shirt and red hue of clay, and the taxi seats that could potentially be classified as torture devices. We also had to wait for at least an hour for the taxi to even leave Katosi before we set out on our journey; however, we did finally arrive back in lungujja around one, only to find a completely empty office. Some kind of meeting happened today that everyone went to, so we set about hand washing our clay-stained clothes for the next hour and half.

It's been a wonderful week so far. I can't believe I'm only here for 2.5 more weeks. I'm currently reading the book "Three Cups of Tea" about a guy named Greg Mortenson who builds schools for girls in Pakistan. It's an incredibly inspiring story and a very well-written book, so if you're looking for some good summer reading, I highly recommend it!


Pictures to come. Promise.

ps - found out margaret's husband is a member of Uganda's parliament?! yeah. this past sunday, margaret invited us to join her and her family for a small celebration in a local village about one hour south of Kampala. It turned out to be a campaign rally for the elections next year and we got to experience some Ugandan politics! On the way home we stopped at the equator (took some pictures, obviously) and then got stuck in traffic trying to get back into Kampala for 3 hours. At one point, Margaret and I got out and walked for about half a mile just to stretch our legs. On the upside, we got back too late to make our own dinner so we got invited over to Margaret's for dinner and gossip girl. Best internship ever.