Week 10: Rainy season ends in June, right?

Just when I thought the rains were over here -- and the rainy season used to always end in June -- they struck in full force.

This past Thursday, my co-worker Eunice -- I think she may be bad luck when it comes to rain:) -- and I had a business administration training to conduct in the village of Kinogoga. Our problems started when Eunice got delayed in Kampala. We were supposed to hold the session at 2:30, but Eunice didn’t make it to the office until 3:30. So as soon as she arrived, we rushed to order a special hire (basically a taxi) and started to make our way out to Kinogoga, where we had been once before. The place we were going is a quite a ways off the main road and, not surprisingly, we got lost. This was despite the fact that, as we were delayed, the pastor who is in charge of the women’s group we would be training had decided to come to the main road and make sure we got there ok. But there was one problem. I was sitting in the back seat, and he didn’t realize it was us in the car driving by him until after we had passed by and he saw my now quite lengthy hair from behind. So he sent a motorcycle to chase after us and guide us back to our meeting place by 4:15.

So fast forward about an hour and a half…we’re going through our training materials and have about 10 minutes to go when all of a sudden the skies let loose. Now, the place we were training had a tin roof, so it basically sounded like rounds of gunfire were going off around us. The pastor quickly informed us that we should probably get going because otherwise the roads would be unpassable due to the flooding. But as we were so close to finishing, Eunice and I rushed through the last few minutes by basically yelling over the pounding shots of rain. We then hurried out and made it back to the office safe and sound – at which point I realized that, contrary to my belief that he had held on to the directions, my co-worker Ali had given them to me and I had stuffed them in my pocket in our rush to leave! Oops.

This week actually was a lot of fun, but I do have to mention my first real bug encounter. Well, aside from a Botswanan flying cockroach bouncing off my chest during lunch one day.. Anyways, so I woke up on Tuesday and opened my eyes to see, chilling on the outside of my mosquito net not 6 inches from my face, a giant cockroach. Now, I’d seen plenty of roaches around the house, as well as some mice at the gas station where we check internet, but needless to say, I am now tucking in my mosquito net as tightly as I can! That said, my story definitely pales in comparison to another intern’s from the same day. So Maureen gets back from work on Tuesday and decides to go for a bath. Sounds like a good plan, but for one problem – a giant rat is staring at her as she enters the bathroom, at which point she calmly reversed course and sought out her host sister for assistance. I think some things, no matter how long you are in Africa, you will never get used to, but she handled it quite well!

Anyways, hard to believe I have just 2 weeks remaining in Uganda...it has really been an amazing, eye-opening experience and I am definitely going to miss the people and the lifestyle here...but I suppose I'll have more to say about that in a few weeks time!