A Visit to a Village

Several weekends ago, a group of us from eMi went to visit our friend Allie, a Peace Corps. volunteer. Allie lives in a little village called Kangulumira, which is about a two hour matatu ride from Kampala. Allie is living pretty much like a local (no refrigerator, no indoor plumbing, cement home) but, she does have a laptop with every- other -day electricity. She even manages to cook some non Ugandan meals, spoiling us with spghatti and meat balls, stir fry, and even a cake on a char-coal stove called a shigiri.

This is Allie's front porch. Apparently one of the Peace Corps. housing requirements is that the house be painted. I guess that only applies to the front? In this picture, David is reading a book called African Friends and Money Matters which discusses the frequent confusion Westerners feel as they become familiar with the African economic system.

Living in "the village" isn't quite what I expected. The houses were lined up along the main road, not in a cluster or circle. Although, when David went to Lira a month ago, he noticed that this was how many of the village huts were arranged. Regardless, many of the precious neighbor kids were coming in and out of Allie's house all of the time. She is the only white person in the village and is quite popular as you can imagine.

On Saturday we took a 5-6 kilometer walk down to the Nile. It was a beautiful day as you can see in this picture. It's pretty common for people to wash their clothes (by hand, that is) and then hang them over a bush or lay them in the grass to dry.

This girl is standing in front of a building that is still being worked on.

I was quite excited to see my first pineapple bush! Pineapples are grown all over Kangulumira.

Children lined the road to greet us. Eight Muzungus walking through town caused quite a commotion! You seriously feel like a celebrity, constantly smiling, waving and hugging the children. They love getting their picture "snapped" and especially enjoy seeing it on the digital camera. Several even followed us all the way to the river!

We hadn't been this close to the Nile since we went rafting last August. We dipped our feet in to cool off, it was quite refreshing after the long hike, (in a long skirt!)

The Whole eMi Gang:

On Side: David, Rob- Civil Engineer from Australia
Back Row: Leah- Architect from Kansas, Jean- Civil Engineer from the UK, Megan- Architect from Oregon
Front: Me and Janet- Waste Water Engineer from New York

This mom effortlessly hauls a load on her head and her back!