I feel like I have a brain clog. It’s hard to believe I’ve been here a whole month! So much has happened to keep me busy, and what with power outages and sketchy internet, I have lots of things in my mind that have just been waiting to debut in the blogosphere. Thus, I am going to try and do a string of posts to catch up, starting with a little glimpse at my new home here in Kampala.

I heard it snowed back home. Apparently, Birmingham even got a few inches. Normally I would be really jealous to miss out on this winter anomaly, but there’s something about sitting practically on top of the equator that makes you forget about things like cold, wet snow. Sometimes it feels like eternal summer; other times the heat makes it feel like you’ve been sent to some other eternal place.

I live in a house with four other girls who are interns at a Christian non-profit called eMi (engineering Ministries international), and our house is sort of the hangout for all the other interns. That’s what you get when you have a kitchen and internet. They’re all great. They’re also all architects and engineers, so naturally since coming here I’ve asked myself several times why I studied something so abstract as political science in college. I’m really so grateful for all of them, though. It’s nice to have a good community here.

We live in a neighborhood of Kampala called Kansanga, home of KFC – Kansanga Fried Chicken! Ha, who knew that good old Colonel Sanders took his secret recipe all the way to the pearl of Africa?

I work in the office attached to Jade and Shelah’s house in Buziga, which is about a 15 minute drive from Kansanga. I think I touched on the joys of transportation here in my last post, but I usually take either a taxi/matatu (small sardine can van) or I ride in style on a boda boda (small motorcycle taxi). The sardine can vans are fun because people don’t expect mzungus to take them and you get to sound ridiculous trying out different Lugandan words and seeing which ones actually get the driver to let you off the taxi. The bodas are fun because, well, motorcycles are fun.




A boda in front of the roadside market








Tickles and Giggles! & new friends!