First Impressions

This is a longer post, but enjoy some of my first impressions from my first week in Uganda:

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• Driving on the left side of the road. Most of the time it’s fine, but every once in awhile when the car is making a turn I freak out for a second because I think they’re going the wrong way. That, and sitting in the “passenger” seat always feels so wrong because the steering wheel is missing. Crossing the street is hard because I feel like I’ve lost my concept of traffic flow at intersections
• Driving into Kampala (the capital city) from the airport, even though I couldn’t see a ton in the dark, reminded me so much of Accra, and there was almost a feeling of “It’s good to be back”. A bit odd, considering I was thousands of miles away from Accra.
• Arriving in my hotel room, I collapsed on my bed and instantly felt terribly lonely and afraid. It was hitting me that I had just travelled to the other side of the world and arrived in a country where I knew absolutely no one. I’ve never felt so alone in my life. But a few messages exchanged with my family, a couple brief tears, and a few prayers later, I felt a bit comforted. Praise the Lord we serve a God who hears us.
• I saw around 8 zebras just chilling not too far from the road on the way to Kabale! It’s casual.
• Hot food is HOT. Food is not spicy here (unless you count ginger, which they pronounce “jing-gah”), but the temperature is scorching. Never before have I almost burned my hand just from the steam while I was pouring my coffee.
• Jetlag has affected me a lot more this time around (7 hours ahead). Not only am I dead tired during the day and wide awake in the middle of the night, but I’ve lost my appetite. At lunch I realized it probably has to do with the fact that I had just eaten my second meal of the day and it was only 4am in Michigan.
• When native Rukiga (Roo-chee-gah) speakers are speaking English, they will commonly switch ‘R’s and ‘L’s, which can be very confusing. The example Carol gave me is when someone says what sounds like “I am going to lead a wrong passage”, they are actually saying “I am going to read a long passage”. I have to pay attention SO CLOSELY in order to understand, although it’s a little easier when they say things like “knowredge”, because without the ‘L’ it isn’t a real word, so I can’t get it confused with anything. Read and lead are a little trickier. It also doesn’t help that I’m half deaf.
• Some of the stoplights in Kampala have a countdown timer, similar to ones you see on crosswalks in the states, which seems like a great idea. You know exactly how long you have to wait, and then people can start going the exact second the light turns green (no more honking at people who are still sitting there several seconds after the light has turned).
• Portion sizes for the meals I’ve seen so far are HUGE. I was given a plate of rice that was at least a foot in diameter, covered with a solid inch of rice, and the bowl of bean stew for putting on top probably amounted to about a cup and a half in itself. I put almost half my rice on the “community plate” and still struggled to finish. I skipped dinner that night and just went for a cliff bar.
• Carrot and ginger soup may actually be my new favorite food.
• Being around people is twice as exhausting as I remembered it. I actually had to psych myself up to have the courage to leave my room and go get breakfast my first day. Granted jetlag makes it worse, but every interaction is so labored because it’s always with someone that I don’t know well and I’m trying to be hypervigilant of what everyone is doing (including me) so I can abide by new cultural norms that are not natural to me. The past couple days I’ve reached mental exhaustion by 2pm.
• Having spent time in Ghana has been SO helpful in making the little things less difficult. I realized that farm animals roaming the streets, and the vibrant red of the dirt, are things I don’t even notice. I already knew what kind of adapter I needed for my electronics and that you have to turn on the switch for each individual outlet in order to get any electricity from them, and that to lock your door you need to make sure the lock clicks twice (not just once) to be fully secure. Orientation can only cover so much, and this time I don’t have Prof. Kuilema around to show us the ropes for these little things, so I’m extremely thankful I don’t have to figure out so much on my own.  
• I’ve been able to overcome certain generalizations more quickly this time around. For example, when I first arrived in Ghana and looked around at all the people, all I saw were “Africans”. But with some guidance from Prof. Kuilema, I eventually started to see “Ghanaians”, until I was finally able to see people on a more individual level (like a mother, student, or businessperson). This time I’ve been able to see people on that individual level almost immediately.

Photo Credits: ugandatravelguide.com (Kampala) and watchdoguganda.com (Kabale)