Runyankole and other mind numbing tidbits

I’m pretty sure “Wasibota” means good afternoon. I was very excited to arrive in Uganda and continue working on the little bit of Swahili I picked up in Tanzania and Kenya. To my dismay, however, it turns out that no one speaks Swahili in Uganda. Several native languages are spoken in Uganda including “Runyankole” which is spoken here in the southwest corner of the country where Mbarara is located. Runyankole is no where near as easy as Swahili appeared to be, hence my confusion in using Wasibota. As a matter of fact, after being here for 5 weeks, I am still not sure exactly which hello to use in the morning, afternoon, night, or in general for that matter. I bought a cheap phrase book in town, but it was useless because it taught me how to say things like “my leg is paining” or “my neighbor is thievery” yet still did not give me a word for hello. Lynn and I have decided to find a tutor to try to teach us a couple of times a week for a month or so to see if we pick it up at all or to at least learn some of the basics.
In addition to trying to figure out the language, we have been very busy meeting new people, expats and locals alike. I already have about 25 contacts in my phone including the kid who promised to ride me on his bicycle any where I wanted to go. The locals here have been great; everyone from the students and teachers to the doctors and medical students at Lynn’s hospital. We have at least one dinner party per week, and sometimes more. Overall, the locals have been very kind and easy to talk to. However, aside from the constant Mzungu…Mzungu (white person in Runyankole and Swahili) we do get the stares from some people which are neither curious nor friendly, but instead say, without the need of words, “What are you doing here whitey?”

School (pictured above) is going well and looks to get more interesting as we progress. There are 10-12 of us in my class and we complete the year in 2-4 week modules. For instance, I just finished my first three week module, which was Intro to Development and now move on to a two week module in communication skills with a different professor. Going to school here is a quite a different experience than when I lived and studied in China. In China I was one of three hundred foreigners from all over the world living and studying together. Here I am the only “Mzungu” enrolled in the entire school. I’m hoping they get bored with that fact real soon. The other difference is that here I am involved in a serious and complicated program, development, which is fraught with myths, perceptions, and misconceptions on both the “developed” and “developing” sides of the issue. Already, after my first three weeks of class and having lived here for five weeks, I have had to totally transform my own definition of “development” and learn that the word can at times be presumptuous and at other times downright arrogant. However, the greatest part of the class is that as a group we get first hand knowledge from each other regarding our respective countries socially, politically, etc… so there are less assumptions being tossed around. Oh yeah, and one other difference, there are no textbooks here; at least in my program as far as I can tell. We get "a" handout or "a" book to look at, but we have to pay to make photocopies for ourselves. The other day my change for the photocopies was paid to me in candy. We love it here!
Well, I could write for hours about the things we are doing here, but I know that no one would come back to the blog if I did......so more later.