Day 2: The Children

Sorry it has taken me so long to write about the second day of my trip. Yes i know right now I'm on day five! its crazy to believe we had been here for five days. any who the internet has been bad and thats why i have not blogged lately. So the second day. this day was all about the children. The  children of uganda have stolen my heart. So what we really did do today was go to see an entrepreneur. His name was patrick. we met him at his hotel. this hotel was an amazing five star hotel. You could tell he was a story teller. He enjoyed talking about his childhood and how he became successful. He also talked to us about Uganda's business world. Most of this talk was over my head since I'm not a business major... but i enjoyed afterwards talking to the employees and hearing about there job working under patrick. Next we went to the Martyrs shrine. This was a very interesting experience and i felt a bit uncomfortable being jewish during this visit. The shrine is in memory of the first Ugandan Christians who were killed by the Ugandan king at the time. The MUB students told us how they visit this sight every year on martyrs day. They go real emotional when we talked about it and visited the shrine. The highlight of this visit was going down to see what they consider “holy water”. At this pond there was a little boy. He looked to be about four. He was so cute. I waved to him and he came over. We took pictures with him and danced to the music that was playing. He was in love with the boys on our trip. He thought they were the coolest people ever. You could tell by the boys clothing and family that was near by that he was from a poor family. Yet you would have never have known it by his personality. He was rich in personality, smile and joy. He seem to have no worries in the world! He enjoyed trying on the boy’s sunglasses. He looked sad when he had to give them back. I remembered I had my NFTY sunglasses in my bag and put them on his head. His face lit up! He danced around with them. I got up to leave and he took them off his face and handed them to me. I put them back on his face to symbolize he got to keep them. He gave me a high five and dance some more. He was so excited! He made my day! When we went back to MUB I was able to get pictures with the junior soccer team. One of the girls looked so shock when I reached out my hand. She kept looking at my skin calling me mazungu. The next place we visited. Yes we did a lot in one day. Was the farm. This farm was in a village away from the city (kampala). When we first pulled up to the farm there were three little children playing on a blacket with there mother and grandmother. The MUB students asked to hold the children. After a while Rita (a MUB) student asked if I wanted to hold the baby. I was delighted. This little girls name was praise. She was adorable. Just sucking her thumb the whole time. She didn’t cry. Her older brother was at the age of stranger anxiety and didn’t want to be held. But myself and the other education major (mary) got to hold the twins praise and prince. (see pictures on fb!) praise was a sweetie!!! After holding praise and getting a tour of the dairy farm we went to the dean of MUBs for dinner. His house was past the farm and was gorgeous. He built it himself. His family prepared a wonderful meal for us. We were able to try Jack fruit (which I loved) and other fresh amazing fruits. This night was a great bonding experience. We played games with the MUB students and the deans children. We taught them American hand games and name games. I found out during this time that people in Uganda do not sit on the ground. I sat down on the ground not on a  blanket or chair and they all looked at me like I was crazy. They explained that no one sits on the ground. Religion was brought up during the night and one of the MUB students david commented on my earings. He asked if I spoke jewish. I told him yes I spoke Hebrew. He then asked me what religion I was. I told him I was jewish. He was amazed. I never thought of them as separate things. I always associated the language and religion together. He wanted to learn Hebrew words so I taught him the basics. The night was a blast! We stayed at the house very late!

day 1: Muyemba, Matooke, Muzungu

Today was our first official day in Kampala. It was great to be able to see the country in daylight. We woke up bright and early to meet the MUB students. On the way to their campus we saw the city in full swing. Everyone was busy at work or on their way. Ugandan driving is well… interesting. Very fast. Very crazy. No one follows the traffic laws. You have boda bodas (motorcycles) weaving in and out of traffic. No one uses a cross walk or a bike lane. After we survived our ride we met the friends who will be touring with us for the next three weeks. It was lots of fun getting to know one another while laughing and comparing stories. Everyone was very friendly. However the students were a lot more soft spoken than I expected. Next they gave us a tour of their campus. MUB has a whole different feel than most college campuses in the united states. Everything is outside. The students were having their finals so we couldn’t see a classroom. However from the outside window they looked basic and crowded. One aspect of the campus I found interesting is the block (building) that is guarded by barbwire and a wall. When I asked Ezira what was inside this building he told me that exam papers and answer keys were in there. It was guarded so no one could cheat. The dorms were also different if I were to compare them to drake’s dorms. They were about half the size but had four beds in it. The building was pretty run down. However for the students it didn’t matter. Many of them worked very hard to get to college and education is extremely important. Thus the living arrangements don’t seem to be as big of a deal to the students. I could be wrong. But that was my impression. After we had our tour we went to exchange our money for Ugandan money. Thank goodness there were accounting majors there because I no clue on the math on converting the money. Especially since a 2  fifty dollar billss has a different exchange rate than 1 hundred bill. After walking out of the exchange were we on an adventure to Owino market. This market is in the heart of downtown kampala. There is no good store to compare the market to. For those of you who have been to Israel it is like the market where everyone one goes shopping for Shabbat combined with the shops in the different cordors of the old city. However it was to a big extreme. It was crowded and hot. Everyone and everything was EVERYWHERE. I kid you not! One thing I should mention that I have noticed in Uganda is there is no effective trash system. Everyone just throws trash into heaps on the side of the road or the middle of the side walk. Thus the trash made the space even more crowded. I don’t think anything in the market would be considered safe or sanitary in terms of US standards. Meat was covered with flys on one cart. While next to it a another vendor had a huge pile of lettuce and she was laying on half of them. Then next to that is someone making peanut butter and on the other side of that someone is selling shoes or clothes or paper to write on or Muyemba (mangos). There are huge piles of everything. And lots of venders are selling the same items. They want to bargain with you. They especially were fascinated by us. We were greeted with everyone’s eyes on us. They called us Muzungu. This in translation means “white person”. Every corner we turned they were shouting Muzungu Muzungu Muzungu. come buy this. Let me show you this Muzungu. Or they would try to grab your arm. Thank the lord we had the students and advisors with us or else it would have been a very scary situation. The vendors would also call us, American, sister, ask us to marry them, they ask us how we were, one even called me jeniffer while walking after me. The market deff brought a culture shock to everyone. We were all exchanging stories when we came back about what happen. Oh and I should mention about photography. I was only able to take a limited number of photos because I had to protect my stuff so it wouldn’t get stolen and if I tried to take pictures of people they would try to talk me into buying stuff. They would all run up to us saying “picture me picture me”. Thus I took pictures from a far. Or held my camera down low and hoped I got a good shot. I think the thing that surprised me the most was the children. There were children everywhere. They were helping sell stuff, running around with no shoes or mother in site, or even babies with there mothers. Some of these children were old enough to be in school. And thus it makes me wonder why were they there and not in school? The MUB students didn’t seem to be shocked by this aspect. Going back to discussing the market with all my classmates was interesting. It seemed like we were bashing the place. Yes it was not clean and safe to our standards but that is there way of shopping. That is there way of life. Its not bad its just different. Yes there would be ways to improve it to make it cleaner and more sustainable but at the same that would be putting our American lens on the situation. Overall it was an eye opening experience to say the least. Tomorrow we meet with patric bitature and then go to the  and farm. Oh and by the way the weather hasn’t been to terribly hot! Knock on wood. Have a great day =) ill post later! oh i was also able to try the matooke a famous dish made from bananas. it kind tastes like squash has the consistence of over cooked mashed potatoes. it was actually really good! 

~Dori 

The pearl of Africa, UGANDA

So this is my first post for my trip to Uganda. I right now just finished packing and cant wait to be in country! i have been counting the days till this trip even before i was admitted into drake. Ever seen middle school i have wanted to go to Africa. I remember going around the class telling "if you could go anywhere in the world where would it be" or "what is your dream job". I would answer i want to go to Africa, or I want to teach in the peace corp. in Africa. My class mates would look at me like i had 5 heads. Africa? is she crazy? They wanted to go to paris or hawaii or spain or disney world. This still has not changed. Teachers, Parents, and friends still have the same look of shock when i first tell them I'm going to spend three weeks in Uganda studying abroad. However, i really don't care what they think. Yes i know I'm not going to a five star hotel, or best reviewed restaurant but that stuff doesn't matter! The experience, memories, and lessons i will discover when i am in Uganda is more than i can ever wish for. I  want to get away from the "suburbs" and have this hope to be life changing experience.


Anywho, my professors have prepared me, i have packed my bags, have enough medication to cure an army, yet i still don't know what truly awaits me. I have a vision in my head of how Uganda will be but who knows if that is what will be there waiting for me. What ever the experience that awaits me in Uganda I am so excited for it! I cant wait to explore, teach, and learn while I'm there!
I just wanted to give a shout out to all my family and  friends back home and from drake. Don't worry i will be safe and i will stay away from the HIPPO!!!( don't worry me and alyssa will use our crime fighting skills if we see one!)  haha and i will take tonssss of pictures! (oh heather i still have the directions from your dad about how to take great safari pics!) so get ready for a Uganda slide show when i come back =) and kevin and allisa Don't worry i will tell nalah and simba Baylee saids "I love you" she is the cutest girl ever!
I will write again when i have time in country. Till then i hope you all enjoy reading this blog. Please ignore any spelling errors or grammar mistakes. I hope everyone has a wonderful day!
I pray i get to Uganda safely and have a safe and healthy trip.
See you all soon =) <3


oh one last thing i thought i would leave you this inspirational message about my trip to come from my friend Molee. Molee was one of the Ugandan students that visited Drake in the winter:


"yah bless yourself to a whole new experience new


 people in different colors, new food, bad roads, having 


fun and dancing all night, greenery, new every thing


 though not good infrastructure as that back home.


 welcome to Africa where we live in full colors, living 


each day as it comes and having fun despite all our


 problems. welcome to the pearl of Africa, Uganda."~Molee