A day in the life: training ed.

*disclaimer: I stayed with an awesome AWESOME family so maybe you'll have something like this but probably not.

I wake up at 6:00am each morning about half an hour before the sun rises. If I'm able to get myself up then I do a little yoga session in my room as the sun rises. More often than not I hit the snooze four times and get up fourty minutes past six.

Breakfast is always waiting for me at the kitchen table. The food is different each day. This morning I had corn flakes with fresh milk, a green apple, and tea. Yesterday I had two hard boiled eggs, a banana, and tea. I take my morning tea and review the notes from my language class.

I leave the house on my bike at 7:30am and bike the 5 kilometers to the training center. Along the way I greet everyone I meet. As I pass the school children walking down the road in their uniforms I give them a quick greeting in Swahili ("Jambo!") and they respond with the same. I greet those older than me with the more formal "Wasuzio oteyano, ssebo!" ("good morning, sir!").

I arrive at school ten minutes to eight. I used to need that time to stop sweating but I've learned how to exert myself only to the point before I break the sweat threshold and now I arrive at school free of perspiration. The day begins with a two hour language class in Acholi, the language commonly spoken in the north of Uganda. Language is my favorite and what I believe to be most helpful.

We break for tea and peanuts in the mid morning and continue with sessions in either health, safety/security, local culture, or technical training. These range mostly from mildly boring to excruciatingly boring.

We take lunch around noon thrity and they feed us quite well. There's usually matoke (made out of steamed bananas), baked beans, green beans, mashed potatoes, chicken or pork, and fresh fruit. Sessions continue after lunch until around 4:00 or 5:00pm. I bike home stopping at my family's shop to say hello to my mother or sometimes grabbing a beer or two with the other volunteers.

Afternoon tea is waiting, usually with fresh pineapple, and I take the time to relax by reading or journaling. After tea I hang out with my family making chapati or feeding the pigs or just sitting around talking. Sometimes I bust out the laptop and we watch a movie, my sisters really dig Disney movies.

My Luganda is really bad but I can tell my brother Ronald is a really funny guy, people are always laughing when he's around. As the sun sets my whole family gathers around the television to watch a Brazilian soap opera filmed in Portugese but (badly) dubbed into English called "La Tormenta." It's terrible. Absolutely terrible.

Dinner is served from 9:30 to 10:30pm (the Baganda like to eat late). Usually it's rice, matoke, greens, a couple pieces of beef and french fries ("chips"). Good stuff. I usually bathe before dinner, my family boils some water so I can take a warm bucket bath before going to sleep and doing it all again the next day. I mean that's really all there is to it. Rinse, wash, repeat.