Welcome to Lugazi!

"In life, a person will come and go from many homes. We may leave a house, a town, a room, but that does not mean those places leave us. Once entered, we never entirely depart the homes we make for ourselves in the world. They follow us, like shadows, until we come upon them again, waiting for us in the mist."

Ari Berk, Death Watch

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Uganda is incredible.

Overlooking the town of Lugazi.

I'm already in love with this place. It has been an exhausting and exciting first few days of getting to know the town of Lugazi. I arrived with Tessa (another Musana intern) late Thursday night. Here's my home sweet home for the next 3 months!

We live in the back half of this house.

Our new friend and member of the Musana team, Luta, has been showing us around. 

Women wearing traditional Ugandan dress - the gomesi.

I don't know how they manage to balance so much on one bike!

Our tour of Lugazi started with Musana. We met most of the women who work there - we're up to 15 full-time workers and 6 who will be promoted to full-time soon! Musana is growing! A few of the women bring their kids to Musana and they were so happy to meet us.

Musana is that white building at the end of the road. I'll get a better
picture of it later.

Musana kids

The cutest little babies at Musana!

Luta took us out to lunch to try traditional Ugandan food on our first day here... I still don't know exactly what I ate, but I am already obsessed with the fruit/fruit juice here. It's infinitely better than the fruit we have in the States.

My favorite thing about Uganda is the people - these are the nicest people I've ever met. All day, I hear people yelling out "hi mzungu!" Several people call out "welcome to Uganda!" as they pass by, and I've even had a man call me over to the other side of the street just to shake hands and say hi. The kids especially are so excited to see wazungu (wazungu is the plural of mzungu) and they absolutely love getting their pictures taken.

Even though the kids are really excited to see wazungu, most keep their distance until you get to know each other pretty well. This little man was one of the brave ones. He ran right up to us, introduced himself, and brought us back to his house to meet all of his friends.

These little guys were so excited to see us, they ran outside before they put their clothes on! Their mom was laughing hysterically and trying to get them to come back and get dressed, but they decided watching the wazungu was more important than being clothed.

Once they get over their initial fear of coming too close, they just want to touch the mzungu's white skin. And let's be honest, mine is probably the whitest skin they'll ever see. Tanned skin in the U.S. is desirable, but my pale skin makes me a rock star here!

Here's a traveler's tip: if you ever come to Uganda and want the kids to fall in love with you instantly, bring bubbles. I have about 15 new best friends because I brought bubbles for them.

I'm already so in love with these munchkins. They are the sweetest. That little gentleman I'm holding in the back gave me a red flower as we were leaving.

Football is huge here. Everyone plays it or watches it or coaches it or follows the national team. It seemed like the whole town came out to watch this game.

One of the guys sitting on this wall stopped watching the game long enough to propose to me. So, you know, that was pretty cool.

Weddings here are a big deal. Actually, a lot of couples don't ever get officially married because they can't afford it. The culture here requires that weddings are huge and expensive. There's no such thing as a "budget wedding." We were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time when these newlyweds drove down the street in a procession of about 10 cars. Congrats to the happy couple!

Luta invited Tessa and me to watch him perform at a local music event Saturday night. As we were walking over, Luta decided to give us Ugandan names. Mine is Kwagala (I'm not sure if that's how to spell it... it's pronounced "kwah-gah-la") which means "one who is very loved."

The event had already started by the time we got there; it was very busy and exciting. Tons of people from the community came to socialize, eat dinner together, and watch the singing, dancing, and instrumentalist acts. Between each act, the MCs would point to us and say "welcome, we are so excited to have our friends here." I know I still have a lot of time left in Uganda to experience different things, but I bet this will be in my Top 10 favorite memories of this place.

I was so impressed with these girls. How do they move so fast?! This mzungu definitely cannot move like that.

Even the boys can shake it! (You can see Luta in the back left corner of the tent - he's the tall man in the white shirt.)

Well, this has been the Sparknotes version of my last three days. I've never experienced a more exhausting three days, but I've also never experienced a more exciting three days. I'm beyond happy that I was lucky enough to be offered this opportunity. I can't wait to get to know these people and become close friends with them, and I can't wait to truly get started on my work with Musana.