One year in Uganda

I’ve been in Uganda for a year now.  It’s crazy to look back and see just how far I have come. 

Living and working alone in a third world country has been much more difficult than I had ever imagined.  But it also continues to have rewards that exceed my wildest expectations.  It is hard because I am different, and as much as I don’t want to be different I continue to be different.  It is hard because I don’t have anyone who thinks like me to bounce my ideas off of.  Its difficult because I want to be the best I can possibly be and feel incredibly guilty on days when I simply can’t.  It’s a challenge to overcome apathy some days.... no one is really holding you accountable here. It’s hard to feel like you have ever done enough, because really... when have you ever done enough?  There have been days when I was sure I should quit Peace Corps, but luckily those days are outnumbered by the good ones.

Now that I have been here a year, I feel as though I am finally part of the community.  It seems funny to me that I though this would happen simultaneously with my arrival in the community.  Looking back, I wish it wasn’t an expectation that I had, I think it would have made my first year a lot easier.  It takes a long time for people to get to know one another.  It takes months for real trust to be formed.  It takes days of talking to understand what a person believes and why they believe it.  And it takes a year to finally feel like you’re part of a community.

I finally feel like I am part of the community.  You know, everyone said “The first year is so hard, but once you get past a year things are really good.”  For some reason I didn’t believe them.  Could it really take a year to be comfortable with your surroundings?  You need over 300 days to find your true friends and work that you find enlightening and which also helps the community?  It’s going to take 50 weeks just to finally understand why people are doing things the way they are doing them?  The answer is yes.  At the year mark suddenly the clouds parted and life here began to make sense, or maybe I just finally decided that they weren’t becoming anymore like me so maybe I should work harder to become like them.  And now things have become much easier.

I have decided to work with people who want to work with me, as opposed to working with who Peace Corps says I should work with, and it’s working out beautifully.  I spend most days at the deaf school as well as teaching in the community.  I am still teaching computers at the college and for the next 4 weeks am going to be supervising student teachers in the field.  It seems that the pieces of the puzzle have come together and I can’t wait to see what this year brings.