Alex In Africa - Pt. 6

Our days are numbered here in Uganda, but for the remaining few days we will continue to make the 40 minute drive the Atiak and do work on the orphanage there. We are the first volunteers to come and do manual labor, whereas volunteers in the past have either came for medical work or just came to see around the area. We now take breakfast everyday at 8am, and we must be ready to leave by 8:30am so we can make the drive. If you remember, we originally were going to be building a house. However, there were two trucks with supplies on them, and while one made it safely to Atiak, the other got into a wreck and lost all of the supplies. They said that it's amazing the driver is still alive. Once at Atiak, we started to do tasks like paint windows and lay tile there. Once we complete all of our tasks, we will sit down with the head contractor and calculate the amount of money we worked based on the tasks we completed. Work here in Uganda is not based on the hours you work or even the task itself, but it is based on the amount you (the worker) and the your "boss" (the contractor) agree upon. For example, we are painting the windows and typically that will be approximately 20,000 shillings, but it could be higher or lower depending on the agreement. At that point, if there was no timeline given, you could work as fast or as slow as you wanted.  

I brought enough clothes so that I didn't have to do laundry, but some of the people in my group had to do laundry. The most interesting thing about laundry is that they will try their hardest so men don't have to do it. It is a "woman's" job, and they stick to this. One of the women in our group had to do one of the men's laundry, although he was trying to do it himself. You do laundry by filling up three buckets. The first bucket is the for the initial wash so it contains soap, and you turn your clothes inside out and scrub with your hands on the "dirty" areas, like armpits, neckline, and back. After you scrub well enough (although we've noticed our scrubbing is never good enough,) you wring the clothing out and transport it to the second bucket of soap. You scrub the dirty areas again, but this time you ensure to get the other areas of the clothes. After you scrub well enough in bucket two, you move to bucket three which is just water. You rinse out the soap and then hang your clothes to dry.

Another thing I've found peculiar here is some of the schools teach the children how to cut grass. It would be strange enough if they had lawnmowers, but this is Africa. Instead of lawnmowers they have sharp blades that the swing and cut the grass. The blades have sometimes been bigger than the child, but they still must learn to do it.

I've been playing music while we work at Atiak, and everyone loves the American music. It has been mostly pop divas and they still rock out with us.