it's november already?

This week has been pretty low-key, as about half the staff are in Mubende this week for TOT training. TOTs (trainers of trainers) are the people we directly train, who then train community caregivers to deliver services in the community. The training is pretty intense – six days in Mubende, one week off, and then two more weeks of training in Ssembabule. The office has been quiet this week, but we’ve been lucky to have power pretty steadily, which always makes life easier.

Wednesday morning as I was taking my bucket shower, I was about to rinse the shampoo out of my hair using a small jerry can when I spied something that I thought was a leaf clinging to the opening of the jerry can I was holding. Not a leaf, it was in fact a frog who had been hanging out inside the jerry can for who knows how long. I’m just glad I didn’t pour the frog onto my head along with the water. Needless to say, that incident woke me up much more effectively than my alarm did.

It’s election year here – elections are February 18th. Yesterday, nominations were being held for positions within Ssembabule (I’m still not clear exactly what the positions were). The campaigning process is quite interesting… as I was sitting in the office, I heard a marching band nearby. A marching band? In rural Uganda? Is it homecoming? Is this just my subconscious reminding me how sad I am to be missing football season? No, it turns out, I am NOT crazy – there was indeed a marching band passing through the town. We soon learned that the spectacle was one way that a candidate sought to gain attention for her campaign. The band proceeded to walk back and forth through town all day. After the musical extravaganza, a procession of trucks displaying campaign posters and full of people waving branches drove through the town as well, campaigning for another candidate. The lead-up to the election is going to be quite interesting, especially as February draws closer. Kampala is plastered with posters of President Museveni (wearing a straw hat that I can’t help but think is a sombrero every time I glance at a poster), but his re-election is guaranteed. He’s been in power since 1986 (along the way he scrapped the two-term presidential limit that he himself had put into place, deciding that he wanted to keep running for re-election), and he has no credible opposition. Members of parliament are also being elected, and from what I hear, election years here can get pretty crazy (they hold elections every 5 years, so I’m just lucky to be experiencing it while I’m here, I guess). You’ll hear a lot more about this as February draws closer, as I assume that’s probably all I’ll write about.

In unrelated news, I am almost totally finished with my grad school application, which is a HUGE relief. I hope to submit it next week (it’s due December 1st). I’m only applying to the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, because the program there is fantastic and I really want to stay in Minneapolis, at least for a while. I’m applying to the Coordinated Masters Program, which is includes both a MPH in Public Health Nutrition and completion of my dietetic internship, so that when I graduate I can take the Registered Dietitian exam and become an RD as well. The program matches my interests exactly, but they only accept 8 students a year (yikes, I know), so cross your fingers for me!

Things I have been enjoying lately: Gilmore Girls Season One, VitaSnacks (delish South African crackers that I stocked up on in Kampala), mystery novels, bug spray, instant coffee, and the Shania Twain remixes that keep blasting from the building across the street.