So, I met my counterpart, a lovely nun named Sister Christine from Tanzania, she is full of life and ideas and I am quite excited to work with her. We met at the Peace Corps workshop/ swearing in.
The part of my peace corps experience that I have been dreading for months arrived: after being introduced and swearing in, we had to get to site. This is the part where all the stuff you lovingly packed, all of the books the Peace Corps gave you, along with your big bucket, lantern, blanket, etc, must all find a way out of the lovely hotel at which you have been for the week to your site—through public transport. Now, if public transport in Uganda brings pictures of overcrowded buses and 14 passenger vans (with many more than 14 passengers inside) you are correct!!
If the taxi park to find such vehicles brings thousands of people and vehicles of various conditions and dispositions, crowded in an incomprehensible jumble, you are again correct!
So, how did we do it? We relied on a priest’s charity to take us to the taxi park in Kampala, (they don’t take vows of poverty : ); we had three men then hoist my suitcases on their heads to get into the park; the sister then knew the men operating the taxis to our small trading center; and, guess what, we reached!!!
This makes me think; we often see people living on so little as a kind of incomprehensible magic. It is not. Furthermore, we should not be so comfortable with an inability to understand how others survive. What we thought was magic is actually in relationships (with the priest, the drivers, the many people who helped us get from A to B).
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