"Muzungu muzungu!!"

Yesterday afternoon was spent pre-testing with Prossie, one of our field managers, in Kamwocha, a nearby district of Kampala. I thought that I had been to an African market, but apparently I hadn't until yesterday! It was really, really cool--a lot like the markets in the more rural parts of Israel. Behind the "main strip" of shops and street stands, there was a covered, open area about 100' x 100'. The space was packed with different vendors selling all sorts of fruits, vegetables, and grains and the sides of the space displayed all sorts of raw meat and fish (sketttttchy, haha). It was quite the experience!

I really want to take more pictures of the city, but feel uncomfortable every time I take my camera out. I attract plenty of attention just being white (although I am growing quite tan!) and after being pickpocketed, I hesitate to do anything that makes me look even more like a naive tourist. I will have to set aside some afternoons where I go around with my camera and 10,000 UGX ($5) and not carry around anything worth stealing. Because I go so many places straight from work, my bag has my laptop, my wireless Internet card, my Blackberry, my wallet, etc....definitely not something I want to get stolen!

When we pre-tested yesterday, I befriended a group of Ugandan children by sticking my tongue out at them while we interviewed one of their mothers. They immediately loved me and we proceeded to make different faces at each other and imitate each other's faces for a solid 30 minutes--it was awesome! After that, they followed me around for the rest of the afternoon, yelling "Muzungu muzungu" (white person, white person!) and making faces at me. They were soooooo cute. I don't particularly like when adults call me "muzungu," I am oddly offended--it's like somebody yelling "Hey whitey!". I prefer when the boda drivers yell, "Hey sistah!" I suppose I should get over the offended 'muzungu' thing...not much I can do about it! With kids, it's different because a lot of them have only seen one or two white people in their entire life and it seems to be more of a fascination thing. Some of the kids just wanted to touch me, which was funny.

After work, I went to a pilates class in Bugulobe with my roommates Becca and Jorrit. I explained the Jersey Shore reference of "the situation" to my roommate Jorrit, who found it hilarious--so we have decided that we are going to create a "situation" of our own through pilates, haha. I sense that there is a solid future of "situation" jokes in the future....now we will have to find a way to stream Jersey Shore so I can show him the real "situation." Oh, Jersey Shore....

After pilates, we all had dinner together and hit a grocery store on the way home, where I found oatmeal and multiple kinds of soymilk (I bought cappuccino flavor, yum!). I got home around 9 and started a series of case phone calls. Bain has its first round of interviews for interns next week and asked me to go through cases with a number of candidates. I'm excited to see a number of friends on the list and very happy to help them out with cases and answer questions that they have. Hopefully, next year's Chicago class will have more NU kids...Michigan has been taking over the last few AC classes, and we can't let that trend continue! :P I am sending very, very good vibes to all of you NU juniors--you will make it through OK, I promise!

It's rainy and cool this morning, which is a nice change! I'm planning on developing some training materials today--we start enumerator training a week from today, which is hard to believe! I'm working a ton, but it is still nice to get a break from class and have a regular sleep schedule. I don't miss midterms, that's for sure :)