What dry season???

January is generally considered to be Uganda’s driest month, with rain only coming every great once in awhile. February has a little more rain and March is then usually considered to be the start of the rainy season. At least, that’s how it’s been almost every year before this. January started off the normal way: very hot & dry. However, since I arrived on January 20, it has rained every day except for one, with the rain usually coming in a short burst of 30ish minutes.

All Ugandans that I have asked about this have said that they have never seen anything like it. Just add it to the list of weird weather going on all over the world!

This departure from the usual weather pattern gets very interesting when you look at agriculture over here. Uganda is able to have two growing season each year, coordinating with wet & dry seasons. Usually January is a harvest time and planting starts in March with the rains. However, with the abnormal rains this year, it sounds like farmers may start planting their crops earlier. Agricultural advisory organizations, such as VEDCO, are considering pushing for planting to get started. If the rains hold up, that should work out alright. However, no on really knows if the rains will continue straight through the typical rainy season or if things will stop earlier. Let’s hope that the rains do hold out, because irrigation systems are anything but common for most of the farmers here!

Not too much else going on for me right now. Classes “started” (on paper) last week. Actually, to my surprise, we did have one of the eight scheduled lectures. Hopefully they’ll get going this upcoming week. Beyond that, I’m chugging along with research and the mosquito nets project.

Schools around the country (primary through university) started last Monday (Feb. 2nd) so two of the kids from my host family – Charity & Innocent – went back to boarding school. The two others, Peter & Patience, will start in the next couple weeks. They both had major tests in November: Peter finished his 4 years of O-Level Secondary School and was testing to get into a good A-Level school while Patience finished her 7th (and final) year of primary school and took the PLE’s (Primary Level Examination) to determine which O-Level school she could attend. Their results came back within the last couple weeks and they both did well. Peter will start boarding school again while Patience will continue as a day school student so she can be home at night to help with Gloria, the 9 month-old baby.

Before Charity & Innocent returned to school, we took a “family photo,” which I have included below.

Cheers!
Chris



From left to right: Me, Charity, Innocent, Peter, Patience, Agnes, Gloria, & Kizito. A few of the weird faces are accounted by Margaret, the cook/maid who took the picture, not giving an indication of when she was pressing the capture button...either that or they just didn't want to take a picture with me! :)



Gloria and I. She liked me when I first came in September, but by December she had changed her mind and decided the random white guy was scary. Now she usually ends up crying whenever I hold her. We got this picture just before the tears started :)