http:\/\/es.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Anafre<\/a>. My bedroom is pretty small, and basically only has room for my bunkbed, the nails on the walls serving as closets, and just enough space for the door to open. I share the room with my brother Andrew. Andrew is a mystery to me, as he spends most of his days lying on his bed and testing my Acholi language knowledge by firing off long sentences and laughing at my confused look when I don\u2019t understand what he says. He also has the unique hobby of waking me up at 7 am with strong statements that lack introductions. For example, yesterday he poked my shoulder and said \u201cWHERE IS YOUR COLGATE?\u201d. \u201cColgate\u201d is a proprietary eponym used in Northern Uganda to refer to toothpaste. What Andrew meant was: \u201cHey roomie, sorry for waking you up on your day off, but I need some toothpaste and I was wondering where I might find yours\u201d.<\/p>\nNormally, that\u2019s as far as conversation between Andrew and I goes, but today was a special day. His choice of wake-me-up command this morning was \u201cGIVE ME YOUR CLOTHES\u201d. Even for Andrew, this was a little on the shocking side. I jumped out of my top bunk ready to explain that my relationship with him was more friendly than anything else he might be insinuating, but then I realized what he meant was this: \u201cHey roomie, sorry for waking you up on your off day, again, but I\u2019m about to go do laundry and it\u2019s come to my attention that you\u2019re not well versed in the art of hand-washing your clothes. How about you bring your laundry on down and I\u2019ll show you how it\u2019s done. In fact, let\u2019s make a day of it\u201d.<\/p>\n
After this, we proceeded to walk out of our home with our clothes in tow and kept going for about ten minutes (which confused me even further). We met up with a friend of his who works as a gate-keeper at a compound that has plenty of water that you don\u2019t have to get from a well, like you do at our house. When we got there, him and his friend showed me how to hand wash clothes, and told me to give it a go. After about 30 seconds of sudsing my pants, the pair exploded in a bout of laughter and said they would wash my clothes because clearly I had no idea. I didn\u2019t object. Once we were done, we sat down under a tree to chat and had an exciting conversation about Spanish League Football, East African Politics, the possibility of them migrating to the US, and everything in between. After about an hour, once the conversation had stagnated, I realized that Andrew\u2019s plan was to sit under said mango tree until our clothes dried, which is a five hour process. It\u2019s come to my attention that Ugandans are rarely in a hurry. I, on the other hand had to go work on a paper that I have yet to start (This blog got in the way). It\u2019s easy to forget about the word \u201cStudy\u201d in \u201cStudy Abroad\u201d when you\u2019re in a place that\u2019s as amazing as Gulu.<\/p>\n
The rest of my family isn\u2019t quite as quirky as Andrew, but they are definitely no less interesting. I\u2019ll start with my Ugandan mom, Pastor Karoline. Her day job is Born-Again Christian Pastor, in the afternoon she runs an organization of about 25,000 Acholi widows who she basically teaches to be more like her, because she is also a widow and has sustained a household, put all of her kids, many of her nephews, and a bunch of her grandkids through college and into great jobs. In between, she has time to grow all the vegetables her family needs in her backyard (she also has enough left over to sell in the market, one of the things she teaches the widows to do), host a muzungu kid named Jeronimo in her house, and have great conversations that go into the wee hours of the night. Mom speaks four languages (English, Acholi, Swahili, and French), and her and three of my sisters are making me teach them spanish (their Spanish is better than my Acholi), she\u2019s lived in Tanzania, several Ugandan cities and Kenya.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll go into explicit detail about the rest of my siblings for one simple reason; I don\u2019t know how many I have, what their relationship is to me or to each other, whether or not they live in my house full time, and how some of them came to be in our house. Don\u2019t judge me, blog reader. For several reasons, it\u2019s not as easy as it seems to answer those questions. The Acholi conception of siblings, parenthood, and family are very different from ours. Your cousin\u2019s daughter is your daughter, your close neighbors are your brothers, your \u201cauntie\u201d can also be your sister, and everyone who walks into our house basically calls Pastor Karoline \u201cmomma\u201d. Furthermore, if I mention them by name, you\u2019ll probably get confused and stop reading, if you haven\u2019t already. There are two \u201cWinnies\u201d (big and little), two \u201cChrises\u201d (old and young) and enough guys named Dennis to start a club. There is also a Steven, a Sharon, a Monika, a Dee, a Lee, and a Desmond. These are their English names, which they use when introducing themselves to me, but they also each have Acholi names, which they sometimes use with each other. My Acholi name is Acellam (Pronounced A-che-lam, which means \u201cthe only man in the family\u201d, a reference to my status as the single male in my study abroad group of six girls). It is also important to note that only an average of about six people sleep in the house at one time, and everyone else is either a visiting relative, a neighbor, or someone looking to talk to Pastor Karoline about life and it\u2019s subtleties.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to describe the socio-economic status of my family, because despite our pit-latrine, bucket shower, and lack of a fridge, my mom works on a laptop and runs a huge organization, my sister works in the administrative side of a regional bank and is working on her master\u2019s degree, and most of the adults are college-educated. Not that this matters, because they truly are amazing people regardless of economic rank, but I think the ambiguity speaks to region\u2019s process of development.<\/p>\n
Ever since I arrived, this family has been nothing but welcoming and loving. They are eager to share their culture with me, even though their values are quite different from most Acholi families here. They are very progressive. They reject a lot of traditional Acholi customs, partly from education and exposure to other countries, and partly because of their strong Christian beliefs. They have also hosted ten SIT students before me, so they\u2019re used to misinformed questions and blunders like having no idea what to do with a bucket instead of a shower head. They\u2019re also very curious about my own culture. Fun fact: Ugandans watch \u201ctelenovelas\u201d dubbed into english religiously. Naturally this makes my family very interested in my being from Mexico, and in the fact that my real brother\u2019s name is \u201cBruno\u201d just like the main character in the hit novela \u201cUna Maid En Manhattan\u201d.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all for today, folks. I have a lot to talk about, so I think approaching this blog topically instead of chronologically will help to get most of the information across. Coming up, I\u2019ll talk about the academics, the food, my understanding of Uganda\u2019s post conflict situation, and how much I absolutely despise all the girls I\u2019m studying abroad with. Just kidding, you guys, I know you are reading this and neglecting either a bucket bath forced onto you by your homestay family or that paper due tuesday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
– Acellam Out<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The acholi word for \u201chome\u201d or \u201ccompound\u201d is gang (pronounced \u201cg\u00e3\u014b\u201d for all you phonetics buffs). Anyways, I have been living with my Ugandan family in their gang for about a week now. I am happy to say they are amazing, and I this blog is about my life with them so far. The house … <\/p>\n
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