Jinja: "You will get rabies, and you will die. Welcome to Africa."

Another long day of orientation. We had language training, a community development workshop, walked around Jinja, and met members of our host families. I exchanged 150 USD for 345,000 Ugandan shillings, which is crazy. The exchange rate is something like 2500 UG shillings to $1. So most of the prices here are at least 1,000. It's weird to see such big numbers on price boards. Like, you would pay 5,000 or 6,000 shillings for a normal-sized lunch.

That reminds me, getting money exchanged in Jinja gave rise to another issue: One thing that bothers me about being here is that people constantly stare at you like you're some kind of exotic fish in a bowl. It's like, yes, I am white and clearly a foreigner. Get over it. It's getting really old really quickly.

We also had a meeting with Dr. Debbie, an Australian doctor who has lived here for 7 years, today about health stuff in Africa. She was running through the malaria thing (we've got this), then the diarrhea/gastro stuff (it's covered), mango worms (disgusting and actually a problem), unprotected sex and the consequences, bilharzia (you can pick it up if you swim in the Nile), and rabies. A lot of the other students apparently didn't know that it was lethal, but she explained it to everybody. "How high is the mortality rate for people who get infected and haven't had the vaccine?" "100 percent. Seriously, it's a fatal disease. There is no cure." So now we're all signed up for rabies vaccines.

My team and I (Becky, Robert, and Billy) brainstormed issues to work on once we get to St. Eliza's, but it's pretty much BS since we have to get there and check out the situation before we can think about the issues to address. But it's a starting point. It's going to be really hard to come up with a project, but that's why we're here. So we'll figure it out, haul ass, and pull off a legitimate community development project.