I’ve been here almost a week now and so it’s about time I have a post of any substance.

I finished up FSD orientation and am now staying with my host family (more about that later) . This week was pretty calm after being stuck in traffic for about five hours because a road was washed out while we were on our way from Kampala (the capital) to Jinja (where we are now). We’ve spent the past couple of days getting to know Jinja, going to restaurants, visiting the market, and searching for reliable internet (hard to come by). To be honest, there’s not a whole lot here in Jinja. It’s only got a handful of streets downtown and only one of them (the aptly named Main Street) has any real shops. There are only four or five places I plan to frequent when I have the chance to come into town.

The first is Nile Foods. Nile Foods is the very definition of “Cheap Eats.” For 1500 schillings (less than a dollar), you can stuff yourself with matooke (mashed up and cooked bananas similar to plantains) or posho (the same as pop in South Africa), rice, sweet potatos, or regular potatos.  This comes with your desired piece of uncooked meat (beef, goat, fish, chicken) which always hurts your jaw to chew.  It’s ok food but you can’t argue with the price.

The Source Cafe is the local muzungu (white person) hang out.  It’s everything that white people love: expensive sandwiches, world music playing in the background, chicken fingers, pita pizza, and the all-important muzungu commodity, an espresso machine.  I’ll try to stay away from here as often as I can but I’m sure I’m going to need some American-style food after eating matooke for a few weeks.

The Triangle Hotel sits right on Lake Victoria.  Don’t ask me why they call it the Triangle Hotel, it makes as much sense as our driver being called Galaxy.  This is the place that I would take Jenny the Peace Corps volunteer for drinks at sunset while we talk of how to cure the world and I stare into her deep blue eyes.

Fast Net internet cafe is what keeps me in touch with the outside world.  The place is aptly named for it’s “fast” (at least by Ugandan standards) internet.  It’s located centrally in town and always has either Ugandan music or 90s American pop music playing in the background (Kiss from a Rose is playing right now).

That’s it for Jinja.  I’ve got to do a few other things on the internet before I have to go.  I’ll only be coming into town once a week on the weekends so you can send me emails if you want if you don’t mind a relayed response time.  I’ll talk to everyone later…

Dan