Meeting MUBS Students, Lunch, and the Market

I woke up this morning to the noises of Uganda. There were different birds chirping and what I thought were monkey noises, but I have yet to see a monkey. We got up and got ready for the day. We began the day by meeting all the students we will be working with for the next three weeks at a breakfast at MUBS. The breakfast consisted coffee, sausage, toast, and this other thing that was in a egg roll shell, but it was in the shape of a triangle and filled with different vegetables like corn, carrots, and peas. I tried everything and they were all pretty good.

After we finished eating, we had a good amount of time where the MUBS students rotated tables and we were able to get to know all of them a little bit better. They talked about their majors, where they are from in Uganda, their family make up, and what they are most looking forward to in the course. Through all the conversations with the students, I found out that the students are in the middle of their finals weeks. Yes weeks, they have finals for two weeks, and they have to go into the classroom and sit for three hours and write essays. If they finish early, they have to sit there for the entire three hours, they can't leave early.

Then after getting to know they MUBS students a little more, they took us on a campus tour. The campus is only their business school, but it is bigger than the size of Drake. There is a lot of green space and the grass was all filled with students studying for their examinations. The buildings are also smaller and only one story. Most buildings have one or two classrooms in them on one level, so that means that there a lot of smaller buildings on campus.

Then we went into the city. We began with exchanging our money. I got 2,192 Ugandan Schillings per 1 US Dollar. After, we walked to lunch. We went to Nando's, and it had chicken, burgers, and fries. I got two pieces of fried chicken and french fries. The food was pretty good for being fried chicken. We sat outside the restaurant and ate lunch and the street behind us was always bustling with commotion of the traffic, people walking by, and people selling different items on the street.

After lunch, we broke up into smaller groups to walk to the market. The market was crazy. There were so many people in such a small space. Many of the vendors specifically yelled out to us because we were white. Some of them would try to grab out arms, or tell us we were beautiful. However, if you kept walking and ignored them, everything was okay. The market was hot and smelled, but it was full of different vendors selling anything from beans to fish to shirts to shoes. There was a wide variety of items there.

After the market, we walked to a gas station where we meet the bus to take us back to Red Chilli. After arriving, many of us grabbed dinner at Red Chilli, which was either pizza or sandwiches. I ate half a Hawaiian pizza, so I am good to go.

Tomorrow consists of touring the Parliament.