This Is Cultural Immersion.

Everything you'd never know unless you've lived in Africa (Uganda, specifically).

Red meat, after its been chopped from the bone of the animal grazing on the side of the road, does NOT require any refrigeration whatsoever from the time it's killed, cut, sold and prepared, contrary to any silly American idea (!).

Most people get malaria about once a month, children especially. If there's enough money they go to the "pharmacy" to buy treatment, and hopefully it works.

Speaking of the "pharmacy," prescriptions do not exist. If you have money you simply buy the medicine. No insurance or doctor needed. Anyone with a little cash can get some heavy duty pain killers, birth control, antibiotics...anything. And yet there's no such thing as people abusing pharmies.
White people (especially Americans) are assumed to be extremely wealthy, highly qualified in everything, and even noble citizens (somehow). Some people are intimidated, others are honored by your presence, children are excited, some ask for money for school fees or food, but many don't. Either way, being a muzungu is more than a novelty to people here. Because so much of the "money-making" NGO sector is funded by donor countries in the West, anyone with white or whitish skin (this includes Latinos and Asians) is perceived to be giving out money left and right. For me as an indebted college grad on a tight budget (yet, relatively, coming from wealth beyond the means of most Ugandans) this puts me in a moral dilemma daily. Not to mention it's ..Awkward.

Average East Africans, where coffee is the biggest cash crop, don't drink it. It's too expensive to enjoy your own crop. Instead it's Nescafe, all the way.

There's no sanitation system. Let me rephrase that.. there's no way of disposing of ANY garbage, ever. It's heaped into massive piles of stink and before it rots to the ground, someone burns it. P.S. Don't get caught walking through a black cloud of burning trash. Mmm...

Just like t-shirts made in Japan, some things get lost in translation to English. "Swim at owner's risk" signs, for example.

However, most Ugandans have a terrific command of English (even if some use it quite creatively), but Luganda is the most widely used language. It's the language of the Baganda people, native to what's now central Uganda. My favorite word is WANGI? (pronounced waan-gee, always as a question). It has so many delicious meanings such as HUH? or Pardon? or WHAD U SAY? or YES, you called? Loves it.

Most TVs get one channel. Yes TIVO addicts, I said one. It's UBC (Uganda Broadcasting Corp) and it kind of sucks. Well actually, it really sucks. The best thing is the beloved Mexican soap operas dubbed to English. My family refers to it simply as "DIEGO" much like Family Matters become solely "Urkel" after sometime.

The national anthem is "Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira and Wyclef. It is ubiquitous. Every other mobile (not called 'cell') phone has it as the ring, "Shaakiraa, Shakiraaa!"

Peanuts are G-Nuts. As in Ground Nuts. Which makes sense. But I've been asked to explain why we call them peanuts. Not so simple.

Ah, delacacies. Fish eyes are apparently oh so tasty. And an "African Stick" of meat (read: 6 chicken necks fried on a stick) isn't so bad.

Being a woman is pretty lame, too. Skirts everyday + always sweating + walking everywhere = ow. And when I cook it's somewhat because I want to, but also because the other half with penises are somehow ignorant of the whole process. "Sarah, you'll cook for my son some eggs, ahh?", says my host father, a genuninely sweet man, about making Will an omlet. "Sure." And then under my breath, "God Da*$, lazy ass knows how to make a f*c*#ing egg.." Cut to Will smiling.. "It's culture, babe, what am I supposed to do?"