Uganda Cultural Lessons

- When you shake hands when leaving a meeting, nobody looks at you in the eye
- Don't call a waiter like Courtney "ssssssnake-eye's" Johnson
Ugandans have 2 unique handshakes: The lingering and the double secret society handshake
- It is very common for men and women to hold hands with people of the same sex, very unlikely you will see people of the opposite sex holding hands
- Organizing meetings with people is much easier if you have the name of a contact. We tried for 3 weeks to get a meeting with one guy Dr. DA Silva, dropped the name of one person, and all of a sudden he had openings
- Always start an email asking how the person is: "Hi, how are you? How is your family?" *Jeanah - Ex. Courtney - LP.
- Last names are written first, so therefore, the Gorilla trek folks in Rwanda are calling Whitney "Morris"
- The common greeting from a Ugandan is "Hello, you're welcome"
- Babies in the poor areas wear strings around their stomachs for supersticious reasons
- Ugandans try to pile as much stuff on a bicycle and humanly possible. We have seen the following, and plan to start capturing as many pictures of these events as possible: Enough banana bushels that the entire bike and rider were covered, a small child sized pile of egg cartons, a keg sized canister full of milk, 20 bars of metal approximately 3 times the length of the bike, placed horizontally and bending at the ends, and sugarcane to feed a small village for a year
- Stores often sell only 1 item and all the items are outside on the sidewalk rain or shine (ex. Fridges, Weedwackers, Speakers, Irons)
- There a lot front ends of trucks and cars sitting on the top of buildings. We're not sure if it's a modern form of decoration of if they're for sale
- If there is a communication barrier, the responses are always either "yes" or "giggle"
- There are a lot of begger kids who want money, yet have toys and fake tattoos
- You can carry anything on your head if it doesn't fit on your bike, or vice versa
- Live chickens are allowed on buses as long as their feet are tied
- Ugandans are extremelly friendly, but a little reserved, and always excited to have a conversation if you start by asking how they are