Since Then.. One year in Uganda!
19 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
I know it’s a lot of posting in one day! But I have actually felt like writing in the past 24 hours, so I figured I’d just get it all out. And a special treat at the bottom is the results of the incredibly hilarious Darwin Awards – about people who were so stupid that they don’t deserve to continue the human race.
Reflection on being here for a full year already:
It’s crazy to think I’ve been in Uganda for a year! Sometimes I feel like the day I arrived was yesterday, and other times I feel like I’ve been here for five years. It depends on the day. But since the Peace Corps program is 27 months and I’ve been here for 12. I will feel like the one year mark will pass and feel good after I’ve been in Kamuli for a year (October 23). That will be my true halfway point for me and Uganda. Because then I will have a year left and almost no one leaves after a year, unless there’s a serious emergency at home.
I’m so proud of our group because our group of 45 is one of the first groups in Uganda ever to keep all it’s members at this point; we’ve broken the Peace Corps Uganda record! I think we’re a very special tightly knit group and have a wonder support system between the 45 of us. Someone already left from the newest group that came after us in February. I hope we can all make it to the end because that would be super impressive and really say something about our group. Especially because recently we’ve been the biggest group Uganda’s ever had, just a few years ago they would send 10-15 people and someone left from each of those groups.
Now, sometimes emotions in the Peace Corps are up and down. We covered this during our training. Just before the 1 year mark most people are on the downside of this emotional roller coaster. And then you head back up after the one year mark, realizing you still have a lot you want to do and think that there’s not enough time.
So I think up to Friday I was in my before-the-1-year-anniversary rut. But this weekend really cheered me up and helped me to snap out of it. On Saturday on my way to work, 4 turkeys crossed my path (chickens and ducks are usual, but turkeys – very unusual). So I took this to be good luck and had a good laugh about it. That’s when I knew it was going to be a good weekend.
On Saturday, I went to a traditional Ugandan introduction party, where I wore the traditional Ugandan wear – a kohnzo [KAHN-zo] (like a light white robe) and a sports jacket. I have pictures of it that I will put up for you. So everyone was laughing and looking that “this muzungu is wearing Ugandan close muhahaha). But an introduction is the traditional ceremony where a Ugandan’s family introduces their future husband/wife to the parents and family. It’s like a combination of an engagement party, going away party, and having the first dinner with your boyfriend/girlfriend’s parents. There are four tents set up and they all face each other. Three of the tents are for the local person’s family (in this case, my supervisor’s stepdaughter) and then there is a tent for the future spouse’s family to sit. There was dancing, singing, gifts, ring-exchanging, a wedding cake and a big dinner. And the bride and groom also wave goodbye to their families because they’re “leaving” for the family of the in-laws. It was really great to experience something like that and I had my supervisor sit with me to translate some things for me, so I know what’s going on. Because if there’s one thing I hate – it’s when people I go to functions like this with don’t let me know what’s going on. I mean I’m not asking for a translator, I just want someone to give me the gist of what’s happening and I’ll sit back and figure the rest out on my own. My supervisor was great about letting me know why and what happens during an introduction.
Then I got home and I was cleaning up my house and I found the bag of old CDs that my parents brought from home when they came. So I started importing them and it was good to find some of the old school 1990s trance music that I grew up with. Then I went on to discogs and found related tracks of those from the CDs and I finally remembered some of the names of the tracks that I used to listen to in high school. I spent like 7 hours downloading songs from listentoyoutube .com. And I was smiling all night because each of those songs reminded me of funny things that I did during high school and it made me feel closer to Stephanie who shares the same passion for these old tracks that we listened to in the 90s. And I sometimes wonder what and how my life would be if I hadn’t met Stephanie sitting behind me in driver’s ed. Because she’s one of the best people in my life and I can’t imagine one without her. It also made me want to visit Europe because of their spectacular dance/electronic music scene that the US doesn’t really seem to embrace, just like soccer. But Europe is so expensive, I think I would go broke in a week! But Montreal has a great electronic music scene, though the French-Canadian people there are creepier than I imagine the real French to be. But the city is amazingly fun and I wouldn’t mind living there, except for having to learn French.
So, I think I’m out of my rut (knock on wood). And I was getting bored at work, just doing some mundane defaulters-list. And when the power was off I had nothing to do. So this morning I did some brainstorming about some things I’d like to get started on at work. Such as creating a marketing committee, put up advertisements in town, make end of the day checklists for all employees, changing loan disbursement times, offering business classes to anyone who needs help, possibly writing a grant for solar power for our computers or a new motorcycle, and finding new ways to get our money back from defaulters.
Well, I hope everyone is well at home and know that I miss you all a lot and think about you everyday. Life can be great here and life can truly suck sometimes but for the overall experience it’s totally worth it. And when I do have a bad day, I think about the end or the next time I’ll be able to see other volunteers, which is what gets us through the months. I think about the people that I work with and how much I enjoy the work I do in Kamuli and at my SACCO. And I think about how pushing through will allow me to travel to Australia to see a solar eclipse and travel to Indonesia or Thailand and to my final destination of the beautiful trance-hippie infested beaches of Goa, India. That’s how I will make it through and I know that one day I will see you again.
Love,
Dan
P. S. If any other PCVs are reading this.. I’d like to do something sun for my birthday in September. Let’s start brainstorming for something cool/relaxing to do here.
P.P.S. Below is the results of the poll of the Darwin awards, which are quite funny.
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The Darwin award results are out! It’s a list of people that died of stupid activities, along with their funny ridiculous stories of how it happened:
Yes, it’s that magical time of year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us.
Here is the glorious winner:
When his 38 caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.
And now, the honorable mentions:
The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and after a little shopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and he also lost a finger… The chef’s claim was approved.
A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.
After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies… The deception wasn’t discovered for 3 days.
An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.
A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer… $15. [If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?]
Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly.. He decided that he’d just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape…
As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, “Yes, officer, that’s her. That’s the lady I stole the purse from.”
The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti , Michigan at 5 A.M., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn’t open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren’t available for breakfast… The man, frustrated, walked away.. [*A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER]
When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street by sucking on a hose, he got much more than he bargained for.. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline, but he plugged his siphon hose into the motor home’s sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges saying that it was the best laugh he’d ever had.
Parents Visit (Part 2)
19 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
……Continued from Part 1.. Back in Entebbe after a 6 hour drive to the Guest House. It was really meant to break up the trip from Kibale back to Kamuli. So we had a decent Ugandan dinner and breakfast and then took the 4 hour drive from Entebbe through Kampala to the east side of Uganda. And north up to Kamuli. We arrived in the afternoon and I used the van to pick up my new chair for my house and said goodbye to the tour guide and dropped the rents off at their hotel. It’s probably the best hotel in Kamuli and it’s owned by the treasurer of my SACCO and very close to my house. But it’s lowest class of hotel my parents would be staying at during their trip – it has the basics a sink, a toilet with a broken seat (they’re lucky they even had a seat to be honest), a mosquito net and two full size beds. After a few hours I went back and there was a “disaster” during my absence – my mom found a gecko in the room. I laughed so hard. Having geckos in the room is completely unavoidable and they take care of all of the creepy crawly bugs in the room and just hang out on the ceiling. I don’t bother the ones in my house and they don’t bother me. Needless to say, they killed the gecko and there was another one in the room the next morning. But we went to my house so they could see where I lived and I prepared some corn to take with us to the dinner at my manager’s house. Some of my neighbors came, and everyone I work with came. My manager prepared a huge dinner of goat, beef, matooke, cabbage, dodo, potatoes, posho and some other Ugandan staples. She really was great and made such a huge dinner and went well out of her way to make my parents comfortable.
Of course, we couldn’t just have a dinner without an agenda/program for the night.. where people were scheduled to give speeches about me and welcome speeches to my parents and the head of the household speech. I just don’t understand why Ugandans love talking in front of large groups of people. I told them to cut out like 4 other speeches, because I didn’t understand why we needed to have a dinner agenda.. couldn’t we just talk and then eat? We ended up getting back around 11:30 pm.. dinner ended up being at 9 instead of 7 as planned. But regardless, it was a bit overwhelming to my parents, but still good because they got to see the real side of Uganda rather than what you see on the bubble that is a tour safari. I dropped them off at the hotel and picked them up the next morning for tea at the SACCO. They came to my work and they met all the staff again as well as the Board of Directors. Since it wasn’t so late, and it was a fresh day, it was definitely less overwhelming and a little more laid back. We had some tea/coffee and snacks (and pork….mmmmmmmmmmm so good) and had a good discussion. They got my mom a dress and my dad a traditional kohnzo Ugandan robe to take back to America.
After spending some time at the SACCO, we packed up our stuff and hopped in to our super high class (haha!) private hire to take us to Jinja. The trunk wouldn’t close because it was broken so we had to have a mechanic come and fix it. And we had to stop like five times to reclose the trunk on our one and a half hour ride on a shite road to Jinja. And when my mom tried to get out the whole door handle fell off, and my door didn’t even have a handle. I now don’t even use the inside door handles, my natural instinct is to reach through the window and open the door that way. But the driver is a member at our SACCO and he’s a trustworthy guy and drove us for a good price. He also drove us safely instead of flying like some of the taxis do.
At that brings us to the last leg and my favorite part of the trip – 2 Friends Hotel in Jinja. This hotel is really nice, but not too over the top, and makes you feel like you’re in a tropical paradise with huge rooms with great stone bathrooms and a pool with a waterfall. Here we were able to relax and not worry about any TIA problems. We went into town and did some shopping on muzungu avenue. Had a pizza dinner and just hung out after a busy first week in Uganda. The next day, my good friends Anna, Chelsea, and Joanna came to the hotel and we hung out and talked for a while. For that night we went on a Nile/Lake Victoria booze cruise. On the bus to the landing site, we met the other people going on the cruise, which happened to be about 20 college age girls. In which case, my dad and I were the only men on the bus. Realizing this opportunity to taunt me, Anna and Chelsea decided to announce that I was single and looking to the whole bus. If you can catch the irony of the situation, it was pretty funny. For 2 hours, we got free drinks and a barbeque dinner that was great. And we got fairly drunk and Chelsea and I left the boat with a beer in each hand. Back at the hotel we plopped down on a table and had some more drinks and talked. Chelsea and Anna went back to their hotel and I shared my king size bed with Joanna and had a delicious breakfast in the morning. Then we spent our last day in Uganda together all of us just relaxing by the pool and enjoying the company. In the evening, Whitecrest tours came to the hotel to pick the rents up and take them to the airport, while Chelsea, Joanna and I headed into Jinja to spend another night out.
All in all it was a good trip. The first part was fast paced and in retrospect it was really good that we had planned everything out before because once we got there everything was planned out for us and we didn’t have to worry about anything really. Jinja was my favorite part because it was nice for my parents to meet my Peace Corps friends and show them that I had a good support system here in case anything goes wrong. And it was just a good time to relax and feel like we were on vacation instead of a constantly moving safari. I truly had a spectacular time with them and I would live it all over again if I could. Heading back to Kamuli alone after that trip was hard and it really took some getting used to, in order to settle back in at home and at work. But the next few months have a few good things in store for me to look forward to while I work towards my first year of being at site in October. Then it’s all downhill from there. Well that about covers the parents visit and I have another blog for what’s been going on since then.
Love,
Dan
Finally.. Parents Visit Blog (Part 1)
19 Jul 2011 1 Comment
As promised, my friends, here is my blog about my parents visit and hopefully soon my parents will put the pictures up to add a little pizazz to this blog. It’s a seriously long blog, so I’m posting the first half now and the rest later. 
Let’s start off with a meaningful quote from one of my old favorite songs:
You can travel the world,
But you can’t run away from the person you are in your heart.
You can be who you want to be,
Make us believe in you;
Keep all your light in the dark.
If you’re searching for truth,
You must look in the mirror and make sense of what you can see.
Just Be, Just Be.
They say learning to love yourself
Is the first step that you take when you want to be real.
Flying on planes to exotic locations won’t teach
Won’t teach you how you really feel.
Face up to the fact that you are who you are,
And nothing can change that belief.
Just Be, Just Be.
I need to Just Be.
I was lost,
And I’m still lost,
But I feel so much better.
- DJ Tiësto – “Just Be”
I left Kamuli the day before my parents arrived and stay at my friend Jon’s place in Entebbe for the night before heading to the lodge to wait for my parents airport arrival.
Whitecrest Lodge and Airport Pickup: I met Simon Peter (the owner of Whitecrest tours), who is an incredibly nice guy. We travelled me to pick up my parents at the airport for a few and they arrived in Entebbe for the first time in Africa art around Midnight! I was incredibly excited to see them and we waited for about 1.5 hour before they came out from the airport and gone through with immigration. We had a nice reunion hug and then got back in the van to go back to our Guesthouse.
To me, after being here for a long time, the Whitecrest lodge is a decent hotel (with a toilet, cleanliness, hot water, etc.), but for my parents it wasn’t ideal, but since they threw two nights in Entebbe at the hotel for free, there wasn’t really a better choice. And having the Ugandan tour operator to tell them about things I don’t know about was great. Since I’ve been here for a year, it was much easier to understand me over the Ugandan think accent coupled with British English. Also, my mom was talking really fast, and my dad was a little bit slower, but Jeff (our week long tour guide) could understand me since he grew up in Iganga, which is nearby to my house and because I talk very slow and relaxed as it is.
We got back from the airport around 1 am and we retired for the day so we could get some sleep / energy before the next day of travelling. We showed them Kampala and Entebbe and then started travelling Southwest to Queen Elizabeth. We passed through Masaka and Mbarara (places that I’ve never been because they’re so far from me and on the other side of Kampala), so it was cool to see the environment that some of my friends work in. I think it was around an 8-9 hour drive on roads that were under construction. We stopped at the equator and then we watched an experiment on the equator line and how water flushes the opposite way below the equator, and directly on the equator, the water doesn’t swirl when draining it just goes down. We had a good lunch and the most amazing banana muffin that I’ve ever tasted. Then, we had to rush a bit because we spent too much time at that place buying crafts. Just before dark, we finally got to the lodge in the Queen Elizabeth National Park. They have a separate road to enter from, so that when you arrive at the lodge you get a free evening game drive. It was getting dark, so we didn’t really see that many animals, but we did catch a lone elephant eating large tree leaves.
Mweya Safari Lodge and Queen Elizabeth:
We checked into this “exquisite” hotel called Mweya. It was really nice and exquisite is the only word I can think of to describe it. The atmosphere was a little too upscale for me, but it’s better than my house in Kamuli haha! I got my own queen size bed and a bathroom with hot water and amazing water pressure, so I was happy and my parents were in the next room over. The dinner/all food at Mweya is a set menu of a few different things which are included with the package deal that they offer. But the dinners were exceptionally good, and we complemented the Mid-Eastern/Indian chef. It was really just great to sit and have a delicious dinner with them over a Nile beer and catch up from the past months of not seeing each other. After dinner we went to bed, and woke up at around 5 am for the early morning game drive so you can catch animals finishing up their night’s rest. This is when we saw most of the game for the whole trip. We saw weaverbirds, antelopes, water hogs, elephants, hippos, buffalo, crater lakes and a beautiful view of the Serengeti. It was a little bit early for me to be super excited, but it was cool to see all the animals. And as the sun started coming out, it was better for me. I didn’t bring a jacket on the trip, because well, I live on the equator, but our van’s roof pops open so that way you can view game right from the tour vehicle. So, at 6 am on the safari I was fairly cold, especially because of the mountains, the southwest is much colder than where I live (from Kamuli you’d have to travel 35 km before you get to a hill). Otherwise, it was a good time. Then, we had the afternoon to hang out, since we got back at 9 for breakfast.
Later my dad and I were eating lunch and my mom was still getting ready in the room alone. We called her to convince her to come over for lunch (since we had just eaten breakfast) and when she walked out of the room, she locked the door and when she turned — there was a huge water hog (think Pumba from the Lion King) sitting in the grass two feet from her! Since the hotel is in the middle of the national park, animals just come up and hang out near the hotel and there’s not much you can do to stop them lol. I wasn’t there but I’m sure she made some sort of yelping sound and then quickly unlocked the door to get into the room and had to sneak out the back door in order to avoid the water hog.
Crazy Boat ride with Germans:
Then later that afternoon, during lunch there was a crazy thunderstorm. We had a boat safari on the Kyebazinga channel (a channel that connects Lake George with Lake Albert – I think), but again it was cold and now raining. This is where we saw a lot of eagles and other birds. Tons of hippos and buffalo (they hang out together cuz they’re not predators of each other), a few elephants, and we finally saw a lion, which was cool! But it was so far away that you can barely see it in the binoculars. We were then on the way back and I could hear the boat engine sputtering and thought nothing of it, but then a few minutes later it just turned off. And I could sort of understand what the boat guides were saying, so I knew what was going on before they said it in English. But then he announced, “Sorry, but we’ve run out of gas.” My parents thought it was a joke, but knowing Uganda, I knew that they were dead serious, just because we paid a large amount of money for this trip doesn’t mean that there will be no “TIA” – This is Africa – moments.
I was joking with my dad and describing the difference between UGE (a saying made up by the American military guys who were staying in Soroti a few weeks ago – meaning Ugandan Good Enough) and TIA (from the movie Blood Diamond). So, after the boat ran out of gas, the guide called for the other boat to come bring us a jerry can of petrol, and he told us that the morning boat guide must have decided not to refill the engine with gas before heading back to the lodge. To explain the difference, my dad and I had a good laugh about this, that the Ugandan boat guide in the morning had a UGE moment when he looked at the amount of petrol in the engine and decided “Eh – it’s good enough for the afternoon trip.” And now that we’re on an expensive boat safari, where problems like this shouldn’t happen for that amount of money, we ran out of gas which was a This is Africa moment, because only something like that would happen here.
But otherwise the boat safari was good and we were on the boat with a 3 German volunteers and 1 of their German mothers. They were nice and we shared some funny jokes and a laugh about the gas situation on the channel in the pouring rain. And also we were close to shore and ran out of gas near an elephant – after we realized he was coming to investigate us since elephants have poor eyesight – we had to shove off the shore to maintain our safety. But it was cool to observe a wild elephant up close for that long.
Again we had a really good dinner, I had papaya soup, which besides corn chowder was probably the best soup I’ve ever eaten in my life and I don’t even like pawpaw (what they call papaya in Uganda). I think I had some sort of steak and at this point to my parents it probably looked like I had an eating disorder because I was eating whatever they wouldn’t finish and ordering everything on the menu. It was because I hadn’t had good muzungu food in so long that every meal was like a special birthday meal.
Travelling to Kasese and gift pickup:
On the way to the next hotel, we stopped in Kasese, a town on the far western side of Uganda that is not too far from the Congo. I ran off so I could use the bank and buy my mom and dad some gifts. I got my dad a pair of sandals for an early Father’s Day and I got my mom a traditional Ugandan mat, along with some other crafty bracelets and money holders for her birthday. We stopped at Ndali lodge for lunch which is situated on a mountain overlooking two huge crater lakes. Then we continued our way to Kibale for our monkey trekking part of the safari.
Arrival at Kibale (pronounced Chi-baa-le) Guest House:
We arrived at a place called the Chimp’s Nest guest house, which was a decent hotel, but not as upscale as Mweya. The had treehouses to stay in, but we opted for the traditional cottages, though the treehouses were really cool because you can see monkeys and other animal life in the canopy where you sleep. I had my own cottage and porch which was nice and my parents had their own as well. This place was more out in the deep forest/village, so you had to arrange for hot water at a certain time and plan for dinner at a certain time. They also didn’t have a refrigerator. Nonetheless, it was nice and I felt comfortable there. The bathing / bathroom area for the cottages was outside, so it was cool to take a shower in open air (not that I don’t already do this every day with an outside bucket bath). The dinner was again a set menu, but the food was still great and getting away from Ugandan food for the 10 days was for sure a treat. You could’ve given me a hot dog and I would’ve told you it was the best meal I’ve had in weeks. After dinner, we retired to our rooms where I did some reading, but after dark out there in the forest, there’s not much more to do besides sleep.
I did start reading “White Man’s Burden”. Which I read one chapter and it was amazing, and truly supports the idea of things like Peace Corps – where we teach people skills and help with ideas and sustainable projects, rather than just giving handouts. When you give people hand outs, you give them something, then a few days later they’re doing the same thing. You look over and the same people are there with their hands out asking for more. Now, I think a lot of the work that these large agencies do is good, but also the Western countries have been pouring billions into “undeveloped” countries for years and it hasn’t really gotten them anywhere. Uganda, I believe, is the largest recipient of American aid money in the world, but things are staying the same. It’s fairly frustrating, especially now that when I walk around anywhere in the country it’s like I have money growing out of my head and people see dollar signs when they look at me and just expect me to give them something – just because. Anyway… that was off topic, but the truth – and somewhat of a warning to those donating money to random charities. Research their aid activities before you donate or else you might just be fueling the fire.
The next morning we went chimp-trekking in the Kibaale national forest nearby. This was nice. We were paired off with a nice older American couple and we stomped through the woods and really swampy areas before another group had found the chimps and radioed in. There’s one community of chimps in the area that are conditioned and accustomed to humans and they don’t really mind our presence. It’s been my mom’s dream to see chimps up close like this, so I know she was happy. There was about 10 in the treetops and a few little babies. They were eating these huge breadfruits and one came down to the ground and was eating about 5 feet from us like we weren’t even there. We got a lot of good pictures of that guy. That was probably the coolest part. And one rule that’s best too follow is to not stand directly underneath the chimps. We monitored them for an hour and they were chucking the ends of their fruit down to the forest floor and just peeing and pooping all over the place. And one even let out a really loud fart which was hilarious. After an hour we went back up to the home point and I got my mom a painting of some monkeys for her birthday.
We then had lunch at the nearby lodge and continued on to our swamp walk. Of course, it was raining again. It never rains in Kamuli and when it does, it’s almost always at night. After living here for a year, when it gets below 65 degrees I start to get chilly – it’s going to be a rude awakening if I come home in the middle of December. But the swamp walk was alright. We saw some lemur type monkeys in their acacia trees, happily eating the leaves. It was raining for most of the walk but it was still nice. The walk was about 3 hours and my mom got stung by some ants. I don’t know why the ants chose to sting my mom and not my dad or me, I guess it’s just her luck. We were wearing huge ponchos which made us look like walking plastic bags. A woman walked by us and said to our tour guide that we were like muzungu caveras (cavera is the Uganda word for bag).
After the walk, we all got cleaned up and showered (hot water provided by a fire burning under a hot water tank) – all of my clothes that I wore that day were completely ruined. I saw a fellow Peace Corps volunteer that trained us in IT last year when I went up to have a beer before dinner. He was with his parents staying in the treehouses at the lodge. We had dinner with his parents and him which was nice. I supposed it was nice for Peace Corps parents to share experiences with other Peace Corps parents – so that they know they’re not alone in their worrying about their kid living in the middle of Africa. And also it was good because we were on opposite schedules. They were picked up at the airport and drove straight to Zach’s (the other PCV) site and stayed at his house in the village (a harrowing experience for parents coming straight of the plane from America) and then came to Chimp’s nest and then were going to Mweya. They were on the hotel upgrade, while we were on the hotel downgrade.. going from really nice to really basic. Then, the next morning we had breakfast and moved on back to the Whitecrest Guest house back in Entebbe.
To be continued in the next blog in order to maintain your attention span…
Long Time, No Post
01 Jul 2011 1 Comment
Hey Everyone,
You may or may not be curious about my latest goings on in Ugandizzle. I haven’t posted/been online much since my parents came and I definitely want to write about that trip and about how wonderful it was to have my parents here and how I thought my mom would’ve had enough of Uganda after 10 days here. BUT it turns out she’s all ready planning a trip back (whether or not that happens is a different story!). I’m going to write it soon but it’s going to be a long long post so I’ve been putting it off.
But if anything I’m hoping I’ll be able to come back home to visit within the next year, possibly at Christmastime, but only time will tell! I would love to come home and spend some time living at my rents house in NY for a week or so and then spend sometime going to see my family in NJ for the holidays. And then spend some time with my friends in NJ, probably staying at my second home (Wesley’s house, thanks in advance to the Leweys!). And go to a psytrance party for New Year’s! OH how nice that would be, but there is no definites yet, so let’s not anyone including myself get my hopes up!
Fun Facts:
It’s rude to give someone a dozen flowers in Russia. In Russia, even numbers of flowers are reserved for funerals. So if you’re dating a Russian I would go with the single rose in the mouth, while you do the tango.
It’s also rude when buying something at a store, in Mexico, to put the money on the counter instead of handing it directly to the clerk.
I’ve also started making a bucket list.. inspired by my friend Joanna which I will post soon and hopefully I can start crossing some things off that list once I leave this sometimes-ridiculous/sometimes-wonderful country.
But life in Kamuli has been pretty relaxed since my parents left and after being away for a little over 2 weeks doing muzungu things, it’s taken me a while to get back into the swing of things. The power’s been terrible and is never on when I feel like going online, or at all for that matter. Plus what I’m doing is making a ginormous list of our defaulters, so we can hunt them down and take their (our) money back. [And apparently according to Mozilla Firefox, "ginormous" is a real word] Which is a bit difficult to do when there is no credit system or addresses and all it takes is a trip to the store to change your number. But I need electricity to make this list. So I’ve been making a marketing plan on the side. For the first week or so back from my vacation, I was pretty much coming in to work at 10 and then coming back and then going home in the afternoon to relax. And it doesn’t help that I bought about 10 seasons of TV shows for a total of $10 — score. I got Dexter, Alias, Six Feet Under, Chuck, Lost, and Pushing Daisies.
So, once you start watching a season of TV its hard to push the stop button and do something else. I’m also trying to recreate the good memories of how Jill, Jess and I used to cuddle up on my bed and watch the first 5 seasons of Lost on my computer in Vermont. I miss those days. Being late for work, because we had to finished the episode before I could leave.
I’ll leave you for now with a little story, but I promise to return soon and write a blog about my parents trip to Uganda. So, a pack of roosters moved in 2 doors down courtesy of my neighbors and I ****ing hate them. There’s a back window in their coop which faces the brick wall that my back window faces too. So their crowing ricochets off the wall straight into my window and into my ears and I’ve never wanted to kill any animals so much in my life. I’ve thought about becoming a rooster serial killer, but the only thing that stops me is the fact that I would be ruining my neighbor’s livelihood which is exactly the opposite of my purpose in coming here. But it reminds me of my wonderful friend Jill Escott when we were in Vermont. She used to have a ring-back tone on here phone that went “the rooster crows at the break of dawn, look out your window and I’ll be gone..” And it always reminds me of Jill and that song. Specifically because that song is a white lie. The rooster does crow at the break of dawn, BUT the rooster also crows at 3:00 in the morning when it is completely dark. Why rooster must you crow at night? That is not your job. It seems like your job is to piss me off. Not cool roosters, not cool.
