Hey team!
I’m home now, pretty jet-lagged and trying to stay awake for another half hour but home and life is good. The layover in London went much better this time, I got a full night’s sleep and ended up having breakfast with Marcus and Andes from Germany. They’ve been backpacking around Europe all summer and thought it was hilarious that I’d done something as silly as go to northern Uganda. We had a good chat, I gave them the information for the Antigallican because Central was full the following night and then we went our separate ways.
Gatwick was kind of interesting. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about Heathrow, but really… Gatwick was way slower. Yes Heathrow is huge, but they’re so used to processing ridiculous amounts of people that they’re also very efficient. I waited for 2 hours trying to clear immigration in London on the way TO Africa, and border security again took me an hour coming home. Nope, I’d do Heathrow again before Gatwick any day. It’s also way easier to get to Heathrow by rail, you can do it on the tube. Technically you can take the tube all the way to Gatwick, but if you want to get there in anything that resembles a timely manner you take the express and pay ₤16.00. Hm… kind of expensive, but a very nice train. Very nice train, they fed me, it was hilarious.
They also insisted on going through my box of declarable things. I don’t begrudge them that, I had plenty of things that were wood or wood products and ground nut paste, but I thought it was very strange that they’d search the box on my way OUT of Britain, and not on the way in. That was also kind of time consuming, it ended up being good that my flight was an hour behind schedule because I wouldn’t have made the plane otherwise. By the sound of it Greg and Chris had much better luck with Gatwick than I did, so please keep in mind that I am definitely biased on this.
The final tally for Africa stands as such:
1561 Pictures taken
27 Mosquito bites
20 Nights in Uganda
17 Blog posts
8 Chimps chased madly through the jungle
5 Species of monkey spotted
4 Cities and towns visited
3 Co-teaching sessions at Lelaobaro Primary School
3 Baboon sightings
3 Rhinos (2 black, 1 white, lined up like an oreo cookie)
1 Vicious battle with a bottle cap on a coke bottle; the cap won
1 Case of food poisoning (bad fish… >.<)
1 New Ugandan girlfriend (?)
0 Individuals informed of my return date, time and flight number (… oops)
0 Bad boda-boda incidents (yee ha!)
If I had counted the number of times I was randomly asked to marry someone on the street I would have included that as well, unfortunately that seems to happen on a rather frequent basis and I have a sneaking suspicion that that had less to do with my physical attractiveness and more to do with the novelty of a white girl wandering the streets of Gulu and Bigodi.
All in all I’d say it was a pretty awesome trip. As it stands the walls and the roofs have been put up on the library and the teacher’s quarters. The foundation and walls are complete on the pit latrines (VIP Latrines, as in Ventilation Improved Pit Latrines, oh yeah!) and… the Opening Ceremony is set for August 4th!
I’m sure I’ll into everyone this week, see you all soon and thanks for reading!
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Jinja and the Pretty Princess Net
Jinja is east of Kampala and the home of the source of the Nile. So we figured that being as I’m here I should probably go check it out. The plan was to leave early but due to a series of delays – as is common in Africa – we didn’t leave until much later. Think like… 4:00pm. Traffic in Kampala is nasty so a 90km drive took us something like 2 hours. When we did make it to Jinja, Zoe and Billy spotted a Chinese restaurant and the energy in the car hit the roof. They’ve only ever been to one Chinse restaurant before so they hugely enjoyed telling me everything they knew about plum sauce, sweet and sour pork, fried rice, spring rolls and so on. It was fun, I let them do all the ordering and had all sorts of Africa-style Chinese food.
After dinner it was getting dark so Freddy made the call that we’d be staying the night. Hotels are competitive along the Nile and we stayed at one called Paradise. It was pretty awesome, Billy’s favourite part was that there were flush toilets instead of pit latrines. By that time it was very dark outside, but Brenda and Fred were dead set on me seeing the source of the Nile and the falls. We ended up hiring a cab (called a ‘special hire’) because the route to the falls was so twisty and unmarked. It was cool to hear the force of the water but we couldn’t really see much in the dark. During the day there’s a whitewater raft that you can do down the rapids and if you’ve got 2000 shillings to spare there are kids who will hang on to an empty yellow jerican and jump into the falls. I hear they just vanish for a while under all the white foam and then pop out at the bottom, smiling and paddling their way back to the edge to do it again for the tourists.
Definitely not something I’d be up for.
Back to Paradise Hotel we went. Zoe and Billy’s little cousin Tyra had come with us as well, so we stayed in two rooms and split up the wildest members of our party. 5 year old Tyra slept with Zoe and I while Fred and Brenda stayed with Billy.
When we woke up the next morning we had an excellent breakfast courtesy of the hotel and headed out to get a glimpse of the Source of the Nile. The currents are so strange looking, the water wells up from underneath and makes the surface ripple and boil all over the place. It reminds me of when we have scuba divers at the bottom of the Y's pool actually.
The drive back to Kampala was much faster than the drive out to Jinja, and I spent the rest of the day re-packing my backpack and generally hassling the kids. Billy wants me to come back soon so that he can beat me at Monopoly again and Zoe is hoping that we can swap more music at some point. I may have gotten her hooked on swing, once I was packed I taught her the jitterbug stroll and Tyra joined in. Kealo, the lady who helps around the house, thought the whole thing was hilarious.
Phil picked me up, I said my goodbyes and we headed out to Entebbe. My flight left so early this morning that it didn’t make sense for me to stay anywhere other than next to the airport. We ended up checking in and sleeping for a few hours before I was due at the airport. When we walked in to find rooms Rona was the concierge on duty. She happily showed us around and answered all our questions about prices, then informed us that the Deluxe room size would be best because otherwise we wouldn’t fit. I was confused at first, what did she mean? Of course we'd fit, it's not like the rooms were closets. Phil understood what was going on right away though. They had a short discussion and later when Phil and I were eating dinner he explained that Rona believed we were planning on sharing a room, and that it was squishy to fit two people on a twin bed. No no Rona, that's not the plan. We did have a good laugh about it though, it definitely explained the stranged looks she kept giving us.
I’d would like it noted that my room was equivalently awesome to Phils' even though his was bigger. This is because my mosquito net came with plastic gem-things along the side. That’s right, I got the princess mosquito net! Yee ha!
Rona was a great help in getting my masks and baskets packed into a box too, she provided me with plenty of newspaper and tape so a big thank you to her for that. A brief 2 hour nap later and it was 3:00am and time to get back in the car. I lucked out with security and managed to be just ahead of the crowd the whole time. The immigrations officer had a good giggle at me though, apparently I needed to fill out some forms before I left. Unaware of this I sleepily stumbled past customs and did not initially recognize that it was me they were yelling at. Needless to say once I knew what they wanted I was happy to fill out the bright yellow cards next to the big sign on the wall saying ‘Exit Forms: Immigration’.
Safely on the plane I slept all the way to Nairobbery, as I have learned Nairobi Int’l Airport has been aptly nicknamed, and met a group of three Brits headed down to Uganda to work in an orphanage. Phil, Rosa and Claire are all about the same age as myself and they met on the flight down from London. We chatted and hung out until it was time for my flight to board, they had a layover of no less than 7 hours and weren’t sure they wanted to leave the airport to explore. I am definitely glad my layover was short, there is nothing to do in Nairobi’s airport.
I boarded and bid ‘goodbye!’ to the Brits. The best part of this flight was that the plane was a 777 and it wasn’t a full flight at all. I found myself a window row and curled up along three seats for a nice long sleep. Before we took off we had a bit of a funny experience though, before we even got off the ground we were all sprayed with some sort of insect killing gas. Between that and the strange disinfectant block they had in my bathroom at the hotel my nose was toast. The poor little thing has been running and sneezing ever since.
On the bright side though I’m back in London. It’s grey and rainy, as London tends to be but I’m staying at this excellent little hostel in zone 1, so most everything I want to see tomorrow morning is in walking distance. That and really… who can beat a hostel that’s got murals and maps on all it walls and doors? I’ll definitely be staying here when I come through again.
The strangest part about being back in a developed country is how white everything and everyone is. I’m surprised at how accustomed I became to being the only mzungu around, whereas in London even the buildings are clean and white. It’s like everything glows or something. Very strange. The best part is how little dust and the smell of diesel is kicking around in the air. Kudos to that!
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Good Samaritan
Internet is kind of a fickle thing out here. Wireless is not hard to come by but Fred and Brenda don’t have any at home, it’s something they’re considering for next month because the kids are in secondary school come fall. So I was on my way up to Backpackers Hostel - which is the most reliable source of internet - when a slightly lost looking white lady came down the drive from Backpackers and asked me how long the walk was to downtown Kampala. The walk is not epically long or anything, but I certainly could not have given adequate directions for her to arrive there without getting lost in the twisty, unlabelled streets. Her name was Laura from Colorado. I flagged down a boda-boda and haggled with the driver for her, and she looked horrified at the solution puttering away in front of her. Part of the horror was the cost of the boda-boda, she only had 3000 shillings and couldn’t afford the cost of the ride downtown. So I hopped on and told her I’d go downtown with her. We set her on the bike between the driver and myself so she wouldn’t fall off and away we went!
It turns out she’s a research biologist who’s headed down to Kibale National Park to work with the chimps! We had fun on the ride downtown. I answered her questions about Kampala as best I could and showed her how to use the very specific foreign exchange system they’ve got for visa cards. Once she’d figured out her exchange and I’d convinced her that really it was ok, I didn’t need to be taken for lunch, she paid for my boda-boda back to Backpackers and we went our separate ways. In theory she’s just reached Fort Portal, and didn’t even have to take the Kalita because a vehicle was sent to get her. Lucky girl, I bet she’ll have a great time with the chimps.
From there the plan was to go swimming with the kids at their school pool. Unfortunately the pool was closed for summer renovations, so no swimming for us. That’s alright though because it sounds like today we’re headed to Jinja today to go check out the source of the Nile. Yee ha! So we’re taking along swimsuits and seeing if we can find a good spot to hop in.
Hope it’s sunny and warm back home, cheers!
It turns out she’s a research biologist who’s headed down to Kibale National Park to work with the chimps! We had fun on the ride downtown. I answered her questions about Kampala as best I could and showed her how to use the very specific foreign exchange system they’ve got for visa cards. Once she’d figured out her exchange and I’d convinced her that really it was ok, I didn’t need to be taken for lunch, she paid for my boda-boda back to Backpackers and we went our separate ways. In theory she’s just reached Fort Portal, and didn’t even have to take the Kalita because a vehicle was sent to get her. Lucky girl, I bet she’ll have a great time with the chimps.
From there the plan was to go swimming with the kids at their school pool. Unfortunately the pool was closed for summer renovations, so no swimming for us. That’s alright though because it sounds like today we’re headed to Jinja today to go check out the source of the Nile. Yee ha! So we’re taking along swimsuits and seeing if we can find a good spot to hop in.
Hope it’s sunny and warm back home, cheers!
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Kibale... Chi-ba-lee... Chi-baaaa-li...
So I have this excellent Tae Kwon Do instructor. His name is Phil Ndugga, and it’s because of him that it’s safe and awesome for me to be in Uganda, he’s the director of Ssubi. Phil’s got this wife, Tracy. Tracy is a super cool woman who at one point worked for the Jane Goodall Institute tracking chimps in Kibale National Park in Southern Uganda. When Tracy left her position tracking and researching with JGI another lady and a good friend of Tracy’s took over the position, and her name is Julia.
Right. Now that that’s sorted, guess where I am at the moment? At Julia’s place, on a great big piece of land with a series of high and low tree houses on it for the occupants to stay in. So for the past three days I’ve been living ‘bush life’ and it’s amazing. The tree house I’m in is the original so it’s all made of off cuts of wood. It gives this really rustic feel to it because you can see through the gaps between the walls and floor to the outside. There are big swing-down and normal swing-out barn windows on every wall and the view from the front porch is amazing because Jules’ land is on top of a hill overlooking a valley.
Jules herself is living in the newer, lower tree house (because it’s actually cooler lower to the ground) which is a little more modern. So she has an actual spring mattress (that’s pretty luxurious out here) and a smooth, evenly joined floor. The walls and the shelves and such are all still made of off cuts and the roof is still thatched grass so it still has a very similar feeling to the original house. The garage/storehouse that the car never actually parks in is done the same way but with a dirt floor, so it’s the best for food storage and it’s wonderfully cool inside. The only real issue with that particular building is that there’s a snake living in it.
The kitchen is cool, it’s outside and done with only three walls. Most of the food storage is done using metal tins or big metal… boxes? Trunks? To keep the mice out. There isn’t any refrigeration but the shade works pretty well to keep the water in the very posh filter nicely chilled. Jules is British, and figures the filter is posh because you don’t need to boil the water or anything before you run it through the filter, and then… tada! Safe drinking water.
The showers are all raised platforms that are flush to the floors of the tree houses with spaced slats of wood for the floor. The whole thing is surrounded by woven grass mats and you get a great big jug full of cool water, a thermos or a kettle full of boiled water, a wide bucket to mix the two in and a wide mouthed mug to use for dumping water on your head. It’s such a gong show. You definitely need to shower in the middle of the day though, when it’s really hot out, otherwise you freeze when the breeze comes through and there’s no sun on you. I did not consider that the first evening I got here. Ah… that was poorly planned.
She’s got these three great dogs that have such distinct personalities. They’re all rescue dogs from Kampala or Fort Porteal. Sparkle Bailey is the alpha and she is a gorgeous dog, all tawny and big brown eyes. She’s such a brat though, she’ll climb up on tables to get at food she wants, sleep on the bed, push you off the bed, jump up on you, all that jazz. Her training is still a work in progress. Slim Shady is the male in the pack. He’s got some Doberman in him but he’s very tall and long, and very timid about being introduced to humans. He’s definitely the sentry though, he’ll run patrols around the fence at night and you know there’s actually something up when it’s Slim who’s barking, not just Sparkle. I may or may not like him best, he’s such a sweet heart. The last is Foxy Lady, and wow…what a unique dog. She’s coloured like a mangy german shepherd but with this huge ridge of fur running down her back that sticks straight up. Then her tail has been broken a few times so instead of being straight, or even crooked, its spirals like a pig’s tail. She’s by far the biggest suck for attention, and definitely lowest on the totem pole.
Now, Jules is living in a very rural area of Uganda, so at first the idea of getting three dogs was really only a companion thing, then they became more guard dogs when Slim started running patrols along the fence. Ugandans don’t like dogs. At ALL. They find them dirty, dangerous… basically everything that is bad in the world is embodied in a dog. So the neighbours come to Jules’ house and the first thing they’re greeted by is Sparkle leaping up to put her paws on their shoulders. Then they see slim all legs and sleek Doberman features with his big deep bark, and then they see Foxy and they’re just like ‘Whoa… ok, I don’t even know what that is I think maybe it’s time for me to leave!’ It’s really kind of fun to watch.
The other really cool thing about Jules’ land is that it borders on Kibale National Park. There are two great big trees at the edge of the park with canopies that cross the border into her land, and they’re full of fruit. It’s not unusual for the chimps (a.k.a. the boys) to come and climb the trees and stay there all afternoon eating all the fruit they can get.
Chimps, baboons, red-tailed monkeys, black and white colobus monkeys, red colobus monkeys, grey-cheeked mangabes… I’ve seen all of them since I arrived. They’re great fun! Both mornings I’ve been up early to do a walk around the wetlands and then the morning after for tracking chimps. Tracking the chimps was insane! They do it with tourists in groups of six or less and you do a sort of mad dash through the forest towards wherever you happen to hear them calling at each other from. The guides are all equipped with walkie-talkies so they’re chatting back and forth to make sure that if one group can’t find chimps at least another group has and they can double up.
Our guide was a guy named Charles, and I think he broke just about every rule in the book. Because the chimps are still wild there are limitations that are supposed to be considered, things like ‘stay at least 7 meters away from the chimps’ and ‘don’t use the flash on your camera’. Seem like pretty good rules to me being as the chimps aren’t small animals, and the alpha males are aggressive and like to display. Oh! And if they charge you during a display, you’re to stand perfectly still and not look at them. If you run, they’ll chase you, and they’re way faster than we are. Anyway, Charles took us veeeeeery close to the chimps. Like… possibly less than 3 meters. He’d move us forwards one by one with a friendly ‘Come, stand here’ and then before you knew it you had to keep your movements slow and easy so as not to startle them into thinking you were some sort of enemy.
It was amazing to be so close to them, but at the same time, one of them was an aggressive, highly ranked male named after the dictator in the DR Congo. Mubutu? It sounded like that. He likes to display, and yell, and make noise, and is very territorial. So knowing all of that from Jules’ and Charles I wasn’t terribly thrilled to be quite that close to him. They named him Mubutu because he runs his section of the community like a dictator. The little elderly male with him was funny though, he was nearing 40 years and his named sounded like Magezi. He was so funny, he’d look at you in a terribly bored way and chomp down on his shoots. His teeth were all there but they were chipped and his gums were brown with age.
My current location is outside of Fort Portal, which is about 3 hours west and a bit south of Kampala. From Fort Portal Jules picked me up in her car and we drove to the western side of Kibale National Park. The nearest town I could place to where Jules lives is a little town inside the park called Bigodi. So that’s where I am, and mostly how I got here. To get from Kampala to Fort Portal and back though I took the Kalita, which is kind of like Greyhound… but very ghetto. They wrap all the seats in plastic so that when it rains and the water leaks through the roofs and the holes in the windows the passengers get wet but the seats avoid water damage. There’s no air conditioning or anything (which in all fairness I did expect) but it would be very nice if they did have it because they squeeze you into this bus like sardines in a can. Being as I had my first ride on a boda-boda, going from the bus stop to Jaja’s so that I could tag up with Phil and the family, I have devised a ranking system for traveling in Uganda.
1) Private Car, if at all possible take your own or a friend’s car
2) Taxis, of the single passenger, marked variety
3) Kalita, for long distances it definitely beats boda-bodas but is aromatic (think diesel, dust and sweat)
4) Boda-bodas!, yes, despite the dangers and the wild driving and the ‘IthinkI’mgoingtodieohmanholdon!’ they are very convenient and a kind of hellish fun.
5) Kamapal Express, this is the lime green version of the Kalita and it speeds around like it's the only vehicle on the road. I rank it above mutatus because at least if you crash into something you're big enough that you're likely to win.
6) Mutatus, those are the crazy minibus/taxis that I don’t think you could pay me to get in, when a mutatu crashes it’s like someone pulled a scene out of ER and put it on the side of the road.
I’m now back in Kampala with Brenda, Fred, Zoe and Billy. It’s definitely louder here, but good to be in a familiar setting again. I should have access to the internet for the next few days so my posts will be more regular again.
See you later!
Right. Now that that’s sorted, guess where I am at the moment? At Julia’s place, on a great big piece of land with a series of high and low tree houses on it for the occupants to stay in. So for the past three days I’ve been living ‘bush life’ and it’s amazing. The tree house I’m in is the original so it’s all made of off cuts of wood. It gives this really rustic feel to it because you can see through the gaps between the walls and floor to the outside. There are big swing-down and normal swing-out barn windows on every wall and the view from the front porch is amazing because Jules’ land is on top of a hill overlooking a valley.
Jules herself is living in the newer, lower tree house (because it’s actually cooler lower to the ground) which is a little more modern. So she has an actual spring mattress (that’s pretty luxurious out here) and a smooth, evenly joined floor. The walls and the shelves and such are all still made of off cuts and the roof is still thatched grass so it still has a very similar feeling to the original house. The garage/storehouse that the car never actually parks in is done the same way but with a dirt floor, so it’s the best for food storage and it’s wonderfully cool inside. The only real issue with that particular building is that there’s a snake living in it.
The kitchen is cool, it’s outside and done with only three walls. Most of the food storage is done using metal tins or big metal… boxes? Trunks? To keep the mice out. There isn’t any refrigeration but the shade works pretty well to keep the water in the very posh filter nicely chilled. Jules is British, and figures the filter is posh because you don’t need to boil the water or anything before you run it through the filter, and then… tada! Safe drinking water.
The showers are all raised platforms that are flush to the floors of the tree houses with spaced slats of wood for the floor. The whole thing is surrounded by woven grass mats and you get a great big jug full of cool water, a thermos or a kettle full of boiled water, a wide bucket to mix the two in and a wide mouthed mug to use for dumping water on your head. It’s such a gong show. You definitely need to shower in the middle of the day though, when it’s really hot out, otherwise you freeze when the breeze comes through and there’s no sun on you. I did not consider that the first evening I got here. Ah… that was poorly planned.
She’s got these three great dogs that have such distinct personalities. They’re all rescue dogs from Kampala or Fort Porteal. Sparkle Bailey is the alpha and she is a gorgeous dog, all tawny and big brown eyes. She’s such a brat though, she’ll climb up on tables to get at food she wants, sleep on the bed, push you off the bed, jump up on you, all that jazz. Her training is still a work in progress. Slim Shady is the male in the pack. He’s got some Doberman in him but he’s very tall and long, and very timid about being introduced to humans. He’s definitely the sentry though, he’ll run patrols around the fence at night and you know there’s actually something up when it’s Slim who’s barking, not just Sparkle. I may or may not like him best, he’s such a sweet heart. The last is Foxy Lady, and wow…what a unique dog. She’s coloured like a mangy german shepherd but with this huge ridge of fur running down her back that sticks straight up. Then her tail has been broken a few times so instead of being straight, or even crooked, its spirals like a pig’s tail. She’s by far the biggest suck for attention, and definitely lowest on the totem pole.
Now, Jules is living in a very rural area of Uganda, so at first the idea of getting three dogs was really only a companion thing, then they became more guard dogs when Slim started running patrols along the fence. Ugandans don’t like dogs. At ALL. They find them dirty, dangerous… basically everything that is bad in the world is embodied in a dog. So the neighbours come to Jules’ house and the first thing they’re greeted by is Sparkle leaping up to put her paws on their shoulders. Then they see slim all legs and sleek Doberman features with his big deep bark, and then they see Foxy and they’re just like ‘Whoa… ok, I don’t even know what that is I think maybe it’s time for me to leave!’ It’s really kind of fun to watch.
The other really cool thing about Jules’ land is that it borders on Kibale National Park. There are two great big trees at the edge of the park with canopies that cross the border into her land, and they’re full of fruit. It’s not unusual for the chimps (a.k.a. the boys) to come and climb the trees and stay there all afternoon eating all the fruit they can get.
Chimps, baboons, red-tailed monkeys, black and white colobus monkeys, red colobus monkeys, grey-cheeked mangabes… I’ve seen all of them since I arrived. They’re great fun! Both mornings I’ve been up early to do a walk around the wetlands and then the morning after for tracking chimps. Tracking the chimps was insane! They do it with tourists in groups of six or less and you do a sort of mad dash through the forest towards wherever you happen to hear them calling at each other from. The guides are all equipped with walkie-talkies so they’re chatting back and forth to make sure that if one group can’t find chimps at least another group has and they can double up.
Our guide was a guy named Charles, and I think he broke just about every rule in the book. Because the chimps are still wild there are limitations that are supposed to be considered, things like ‘stay at least 7 meters away from the chimps’ and ‘don’t use the flash on your camera’. Seem like pretty good rules to me being as the chimps aren’t small animals, and the alpha males are aggressive and like to display. Oh! And if they charge you during a display, you’re to stand perfectly still and not look at them. If you run, they’ll chase you, and they’re way faster than we are. Anyway, Charles took us veeeeeery close to the chimps. Like… possibly less than 3 meters. He’d move us forwards one by one with a friendly ‘Come, stand here’ and then before you knew it you had to keep your movements slow and easy so as not to startle them into thinking you were some sort of enemy.
It was amazing to be so close to them, but at the same time, one of them was an aggressive, highly ranked male named after the dictator in the DR Congo. Mubutu? It sounded like that. He likes to display, and yell, and make noise, and is very territorial. So knowing all of that from Jules’ and Charles I wasn’t terribly thrilled to be quite that close to him. They named him Mubutu because he runs his section of the community like a dictator. The little elderly male with him was funny though, he was nearing 40 years and his named sounded like Magezi. He was so funny, he’d look at you in a terribly bored way and chomp down on his shoots. His teeth were all there but they were chipped and his gums were brown with age.
My current location is outside of Fort Portal, which is about 3 hours west and a bit south of Kampala. From Fort Portal Jules picked me up in her car and we drove to the western side of Kibale National Park. The nearest town I could place to where Jules lives is a little town inside the park called Bigodi. So that’s where I am, and mostly how I got here. To get from Kampala to Fort Portal and back though I took the Kalita, which is kind of like Greyhound… but very ghetto. They wrap all the seats in plastic so that when it rains and the water leaks through the roofs and the holes in the windows the passengers get wet but the seats avoid water damage. There’s no air conditioning or anything (which in all fairness I did expect) but it would be very nice if they did have it because they squeeze you into this bus like sardines in a can. Being as I had my first ride on a boda-boda, going from the bus stop to Jaja’s so that I could tag up with Phil and the family, I have devised a ranking system for traveling in Uganda.
1) Private Car, if at all possible take your own or a friend’s car
2) Taxis, of the single passenger, marked variety
3) Kalita, for long distances it definitely beats boda-bodas but is aromatic (think diesel, dust and sweat)
4) Boda-bodas!, yes, despite the dangers and the wild driving and the ‘IthinkI’mgoingtodieohmanholdon!’ they are very convenient and a kind of hellish fun.
5) Kamapal Express, this is the lime green version of the Kalita and it speeds around like it's the only vehicle on the road. I rank it above mutatus because at least if you crash into something you're big enough that you're likely to win.
6) Mutatus, those are the crazy minibus/taxis that I don’t think you could pay me to get in, when a mutatu crashes it’s like someone pulled a scene out of ER and put it on the side of the road.
I’m now back in Kampala with Brenda, Fred, Zoe and Billy. It’s definitely louder here, but good to be in a familiar setting again. I should have access to the internet for the next few days so my posts will be more regular again.
See you later!
Friday, July 10, 2009
Moving Rocks and Baby Obama
I am no longer supersick, only somewhat sick. Much better. So yeah… sorry about disappearing.
Lesson 4: Do not eat fried fish in Uganda
Anyway, the construction at Gulu is going well now that we’ve pitched the first engineer and found a second one. Then pitched him and found a third that is really, really good. Work schedules are different in Uganda. It’s not unusual for work to start at 7:00am, but all the workers to arrive at say… 11:00am, or noon. I have seen what an entire nation of tardiness is like, and I solemnly swear I will work harder to be on time henceforth.
In the last few days I’ve been up to a lot though. I am a pro rock mover! I specialize in small rocks!
The foundation was finished at the teacher’s quarters site on the 6th, and the next step is to fill the foundation with red dirt, pack it down, and then fill the top third with great big chunks of rock. HEAVY rock. Oh man, we had a little train going where you’d walk single file over to the pile of rocks, pick one up and then carry it around wheelbarrows and up onto the brick framing, then dump it in the square of foundation that needed to be filled. The biggest rock I was able to carry without falling over or otherwise hurting myself was only a little greater in physical size than my head. I imagine most of them would have fit inside my ribcage, so not exactly big. They were so dense though! So I’d drop my little medium and small sized rocks into the gaps left by the big ones, then walk back to the pile and see some short guy with whipcord muscles struggling with a rock the size of your average footstool; or two guys picking up others that were only a bit smaller than a golden retriever. These rocks must have weighed more than I do!
Once we’d filled in all the squares of the foundation they handed me a huge hammer. Yes! Best part of the day! My job was then to smash the rocks so that they made a fairly even surface for the next layer. Undoubtedly cool, but I made a point of keeping my glasses on. Chunks of the rock tend to fly when you hit it, and I definitely got a few scratches on my arms from the battle.
Prior to smashing and carrying rocks I was also busy. The English teacher at Lelaobaro Primary is a fellow named Patrick. Very nice, very sociable. Also did not ask me to marry him or profess love, he gets extra points for this. Either way, Patrick invited me to team-teach the English classes in the higher classes, Primary 6 and 7 (equivalent to grades 6 and 7).
It was so much fun!
I was with the P6’s first. It made sense to sort of sit back and observe for a bit, so I watched Patrick for the first 10 or 15 minutes. Things are done differently here, almost everything is oral. It makes sense, I guess. The average class size here is like… 90+. After that I was handed some chalk and given the green light. We worked on synonyms because it was a nice, easy topic to explain and teach. We only did three words, so synonyms for ‘good’, ‘fast’ and ‘funny’. At first none of the kids would put their hands up, I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. Turns out my accent was really throwing them for a loop. Patrick helped a lot; he repeated most of what I said so the kids could get a grip on what I was trying to ask them to do. At the end of the lesson they caught on and we were making sentences with the synonyms we’d covered. When we reached ‘fast’, one of the littlest kids in the class put his hand up excitedly to give a sentence. When I called on him he stood up and stated clearly, with excellent pronunciation: “Madam speaks very rapidly.” The class burst into laughter, I don’t think he was the only one thinking this. For the next few lessons I made sure to write ‘speak slow!’ on the top of my lesson plans in red.
The following day, on the 7th, I was invited back for two classes! The P7’s have excellent English and their proficiency made it much easier to communicate with them. The gaps in English skills year to year are pretty big. Mostly with the P7’s we did word games to review their vocabulary and grammar. There is a national exam at the end of your P7 year in Uganda, if you don’t pass, you don’t get into secondary school. It’s big for them; it determines whether you can raise yourself out of a refugee camp and unskilled labour as a career for most of these kids. They loved the games. One of them involves accurately describing to someone how to perform a task. In this case: opening a bottle of water. If they say ‘To open the bottle you must twist off the cap.’ then I would stand at the front of the class with the bottle on the floor and twist the cap with one hand, merely spinning the bottle in circles on the cement. They had to be specific and give one direction at a time. So ‘To open the bottle you must grasp the bottle tightly with your left hand.’, ‘To open the bottle you must place your fingers firmly on the side of the cap.’, and so on. It was an absolute riot, much of the vocabulary for that is so mundane that it’s not often used. It was a good review for them and it’s so satisfying to see these serious kids laughing and having fun at school.
The P6’s were excited to have me back again as well. They had become more accustomed to my accent and I made a point of speaking less ‘rapidly’, hahaha. I would ask a question and 30 hands would hit the air, Hermione Granger style. At the end we played another vocabulary game and as the period started to end kids from other classes were coming in to watch at the sides of the classroom, curious about the noise and the laughter. I could absolutely spend a summer here working with them, they’re so much fun. I was told that if I came back for that next summer I’d even get my own refugee hut as a teacher’s quarters. Pretty swanky.
Oh! And today we saw rhinos! For my birthday, and because Phil thought it was silly that I’d come to Africa and wasn’t going to see any of the big 5, we went to the rhino sanctuary on the way back to Kampala. Wow, what a treat. I stood (and I kid you not) 4 or 5 meters from wild rhinos, no fence, no car, just standing on my own two feet with Phil, Dusman, and three park wardens. We saw two pregnant white rhinos called Cory and Bella. The third rhino with them was a younger black rhino by the name of Hassan.
There was a little baby rhino at the sanctuary too, but being as the only fence is the electrified one meant to keep the rhinos in and the poachers out it was safer if we didn’t go see him. His mother (whose name sounded kind of like Namibia or Marimba…?) was still very protective of him so aggression was an issue. The best part is that the baby’s mother is from a zoo in Florida, his father is from another park in Kenya, and he is named Obama. That’s right, Obama the baby black rhino.
The entrance fee was a little higher than I was expecting, but it was totally worth it. They only charge locals 5000 shillings ($2.50CND), I am a foreigner, I am monetarily worth 8.8 Ugandans with an entrance fee of 44,000 shillings ($22.00 CND). Not an outrageous fee when they explain everything it goes towards but we had a good laugh in the car about Phil getting away with paying the local entrance fee despite his lack of a local passport. Even with the electric fence all seven rhinos are accompanied by park wardens who specialize in rhinos 24 hours a day. It’s sad that it’s necessary, but they’ve also never had a poacher succeed in killing a rhino in the history of the park. 33 years of protection and counting.
The parks’ reputation is so solid that South Africa is actually sending another 12 rhinos, mostly female, in just a few weeks. The logic is that they will be safer here in Uganda, under supervision, than in the parks in their home country where poachers have an easier go of it.
I spent yesterday in the market in Gulu, too. That was great fun. They don’t cat-call me in Gulu! Oh! It’s awesome! I can walk through a market and be the only white person there, not even an interracial person in sight, and no one is grabbing at my hands or stepping in front of me or yelling ‘mzungu’. So good. It means that I can do things like walk up to a vendor and look at the wares instead of being ambushed by the vendors on the other side saying their products are better.
All in all, I’d say life is pretty good.
Lesson 4: Do not eat fried fish in Uganda
Anyway, the construction at Gulu is going well now that we’ve pitched the first engineer and found a second one. Then pitched him and found a third that is really, really good. Work schedules are different in Uganda. It’s not unusual for work to start at 7:00am, but all the workers to arrive at say… 11:00am, or noon. I have seen what an entire nation of tardiness is like, and I solemnly swear I will work harder to be on time henceforth.
In the last few days I’ve been up to a lot though. I am a pro rock mover! I specialize in small rocks!
The foundation was finished at the teacher’s quarters site on the 6th, and the next step is to fill the foundation with red dirt, pack it down, and then fill the top third with great big chunks of rock. HEAVY rock. Oh man, we had a little train going where you’d walk single file over to the pile of rocks, pick one up and then carry it around wheelbarrows and up onto the brick framing, then dump it in the square of foundation that needed to be filled. The biggest rock I was able to carry without falling over or otherwise hurting myself was only a little greater in physical size than my head. I imagine most of them would have fit inside my ribcage, so not exactly big. They were so dense though! So I’d drop my little medium and small sized rocks into the gaps left by the big ones, then walk back to the pile and see some short guy with whipcord muscles struggling with a rock the size of your average footstool; or two guys picking up others that were only a bit smaller than a golden retriever. These rocks must have weighed more than I do!
Once we’d filled in all the squares of the foundation they handed me a huge hammer. Yes! Best part of the day! My job was then to smash the rocks so that they made a fairly even surface for the next layer. Undoubtedly cool, but I made a point of keeping my glasses on. Chunks of the rock tend to fly when you hit it, and I definitely got a few scratches on my arms from the battle.
Prior to smashing and carrying rocks I was also busy. The English teacher at Lelaobaro Primary is a fellow named Patrick. Very nice, very sociable. Also did not ask me to marry him or profess love, he gets extra points for this. Either way, Patrick invited me to team-teach the English classes in the higher classes, Primary 6 and 7 (equivalent to grades 6 and 7).
It was so much fun!
I was with the P6’s first. It made sense to sort of sit back and observe for a bit, so I watched Patrick for the first 10 or 15 minutes. Things are done differently here, almost everything is oral. It makes sense, I guess. The average class size here is like… 90+. After that I was handed some chalk and given the green light. We worked on synonyms because it was a nice, easy topic to explain and teach. We only did three words, so synonyms for ‘good’, ‘fast’ and ‘funny’. At first none of the kids would put their hands up, I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. Turns out my accent was really throwing them for a loop. Patrick helped a lot; he repeated most of what I said so the kids could get a grip on what I was trying to ask them to do. At the end of the lesson they caught on and we were making sentences with the synonyms we’d covered. When we reached ‘fast’, one of the littlest kids in the class put his hand up excitedly to give a sentence. When I called on him he stood up and stated clearly, with excellent pronunciation: “Madam speaks very rapidly.” The class burst into laughter, I don’t think he was the only one thinking this. For the next few lessons I made sure to write ‘speak slow!’ on the top of my lesson plans in red.
The following day, on the 7th, I was invited back for two classes! The P7’s have excellent English and their proficiency made it much easier to communicate with them. The gaps in English skills year to year are pretty big. Mostly with the P7’s we did word games to review their vocabulary and grammar. There is a national exam at the end of your P7 year in Uganda, if you don’t pass, you don’t get into secondary school. It’s big for them; it determines whether you can raise yourself out of a refugee camp and unskilled labour as a career for most of these kids. They loved the games. One of them involves accurately describing to someone how to perform a task. In this case: opening a bottle of water. If they say ‘To open the bottle you must twist off the cap.’ then I would stand at the front of the class with the bottle on the floor and twist the cap with one hand, merely spinning the bottle in circles on the cement. They had to be specific and give one direction at a time. So ‘To open the bottle you must grasp the bottle tightly with your left hand.’, ‘To open the bottle you must place your fingers firmly on the side of the cap.’, and so on. It was an absolute riot, much of the vocabulary for that is so mundane that it’s not often used. It was a good review for them and it’s so satisfying to see these serious kids laughing and having fun at school.
The P6’s were excited to have me back again as well. They had become more accustomed to my accent and I made a point of speaking less ‘rapidly’, hahaha. I would ask a question and 30 hands would hit the air, Hermione Granger style. At the end we played another vocabulary game and as the period started to end kids from other classes were coming in to watch at the sides of the classroom, curious about the noise and the laughter. I could absolutely spend a summer here working with them, they’re so much fun. I was told that if I came back for that next summer I’d even get my own refugee hut as a teacher’s quarters. Pretty swanky.
Oh! And today we saw rhinos! For my birthday, and because Phil thought it was silly that I’d come to Africa and wasn’t going to see any of the big 5, we went to the rhino sanctuary on the way back to Kampala. Wow, what a treat. I stood (and I kid you not) 4 or 5 meters from wild rhinos, no fence, no car, just standing on my own two feet with Phil, Dusman, and three park wardens. We saw two pregnant white rhinos called Cory and Bella. The third rhino with them was a younger black rhino by the name of Hassan.
There was a little baby rhino at the sanctuary too, but being as the only fence is the electrified one meant to keep the rhinos in and the poachers out it was safer if we didn’t go see him. His mother (whose name sounded kind of like Namibia or Marimba…?) was still very protective of him so aggression was an issue. The best part is that the baby’s mother is from a zoo in Florida, his father is from another park in Kenya, and he is named Obama. That’s right, Obama the baby black rhino.
The entrance fee was a little higher than I was expecting, but it was totally worth it. They only charge locals 5000 shillings ($2.50CND), I am a foreigner, I am monetarily worth 8.8 Ugandans with an entrance fee of 44,000 shillings ($22.00 CND). Not an outrageous fee when they explain everything it goes towards but we had a good laugh in the car about Phil getting away with paying the local entrance fee despite his lack of a local passport. Even with the electric fence all seven rhinos are accompanied by park wardens who specialize in rhinos 24 hours a day. It’s sad that it’s necessary, but they’ve also never had a poacher succeed in killing a rhino in the history of the park. 33 years of protection and counting.
The parks’ reputation is so solid that South Africa is actually sending another 12 rhinos, mostly female, in just a few weeks. The logic is that they will be safer here in Uganda, under supervision, than in the parks in their home country where poachers have an easier go of it.
I spent yesterday in the market in Gulu, too. That was great fun. They don’t cat-call me in Gulu! Oh! It’s awesome! I can walk through a market and be the only white person there, not even an interracial person in sight, and no one is grabbing at my hands or stepping in front of me or yelling ‘mzungu’. So good. It means that I can do things like walk up to a vendor and look at the wares instead of being ambushed by the vendors on the other side saying their products are better.
All in all, I’d say life is pretty good.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Trusty Blue Rubbish Bin
I am so sick.
Not cool.
We have been eating breakfast and dinner at the Acholli Inn, which is where we stay when we are in Gulu. It’s a very nice Inn, I’d absolutely recommend it, for the record. They have pretty Western food as far as Africa goes, so for example in the morning you can have beans, eggs, toast, tea, etc. The strangest things they’ve served thus far have been goat and liver. For lunch I usually leave the site with Phil or Dusman and we find a local restaurant to try some local food. I keep being surprised when I try something that looks gross but is actually quite good. There is a runny brown paste called odee that is basically peanut butter; a white millet made out of corn (which is referred to as maize) and tastes like newspaper; sweet potatoes that are good but are green in colour; a yellow goo that is made out of cooked plantains and is kind of a strange, gluey texture in your mouth but appropriately a nice bright yellow; and matoki. Matoki is the staple food in most parts of the country, and wow is it terrible. You mix what looks like little green plantains with real, yellow plantains, boil them in water and out comes a grainy, kind of bitter, cream-coloured paste. I don’t suggest it. Usually one of these base foods – or rice – is served on a plate separate from a meat dish of your choice with sauce over top. Meat might be your standard beef or chicken, but there is also boar, goat, liver from a few different animals, or a variety of fish I cannot pronounce.
The most exciting of these dishes thus far was when I received a fish a little larger than my hand with a peanut sauce over top. Fish and runny peanut butter taste really rather odd together, but I’d do odee on rice again.
Anyway, this ‘try local food’ thing was a grand idea until yesterday.
I am now as comfortable as I will ever be being served a whole fish. Head, tail, eyes, scales, truly the whole fish. It is a common dish in this little land-locked country, which kind of worries me being as the refrigeration in the north is quite questionable. Either way, I had tried whole fishes in a variety of sizes and sauces over the last couple days, and yesterday I was thinking ‘hm, the last fish I ate had more bones than meat, let’s try something different’. So, Dusman had a gigantic whole fish and I had an innocuous fish fillet and chips. A second whole fish was brought back to the site for Phil. Nice, common meals, right? Hm… no.
All three of us woke up in the middle of the night with the runs.
Phil and Dusman are in a different room than I am, and so I did not know at first that they were also experiencing not goodness. My lack of knowledge initially brought me a scare that I had mixed medications by accident, had food poisoning, or caught malaria or some other equally nasty tropical disease. The good news is that it is none of these, and I will not need to be moved back to Kampala for any sort of hospitalization or treatment. Yes! Points for Kenna!
Phil ended up splitting his fish with someone on the site, so he is in the best shape. Dusman was down until about 10am, and I am still not doing so hot. It’s been a long time since I was last sick like this. My new best friend is the trusty blue rubbish pale that used to live in my bathroom. Oh trusty blue rubbish pale, what a good friend to me you have been.
In other news the Ground Breaking Ceremony went very smoothly yesterday. It was great! There are kids from Baby Class (kindergarten) through Primary Seven (grade seven, year seven) at Laleobaro Primary School, and all 728 of them showed up for the ceremony. Just for reference, the average class ratio is 100 or more students to one teacher. The school choir sang some songs for us in both the local language (which none of the three of us happen to speak, but sounded very nice) and English. Definitely got that on tape for this year’s promotional video. We were also presented with a poem by one of the girls in P7. Poem is kind of a loose term though; in Canada we’d probably call it a spoken word piece but all the same it was done very well.
Speeches were given, and Phil and Dusman managed to secure some guests that really made Ssubi look good. The best speaker by far was a high-standing member of parliament who went by the name of Jacob. Most of his speech was given in the local language of the Acholli tribe but it didn’t really matter because he was so charismatic. The kids smiled and laughed, clapped and waved their hands, he was excellent.
Construction started right after the ceremony and is going fast. The tools they use here are very different from the ones we use back in Canada and so the labor is much more intensive. The building is first measured with string and a measuring tape, then outlined with a slightly raised stick and string frame. From there the hoes come out and everyone starts to dig foundation for the walls, pulling out unwanted rocks and such as they go. The thing about the hoes is that they aren’t terribly reliable though. Phil asked that when I’m on media duty with the video cam and the camera I not stand in front of anybody digging. This was kind of a strange sounding request, so I asked why. Well, turns out that the tops of the hoes are known to come flying off on occasion, and if you happen to be in front of a hoe when this happens you get hit with a great big flying chunk of metal.
The workers are pretty relaxed about the whole thing though, the first time I saw it happen he walked over, retrieved his top and banged it back onto the handle with another hoe as the hammer.
How about that.
Cheers to everyone back home, have a ginger ale for me!
Not cool.
We have been eating breakfast and dinner at the Acholli Inn, which is where we stay when we are in Gulu. It’s a very nice Inn, I’d absolutely recommend it, for the record. They have pretty Western food as far as Africa goes, so for example in the morning you can have beans, eggs, toast, tea, etc. The strangest things they’ve served thus far have been goat and liver. For lunch I usually leave the site with Phil or Dusman and we find a local restaurant to try some local food. I keep being surprised when I try something that looks gross but is actually quite good. There is a runny brown paste called odee that is basically peanut butter; a white millet made out of corn (which is referred to as maize) and tastes like newspaper; sweet potatoes that are good but are green in colour; a yellow goo that is made out of cooked plantains and is kind of a strange, gluey texture in your mouth but appropriately a nice bright yellow; and matoki. Matoki is the staple food in most parts of the country, and wow is it terrible. You mix what looks like little green plantains with real, yellow plantains, boil them in water and out comes a grainy, kind of bitter, cream-coloured paste. I don’t suggest it. Usually one of these base foods – or rice – is served on a plate separate from a meat dish of your choice with sauce over top. Meat might be your standard beef or chicken, but there is also boar, goat, liver from a few different animals, or a variety of fish I cannot pronounce.
The most exciting of these dishes thus far was when I received a fish a little larger than my hand with a peanut sauce over top. Fish and runny peanut butter taste really rather odd together, but I’d do odee on rice again.
Anyway, this ‘try local food’ thing was a grand idea until yesterday.
I am now as comfortable as I will ever be being served a whole fish. Head, tail, eyes, scales, truly the whole fish. It is a common dish in this little land-locked country, which kind of worries me being as the refrigeration in the north is quite questionable. Either way, I had tried whole fishes in a variety of sizes and sauces over the last couple days, and yesterday I was thinking ‘hm, the last fish I ate had more bones than meat, let’s try something different’. So, Dusman had a gigantic whole fish and I had an innocuous fish fillet and chips. A second whole fish was brought back to the site for Phil. Nice, common meals, right? Hm… no.
All three of us woke up in the middle of the night with the runs.
Phil and Dusman are in a different room than I am, and so I did not know at first that they were also experiencing not goodness. My lack of knowledge initially brought me a scare that I had mixed medications by accident, had food poisoning, or caught malaria or some other equally nasty tropical disease. The good news is that it is none of these, and I will not need to be moved back to Kampala for any sort of hospitalization or treatment. Yes! Points for Kenna!
Phil ended up splitting his fish with someone on the site, so he is in the best shape. Dusman was down until about 10am, and I am still not doing so hot. It’s been a long time since I was last sick like this. My new best friend is the trusty blue rubbish pale that used to live in my bathroom. Oh trusty blue rubbish pale, what a good friend to me you have been.
In other news the Ground Breaking Ceremony went very smoothly yesterday. It was great! There are kids from Baby Class (kindergarten) through Primary Seven (grade seven, year seven) at Laleobaro Primary School, and all 728 of them showed up for the ceremony. Just for reference, the average class ratio is 100 or more students to one teacher. The school choir sang some songs for us in both the local language (which none of the three of us happen to speak, but sounded very nice) and English. Definitely got that on tape for this year’s promotional video. We were also presented with a poem by one of the girls in P7. Poem is kind of a loose term though; in Canada we’d probably call it a spoken word piece but all the same it was done very well.
Speeches were given, and Phil and Dusman managed to secure some guests that really made Ssubi look good. The best speaker by far was a high-standing member of parliament who went by the name of Jacob. Most of his speech was given in the local language of the Acholli tribe but it didn’t really matter because he was so charismatic. The kids smiled and laughed, clapped and waved their hands, he was excellent.
Construction started right after the ceremony and is going fast. The tools they use here are very different from the ones we use back in Canada and so the labor is much more intensive. The building is first measured with string and a measuring tape, then outlined with a slightly raised stick and string frame. From there the hoes come out and everyone starts to dig foundation for the walls, pulling out unwanted rocks and such as they go. The thing about the hoes is that they aren’t terribly reliable though. Phil asked that when I’m on media duty with the video cam and the camera I not stand in front of anybody digging. This was kind of a strange sounding request, so I asked why. Well, turns out that the tops of the hoes are known to come flying off on occasion, and if you happen to be in front of a hoe when this happens you get hit with a great big flying chunk of metal.
The workers are pretty relaxed about the whole thing though, the first time I saw it happen he walked over, retrieved his top and banged it back onto the handle with another hoe as the hammer.
How about that.
Cheers to everyone back home, have a ginger ale for me!
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Landmines and Skipping and Smiles, Oh My!
I am absolutely in rural Africa now. The day has flipped back and forth between laughing and smiling so hard that my face aches and moments of heavy reality. I’m with Phil and his main man on the ground, Dusman. I could not be safer if I were with a detachment of military guards, these guys know their stuff.
Back to the beginning though. The drive up to Gulu was supposed to take us as much as 7 hours. Well, back before they paved the road and filled in the pot holes of death, I can see how 7 hours would have been good time. Our trip was much faster. Since last year the roads have been paved. And I mean paved. They are even, they are smooth and there are even sections as you leave Kampala and head north that have the swanky new stone drainage system installed so that when it pours rain the road isn’t flooded or washed away. This means that a 7 hour trip really only took 3.5 or 4 hours total, even with stops for lunch and such. Sweet!
I don’t know what I was really expecting out of the scenery on the way up, but it was beautifully lush and green the whole way. Lots of jungle. Plenty of trees. Plenty of people too, apparently boda-bodas do highway travel. So now you’ve got the congestion of a normal road in Kampala on a highway doing anywhere from 60-100km/h. It’s absolutely wild. Drivers regularly honk or flick their lights to communicate. For example, the roads are still very narrow, so if you drift to the right a bit to check if the oncoming lane is clear to pass, you’d get hit. Instead the driver in front uses his signal lights to tell you when it’s not safe to pass (right indicator) or safe to pass (left indicator). This only works if the vehicle ahead of you has lights though. To compensate, sometimes hands will be used, or horns, or the driver will yell the signals to whomever is riding in the back of his truck and they’ll pass it on with their hands. It’s really fairly flexible. You can honk to say ‘thanks’, ‘get the #%@* out of my way’ or ‘heads up, there’s a car behind you and you’re in the road’. The latter can be used to warn other cars, boda-bodas, bicycles, groups of school kids walking home along the highway, and the odd ox-cart/dog combination.
When we were just about halfway to Gulu we passed what looked kind of like a paved rest stop, like we have on the TransCan with bathrooms, etc. These are far from common in Uganda because of the manpower it takes to grade and pave a large area. Phil then explained that this was the original transition area from only somewhat risky rural country to a war zone. Cars would line up in the rest area and wait their turn for a military escort up to Gulu. As in the military would put trucks with armed men at the front, another few in the middle, and again at the back, and they would drive a minimum of 90km/h down a narrow, hella-sketchy pot-hole path and hope that they made it to Gulu without being ambushed by rebels. Holy death.
The military is treated very seriously here because they don’t care to be questioned. I’m not to be taking pictures of anything or anybody that has camouflage, an AK-47 (these are only issued to the police and the military) or a military-specific green and white license plate. You don’t ask them for directions if you’re lost, you don’t joke with them, and if you make eye contact they all watch you until you’re past or out of site. It’s unnerving. For a while many of the soldiers hired by the government were from the areas of Africa that speak Swahili natively, so if someone was giving you trouble or picking a fight you’d turn to your buddy and start going off in Swahili. I’m told this was enough to stop most people in their tracks, and very quickly clear a room.
Anyway, a little bit past the transition area we came up to a section of the river that narrowed into a waterfall and some stunning rapids with huge white froth everywhere. I went to pull out my camera and Dusman gave me one of those ‘nono’ looks. I’ve found that listening to Dusman and Phil is best done without question, immediately. Turns out that the hill on the other side of the road was well outfitted with camouflaged soldiers, and that the area had a great tactical advantage for fighting the LRA. This means that no pictures are allowed to be taken. If one of the soldiers sees you with a camera and radios ahead you get stopped at the bridge over the river and receive a talking to from the commander. Not something any of us wanted a part of.
Past there you’re also in landmine country. There is a white building in town surrounded by the standard barbwire and electric wire fencing full of a team that is dedicated solely to pulling out all the landmines left behind by the LRA. Case in point, last year when Phil and Dusman came to survey the site for this year’s project they could not leave the area directly surrounding the school because the field in front (which is huge, like think football sized) was all mined. This year, we’re building on the other side of that field. Which was also mined.
Both have been cleared of course, but it’s totally surreal to see these swarms of kids, literally hundreds, in their uniforms laughing, playing soccer, skipping games and such in an area that you know was a battlefield.
The realism of the ‘battlefield’ bit got me today too. There are these grooves in the ground that are fairly grown over, no more than 2ft in width, that run in a line between the side road and where the new teacher’s quarters are going to go. These are trenches. No, seriously. Rebels would lay in these with a bunch of grass and a bush or something overtop of them and shoot people. Once I knew what they were I could see them all over the place. Whenever two of the lines meet there’s a mound of dirt in front for someone to set up a tripod. From there if you turn 180 º you see the walls of a little building with three rooms. It’s decrepit, even by African standards. That is because it’s been bombed out.
This is all across from a primary school! 10 minutes outside of downtown Gulu!
The kids are all so happy though. After I’d taken a bunch of photos of the area where we’ll be building I went back across the side road to take some shots of the kids playing. Most of the boys were in the bigger section of the field playing a game of soccer. The ones playing ignored me, which made it really, really easy to get some excellent pictures of the game. The littler kids who were watching were fascinated by the camera and the muzungu operating it.
I have to be careful when I want to take pictures of the kids because I am such a novelty to them. If I show up (even without a camera) they tend to drop whatever they’re doing and come see me. Not necessarily talk to me, being new I think I might kind of scare most of the littler ones, but all the same whatever they were just doing is suddenly way less interesting. The trick seems to be to kind of lurk around the sidelines and not make eye contact until the shock wears off. This only really works with the older kids; I don’t think there is a trick for the little guys.
Anyway, from there I crossed the field to where most of the girls were. They had the right idea, they’d set themselves up under some great big trees in the shade. From there they divided by age group into all sorts of games involving jumping and long loops of what was once string, or hemp. Some were skipping, one group had double-dutch going, but the most popular game involved two girls standing across from each other with the string looped over their heads and around their waists so it was taught between them. Then another girl would do a little hop-dance over the two strings. At first the strings were low, ankle height, then knee height, then waist, then a little higher. It was incredible to see how high they could go without touching the string. Every once in a while someone would land on the string and it would snap. Standard procedure is to knot it back together and carry on. The string they have is very loved, very frayed, and has many knots.
After watching this with great fascination for a while one of the girls asked if I would like to play. Yeah! Absolutely!
I did not stop to consider the level of difficulty involved in the game, this made it much more entertaining when I realized what I’d gotten myself into. They were assembled in a circle around us almost before I had time to set down the camera and my glasses. The girl who had asked me to play was named Clancy, and I learned through imitation. She would do a short routine once or twice, just a few moves, and then I would try. She would do another one with the rope higher, I would attempt it and land on the string. Our audience was wonderfully dynamic, Clancy was of course very good so they would clap and cheer when she’d finished. When it was my turn they were very quiet, crowding in closer. I could usually get the first few jumps right, after that I tended to lose it and got creative. They thought it was hilarious! Clancy had it down to an art, she didn’t look awkward at all, easy as pie. This makes it look deceptively easy. I don’t have any pictures of my attempts, but my arms were definitely flapping and more often than not my feet ended up in front of me instead of behind me where they belonged.
It was so much fun. I definitely need to practice and then try again.
When I was pulled out to go back and film Phil and the others some more I realized that my face actually hurt from laughing and smiling. These kids are amazing. I can’t describe how excited I am to be a part of the team that’s going to give them access to a library. Their own library, with Uganda up-to-date textbooks (this is a big thing in the north), light bulbs, and computers equipped with internet.
Many of them are still living in the refugee camp huts on school property. No running water, no electricity, grass roofs, one room clay and mud huts. School assembly is under a big tree outside because there are too many kids to fit in any of their buildings; one of the classrooms is just a grass roof with benches. Admittedly, it is also the most fun to sit in because that’s what you think of when you think of ‘Disney’ Africa.
Tomorrow if the groundbreaking ceremony, and then the real work starts. Time to jump in, both feet first, no looking back now!
Back to the beginning though. The drive up to Gulu was supposed to take us as much as 7 hours. Well, back before they paved the road and filled in the pot holes of death, I can see how 7 hours would have been good time. Our trip was much faster. Since last year the roads have been paved. And I mean paved. They are even, they are smooth and there are even sections as you leave Kampala and head north that have the swanky new stone drainage system installed so that when it pours rain the road isn’t flooded or washed away. This means that a 7 hour trip really only took 3.5 or 4 hours total, even with stops for lunch and such. Sweet!
I don’t know what I was really expecting out of the scenery on the way up, but it was beautifully lush and green the whole way. Lots of jungle. Plenty of trees. Plenty of people too, apparently boda-bodas do highway travel. So now you’ve got the congestion of a normal road in Kampala on a highway doing anywhere from 60-100km/h. It’s absolutely wild. Drivers regularly honk or flick their lights to communicate. For example, the roads are still very narrow, so if you drift to the right a bit to check if the oncoming lane is clear to pass, you’d get hit. Instead the driver in front uses his signal lights to tell you when it’s not safe to pass (right indicator) or safe to pass (left indicator). This only works if the vehicle ahead of you has lights though. To compensate, sometimes hands will be used, or horns, or the driver will yell the signals to whomever is riding in the back of his truck and they’ll pass it on with their hands. It’s really fairly flexible. You can honk to say ‘thanks’, ‘get the #%@* out of my way’ or ‘heads up, there’s a car behind you and you’re in the road’. The latter can be used to warn other cars, boda-bodas, bicycles, groups of school kids walking home along the highway, and the odd ox-cart/dog combination.
When we were just about halfway to Gulu we passed what looked kind of like a paved rest stop, like we have on the TransCan with bathrooms, etc. These are far from common in Uganda because of the manpower it takes to grade and pave a large area. Phil then explained that this was the original transition area from only somewhat risky rural country to a war zone. Cars would line up in the rest area and wait their turn for a military escort up to Gulu. As in the military would put trucks with armed men at the front, another few in the middle, and again at the back, and they would drive a minimum of 90km/h down a narrow, hella-sketchy pot-hole path and hope that they made it to Gulu without being ambushed by rebels. Holy death.
The military is treated very seriously here because they don’t care to be questioned. I’m not to be taking pictures of anything or anybody that has camouflage, an AK-47 (these are only issued to the police and the military) or a military-specific green and white license plate. You don’t ask them for directions if you’re lost, you don’t joke with them, and if you make eye contact they all watch you until you’re past or out of site. It’s unnerving. For a while many of the soldiers hired by the government were from the areas of Africa that speak Swahili natively, so if someone was giving you trouble or picking a fight you’d turn to your buddy and start going off in Swahili. I’m told this was enough to stop most people in their tracks, and very quickly clear a room.
Anyway, a little bit past the transition area we came up to a section of the river that narrowed into a waterfall and some stunning rapids with huge white froth everywhere. I went to pull out my camera and Dusman gave me one of those ‘nono’ looks. I’ve found that listening to Dusman and Phil is best done without question, immediately. Turns out that the hill on the other side of the road was well outfitted with camouflaged soldiers, and that the area had a great tactical advantage for fighting the LRA. This means that no pictures are allowed to be taken. If one of the soldiers sees you with a camera and radios ahead you get stopped at the bridge over the river and receive a talking to from the commander. Not something any of us wanted a part of.
Past there you’re also in landmine country. There is a white building in town surrounded by the standard barbwire and electric wire fencing full of a team that is dedicated solely to pulling out all the landmines left behind by the LRA. Case in point, last year when Phil and Dusman came to survey the site for this year’s project they could not leave the area directly surrounding the school because the field in front (which is huge, like think football sized) was all mined. This year, we’re building on the other side of that field. Which was also mined.
Both have been cleared of course, but it’s totally surreal to see these swarms of kids, literally hundreds, in their uniforms laughing, playing soccer, skipping games and such in an area that you know was a battlefield.
The realism of the ‘battlefield’ bit got me today too. There are these grooves in the ground that are fairly grown over, no more than 2ft in width, that run in a line between the side road and where the new teacher’s quarters are going to go. These are trenches. No, seriously. Rebels would lay in these with a bunch of grass and a bush or something overtop of them and shoot people. Once I knew what they were I could see them all over the place. Whenever two of the lines meet there’s a mound of dirt in front for someone to set up a tripod. From there if you turn 180 º you see the walls of a little building with three rooms. It’s decrepit, even by African standards. That is because it’s been bombed out.
This is all across from a primary school! 10 minutes outside of downtown Gulu!
The kids are all so happy though. After I’d taken a bunch of photos of the area where we’ll be building I went back across the side road to take some shots of the kids playing. Most of the boys were in the bigger section of the field playing a game of soccer. The ones playing ignored me, which made it really, really easy to get some excellent pictures of the game. The littler kids who were watching were fascinated by the camera and the muzungu operating it.
I have to be careful when I want to take pictures of the kids because I am such a novelty to them. If I show up (even without a camera) they tend to drop whatever they’re doing and come see me. Not necessarily talk to me, being new I think I might kind of scare most of the littler ones, but all the same whatever they were just doing is suddenly way less interesting. The trick seems to be to kind of lurk around the sidelines and not make eye contact until the shock wears off. This only really works with the older kids; I don’t think there is a trick for the little guys.
Anyway, from there I crossed the field to where most of the girls were. They had the right idea, they’d set themselves up under some great big trees in the shade. From there they divided by age group into all sorts of games involving jumping and long loops of what was once string, or hemp. Some were skipping, one group had double-dutch going, but the most popular game involved two girls standing across from each other with the string looped over their heads and around their waists so it was taught between them. Then another girl would do a little hop-dance over the two strings. At first the strings were low, ankle height, then knee height, then waist, then a little higher. It was incredible to see how high they could go without touching the string. Every once in a while someone would land on the string and it would snap. Standard procedure is to knot it back together and carry on. The string they have is very loved, very frayed, and has many knots.
After watching this with great fascination for a while one of the girls asked if I would like to play. Yeah! Absolutely!
I did not stop to consider the level of difficulty involved in the game, this made it much more entertaining when I realized what I’d gotten myself into. They were assembled in a circle around us almost before I had time to set down the camera and my glasses. The girl who had asked me to play was named Clancy, and I learned through imitation. She would do a short routine once or twice, just a few moves, and then I would try. She would do another one with the rope higher, I would attempt it and land on the string. Our audience was wonderfully dynamic, Clancy was of course very good so they would clap and cheer when she’d finished. When it was my turn they were very quiet, crowding in closer. I could usually get the first few jumps right, after that I tended to lose it and got creative. They thought it was hilarious! Clancy had it down to an art, she didn’t look awkward at all, easy as pie. This makes it look deceptively easy. I don’t have any pictures of my attempts, but my arms were definitely flapping and more often than not my feet ended up in front of me instead of behind me where they belonged.
It was so much fun. I definitely need to practice and then try again.
When I was pulled out to go back and film Phil and the others some more I realized that my face actually hurt from laughing and smiling. These kids are amazing. I can’t describe how excited I am to be a part of the team that’s going to give them access to a library. Their own library, with Uganda up-to-date textbooks (this is a big thing in the north), light bulbs, and computers equipped with internet.
Many of them are still living in the refugee camp huts on school property. No running water, no electricity, grass roofs, one room clay and mud huts. School assembly is under a big tree outside because there are too many kids to fit in any of their buildings; one of the classrooms is just a grass roof with benches. Admittedly, it is also the most fun to sit in because that’s what you think of when you think of ‘Disney’ Africa.
Tomorrow if the groundbreaking ceremony, and then the real work starts. Time to jump in, both feet first, no looking back now!
Blast from the Past: Part 2
That's right. It was so exciting the first time that I'm doing it again!
June 29th
Mission statement: ‘Wait for Phillip’. He got in at 7:30am only to discover that his luggage had been left in London. So between filling out all of his lost luggage forms, renting a car, getting caught in the atrocious entity that is rush hour traffic here and running the errands for Ssubi that he had to in town he didn’t make it to us until the evening.
The kids were totally jazzed to see Uncle Phil, and you could tell that he was glad to have made it. It sounds like at some point I’m helping him out with something in downtown Kampala. ‘Down, downtown Kampala’. I have only a vague idea of what that could mean but when asked he smiled widely and merely said that it would be an excellent story for the blog.
Brenda and I had our own errands to run, however. I arrived on a Saturday, so most of the businesses closed at 1:00pm. Then none were open Sunday. This means that getting my hands on some shillings has been a bit delayed. We fixed that today. The interesting part of this was that it was my first time walking around the neighborhood instead of being in a vehicle with the rest of the family. As I’m sure you got from the razor wire, electric wire and broken glass that rings the top of the concrete fence, it’s not exactly common for the kids to go outside and play.
As Brenda and I left on our mission to the bank, I drew many stares. Not so common to see a muzungu in this area, I think. Out of the neighborhood and onto the main road. Across from us was a long line of boda-bodas waiting for customers. They were mostly speaking Luganda with ‘muzungu’ thrown in every once in a while, smiling and calling at us. Then the one on the far left stood up on his bike and yelled at me: “Lady! I cannot tell you how much I love you!”
Brenda looked at me and shrugged. We had crossed the road and were walking in front of them now. I couldn’t just let the fellow down by ignoring his professions of love. I faced him and walked backwards for a moment so that I could reply. “ And I would love you too! ... But not today!”
The boda-bodas were thrilled. The whole line laughed and the fellow on the end smiled. Brenda was shocked, and then laughed as well. It was a good start to our banking errand.
The issue of colour here is interesting. Muzungu’s are usually charged more by vendors and stores because they are seen as foreigners. Even Fred, who has been here for well over 20 years between his youth and being married to Brenda, is charged more. As we walked to the bank Brenda was laughing because traffic would yield and let me cross if I was already halfway into the road. This is not normal. Normal procedure is to run over the pedestrian and honk because they are in the way. But no, not a muzungu. “You are my ticket to everything!” Brenda giggled, then quickly added. “Unless we are buying something, then you stand to the side and pretend you are not with me!” Oh we laughed.
I am so lucky to be staying with people like these.
June 29th
Mission statement: ‘Wait for Phillip’. He got in at 7:30am only to discover that his luggage had been left in London. So between filling out all of his lost luggage forms, renting a car, getting caught in the atrocious entity that is rush hour traffic here and running the errands for Ssubi that he had to in town he didn’t make it to us until the evening.
The kids were totally jazzed to see Uncle Phil, and you could tell that he was glad to have made it. It sounds like at some point I’m helping him out with something in downtown Kampala. ‘Down, downtown Kampala’. I have only a vague idea of what that could mean but when asked he smiled widely and merely said that it would be an excellent story for the blog.
Brenda and I had our own errands to run, however. I arrived on a Saturday, so most of the businesses closed at 1:00pm. Then none were open Sunday. This means that getting my hands on some shillings has been a bit delayed. We fixed that today. The interesting part of this was that it was my first time walking around the neighborhood instead of being in a vehicle with the rest of the family. As I’m sure you got from the razor wire, electric wire and broken glass that rings the top of the concrete fence, it’s not exactly common for the kids to go outside and play.
As Brenda and I left on our mission to the bank, I drew many stares. Not so common to see a muzungu in this area, I think. Out of the neighborhood and onto the main road. Across from us was a long line of boda-bodas waiting for customers. They were mostly speaking Luganda with ‘muzungu’ thrown in every once in a while, smiling and calling at us. Then the one on the far left stood up on his bike and yelled at me: “Lady! I cannot tell you how much I love you!”
Brenda looked at me and shrugged. We had crossed the road and were walking in front of them now. I couldn’t just let the fellow down by ignoring his professions of love. I faced him and walked backwards for a moment so that I could reply. “ And I would love you too! ... But not today!”
The boda-bodas were thrilled. The whole line laughed and the fellow on the end smiled. Brenda was shocked, and then laughed as well. It was a good start to our banking errand.
The issue of colour here is interesting. Muzungu’s are usually charged more by vendors and stores because they are seen as foreigners. Even Fred, who has been here for well over 20 years between his youth and being married to Brenda, is charged more. As we walked to the bank Brenda was laughing because traffic would yield and let me cross if I was already halfway into the road. This is not normal. Normal procedure is to run over the pedestrian and honk because they are in the way. But no, not a muzungu. “You are my ticket to everything!” Brenda giggled, then quickly added. “Unless we are buying something, then you stand to the side and pretend you are not with me!” Oh we laughed.
I am so lucky to be staying with people like these.
Blast from the Past: Part 1
The thing about Africa is that nothing it really reliable, except perhaps that the AK-47's the police and soldiers tote around are always loaded. So the unreliable bits include things like... electricity. Water. Phone lines. Internet. As a result I've had a terrible time finding an opportunity to connect to the internet while there is actually power. Thus! I give you a blast from the past! Travel back in time with me to when the power was out and all Billy wanted to do was play Monopoly! (Over... and over... and over...)
June 28th
I’ve noticed I’m settling into a routine, which is nice because it’s starting to even out how much sleep I get. The sun rises and sets early here, and I’ve started to follow its example. Brenda and Zoe were teasing me last night because it was hardly 8:30pm and I was absolutely falling asleep in my chair. Then of course I woke up at 5:30am or some silly hour like that.
Today is the day Phil is supposed to get here, and I have a sneaking suspicion that that means things will start to move significantly faster than the nice, relaxed pace I’ve been at so far, hahaha.
Yesterday we went to the Bahá’í House of Worship, and it was so interesting! There is a religion, created by a Prophet called Baha’u’llah that encompasses a whole bunch of other different religions that I had never heard of. The House is located up high on the top of a hill and has a domed top similar to a mosque. The whole thing is circular and there are doors on all sides that are left open so the breeze can come through during service. Service itself was pretty straight forwards, someone comes up and reads a section of the Bible, or the Qu’ran, or the Tablets of the Bab, and so on. Then in between every few readings there is a song by the choir. The choir sits in the middle of the worshippers and just sort of picks up between every few readings. There is a really nice echo in the House, the same as a Church, but without the heavy feeling I get when I’m surrounded by intense stained glass windows and pipe organs. Also, there is no priest or over-seeing holy individual. Every week there is a theme that anyone who wants to read a prayer focuses the prayer on. As you probably got from farther up, there isn’t any one religious text either. It was interesting to sit and listen to prayers read in Luganda, Kiswali, English... there was even a Persian chant at one point. The whole House feels very calm and airy, it’s really quite relaxing and pleasant.
After the service the worshippers split into groups. Most of the adults went a little farther down the hill to a shorter, round building with a flat roof that they called the Centre for a talk on the theme of the week. The kids and some of the other adults grouped together for the equivalent of ‘Sunday School’. First the younger kids were sat down on benches at a table and they practiced that nursery rhyme ‘The more we get together’ in Luganda and in English. I decided to stay with the kids, having no real pull to go to the talk, and they thought it was hilarious when I tried to learn the Luganda words to the song with them. Especially the two little siblings who didn’t speak English; I think that was the most I saw them smile all morning. In all fairness, my Luganda is terrible, so I can’t blame them. Words are so closely pronounced that I’m sure what actually came out of my mouth – despite my best efforts – did not always mean what I intended it to mean.
After the singing they were divided by age and language for ‘lessons’. I went with the middle age group to learn about Manifestations of God.
Now, how many manifestations of God can you name? Bearing in mind that they want people, Prophets, Messengers of God. I, being a pretty non-religious person, had only three that came to mind. These were the ‘big three’ of Muhammad, Jesus and Moses. Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
Oh how I was to be surprised.
First they asked the kids to name these Manifestations and give the date the Prophet came, what the followers were called and what the religion was called. Well, I was infinitely out of my league. They started naming people I had never heard of. There are at least eight Manifestations that these kids could name. So there is the Bab, the Baha’u’llah, Jesus, Krishna, Muhammed, Moses, Buddha and Zorastor. There is also debate about whether Abraham counts. I don’t generally think of Buddha and Krishna as Prophets, but they’re certainly holy so sure, why not? Anyway, we talked about the four aspects of each of these Manifestations and named them, and I can now recite things like ‘the Prophet Muhammed arrived in the year 600 AD, his followers were the Muslims and they practiced Islam’, ‘the Manifestation of God The Bab arrived in 1844, his followers were the Babis and they practiced Babí’. The kids thought it was hilarious that I was having such a rough time keeping all of these people straight because to them it’s very basic. Aiya!
After the House of Worship we drove back to the house and prepared for my first African rain. It dumps here! Think Calgary’s worst thunder storm as their standard rainfall. It was intense, but had a wonderful effect on the amount of dust in the air. I am gaining a new appreciation for heavy rain.
The rest of the day was pretty low key, and then in the evening we went over to the Salon. The Salon is just what it sounds like, a hair salon, owned by a family friend almost right next to where Jaja (Phil’s mom) lives. It’s where all the adults, and thus all the kids, gather to talk and hang out. The noise was incredible! You have the women all meeting to discuss a wedding that’s going to take place this weekend, the men all drinking and laughing, vendors and other locals having a good time as they hawk their wares, and children wrestling, bopping each other in the head, picking up the younger kids (who yell in excitement or cry blue murder), roaring like tigers, screaming, begging their mom’s for a treat or attention and then the regular bustle of an African Salon filled with gossip and the blare of the local radio station.
It was very loud, to say the least. The people are all kind and welcoming, and I was introduced to another wave of family friends. It’s terrible, I can’t keep anyone’s name straight anymore except for the little kids.
The end result is that if I end up coming back from Gulu for any reason I’ve been invited to the wedding on Saturday. Brenda’s sister and a very nice fellow by the name of Scott are getting married up at the Bahá‘í House of Worship in the African style. Even after a lengthy discussion this morning with Brenda I’m not entirely sure I understand how this is hugely different from a Western style wedding, but part of it seems to be how the wedding is paid for. Because it’s terribly offensive to not be invite the whole family these weddings are huge, and therefore expensive. So at the meetings held each week to organize the wedding pledge cards are passed around and people are asked to donate some shillings to help offset the cost of the wedding. This could be anything from 20 Shillings (less than 1 cent CDN) to 5000 or 20,000 Shillings ($2.50 and $10.00).
‘Family’ is a much more encompassing expression in Africa than in Canada. There is the standard nuclear family (mother, father, siblings), and then there is the extended family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) but the extended family has to be considered for the maternal and paternal side of both the bride and groom. Then add friends of the bride and groom, their children, and any friends that come but don’t want to go alone and so bring a friend of their own for company. Ok, we’re now at what I would consider to be a fairly large Canadian wedding. BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!
Women born in the same month often get together in a sort of ‘womens club’, kind of like Bridge night or book club or what-have-you. They all have to be invited. So to give an example Jaja was (I believe) born in August, so the four women who get together with her because they were also born in August and grew up with her have to be invited. That applies to the grandmothers, aunts, mothers-in-law, female friends, etc. So now the number has increased again. As I listened to Brenda explain the process of this African-style wedding I just couldn’t help but be struck by the sheer size of it. Other groups like the ‘womens group’ kept being added, and while there is of course some overlap, a lot of it is pulling more and more people into the celebration.
I don’t think I will get married in Africa.
June 28th
I’ve noticed I’m settling into a routine, which is nice because it’s starting to even out how much sleep I get. The sun rises and sets early here, and I’ve started to follow its example. Brenda and Zoe were teasing me last night because it was hardly 8:30pm and I was absolutely falling asleep in my chair. Then of course I woke up at 5:30am or some silly hour like that.
Today is the day Phil is supposed to get here, and I have a sneaking suspicion that that means things will start to move significantly faster than the nice, relaxed pace I’ve been at so far, hahaha.
Yesterday we went to the Bahá’í House of Worship, and it was so interesting! There is a religion, created by a Prophet called Baha’u’llah that encompasses a whole bunch of other different religions that I had never heard of. The House is located up high on the top of a hill and has a domed top similar to a mosque. The whole thing is circular and there are doors on all sides that are left open so the breeze can come through during service. Service itself was pretty straight forwards, someone comes up and reads a section of the Bible, or the Qu’ran, or the Tablets of the Bab, and so on. Then in between every few readings there is a song by the choir. The choir sits in the middle of the worshippers and just sort of picks up between every few readings. There is a really nice echo in the House, the same as a Church, but without the heavy feeling I get when I’m surrounded by intense stained glass windows and pipe organs. Also, there is no priest or over-seeing holy individual. Every week there is a theme that anyone who wants to read a prayer focuses the prayer on. As you probably got from farther up, there isn’t any one religious text either. It was interesting to sit and listen to prayers read in Luganda, Kiswali, English... there was even a Persian chant at one point. The whole House feels very calm and airy, it’s really quite relaxing and pleasant.
After the service the worshippers split into groups. Most of the adults went a little farther down the hill to a shorter, round building with a flat roof that they called the Centre for a talk on the theme of the week. The kids and some of the other adults grouped together for the equivalent of ‘Sunday School’. First the younger kids were sat down on benches at a table and they practiced that nursery rhyme ‘The more we get together’ in Luganda and in English. I decided to stay with the kids, having no real pull to go to the talk, and they thought it was hilarious when I tried to learn the Luganda words to the song with them. Especially the two little siblings who didn’t speak English; I think that was the most I saw them smile all morning. In all fairness, my Luganda is terrible, so I can’t blame them. Words are so closely pronounced that I’m sure what actually came out of my mouth – despite my best efforts – did not always mean what I intended it to mean.
After the singing they were divided by age and language for ‘lessons’. I went with the middle age group to learn about Manifestations of God.
Now, how many manifestations of God can you name? Bearing in mind that they want people, Prophets, Messengers of God. I, being a pretty non-religious person, had only three that came to mind. These were the ‘big three’ of Muhammad, Jesus and Moses. Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
Oh how I was to be surprised.
First they asked the kids to name these Manifestations and give the date the Prophet came, what the followers were called and what the religion was called. Well, I was infinitely out of my league. They started naming people I had never heard of. There are at least eight Manifestations that these kids could name. So there is the Bab, the Baha’u’llah, Jesus, Krishna, Muhammed, Moses, Buddha and Zorastor. There is also debate about whether Abraham counts. I don’t generally think of Buddha and Krishna as Prophets, but they’re certainly holy so sure, why not? Anyway, we talked about the four aspects of each of these Manifestations and named them, and I can now recite things like ‘the Prophet Muhammed arrived in the year 600 AD, his followers were the Muslims and they practiced Islam’, ‘the Manifestation of God The Bab arrived in 1844, his followers were the Babis and they practiced Babí’. The kids thought it was hilarious that I was having such a rough time keeping all of these people straight because to them it’s very basic. Aiya!
After the House of Worship we drove back to the house and prepared for my first African rain. It dumps here! Think Calgary’s worst thunder storm as their standard rainfall. It was intense, but had a wonderful effect on the amount of dust in the air. I am gaining a new appreciation for heavy rain.
The rest of the day was pretty low key, and then in the evening we went over to the Salon. The Salon is just what it sounds like, a hair salon, owned by a family friend almost right next to where Jaja (Phil’s mom) lives. It’s where all the adults, and thus all the kids, gather to talk and hang out. The noise was incredible! You have the women all meeting to discuss a wedding that’s going to take place this weekend, the men all drinking and laughing, vendors and other locals having a good time as they hawk their wares, and children wrestling, bopping each other in the head, picking up the younger kids (who yell in excitement or cry blue murder), roaring like tigers, screaming, begging their mom’s for a treat or attention and then the regular bustle of an African Salon filled with gossip and the blare of the local radio station.
It was very loud, to say the least. The people are all kind and welcoming, and I was introduced to another wave of family friends. It’s terrible, I can’t keep anyone’s name straight anymore except for the little kids.
The end result is that if I end up coming back from Gulu for any reason I’ve been invited to the wedding on Saturday. Brenda’s sister and a very nice fellow by the name of Scott are getting married up at the Bahá‘í House of Worship in the African style. Even after a lengthy discussion this morning with Brenda I’m not entirely sure I understand how this is hugely different from a Western style wedding, but part of it seems to be how the wedding is paid for. Because it’s terribly offensive to not be invite the whole family these weddings are huge, and therefore expensive. So at the meetings held each week to organize the wedding pledge cards are passed around and people are asked to donate some shillings to help offset the cost of the wedding. This could be anything from 20 Shillings (less than 1 cent CDN) to 5000 or 20,000 Shillings ($2.50 and $10.00).
‘Family’ is a much more encompassing expression in Africa than in Canada. There is the standard nuclear family (mother, father, siblings), and then there is the extended family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) but the extended family has to be considered for the maternal and paternal side of both the bride and groom. Then add friends of the bride and groom, their children, and any friends that come but don’t want to go alone and so bring a friend of their own for company. Ok, we’re now at what I would consider to be a fairly large Canadian wedding. BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!
Women born in the same month often get together in a sort of ‘womens club’, kind of like Bridge night or book club or what-have-you. They all have to be invited. So to give an example Jaja was (I believe) born in August, so the four women who get together with her because they were also born in August and grew up with her have to be invited. That applies to the grandmothers, aunts, mothers-in-law, female friends, etc. So now the number has increased again. As I listened to Brenda explain the process of this African-style wedding I just couldn’t help but be struck by the sheer size of it. Other groups like the ‘womens group’ kept being added, and while there is of course some overlap, a lot of it is pulling more and more people into the celebration.
I don’t think I will get married in Africa.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Safe in Gulu
Right, I'm in Gulu. The drive up was many things but it was certainly never boring.
I am alive.
I am tired.
I will post tomorrow assuming there is power.
I am alive.
I am tired.
I will post tomorrow assuming there is power.
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