Back Up A Few Weeks

11/12/08

This week has been busy. And it’s only Wednesday! I’ve been acting as driver for Amber and her 2 research assistants as they start the preliminary work on her project. The map we have of the area we are working in is deceiving to the eye. It looks like it’s not that far but we’ve driven over 320km in 2 days. My explanation for it is that the roads are much less straight than the map suggests. One road we took was, if you were to scale it off the map, about 40km long. But the cars’ odometer tells me we actually went 60km. I suggested earlier that perhaps the odometer is not that accurate but that was when it seemed that the total mileage of the car (or should I say kilometerage?) was much smaller than I would’ve expected for its age. I don’t know what to think now. Perhaps I’ll start thinking of distances in matter of time. That drive will take 30minutes or 1 hour, for instance. But that kind of knowledge only comes from experience. And what I experienced this week is that you have to take some roads much slower than others depending on how wet the ground is. Which brings me to another experience we’ve had this week.
The rainy season started a month or so ago but it’s only in the last week that I could describe it this way. Oh yeah, it has rained quite a bit since I’ve been here, but it’s raining almost every day now. And when it rains it’s a real deluge. With thunder and lightening! And I bless those rains down here in Africa too, Toto. The green beans I saw planted along the road the first couple days of being here are looking pretty ripe already. I’d sure like to be able to throw a couple seeds in the ground every now and then to keep a constant rotation of fresh veggies coming in. Uganda is rich in land, that ‘s for sure. It’s a mixture of sensation because while it is raining or getting ready to rain the feeling is much like October at home. But we still get some sunshine almost everyday and when the sun comes out it is like July.

On Tuesday we traveled to the village of Nyanga on the shore of Lake Kichira. The size of the lake felt roughly the same size and shape of Lake Washington in Seattle. It was very far from the highway and the road is not heavily traveled. I figure this is due to the fact that most people seemed to be doing fine living mainly off the land. Most homes had large pieces of land, several cattle, goats, chickens, sheep, and their own matoke plantations. It felt a little like Ireland at times what with all the lush greenness. Part of the drive took us into Lake Mburo National Park. Cruising through low lying grasslands full of wild animals like zebra, impala, bushbuck, warthog, and red-crested crane (the national bird). It was also very swampy and people had taken to driving wherever it was dry so they wouldn’t get stuck. This made it very difficult to know if we were heading in the right direction and if we were going to be able to find our way back. Luckily a young man on a boda was going our direction and he signaled for us to follow him. He became our guide and scout for the dry path. People here keep surprising me with their courtesy and helpfulness. They’re really pleasant, especially when you get out into the countryside. We ran into the village chairman on our way out to the village. He was on his way to a funeral but told us we could see the village secretary in his absence to get the information we need. He said the secretary is at home now and actually has all the information Amber is looking for. The secretary’s home is situated at the top of a boulder encrusted hill, overlooking the lake. It’s a gorgeous piece of land that he tells me is going to be for sale soon. I didn’t ask why. From the top of a smooth piece of granite I can see the neighbors with their cattle grazing, a group of monkeys eating in the trees behind me, two fisher eagles in a dead tree on the lakeshore, and a lone fisherman out on the lake in a dugout canoe. Yeah, I could live here.

Luckily, since we lost our guide, we were able to follow our tracks back through the field. I should’ve brought a compass, however, Amber did one better and brought a GPS unit. We will be back to this village many times so plotting our route will make the drive much easier next time. The rainy season should be over in a few weeks too and that will also help.

As you can see, and much to my excitement, there are photos for all to see and enjoy! I've added a few more below to an older post. Our internet connection has greatly improved. Hopefully it stays that way.

A Few Examples of Daily Life

11/21/08 On Mondays our apartment is cleaned by a young girl named Scovia. She cleans everyone’s apartment in our little complex. She also does our laundry. For this we give her between 10,000 – 15,000 depending on the amount of laundry. It’s a really good job especially for someone her age. While she cleans we need to be out of her way so Amber and I go to the university canteen for black tea and chapatti breakfast. The canteen is like a cafeteria/pub and it’s run by a popular gentleman named Benin. There is a television and sometimes we get a little news from BBC but usually it’s set on football (which means soccer of course). They are never ready for us so we wait for sometimes up to an hour for service. This is typical in Ugandan restaurants. I’m told the restaurant industry is less than ten years old here. They’re still figuring things out. After breakfast Amber goes to her office at the university and I go to town and do our shopping for the week.

The central market is a very cool place. Often I find myself just scanning the booths trying to inventory everything there is to offer. Who has the best tomatoes and peppers and which pineapple looks best? Some stalls are very organized and full and the produce is polished to an attractive sheen. Some stalls have very little to offer and their avocados or bananas may be a couple days past ripe. In one corner of the market you can buy live chickens. It stinks over there so I try to avoid it. In another corner there are two long buildings with wire screen windows like livestock barns at the country fair. One building is the fish market. There’s really only one fish in there, tilapia. Dried, fresh, whole or fillets. The other building is the meat market. I’ll never go in there, it’s disgusting. I can see raw cow parts sitting on a wooden bench that’s drenched in old blood and other bits hanging from hooks. At least they’re in the shade. I can’t imagine what the smell would be like in an outdoor meat market. There isn’t much opportunity to haggle for produce. The sellers have their goods portioned out into even numbered price groups. Besides, produce is really cheap. A giant head of cabbage for 1000ush (56 cents), 1kg (2.2 pounds) of potatoes for 500ush, a large pineapple for 2000ush, how can you feel good about yourself if you want to pay less? I get packaged items at a regular grocery store. There are many in Mbarara and they each have a slightly different selection. We get instant coffee in a small tin can. It’s not bad. Better than Maxwell house, much better. The spices are leaps and bounds better and cheaper. I think they must be fresher because after a few visits to one store you get a feel for what’s new and I’ve noticed they go through a lot of spices. The peanut butter is local and out of this world! So is the honey. The crackers and cookies we buy come from Iran. We buy a lot of tomato paste and pasta as well as rice and dried beans. Out of this we can eat Italian or Mexican or Asian meals. I’ve even made tortillas from corn flour grown locally. It would be easier with a tortilla press though. It took me an hour to make a dozen using a coffee mug as a rolling pin and a bowl as a cookie cutter but they came out pretty good.

The haggling comes into play when we’re buying services or things for the car. The roads are bad, as I’ve told you, and we’ve taken some pretty big potholes harder than I would’ve liked to, so today I had a stabilizer and some bushings replaced. I’ve got a regular mechanic already. I’m trying to develop a relationship with him so he doesn’t automatically double the price for a muzungu like me, a standard practice around here. His name is Abas and he looks to be about 22 – 25 years old. He and a friend worked on the RAV for about an hour and the bill came to 15,000ush for parts ($8.36) and 25,000ush for labor ($13.93). When I compute the exchange rate it sounds like a bargain but compared to what I hear other people paying for work coupled with the feeling that every price is doubled for a foreigner I try to haggle with him. It’s not the price it’s the principle. Just because I’m not from here doesn’t mean I should pay double, right? There are a lot of tricks to haggling and I have a lot to learn. One thing I try to do is always get a price up front, before any work has been done. Abas told me he would do the work for 15,000 before he started. I said okay but when he was done he added the 25,000 for labor. He said 15,000 was just for parts! I felt a little stuck since he had done the work already but I told him I would need his services again and I certainly would’ve paid more than 15,000 for what he did so I offered 20,000 more for the labor. He knows his way around a RAV4 and his work is good. Maybe someday I’ll feel like I’m getting a local price.

Being here has definitely made me more of a skeptic. I was going down a city street the other day and was stopped by a man saying I was going the wrong way down a one way. No big deal, there was plenty of room to turn around. But as I was turning around he came to my window and said I needed to pay him a fine before I go. Nice try but I think I’ll just go. He was just some dude on the street, not a cop. Shortly after this incident I found a parking place and headed into the market. On the way in I was approached by a man who had just come from a lighting store. They sell light bulbs exclusively. He tells me he noticed as I was parking that my brake lights weren’t working and I need new bulbs. “Really? I’ll get my mechanic to take a look at them. Thanks.” They were working just fine. Can you blame me for my skepticism? I think it’s saving me money.

The compound we live in is really comfortable. There is a group of about 12 of us that hang out regularly. We cook meals for each other or together. Sometimes we play cards. Sometimes we all go out for dinner. Sometimes we split up and do things as smaller groups. Most of us are American but there are some Brits, some Canadians, Cubans, a few Indians, a Kiwi, 2 Belgians and a Swiss. And there is a constant rotation of guests. Every few weeks we lose a couple and gain a couple more but it feels pretty balanced as far as personalities and interests go. Danny from Santa Barbara runs yoga sessions three times a week out on the lawn. Amber, Danny, and I are helping a local man put together an aid trip to the north of Uganda. There are people there that have lived in refugee camps their whole lives because of the civil war. The war is now over and the refugees are being asked to leave the camps and start their own lives but they have nothing. No possessions and no skills. They’ve been living on handouts, they don’t know how to get a job or how to plant crops or anything. Many of the muzungus living here are doctors and are working in the hospital at the university together. Some of them work for the U.N. and the Millennium Villages Project so they go out into the field for a week or two at a time. Everyone of them has an interesting story to tell every time we get together. This Thanksgiving about 8 of us will get together for a potluck feast. The Brits, affectionately calling it “Good Riddance Day”, are still willing to pig out with us even though it’s not their holiday. I’ll be making my vegetarian stuffing with homemade bread this year because the only bread sold in the stores here is the Ugandan equivalent of “Wonder Bread”. Amber is going to make a pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkin. I hope yours is enjoyable and ful-FILLING!

Just a few random facts and phrases I’ve learned……
1. The last time the highway was paved was back in the 60’s. No wonder it sucks!
2. That whole water spinning the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere thing is true. You can witness it for yourself at a café on the equator. And directly over the equator the water doesn’t spin it just goes straight down!
3. The town we’re living in (roughly the population of Bellingham) doesn’t have a mayor but they’re working on it. Also, there are no stop lights or stop signs.
4. It’s grasshopper season here. For the next few weeks you can buy fried grasshoppers, or live ones to fry yourself, in the markets and on the street. They’re legs have been amputated in case you’re worried they might get away.
5. There are a lot of bats hanging in trees around town. They only live in a certain type of tree. I think because the bark of this tree is easy to hold on to. A few days ago they all left. To where I’m not sure.
6. We experience regular blackouts. The power company can’t keep up with the demand of the country so it has to take from one area to satisfy another every few days. There are two dams on the Nile but only one is in operation.
7. The phone numbers have 10 digits and there are no zip codes anywhere in Uganda.

Fort Portal and Kibale National Park

November 6th

So much of my faith has been restored in America today! For the first time in my life we have a President I am excited about. I can’t believe it. It almost doesn’t seem real. Even the locals are excited about it. The front page of all the papers have headlines reading "OBAMA!". I was stopped in the market by an older man. He said "Where are you from? Who is your president? Is it Bush?" I replied "No sir, it's Obama." He pulled a poster from out of his jacket. It was a poster of Obama. He then put his arm around me, hugged me, kissed the back of my hand and said "He is one of us! I love you!" I guess if I'm going to be the center of attention in the middle of the town market then these are pretty good circumstances to be under. I could think of much worse things to have happen but still, I was embarrassed. Everyone there was laughing. Luckily I was done with my shopping so I saluted the man and said the only two things I know how to say in his language, "thank you, goodbye".

October 31st
Friday afternoon we pack the car and head north to visit our friends Steve and Sarah in Kibale National Park. Sarah is also a medical geography phd candidate at the University of Washington. She is doing research into diseases shared by humans and monkeys.
It’s a gorgeous day for a drive. Our destination is approximately 235 km away and, depending on the condition of the road, the drive should take us between 3.5 and 4.5hrs. Amber and I are excited to go to a new place and to try out the new car and to listen to the music mixes I made this week for the drive.

Just west of Mbarara and for the first 80km or so the landscape is mostly agricultural. Matoke fields, the staple crop for Ugandans, is a type of banana. I’ve grown to like it a lot and to be able to tell if it’s of good quality or not. The countryside is so lush and wet. The growing season is year round here and there isn’t any need to irrigate. Uganda is very fortunate to have Mother Nature looking after them so well. They haven’t had the famines like you hear about in Ethiopia and other countries. The sun is out but there is rain in the distance. Soon we go up and over a short mountain pass which reveals a tremendous view of the Great Rift Valley. This valley, created by some rather drastic plate tectonics, is an intersection of dry grasslands and swamp from the east and the Rwenzori Mountains on the western border of Uganda. This is also the valley the River Nile is flowing through. The grassland we are now in has been designated as Queen Elizabeth National Park. It is home to a lot of wildlife including elephants and antelope so we are hoping for a chance encounter. The scale of things is tremendous, reminding me of Wyoming from I-90 looking south to the Big Horn Mountains. We pass a sign depicting a head on collision of a bus with an elephant but this is as close as we get to seeing an elephant. I must tell you, because I’m rather shocked, that the road is by far the nicest road I’ve seen in Uganda. I was told it was recently rebuilt by the Chinese as an aid project I think, to prepare for a visit from Queen Elizabeth herself. In the end she never came but sent Prince Charles instead.
3hrs and 45 minutes later we arrive in the town of Fort Portal and meet Sarah and Steve and at a popular hotel for a post drive beer. There are many brands to pick from here but they all taste similar. Lagers and Pilsners go well with the climate and, even though there is no IPA, I’m happy to have something cold to sip. Our first night of the trip we stayed at The Rwenzori View Guest House. A lovely B&B style inn built by a brit named Maurice. Breakfast is simple and lovely, served around a large table and shared by all the guests. This encourages conversation of course, which is dominated by Maurice, but that is quite alright for he’s got some interesting insight on Uganda. He has been here for some 35 years and has in that time served on the city council. By his account the country is a rapidly changing place not only in landscape but in social aspects as well. The conversation predictably turns to the election in the U.S. You at home, believe me when I tell you that yes, the rest of the world is watching. Even in our small town in rural Uganda the newspaper headlines are all talking about Obama.

Saturday morning and Steve and Sarah have gone to town to do their shopping for the week. Their cabin is about 45 minutes outside of town down a dirt road and inside Kibale National Park so they only get to town about once a week. After a relaxing morning writing in our journals, Amber and I follow to pick them up and head to their cabin for the next night. Their lifestyle is much more rough than ours. I feel pretty lucky now to have a toilet to sit on and a bathtub that I fit in. They have a latrine, meaning nothing but a hole to squat over, and the hot water in the shower is solar heated so it takes a couple hours to heat five minutes worth of hot water. And that’s if the sun is out. They live in a rainforest and the big thing you have to watch out for there, other than the aggressive baboons, are mango flies. These flies land on wet clothing and leave their larvae which then hatch and burrow into your skin to develop into a fly. If you get one you have to cover it with nail polish to kill it and then, after a day or two, extract the dead larva (EEEWW!!). All laundry is left to dry under bug nets that are treated with insecticide and once it is dry it is then ironed for extra posterity. I never saw a mango fly and I never want to.

Kibale National Park is well known for monkeys and chimpanzees. A lot of people go there to research them and tourists go for guided tracking tours. Over the course of the next 24hrs we see probably fifty of them. Among them are Black and White Colobus, Red Colobus, Red-tailed, Blue monkeys, and Grey monkeys. If I ever manage to get pictures up you’ll see why they’re called blue monkeys. They are so fun to watch jump from limb to limb. Each species has their own style of climbing. Some are better than others.

The drive back was also glorious and we took a detour into Queen Elizabeth for lunch at a very posh lodge overlooking a lake. Jacana Safari Lodge is about 14km off the road but every bit worth the detour. I’m talking breaded fish served over sautéed vegetables and covered in a mustard sauce with rice pilaf like you don’t get in Mbarara. We will definitely be back here. The car performed beautifully, we had a great time and D.o.g. was happy to see that we didn’t leave him for good.

I’ve been here for a month now. It’s starting to feel natural and comfortable. I have only learned a couple of words in runyankole, the local language, but I am able to go to the market and do the shopping. We will be getting lessons soon. Amber has hired two research assistants and I’m sure we could ask one of them to teach us. Perhaps while we’re out in the field doing Amber’s research. They’re starting initial interviews next week and I will go with some of the time just for the chance to see more of the countryside. I’ve been spending a lot of the weekdays working on my writing and playing music. I’m very lucky!