Greetings from Uganda

From the beginning this blog has not been only for you, family, friends and faithful readers. It has been a way for me to better my skills as a writer and to document the experience for the future. I feel successful on both counts but at this moment I’m feeling like it’s been a while since I’ve explained what Amber and I are up to on a more average, day to day level. It’s easy to write about the exciting stuff that happened but it’s much more difficult to convey what happens pretty much every day, and make it interesting to read for everyone. I’ve written about what it’s like to shop and to eat out and to get the car fixed. It’s still like that to me although some of the people I shop from know me by now and will sometimes add an extra tomato or throw a couple of oranges in with my lemons. My regular mechanic, I’m guessing he’s around 23 years old and a wiz on a RAV4, calls me once in a while to make sure the car is running well and if anything needs fixing. Sure, he’s trying to drum up business but he knows the car well and I have to say it’s nice to have his concern.

We’ve spent many weekends going somewhere or other to see as much of the country we can afford. Most weekends, however, are spent right here in Mbarara sitting in the sun, or shade depending on how hot the day, catching up on organization or projects. A Couple of times we’ve gone to the big hotel in town to swim in the pool (7000 Ush = $3.50 US roughly) and drink a cold Nile Special (approx. 22oz and only $1.25 thank you very much). In the afternoons our neighbors and ourselves often congregate somewhere whether it be for a walk or around a table on the porch for some drinks. Sometimes we go to Pasco and Alicia’s for a movie on the laptop projector and a potluck dinner. They have a big, flat, blank wall and plenty of space for seating. I have to say, I’m a huge fan of the potluck. Everyone here is a pretty decent cook and, with a short list of ingredients available to us, someone will make something great that I wouldn’t think of myself. So it’s a great place to exchange ideas about food and information about which store currently has what. The potluck is also a common place for people to show off their recent care package arrivals. We recently got a package from our friends Erin and George that contained Vegetarian Sloppy Joe Mix! Man, were we the hit that night.

During the week I’m usually up first and so I make the coffee. Sometimes we have a toasted piece of my homemade bread. Sometimes we have a fresh passionfuit and banana smoothie (8 passionfruit for 50cents and 1 bunch of size small bananas for 50 cents makes about 6 8oz. smoothies). I try to alternate my days with writing all day on one and painting all day on another, but end up spending most of my time writing or reading. Painting is fun but I feel like writing more these days. Amber, after sending her research staff out for the day to gather data, spends most of her days entering data or planning the next phase of the project. Sometimes she has to go out into the field to oversee some new procedure or, in the case of recent visitors Cissi and Todd, show our friends the ins and outs of her project. She’s also been giving advice and instruction to some of her staff on applying for graduate schools and showing some of the other researchers the capabilities of computer mapping or giving advice on their research. That’s Amber, always giving, always going. It’s great to see her perform in her element. As for me, I can complete a painting within a day but don’t usually get very far, even after spending most of the day, writing. It’s a painful, sometimes self-deflating job to try to write something worth reading. But when you do something good it really feels good. I do make progress, but I look forward to the days of more progress in less time.

Thursday has become the most productive night of the week for me. It’s the night I do Deano’s Pizzeria and many have said its their favorite night of the week. Orders average somewhere between 12 and 18 but often I make 20 to 30 pizzas in one night. The record right now is 32. Someone will put a few tables together and round up as many chairs as we can and it turns into a party. After making pizza for everyone I’ve often brought out the guitar and entertained folks as well. I get my orders the night before so I can make the dough and let it proof in the fridge overnight. On Thursday morning I go into town and do the shopping then come back and spend the rest of the day doing prep. It takes the whole day to get ready to make 20 + pizza’s. Around 5:00 p.m. Amber will put her research aside and help out by decorating the pizza’s as I roll out the crusts. Amber and I, with tons of kitchen experience collectively, are a powerful force in the kitchen and can crank out 30 pizza’s in just a couple of hours. I’m usually sitting down with my own dinner, kitchen clean and everything put away, by 9 or 9:30. My prices are similar to pizza prices in town, averaging 10,000 Ush per pizza. So let’s do the math. I put about 2 hours into getting orders and making dough on Wednesday. Then I work from 8 til 9:30 on Thursday. Amber puts in 2 hours to make the total hours of labor to be 15.5 for one pizza night. Lets say it’s a good night and I sold 22 pizzas. At 10,000 per pizza that 220,000 Ush gross income. The supplies for 22 pizzas cost 75,000 Ush which makes my net income to be 145,000 Ush. Divide that by 15.5 and you’ll find that I’m making 9,355 Ush per hour which, with the current exchange rate at 2100 Ush to the US dollar equals $4.54 per hour. That’s not enough to live on at home but here it pays our electric bill and gives us a little extra something to save for special occasions. It would be nice to pass this little business on to an entrepreneurial Ugandan to keep it going but for now it’s kinda saving our skin here. I even got a uniform from the Deano’s Pizza in Santa Barbara courtesy of Danny and Lynn. Thanks guys, I finally feel legit.

I’ve spent a lot of time the last couple of weeks patching holes in the fence where dogs come through at night. We have 2 dogs on the compound full time and one is in heat. This has attracted every scraggly male around and they get into fights right outside our door at the most in hospitable hour. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten out of bed at 3 a.m. to throw rocks and chase them off. It doesn’t matter if I successfully block off all the holes in the fence. Some of the dogs are so skinny they fit between the bars on the gate. Oh well, she won’t be in heat forever. And when she's not things will go back to normal and I'll get better rest.