Traffic is more dangerous than we thought

Traffic seems to be a way of life around here.  And it's not just your everyday, run-of-the-mill traffic.  It is turn off your car, sit for twenty minutes, turn on the car with a heart full of hope that it is over, move 20 yards, then repeat kind of traffic.  So, and entire industry has grown up around marketing everything from toilet paper to loofah sponges to food to those unlucky souls stuck in the "jam," as they call it here.  This particular night we bought lots of "g-nuts," which are roasted peanuts, since we hadn't eaten, and a map of Africa.  I hope you can see this photo clearly, but it is a very young girl, probably no older than Joe, with a basket of bananas, selling to a very captive and hungry clientele. 

Yesterday after a trip to Jinja (source of the Nile river, post to follow),  and after being pulled over for speeding (are they kidding!), we got to the far side of the city at about 6:45. It is about seven miles from there to our house.  By 9:00 or so, we were still stuck in the jam, and were trying to entertain ourselves by talking about our favorite episodes of our favorite TV shows (Community was widely discussed!) when Sam saw the top of a head outside of Joe's car window.  (Yes, the windows were down--it was hot!).  So, thinking it was one of the kids who frequently sell their wares, he gave a cheerful "Hello!"  Then the child grew into a man, who peered into the car looking to see what he might be able to snatch.  It happened so fast I don't even think Joe and Mary, also in the backseat, were aware of what was happening.  The man seized on Joe's jacket, and if it were not for Sam's quick reflexes, he would have been the proud new owner of a well-worn Gap child's hoodie.  What he didn't realize was that just a few inches away was Mary's iPod, which would have made his day!  All we saw was a very dark figure running into the night.  It all happened so fast.  Needless to say, windows went up.  Joe needed some calming down, as did Sam.  It took a while to process what had ALMOST happened.

We all remarked that it was really the first time that we had felt threatened since we got here.  We will try not to let our guard down again.

Coincidentally, our friend from Rexburg had just jokingly texted us to say that he was sorry we were stuck in traffic but glad that we hadn't been mugged yet!  Nice timing! 

We didn't get home until after 10:00.  Over three hours to go seven miles.  As they tend to say here, TIA (This is Africa!).

Women's Health & Education

 

--> We had a great day this week at the school where we sponsor several children to attend school (more on this at a later blog post).  Saint Ann Grace is a rural school (outhouse facilities & minimal electricity) about an hour north of Kampala. (type 0° 32’ 48.20” N  32° 47’ 35.05” into Google Earth for a bird's eye view.)  Relief Society groups in the Rexburg area, together with help from our friend Damalie here (see previous post) put together about 500 sanitary napkin kits for girls who otherwise would have to miss school during their periods.   

Mary taking a few questions from the girls.

Not the most comfortable topic for Sam & totally bewildering for Joe, but the day was filled with girly instruction on how to make the kits in the hopes of selling them to other girls or schools.   While the girls did their thing, Sam, Joe and Dave spent time with the 300 or so boys on the other side of campus answering questions ranging from “Did aliens make the pyramids, the Great Wall of China, and the Eiffel Tower?” to “What are the Illuminati and do they really exist?” to “Why did you make the movie that hates Muhammad?” to “What’s the deal with American football? (Sam answered that one) to “Does the Bermuda Triangle really eat boats?”  This are real questions, among a few others even more weird.  I asked each kid where they got these wacky ideas (not exactly using those words) and they said they read it on the Internet.  You’re reading this on the Internet, so maybe this all happened, maybe it didn’t.

Enough to Spare donated a sewing machine, a few dozen textbooks we brought over with us, and a laptop for the school administrators.  We hope it will all go to good use. Thanks to all back home who helped out on this project, particularly my lovely wife and fellow world adventurer, Kathleen, and also Tricia and Scott Galer.

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Joe is always the hit of the party.  Not sure if he knew these were girls.

Oh Owino, you have touched me so

 

Owino market.  Frankly, there are not words to describe it, so I will include lots of pictures, which also won’t do it justice.  It may be the dirtiest, crowdedest (it deserves a new word, believe me), hottest, loudest, most alive place I have ever been.  Imagine blocks and blocks and blocks of DI or Salvation Army or flea market (but only the stuff that you don’t buy), with the aisles only 1 ½ body widths wide and booths 15 feet high, all stuffed to overflowing with every used piece of clothing imaginable, all protected by either corrugated tin roofs, or medieval tarpaulins—both do the trick of creating a fetid steam of human, animal, and agricultural odor distinct to Uganda’s largest marketplace.  Due to the careful attention one must pay to where one’s feet are, lest one step in something entirely regretful or miss a makeshift bridge built over a small ravine intended to provide a way for the rain and mud and unmentionables to find its way to the “river” that surrounds it, it is nearly impossible to actually see what treasures might be hanging 10 feet over ones head.  The maze, the maze, the maze was dizzying. 

Did I mention that everyone we passed (it really did feel like thousands) touched Mary, or me, or both of us?  It was impossible to know who might have touched us, but I don’t think it was the young man who passed me and, with his face no less than one inch from mine, yelled “WHITE!”  No.  He didn’t touch me, but I was impressed by his grasp of the obvious.  Other touches made us feel like the Jesus Hem Incident, without the compassion.

And that was just the clothing section.

Because our guide (Ssimbwa) was afraid it was going to rain, and apparently it is unpleasant when it rains (as opposed to the unpleasantness when it is dry), we circumvented much of the market to the food section as we left.  The smells were both wonderful and overwhelming: mountains of spices, what seemed like acres of dried fish, and rows and rows of fresh fruits and vegetables.  And people and children sitting, playing, working, talking, laughing, eating, and living.

 

I was fascinated.  Dave was almost gleeful.  Sam was disgusted.  Mary was  intimidated.  Joe was so small he kept getting hit in the head by passing elbows, etc., and was sickened by the smell.  The kids will never go back.  I will go back if I have waders on so I don’t have to worry so much about where I step. 

Wonderful, slightly frightening chaos.  The stuff of life!

Jazz?

I’m sure this has been written about endlessly by musicologists, but living here it becomes so obvious that jazz has its roots in the never ending improvisation that is African culture.

Observe Exhibit A: our Congolese houseboys answer to electrical overload; a “multi-plug” surge protector that has had the cord clipped, Romex 18 gauge regular housing wire spliced in, and the ends trimmed to fit into the plug.  Of dubious effectiveness as a surge protector, no?

I like to think that if this configuration were to be put to music, we’d hear something akin to John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.”  I don’t think it’s pretty enough to qualify for a Dave Brubeck piece, but certainly a late career fusion of Miles Davis.  It’s a form of living jazz on every corner, in every job, at the invisible traffic lights, in government jobs, at schools, hospitals, airports, and border crossings.  Protocol seems a quaint formality in this culture of a nation of 34 million (smaller than Oregon in size) all flying by the seat of their pants.  The frenetic energy is exhilarating, exhausting.

Needless to say, a different configuration is on tomorrow's to do list, if the house doesn't burn down first.

Certified Electrician Wanted.  Apply within.

            Yet, at the same time there is a pervasive Polynesianesque mentality of “I’ll get to it when I get to it” in the cantor and gait of nearly all Africans.  Let’s be honest, we bleached and puffy westerners, Blacks (African Americans, Africans…) ALL walk cooler than we do.  Once again, a fusion of jazz’s chaos and calm.  Whence this this magical musical art form.

Guacamole and . . .?

In our yard here we have an avocado tree that produces the most amazing avacados.  They are the size of a small child.  So, what better to do with avacados than to make guacamole?  And with what does one eat guacamole?  Chips!  If only it were that easy!  Being a former British empire, “chips” here are French fries.  The kind of chips with which we are familiar don’t really exist.  So, Mary and I, desperate for a medium with which to shovel the guacamole into our faces, attempted to make our own chips.  We made something that resembled flour tortillas then fried them.  Although they didn’t have the classic “crunch” that we would have liked, they did the trick!  Dave made about ½ gallon of guacamole with three avacados! Yummmmm.

Meet Our Houseboy

Prosper is a dignified 23 year old Congolese who left Goma's environs in search of opportunity amidst the throng of Kampala. He takes care of the place and generally makes us feel helpless, safe, but helpless.  If you look down our driveway, you'll see a small hut just left of the gate.  That is where he sleeps.  We cook him dinner every night, along with Jack the dog, who is doing quite well of late, fattening up and even getting a bit picky as to the eats we provide.  Prosper speaks only French, Swahili, some Luganda, and Lingala, thus our communication with him is a bit limited, despite Dave's speaking pretty good French: Congolese French is not Parisian French.  We love and deeply appreciate Prosper's hard work and dedication to our well being.

Negotiations and Preparations

Kathleen, Mary, and Damalie (top) preparing the thousands of pads and many hundreds of kits to give to a local high school; and haggling for the best price on a sewing machine--a foot-powered Singer no less, just like grandma used to use!  Too many power outages to rely solely on electric ones; (below).

You should see our children!

I couldn't resist snapping a pic of these ladies walking down one of the bajillion rutted dirt roads that encircle Kampala.  When I told them how lovely they looked, the one who spoke English said, "If you think we are beautiful, you should see our children."

Meet Damalie

This adorable young lady is Damalie Winslett Naluyijja.  Damalie is a great example of social entrepreneurship. She borrowed 2.6 million Ugandan Shillings (the equivalent of $1200 at the time) from the LDS Perpetual Education Fund and completed a series of courses at a fashion design school in Kampala.  She pays back about $22 per month to the church for the loan and is almost finished paying it off. 

Last year we commissioned Damalie to help us make several thousand reusable sanitary napkin pads kits for a project to help girls stay in school.  We bought her a sewing machine and a snap machine & gave her enough money to buy materials to make 500 reusable sanitary napkin kits we plan to give to the female student body of a little high school our organization has been working with: Saint Ann Grace Secondary School in Nakifuma, Uganda.  (We will be delivering the kits to the school this Friday, with any luck, and will write more on the project then.) . Damalie now uses that sewing machine to make and sell clothing.  She has clients as far away as Kenya placing orders for her products.  She is amazingly skilled. She is exactly the type of person needed to develop Africa in productive and positive ways. And, much to our delight, she has been great to take us to wonderful craft markets and show is the inner workings of the wholesale markets in downtown Kampala.  Thanks, Damalie!

Africa's Past is Not Africa's Future

Thanks to my friend, Scott, for sending me this.  There is much good going all over this continent. We see it all over the place.  The wealth gap is widening, a natural and unavoidable side-effect to such growth.  Rethink Assumptions

Notice from the State Department yesterday: "This Emergency Message is to advise all U.S. citizens residing and traveling in Uganda to avoid possible large demonstrations coming from the Nakasero, Kibuli and City Centre areas in Kampala between 1PM and 2PM.  Exercise due caution when moving through these areas today."  Unfortunately, we did not get this message until AFTER we spent all afternoon in downtown Kampala yesterday.    We walked over a mile to and from a craft market, completely oblivious to any possible demonstrations.  While waiting for Dave to iron out some Internet troubles, we even just sat on a street corner for over an hour.  Kampala was as crazy as any place on the planet can be, but thankfully, we were safe. 

A Nice Day Out-(Despite the Rain)

Happy Birthday to Joe!

Jack the dog

Our guard dog, Jack.  He has a gaping wound on his face and paw, supposedly from trying to jump the fence and meeting razor wire head on.  The more we feed him, the nicer he becomes. 

The House

Our rental house. It is actually quite comfortable, all things considered.

Golden Room

The Golden Room.  Although now it has a big bed net around it that makes me feel like an Indian bride.  I'll try to post a photo tomorrow.

Two Lies and a Truth, or, Mr. Vegas

After a classic Clark Griswold missed turn, going round and round on the six-lane wide roundabouts of Kampala, and after a good 30 minutes of thinking “I know it’s over in this directions somewhere” but with no idea how to actually get there since there are no right angle streets in Kampala, I decided to turn right to make it to Garden City Mall & take the kids out to pizza and just walk around.  Right turns are left turns, just so you know.  So far, no harm, no foul.  We found parking, I got out & there was a cop there waiting for me. 

“Sir, you made a wrong turn to get here.”

“Huh?  How did you get here? I made the turn a half-mile back.”

“You made a U-turn in a no-U-turn lane”

“Is there a sign informing drivers of this?  I’ve driven Kampala for years (lie) and have never been pulled over (true).  How can drivers know what is allowed and what is not allowed if there are no signs?”

“May I see your drivers license?”

“Of course.  Can’t you just give me a warning, since I was unaware of the infraction?  If this is about getting a bribe from a Muzungu, it’s not going to work.  I’d like to see your superior.”

“Yes, sir. Come with me.” (50 feet later) If you just give me some lunch money I can just give you a warning.”

“I think I want to speak to your superior”

(100 feet later & at the very roundabout I got stuck in, four cops on motorcycles).  “Hello, I seem to have been detained due to an unmarked and undetermined traffic violation.  If the intersection were adequately marked I never would have made an illegal turn (lie).  Your colleague here solicited me for a bribe, asked me to pay for his lunch and this would all go away.”

“Well, we are a developing country and we are all trying to get ahead.  Where are you from?”

“Idaho, it’s in the western U.S. in the Rocky Mountains.”

“Is it near California?”

“Well, no. Las Vegas is about ten hours away.”

“Oh yes, (three in unison) Las Vegas!  And what brings you to Uganda?”

I’m teaching at Muteesa I Royal University.”

“Oh, you are a professor?  What are you teaching?”

“I’m teaching a course on how damaging it is to the nation to have a corrupt government.”

Long pause.

“Las Vegas, eh?”

“Thank you for helping to correct our country, you know we are developing.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Let us just give you a warning this time. Please know that it is illegal to make a U-turn over there.”

“Thank you.”

“Enjoy Las Vegas!”

Lost in Kampala

Attending church in Kampala instantly took me (Kathleen) back to my childhood in Guam in the 60s.  The church compound is a series of white cinderblock buildings.  The main service is held in the largest building.  It is a small enough room, but because the windows are open and the property is right next to a very busy main road, the speaker must use a microphone in order for the congregation to hear him or her.  And even that doesn’t help when a “party bus” (our description—I don’t actually know what it is called—of a very tall bus with very loud speakers that drives through the streets either playing music or having someone shout over the speakers, saying who knows what) drives by.  The meeting stops until the party bus is out of earshot. 

The children have class in an open-air room (closed on three sides, open in the back).  Joe recognized most of what went on except for the primary songs sung in Luganda (one of the languages here).  The other children stared and giggled at him, but a few were brave enough to approach him.  One particularly friendly baby (maybe two years old?) repeatedly slapped Joe on the knee and stared intently at his face.  Joe thinks he was trying to see if Joe was real!

After church Dave took a wrong turn (which, incidentally, isn’t hard to do) and we ended up lost on dirt roads in a small village when the skies opened up in a tropical downpour.  Even the cows ran for cover under whatever small ledge they could find.  The roads turned to red rivers as he tried to navigate back to somewhere he recognized.  I suppose I should have been nervous, but I found it quite exhilarating.  I’m not sure the kids felt the same way.  I knew we would eventually find our way back.

A box spring is not a bed

Dear Landlord,

 I think you must have forgotten something.  The beds in your house are not beds.  Well, they are technically beds in that they are several inches off of the floor and have covering on them that is entirely lovely if you want to tell everyone who visits your bedroom that you are a rich African with an affinity for gold fabric and tassels.  But they are missing a key element:  mattresses.  The first night I was here I really didn’t care.  The melatonin took care of me and my fully-clothed, incredibly jet-lagged, can’t-believe-I-am-in-a-golden-room-in-Africa self.  However, the second day I was slightly more aware and slightly less tolerant of the fact that the bed was not a bed.  It was a box spring topped by a BOARD. As boards go, this one was particularly hard, too.

We thought there must have been a mistake, so we asked your son, who incidentally lives in the garage for the time being (story later).  He assured us that no, there was no mistake, these are indeed the beds.  Dave, equally as intolerant, and I went in search of a solution.  Over the dirt roads rutted from the downpour of the previous night, through the village marketplace (sounds WAY nicer than it is), through terrifying traffic to the Muzungu (white people) store we went.  Our car was inspected at the “mall” entrance by an unnecessarily stern policeman with a mirror on a long pole to see if our undercarriage was fitted with a bomb. In all fairness, I can’t say that for sure, because I didn’t ask.

The only thing we could find that might make sleep an option again were a few “foam” mattresses. (Let me explain the quotation marks: I do not have the words to describe certain things.  Maybe my vocabulary will grow as I am here a little longer, but it may need to be censored). 

I’m going to skip forward a few hours to the moment when we got to try out our solution.  With great anticipation we tried to rest.  I wish RIGHT HERE that I were able to say that the solution was magic and that we would be able to sleep again.  If that were the case I might be in bed right now enjoying a deep sleep.  Alas, I am typing this and avoiding the golden, foam-topped box-spring bed because I know I will wake up (which assumes I would have been asleep, which I wouldn’t) in the morning feeling far worse than I feel right now.  Although the pads upgraded the bed from a board to, let’s say, the ground (or a softer board), it’s not soft enough for my Muzungu, pampered, soft, American body.  

I promise to be more upbeat about your beautiful country in the future, but that might be difficult unless I can get some sleep.

Intersection of Beauty, Fear, and Color

In western Uganda there is a refugee camp where those fleeing the turmoil in eastern Congo have fled, located about 40 miles west of Hoima. I couldn't resist taking this shot of a young girl carrying her young baby.  Typically I don't take the portrait style snapshots, because I see it as exploitative.  She graciously gave me permission.  I think the shot captures the fear, determination and overall dignity of this people who simply want to live in peace on their lands, but for the militias patrolling the areas, seizing mining areas for foreign interests.

Monkey Meat

Looks like this monkey will be this lucky boy's dinner tonight.

A wonderful hike up a muddy trail led by barefoot village boys expecting tips from rich Americans.  Quite spectacular!  Hope to take the family here soon.