My First Ugandan Vacation
And so begins my first real vacation in Uganda…ever. My first trip to Uganda was with United Students for Fair Trade, and while I did have a couple of “free days” in Jinja, it wasn’t an actual vacation. My second trip here was with Global Youth Partnership for Africa, and no free days. I have been living here for 11 months now and have only been in Kampala and Gulu. Gulu is always for work, so not a avacation. I did go to Rwanda but that was with school and we had free time only while sleeping. And really, my vacation hasn’t technically begun…it’s just the night before I depart for Ssese Island. I have, however, put the modem away and have shut down my computer and picked up the good old pen and paper. In fact, today I bought some new pens just for this occasion (I have a small pen obsession—well, that goes for all office supplies really). I haven’t had a chance to sit down and write in a while, so I will attempt to get my journal/blog more up-to-date now.
I cannot remember the last things I wrote on (and my computer is off limits until Saturday), so we will just go over my rather eventful week and weekend.
Las week I was sick so most of the week was fairly uneventful, aside from some One Mango Tree stuff which I had to do. Wednesday Lucy came to Kampala to bring our latest order. Her bus broke down outside of Kawempe so she didn’t reach Kampala until 10:30pm. I decided to calls Isma, a special driver (car taxi) in Nakulabye to take me to Old Kampala to meet her. I was too weak to take a boda, I didn’t feel entirely safe being on a boda in Old Kampala that late and I was sure that the public taxis wouldn’t be running that late and Lucy would need a safe ride to her sister’s house in Bombo, which was a ways away.
I called Isma and he came to Kasubi to pick me and the wonderful fabrics which I purchased on Monday for the next order. We drove to Arua Park (a bus park I am not familiar with) and after lots of driving around and multiple phone calls, we finally found Lucy. I gave her a big hug and she called her sister to make sure it wasn’t too late to come to her home. We loaded the order bags in the car and I introduced Lucy to Isma and told her that he would drop me at home and then take her to Bombo. We had a nice chat in the car and Isma carried the bags to my flat while I gave Lucy some money for part of the order to tide her over until I could deposit money into her account the next day.
Thursday Lucy called me to see if I was feeling better and to thank me again for getting her a special hire to her sister’s house. I truly love her so much!
Thursday was a busy day. I met the husband of a woman who works at the US Embassy and sold him a bag, then went to Old Kampala to buy a big suitcase (my big one broke on the way back here after Christmas) and came home and somehow managed to fit the entire order in this suitcase! There was a lot of sweat and cursing involved, but I managed!
Friday morning I loaded my hugenormous suitcase on Francis’ boda, I hopped on another and we headed to Emin Pasha Hotel to meet my friend Kevin, our most recent mule to the US.
Friday I was finally feeling better so was much more productive, but still a bit tired. There was no time for tired for I had a going away party to at least make an appearance at. My appearance lasted until 5:30am and involved WAY too much tequila and salsa dancing and resulted in yet another day spent in bed, but this time the pain was self-inflicted.
I finally willed myself out of bed, into the shower and out of the house around 7pm because I had to meet some friends of my friend Roxanne who were visiting. It was difficult getting out but I’m so, so glad I did because they were AWESOME! Dani just finished her two-year Peace Corps contract in Botswana and Chandni is half way trhough hers. They were so much fun. We went and had a quiet night at Iguana Bar (next to La Fontaine) and my friends Franklyn and Peter met up with us. I was home by midnight.
Sunday I brought a group of seven together at La Fontaine for brunch. La Fontaine makes an AMAZING Sunday brunch and since they’ve been stumbling upon some hart times lately I’ve been trying to bring in some extra business. Sarah out did herself making us TONS of extra food. We couldn’t finish it all! She made French toast, Scottish pancakes, has browns (the crispiest EVER), scrambled eggs, fresh fruit with yogurt and honey , fresh passion juice and coffee…YUM!
After brunch I went home, did some work, took a nap and then went to the German Embassy with Daniel, Meredith, Shaina and Franklyn to watch Germany v. Spain in the Eurocup final.
The German Ambassador was such a gracious host (and has Martin Scorsese eyebrows)! They had mass quantities of German sausages with bread and condiments, free beer, soda and water and lots of lawn chairs set up in front of a huge projection screen, complete with a massive sound system. The ambassador addressed the crown just before kickoff, acknowledging the Spaniards in the crowd as well as pointing out that the embassy had hung both countries’ flags. Very diplomatic. The ambassador said, “may the best team win”. Spain won. Daniel was quite upset (he’s from Germany and the biggest football fan I’ve ever encountered).
Monday I had a meeting with Kizito on campus about NIAAD stuff. It turns out that he sold four paintings as a result of the exhibition which I organized! Total sales came to 2,300,000UGX (approximately $1,427USD)!! Kizito is working on adjusting the budget in order to see what we still need to raise for the academy so I can update the website, and make it more specific.
After my meeting with Kizito I went to the post office and found that I had another package from Adrienne! It was stuffed full of burnt DVDs! I go the first three seasons of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and several episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations”, an amazing show on the travel channel. I’m saving them all, or trying to at least, for Gulu.
I returned home and did some work and then went out to meet some friends! I had plans for dinner with Chandni and Taren at Masala Chaat House (delicious Indian goodness) and then we went to the National Theatre to see this interpretive dance piece about child soldiers featuring a dance group from Burundi. What can I say? It was interpretive dance. I can’t get into it! What I don’t understand is there are common moves in all interpretive dance pieces (at least that I’ve seen) which to me takes a lot of the interpretiveness out of it. I also feel that interpretive dance ought to be impromptu, but it’s all choreographed? Hmmmm…
After the moving dance performance we met up with Franklyn and stuck around for some of open mic night at the theatre. I had never gone and didn’t realize what a HUGE deal it is! Open mic night at the Bottleneck in Lawrence is generally a flop so I associate the phrase “open mic night” with that. Now, this is not to say that the musicians here were great (some were, some weren’t) but there were so many people!
And not to Tuesday! Tuesday I had a couple of meetings and ran some errands and then went to the invitation only Kampala premier of the documentary “War/Dance”. The film is about an IDP camp primary school in Pader district in northern Uganda who has made it to the national music and dance championships in Kampala. The film does an amazing job of capturing the personal stories of a few of the child musicians while showing the students practicing, traveling to and performing in Kampala. This is hands down the best film I’ve seen about Uganda in general as well as one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in a very long time. It made me start to cry several times, both out of happiness and sadness. It truly was amazing! For those of you in the States you can buy a copy at Best Buy and I seriously recommend it. You will see footage of IDP camps similar to those in which I work as well as footage of Kampala and Entebbe. I’ve been to most of the places on the film!
Last night I started writing this entry but the power went out (the water has been out for days) so I stopped. I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep and I heard this chirping sound. I thought to myself, “that’s a really loud cricket”. Then as I continued to listen I realized that there was no way that was a cricket. I slipped on my headlamp and opened my bedroom door to my cavernous apartment to find the cats playing with a fruit bat. Last week it was a rat. It’s a good thing my mom is a biologist otherwise I don’t know if I would be able to calmly handle such things. It reminded me of nine years ago when my friend Sara called me at two o’clock in the morning to come to her house to catch a bat that was flying around. Perhaps I should seek a career in pest control?
Now I’m on a big boat in Lake Victoria headed for Ssese Islands. Daniel, Meredith and I are going today and some others are meeting us tomorrow. We left town early to meet the fairly which Daniel (he’s the only one of us who has been to Ssese before) said left at noon (there’s only one fair per day). Turns out it leaves at 2pm so…we spent 2 ½ hours on the shore with absolutely nothing to do, and now we’re 1/3 finished with a three hour boat ride to Kalangala.
The boat itself isn’t too bad. The front part of the boat has a large, covered compartment with tables and benches and a small cabin with refreshments. There are no seats outside, unfortunately but we managed to get them to agree to let us go up to the top deck for a little while. It’s difficult to believe how huge this lake really is! Within an hour of launching you could barely make out land masses in the distance. It’s truly beautiful. I cannot wait to get to the island!
