You Can Take The Girl Out Of The Country...
It is the American Independence Day and I am celebrating with a relatively quiet vacation in Ssese Islands. Kalangala to be precise. I have to say I am missing bar-b-ques, fireworks and my mom’s homemade ice cream, but the island has been quite nice. This is our last day here (the fairy back to Entebbe leaves at 8am tomorrow).
I was successful in leaving my computer at home and I have to say it has been wonderful.
Meredith, Daniel and I arrived Wednesday evening. Daniel is staying at Hornbill camp a few beaches down from ours (he stayed there the last time he was here) and Meredith and I chose Mirembe (peace in Lugisu) Beach Resort. It’s a little more expensive than Hornbill, but we have hot showers (which I have unfortunately been without for too long at home), we don’t have bed bugs (which they do have at Hornbill) and the owners are not psychotic (as they are at Hornbill).
Our first night here the three of us hung out on Mirembe beach for a while, had dinner and then traipsed over to Hornbill. It was dark and part of the journey was through water because the brush between some of the beaches was too thick to walk through. We sat at Hornbill’s little outside bar for a few hours enduring the idiocy of the German owner. He was a total schmuck. In fact, if you looked up schmuck in the Yiddish dictionary I am certain you would find his photograph. It’s too bad because aside from him and the bed bugs, the camp looked kind of nice in the dark. They had a Great Dane named Zulu, a pet pig (I forgot her name) and lots of various animal skulls hanging on trees around the camp (Mom, you would love it!).
After a few hours I had had enough of this guy so Meredith and I decided to grab our headlamps and make our way back to Mirembe, both feeling like we needed some peace after time wasted with Captain Obnoxious.
We returned to our room excited to see that the power was on (there is only power on the island from 7-11pm), and then it promptly went out. For the next sixty seconds our room was a flurry of curse words until we calmed down and got ready for bed with our headlamps blazing.
The next morning I woke up at 8am to the sounds of various birds and people working out in the yards, constructing stone paths, filling caps with cement, chopping firewood and raking leaves. I got up and decided to go out and sit on the porch and ready my book until Meredith woke up. It was her birthday, I had to let her sleep! Plus, we were the only ones staying here and the lake was so peaceful with the steam rising off the surface. The only sad thing was that the sky was so overcast. We had grand plans of lying on the beach all day reading and getting tan.
Meredith got out of bed around 10am and we went for breakfast. It was delicious! Fresh passion fruit juice, spiced African tea, scrambled eggs, toast and fresh fruit (all included in the price of the room). I was stuffed. Meredith wanted to go checkout the town on the island, but I was determined to stay away from civilization, plus, there was a hammock which had been eyeing me since our arrival. I decided to stay and read in the hammock while she was gone.
Before leaving, I had to enlist Meredith’s help in actually getting into the hammock. The thing was placed several feet off the ground, and the movable three-step staircase next to it was very wobbly. I looked at Meredith and said, “I have a feeling I will still be here when you return” for fear that I wouldn’t be able to get out on my own. The better my book got the more my bladder filled and Meredith still wasn’t back. I sat up, looking over the side of the hammock deciding to just jump. I made it safely, though admittedly awkwardly, to the ground and made my way to the cabin to use the toilet. I knew there was no way to get back in that shaky mess of knotted rope on my own, and the air had gotten warmer (though still horribly overcast), so I decided to change into my swimming suit and go lay on the beach and resume reading. Meredith made it back as the sun was making a half-assed attempt at coming out and so she joined me, followed by Daniel who had emerged from the brush between our two beaches. We lay in a row reading and waiting for the Entebbe fairy to arrive, carrying our friends Shaina and Julius.
Meredith and I had requested a beach bar-b-que for her birthday dinner, complete with pork spare ribs, chicken, and fresh caught tilapia from Lake Victoria. The meal was accompanied by pilou, mixed vegetables and Irish potatoes, fresh watermelon and pineapple, and a birthday cake which I had asked Shaina to secretly bring. She was smart to also bring some other pastries because the cakes you can buy in most supermarkets here are inedible. The pure sugar icing is rock hard, the cake as dry as the contents of an urn, and they do not expire for one year. We couldn’t even stick candles in it without them breaking.
We finished our meal and took our drinks back down to the campfire on the beach, playing games such as “never have I ever”. It totally took me back to high school, specifically remembering a night where about 15 of us played at Frank Wiles’ apartment where Jason Spangler shocked us with a confession involving foot apparel, but I digress.
With the fire burning out, we decided to retire to me and Shaina’s room to play the card game “speed”. This also took me back to high school and I was so thankful that these guys didn’t appear to be as violent as Adrienne. Our speed tournament turned into a cheesy song sing along which was a drunken mess as we were all singing Kurt von Achen style, humming most of the lyrics and then throwing in the few words we knew here and there.
It was 12:30 and we were all exhausted. Daniel had to make his way back to Hornbill in the dark by himself. I offered him our floor but he refused. He took my headlamp and I asked him to text me when he reached, and about 20 minutes later I received a text that said, “Mummy, I reached safely”.
So now it’s Friday. Around 10am we all had breakfast, the same as the day before, and everyone went for a bike ride on the island. I decided to finish my book (which I have done) and write, and will soon start working on my dissertation proposal whose due date keeps changing, then disappearing and is not moved to a MUCH earlier date than anticipated. I’m a bit nervous, truth be told, because I haven’t been able to get in touch with my advisor, and I leave for Gulu on Monday morning. Hmmmmm. I’m sure all will be fine.
This evening we’re going for a boat ride. I asked the manager if we could take the row boat out on our own and she said yes but that it has a small leach but assured us she would give us a bucket to scoop the water out.
So this is my Independence Day. The US Embassy had a celebration last weekend but 1) it wasn’t the 4th of July, and 2) it was 20,000 shillings per person to get in! So instead I went to the German Embassy to watch football and enjoy free food and drinks. I’m thinking of switching my citizenship I’ve already got the name, now all I have to do is learn more of the language (I only know numbers, greetings and curse words).
Tonight is our last night. I have to say I am a bit sad. It is so quiet and peaceful here. You cannot hear any automobiles or bodas, no blaring music, just the sounds of various birds, the waves hitting the sand and wood being cut. It feels like home. There’s no dust and when I blow my nose it doesn’t come out black because of diesel fumes, and I’m not running around the overcrowded city trying, often unsuccessfully to get things done. In fact, I haven’t heard the word mzungu since boarding the fairy at 2pm on Wednesday!
You can take the girl out of the country, but you cannot take the country out of the girl.
