Super Powers and Triple Lap-Sit

Yep, it’s about time I come clean on the ridiculousness of my life here in Uganda: more specifically my means of transport.  I know I have already highlighted the absurd “Corolla” rides where we essentially roll 11 deep in a car that should have been trashed in the Reagan era, but my recent trip back from a training I was facilitating on malaria in a town no more than 100 miles from my house has inspired this recent blog.  Having  enjoyed a few beers the night before and feeling a little tired, I sat in the sun sweating my last few beers out as I waited to hop on the bus that was going to take me to a town, Mbarara, about 30 miles from my house.  I knew this leg of the trip would be the most trying, but I figured as long as I made it to Mbarara my self loathing would dissipate.  Of course the bus arrived about 30 minutes late (in fact, 30 minutes was quite impressive) adding to my self perpetual torture as I baked in the equatorial heat.  As I humbly endured my last bout of harassment from the locals on the road ( “Mzungu, where you go? We go now!? Mzungu, Mzungu, Mzungu!), I happily jumped on the dilapidated bus that probably should have been scrapped shortly after Bush Sr. took office.  I found an open seat next to a woman who was put off by the Mzungu asking if he could sit there.  She was not thrilled to be sitting next to me, and she showed this lack of appreciation by somehow expanding the size of her ass and pushing me further and further into the isle.  I thought it was weird that her super-power was to increase the size of her ass on command.  I’m sure my power would be to teleport anywhere at any time (if I were granted this power I wouldn’t have been sitting on the bus battling madam expand-a-ass) - anyway enough of the dorky superhuman commentary.  As I tried to make myself comfortable for the theoretical 2 hour bus ride to Mbarara, I realized that the bus was a sauna and that no one thought it necessary to open a window.  Poke the bear when he’s already hot and tired!  I sucked it up and tried to sleep like an old man sitting upright.  Not even 10 minutes into the bus ride we stop to pick up and drop off people.  No joke, this continued throughout the entire bus ride.  I don’t think there was one point of the ride where we were constantly moving for over 15 minutes.  The thing that really irritated me was that I waited for this specific bus company because it is always the fastest and most reliable.  Yeah it was one of those days.  As I wavered in and out of consciousness, not sure from tiredness or the suffocating heat, I looked out the window to see the 100ft. memorial of Yoweri Museveni (President of Uganda for the past 26 years) and the late Muamar Qaddafi shaking hands amiably.  This was a sign that I was almost there.  I realized that it took roughly two and a half hours to travel 70 miles, but I found that bitching to myself just made my head hurt more.  The bus arrived in Mbarara and I jumped off liberated as if I had just managed to free myself from a FARC prison in the middle of the Amazon.  Funny thing is, is that I managed to obtain a meeting with the Uganda Health Marketing Group (UHMG) after I was liberated.  It turned out to be a really important meeting with what seems to have long term implications for Peace Corps Volunteers focusing on malaria prevention.  Feeling as if I had accomplished something, outside of arriving at my second to last destination without going into shock from the sweltering heat in the hot-boxed “No New Taxes” era bus, I flagged down what I thought was an almost full Mutatu (15 seat van-style taxi).  Rookie Move!!...  Rookie move for several reasons.  Firstly, I realized that I had just been screwed by the largest number of ghost riders in history.  Ghost riders are sneaky people working with the taxi driver that sit in the taxi looking like customers as the driver goes around town looking for people to pick up.  Essentially, they make the taxi look almost full.  This is significant because, as everyone knows, you never get in one of these taxis that are less than half full or you will be waiting hours for the driver to fill the taxi before you can leave.  With that said, as I entered the taxi and we made our first few loops around town looking for customers, I realized that an egregious number of people were chatting with the driver and exiting the taxi.  “Shit!” I thought, “I just got ghost-ridered hard”.  So we toured the town for about an hour looking for people to fill the taxi before we headed out.  Of course we didn’t leave town until we reached max capacity of the Mutatu.  We were finally on our way, and I had only 30 miles left until I reached my house (this 30 miles traditionally takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half).  Realizing what kind of luck I had had with transport already that day, I knew I was in for a rough-long 30 miles.  It never seems to fail.  Of course we stopped about 20 times to pick up and drop off people.  However, we were picking up more people than dropping off.  By the time we made our first turn to pick up about twenty-20 litre containers of milk, I counted 21 people in the taxi.  They shoved the containers under our feet, thus making me sit with my knees pinned to my chest the rest of the way.  This wasn’t even the egregious part.  We had so many people packed into the Mutatu that for the first time ever I saw, what I coined, a triple lap-sit.  I’ve seen plenty of people in taxis sitting on each other’s laps due to the cramming of people in the vehicle, but I’ve never seen a triple-decker.  There was a grown man sitting on another grown mans lap, and a twelve year old girl sitting on his lap.  That’s how full it was.  I feel like once you start making customers engage in the triple-decker, you should probably stop trying to pick up more people.  In typical fashion, the driver still tried to pick up more people.  Thirty miles and an hour and a half later, I arrived at my stop.  I believe I started to cry out of joy.  I had never been so happy to see the village drunk or the lady I buy water from.  One hundred miles and 6 hours later, I collapsed on by bed and didn’t move for what seemed like an eternity.  I awoke from my nap and thought I had dreamt the whole thing: nope, just another typical day in my life.  They say that dogs are good pets because they are always happy to see you when you arrive home.  This affection makes arriving home that much better.  Although, my new theory is go to hell and back trying to get home, and no matter how crappy or depressing your home is you will always feel overjoyed to be back.  These are the type of things I will most certainly miss when I leave.  I don’t know if I’m a masochist or I just enjoy doing things to the extreme, but for some reason I always yearn for the rough nature of the unpredictable.      

This Is Why I Don’t Like Traveling Alone, Yet I Always Have Company Eating Fried Pork and Fighting Malaria

Currently, I am on a plane to Senegal.  Yeah yeah yeah, I’m stoked to be going to West Africa, even if it is for work, but traveling just brings the bitching out of me.  I need someone to travel with so I can bitch and complain to them.  I’m contemplating hiring a travel buddy just so I can bitch to someone about the absurdities of travelling.  Bitching in my head is not satisfying, and ends up just firing me up.  This is why I decided to write my latest blog entry on the plane; this way I can vent through my blog.  I mean sure, this way I get no feedback on the legitimacy of my complaints, and I can’t reciprocate my feelings to my fellow travel companion who would definitely be bitching too (it’s inevitable), but it might be good therapy.  Ok here we go…It won’t be too bad.  Firstly, I would like to focus on the overall logistics of my journey.  I had to leave my hotel at 2 a.m. in order to have enough time to drive the hour to the airport and make my way through the egregious, yet probably justifiable, airport security to make my 5 a.m. flight to Kenya.  For those geographically inclined, you should see a problem with this. Yep, starting in Uganda, Kenya is in the opposite direction of Senegal; an hour in the wrong direction.  But hey, can I really bitch when it’s completely paid for, and I’m getting paid to make the flight? (eventually I won’t find work travel that amusing) Anyway, when I got to the airport in Uganda, at 3 a.m., I headed straight for the coffee shop.  I procured a grande cup of coffee, and a tub of strawberry yoghurt (notice I used tub not cup!).  Because I barely get any calcium from the food I have access to in Uganda, I have been hitting the yoghurt hard to make up for the lack of it.  I hammered the coffee and yoghurt in no time, and eventually got on the plane.  During the flight, they served this delicious plain yoghurt for breakfast, and I hammered it too.  You getting the point!?  By the time I arrived in Kenya my stomach was punching itself in the face.  Damn that delicious yoghurt!!  Secondly, I really love how people get incredibly antsy to board the plane.  On both the flights that I have boarded today I have had to take a bus to the airplane on the tarmac in order to board it.  The majority of people push and shove their way to get in front of anyone they can in order to board the plane faster.  It is really f’ing annoying!  The plane will not leave you on the tarmac of the airport.  What, the pilot is just going to say “oh that guy is walking too slowly and, well, he might smell like rotten cabbage so let’s close the doors on him and taxi out”.  It won’t happen, so what’s the hurry?  Take it easy.  No need to push and shove and create gridlock.  Can’t wait to get pushed and shoved getting off this flight.  Thirdly, there is this really big guy sitting in front of me who won’t stop moving.  His movements are equitable to a small earthquake with its epicenter three inches from my face.  He had his chair fully reclined before we even taxied to the runway.  Come on guy!  Have you ever flown on a plane… “Please put all treys in the closed position and make sure your seat is fully upright for takeoff.”  That’s day one stuff buddy.  Not to mention it feels like you’re giving birth in the chair as you convulse back and forth violently.  He just leaned the chair forward a bit and then hammered it back on my laptop.  This guy is out of control.  I think we need to test etiquette before we let people fly.  Anyway, on a lighter and much more comical note, there is this really sweet Chinaman, whoops sorry that’s not the proper nomenclature (for those who don’t know that is a Big Lebowski quote-I love that movie), Chinese gentleman sitting next to me.  Before we even taxied to the runway, the Chinese dude was chin to chest making sounds as if he snorted his nose inside-out from his flagrant snoring.  The little Senegalese kid across from him got frightened.  He was stone-cold three minutes after sitting down.  The flight attendants were still closing all the overhead compartments!  Currently, he is snoring.  Granite we just ate, so now is the perfect time for him to hit the hay.  Poor guy, the Kenyan flight attendant couldn’t understand him, so he got the vegetarian quiche for lunch instead of the chicken.  I could tell he was heartbroken.  Well time to fight through people and head to customs…

I’m back on the plane now heading home to Uganda.  I had a great time at the malaria boot camp.  I’m genuinely sad to be leaving our group in Senegal.  The material presented was great, but the group of people who attended just topped it all off.  Man we had some good times geeking-out on malaria (malarias, d’accord).  I love when you meet a great group of people who are as motivated and interested in a movement as you are, and to top it all off, they are amazingly awesome-Bismillah.  Our group represented over 10 countries throughout Africa in which my colleague and I represented Uganda.  We are now part of the Stomping Out Malaria in Africa team.  Check out the website at stompoutmalaria.org.  I will be developing the Uganda country profile with my colleague on the webpage soon.  You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter-stomp out malaria.  We are all doing some great things in the malaria prevention field throughout Africa.  One of our initial goals is to get the stomp out malaria initiative off the ground, and create awareness throughout the world.  So hype the cause and spread the word!!  Furthermore, I am excited for the laborious work I have ahead of me.  I’ve already been taking home work on a daily basis, but now I’m sure I will be dreaming about it too.  Oh well, all it means is I’m motivated, and have achieved master geek status.

Now to explain my local pork experience.  After work one day a few local colleagues of mine invited me to the local “pork place”.  I agreed to accompany them, and to see what it was all about.  Wheels off!!  We went to this sketchy bar, which is always pretty sweet, and headed to the back “patio” area.  It was hardly a patio; it was more like a dirt area with a hut.  Inside the hut hanging from meat hooks was a pig that had been cut in half.  I thought that was awesome.  Of course all the people in the bar and outside were curious as to why there was a mzungu (white man) in the bar, and let alone a mzungu ready to put down 3kg of pork with his local friends (that’s right we got 3kg).  I had the pork guy cut off a portion of the pork shoulder with his machete.  He proceeded to hack at it on this dilapidated bloody piece of wood, aka village cutting board.  We took a few beers and waited for the lady to fry the pork shoulder up.  The pork was amazing.  My two colleagues and I put down 3kgs of pork in no time.  It might have been the best pork feast ever.  This is why you never turn down new cultural experiences.  I mean sure, due to the sketchiness of the bar I won’t ever go there alone, but I will never turn down an opportunity to go back with them.  I really enjoyed it, and to say the least, I represented for the mzungus.  I like to think of it as cultural sensitization, one mzungu at a time.

Butter Sandwiches, Juice Boxes, and Yuri Yuri

So it seems that most of the basics I enjoyed in Namibia are pretty ubiquitous throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.  Recently I have reestablished my fondness for butter sandwiches and boxes of juice.  From my many travels throughout Africa one thing seems to reign true; you can always find butter, bread, and juice in a box.  I am back on coffee, butter sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches, peanut butter and butter sandwiches, and for the mornings when I seem to be extremely dehydrated for reasons unknown, juice boxes.  This wonderful menu of food and drinks pretty much summed up my Namibian diet, and seems to be repeating itself here in Uganda.  I do have access to a ton of fruit; however, in regards to the main focus of my consumption, fruit is tertiary.  For some reason I find comfort in consuming ridiculous amounts of carbohydrates.  In fact, I’m sure if you threw a pile of carbohydrates in front of me and slapped a little margarine on them I would gladly consume them and wash them down with a mango juice box.  The only problem with the juice boxes here is that they’re not cold.  We have no refrigeration.  That also means we only have room temperature beer.  There are a few places that do refrigerate the beer, but it’s not common.  Yeah, it’s rough.  I have sort of got used to semi warm beer, sadly enough.  I’m also starting to get used to eating non-perishable uncooked food.  Ok, my house is nice and incredibly nice compared to my digs in Namibia; however, my electricity is bipolar.  When my electricity does work it only produces what I understand to be low current (I’m no electrician and I definitely don’t F with African electricity-I enjoy life).  Let me explain why this hinders my ability to cook.  I was told I would cook with gas, and that I would need to purchase a gas stove top and a gas canister.  Well, I bought the stove in Kampala and transported it to Bushenyi.  I waited until I got to my town to purchase the gas canister.  In true African fashion the gas station here, Total, has been out of gas since I’ve been here (about 3 weeks).  They told me it will be here after Christmas…and now it’s supposed to be here “next year”.  Because of this info, I decided to purchase an electric hotplate for the meantime.  Rookie move!  It takes me 2 hours just to boil water when the electricity is on.  When the hotplate is turned on, no light in my house works.  I guess even when I do have electricity it’s not enough to boil water on a hotplate.  TIA I guess.  Non-perishable uncooked food it is then.  Atkins ain’t got nothin on this diet. 

Staying true to the focus on the overarching similarities throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, I will now highlight the luxury of taxi rides.  Ishaka, the business hub nearest me, is roughly 3 miles from Bushenyi.  This is where you can get a variety of food items and other odds and ends.  I go there once every week.  Not straying far from the common mode of transport in rural Africa, you have to stand on the side of the road and wave down unmarked sedans that act as taxis.  They are usually Toyota Corollas that should have been donated to your local junkyard 10 years ago.  Nonetheless, they get me from point a to point b without too many turns (turns means stops)… sadly, what would be a tax write off in America is more than I have here.  The real similarity is that they stuff an egregious number of people in them to maximize their profit.  I thought Namibia took the cake when it came to over-stuffing cars.  Ha, no way.  Uganda has set a new bar.  On my first trip back from Ishaka we had 10 people in the small ass Corolla.  There were two in the driver seat, two in the passenger seat, five in the back seat, and a child on us five in the back.  One thing that gets at me is when we are already stuffed to the brim and the driver pulls over to pick up another person.  I understand the logic of making more money.  But really, you need one more?!  Usually by this time my ass and one, if not both, legs are numb as hell.  Luckily, the ride is five to ten minutes (this is of course taking out the amount of time you wait filling the car, and the time lost making turns).  No too bad though.  It’s worth making the trip for the bananas and avocados that I score at the local market.  Last time I got a bushel of freshly picked bananas and 4 avocados for less than 1 dollar.  It’s totally worth the human pretzel act.  I can also get some fried chicken at the local food joint.  I only get fried goat in Bushenyi, so fried chicken is a nice change.  Sometimes, for us carnivores, it’s nice to get some protein from meat.

The other day as I made my 20 minute walk home from town, I had two random, yet somewhat common for Africa, encounters.  As I walked by this guy washing his car with a bucket of water in a mud pit, I heard music coming from his car.  It sounded rather African but with a pop flare.  Then I realized I knew the song, and I began to smile and reminisce alone in my head.  It was a song called Yuri Yuri that was popular in Namibia, and this made me incredibly nostalgic.  My friends and I had a Namibian friend that we called Yuri Yuri.  He was a great guy.  The song reminded me of him and I guess I began to shake my booty a little as I walked by the guy washing his car.  He looked at me and laughed and yelled “Sok man”, which is a word that we also used in Namibia that means get down or dance.  I laughed and proceeded to walk home with a smile on my face.  As I was walking through the countryside, almost home, I heard sirens.  While schlepping my bag of food and warm beer, a motorcade of about 40 cars with tinted windows, police vehicles, and military vehicles made its way upon me.  I stopped and took cover well off the road so I didn’t get ran over.  Motorcades like this are pretty common, but normally they are closer to big cities or important areas.  I was in the middle of nowhere, 6 hours from Kampala.  As the last military vehicles with gun touting creepy masked soldiers passed, I scurried to the nearest shop to inquire about what or who that was.  Come to find out it was the president of Rwanda coming back from “Zaire” (they still call the DRC Zaire which is random).  I guess that’s just another normal day in Bushenyi.  One thing that also reigns true throughout Africa is that there is never a dull moment.  Whether good or bad, you can always expect something.  I think this is Africa’s personality shining through.  Every niche throughout the world seems to have its own personality, not just here.  It’s true that most of the days here are filled with monotony and boredom.   Monotony is something that encompasses humanity everywhere though; whether it’s the monotony of working 8 hours a day 5 days a week and frequenting your favorite Starbucks every morning before work, or sitting under a Baobab tree shooting the shit with other locals.  We are all the same throughout the world; not just in Sub-Saharan Africa (although the overarching similarities here are more interesting to me than the ones throughout North America, e.g. frequenting Home Depot on Saturday [not sure there’s a Home Depot in Canada but I’d be willing to bet on it])    Sure, we only eat butter sandwiches while listening to Yuri Yuri here, but we all crave a juice box or some other liquid after a long night of self inflicted dehydration.