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.