at Sanyu Babies' Home, Kampala
James, Abbeh, Hamzah, Arnold. I LOVE THESE BOYS.
Hamzah.
at Kabimbiri.
Baby Nasser
Caleb with child. Well not with child...you know what I mean.
boy at the jackfruit stand. adorable.
baby Abbeh. hilarious kid.6.28.08
Oh, how Andalucía has charmed me! And yet even after leaving southern Spain only two days ago, it feels like it may have been a dream. When Jooj and I would find ourselves on a bus somewhere between Granada and Madrid at the end of a long day, all of a sudden she would turn to me and say, “do you realize that we were at the Alhambra this morning? It feels like it was yesterday. And we’ve only been in Spain for three days… doesn’t it feel like we got here last week?”
So I’m convinced that I must’ve transcended space and time. With seven flights and at least that many bus rides over the past 10 days, I don’t know what time zone my head thinks it’s in. My circadian rhythm is all out of whack—hopefully it won’t take long to recover. Lest you think I’m complaining, it was all worth it. But I’m getting way ahead of myself. As I write this post mid-transatlantic flight, transcending time and space again (how else is it possible to fly for nine hours, through the afternoon, only to land and get to restart the afternoon, spending it in an entirely new place?), I think it must be appropriate now as ever to rewind and fill you in on some past adventures… starting with England, before even arriving in Uganda.
......
On our way over to Uganda, Lauren, Stephanie and I spent a few days in Oxford, which despite the rain, was wonderful! Our friend Jooj was completing her masters there, and used her connections to secure us some extremely cheep accommodation—in a convent! We stayed in the “Magnolia Room”, named for it's view of a magnolia tree in the garden. We also had access to some other rooms, including a sunroom, a sitting room, a library, and a kitchen too, had we wanted to use it. I even had a calligraphy lesson one morning with one of the nuns, Mary. (I got a little frustrated sometimes, but she was very encouraging and said I was catching on rather quickly. She started calligraphy when she was 60, and has been doing it for 15 years! Hooray for picking up new hobbies in all stages of life!)
I was lucky to talk with Mary a few times throughout my stay at the Sacred Heart—she was such a delight to talk to. She has a joy for life that is tough to match. On our way out to London one day, Lauren and I happened to catch her in the library, and she asked us what we imagined the best book in the library to be. Lauren and I looked at eachother, wondering if this was a trick question; we were in a convent afterall.
“…The Bible?”
Mary smiled. “No, it’s the Oxford English dictionary!” of which, by the way, there are separate volumes for each letter.
So in addition to my newfound curiosity for calligraphy, I've also discovered a new habit. I can’t help myself from mimicking English accents whenever I open my mouth to speak to a Brit. It’s really quite unfortunate. It’s a completely helpless and embarrassing situation, and my travel buddies Lauren and Stephanie mock me incessantly for it. They think it’s hilarious, and just when I think I’ve finally shirked the habit, they say, “You did it again,”
“Seriously?”
“Oh yeah, just now when you spoke with the bus driver.”
“Dang it. Oh, geez, I hope he couldn’t tell—I hope he doesn’t think I’m making fun of him…”
Whatever, I think I'll just embrace it; mimicry is the most sincere form of flattery, right? That's what Steph says.
And now for some snapshots:
1. Lauren in the sunroom
2. Mary and me, looking up 'iconography’ in the 'I' volume of the OED.
3. tulips in London
4. Steph and me enjoying a walk around Oxford
5. View from our room in the convent-- notice the statue of Christ in the background. What a convent!
A few musings about Uganda...
Walking through other people’s yard to get to where you’re going
at first seems unnatural, but Ugandans don’t really understand trespassing as Americans do. People often traipse through other’s yards to get to the house they’re visiting—in fact, it is often the only way to get to that house. The neighbors are usually friendly and often say hello (or otherwise ignore you, or stare at you if you’re white)—it’s not weird even though it seems you’re cutting through their property. The sense of property is pretty fluid. That said, I think it’s much less common to enter someone’s walled and gated compound without invitation.
It is often said of Africans in general that they are much more community oriented than our more individual-oriented American society. Cutting through people’s yards on a regular basis you might think confirms this belief, but I was discussing this with Lauren, and we’ve come to the conclusion that they function on a basis of anonymity more than not—they may be polite in addressing one another, shooting the breeze and such—everything seems to include a 40 minute conversation. But people here don’t seem to know their neighbors, and don’t typically greet strangers in passing, even on emptier village roads (eye contact doesn’t seem frequent). I think this is sad—I’m used to smiling at strangers and offering a hello when I’m in a less crowded setting, and I’m certainly used to knowing the neighbors.
Personal space
doesn’t really exist. Physically or audially-- people don’t really keep to themselves. Like on taxis, they take as much space as they want, whether is encroaches on the next person or not—and the other person doesn’t really seem to mind, because maybe at the same time, they do the same. Maybe this is because they believe all space is shared—because they’re not afraid to squish if they need to, and don’t complain when the conductor adds three more people than comfortably fit in the taxi—in fact the conductor usually sits on top of at least somebody when the door closes and the van starts moving… Also, the music is very loud. Sometimes huge trucks come through with blaring speakers on a flat bed, I’m not really sure why. And CD shops will have the music blasting, until late hours of the night—we always wonder why the music is still going on at 11 pm when we’re trying to get to bed. This certainly wouldn’t go down well with the Provo Police. Also, sometimes passengers in the taxi will whip out their cell phones and play ringtones as they travel—on top of the van stereo—so you have this cacophony of music and sounds from different sources, yet no one seems to shoot dirty looks at the music-playing passenger because apparently his behavior is acceptable (but not to us Muzungus, who do shoot him dirty looks- we don’t want to have to shout our conversation over Michael Bolton or anything like it, thank you.)
The roads
are really sad. It is very lucky if you can get to wherever you’re traveling to from Kampala but only paved roads, but even the paved highways are treacherous. Uganda roads have a huge problem with potholes. They become so huge that they take up and entire “lane”, and taxis loaded with passengers chance their luck at games of chicken as they confront the oncoming lane. However, most large trucks can’t avoid these potholes because of their massiveness. As a result, they can really slow down traffic when they have to negotiate a pothole. Occasionally, fuel trucks, or any other truck carrying a liquid, won’t slow down enough for the pot holes and hitting the pot hole will cause the liquid inside to slosh so violently that not only do the trucks get off balance, but at times they can even become airborne, flipping upside down and landing on its top. We saw the aftermath of such an accident. The truck was completely mangled and there was a massive fuel spill. And there were throngs/hordes of people lining the highway not as curious onlookers, but combing the wreckage site and looting the fuel by skimming their yellow jerrycans across the puddles.
The obsession with Christian phrases
is pretty ubiquitous in Uganda—they are plastered all over signs and many businesses and schools use them in their names. Usually the phrases are in English, but you can find them in Luganda, too; the title of this post is something I copied down from a block in a village that I passed on a boda boda. I asked my trusty driver Ahcef what it meant: The Lord is My Shepherd. Some others I’ve seen :
Trust in God Restaurant
Christ is lord Dress Shop
His Grace Tailoring Shop
Also, the taxi vans put these phrases in huge metallic letters that take up a fourth of the rear window/windshield, such as:
God Bless, Jesus Saves, Jesus is King, God Loves Us, I Am Blessed, Good is Good, (and my personal favorite) Life is Suffering.
(can you make out what it says at the top of the building? "Jesus is the way...Smart Boutique")
Oh my, my perfectionism has gotten the best of me. You see, my frustration with African internet became so overwhelming that in an effort to salvage what little was left of my sanity, I decided blog posts weren't worth the headaches and near-nervous breakdowns. Of course, this is me being over-dramatic, but since I couldn't make my posts what I wanted to make them, I quit posting altogether. Then when I finally did get access to a wondrous internet connection about a week and a half ago here in England, I felt I had fallen so far behind in my posts that I may as well put it off until my glorious return to the U. S. of A. I am a master-procrastinator. Hence the gap between my last post at the end of May and today's post nearly a month later. Thanks for the kick in the pants, Lauren. It's time for me to get my act together. I'm not home quite yet, but I haven't fallen off the face of the planet, either-- I promise I had no intentions of disappearing, however it may have seemed. So the good news is that I'm comin' back with a bang! Check out these pictures!
Welcome to a photographic introduction to Mukono, Uganda. Photo captions are at the bottom of the post.
1. Kampala traffic jam
2. our trusty (and rickety) van
3. Mukono town, Jinja Rd.
4. sitting in the back of a taxi. This definitely isn’t as crowded as it gets… maybe half capacity. The only white head in the picture is Caleb’s.
5. on the way home
6. on the way home
7. on the way home
8. boda boda stage in Bweyogerere
