Kampala Marathon

The Final Stretch.

Lets start at the beginning.  5 months ago I decided it would be a really good idea to train for a marathon. I have done ½ marathons in the States and really enjoyed both training for them and the race itself, so I thought.... why not step it up and try a full.  One of the main reasons I thought I should train for it was because I didn’t think that there would be another time in my life where I would have so much free time.  I was right about that much at least.  A full marathon is 26.2 miles (42.1 Kilometers) long.  There were obviously a few things that I was ignoring at the time, but I really love to challenge myself so I considered all of those things (the fact that I am in a third world country, under a lot of stress, that I live on the equator).... all of them I chalked up to an added challenge. Idiot.

I began training in July and things went pretty well... up until the wet season began in September.  The rains normally come in the morning, interestingly enough at the same time that I am running.  There were multiple times that I got caught in a storm and had to simply sit it out under a tree and then sadly walk back to my house, because it is impossible to run on muddy roads. 

On my longest training run (3:20) I got caught in a massive storm about 8 miles away from my house.  I decided there was no choice but to continue running, and a good 6 of the 12 miles I still had to go were on tarmac so I felt good about that atleast.  I tried to stay on paved road, so I ended my run about 4 miles from my house.  I knew right as I ended that I was going to be in some major pain, but wasn’t really sure where exactly it was going to hurt.  I ducked into a duka and the lady sitting at the table said, “Bambi”, which is sort of sorry in Luganda.  I told her I needed a large glass of tea with a lot of sugar and I sat in her shop for an hour and a half until the rain stopped.  Luckily I learned early on to carry money in my bra, so I took a private hire back to my house.  When I got home I changed into dry clothes.  As I was taking off my wet clothes I realized that I was chafed beyond imaginable belief.  My armpits were bleeding, my thighs were bleeding, there was a nice burn mark around all of the seams where my sports bra was, the sides of my feet were bleeding.  I couldn’t believe that I was stupid enough to run in the rain for 12 miles.... but I guess I learned my lesson.  I could barely walk for 2 days because the chafing was so bad.  I immediately called my mother and had her send Nike dri-fit stuff for the marathon.  In the end I persevered and finished all of my long runs and began tapering off about 3 weeks ago. 

Which now takes us to the day of the marathon.  I woke up super early, and just like everything one does in Uganda... I walked the two miles to where the race would begin.  I overestimated (along with other people) how long it would take and only got there 5 minutes early.  As I walked up, the gun for the full marathon went off.  So of course, the only thing that ever started early in Uganda is the marathon that I am in.  So I climb up a massive grass hill to the start and just bolted out.  At this time, the elite half-marathoners were getting lined up and within 2 minutes of my race start they were all around me.  A video camera on the back of a motorcycle was getting all of their action and I was trying to look extra strong as these world champion runners breezed past me as though I was walking.  Regardless of my speed, that was something really cool... to be running next to Olympic athletes... on their home turf none the less!

About two miles into it, I see someone running across the road towards me.  I was a bit confused because he was Ugandan, but as he got closer I realized it was my counterpart George!!  He about got hit by 5 matatus, but he managed to give me a hi-five as I passed him.  What a great surprise. Throughout the race Peace Corps friends were there to cheer me on and to give me Gu and Gatorade.  There were multiple times where I thought I would quit, but I saw Chester and Tine cheering up ahead and so I just kept chugging along.  At about mile sixteen things got pretty dreary.  The race went far out and so I didn’t see my friends for a good long while.  Also, Ugandans don’t cheer during races, so I would be running through massive crowds of Ugandans who would just stare.  No shout.  No clap.  No “keep it up”.  It was depressing.  After I hit the round-about, I could see about 18 people in front of me... all men (I only saw 3 other women during my race) and every last one of them was walking.  Let me tell you, one of the hardest things I have ever done is continued to run when 25 year old men are walking the same course.

Around this point, my knees really started giving out.  I mentioned in my last blog that I fell down pretty hard a few weeks ago, but didn’t really go into it too much.  Anyways, I busted both my knees and obviously didn’t give them enough recovery time.  I was in tears by what I assume was mile 20.  Did I mention the fact that there were NO MILE MARKERS on the entire course.  To add insult to injury, at the water stations they had no clue how far out you still were.  Ugandans are terrible at distances in the first place, but I assumed those manning the stations would at least have an educated guess.  Educated is the last word I would categorize their obvious guesses as.  When I still had over 6 miles to go, I stopped at a water station where I was informed it was 5K to the finish (3 miles).  The next water station told me I was about 10K (6 miles), and then the next one told me I was less than a Kilometer (maybe 8 minutes of running) from the finish line.  All were terribly wrong and made the race that much harder because I was mentally preparing myself to finish as well.  With about 4K to go.... I got lost. (Im not going to lie, at this point I was crying.  Hard.  It was everything I could do to stop myself because it was so hard to breath when I was running, and my knees felt like they had been hit with a baseball bat) I wasn’t lost because I have a bad sense of direction, but simply because they were tearing everything down.  The elite runners had finished 2 hours ago and therefore they thought they could pull down the signs and cones.  No one was there to tell me the way, but luckily a Ugandan man was running with me and he could ask people where we were supposed to go.  With less than 1K left I got lost yet again, and decided not to follow the Ugandan (he was going up a hill and that pissed me off).  In the end I just stood in the middle of the road and screamed “Where the hell is Kololo Airstrip?”  Someone pointed in the general left direction and I headed down a hill, where I could hear Chester and Tine screaming.  They had actually heard me screaming before they saw me coming down the hill. Ha.

            They told me that it was just around the corner and they followed me into the finish!!  I sprinted in where all the rest of the Peace Corps people as well as Kohei, my JICA neighbor, were waiting for me.  What a great feeling to have finished a marathon.  Tine later reminded me that my first words after finishing my marathon were, “If I ever decided to do this again... smack me.”  Ha.  I don’t know if I will ever do another marathon, but I do know that I won’t choose one in a third world country that straddles the equator. J 

ps.  The published the results yesterday in the paper.  I came in 156th!!

Roller Coaster Emotions

In America, I tend to consider myself a fairly stable person.  Yes, I do have my occasional meltdowns, but overall I am usually calm and collected (except for my temper of course).  Anyways, here in Uganda, I am a total mess.  Not even just sort of off kilter, but if this was my real life I would seriously go to a psychiatrist to get tested for multiple personalities or bipolar disorder or something.  It wouldn’t be so bad if I maybe had 4 good days and then a bad day or two... that would at least seem normal and logical.  Since nothing here is logical, it only makes sense (or does it?) that my emotions would fly off the radar at the slightest provocation.  Most days I cry at least once, or get so angry that I grind my teeth till they are sore.  Those exact same days can sometimes be my best, when I will spend hours laughing with children or sitting talking with friends.  (As I talk to other Peace Corps volunteers, it has become very clear that this is the norm here and I am not crazy.  Most people have mood swings that go from one extreme to the other... in a matter of minutes.) It’s all so very crazy that I thought I would allow you to experience it for a few minutes.  So in the next few lines I interspersed things that bring me to tears with others that remind me why I am here (They are accumulated from a few days... this did not all happen in one day!):

 

On my walk home tonight a little 4 year old ran out into the street with a snow suit on.  It was fully zipped up and even the hood was tied super tight around his head. Poor kid was probably melting inside, as was I because I was laughing so hard.  By the way... I live about 20 minutes south of the equator.  It’s really hot.

The last 3 times I have gone to teacher computers the power has gone off right as I started to teach.  No power.... no class.

My garden is growing like crazy!

I was on my run today (training for a marathon kids) and 4 miles out it started to rain.  Now I was real pissed because it was my long run and I had a good 16 to go. But I hid out under a mango tree and waited for the rain to stop.  As I started running again I saw the most gorgeous double rainbow in the sky.  Best part is that I could see both ends of it!

I tried to start a savings association at the local church.  We need 15 people to start... 4 showed up to the meeting today.

My dog learned how to “sit, lay, shake, and speak”.  Ugandans think she is super-human.

They wouldn’t let me start a running club at the college because they don’t want the students going off the campus.  Crushed....

The JICA volunteer who is next to me was given a boda (motorcycle) by his organization.  I am not even allowed to ride on the back of one.  Sick.

All but 7 of the inmates at the prison signed up for my English class!!

Baby Dan got his first tooth... and the next three as well!

My dog killed two of my neighbors chickens. In theory all I would have to do is buy my neighbor new chickens, but the students told me that in the Buganda region when something gets destroyed it is not okay simply to buy a new one... that doesn’t do the item justice apparently.  Especially not a chicken.  The kids said, “Maybe you should just kill your dog and get a new better one.”  Tears ensued.

            I got to hold a newborn baby... hadn’t even been to the hospital yet.

            An old man I met on one of my runs brought me home made juice tonight.  Then he proceeded to tell me that the seeds in the bottom were to kill all of the worms.  He stood there and watched me drink it.  It was delicious... and probably deadly.

            The people in my savings group informed me that NONE of them have a bank account.

            I got an amazing package from my momma.

            I crashed and burned on my run this morning.  Bloody hands, bloody knees, bloody elbows.

            I got my hair braided at the deaf salon in town and all my students think I look “smart”.

            We finally printed the school newsletter!

            So there is a little bit of the up and the down of my daily life.  I am sort of getting used to it and actually don’t know what I will do when I come home and things are so predictably normal.

AIDS

This is a poem one of my students wrote about AIDS.  I thought it was pretty powerful and wanted to share it with people at home:

I am AIDS

I am proud of my name

I am the greatest criminal in the whole world.

I have killed innocent people and disorganized their relatives

I have killed more then one in one battle

I have left families miserable and orphans wondering

 

I am AIDS

I threaten people

I have killed the weak and weakened the strong

I have changed promising youths into promising parasites

 

I am AIDS

I regard myself as the most handsome in the whole world

I kill people day and night

I don’t specialize in any kind of people

I kill lawyers, teachers, magistrates, tutors, students, MP’s, ministers, and even doctors themselves

 

I am AIDS

Currently, I hold the record of being the world’s number one killer and I love the position

I am dangerous and irresistible

So be aware of me, because I am hazardous to your lives.

The King waved at me...

So… the King of Buganda waved at me the other day. You may be thinking, I didn’t know that Uganda still had a King. Oh yes my friend they do, many of them… and the King of Buganda totally waved at me. Let me preface this story with one about burning tires, tear gas, and gun shots, because a country with both a president and a handful of kings could do nothing without the above mentioned wartime weapons.
Uganda is made up of many different ethnic groups….I think about 50 or so. These tribes were thrown together by the glorious whiteman some years back to form a “protectorate” under the British government. (The Brits are the ones who introduced caning in this country, thank you very much England.) Since that point they have been expected to work together in total peace and harmony sharing a single government. This is being asked of people who speak different languages, eat different food, wear different clothes, have different customs, and even worship different Gods. Sounds like a good idea, right? Regardless of this fact, each of these different groups of people was once ruled by a King. At some point in time (not really sure the exact date) Uganda was christened with a democratic government as well as a president. Since that time the government has been overthrown multiple times (Idi Amin… Obote… etc.). Currently, the position of president is held by the magical, the wonderful Yoweri Museveni (sarcasm). He came into power around the time I was born, and swore he would only stay for 2, 5 year terms… meaning he would be out of there around ’96. Well, 1996 rolled around and homeboy decided he wanted to stay. So he nixed the ruling that said he could only stay for 2 terms and continued ruling the country. At one point he was quoted as saying, “You think a piece of paper can take me out of office?”… he was referring to ballots in elections. Good thing he hasn’t rigged any of them. Ha. Most people in this country hate their president. They feel he has cheated them (which he has). They think he is corrupt (which he is). They observe that he has rigged the elections (which he has). Take the amount of hate that people have for Museveni and turn it around into love. This is what the Buganda feel for their Kabaka (or their King). People love the king. They think he is marvelous and charming. They print out his picture and hang it on their walls. They sing songs that claim he should live forever.
Now lets get to the crazy part. Last week the Kabaka had decided to travel to the northern part of Kampala to visit some lands that were apparently his. Museveni (the president) had recently taken the lands, formed a new kingdom, and handed them over to a different King… therefore the King of Buganda was trespassing. As he headed out he was refused from entering his own lands. The people realized this and freaked out. When people here freak out it gets really ugly, really quickly. So began the riots. In Kampala they started by throwing burning tires in the road and stopping anyone from moving. All traffic ceased and then things really started to get ugly. The police here walk around with huge guns, and to me there are incredibly scary. Well… the police (who rarely do anything) got deployed into the madness and began firing warning shots (a few of which inevitably killed people). Then came the tear gas. Even with all of the chaos from the police, people were still rioting, catching things on fire, looting stores, and stopping cars in the road to steal whatever they had. The fact that 50% of Uganda’s population is under the age of 18 and very uneducated doesn’t help when it comes to riots.
I live about 2 ½ hours South of Kampala, but somehow near a pretty sketchy town, Nnyendo, full of boda boda drivers (basically young men who drive motorcycles for a living b/c they had to drop out of school). When these boys heard about the riots in K la they decided they should riot too! They began by riding around on their bodas with huge branches to stop the police from driving down the road. Then they put up road blocks by burning tires. I had no idea any of this was happening until I heard gun shots and someone said that there was rioting in Nnyendo. So of course Peace Corps found out and put everyone in the country on lock-down. Basically, I wasn’t allowed to leave my compound for a good long time. We were on lock down for almost 10 days and then finally we were allowed to go free. The exact day that we got out of lock-down I heard that the Kabaka (king) was coming to Nnyendo town for a celebration. So I decided to wake up super early in the morning to ride my bike to Nneyndo and see if I could get a glimpse of the king. I went with another PC volunteer and we waited on the side of the road for hours until as the crowds thickened. We were the only bazungu (white people) there and therefore we stood out… maybe a little more than usual. The people were absolutely stoked that we had come out to see their king. As his police escorted vehicle pulled down the street everyone went crazy. He drove past and as I was trying to figure out which one he was, it happened. We made eye contact, he smiled, and then he waved. I waved back and just about peed my pants. The King of Buganda totally just waved at me. The joy lasted about .5 seconds because soon a mob of people was charging towards the church following his vehicle. This was the point where I got out my camera and got some amazing footage of people on motorcycles and on foot, carrying babies and branches running through the streets screaming for their king. I actually feared that I would be trampled. But in the end everything was just fine…. Not even fine but amazing… because seriously how often does a king wave at you?

The food we eat

When it comes to food in the States, I would call myself an informed and conscious consumer.  I choose to not eat meat and make an effort to eat locally when I can.  It really wasn’t until I got to Uganda, read some books, and looked around for a second that I realized just how little I really knew about any of the food I was eating.  I know to some people this may seem irrelevant, or even a bit silly, but when it comes down to it are there many things more important than the food that you nourish your body with??

Growing up in Kansas City didn’t really offer me that many opportunities to see where the food I was eating came from.  My dad planted tomatoes every summer and I specifically remember my Grandpa having a massive garden, but other than that I can’t really say that I have really observed the entire process of seedling to vegetable.  We I used to run the back roads in the Fall in Maryville I was always amazed to see the corn grow week by week.  In my mind what I eat is somehow far from what is growing out of the ground.  For some reason it has always intrigued me that there are still humans that have to get out and plant the seeds and then later harvest the crop.  I am well aware of the fact that machines do a majority of the work, but it still comes down to the farmers work.

And work it is... let me tell you.  As I began to plan my garden I had to begin by deciding which seeds I would plant (This was basically decided for me seeing as mommy-dear sent me seedlings from the States).   Then was the decision of how exactly to plant them.  Questions like: Heaped or Rows?  Deep or Shallow?  Nursery bed or Garden? All had to be answered.  I answered most of them by simply guessing… or reading the back of the seed packets.  After that I had to plan what I call the “garden design”.  And then I actually had to do the work.  Let me tell you that gardening with a hoe is some of the most backbreaking and rewarding work I have ever done.  I was pretty nervous about planting the seeds… it all seemed suspiciously easy at that point.  Drop the seed in the ground, cover with loose soil, add some water.  Why don’t more people do this??  But as the days went by I realized my fatal flaws.  I had planted at the beginning of the “wet” season, but due to many things the wet season isn’t really as wet or as early as it used to be.  This equaled me hauling jerry cans of water down to the garden to my little seedlings wouldn’t be parched. 

Then came the weeding.  I have come to the conclusion that this may be my favorite part of the whole gardening process, only that I have no clue what I am doing.  I headed down to attack those stubborn weeds and realized that I had no idea which ones were the weeds and which ones were seedlings I had planted.  And really they all look about the same.  So I just started pulling up things that didn’t look quite right.  I am pretty sure I ruined a few good squash seedlings and maybe even some eggplant, but overall I think I dominated the weeds.

And now I wait…..  and wait…. And wait…..  It has actually been three weeks since I first planted my little seeds and I am getting a bit anxious.  Doesn’t it seem like things should be bearing their fruit by now??  Negative.  It takes almost 2 1/2 months to 3 ½ months for most of these veggies to be ready to eat.  Can you imagine that something you nonchalantly grab in the produce aisle and stick in your shopping cart took that much work??  And you pay mere cents for it.

To let you all know what I planted, here is a list:

●   Watermelon

●   Jalapeno

●   Cherry tomatoes

●   Big-Boy tomatoes

●   Green pepper

●   Snap peas

●   Eggplant

●   Pumpkin

●   Yellow squash

●   Green squash

●   Avocado (Okay, I really didn’t plant this one, but there is a huge tree in my backyard that I climb to get my avo’s so I think I can consider it mine.)

My only worry is that they will all come up at the same time and I will have this massive cornucopia of food and only one mouth to feed.  Luckily for me, I live in Uganda where it is perfectly acceptable and usually expected to share your abundant crops with the people you care about (I have veggies left on my door step all of the time.  Sometimes I am thoroughly baffled at what one thinks I will do with 12 avocados).  So the roles will reverse and I will finally get to bestow upon my neighbors gifts of peppers and tomatoes, peas and pumpkin.  Can’t even wait.

On a similar but somewhat different note, I just finished reading the Omnivore’s Dilemma.  It’s a great book that everyone should read (its not trying to convince you to be a vegetarian).  It simply recounts our relationship, or lack their of, with our food.  In it is a chapter about the fact that food is seasonal but that rarely affects us because of imports.  The idea of seasonal food is a concept that most Americans aren’t capable of wrapping their minds around.  The fact that we can get mangoes, corn, and tomatoes year round isn’t because they are ever-plentiful but simply because we import them from exotic places and pay a lot of money for them.  Uganda doesn’t do that (As you could have well guessed).  The tomatoes that I eat for lunch everyday are probably grown a mere mile from my house and it is my guess that not an ounce of fuel is used in harvesting them or transporting them to the market.  The corn I eat for dinner is grown just down the way.  I saw them hand picking the rest of the harvest last week.  Talk about local.

I walked to the market a few days ago looking for an eggplant.  The lady at the market informed me that the eggplants were “over”.  I inquired as to what she meant and she said they were all gone until next season.  My poor Americanized mind was so very confused…. Wait.  Eggplants have seasons?  And at some point there are just none left in country and therefore I can’t eat them?  Strange. 

Not even two days later I was walking up to my neighbors house to get milk from her cow for my dog.  I met her outside and she informed me that there was no milk.  I assumed it was because she hadn’t milked the cow yet, but she then told me it was because the cow was done milking. Hmmmm…..  Cows can be done milking?  I thought it just simply kept coming as long as you were milking it.  My guess is that she wants it to have another calf and has to stop milking it to be fertile again??  (All you people that live on farms, i.e. Aunt Barb, Chels, etc. please fill me in on this.)  So regardless of the reason there is no more milk from her and I now have to walk an extra mile and a half to get fresh milk.  Now this is no burden on me, for I have all the time in the world.  But it is strange to think that anyone back home can simply go to the grocery store and get as much milk as they could possibly want… cold… pasteurized… skim…. Because cows always produce milk…. Right???

By the way, enjoy eating your dinner tonight…. It’s probably traveled farther in its short life than you have in the past month. J (And also go out and buy the Omnivore’s Dilemma…. Good, good book.)

And if you get the urge to write me an e mail... tell me all about what you ate this week.  It will probably be unbearable and I might tear up, but then hopefully I will have dreams about it and I can live vicariously through you.

Write me.... please.

This is a picture of me holding a jackfruit... which is probably my favorite food in country.  It probably weighed a good 20 pounds.  Yum

(I would write more on this blog, but there isn’t much to write about.  I spent the last two weeks in Kampala at training and the term doesn’t start until next week.  I am sure there will be some marvelous stories coming your way in the next few weeks.)

I went to the post office today to check if I had any packages and found out I had 3 awaiting me.  I can’t express how exciting it is to get packages here… especially when they include wonderful treasures like granola bars, books, gum, newspaper clippings, candy, crossword puzzles.  Anyways… thanks Elisa, Kathy, and Jason (and co.).  It means a ton!!

On a different note, I have been a bit sad lately because of the lack of e mails, etc. that I have been getting from people.  I think this is mostly because people don’t think their lives are interesting enough to write about… but let me assure you that I would love to hear about any little thing you do throughout the day.  (Your use of a washer/dryer, the fact that you were late to a meeting, your dinner last night, your facebook obsession… etc.) I was talking to a fellow PCV and we thought of a great idea to get you guys to write to me.  I am going to post a question at the beginning of every blog and if you feel compelled to write me your opinion on it I will be oh so overjoyed.  I figure if people don’t want to write about their day-to-day things, maybe they will want to tell me more about themselves (and maybe help me out in the meantime).  And also, I can get to know the people whom I love just a little bit better.  That, and I promise you will hear back from me.  I will answer the question for you if you want me to. J So here is the first question:

What are you passionate about and why?

(Even if you don’t know me that well I would love to hear your response… so don’t hesitate.  I have lots of time here kids.)

You can e-mail me at: ambercommer@gmail.com 

I love you and miss you all.

Let it rain!

It has been a dry 3 months here in Uganda.  May-July is the dry season here on the equator and let me tell you…. Its drier than dry.  Because all of the roads are made of dirt, the dust is intolerable.  It gets in my ears and my nose when I run and I find myself covered in the red clay minutes after I have showered.  Just like everyone talks about the weather in the States, everyone here is perpetually talking about the dust (enfufu) and the lack of rain (enkuba).  Usually as I am walking atleast one person will strike up a conversation about “enfufu nningi” which just means “a lot of dust”.

So as I sat down to type my blog, I heard a strange thundering in the distance.  I went out my back door to check it out and sure enough there was a thunderstorm on its way to Ndegeya.  Now in the States if I saw rain coming I would probably think, “Well shit, I hope this doesn’t ruin my hair and make-up”. Ha. But here rain=life and therefore a million thoughts blew through my head as the rain came.  I laughed at everything I was thinking because it made me feel like I was really becoming a Ugandan, so let me share my thoughts with you.

1.              The rain is coming. I had better take my laundry off of the line in my backyard or it will be soaking wet and I will be clothesless.

2.              The rain is coming.  If I want to travel anywhere today I will not be able to because the roads will become so water-logged and muddy that I won’t be able to make it up the hills.  Therefore I am stuck in my house all day. (I have tried to go out in the rain one time last rainy season and ended up stranded 2 kilometers from my house, lost both of my shoes in the mud, and had to wait out the storm under a tree.  Never again.)

3.              The rain is coming.  Now I can begin planting in my garden.  I have waited for weeks to begin planting, but everyone says you must wait until the first rain or your seedlings won’t sprout.  (I have a nursery in front of my house that is simply seedlings I can water placed inside halves of water bottles and old basins.)

4.              The rain is coming.  This means that the entire community will begin digging tomorrow.  I am supposed to go to church with the LC.  Will I be able to make it to her house through the mud?  I am also supposed to have a Village Savings and Loans meeting in the morning.  Will anyone attend (probably not) or will they all be digging and preparing for the new crop?

Its just such a different mindset than I have in the States... but I really am beginning to prefer it.

Mirembe means peace

MIREMBE!

So, I went a little crazy and got a dog.  I was visiting another volunteer who had a dog and he recommended the earlier the better for getting a dog, that and I had been wanting one forever (and by forever I mean the entire 3 months I have been at site).  So I talked to some of the locals and found out that one of the muts in the village had babies that were 2 months old.  I went to go pick up my pup and they brought them all out by the scruff of their necks.  They were all flea covered, skinny as hell, and generally unhappy.  I picked up a few of them, but then I picked one up and it peed all over me.  I thought…. This is my dog.  They told me it was a boy, so I took my little boy home and introduced him to the students.  During English club I let them name him and they decided on Lute (loo-tee).  I loved it, but when I introduced him in the staff room the next day the teachers said they hated that name.  We had a long discussion and they decided that they wanted to call him Muze (moo-zay), which means wise old man.  I loved it and thought that he might as well have two names.  So for the first 2 weeks the dog was a bit confused but was getting used to his two names.

            Last week another volunteer came to visit and I introduced him to Lute/Muze.  He played with him for a while and then said, “Um, I don’t think this is a boy.”  I was like… of course it is, look at his parts!  He continued by saying that he did look at “his” parts and they weren’t all that male looking.  Come to think of it, I hadn’t really looked at “his” parts either.  So I took a look, but puppy parts are sort of ambiguous so I asked for a third opinion from the college driver.  He was positive it was a girl.  I was mortified.  My poor dog had spent the last 2 weeks of his (and by his I mean her) life being gender confused.  The next day I took her out to the students and explained that he was a she and we had to come up with a new name.  Then I took her into the staff room and did the same with the staff.  They thought it was the funniest thing ever.  So, after long contemplation we all agreed on the name Mirembe (meh-lim-bay) which means “peace” in Luganda.

            It was a little after this point that I got the genius idea to take my dog to visit another volunteer.  I know I have mentioned this before but I have to point it out again… Ugandans HATE dogs.  Dogs here are only used as guard dogs and they are incredibly vicious.  So it was kind of stupid of me to think it would be easy to take my dog by public transport.  But I did it anyways.  When we got to the car that we would take the driver put my bag in the boot (trunk) and then said, “Are you taking that?”  I told him I was, and he told me it was fine and he would put it in the boot as well.  I freaked out. There was no way he was putting her in the boot of the car for a 2 hour (granted only 35 miles) ride.  He said fine but then the passengers agreed that we should tie all of her paws together before he could sit in the car.  It took a good 15 minutes to convince them that she wasn’t a menace and that she would sit patiently on my lap (though I doubted he actually would for the whole ride).  Finally they agreed and we were off.  I was in the front by myself at the beginning and Mirembe was sleeping on a pillow in between me and the driver.  I noticed after a bit that the driver was paying more attention to my dog then to the road and asked him in Luganda if he feared the dog.  He said he did and so I took the pup back onto my lap. But it is pretty funny to see a 45 year old man who is deathly afraid of an adorable puppy.

            Everything would have been fine and dandy if we would have stayed that way and continued on our journey, but it wouldn’t be as good of a story if that was the case.  Approximately 15 minutes into the 2 hour journey we had gone from 6 people in a 4 passenger car to 12 people in a 4 passenger car (and a dog).  You may be wondering how that is possible, but I ask you to recall “sober sister” at Northwest and then you will get a better idea of how it is done.  Except in Uganda it is totally appropriate for someone to share the drivers seat with the driver, which seems far from safe to me!  Anyways, at this point Mirembe was getting restless and whining and of course the two people on either side of me made it very clear that they “feared dogs”.  Not only did they tell me, but anytime my dog would move her head towards them they would literally cringe or jump.  And of course Mirembe wanted to lay her head on the lap of the man next to me, but he would not have it.  Anyways we finally made it there and I vowed to never travel with my dog again in this country.  You live and learn.  (I would also like to add in that on the ride home there was a goat tied up in the trunk and we maxed out with 12 passengers again.  And if you have ever heard an angry goat you know it sounds like a newborn baby crying.  And if you have ever seen me around a newborn baby crying you know I can stand that sound for about .5 seconds and then I pick the baby up.  But you can’t pick up a goat that has its legs tied together and is chilling in your trunk. Fun.  I think it passed out after about an hour.)

            I teach computers at night at the college and don’t like to leave my dog in my house for a long time so I tend to take her up to the lab.  It scares the crap out of the students and gives me a good laugh while teaching.  For the last 10 minutes or so of the class I let the students have free time on the computers and encourage them to get onto Encarta to research things that interest them.  Inevitably a majority of them look up things like “reproduction”, but I figure at least they are learning more than their parents have told them.  One of the students clicked on one of the reproduction videos and up comes a full screen view of some lady having a baby.  Everyone was silent for the whole birth and then one kid pipes up and says, “Well, that’s not pretty.”  Hilarious.  When they aren’t looking up reproduction I find that they look at the silliest things.  The other night half the lab was watching Scott Hamilton Ice skating in the 90’s while the others were watching a kangaroo nurse its baby from its pouch.  I love my students.

Livin' life

Some of this blog is not appropriate for young children so please screen it before you let your kids read it.  But some of it is very good for young children so make sure they see the good parts. J 

So I had a wonderful night and wanted to share it with people that read my blog.  It began with a ride to town (in the school truck) where I got a dinner of yogurt!! (I have only had this once since I got here so needless to say I pigged out on it!)  Then I met up with the local chairman who is a wonderful old woman that has agreed to teach me how to weave a mukeka (a straw mat).  So we sat on her porch for a good hour and she had me weave banana leaves to practice.  She walked me halfway home as the sun was going down and on the way I ran into 2 of the students from the deaf school near my house.  I have been studying Ugandan Sign-language so I was able to ask them how their night was going.  In which they replied that it was fine (two thumbs up shaking).  Now that’s what I call a good night. J

Even though I would normally say that sending aid abroad is a positive thing for people to do, after being in this country for a while I have begun to question just how helpful it really is.  Here are some examples:

1.              There is a primary school about 2K away from my house that just got donated computers!  Only problem is…. they don’t have electricity and it costs millions of shilling to get electricity installed.

2.              Another primary school that I work with got a huge shipment of books and even a T.V. over a year ago.  They aren’t being used because there is no where “safe enough” to keep them on the school compound. 

3.              I work at a school that was built with donations from USAID.  It was installed with 30 flushing toilets… but the school keeps the restrooms locked from all students and faculty because if they use running water it will drive their finances into the ground. (This is the same school whose latrine is full and they can’t find money to replace it.  Why exactly didn’t USAID just build more pit latrines?  No one knows.)

So I am not saying “don’t donate money abroad”, but please be sure that what you are donating too is legitimate and something that is somewhat sustainable.  It’s just so frustrating to see that people want to do good things but there are more problems here than just not having “stuff”.  There is an entire web of things that hinder this country from development.

Our school had “Sports Day” last weekend and I was commissioned as photographer.  This is probably due to the fact that most Ugandans struggle with framing an entire body in a picture and most often get only the neck and shoulders. Ha.  The students had a great time and I loved watching it.  It was basically a track and field meet with everything from sprints to javelin (yes we have a javelin.  I almost got speared the other day while playing Frisbee because I didn’t realize what they were doing.)  Anyways both boys and girls competed and they did so accordingly to their “house” (which is designated by the college).  None of the students have tennis shoes so they all competed barefoot which was amazing to watch.  Those kids are fast.  And the high jump obviously didn’t have a mat so they jumped over a piece of bamboo and attempted to land on their feet (I swear some kids are capable of jumping over my head).   It was hilarious to see all of the different rituals they have and think are making them faster.  Girls competed in a 5K with handkerchiefs in their mouths (They seriously believe that this makes them run faster, though I can’t see how blocking your airflow could do anything but the opposite.  But I must admit the two girls that came in 1^st and 2^nd both had handkerchiefs dangling from their lips.)  After they run they all look like they have just been hit by a truck and would run to the “water station” which didn’t have water but did have powdered glucose (which is what we call pure sugar).  They would each grab a handful to replenish all of the energy they had lost during their 100 meter sprint.  It was incredibly entertaining.  We were supposed to have staff relays but that fell through… can’t say I was disappointed because I think they have a skewed idea of just how fit I am.  The day ended with a goat being awarded to the winning team.  No clue what a team of 65 Ugandan kids are going to do with a single goat but they spent the afternoon walking the goat around the compound and cheering. Hilarious.

So I was sitting in the staff room at Ssaza primary school the other day when a “salesman” walked in.  All the teachers looked skeptical and therefore I looked even more skeptical.  The man was selling beauty products as well as home cleaning products, and it seemed that they were two separate items.  This seemed somewhat legit to me, but I was soon to discover otherwise.  The first product he brought out was LCD, which sounded a bit to much like LSD, but anyways.  He first introduced it as a product that could “clean hard to get stains off of floors, walls, etc.” (wow, I thought, this sounds great).  Next he claimed this same product could also preserve not only meat but also milk! (At this point I was thinking… who would want to put something on their meat that also strips stains off of floors).  And finally the kicker, Mr. Salesman promised that LCD worked great as toothpaste. Wait what?!!?  You mean to tell me that not only does it clean your floors/walls and preserve flesh, but it is also great against plaque!!  What a deal.  I was busting up laughing at this point trying not to think of the lethal concoctions that innocent Ugandans who just wanted pearly whites were going to put in their mouths.  The other teachers seemed to have the same idea and none of them bought the two-in-one beauty products/cleaning products.

Next, Mr. Salesman brought out a product that was supposed to help out with homeostasis within the body.  I had just finished a conversation with one of the teachers and she explained to me that she was too skinny and wanted to know how to get fat.  She lives deep in the village and the larger you are the more respect you get from people.  At the time of the conversation she had a huge plate of posho, as well as ½ a loaf of bread, and a plate full of beans.  I am pretty sure she was well on her way to being fat, but she was unconvinced.  So when the Salesman brought out these pills she thought they might help her get fat and showed extra interest.  After about 5 minutes of his ridiculous sales pitch, I leaned over to her and told her that they were diet pills and she would become very skinny if she took them.  She took one last look at the bottle, shrugged in disgust, and handed them back to the salesman saying, “I don’t want to be skinny!”  Needless to say he was angry with me, but I spent a good 3 minutes trying to stifle my laughter because I felt like I was in backwards world with someone refusing a pill that would make them thinner.  God I love this country.

So Autumn came to my college last week to go to a PIASCY (Presidential Initiative on AIDS Strategy for Communicating to Young People) workshop with me and all of the tutors.  It was the best workshop I have been to in-country and we finally had some very interesting and pertinent discussions about HIV/AIDS.  One thing that we debated was whether to tell the primary school students that HIV and STI’s are passed on through sexual intercourse or sexual acts.  Autumn and I were adamant about saying sexual acts not intercourse because we thought that primary students are much more likely to be doing sexual acts (oral, petting, etc.) than actual intercourse.  Well, for some reason the tutors could not understand the idea of sexual acts and they thought we were talking about sharing needles or something to that extent.  (Let me include in this story that sex is not talked about at ALL in this country, it is a huge taboo)  So Autumn took it upon herself to give an example.  I thought that she would give a random, vague example about someone else that still made the point, but no siree, she went straight to the point by saying, “So lets say I have oral sex with someone who has Syphilis and then have oral sex with someone else…”.  I just about choked on my spit and I truthfully think that about everyone in the room stopped breathing.  She continued with her scenario and then sat down.  Everyone was a bit stunned and didn’t really know what to say, but after that point they all agree on sexual acts.  Point proven… thanks Autumn, way to take one for the team.

Also during the meeting the tutors were discussing how to approach the topic of sex in general and at what age.  It was interesting to listen to their different ideas, but the most interesting part was that they used the verb “play” when referring to sex.  They would say things like, “When kids play sex they can get HIV.” (They also use this verb when speaking about adults, not only children).  This struck me as strange and so I raised my hand to ask why they were using that verb (even though that is the ONLY verb I have heard used with the act of sex in Uganda).  They couldn’t really explain why they used it and I suggested that they use the verb “have” instead.  The woman from the ministry of education asked me why and I explained that when you use the word “play” it implies that it is a game or something of little importance and that is not necessarily the outlook we want to give our children.  In fact, we want to let the children know that it is nothing like a game and that only adults should have consensual sex.  She agreed that they had not really thought of that and recommended that we use the verb have throughout the rest of the workshop.  Then she thought for a second and informed me that all of the printed material for this PIASCY initiative uses the verb “play” when referring to sex.  ARGH!!  But atleast we are getting somewhere through discussion.

Photo(s)

I only got one picture uploaded because internet in this country is ridiculous.  More to come...

Sports Day at the College.  The 100 meter dash... shoeless!

What exactly is "work"?

The more I spend time in Uganda, the more my definition of “work” has changed.  Before I came here I would say I defined work as productivity (which implies in my mind that you are getting something tangible from it, i.e. money, muscles, etc.).  But here, if you define work as such then you will not only never be “working”, but you will also feel terrible about yourself because of this fact.  I have realized that in America we have to see results to feel like we have done something. In Uganda most of the work people do consists of building relationships.  This is both positive and negative, but I would say it is more positive than anything.  As I begin to judge myself on whether or not I have “done anything” since I got here I have to carefully decide which scale to weigh myself on.  If I weigh myself on the American scale I have failed: I have nothing to show for my work, I have not recorded any grades, I have not started any clubs, I have not run any meetings, I have not personally conducted professional development, I have not built any wells, I have not started any loans associations, I have not created any income generating activities.  And there are times when I decide to weigh myself on this scale and become severely disenchanted with my time here.  But then I remember that that scale is one for a society that puts more emphasis on its things than its people, more emphasis on its time than its love, and more emphasis on its productivity than its relationships. 

It’s usually at this point that I begin to weigh myself on the Ugandan scale.  With this scale (which is based solely on the relationships one forms) I have thoroughly succeeded: I have had tea with the local chairman, I meet twice weekly with my language tutor (while I coddle her baby), I have planted flowers with my students, I have chatted in depth about Uganda’s education problems with the teachers at my school, I have befriended Carol, I have argued with the DPP, I have loved on children, I have started learning sign language from the students at the deaf school about 10 meters from my house, I have talked to agriculture co-ops, I have watched 1^st grade teachers teaching, I have taught kids how to play Frisbee, I have eaten matooke with the staff at my school, I have attended a wedding, I have cooked for Moses.  And now I look back at the first list of “failures” and almost laugh.  Isn’t it funny how we judge ourselves on what we should and shouldn’t be doing?  But when you look at it like this it makes perfect sense which scale we should be weighing ourselves upon.  Who care how many meetings you held.  What does it matter how much money your company made?  Your productivity is irrelevant in the game of life.  Your car doesn’t matter.  Your nightly shows don’t matter.  Your favorite restaurant doesn’t matter.  Your crap, your clothes, your house, your phone…. None of it matters.  And you are no better for having earned it.  Who did you love on today?  How many people did you call and say, “I care about you.” How many times did you smile at a stranger?  When did you slow down and talk to your kids?  Did you give that extra hug?  Did you tell your spouse that you love them?  Did you learn something new from someone new?  Did you greet your neighbor?  Have you taught someone something?  Have you talked to your parents about important things in your life?  Have you written letters to friends?  These are the things you should be judging yourself on, simply because these are the things that matter.  Now I am not saying I have perfected this, but I am working on it.  And I firmly believe that if more people in the States judged themselves from a Ugandan standpoint as opposed to the American one (and made changes accordingly), we would have less broken families, far less abused children, better friendships, and an overall increase in our quality of life.

So take a step back and ask yourself these questions.  Then respond truthfully.  Now, do something about it.

So I spent 5 days last week in Kampala at an All Volunteer Conference put on by Peace Corps.  We stayed at an amazing hotel with a pool, gym, hot running water, etc.  it was heavenly.  They even had TV and I spent a decent amount of time watching the BBC, in which I learned that Michael Jackson died! Ha.  It was interesting to watch TV and I was excited to get to see the temperatures around Uganda, but when the weather came on it first flashed Europe, then Souteast Asia and finally the USA.  It was crazy to be half way across the world and see the temperature for Kansas City flash up on the screen!!  It was 98 degrees and I just about flipped.  But after about 3 minutes the weather was finished and they had not even shown us the weather in Africa!  I was kind of mad that I could find out the forecast for some place 5000 miles away, but not for here! Ha.  While we were watching the weather, Celeste and I discussed how I should write about it on my blog.  I thought it was a good idea and she also mentioned that she thought I should do a “spotlight” on her on my blog while I was at it.  So I have taken it upon myself to do so:

Celeste Arista (aka: Chester, Celestee, Lestee, Chesty) is an adult who is currently serving in Peace Corps Uganda.  Some of you may be saying, “Wait, are you sure she is an adult and not a youth?”  I can assure you that she no longer qualifies as a youth in accordance with the definition of Youth given at our grant writing workshop as “Anyone under the age of 25”.  Clearly, Chester is 25 and therefore no longer a youth. Bambi. Celeste has decided to step out of her bubble by coming to Uganda and also by making friends with me.  She has a strict rule in the States that she can only associate with what she refers to as “ethnic people” (she herself being of Mexican decent).  Here in Uganda I am considered to be ethnic enough by her standards and therefore she has befriended me.  When asked to describe herself Celeste would probably say: Patient, Flexible, Kind.  Which makes the perfect puzzle piece companion for myself considering the fact that I possess none of the first two mentioned qualities.  When asked why she is my friend she would probably respond by saying that she is trying to learn how to be a bit more assertive/aggressive.  I think I am teaching her well.  She is my best friend in Peace Corps and now you know a little bit more about her!

So now back to the workshop… Truthfully, it was a little overwhelming being around all of those Americans so many days in a row and I actually found myself skipping out on tea to read my book BY MYSELF!  After so many weeks of being alone I found it incredibly difficult to socialize (I know I am going to be so weird when I get back to the States)!!  But the conference in general was amazing!  I got to meet all 135 volunteers in country and also got to hear about all of their endeavors.  It was nice to bounce ideas off of them and to be able to hear what worked and what didn’t.  After the week was over I felt like I had a much better idea of the path I am on and where to put my time and energy… which leads me to my next point. 

As we all know, I am a fiend about reading.  And it has really increased since I got to Uganda and have excessive amounts of free time on my hand.  Not only do I love reading, but I love seeing other people reading.  I am a firm believer that people who read books in their spare time are smarter than those who don’t (sorry if you don’t. ha).  I think those who read are more eloquent, more knowledgeable, and have a larger vocabulary.  It kills me that most of the children in this country have NEVER even held a book, let alone read one.  This fact, along with the fact that the government is set on cultivating a culture of reading has led me to what I believe will be an amazing project.  I want to start a library at Ssaza Primary School.  It is in the very basic stage of seeing if it is even feasible, but I do know that the Peace Corps is able to give grants to people who are interested in creating capacity and I can’t think of anything that would create more capacity in this country than getting books into the hands of children.  So I thought I would put the idea out there and see if anyone who is reading this would be interested in donating children’s books to the adorable children of Uganda.  I don’t anticipate the books being expensive (because they can be second hand of course) but I do know that shipping costs are fairly high (but much lower than if I purchased all of the books brand new from Uganda).  I am not going to elaborate on it too much, because I don’t want to look back if this falls through and regret posting this on my blog.  But if you are interested in inspiring children to learn by providing them with the first book they have ever read, then please e mail me at ambercommer@gmail.com and let me know how you would like to help. J

Bubble Gum Lovin'

Ugandans are incredibly vague people.  They tend to walk around the subject of the conversation for about 10 minutes before getting to the point, and when the point is finally reached you have either forgotten what you were talking about in the first place or you are thoroughly confused because their point didn’t make any sense to you.  I know this sounds cynical but let me assure you that I am telling the truth.  And after speaking to people who practically talk in codes, I find myself using the most vague expressions in my daily life.  In saying all this I know that I am being vague myself, so let me give you some concrete examples.

Me: “How is your day going?”

Ugandan: “It’s going.”

Me: “Okay, well how are the people?”

U: “They are there. How are your people.”

Me: “They are going. Hmm… well, was your weekend good?”

U: “Somehow. Yours?”

Me: “Even me, somehow. Well, Thank you for your work.” (What work I am referring to I have no clue, but it is assumed here that everyone has done work sometime during the day and therefore it is appropriate that one shows their appreciation for it)

U: “And thank you for your work.”

So this usually lasts about 3 minutes, at which point I give up having not gleaned any information from said person and because I feel like I am talking cave man speak.  This conversation could go down in either English or Lugandan and I would feel equally as strange afterwards.  

Here is one that I have had with my students in computer class:

Me: “And so that is how you bold a word in MS Word. Are you getting me?”

Students: “We are.”

Student 1: “Madam.  How do we do the thing?”

Me: “The thing? Which thing?”

Student 1: “The thing which we have just done.”

Me: “Bolding a word on MS Word?”

Student 1: “No, the other thing, before the first thing.  I mean, how do I start the thing?”

Me: “Start MS Word?”

Student 1: “No madam, to start the thing that is sitting on the table.”

(This is the point where I walk over to the students computer in which there are actually 8 students crowded around one computer and realize that someone has managed to turn it off somehow.)

Me: “You push this button and wait for it to boot up.”

Student 1: “Okay, we wait.”

Me: “No, you go.”

Student 1: “Okay, we go.”

(Now I wait patiently for the student to push the button and ten minutes later the computer is re-booted and now we work on re-opening MS Word. Good times!)

            I usually run in the mornings around 7.  I run the same route almost every day and every day it takes me about 40 minutes to run it so I assume it is around 4 miles.  It is very hilly so I am winded by the end of it to say the least.  The students have asked to run with me and today was a public holiday so they did not have to attend their usual morning assembly.  One of the boys ran with me and as I was winded about 90% of the time I listened to him talk the entire time.  He had no problem talking and running and by how much he was talking you would have imagined he was reclining in a lazy boy instead of running at 7 in the morning.  Later in the evening I was walking home from a meeting and saw the boy running again!  After the run he came to me and I asked him where he had run.  He told me that he did the same route, just faster.  So, thinking he had maybe run a bit faster I asked him to figure how fast he had run.  He did the math and replied, “Madam, I ran it in 23 minutes.”  Now, not only had he run in the morning and spent the day digging in the garden but then he continued by running in the evening at faster than a 6 minute mile pace!  After discussing the run he asked me if I wanted to play Frisbee, which of course I did and we played for a good 45 minutes, sprinting up and down the soccer field.  And then he had to go for dinner which consists of posho and beans.  So, if you ever want to know how to get in shape, I suggest following his regement of running in the morning and evening as well as playing Frisbee and then only eating a portion of posho and beans. Dang, Ugandans are in shape.

            So on a very serious note…. The gum in this country tastes like gasoline.  Therefore, I have been desperately asking people to send me gum.  Cousin Jason sent me a bunch and I have been rationing accordingly.  I have only been able to eat one piece per day for the past month, but every Sunday I can have two pieces. Ha. I am currently down to exactly 7 pieces. Anyways, just yesterday I received a package from Chels and Leigh… covered in pictures, newspaper clippings, and a whole lot of love.  So after crying (because I had a rough week to say the least), I opened it up and to a world full of gum!! (and other wonderful things of course)  Anyways, I have time and therefore calculated and they sent me enough gum that I could chew 5 pieces a day and it would still last me longer than 3 months!! God my friends rock.

I know that I have already said how much Ugandans do not regard time as something of importance but lately it has really been keeping me in awe so I thought I should write about it again.  Not only do Ugandans not consider time on a daily basis of any importance but they also have very little concept of years and definitely don’t go out of their way to remember when something (that we would consider exceptionally important in the States) happened. 

Example 1:

I was talking to Moses the other day and asked him how old he was.  He said “35” without any hesitation.  Then I proceeded to ask him how old his wife was and he said “30”.  Then I asked him how long they had been married for and he said 14 years.  I freaked out and said MOSES you married her when she was 16!  He quickly said, no she was 20 when they got married.  You do the math… it doesn’t add up.  And then he thought about things for a second and said, “ I think I am 38.”  Ha. You think?!?  How does one not know how old they are?  The problem isn’t education.  He is one of the most intelligent Ugandans I have met (i.e. he speaks 6 languages fluently).  It is simply that they don’t put emphasis on time of any sort.  So then I said, well just tell me what year you were born and we will solve this problem very quickly.  He looked at me and told me that he had no clue what year he was born in.  I gleaned from this little fact that he probably had no clue what year he was married in and I was right.  Imagine if you didn’t know what year you were married in… how infuriated would your spouse be?  But not here, it just doesn’t matter.

Example 2:

I was talking to my language instructor about is family in Kampala.  I asked him how old his children were and he replied that they were 4 and 9.  We discussed a few things more about his family (like the age of his wife… which he didn’t know) and then the conversation was over.  The next day I asked him what year his daughter (the older one) was in school.  He replied that she was in P1 and was very smart.  P1 is the equivalent to our first grade.  I asked him why she was nine and in P1 and he said that she wasn’t nine but she was 7.  Then I asked how old his son was and he said 2.  When I mentioned that the other day he had told me that they were 4 and 9 he shrugged his shoulders and said that he must have been mistaken and that they were 2 and 7.  Now, how exactly do you make a mistake like that?  In the States I would have considered that a trait of an uninvolved father, but here it isn’t the same.  He said 4 and 9 because he couldn’t remember or because it doesn’t really matter what age his children are.  Either way, he wasn’t ashamed at the fact that he didn’t really know their ages and in the end he reminded me that time is not important in this country.  What a novel idea?!

I want to apologize to those of you who read my blog in case you are thinking that my mind wanders from one subject to the other very quickly.  This is definitely the case, but may I also add that I write different parts of my blog on different days and then upload them all to the internet when I finally get there.  So I mind is not as fluttery as it seems… though it is very fluttery indeed.

Team Bill Gates

I taught the students at my school how to play Ultimate Frisbee.  They were a little hesitant at first and usually just ducked when the Frisbee came within 20 feet of them, but after a little while they seemed to enjoy tossing it around so I decided to turn it into a competition (which I do with most things in my life).  I explained to them the rules of ultimate Frisbee and had one of the boys who had played with another American explain the rules in their native tongue (you’re right, I don’t yet know how to say “You can only pivot on your leg” in Lugandan).  So we picked teams and went on our separate sides.  I decided that for team moral we should come up with a team name.  They were baffled for a good 2 minutes and then someone came up with the name “Bill Gates” and everyone agreed that it was a good name.  And so we were Team Bill Gates. I spent the first 10 minutes of the game laughing at our team name and once I got serious about playing and got the Frisbee in hand I realized that I had no clue which of the boys was on my team because they all have such similar features and were all wearing the same school athletics uniform.  So here I am in the middle of the soccer field screaming, “Team Bill Gates…. Where are you?  Which ones are you Bill Gates??”  That method proved to be fatal because all of the boys put their hands up and I inevitably tossed the Frisbee to the other team.  Drats.  So it was decided that the other team would be shirts and we would be skins, with the exception of myself of course. 45 minutes later we were down by 1 and there were only a few precious minutes of sunlight left so things started getting pretty hard core.  Diving was involved as well as some minor wrestling (What can you expect with a team full of 18 year old boys) but in the end Team Bill Gates was defeated. Sad day, but I guess there is always tomorrow night.

 

 

In case you are wondering, here is a list of things that you can carry on a single bicycle that only has one gear: (And by you I don’t actually mean you nor I, but I mean more specifically Ugandans)

• 45 three-litre jerry cans
• 5 small children (equivalent to 3 grown men)
• Exactly 8 crates full of 30 bottles of soda each
• 4 bushels of matooke weighing about 40 pounds a piece
• 50 pieces of sugar cane (put horizontally only as to impede the movement of anyone else on the road)
• A large piece of plywood with the following items stapled to it for sale: 5 pairs of womens underwear, 20 hats, 15 combs, 10 slips, 7 mirrors, 20 bags of hair ties, 50 handkerchiefs, 30 pairs of earrings, 40 clothes pins, 13 grocery bags, 4 large pieces of fabric, 2 mats, and some type of perishable food.

Also, if you live in Uganda you will unavoidably carry these things on your bike at least four times a week and you will do so up hills that I can barely run up.  Also, you will be moving faster than I am.

 

So, I am always pretty impressed when people have really cool party tricks (i.e. being double jointed, doing a backflip, etc.) and though I have tried desperately my entire life to come up with a really great one, I really don’t have much more than touching my tongue to my nose.  I haven’t introduced this one to Uganda yet and the only thing that I can attribute this to is the fact that I have a much cooler and freakier party trick that I can do here.  Sitting in front of a group of people I can get even more attention than I get for being white if I simply take out my contact.  Yes, taking out my contact is my party trick and I want to thank Moses for enlightening me to it.  I was sitting in my house with him the other day and had something in my eye.  I couldn’t get it out for the life of me so I just casually took out my contact.  (I might add that I am legally blind without my contacts in, which is necessary to know for the next part of the story.) All of the sudden he starts screaming, which provokes me to start screaming because not only is a grown man freaking out, but I can’t see what he is freaking out about.  Thousands of things are running through my mind: a rat just ran into my house, his truck is rolling down the hill, ants are attacking my dinner.  So I start screaming, “What, what, what is is?” And he continues to scream until he calms down and says, “You took part of your eye out!” I bust out laughing and he continues by saying, “Put it back, put it back!” and so I do.  I try to explain what contacts are and that they are not part of my eye but something to help me see better and after about 10 minutes of explanation he seems to understand the concept.  Then he proceeds by saying, “Take it out again.” Which I do, and then he commands me to put it back in, which I do as well.  This goes on until I say that it will hurt my eye if I continue to take my contacts in and out and so he seems content with this fact and the conversation moves on to something new.  The next day I am walking up to teach a class and I see Mose standing outside with some of the hired help from our college.  He calls me over and promptly says, “Take out your contact.”  This is precisely how it has become my party trick.  So I take it out, and all 5 of the people watching step away from me as though I will try and take their eyes out as well if they are standing too closely. I explain the concept of contacts to them as well, but they are confused and so I drop it.  But now I know, if I am ever somewhere where I feel lost or simply without words all I have to do is take out my contact I will have the best party trick in the room.