yesterday we went ATVing as i told you ... but we rode about 2 hours along the Bujagali Falls and surrounding "towns". Riding through rutted streets which were more like large pathways. Everywhere we passed children, they ran to see us. After the first ten minutes i wasn't sure i wanted to continue.... not so much because of the bumpy rides but more because i kept thinking about ..... well, just all of it. One thing running through my head was the fact that i was spending $70.. to ride two hours through peoples backyards and crop grounds. They dont make that much in a year some of them. Another part of me thought - "well, the ATV people, Peter and Sharae(sp)?, are employing many Ugandans as guides, repair people, servers and giving back to the schools in the area...so i WAS technically helping stimulate their economy." Yet, still another side of me thought -" i feel like a freak show". I didnt know which of us was more on display for the other. We ride by seeing their homes and hard way of life. Children follow us, yelling to us, like the munchkins wishing Drothy a safe Journey back to OZ. What do the Ugandans think of us riding all over - zipping by "gracing" them with a wave? I wished there was a hole in my pockets letting coins drop out of my pockets ... but that doesnt sustain them forever it just replenishes the fact that we are "rich" Americans who have money to give away. (They dont understand that in America... I am the poor white people! lol.... I live modestly....save money when i do work... and can get by on very little. Yet, i donate regularly, write to 40 servicemen and women weekly and do some form of volunteer thing that is more involved, not quite like this and not so far away, at least once a year. I am not wealthy monetarily... but rich in other ways.)
Lusoga has no word for LOVE. So our teacher tells us. If a man wants to see you he says so. If you like him you agree to "date" and see where it goes from there. if you like each other he marries you, supports you and has children with you! end of story! hummmmmm.
Last night Lindsay had another of her frights....lol.. i told her i was going to write about this episode! She saw "something" in her room... convinced it was a scorpion or some thing in her room. She has gone to have the front desk take care of it! So we wait.... then i go with her to her room to check and see if they have removed the horrific offender......IT was waiting ..lurking....under her bags.......a baby gecko or other type lizard about an inch and a half long. I scootched it along the floor with my finger telling it it needed to vacate her premises. I then carried it down the stairs to the ground floor and the gardens. I took a picture of it next to my glasses.... the poor thing isnt even the length of a lense.....now of course its mother COULD be a Kimodo Dragon for all i know... and will come to eat me tomorrow..... but i saved the baby anyway.
I always go on and on about Lindsay, who ends her stay here Monday. i will have to tell you more about the others - i wouldnt want them to feel neglected.
Polly and Jamie come as a couple and when they say opposites attract, it appears to happen more than you think. They have been together off and on a long time. Now currently on for the last year or two and live in NY. Jamie is 28 ish and used to do gymnastic type basketball shots for the Celtics, worked doing film work, is a photographer and all around techno whiz who never ceases to try to get me to understand computer crap - but when i dont, he does it for me without complaining. ok... maybe he complains a little.... but we have the same weird sense of humor and photography background... so I indulge him. He also thinks i can do ANYTHING else but computers. Flattery will get him alot, including today's haircut.... lol ... and he now teaches math to 8th graders in DABronx. Ack! His significant other is Polly or is he hers? She is .....26 ish and they both came very prepared for the trip. They read up about Uganda , learned a bit of language - usual stuff most people would do before a trip like this, except me! Polly also does draping and tailoring in my union. I didnt know her before this trip but she is very talented. Not that being a perfectionist is a bad thing mind you ..... its good... but i think it was a bit disappointing to her that the women and men didnt quite get how important straight seams are and the attention to details is what gets them the higher prices for their work. Polly is creative , like me.... and Jamie keeps trying to help organize her. My motto is "creative minds are rarely neat" and "if you come to see me, come anytime - if you come to see my house.... stay home." (This last statement will have to be amended a bit once the Gingerbread transformation happens to the outside - because i am sure it will draw alot of attention..but that will be another blog.)
Rebecca aka Becky, Tara's good friend, was the first of the group to leave last Friday. She teaches English as her regular job and wrote a really great poem about the handicapped children. i am going to include it - i hope Becky doesnt mind. She is a true southern peach type of woman. Tall, slender, beautiful inside as well as out with a smile that melted the hearts of many Ugandan, and not so Ugandan, men. While i didnt actually work with her all day, our paths did cross often at dinners or after work. I am so glad we had the chance to meet.
The beauty you cannot see
I see very clearly in you
While your eyes may not focus
The picture I view is more true
What matters in this world
Is not defined by one's sight
But whether or not one has vision
That centers on what is right
Your vision sees no color
Does not distinguish between age
Gives no regard to one's size
For my looks you can't gauge
It simply because I AM
That you smile at me
Standing there beside you
All I have to do is BE.
-Inspired by and written for the blind children of HODASSU
Rebecca Maier (Becky) 16 July 2010
Tara is our leader...lol.. and helped coordinate all the stuff to get us here. Also a union member that i didnt know before this trip. Bubbly and energetic about all the work here, she has been coming to Jinja for 4 or 5 years now. She may never get rid of me .... not that i am thinking about returning anytime soon.... but i can, MAYBE, help do things stateside.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
SA FAR(I) AWAY - part deuce
you really shouldnt let someone loose a few thousand miles away from family and friends that KNOW what kind of weird things i can think and trouble i can get myself into. I need a keeper...lol....
I know i took a plane from the year 2010 to this place but i feel like i have found a rip in time/secret portal/wormhole like in the movies Somewhere in Time, Kate and Leopold and any Farscape episode...
OK.. since it has been awhile since i last posted i am going to give a lot of observations here rather than a daily break down...
I finally got to Jinja.. via more potholes and life threatening rides....
I am staying in the Paradise Hotel which lives along the side of the Nile river but then ALOT lives alongside the Nile river as it is VERY big! The Hotel is nice... by Ugandan standards. $22.00 a night gives me a double bed, tv ( with 3 channels, news & sports/ a movie channel-ish thing and VOODOO MAGIC.... i kid you not!) my own bathroom with a REAL toilet , tub & sink. I was hoping that i didnt have to lug all my luggage up 3 flights of stairs to a room... and you know how you ask for things and then get them... and THEN slap yourself in the head and say to yourself" i really need to be a bit more specific in what i ask for!". Well, i did get a room on the first floor HOWEVER, i also got the room that every hotel worker congregates under to meet at the crack of dawn and the wash down the sidewalks with huge brooms. It is also where the morning sunrise services were held for the Jesus People here one week.....soooo, i think they were hoping they could get me converted with some music early in the morning.... they were wrong!
The hotel must have been nice when it was built.... i am guessing the 1920- 30's? Tall ebony or mahogany doors i am sure are original, 12 foot ceilings curved plaster walls with the inverted tray ceilings and your usual decorator princess BUG NET. The bathroom is off to one side down a 2 inch step. Here in Ugandaland they have no idea that steps should be uniform in height or perhaps, and this is just a crazy thought, how about we make the floor level and forget that 2 inch drop altogether???? . The walls dont meet at right angles, bathroom door swings in and slams into the waist high tub with a clang! I have to pull my leg all the way up chest high to step over the side of the tub which only has a hose shower type thingy... and no drain stopper for the tub. My pulled groin muscle and knee are really never meant to heal:::sigh:::! The sink sits, if you want to call it that, crooked on a pedestal base that makes all my stuff slide off the back of it. I feel like the little crooked man who walked a crooked mile in my lil crooked bathroom. It took me a few nights, when nature calls in the middle of the night and in that sleepy haze to remember that damned 2 inch drop! In that same sleepy hazed stupor i am also creeped out by the bug net which sits directly over my head at night. Being as i don't need the bug net here in the hotel, except for Harry the daddy long legs catching flies in the bathroom corner and the freeze dried frog found in the fringe in my area rug, i dont see any bugs in my room and i leave it rolled up and tucked but in sleepy-hazeland it reminds me of a huge alien pod waiting for some creature to burst out of it - or a really huge penis! lol.. sorry if i offended anyone with that comment... but i just calls 'em as i see 'em! . Also i am creeped out by the huge mirrored closet next to the bed... at some times in my life i might enjoy that... here, alone, in Jinja, is not one of them! They stuff two pillows into once case on the bed and its hard as a rock.... the hotel emblem is smack dab in the middle of it and on my jaunts from the bathroom... i am always wondering f it is some creature that has slithered into my bed! They have placed the fan on the wall... but they didnt measure the length of the cord... so they lowered it about 2 inches... but that didnt work... so they bent the prongs, which are long round edged things to reach into the socket. SAFE STUFF here!
People tell you yes to everything. They dont want to disappoint you ... but you may never get what you ask for.
Dinners, lunch - hell, EVERYTHING takes HOURS to order and prepare. No fast foody MacDonalds here.... nuh uh! It took us 2 1/2 hours last night to get food.. then when we wanted dessert they told us the kitchen was closed. This was on a slow night....
The vulture here or "trash birds" as they are called are huge. The size of dumpsters! they come up to my shoulder and are the ugliest thing i have seen in awhile. They remind me of a bad cartoon where they would sneak up on an unsuspecting person...but in reality they are more afraid of humans!
We ride boda- bodas everywhere... they cost about .45 to get to town.. but they try to charge us more because they think we are rich americans because we can afford to come here. It isn't really about the extra 10 or 15 cents but the principal.....if my skin was brown they wouldnt charge that. Although right about now.. my skin is pretty damned close. they also carry 3 or 4 passengers on them.babies, handicapped, huge loads of stuff.... scary!
I have taken language lessons from a man who sounds like Darth VAder. ... some Lusoga.... Wa su ze o ty ah pronounced just like i wrote it .. means good morning. They have a whole ritual of addressing each other... which includes a little sing songy type of cadence.... our teacher is a madman!! lol.. he thinks he can cram a million things in our heads at once.... ACK!!
Teaching was great and difficult. Mothers have to bring babies..we had 3 in the class... babies that is. And they just didnt like me - ME of all people!!! By the end of the 2 weeks i had Hennifer smiling at me and not screaming when i held her... Jehwema.. was having none of me until the very last second i got her to smile for me!!lol... Just when i was feeling like the students werent getting anything i was doing i was surprised . I had been doing some embroidery - which was going to be a part of what i wanted to teach but time just didnt allow it. Our goal was to give them a completed project that they could sell... to buy more supplies...and of course give them the skills to make better things. So, as they worked on treadle machines , i would supervise a little and embroider.... After our last class on friday they asked "a special request" for me to show them some of the stitches so they could decorate like i did. Here i thought they werent paying attention to what i was doing but only what they were doing!
AACCCKKKKK the VOICES outside my window!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's only 630 am!!!!
Store fronts and homes are PLOTS. I feel like i am in a cemetery...plot 33 lusoga Road....
breakfast every day included in the hotel: pineapple, watermelon, bananas, coco puffs, cornflakes... sausagey type things...dense bread, mango and passion fruit drinks - eggs if you want them , cooked in LOTS of oil! ::::shuddering:::::
Junk in the trunk is a turn on here... women purposely pad their hips! Waists are called ...hold on to your hats folks.... "mooncandy! " got to love it!
all thsose old clothes you donate to the bins.. comes here to be distributed and be sold by the people of Uganda... those dead parachute pants , guess jeans...WWF, Celtics, Pearl Jam t- shirts... they are all here.
African children eat g- nut sauce.... a kind of peanutty thing.. very strong. Sugar cane,rice beans, matoke - a banana thing, and poshu....uuugggghhhh! That is just me i guess...
Every other day i tuck the pod - like bug net up over the curtain rod to see if housekeeping is going to retrieve it. It at least stops creeping me out that way! I think they have gotten the message - it appears to be staying there - at least the last few nights!
Went white water rafting, got dunked in the Nile, consequently got mashed by an oar in the face.. sick from swallowing wayyyy to much water.. the nose has healed.. only slight blue marks under the eyes ... better from the water swallowing....
Went ATV - ing today.....i think i have realigned all the vertebra in my back...lol no significant damage done
Teach a new class monday and tuesday and head home Wed.... I miss ... a few things back home... and cant wait to get there! see you soon!!
I know i took a plane from the year 2010 to this place but i feel like i have found a rip in time/secret portal/wormhole like in the movies Somewhere in Time, Kate and Leopold and any Farscape episode...
OK.. since it has been awhile since i last posted i am going to give a lot of observations here rather than a daily break down...
I finally got to Jinja.. via more potholes and life threatening rides....
I am staying in the Paradise Hotel which lives along the side of the Nile river but then ALOT lives alongside the Nile river as it is VERY big! The Hotel is nice... by Ugandan standards. $22.00 a night gives me a double bed, tv ( with 3 channels, news & sports/ a movie channel-ish thing and VOODOO MAGIC.... i kid you not!) my own bathroom with a REAL toilet , tub & sink. I was hoping that i didnt have to lug all my luggage up 3 flights of stairs to a room... and you know how you ask for things and then get them... and THEN slap yourself in the head and say to yourself" i really need to be a bit more specific in what i ask for!". Well, i did get a room on the first floor HOWEVER, i also got the room that every hotel worker congregates under to meet at the crack of dawn and the wash down the sidewalks with huge brooms. It is also where the morning sunrise services were held for the Jesus People here one week.....soooo, i think they were hoping they could get me converted with some music early in the morning.... they were wrong!
The hotel must have been nice when it was built.... i am guessing the 1920- 30's? Tall ebony or mahogany doors i am sure are original, 12 foot ceilings curved plaster walls with the inverted tray ceilings and your usual decorator princess BUG NET. The bathroom is off to one side down a 2 inch step. Here in Ugandaland they have no idea that steps should be uniform in height or perhaps, and this is just a crazy thought, how about we make the floor level and forget that 2 inch drop altogether???? . The walls dont meet at right angles, bathroom door swings in and slams into the waist high tub with a clang! I have to pull my leg all the way up chest high to step over the side of the tub which only has a hose shower type thingy... and no drain stopper for the tub. My pulled groin muscle and knee are really never meant to heal:::sigh:::! The sink sits, if you want to call it that, crooked on a pedestal base that makes all my stuff slide off the back of it. I feel like the little crooked man who walked a crooked mile in my lil crooked bathroom. It took me a few nights, when nature calls in the middle of the night and in that sleepy haze to remember that damned 2 inch drop! In that same sleepy hazed stupor i am also creeped out by the bug net which sits directly over my head at night. Being as i don't need the bug net here in the hotel, except for Harry the daddy long legs catching flies in the bathroom corner and the freeze dried frog found in the fringe in my area rug, i dont see any bugs in my room and i leave it rolled up and tucked but in sleepy-hazeland it reminds me of a huge alien pod waiting for some creature to burst out of it - or a really huge penis! lol.. sorry if i offended anyone with that comment... but i just calls 'em as i see 'em! . Also i am creeped out by the huge mirrored closet next to the bed... at some times in my life i might enjoy that... here, alone, in Jinja, is not one of them! They stuff two pillows into once case on the bed and its hard as a rock.... the hotel emblem is smack dab in the middle of it and on my jaunts from the bathroom... i am always wondering f it is some creature that has slithered into my bed! They have placed the fan on the wall... but they didnt measure the length of the cord... so they lowered it about 2 inches... but that didnt work... so they bent the prongs, which are long round edged things to reach into the socket. SAFE STUFF here!
People tell you yes to everything. They dont want to disappoint you ... but you may never get what you ask for.
Dinners, lunch - hell, EVERYTHING takes HOURS to order and prepare. No fast foody MacDonalds here.... nuh uh! It took us 2 1/2 hours last night to get food.. then when we wanted dessert they told us the kitchen was closed. This was on a slow night....
The vulture here or "trash birds" as they are called are huge. The size of dumpsters! they come up to my shoulder and are the ugliest thing i have seen in awhile. They remind me of a bad cartoon where they would sneak up on an unsuspecting person...but in reality they are more afraid of humans!
We ride boda- bodas everywhere... they cost about .45 to get to town.. but they try to charge us more because they think we are rich americans because we can afford to come here. It isn't really about the extra 10 or 15 cents but the principal.....if my skin was brown they wouldnt charge that. Although right about now.. my skin is pretty damned close. they also carry 3 or 4 passengers on them.babies, handicapped, huge loads of stuff.... scary!
I have taken language lessons from a man who sounds like Darth VAder. ... some Lusoga.... Wa su ze o ty ah pronounced just like i wrote it .. means good morning. They have a whole ritual of addressing each other... which includes a little sing songy type of cadence.... our teacher is a madman!! lol.. he thinks he can cram a million things in our heads at once.... ACK!!
Teaching was great and difficult. Mothers have to bring babies..we had 3 in the class... babies that is. And they just didnt like me - ME of all people!!! By the end of the 2 weeks i had Hennifer smiling at me and not screaming when i held her... Jehwema.. was having none of me until the very last second i got her to smile for me!!lol... Just when i was feeling like the students werent getting anything i was doing i was surprised . I had been doing some embroidery - which was going to be a part of what i wanted to teach but time just didnt allow it. Our goal was to give them a completed project that they could sell... to buy more supplies...and of course give them the skills to make better things. So, as they worked on treadle machines , i would supervise a little and embroider.... After our last class on friday they asked "a special request" for me to show them some of the stitches so they could decorate like i did. Here i thought they werent paying attention to what i was doing but only what they were doing!
AACCCKKKKK the VOICES outside my window!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's only 630 am!!!!
Store fronts and homes are PLOTS. I feel like i am in a cemetery...plot 33 lusoga Road....
breakfast every day included in the hotel: pineapple, watermelon, bananas, coco puffs, cornflakes... sausagey type things...dense bread, mango and passion fruit drinks - eggs if you want them , cooked in LOTS of oil! ::::shuddering:::::
Junk in the trunk is a turn on here... women purposely pad their hips! Waists are called ...hold on to your hats folks.... "mooncandy! " got to love it!
all thsose old clothes you donate to the bins.. comes here to be distributed and be sold by the people of Uganda... those dead parachute pants , guess jeans...WWF, Celtics, Pearl Jam t- shirts... they are all here.
African children eat g- nut sauce.... a kind of peanutty thing.. very strong. Sugar cane,rice beans, matoke - a banana thing, and poshu....uuugggghhhh! That is just me i guess...
Every other day i tuck the pod - like bug net up over the curtain rod to see if housekeeping is going to retrieve it. It at least stops creeping me out that way! I think they have gotten the message - it appears to be staying there - at least the last few nights!
Went white water rafting, got dunked in the Nile, consequently got mashed by an oar in the face.. sick from swallowing wayyyy to much water.. the nose has healed.. only slight blue marks under the eyes ... better from the water swallowing....
Went ATV - ing today.....i think i have realigned all the vertebra in my back...lol no significant damage done
Teach a new class monday and tuesday and head home Wed.... I miss ... a few things back home... and cant wait to get there! see you soon!!
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