SA FAR(I) AWAY - third installment

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.

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!!

SA FAR(I) AWAY - part 1

"..... if you want to make the world a better place, take a look in the miror and make a change!....." Michael Jackson - Man in the Mirror.

So, i left for Uganda on July 3rd 2010. I think , in the back of my over filed mind, that i have truly lost it! For those of you who know me well.... i do not like to go away.... much less FAR away. It is really out of my comfort zone. I am what the normal world calls a recluse! I like to be home, alone, most of the time. I get what i refer to as "noise overload". (It is the kind of work i do that makes me want to hide in seclusion when i am not working. All the stagehands and musicians and actors running around not to mention production, hair, maintenance people and wardrobe warriors racing everywhere. WAAAYYYY to many people clammornig for my attention and to much noise pollution for me - but i love my job - so , when i dont work i choose seclusion! Although i like people, i just prefer the quiet of my own company.) Now, you ask, why did i do such a crazy thing if i dont like to go away? Well, while my mom was alive she had some money and i used to tell her that she should spend it - go places - DO stuff! She wasnt interested. I kept telling her that wen she died all the money would be split between my sister and i and i was going to spend it on a really great trip. I never thought i would have to put her money to use quite so soon...however , i am here doing this once in a lifetime trip for her - hoping she approves of my choice to spend her money this way and for myself. If you read the above quote - it is about making the world a better place - so, i am making a change in me.....and thereby, hopefully, making the world a better place. I am here with SEWING HOPE... an organization that teaches under-privileged women and men how to sew, make jewelry, bake, cut hair, and basic office skills so they are able to support themselves and their families.
i left JFK airport at 1100 pm on the 3rd of July. I sat on an isle seat because i figured with a 12 hour flight i would be up once or twice and i hate climbing over people. The young woman next to me said she was going to sleep the whole way there so i didnt have to worry about her climbing over me. I watched a movie or two and various friends reruns . I arrived July 5th in Dubai after a 12 hour flight. Trying to find the "car service" they told me would take me to the hotel - it was like a bad nightmare where you kept walking and walking but never seemed to get to your destination. FINALLY i found it and went to the hotel- which the airlines provided because we had a long layover before I flew on to my next destination. There i met up with Lindsay (27) a designer from Wisconson and Carly(25) a music teacher also from NYC. Two young women all sweet and sparkly and cute just looking all psyched to start the trip. We had dinner together in the hotel . Dinner food was an interesting mix of foods we were not sure of .... all of us nibbled on various strange things deciding which was something we would eat and what we wouldn't even touch with our silverware. We had a few good laughs about everyones apprehensions for the trip and then went to bed - there wasn't much time to see anything as we needed to be up at the crack of dawn to catch our flight out.

We hopped the flight which would take us all to Entebee, Uganda at 815 am on July 5th. Not a real eventful flight... but the food is a bit questionable. We make an unplanned pit stop in some other city....and then gather more passengers and on we continue. Arrived, unscathed , in Entebee and find our driver... who wisks us away to beautiful downtown Kampala! GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY!! lol.... no matter how prepared you are - you aren't prepared for the drivers in Uganda. They make cabbies in New York look like kids in bumper cars. Your life is TRULY in danger here. No stop lights, HUGE potholes, everyone drives on the wrong side of the road....there are no sidewalks, only ditches along the sides of the roads and pedestrians JUMP the ditch to get out of the way f the drivers and "boda - boda" drivers ( they are big mopeds or small motorcycles used to transport passengers- more later). We drove through the city of Kampala to our hostel RED CHILI. We met up with Lori and Michelle for a brief minute before they left lindsay and i on our own - they took Carly with them to Jinja. WOW, for this recluse. it was quite interesting. Lindsay is really funny - i guess this is a real awakening for her. She doesn't like bugs or the thought of disease and the BATHROOMS - OMG, even by my standards they are pretty yecchy! ( <---- that is me being Oh, so politically correct.) For Ugandan standards they are top shelf. I have my own room with a very well used mattress - you can count the slats that hold the mattress up by the bruises left on your body during the night. Sheets are clean and there is a bug net over the bed. I feel like a princess with it over me. All i can see that commercial where the woman is planning a vacation and she wakes up and there are HUGE bugs on the outside of her bug net. There were none on my bug net, mind you .... but i got the creepy feeling i shouldn't look to closely at it in the dark! Thankfully, i have "o de' bug spray" as my perfume these days - all natural stuff and working pretty well. Showers are drizzles and COLD! They have cooking facilities but the food is ... well.. lets just say its not my cooking. Since i am no light weight - you can guess my cooking is pretty damned good, perhaps it was all those gourmet cooking and baking classes years ago.
We met up with Polly and Jamie who had gone on an excursion to see the chimps. We tried to eat het fare for dinner at the hostel... but it really is unrecognizable and inedible and takes FOREVER to get prepared. We wont have time for teh chimp thing as we need to be up and out at 630 AM for our safari trip. (yes, folks, 630 am - the time i am USUALLY just about going to bed......what is the world coming to ????)

Back to the story.....

We left the next morning for a 6 hour drive with Sam, our driver ...yes, SIX more hours of travel before we can get to the Safari place. We have picked up two young ladies from England, Georgina and Jenny and a Couple from Germany, Brigetta and Norbert. The girls have come here to help create a library - raising books and money and shipping everything here. The couple came here because she is in Micro finance and has been coming here for 9 years. Brigetta has given us lots of insight for the project we are working on. Over dirt and rock - bumpy roads and potholes the size of Texas we ride. (never again will i complain about New York roads) I have seen no street signs and everywhere looks the same. Red clay dirt road, crazy drivers, shantys along the road, huge and i do mean HUGE cacti called CANDELEBRA cacti. they are as big as houses! We could be going around in circles for all i know..... and after and exhausting 8 hours of driving we finally arrive at the "other" red chili campground/hostel where we will spend the next three nights. I hope you never need to heed mother natures call during your trip down the road to the safari place.... you know latrines are not just for servicemen..ewwwww!

Here at the new Red Chili we have double tents. Lindsay and i will share one , Jamie & Polly in another and Bridgetta and Norbert in a Third. They have wart hogs that run loose around the grounds.... they go into your tents if you arent careful and eat your stuff. Linsay has a bug net over her, covered in head to toe clothing and one of those fans with bug spray that wil run all night to keep the bugs at bay. I on the other hand am sleeping in underware & a tank top. I know... TMI.. but the difference in the two of us amazes me..lol. Somewhere during the night i woke up and the wart hog you can hear ripping up grass by the roots all around my tent. I was sure Lindsay was going to have a cow... but...NOPE - a real trooper she was. I had to get up to go use the facilities but i had to wait until old mrs. warthog changed her feeding ground. I ain't no dope....

Day one we hike up to Murcheson (sp) falls.... about 500 feet STRAIGHT UP!! what do they think i am a goat??? who are you kidding? it is like a Gilligans Island rerun - scaling cliffsides , with the ground sliding away under your feet......YEP...really was like that! They didnt tell us to wear some sturdy shoes so of COURSE i am in flip flops doing all this....does Murphys Law always follow me around, even here in Uganda?

We head to the safari grounds in a pop up roof van. all of us crowded into it - smushed into seats with no knee room. Poor Norbert! he stands easily at 6' 1 ish and all legs. We see elephants, lions, giraffes, cobs, vultures, assorted birds.....Jamie is shooting millions of pictures, and everyone is having a great time.. although we do keep hearing how Jamie wants to see the "circle of life" aka animals killing one another for food and great camera shots! THAT circle of life thing didn't happen - WHEW!There are more potholes in EVERY road we take at one point we hit one going about 20 mph NOSE first! It was like hitting a wall!!!! everyone did a mental check to see if they still had everything where it belonged. I think i have been compressed 3 inches with all the smushing, jarring and bumpy roads.
After lunch we went on a 3 hour ferry ride up the river to see the Falls from the bottom. I could have missed the climb to the top if i knew we were doing this today!!
The next day we went to the Rhino Sanctuary. SKIP IT!!! the best part was the fact that they had a rescue place there and we got to hold a baby monkey - which peed all over me! ( see Murphy about that one!) he was cute other than that ands so were all the other lil animals they are rehabing.
than we have the LONNNGGGG drive back to Kampala ......OYI!!!

You cant imagine the poverty here.... no matter what you think - the reality is soooo much ....more - just more. All those late night info-mercials where you see starving kids...always make you wonder how much is reality and how much is made up! Well, from first hand knowledge and sight i can tell you - its apalling that this goes on in this day and age. No running water, no sewage drains... no electricity - no , no, NO, nothing! Kids play with rocks, there are no school books, clothing is, at best, some cast off hanging together by threads.