Travel Terror Part 2, The fun keeps on coming.

Time for part two of my travel tales… I know I said in the last entry that things had gotten too lengthy to continue, so I would break the storyline into two… but a little part of me thinks I was just too embarrassed to speak about one travel story in particular. Because if my life was represented in a line graph of embarrassing moments, this story would certainly be one of the higher peaks. Now, because joining peace corps has taught me the value of delayed gratification… I’ll save that truffle for the end of this blog entry and start you off with a simple quip of a story.

Bothersome Bride Price

A few trips ago I was taking the bus from the capital city to my site, a journey whose time has ranged from 5 ½ to 13 hours, and in America would take 3. I know. UN. AC. CEPT. ABLE. Do better Uganda. I nice Ugandan guy sits next to me, nods politely and we begin our journey  to the Southwest. Typically the buses play on blast whatever fuzzy radio station the antennae duct taped to the roof is picking up. And since most music here is composed of a beginners bass beat on repeat and some men shouting rapidly in a language I don’t understand in a terrible impression of Busta Rhymes… my diagnosis is: intolerable. My mother who repeatedly had to shout during my upbringing for me to turn down my dribbling excuse of music can tell you, if I say the music is hard to listen to… it’s prettttty bad.  My point? I travel with earbuds in my ears and listen to music from the first to last kilometer of the journey.  Maybe due to this my peripheral vision vision was heightened? Because the first four hours of the journey I got to watch the man next to me psych himself up to speak to me about 20 times.  ::Turn to talk to me, raise an arm to poke me on the shoulder, think again and put arm down::  In return I would think in my head “good boy.” But dammit to hell if he finally didn’t find the courage on the 21^st time and I finally felt the poke on my shoulder. 

::Poke Poke::

Me as I pull my earbud out: Yes?

Sir: “It’s just that…in my whole life…never have I sat next to a Mzungu on a bus, even one who is so beautiful”

Me as I’m thinking oh great here we go: Thank you, but my name is not Mzungu, I don’t call you African, do I?.

Thinking maybe he will take a social cue, I quickly slip the earbud back into my ear. One year in this country and still I can be so ignorant. 

::Poke Poke::

Me as I pull my earbud out: Yes?

Sir: “Where you come from, do you have bride price? I want to know yours”

Me: [sigh] “No, In America we do not have bride price. In theory, if you love someone you treat them with respect and kindness and if you both agree, someday you can get married.”

Sir [pausing, creasing his eyebrows and thinking very critically]: “…But then what keeps women from leaving the marriage?”

Me: “Again, in theory, Love”

Sir: “So would you ever date an African”

Me: I would date whomever I felt I could love. But dating an African presents troubles because I’m not going to be in Africa forever.

Sir [clearly skipping the whole LOVE part]: “Because my friend at work started dating a white woman and now they have a child and his life is much better and he has money now”

Me: “That is good for your friend” [slipping the earbud back in]

::Poke Poke::

Me as I pull my earbud out: Yes?

Sir: I want to give you my number and you come visit me soon

Me knowing he’s seen me text on my phone already during the bus ride: “Sorry I don’t have a phone” [Futilely slipping the earbud in once again]

I’m going to stop with the dialogue here, but the poking went on until I got off the bus an hour later. I’d put my earbuds back in, he’d poke and try to find a new way to phrase “You woman, me man, I want you” It’s rather obnoxious. This isn’t the first time this happened, and it damend sure won’t be the last. There seems to exist this mentality in Africa of “The savior white-person.” Regardless of any single outlying factor, no matter what, the white man (or woman) will prove better than anything else you are going to encounter in your life.  And I know my explanation of the marriage system in America was very simplified and I could have added, figuratively, a million “excepts, unless, but sometimes etc…” But I already altered the broken English the man was speaking for your viewing pleasure, so don’t be an ass and over analyze. a.k.a. Don’t be the kid who raises his hand in class and corrects the spelling of something the teacher just wrote on the board. NOBODY likes that kid. And if you didn’t have a kid like that in your class, FUNFACT: it was you, asshole. 

I want to backtrack a little to the bride price, because you probably got a good laugh out of it, and someday I will too. Bride price is a really atrocious thing. It traps women into their marriage because it usually comes in the form of farm animals or food, in a nicer family maybe a home or mode of transportation. But if you ever want to get out of your marriage, you have to payback your bride price, which in this country tends to be literally impossible. In positive news, Uganda is progressing and has recently passed a law outlawing bride price. Obviously this won’t stop them from happening, but it will stop a woman from having to pay it back if she gets the courts involved.  How often will a woman be able to get the justice system on her side?... we will see. But it’s a step for Uganda. 

I guess when it comes down to it… Love is a Luxury. So just maybe, if you’ve found someone to love and who loves you back you need to always let the petty shit slide because it could be worse… you could be praying to God to meet a white person in a taxi someday or be trapped by your bride price. 

Okay, my tolerance for writing seems to have run out. But, never wanting to deny the good people an entertaining read. I’ll post what I’ve got so far. As always, have fun laughing at my life choices. =)

Travel Tales of Terror, Part 1

Today was supposed to be the first club meeting of a Life Skills club I’ve been trying to start for a while now… but seeing as I’m sitting alone in a classroom typing on my laptop… I think you fine folk can guess my turn-out rate. Hint: Bagel. Hint about the Hint: Think of the shape of a Bagel. Big fat, “O”.  Even though I met with the Nursing school’s Principal, head teacher, warden, and student body president to make sure this club I’ve affectionately called “Power Hour ”  ;) is planned through the proper chains, no one ever thought to mention that’s there’s a guest priest this week and they’ve moved the typically Wednesday mass to Tuesday, exactly on top of my first meeting. Hooooray. 

Thank God I didn’t spend most of today planning my first meeting, and worrying about whether or not it will go okay;  because that would make this moment an extra-large downer.  Well that’s Peace Corps… if you aren’t learning patience, you are learning how best to deal with failure.  Don’t let my depressing demeanor deter you. I’m still going to try. My ass will be in this same spot next week trying all over again. And if ANOTHER guest priest arrives and takes precedent, I’m not above fashioning my own catholic collar out of toilet paper and disguising my “Power Hour” as a sermon.  I’m pretty sure I have a black button up shirt somewhere…. Mwahaha.  Wait, do they even let females do that yet?  Dang.  Once again my plans are foiled by my ovaries. Curse you reproductive organs!

While I’m ranting,  I thought this might be an opportune moment to mention a few little jewels in my treasure trove of travel stories.  (Hrm… I’ve got a lot of alliteration going on today, let’s see how often I can keep it up…). Fair warning… In my previous blogs I’ve divulged disgusting stories concerning all sorts of bodily fluids. If you expect today’s entry to be any different, then you are a flighty fool.  Do not take this warning lightly like the ones you see before a movie, this is more the “no pregnant women on the roller coaster” warning. Shit is going to get real.

*Preface* These next three short stories all happened while I was traveling, if you need a refresher on the hell-hole that is traveling here, go back and read the post around Christmas. Also on all three of these trips I was on a bus, which at least meant I had my own seat.  There is another volunteer here named Griffin, she is the one with terrible luck on mutates (if that words confuses you, read that other blog, you stubborn mule) Mutatus are the mini vans that they pack to twice their limit. You literally have someone half in your lap on one side, and then someone’s arm pit caressing you on your other side. And if the gods have been kind enough to bestow you a side seat with someone only on one side, then undoubtedly you have some random loose screw/bar/pole/chicken digging into you.  In these glorious predicaments, Griffin has had a child puke on her, throw up on her, a man piss into a bottle then slowly pour it out the window (whhhhhhy he still wanted the bottle we will never know…) and finally… a woman’s water break on her.  That was a hard stain on her jeans to explain when she reached her destination. Anyways, here’s my travel tales of terror. 

Before I get into this story it’s important to differentiate that while “gonja” is a nickname for marijuana in America, here it’s a nickname for grilled banana. You can see how that could be important.  Usually your bus will stop a few times on the way to your destinations at a quick pit stop. There are two types of stops. One is a food stop. These can be nice if you are a person with thirst or hunger. People standing on the side of the road ruuuuun and quickly surround your vehicle thrusting all sorts of goodies into your window. Water bottles, sodas, packets of biscuits (like hard shortbread cookies),  fruits (bananas, passion fruit, oranges, apples), vegetables (grilled sweet potato, corn),  cooked pieces of meat shoved onto a sharpened stick (aka, street meat), and other varying treats. The second kind of stop is a bathroom break. Here you call them short-calls, or long-calls for peeing and pooping accordingly. In your head you are probably picturing a little rest stop, maybe even a stand-alone port-o-potty for your worst case scenario. You would be terribly wrong.  Usually the bus will just randomly pull over on the side of the road, and if there are a few bushy shrubs or greenery for you to squat behind, then you best thank your lucky stars. The bus pulls over, and about half the people will file off. In some unspoken rule the men will file off a few feet in one direction and the women in the other.  You can’t go far because if you aren’t in the buses’ plain sight, and everyone else is on the bus, they will leave yo’ ass in the grass.  But on the opposite side if  you are in plain sight, because a  full white buttock is something almost every Ugandan has never seen, and will probably never see again… all eyes are on you. Talk about shy bladder problems.

Peace Corps tries to recommend that you wear a skirt for this exact reason. But the taxis are so crowded, everyone is sitting on your skirt, so when you go to stand, the whole vehicle gets that full moon view you were trying to avoid in the first place (I’ve had my skirt accidentally pulled down 3 times). Also I have torn half my skirts in these busted up vehicles due to random nails sticking out in the most inopportune places.  Seriously, this country is a natural lost-and-found for random rusty nails sticking out of nonsensical places. It’s not AIDS that will get me here… it’s tetanus. (But really it’s Malaria… I’ tried leaving the killed mosquitoes on the walls to send a message to their bitchy sisters ((Only females carry malaria))… but those fuckers don’t learn annnnnd I’m fairly certain I’m irresistibly delicious) So yeah, using the bathroom while traveling is a pretty miserable experience. You can squat your best, but you WILL still pee on your feet, so if you don’t want to look down as you literally piss on yourself, you can look one direction and see and entire bus staring holes through the windows at you, or look another direction at your fellow female squatters, all of whom are a thousand times better at this than you, or look the last direction where a small fleet of black penises await to make you blush.  Talk about your lose/lose/lose/lose.  What’s the moral you say? Don’t drink water on travel days. Maybe a few sips every few hours to avoid extreme dehydration. But overwhelmingly, just hold off on the liquids.  Okay that’s enough background for now. Time for you to laugh at my life. 

The Gonja Gentleman.

Three boys walking to school

 It’s about 7am and I’m watching the sun rise up over the hills across from me. I’m waiting for the bus.  It’s quite breathtaking (See picture, for you visual learners)  and I begin to hope for the best in today’s travels.  Oh how quickly I forget that this country giveth, then it taketh… usually more than it gaveth.  I get on a mostly empty bus and find a window seat.  The bus starts in my town and fills up along the way, usually by the half way point in our journey, it’s full. I learned a long time ago to sit by a window, because typically my window is the only open window on the entire bus. So if I don’t grab a window seat… no open windows, and in a world where deodorant is a commonly unobserved practice, bathing water is available only if there was extra drinking water, and everyone puts in more hard labor before sunrise than most of us will complete in a week…. It.Gets.Rank.  At the next stop (but is about 13% full) an older man, in a leather jacket he is clearly proud of, gets on the bus and I see his eyes zero in on me. He says something in the local language very excitedly, and somewhere in his sentence I hear “Mzungu”  Hoooooray. Even if I don’t speak the language fluently… you’d think they’d know I’ve figured out “Mzungu” means me.  Then, with couuuuuntless empty seat this man wedges into the seat next to me. All smiles he greets me with “Hello Mzungu.” Very calm and politely I respond, with my best fake smile “Oreere gye ssebo, kwonka nibanyeta Johnson”, translation; “Good morning Sir, but my name is Johnson” For I have long since switched to telling people my real name. A) I just don’t feel comfortable giving it out to everyone and B) My name trips Africans up every time. Most commonly I hear “Eye-rah” or “Shakira”…. Beats be how they hear Shakira from Khayla.  *On the bright side*, I recently showed all the teachers at my nursing school my passport and the one who is 9 months pregnant saw that my middle name is Nicole. Now she keeps telling she is going to name the baby Nicole. I’m not sure if she is kidding or not… I’ll know soon enough. =)

So the man laughs at my response (The usual reaction to the surprise of hearing a pale-face speaking the local language) and we settle in for our 9 hour trip. As the bus continues to fill I notice my new seat partner has a rather common habit amongst Ugandans; picking his nose and flicking the results in random directions, which sometimes included mine.  Clarification, “Picking” doesn’t do this act justice. Gouging his brains out sounds more accurate. I mean, I get where it comes from, this country is dusty as shit plus everyone burns their trash. It’s an asthmatic nightmare. But that is why little handkerchiefs are for sale everywhere.  Blow your damn nose into one of those! Wait… maybe that is why Ugandans don’t like the windows open…the dust… hrm….meh, who cares.  The dust is preferable to the smell of B.O.

About 6 hours in, we stop for a short-call. My seatmate gets off the bus and relieves himself, and for reasons I can’t begin to fathom, my scumbag brain never let’s me look away from the trainwreck of everyone peeing right on the side of the road. I often imagine what would happen in America if a tour bus pulled over on I-75 and the passengers were told to pop-a-squat. The hilarity that would ensue… The big message you need to take away from our short-call is clearly… NO ONE washes their hands. And obviously if soap is rare, finding antibacterial hand sanitizer would be like finding Sasquatch…in Africa.  So my new friend returns and I watch his hands like a hawk. But the seats here are so smallll. I’m only 5’4 on a good day and my knees hit the back of the seat in front of me. And even if two small people sit in the seats, their entire sides will be touching each other. I know his hands are going to touch my clothes somewhere, and worse, I know there is nothing I can do.

A few minutes later we stop for a snack break and the usual people surround the bus. A hear a man frantically shouting in rapid succession “GonjaGonjaGonjaGonjaGonja”, as they are one to do.  And my dear seat mate full on leans across me allll up in my grill and personal bubble. (And being Hispanic… I used to think my bubble was pequeno to begin with…. Oooooooh how this country repeatedly proves me wrong) He calls out the window for three pieces of Gonja and pays. All of him is pressing into all of me, and I’m unsure of how much longer I can hold my breath.  Just as the haze from lack of oxygen sets in, he sits up and gives me back my already small space. No “Pardon, sorry, thanks, excuse me…” not to be rude, but because culturally, it’s just not the way.  So to briefly recap; this man has dug more in his nose than all 7 dwarfs accomplished in their cumulative lifetimes, relieved himself  and touched no soap, and now is holding food.  Next, after almost 7 hours next to each other, Mr. Gonja decides it time for a polite gesture.  Because maybe NOW I will want to be best friends. So he wraps his hand around one of the bananas and shoves it in my face, right under my nose and says “You eat?” It took every ounce, of every strength, of every molecule, to not exorcist projectile vomit all over his peace offering.  Reusing my fake smile I politely decline and press as much of me, up against as much of the window as I can muster. 

Thinking his Gonja offer was sufficient, as we pulled into our destination a few hours later, Mr. Gonja Gentleman asked for my phone number so he could call me from time to time and see how I’m doing.  Knowing that many men here don’t take “no” for an answer, I used a trick I learned back in High School, when due to a scheduling conflict… I got stuck in regular English and not honors. Play. Dumb. 

Works every time.

I have at least three more stories to bestow upon you… but at this rate the length of the blog entry will be unreasonable. So I’ll stop and post this much, then continue my stories next time. Boy, do they only get better from here.

Hope you are all enjoying the greatest country in the world, and not taking anything for granted.

Hasta Luego!

What's Brown and Sticky?... a stick.

Dang. Two posts in a week, then no post for over two months. That reminds me of a fun little number fact about my bowel movements…. My first 16 days in this country I only pooped 2 times. Then, at some terrible point in October, I pooped 16 times in 2 days. True Story.

Hrm… Since this blog entry has already taken a stinky turn, I’ll follow suite. Time for a story I’ve only recently managed to suppress… it was traumatizing to say the least.

A group including myself and five other volunteers headed to a small village in the hills of Southwest Uganda to learn about VSLAs, Village Savings and Loans Associations. It’s a simple way of helping people in a community save their money and additionally provides a financial safety net.  We’d been told to dress professionally and in a country where ankle lengths skirts are the norm, I was wearing a long dress, thin sweater-cover and nice dress sandals. My suspicions of how the evening was going to go began when our land rover got stuck in the mud on the way up the hill. Our driver promptly turned on the four wheel drive and floored the gas pedal. After a few seconds of non-forward motion fishtailing and the girls all holding hands and repenting of their sins, we finally skidded out of the rut and continued up the hill to the town center.  The vehicle came to a stop in a cluster of trees and the driver motioned, telling us we had reached our destination. Looking around at no people or building in plain sight our skeptical faces told the driver he needed to point us in the right direction. We followed a muddy path through the trees and came to a steep inclined hill. Allow me to pause and paint a picture of exactly what level of “muddy and inclined” I am talking about;

 Go to your nearest Sam’s Club and purchase every container of premixed and boxed chocolate pudding you can find.  Now allow the pudding to sit in your garage, until is it thick and mushy. Next, packing as many buckets of pudding as you can into your vehicle, go to your nearest playground with a 100 foot slide. Begin to dump the pudding on the slide until all of the plastic/metal is hidden. NOW GO TO THE BASE OF THE SLIDE INYOUR LOVELY DRESS SANDALS AND CLIMB THAT BAD BOY.

Climbing that hill was a scene I will never forget.

It only took three brave steps for me to mudslide back four. Hooooray, off to a great start. At this point I began looking for stones in the mud to hoist me along, stray branches to tug me along, or maybe unsuspecting people to drag me along. But as I looked into the eyes of the lovable Josephine climbing along with me, I saw the same desperation and fear.  Taking solace in our joint nightmare we smiled and accepted the inevitable; we were going to have to crawl up this hill in our dashing outfits. With my feet shoulder width apart on the left side of the path, Joey and I arched across and put our hands on the right side of the path. In this position we began to reverse-crabwalk shimmy up the current bane of our existence. Half way up the hill, Coutious, the Peace Corps staff member guiding us, took the chance to remind us that she was both behind us AND newly pregnant, so yeah… no pressure on not falling and crushing her unborn child. Of course Coutious, having grown up in the hills of Southwest Uganda, was having no problem with the slope. Trick looked like she was going up a damned escalator.

When we finally reached the top, the awaiting group of Ugandans made no attempt to hide their laughter as they offered us a bucket of water to clean ourselves up. We finished introductions and headed inside the small office to learn how they operated their VSLA program. With about 25 people and 7 places to sit, visitors were offered the few available seats while everyone else filed in and sat on the ground. While we waited for the latecomers to join, one of the women sitting on the ground took the opportunity to tell us “You know, here the Ugandan women sit on the ground and the men get the chairs”, her voice with an air of suggestion. I wanted to tell her this wasn’t new information to me, nor was it even the first or second time someone wanted me to give up my seat to a man, but instead I kept my cool and politely smiled.

That’s a lie.

Before I knew what my mouth was thinking I said “Good thing I’m American” in a snappy retort. It wasn’t right, I shouldn’t have said it, kids: don’t do what I do.

After a prayer, approval of the minutes, reintroduction, review of last week’s minutes, and a bunch of other official bullshit that precedes all Ugandan meetings, we finally began. And about 3 minutes into the meetings, my stomach gave a lurch. Not just any lurch, THE lurch. The diabolical lurch of a stomach that knows it is about to blow your colon to hell. My eyes going wide in recognition of my immediate stinky future, I started surveying the room for the quickest zig-zag path through the floor sitters to safety. A few minutes later I was outside circling the dirt house for any form of toilet with 3 small children following me, the largest of the small children with a baby in her arms. I turned to the children and asked where the bathroom was. The bewildered look in their eyes mixed with the excitement of a pale face actually talking to them let me know that they didn’t speak English. Using my minimal Runyankore (the local language) I said “toilet nkahi?!” or “The toilet is where?.” In unison the kids pointed to a tilted mud hut. Well… hut isn’t an appropriate word. I’m not sure what to call it. Hut implies there are at least four walls. That did not apply here. From sticks and mud, the people seemed to have built a slanted three walled and straw roof situation over a giant hole in the ground.

 I see you’ve noticed I said three walls, surely the missing wall is the wall that faces away from everything, towards the edge of the hill overlooking all the beauty Uganda has to offer? Wrong. The missing wall is facing, neigh, TOUCHING the short dirt path from the house/office. Taking the view in with my eyes I have no choice but to release another sarcastic… Hooooray.

I walked towards the hut to inspect while clenching my stomach because it’s released another lurch, the children still following closely at my muddy heels.  I can tell I need to think fast. I identify my problems and try to sort them one at a time. First… I need toilet paper. I laugh at myself, the audacity that I would think toilet paper is even an option. So yeah… scratch that, I need anything to wipe my ass with. I begin stomping through the waist high bushes looking for my answer. I’ll be damned, it’s all tiny weeds with tiny leaves or giant banana leaves out of my reach.  Touche forest gods. Touche. I go in further searching and finally catching a break, happening upon the nicest little bush with palm sized soft leaves. I pluck as many as I can stuff in my sports bra and get the hell out of the bush before Africa eats me. Btw, the children are still on my heels.

This brings me to problem number two. Momma needs her privacy and the brats need to go. Back and standing next to my poop “hut”, I begin waving my arms in the international “go away” motion. I knew it would accomplish nothing, but hey, worth a try.  Resorting to puppy tactics, I pick up rocks and throw them while shouting “Fetch!” Again, nice try. Finally with some success I wave my arms like and shout scary monster noises. The children run laughing and screaming, but not out of sight. Juuuuust far enough to make it only a little awkward.

Looking over at my hut I take a deep breath. It’s time.  I can do this. I think I can do this. I probably can’t do this…

I hike up my dress, pull my underwear down to my knees, squat over the joke of a 4inch by 4inch hole like they taught us, and do the damned thing. In a move I like to call the upside-down volcano, I emptied my system like a burst of lava.  I can hear the children talking/ laughing the whole time, so every few seconds I make sure to shout again for them to STAY AWAY. Then, I use my surprisingly soft leaves (certainly better than the toilet paper in the residence halls at UF, no offense guys) to clean myself up and stand up to compose myself. All the while I’m stepping very carefully because I can’t tell if the floor is dirt or cement, and I’ve already heard horror stories of the floor caving on other volunteers and being stuck in the bottom of a shit-pit for hours before help comes. That is not something one simply recovers from. That shit sticks with you forever, literally. 

Like all naturally curios people I look behind me to scope the situation.

Jesus Christ.

I was about 6 inches off. Not a drop of it made it into the hole. I just coated their floor like a fool. I really am the white devil.

Panicking that I was already lucky the children stayed away this long, I grab the remainder of the bra leaves and extra carefully scrape my own fecal matter into the pit latrine hole. Might I reiterate… Hooooray.

I exited the hut in a bubble of my own shame and gave the children a sarcastic “I fucking love this place” smile.  As I go to return to the meeting I realize my bubble of shame and self loathing has grown too big for me to enter the doorway. Knowing when to call it quits, I find a nice patch of grass where I can sit and hold my stomach for the remainder of the session.  I use this time to collect a few neat looking white pebbles scattered on the ground around me, reminding myself it’s the little things that count, and at least I got a few cool rocks from the experience.  As if on cue, one of the dirtier children passes by me eating what I now know is “Jackfruit” and spits a seed on the ground. A familiar looking seed… a neat looking white seed.  As recognition dawns on me, I dump my seed collection on the ground and having given up on the day, begin planning how the hell I’m going to get down that hill.

So there you have it another one of my classic “why me?” stories. =)

If I ever have children in the future and they dare complain about scooping the  cat litter box, I’m going to take away the pooper scooper, hand them some leaves and tell them they better thank their lucky stars it isn’t their own shit. Hooooray

Didn't your mother teach you to NEVER talk to strangers?

Twas the Nightmare Before Christmas and all through the bus,

 not a creature was stirring, no child with fuss.

 Khayla sat quietly and reading in her seat, 

when the person in front of her, she thought she should meet. 

 Who regrets this fateful decision?, I assure you tis this fool, for now she knows of her bathroom ghoul.

Gather round’ as I tell you of my chance conversation with a stranger. It happened back in September as I was heading home from my Future Site Visit, (if you’ve already forgotten what this is… maaaaybe you should go back and reread a few entries) One of the most nerve wrecking/infuriating parts of Peace Corps that I hadn’t considered was traveling, PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION WILL BE THE END OF ME. I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe I was hoping that by then I would have received my acceptance letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy and I would be zooming around Uganda on my Firebolt. (it’s a cultural reference, and if you didn’t get it… it’s probably best for our friendship that you don’t tell me, just knowingly laugh and act like it didn’t happen) Travel, for the most part is up to Peace Corps volunteers to figure out on their own. A few times we were given crash courses, i.e. filed onto a taxi bus (which fits 14 legally, and frequently 23 illegally) and told to just get off when our stage comes up! Even though we didn’t really know what our stage looked like, it being our first time and all.  

        Anyways, taxi’s come in four main forms. From smallest to largest they are; motorcycles (in country, called botabotas), Toyota corollas (which I’ve now ridden in with 9 other people), vans (or mutatus, pronounced Moo-Taught-Twos), and Charter buses from the prehistoric era. The farther you are traveling, the bigger the vehicle you take. Except BotaBotas, they are not an option, Peace Corps has a rule against riding them, there are a few volunteers who chose to bend this rule because let’s face it, the chances of running into a Peace Corps official at our site are slim, but I’m proud to say my tushy has yet to sit on a botabota cushy. Just ask any local hospital what problem they most frequently treat, and the answer is botabota accidents. That’s all I need to know, kthanx. My stance on survival here, I refuse to die from something that wouldn’t have killed me if I was in America. If I was going to die anyways, like cancer, or the end of the world (hellooooo 2012) then that is okay. There are things in the water, in the ground, and in the air already trying to kill me, why would I help them out?!

        Back to the modes of transportation. There is no set schedule for when these vehicles come and go. Larger cities have taxi/bus parks,  and smaller cities have dirt paths that lead to larger cities. (On these paths only botabotas can drive, which is why I understand that there are those volunteers who need to take them. It’s that or walk for an hour, or be ridiculously over charged for a private hire…yay for white people prices.) So when you need to go somewhere you head to a taxi park, but as you will shortly learn, taxis don’t go anywhere until they are completely packed to capacity. Even if it means sitting in the taxi park for 3 ½ hours (at least I’m learning patience here).  The trick is to stand on the side of the road where it leaves the city and be picked up by a full taxi. Sure you have to cram in, but going to add more people after you anyways, and now you don’t have to wait. But before you get in the taxi, you must remember to ask what price you are being given. Once you are given said price, you must argue that you live here and know that is the wrong price, again…. Yaaaay Mzungu prices. Sidenote: Ugandans may be the worst liars I have ever met, and that is not a complaint. I can read them like a blaring radio. Subtlety and sarcasm have not hit this country yet, probably because they have bigger things to worry about.  

        `

        So I was finished visiting my future site and it was time to head back to the training site in Wakiso, I headed to the bus park in town and met up with Jake Carpenter, a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, PCV, who is in my training group, and placed in the same town as me. Jake is from Macon, Georgia, so it feels good to have a southern gentleman nearby who I can always call for help. He’s a 3 minute car ride and 30 minute walk away.  Never in my life have I been more aware/ constantly reminded of my gender. I’ll save that for another post. Jake and I were shown to a bus by a man who swore up and down the bus was leaving nownow (because in Uganda if you really mean it, you say the word twice)  3 hours later our bus slowly began to leave the bus park. By slowly I mean, go forward ten feet, wait ten minutes to see if anyone else comes. Repeat this process till we finally reach the gate. Quick shout out to my Kindle. Because without it, I surely would’ve gone mad. When I would begin to see red tinges of anger fill the peripheral of my vision as frustration filled my soul, I’d simply whip out my treasure trove of book collections (Thanks Chris Rokicki!) and read away. I really should keep a list somewhere, cause I’ve read a lot of books here.

       

        Finally we are en route to the capital city, Kampala. About 3 hours into our journey I get a glance at what the woman in front of me is reading. Well, not so much reading as looking at, since it is a large diagram of a vagina. Muscles, tendons, and bones all just labeled away. Shocked that a woman would have such graphic material on display in a country drowning in conservatism, I leaned in and asked if she was a health worker. She replied “Yes, I am a practicing nurse, and am now in midwifery school continuing my studies” I informed her I myself was coming just now from a nursing school where I was going to spend the next two years. A few more exchanges and we established that her old nursing school, and my new nursing school, were in fact, the same school.  

        I told her how I’d be living on the hospital grounds.  Sylvia said she bet she knew where I was staying, she proceeded to describe in great detail the house I had spent my last few nights in. Front porch facing where the new chapel was being built, Ben the surgical nurse living next door, and attached to the guest house which frequently hosts Belgium Medical Students. There are easily 30 people who live at the hospital, but clearly this woman knew which house was mine. I asked how she was so familiar with my home and she told me a nice Danish Doctor used to live there, after her first year of nursing school, Sylvia had some financial problems and was going to have to drop out if she couldn’t find the money for school. At this point, the kind doctor offered to sponsor her. This continued happily for a year. Then one day the doctor called her to his house and wrote her a check to cover all the remaining costs of her schooling. Sylvia was so excited, this was the first check she had seen in her entire life.  She held it with pride and quickly went to the bank to deposit the money. She says looking back she should have wondered why the doctor didn’t want to continue his monthly payments. Later that evening, the doctors housekeeper found him dead in the bathroom. MY BATHROOM.  He’d taken a knife and ended his life.  I’ll give you a few seconds to really let this set in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .I hope you are handling this better than I did. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Okay, that’s enough time.  What was I thinking talking to this stranger just because she had female anatomy on display??!?!?!! Curse my curiosity.  It killed the cat, and made Khayla paranoid to live in her own house.

        What were the chances of talking to this women? Of all the buses, and of all the days, and of all the seats. I ended up next to Sylvia. That’ll teach me to talk to strangers. Doing the math this all happened about a decade ago, and even if I met someone here at the hospital who had been here that long, I will never have the courage to ask about the dangerously depressed Danish doctor’s death. (see children, even when the topic is sad, alliteration can be fun!)  The initial shock seems to have worn off, and I actually don’t think about it anymore. But while I pride myself on being non-superstitious, handling scary movies decently, and overall being a strong independent woman, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jumpy at night that first week. My extra 10 inch kitchen knife is still tucked away in my night stand.  But I swear I’m all better now. =)  I forgot to mention that about an hour later our bus broke down and Jake and I had no clue where we were and just hoped on the first taxi driving by who said they were heading to Kampala. I tried not to take this as an omen since breaking down is a common occurrence. We did eventually make it home safely after an 11 hour adventure. I’ve since made that same trip in 6 hours. And in America that distance would take 3 hours. Once again… yaaaay public transportation.

I hope you enjoyed my scary story, I highly doubt you found it boring.  =)

Merry Christmas Everyone! 

I will be missing you all more than you could possibly know. 

SpeechSpeechSpeech!!!

TWO IN A ROW what is going on?!?!?!

It's not nearly as much effort as you think. I'm just posting a speech I gave at our swearing-in ceremony. At the end of our ten weeks of training, Peace Corps and the US Embassy put together a fancy shindig with drinks and appeteasers. (seriously they were a giant tease, reminding us how good food could be if it wanted to) And a couple people from our group were selected to give speeches during the processions. Yours truly was the middle presenter. The high-larious and entertaining cream filling of an intellectual sandwich. Below is my sugary input. I put a few comments in parenthesis to explain some of the inside jokes. Enjoy peeps. =)

         I can’t remember the look on my parents face when I told them I was joining the Peace Corps… mostly because I wasn’t there. My 19 year old sister (at the time, now she is 21.  Time sure is funny, started applying to Peace Corps two years before I actually departed. Two years of your past sure seem a lot shorter than two years of your future.) Kelley had taken advantage of a rare opportunity where she possessed information my parents did not.  And once the cat was out of the bag, Ugandans, that means secret’s out! My parents blind sighted me with one giant bombardment of a phone call. (It wasn’t that much of a bombardment, I just wanted to use the word.  My stepdad was calm, cool, and collected, anything else would mean the world was ending) After the initial shock of their call, A face, which  I’m sure was similar to the one my parents were hosting only minutes earlier, I did the only reasonable thing I could think of, return the favor and tell my parents the secret I’d been keeping about my sister. “Well Kelley got a dog from the pound!” Looking back… I see now why my pebble of information didn’t make nearly the splash Kelley’s boulder did.

            Some of us had 8 months to mentally and physically prepare for this next chapter of our life, others of us had 5 weeks thanks to a combination of essay writing procrastination and failure of the United States Postal Service. (At this point in the speech I raised my hand and pointed to myself =)) Regardless we all found the nerves to show up in Philadelphia with forty-something equally crazy strangers who were looking to save the world and maybe learn a little more about themselves along the way.

        One of the Peace Corps Slogans is “How far are you willing to go” On August 3^rd we found our answer to that question when we traveled roughly 7714 miles to our new home. Or in Spanish, Casa nueva, because my malfunctioning brain has never in my life pushed so many Spanish words to the front of my mind as it did during my Runyankore language test. Poor Kabayo (my language tester, and yes I see the Irony that Caballo is Spanish for horse)… There were points during that interview where I looked so confused he probably thought I’d been bitten by one of those rabid bats hiding in our homestay rooms.

            Anyways, back to our arrival in Uganda. Months of anticipation and excitement building up, culminating in finally landing at the Entebbe airport. We’d read about the beautiful rolling hills, flourishing greenery, and breathtaking sunsets. And upon arrival, we had to trust that what we’d read on Wikipedia was true because beyond the “Mzungu!” shouting taxi drivers, the darkness obscured our view.

I explained to mom back home that Training is kinda like Chemistry 1; A weed-out class. If you can make it through that first class, you’ll have no problem making it through the rest. For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, training was our weed out class. And our first night here was our first pop quiz. Think about it… we didn’t shower or sleep for a day and a half, landed in Africa Darkness, pushed through the tears as some of us realized our belongings  had been stolen (again I raise my hand and point to myself, RIP  brandnewbirthdaygifttomyselfnevergottouseyou Nintendo 3DS, and Zelda Ocarina of Time for the 3DS) unloaded our luggage at 1am in our first delightful combination of the aforementioned Africa Darkness and newfound Uganda Mud, and proceeded to cram more women into a single room than I thought possible. That little gem of a guesthouse, later affectionately called the orphanage, and renamed even later to pee-tree dish room of death, will give me nightmares for the rest of my life. Next we were hustled  to our first official African meal of Peanut Butter and Bread. Interesting how a meal we originally thought so little of, now has the potential to be the highlight of our week. And finally were introduced to people who just couldn’t wait the 5 hours  till breakfast time to meet us. Like we’re thaaat exciting anyways. Needless to say, it was a doosie of a pop quiz. But we are stronger than we know, and in every sense, that is why we are here.

             As our first meal and introduction came to an end, we were told by a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer)  that we aren’t going to save the world, which sidenote: may not be the best motivational tool. Either way, I beg to differ. I think that if any organization has the potential to irreversibly make a difference, it’s the Peace Corps. Sure, one of us alone can only do so much. But as we learned yesterday, we aren’t alone, we are 45 being added to the 1081 Uganda Peace Corps Volunteers who came before us. Change is inevitable, it is up to us to shape that change for the better. Good luck PCVS and Congratulations on passing Chem 1!

My Liquid Number Two.

So if you go back two blog entries I seemed to have made an empty promise about another liquid story. Well, I am anything but a liar. (Unless I’m talking about my morals to a Ugandan… then I need to stretch the truth a little… “oh yes I was baptized in the Catholic church, oh I can’t go to 5 hours of church with you on Sunday because Americans only pray in their rooms…alone,  oh yes absolutely pre-marital sex is Satan on earth” this could go on for a while, so I’ll stop)

A few months ago, in the middle of training, all the volunteers in my training group learned their future site location. It was time to learn because in a few days we would be jet-setting off into the wild to visit these sites, in what is called our “Future Site Visit.” During these three days you see where you are going to be living,  and  test the waters of your organization, sniffing for any large signs of corruption. Emphasis on the large, because small corruption, will absolutely be there.  At our sites, every volunteer is given a counterpart and supervisor. The supervisor you report to (in theory) over your two years, and your counterpart serves as your local helper, guide to the inside, co-worker, person you go to with all of your eki buzzo, (pronounced “etchy booze-oh”, or “questions” in my local language). Moral of the story, you should be comfortable with your counterpart. This story, as you will soon learn, sadly did not get my opinion of my counterpart off to a good start.

I arrived anxiously at Nyakibale Hospital and Karoli Lwanga Nursing School and was shortly (20 min standing alone deflecting the ongoing bombardment of stares, Eminem’s song lyrics “you act like you never seen a white person before” blaring in my head) greeted by my counterpart Sister Florence. Sidenote: she is not a nun I eventually learned. Nurses who teach are called Sister. And they aren’t Teachers, they are Tutors… yay for small differences no one teaches me and just let me slowly piece together like a moron.

 Anywho… Sister Florence shows me to her house and invites me to sit on her couch. I smell a faintly familiar and pungent smell emanating throughout the house, but cast aside those thoughts as Sister Florence introduces me to her child Emma. Emma is wearing a pink sweat-pant set with princesses on them. I've never really been a big fan of children or “shi-theads” as I affectionately call them.  (I hope the hyphen helps you, the reader, understand that I’m just mispronouncing shitheads. =)) Florence and I awkwardly chat for a few minutes before she is called away to deal with a situation between two nursing students. She asks me, nay, casually requests I watch after Emma as the door is closing behind her.  Emma stares at me as we both sip our sodas through straws.  I sniff the air again… what is that smell? I continue sniffing as Emma and I size each other up.  Emma finishes her drink and begins walking around the living room.

No signs of danger yet.

Emma’s soda kicks in and she picks up the pace.

Yellow warning lights begin flashing in my mind.

But I am distracted…What is that smell?... why can’t I figure it out?

Focus on the child Khayla!

Emma is now circling the room at full throttle shouting in what I thought was the local language, but I am now convinced was tongues.  Because I have yet, even to this day, heard  this child speak one word I understand.  Finding herself in front of the bookshelf/entertainment set, Emma begins King Kong-ing up the furniture. Looking back, I see how this might have been a good moment to step in, but… it all happened so fast, okay?! As my mind flashes again in a vain attempt to identify the mystery smell,  Emma jumps/falls/ launches off the furniture and stands in the middle of the room staring at me. Then with eyes intently locked on each other, hers reflecting insanity, mine reflecting a look of “what the fuckery” Emma begins to piss her pants.  Then is hits me. THAT IS WHAT THE SMELL IS. It’s urine. This child regularly golden showers this entire place.  As the wet stain spreads over most of this 4 year old child’s sweatpants she kicks her bottoms off, and I learn something I didn't know before. Emma is a boy.  Whoops.  Doesn’t really rank up there with my surprises of the day.  Besides;  Emma… Pink clothes.

 If you only learn one thing from my adventures… Don’t assume anything in Africa.

Emma begins to pull on “little Emma”, our eyes still locked, and then she charges me.   I remain seated on the couch staring in disbelief, too dumbfounded to act.  At the last second Emma removes her hands from her crotch and clutches both grubby little grabbers onto my soda and straw.  Congratulations Emma, your crazy ass has just won a half empty soda. Not half full. I place the soda on the table concedingly in defeat. Emma disregards her winnings and jumps on the couch next to me where she… no HE, proceeds to play and tug on herself, spread eagle, pointed directly at me.

 At this point I assume I just kinda blacked out, because my memory gets fuzzy. I remember thinking, “there is no way to know where in this house is safe to sit, any form of communication with this child has already proved futile, I can’t believe I couldn't figure out that smell before because it’s totes obvi (totally obvious for you old people) now. “  SIDENOTE: as if bragging, my new little puppy Brutus just went outside through the doggy door (simplified term for open hole where a glass panel broke) in the torrential downpour to pee, because even at two months old, she knows better than pissing in the house.

Taken today during a Blog writing break. Spoiled. I know. 

When Emma gets bored joyriding himself, he finds a nice spot in the corner of the room to pee AGAIN and playfully splashes around in it. My children IF I EVEN HAVE ANY NOW, will never drink soda until they are old enough to have a job and buy it themselves. When Sister Florence returns, I’m not sure what her reaction will be… but as her eyes full upon her bottomless, sticky, only child, a smile spreads across her face as she affectionately proclaims “there’s my sweet little Emma?” Not able to trust my mouth if I stay any longer I grab my purse, thank Sister Florence for half of a soda, and say good evening.

I haven’t spent more than a few seconds with Emma since this fateful day. But I’m sure I can’t put it off forever. Recently Sister Florence came to my house to say hello and saw the yoga ball I brought with me to use as my office chair. (I hate yoga, but I LOVE yoga balls, they are the perfect piece of furniture ; chair, footrest, back popper etc…) I explain to Florence that in America, some people use this as a chair. Her immediate response, “I bet Emma can’t wait to play with it!” I'm positive it's Ugandans  who coined the term, “In one ear and out the other” Before I can figure out how to say “over my dead body” in the local language, I changed the topic for the sake of our relationship.

I don’t know if it’s possible to have your tubes tie themselves, but I’m pretty sure mine did on that fateful day. Notify CNN,  I am the reverse Virgin Mary.  Merry Christmas Everybody!