The View from Kololo

Articles

2008-06-20T01:32:00.004+03:00

I've finally converted my first articles from the Air Uganda inflight magazine into electronic documents. Here's the first one:

Edison Mugalu - Upload a Document to Scribd

If this isn't working for you, I think you can also read it here.

Surgery

2008-06-19T21:21:00.000+03:00

Last Tuesday, Beatrice went into the vet’s for surgery to fix a hernia. I was at a job interview for the initial consultation, but J asked what might have caused it. The vet said it could have been from falling out of a tree or a fight with another animal or from a previous surgery. She found the scars on both cats from when our vet in Uganda had them fixed and found that they were off-center, then conceded it was perhaps likely that the hernia, also off-center, had been caused by this operation. I liked to think that even though Dr. P. was reticent, he was at least somewhat competent.

Bea is recovering nicely and doesn’t seem bothered by the staples in her stomach. Staples look way less comfortable than stitches, but I’ve never been stapled, so what do I know?

The Achilles Project

2008-06-07T20:18:00.002+03:00

The other night J and I had dinner at our friend’s new restaurant in South Boston. The restaurant is called Persephone and it has a retail space in front with some super hip clothes for sale; altogether it’s known as the Achilles Project. The food was outstanding—and we ate a lot of it, so we should know—but mostly we sat there with our friend totally impressed that he had created this really beautiful place, that he had a vision and he saw it out. If you’re passing through Boston, you should check it out.

Hey, No Bugs

2008-06-04T03:23:00.003+03:00

I can't even remember the last bug I saw since I've been back. A couple of days ago, I was standing outside the front door of my parent's house with my mother and she started to complain of mosquitoes. My first thought was, "Mosquitoes? I see one mosquito if I look really hard, I guess." My second thought was, "Who cares? It's not like they can give me malaria."

Culture Shock

2008-06-02T15:11:00.002+03:00

I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a pickle. My view is no longer from Kololo. It is now from Boston, where J and I will be living for the foreseeable future. I planned on ending this blog once we left Uganda, but I have dedicated myself to the Africa Reading Challenge and I still have four more books to read and review. So, for the time being, I will share my inevitable culture shock with you while I power through these books. My posts will likely be more intermittent; I suppose it all depends on well I adjust to this new life.

Cats Update

2008-05-24T14:14:00.001+03:00

Pictures, as promised.

How our cats traveled:

Bea meets Maya:

Home

2008-05-24T13:42:00.002+03:00

Second impressions:

1. Soft fluffy clothes out of the dryer!
2. Soft fluffy toilet paper!
3. I ate oysters last night and I don't even like oysters.

Cat Update

2008-05-23T04:08:00.002+03:00

Because you're all dying to know, I'm sure.

We had absolutely no problem getting the cats home. We had all the necessary papers (in quadruplicate) and the officials at Entebbe were amazing (seriously) and in Amsterdam the KLM people let us know the cats were safely on the plane for the next leg and when we got to the States, Customs was a breeze. The cats were less than pleased with the situation, but they're settling in alright now. I think they're going to like their new clumping litter.

I have pictures but have yet to find my camera cord in our massive amounts of luggage. Stay tuned.

(Okay, so the first quarter of the Celtics game is already over, but only because I find everything so distracting and I'm moving kind of slowly because the coffee is wearing off and I am stupid tired. I have to say, after a 14-month break, commercials are not so bad.)

Home

2008-05-23T04:04:00.003+03:00

First impressions:

1. Very efficient water pressure. Showering is a true pleasure.
2. Tap water! Drinkable tap water! Brushing my teeth also a pretty amazing experience.
3. Internet: I might just throw up another post right after this. Because I can. And I'll be finished before the first quarter of the Celtics game ends. The Celtics game, which I'm watching on TV. On a television that is flat-screened and 40-inches and high definition.
4. Life is good.

Paper Beads

2008-05-20T10:22:00.002+03:00

I've been buying paper beads to bring home as gifts and I thought I had heard they were made out of garbage, so I did a little research. Not garbage so much as recycled paper. (Hey, they do recycle something here and for a good cause beyond saving the planet.) Online all the
stories seem to be about the Bead for Life organization, but it feels like everyone is selling paper beads these days.

How To Get Two Cats Out of Uganda

2008-05-19T13:56:00.000+03:00

Anyone know?

It looks so easy on paper…because there doesn’t seem to be anything on paper.

It’s one of those things where you have to know the right questions to ask, but are not sure where you find out which are the right questions. For example, it recently came to our attention that we need an exit permit from some ministry to get the cats out of Uganda. Now we’ve talked to a whole bunch of people about what we need to get the cats out of Uganda, but it was only on, like, the fourth conversation that someone mentioned this exit permit. So unless you know to ask, “Hey, is there some sort of exit permit we need to get from some random ministry (that our vet couldn’t even remember the name of) in Entebbe, for which we also need health certificates?” then I’m not sure how it really comes up. But why would you know to ask that specific question?

Our mobile vet seemed to have everything under control for us as of 4:39 PM last Wednesday, but I have this horrible feeling we’re going to show up at the airport and poor Bea and poor Sarge, all sweet in their little carriers, are going to get turned away – and if they get turned away, I guess that means we get turned away, too, which would not be good. Which would, in fact, be very very bad.

Car Update

2008-05-15T16:15:00.000+03:00

Remember yesterday how I said someone was coming to buy our car that afternoon? Dude calls and says, “So, how about I give you 4 million shillings today, take the car, and then I’ll give you the rest of the money in a week and a half after my check matures?”

And we said: how about not.

In America, Everything is for Sale - How Uganda is Different

2008-05-14T10:01:00.000+03:00

On Saturday J and I went to Garden City in search of supplies to carry home the art we purchased here. We purchased vellum at Aristoc to place between the canvases when we roll them up and we needed a tube to place them in, which we thought we might find at the FedEx stand at Uchumi. Two employees sat behind the FedEx counter with a triangular sort of tube standing upright between them.

“Hey, can we buy that tube?” we asked.
“The what?”
“The tube. Right there.” We pointed.
“You want this tube?”
“Yes, can we buy that, please?”
“You cannot buy it.”
“Why not?”
“It’s for shipping.”
“But we just want to buy it off you.”
“It’s only for shipping.”
“We can’t buy it?”
“You’ll have to go to Serena offices and ask.”
“We can buy a tube from the Serena office?”
Big shrug.
“But if we had something to ship in that tube, we could have it?”
“You have something to ship?”
“Yes, but it’s at home. Can we take the tube home and pack it up and then bring it back?” Which was obviously a total lie, except that they believed us.
“Of course. Here you go.” And they handed us the tube. For free.

We wanted to give them money, we really did.

Boda Drivers Beware

2008-05-14T09:45:00.001+03:00

With less than one week left in Uganda, I find myself with the overwhelming urge to gently nudge any number of the boda drivers I pass on the road with the bumper of my car. I want to gently nudge them and watch them tumble into a ditch – gently – on the side of the road. I don’t want bloodshed or injuries of any kind; I just want to show them who’s who. Put them in their place – namely, next to their crappy bikes on the ground.

Why do I find them so infuriating? Is it because they appear to show such ownership of the road when their bikes can barely top 25 km/hr? Because they are so unpredictable, with their tendency to signal a turn across oncoming traffic after they’re already halfway through the intersection? Because I feel I often put my life in danger trying to pass them, only to come to a halt in an inexplicable jam a few kilometers on and have them pass me so easily, zooming off into the sunset while I’m stuck behind some twat who can’t figure which lane to be in to turn left (or, somehow more disconcertingly, which lane to turn right)?

And yet I find the winter parkas the boda drivers wear so endearing. Odd.

This isn’t road rage, exactly. The urge to play bumper cars sits quite calmly with me. It just seems like it would be so easy. The boda drivers are just there, in vast numbers, asking for it, with ridiculous things piled behind them – Nile perch the size of deer, mattresses, stacks of chairs, metal containers of milk, jumbles of children without helmets. So maybe it’s a good thing someone is coming to buy our car this afternoon.

What Alaska, SPAM, and the Polio Vaccine Have in Common

2008-05-13T14:31:00.002+03:00

Totally random, but I'm getting a kick out this blog on things younger than John McCain.

Film Festival

2008-05-09T15:03:00.002+03:00

The Amakula Film Festival I so enjoyed last year is back. Not sure we'll make it to any films, but somehow it's comforting to know it's there.

Abyssinian Chronicles: Africa Reading Challenge Review (& Book Club)

2008-05-09T14:33:00.002+03:00

Our most recent book club pick and boy, could we have picked a worse book? I never, ever would have read past the first fifty pages if I did not feel somewhat beholden to the other women who would gather at my house to discuss it. As it was I managed to read the first 100 pages straight through and then I skimmed another 100 and then I just simply had to give up. I have never been so bored with a book in my life, nor so exasperated, so utterly confused at its existence, so disappointed in a book in long time.

So what is so wrong with this book aside from being utterly boring? First, it’s about 300 pages too long. Isegawa has not just the tendency to be overwordy, but he also feels the need to repeat certain rather absurd words over and over. Like “hydra.” Every problem becomes metaphorically a hydra. Used once it could possibly be construed as somewhat clever, maybe, but after fifty times? It’s just irritating. His parents are the “despots” and his siblings are the “shitters.” Not particularly inspired, even less so after 500 pages, plus it just distances the reader from these relationships. The “shitters” develop no further personalities, no other distinguishing features than to be grouped together in this way.

There are politics buried in this book, but they are so few and far between, so in fact buried in the mundane details that fill much of the book, that they might as well not be there at all. But these details, I imagine, are what drew interest to the book in the first place. A grandfather involved in village politics. An aunt working with the NRM to build an underground opposition to Amin. The terror of living during the Amin regime. Okay, these are interesting. And yet they seem to fill less than 50 pages of this overly immense book.

My other huge problem is with perspective. Why is this a first person narration? How does our narrator know all the details of his father’s life before the narrator was born? Or anyone’s? He’s somehow completely omniscient and there’s no explanation for it. Very irritating.

There’s very little to like in this book and I keep coming back to the question of why something like this would get published and I keep thinking about this article I read recently by David Kaiza in the East African newspaper (which I’ve linked to before and may not be available online all that much longer). In explaining the success of Abyssinian Chronicles, he said, “African literature typecast, exiled to the realms of the phantasmagorical.” Okay, I’m not actually sure where the phantasmagorical comes in Abyssinian Chronicles—maybe I just didn’t make it that far or maybe this is somehow supposed to explain the narrator’s omniscient nature—but it’s the idea that the only African literature to get published has to fit a model. It has to be about African dictators or what the Western world understands to be the African experience. It’s the best explanation I can come up with why Isegawa’s book got picked up in the first place.

Ndali Lodge

2008-05-08T14:12:00.002+03:00

The Fort Portal area was one of the last places in Uganda I wanted to visit before J and I move back to the States at the end of this month (aside from Queen Elizabeth National Park and the tree-climbing lions in Ishasha, which will have to wait for another lifetime). A friend told us we must stay at Ndali Lodge and so, without doing any further research, we booked a room and drove out for the weekend.

Ndali Lodge lies just south of Fort Portal amongst the Kasenda Crater Lakes. It sits on the rim of Lake Nyinambuga—the back of the main building looks down over the lake, while the other side of the lodge looks out over another lake in the distance and, further off, the Rwenzori Mountains, which were perpetually shrouded in the clouds, except early in the morning:

There’s plenty to do in this area—we took an hour and a half walk around Lake Nyinambuga, chimp tracking in Kibale Forest is close by, and there are other, longer hikes around the lakes that you can take—but perhaps the most pleasant thing about Ndali Lodge is the complete lack of expectations that you do anything all. Reading a book by the pool or overlooking the lake all day long, day after day, would seem the most normal thing in the world here. It’s quiet, there’s an extensive bar, and a host of dogs to sleep at your feet and keep you company. The dogs are also nice company on a walk; one accompanied us, coming bounding out of the underbrush when we were halfway around the lake and taking us completely by surprise.

For being in the middle of nowhere, Ndali Lodge is a very civilized sort of place. It is run by Aubrey, grandson of the original owner (there’s a nice history of the place on the web site), and his girlfriend, Claire. At night these two preside over a four-course dinner, served at one long communal table. The food is superb – the best lasagna I’ve had in Uganda, the only ceviche I’ve seen in Uganda, the best salad I’ve had in a year – and afterwards coffee and tea (grown on the lodge’s farm and also fantastic) and whiskey is served by the bar, where guests, having become friendly over dinner, sit together and chat amiably sometimes late into the night. Aubrey mentioned that he wanted guests to feel like they were staying in someone’s home and I think he achieves a nice balance of familiarity and service.

And did I mention how friggin awesome their dogs are?

Ndali Lodge Preview

2008-05-05T10:21:00.001+03:00

I realize I haven’t posted many pictures lately and because I’ll have too many to post when I write about the lovely Ndali Lodge, I’ll give you a couple here as a preview.

Sunday

2008-05-05T10:17:00.002+03:00

It’s funny. I woke up early Sunday morning and went out onto the porch of our little cottage at Ndali Lodge where we spent the weekend (more on that later) to read while I waited for our absurdly good coffee to be delivered at 8:00 AM. That morning I finished Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (I finished it weeping, no weeping – again, more on that later) only to find J and myself later in the day on an epic and depressing road adventure of our own. It was the day of the road.

After arriving at Ndali on Friday afternoon, Saturday we passed by the car and saw that we had a flat tire. We put on the spare (and when I say “we” I mean the four lovely men who work at Ndali) and on Sunday morning J and I drove into Fort Portal on our way back to Kampala to patch up the tire. They found the nail and fixed the puncture and put the tire back on the car. Good to go.

Two hours later we were on the side of the road with the same flat tire. We put the spare back on and drove forty kilometers to Mubende. Here they found a second nail – had it been there all along or was it a brand new nail? – and we were told we needed a new tube inside the tire. An hour later we were back on the road and moving right along.

We felt confident about the car and let me tell you why. Last week J took the car in to get fully serviced in anticipation of selling our car in the next couple of weeks. Among other things we fixed the passenger side door handle so you no longer need to roll down the window and open the door from the outside to let yourself out; we reattached the speaker wires on the driver’s side; we had the radiator sealed so it no longer leaked fluid and overheated.

So when we ended up on the side of the road – again – with the front of the car smoking just outside of Mityana and only about 50 kilometers from Kampala, it was a bit of a surprise. The sealant on the radiator had busted open and the radiator was as dry as a bone. We sat on the ground and waited for the car to cool off. (We had some cooling off to do ourselves.) Eight hours later (it should have taken five hours, tops) we arrived back home to two whacked-out cats who were not altogether pleased with us for leaving them alone inside for two days.

Now, who wants to buy our car?

West With the Night by Beryl Markham: Review

2008-04-29T12:58:00.002+03:00

Disclaimer: I read this a few months ago now and I seem to have misplaced my copy of the book, so I’m going off memory here.

As I said before, my parents brought this book when they came to visit and left it behind. Neither of them could stop talking about it, so I picked it up right away and was pleasantly surprised. This is one of those books that I found baffling—for two different reasons. First, that I had never heard of it before. It’s just too good of a book. Everyone should know about it. And not just those who have an interest in Africa. Second, I was baffled by the writing. It’s just too good. And it’s not fair. How can this woman excel at everything she does? How can she raise thoroughbred horses single-handedly, as a teenager, and then become this pioneering woman by flying planes in the 1930s, and then write as beautifully as she does?

Beryl Markham was raised by her father in Nairobi at the turn of the century. She grew up on a farm, befriending hearty, faithful animals who would follow her anywhere and strong, honorable Masaai warriors, who take her hunting and who would risk their own lives to save hers. A Masaai boy is her best friend and later in life becomes something like her servant, a constant companion, completely devoted. Written in an era when the British in East Africa were kings, there are moments like this that make you feel the complications of the times and how things have changed. Markham loved and respected her best friend and yet to her it was so normal that he woke her each morning with a tray of tea, that he cleaned and maintained her plane, that he seemed to cater to her every need.

The middle part of the book Markham devotes to her teenage years as a horse breeder. After a few years of drought, her father sold the farm in Nairobi and moved to South America. He gave the 17-year-old a choice, to go with him or to stay in Kenya on her own. Having lived in Africa since she was a child, it was in her blood to stay. Her love for the land and for the people is deeply felt.

The last, and perhaps most exciting, part of the book is left to flying. Markham was the first woman to complete a solo flight across the Atlantic going from East to West. (Her destination was New York but she crashed the plane in Canada — and obviously lived to tell about it.) Prior to this, though, her flying — like most things in her life — is built on friendships. What fascinates is not the small details of flying, delivering goods to remote areas of the country or even tracking elephants for safaris (actual hunting safaris, to kill the elephants for their tusks), but the rescue of a fellow pilot in the Serengeti and the motherly advice from the man who taught her to fly.

Shoddy, Shoddy

2008-04-26T11:35:00.000+03:00

Last night J and I went out for Thai food at the Metropole Hotel on Acacia Avenue. We planned on eating on their deck, under the stars, overlooking the golf course, only to find upon arrival that the deck was under construction. How, after having been open less than six months, do they already need to completely redo their deck?

Africa Reading Challenge: List

2008-04-25T13:42:00.003+03:00

For the Africa Reading Challenge I’m supposed to have six books about Africa on this list. I can promise I will read six books about Africa by the end of the year, no problem, but I can’t really promise what they will be. The first two are definite. The last four are probablies.

1. West With the Wind by Beryl Markham — Review forthcoming.
2. Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa — Our next book club pick, currently a quarter of the way through.
3. Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller — I read Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight years ago and loved it. Always meant to read this, too.
4. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe — It seems sort of shameful that I haven’t read this yet. Interesting recent article on this book and this author by David Kaiza from the East African here.
5. Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee — Loved Disgrace, have been meaning to read this for a while.
6. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch

Also considering King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild, A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul, Emma’s War, and others. Tried reading The Poisonwood Bible but just found it too tedious.

Kiwani the Movie

2008-04-21T12:47:00.001+03:00

A few months ago, I was sitting in the lounge in Kabira using the Internet in the midst of a film set. Kiwani, a Ugandan film, which debuted in Kampala recently.

J found this still online, but I didn’t make it into the shot. But I was there, people, I was there.

Fahreed's

2008-04-19T10:11:00.001+03:00

I heard about Fahreed’s used bookstore only recently, though it’s been open since late 2006. It’s located in the Ntinda shopping complex on Old Kiira Road; a second, larger shop has apparently opened more recently in Nakawa, though I have yet to visit it. Like the Bookend, Fahreed’s also imports used books from England; unlike the Bookend, it does not buy books back. It has a larger selection of titles—thriller, chick lit, and general fiction is lumped into together, and there are also cookbooks, health and fitness books, textbooks, encyclopedias, children’s titles, as well as some old VHS movies. Hardcover fiction runs for Ush 10,000 and paperbacks for Ush 5,000. The setting is not as attractive as the Bookend, nor is as much care taken in displaying the titles. Fiction books are stacked three deep on the shelves, making two-thirds of the store’s stock very difficult to see. Be prepared to dig. Also, the titles did not appear to be arranged alphabetically by author when I was there, so again: be prepared to dig.

The Bookend

2008-04-15T11:09:00.006+03:00

I’ve been meaning to write about the Bookend for months now and Uganda Insomniac beat me to it. It’s also mentioned on Jackfruity, though my Internet connection isn't good enough to find the exact links to either right now. I had coffee with the proprietress, Karen, the other day for an article I’m writing about literary Kampala and she said there was an obvious increase in sales after the Insomniac post. (The Insomniac also seems to have won just about every award given out at the Uganda Best of Blogs Awards.)

Located next to the Surgery and Rocks & Roses on Acacia Avenue, the Bookend is a lovely place to stop if you're looking for something new to read (or waiting for a doctor's appointment). You can buy used books for 6,000 shillings and sell books for 3,000 shillings. A good selection, too. (In the past couple of months I’ve picked up books by David Mitchell, Edward O. Wilson, Garrison Keillor, Philip Pullman, and J.R.R. Tolkien.) Karen travels to England twice a year to replenish her stock and most afternoons you can find her sitting on the porch of her kiosk, drinking coffee and talking books with customers. Not a bad life.

I’ve also found out about a couple more used bookstores around town I’ll be checking out in the next couple of days.

More Murchison: Fat Crocs, Dead Hippos

2008-04-14T14:41:00.003+03:00

On our morning game drive, the best thing we saw was a pride of lions: 2 adult females and 8 cubs.

Which shouldn’t overshadow the stunning vistas, the giraffes and water buffalo, etc…but it sort of does. Murchison is a beautiful place.

In the afternoon, we took a boat ride down the Nile to the base of the falls. On the way we passed about 25 crocodiles piled on the bank and two of them were the fattest things I had ever seen, as though they had just eaten a buffalo or maybe a Cooper Mini. These pictures are not the best, but hopefully you can get an idea:

In the foamy waters just below the falls, a dead hippo floated belly up. I reached for my camera and paused, asking V, “Is it too morbid to take a picture?” And then we looked down the length of the boat at all the other passengers lined up at the railing, snapping away, and we shrugged and joined the crowd.

So as not to end on a sad note, I’ll leave you with this picture of a mother and baby monkey, resting on the roof of S’s room at the Nile Safari Lodge. (Noisy little suckers, especially at night when you’re sleeping under a tin roof and the monkeys are jumping down from the branches above you.)

Murchison Falls, Take 2

2008-04-11T10:23:00.005+03:00

The first time I went to Murchison Falls, last July, I was sick and trying to be a good sport about it—if you ask J, I’m sure he’d say I failed miserably; but hopefully if you asked N or S they would say I didn’t do too bad a job. This time, traveling with V and S, (J stayed home to work—someday I hope you will be reading a blog of J’s year doing cool things while I slave away in an office somewhere) I felt totally healthy and we traveled in style.

Doing some last minute planning, I called up my friends at GeoLodges (same owners as Rainforest Lodge) and they put together a nice package for us. Last Wednesday a driver, Karim, picked us up at home at 7:00 AM. In the same size van that eight of us had packed into for the Red Chilli trip, the three of us now rode on the beautifully paved road to Hoima—the miserable road we had taken last June is now, apparently, completely impassable. After Hoima, though, the road turns to packed dirt for the remaining two to three hours and admittedly it gets fairly tedious.

We stopped in Masindi for lunch, Masindi of some Hemingway fame. He is said to have stayed at the Masindi Hotel. This is the story the Bradt guide tells: In January 1954 Hemingway and his fourth wife Mary Walsh crashed their Cessna in Murchison Falls. In the process Mary cracked some ribs and Hemingway dislocated his shoulder. They spent the night on the shores of the Nile and were rescued the following morning by a boat going to Butiaba, a lakeside village 8km from the Masindi road. From their the two charted a flight to Entebbe. “On take-off, however, the plane lifted, bumped back down, crashed, and burst into flames. Mary and the pilot escaped through a window. Hemingway, too bulky to fit through the window and unable to use his dislocated arm, battered open the buckled door with his head, to emerge with bleeding skull and a rash of blistering burns.” Then they spent a few days recovering in the Masindi Hotel. As it turned out, Hemingway also had a collapsed intestine, a ruptured liver and kidney, two crushed vertebrae, temporary loss of vision in one eye, impaired hearing, and a fractured skull. These injuries caused him to miss the ceremony for the Nobel Prize (he won the Prize for Literature that year).

Anyway, next stop Murchison Falls, followed by the Nile Safari Lodge.

In my next post: crocodiles the size of small cars, dead hippos, baby monkeys. Stay tuned.

The End of Love

2008-04-09T14:45:00.000+03:00

Mystery Date: once a portrait of young dreamers looking for love, once filled with anticipation and over-dramatized emotions, now a business opportunity, now filled with indifference.

Two Saturdays ago I bought the New Vision seeking the latest Mystery Date column after a long hiatus and I was disappointed. Week after week the column is now the same, the couples have become a cliché: a singer or some other performer looking for publicity, already married or seriously involved, meeting a producer or promoter, or worse, someone actually looking for a relationship who is left humiliated, if charitably not on the date, then certainly on the page. What was once rather comical—how half of the couple would suddenly drop the information of their marital status into the interview—has become merely sad, tiresome, if no less unfathomable.

I can’t help thinking this turn coincides with the move from Kyoto to Choma restaurant. Choma, after all, lacks a swing under the stars. Perhaps this is why the New Vision no longer carries a photo of the couple together on the date. Now it merely has two mug shot-like images of each person at the top of the column.

Take, for example, Julius and Stella, from the March 22 issue. Julius is a videographer; Stella an artiste. Stella has a boyfriend; Julius is married. Stella’s summary amounted to this: “When I told him I was an artiste, he was happy because he is a promoter. He said we could make good money since he knows the trade well.” Julius said, “We exchanged greetings and I realized she was familiar. I had seen her on stage, singing. She said she liked me and I was happy to meet her because, as a promoter, I can benefit from her talent.”

The mystery has been removed from mystery date. Is it really so hard to find two people looking for love? Two people who want nothing more out of the endeavor than the chance to meet someone special? Shame on you, New Vision, for turning Mystery Date into such a farce.

The Other Kind of Africa Day

2008-04-07T14:15:00.001+03:00

V and S flew home to Idaho yesterday and J and I sat around watching Friday Night Lights (the TV show, not the movie) having no idea what else to do with ourselves now that the house was empty again. This morning I dusted off my desk and now Sarge is napping next to the computer, resting her head on half the keyboard, occasionally opening one eye when I reach for the delete or return keys and disturb her nap. How easily we fall back into our routines—and how much more gratefully so after a long break. What had once become commonplace, almost boring, now seems delightful again. One day I am watching a family of lions dozing in the shade of a tree, the next I am back at my desk writing a novel (this might not sound like heaven to everyone, but it is to me). It’s enough to make a girl feel downright content.

An Africa Day

2008-04-01T16:15:00.003+03:00

I have posts, I do. The Internet at Kabira is down. Bubbles' gate was closed and supposedly there's another entrance, but I couldn't find it. Now I'm at Protea and my pictures won't post, I assume because the connection here is so bad. Tomorrow I'm heading to Murchison Falls with V and S. Probably won't be able to post again until next week.

Am I making excuses? Hell, yes, I'm making excuses. If I'm going to have an Africa Day, so are you.

Sipi Falls

2008-04-01T16:04:00.001+03:00

About a week after my parents left, my friends V and S arrived from Idaho. We spent the first few days poking around Kampala and sitting by the pool at Kabira. Their first weekend in Uganda coincided with N’s last weekend and we wanted to get out of the city and into the country to see something new. It also happened to be Easter, a four-day weekend in Uganda. Little did we realize everyone goes away and because we started planning quite late, most of the hotels and lodges we called were already booked. We managed to get a night at Lacam Lodge out at Sipi Falls in eastern Uganda, close to Mt. Elgon and the Kenyan border.

Sipi Falls from the Lacam Lodge:

The hut V and I shared with views out over the valley:

In the morning we hiked to the base of the falls.

Lacam Lodge was so comfortable, the view so peaceful, that we endeavored to stay another night in the vicinity. We reserved beds at the Crow’s Nest, a campsite with bandas recommended in the Lonely Planet, but when we arrived there in the late afternoon, we discovered the restaurant had burned down a few months prior. With no place to really hang out, staying there became less appealing. Instead we drove back down to Mbale, in the shadow of the hills (and supposedly Mt. Elgon, though it was so cloudy the whole time we never saw it), and stayed at the Landmark Inn, a big, rundown but still charming, old house run by an Indian family who makes fantastic food.

We drove back to Kampala on Easter Sunday in a torrential downpour that never let up. We stopped in Jinja for lunch—Mexican food at the Palmtree Hotel, which is never disappointing when compared to your only other option for Mexican food at Fat Boys—and to show V and S the source of the Nile,

Lake Manyara

2008-03-29T15:35:00.001+03:00

We spent two days on the Serengeti (and one afternoon by the Serena’s pool overlooking the Serengeti plains). We dropped J off at the Serengeti airport because he had to leave us a day early to attend a meeting in Ethiopia for work.

John drove us back through Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area to Lake Manyara National Park, bordered on one side by the Rift Valley. We arrived late in the afternoon and, though we were tired of the car, decided to do a game drive then instead of waking up quite early in the morning for one.

Lake Manyara is famed for its tree-climbing lions and John seemed determined to find us one. Our morning drive through the Serengeti had been almost fruitless. We saw few animals and there were few in attendance at Lake Manyara as well. A sleepy day, I suppose. John drove furiously around the park, looking, looking, but we saw no tree-climbing lions.

Just as we were heading out of the park, however, we did have a close encounter with some elephants. When J lived in South Africa, his family came to visit and they went on safari. They have a story of making an elephant very angry and coming close to be trampled. There is a fabled video of the experience, which has been dubbed “When Elephants Attacked,” though J’s brother had misplaced it the last time we visited and I have never seen it. Nonetheless it has made me wary of elephants wandering too close, so when John stopped the car next to three big, male elephants and it became clear they wanted to cross the road just where we were parked, it made me a little nervous.

The first one passed just in back of our car, the second a little closer. The third elephant made it very clear he wanted to cross exactly where we were parked and I could tell he did not intend to alter his course in the least. I was so uncomfortable with the situation I sat down in my seat and decided not to watch. My parents seemed not to be concerned in the least. Without starting the car, John opened his door and began to push the car forward with his foot. The elephant passed at our back without any upset.

And that was our excitement for the day. When we arrived at the Serena hotel just outside Lake Manyara’s park boundaries, it had begun to rain and already turned dark. I woke up the next morning, showered, packed, and still had a few minutes before meeting my parents for breakfast. I realized there was a large curtain in the back of the room I hadn’t opened and I was pleasantly surprised to find the most astonishingly beautiful view.

And that was the end of our safari.

The Serengeti

2008-03-26T10:01:00.003+03:00

“[The Serengeti Plains] are endless and they are empty, but the are as warm with life as the waters of a tropic sea. They are webbed with the paths of eland and wildebeest and Thompson’s gazelle and their hollows and valleys are trampled by thousands of zebra. I have seen a herd of buffalo invade the pastures under the occasional thorn tree groves and, now and then, the whimsically fashioned figure of a plodding rhino has moved along the horizon like a grey boulder come t life and adventure bound. There are no roads. There are no villages, no towns, no telegraph. There is nothing, as far as you can see, or walk, or ride, except grass and rocks and a few trees and the animals that live there.”—Beryl Markham, West With the Wind

The Serengeti meets Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area at the Serengeti’s southeast border. Along the dirt road lies Oldupai Gorge. You might know this as Olduvai Gorge, the spot where Louis and Mary Leaky discovered some of man’s oldest fossils, including hominid footprints estimated to be 3.7 million years old preserved by layers of volcanic ash. Apparently the white man who found the gorge asked locals what they called the area and they answered Oldupai, but he heard Olduvai and that was the name that went in the books. We stopped in at the small museum at the site of the gorge and for a quick lecture before getting back in the car – here’s the car, by the way –

and heading into the Serengeti. Even before we passed through the gate, we came across three lions sleeping by the side of the road.

We picnicked and hit the road again, driving all afternoon. (You never get used to bumpy roads.) Late in the afternoon a cluster of cars caught our attention. Our guide, John, said, “Maybe it is something special,” and pulled up closer. Whispers of “leopard” reached our ears from the heads that stuck out the roofs of the cars in front of us. We searched and we searched with our binoculars but could see nothing amongst the branches of the sausage tree, except, well, sausages. Finally J spotted the spots, because J spotted everything first. It was the most well-hidden leopard, perhaps ever. There were spots amongst the leaves, but no head, no tail. After a few minutes we pulled away, but before we got very far John received a call on his radio. The leopard was on the move. By the time we got back it had repositioned itself on the branch so we could see its head and its tail. It lounged without notice of the line of vehicles before it, its head resting on its front paws, back legs dangling thirty feet above ground. It was my birthday.

What else we saw:
Leopard, lions, elephants, buffalo, hippos, wildebeest, gazelle, hartebeest, zebra, giraffe, topi, impala, crocodile, monitor lizard, dik dik…

Ngorongoro Crater

2008-03-24T15:10:00.004+03:00

Sorry for the silence. I have more visitors in town and I have been showing them around Kampala, traveling a little bit, and not spending much time on the Internet. I have a nice backlog of stories to share and hopefully from here on out posting will be more regular. Now, to pick up where I left off, we flew with my parents from Entebbe to Mt. Kilimanjaro airport in Tanzania on March 1…

I used the Let’s Go travel agency at Garden City to book our safari in Tanzania. Everything went fairly smoothly until the day a couple of weeks ago I went to pick up our airline tickets and final itinerary. V, the woman I worked with, informed me our Air Uganda flight time had been changed and we would now be arriving at 2:45 PM. It’s a three and a half hour drive to Ngorongoro Crater and the park gates close at 6:00 PM sharp. So let’s do the math. After going through immigration and picking up our luggage, we would hope to be out of the airport to meet our driver by 3:00, at the earliest and assuming our flight is actually on time, and then drive really fast (according to V) and make it to the park in time. Now, I don’t know about you, but my third grade math teacher would have told me that it would be impossible to make it to the park in time even if we didn’t have to pass through immigration and pick up our luggage. And, considering the roads in Uganda and assuming Tanzania’s were not much different, I really didn’t want to put our lives in danger by driving really fast.

I told V I was very uncomfortable with the situation. I asked for alternatives. She insisted it would be fine. I asked to speak to her manager. Instead we emailed her colleague in Tanzania…who also insisted it would be fine. Now that the trip is over, I can see that they were probably right. It probably would have been fine. The Kilimanjaro airport was a breeze. The roads in Tanzania are nothing like the roads in Uganda. The road to Ngorongoro was a dream, a highway to heaven, yes, but also made of heaven. Thank you to the people of Japan who paid for that road and arranged for it to be installed. Could you please come to Uganda and build a road to Bwindi? But I know myself. I know that with that schedule and knowing nothing of the airport or the roads of the reliability of Air Uganda arriving on time, I would have been a nervous wreck. I would have literally given myself a migraine worrying if we were going to make it in time.

Because when I asked V if, hypothetically, we arrived at the gates at 6:05 and they wouldn’t let us in, what then, she had no answer for me. Seriously, silence. We sleep in the car? We drive back to Arusha and shell out another couple of hundred dollars for a hotel room when we’re already paying for the hotel room in Ngorongoro? You can see this wasn’t really an option, right? Because V made me feel like a really neurotic, really problematic American. And maybe I am.

Eventually, when I was near tears and J accompanied me to the office to speak to V, we arranged to spend our first night at the Mountain View Lodge just outside of Arusha. It’s run by Serena, as all were all our hotels that week, and it was lovely. No stress, just an afternoon drinking Kilimanjaro beer and playing cribbage. I was pleased with the outcome.

The following morning we left early for the three and a half hour drive to Ngorongoro Crater and spent the afternoon driving through its interior. Ngorongoro Crater is a collapsed volcano, 20 kilometers in diameter, with animals passing in and out. A soda lake, Lake Magadi, lies on one side and, as my dad liked to say, it was “filthy with flamingos.” (I don't have a picture of the flamingos for you because they were really too far away to get a good photo.)

We caught three enormous male lions napping along the side of the road. A black rhinocerous wandered across the landscape in the distance. A herd of elephants gathered at the base of the crater, though we could only see them through binoculars. Hyenas—though mangy and mostly pretty unattractive—have endearing round ears. Ngorongoro is a stunning location with more animals than you can shake a stick at all gathering in this small little area. Really amazing. Here’s the view from the Serena lodge:

What we saw:
Zebra, wildebeest, Thompson’s gazelle, black rhino, lions, hyena, elephant (though only at a great distance), eland, buffalo, and lots of birds, including ostrich, flamingo (about 1 million of them), Crowned Crane (Uganda’s national bird), heron, pelican, black crake, and a number of others whose names I didn’t write down.

The One Thing Africa Is Not

2008-03-14T14:39:00.000+03:00

My parents left (perhaps inadvertently) a book behind called West With the Night by Beryl Markham and I have since picked it up and begun reading it. It’s a remarkable book, a memoir of a British woman’s life growing up in Kenya. She was a farmer’s daughter, raised thoroughbred horses, and she was a pilot. She writes with such confidence and grace. Here is a long excerpt from the book’s early pages.

“Competitors in conquest have overlooked the vital soul of Africa herself, from which emanates the true resistance to conquest. The soul is not dead, but silent, the wisdom not lacking but of such simplicity as to be counted non-existent in the tinker’s mind of modern civilization. Africa is of an ancient age and the blood of many of her peoples is as venerable and as chaste as truth. What upstart race, sprung from some recent, callow century to arm itself with steel and boastfulness, can match in purity the blood of a single Masai Murani whose heritage may have stemmed not far from Eden? It is not the weed that is coorupt; roots of the weed sucked first life from the genesis of earth and hold the essence of it still. Always the weed returns; the cultured plant retreats before it. Racial purity, true aristocracy, devolve not from edict, nor from rote, but from the preservation of kinship with the elemental forces and purposes of life whose understanding is not farther beyond the mind of a Native shepherd than beyond the cultural fumblings of a mortar-board intelligence.

“Whatever happens, armies will continue to rumble, colonies may change masters, and in the face of it all Africa lies, and will lie, like a great, wisely somnolent giant unmolested by the noisy drum-rolling of bickering empires. It is not only a land; it is an entity born of one man’s hope and another man’s fancy.

“So there are many Africas. There are as many Africas as there are books about Africa—and as many books about it as you could read in a leisurely lifetime…All of these books, or at least as many of them as I have read, are accurate in their various portrayals of Africa—not my Africa, perhaps, nor that of an early settler, nor of a veteran of the Boer War, nor of an American millionaire who went there and shot zebra and lion, but of an Africa true to each writer of each book. Being thus all things to all authors, it follows, I suppose, that Africa must be all things to all readers.

“Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer’s paradise, a hunter’s Valhalla, an escapist’s Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just ‘home.’ It is all these things but one thing—it is never dull.”

Mihingo / Mburo

2008-03-13T13:20:00.006+03:00

Once upon a time, two brothers lived in a large and deep valley. Their names were Kigarama and Mburo. They farmed the land and lived happily there for a time. One night Kigarama had a dream, a dream not to be ignored. He dreamt of great danger and when he woke, he told his brother that must leave the valley and move into the hills. But Mburo loved the valley and he did not believe what his brother told him. Mburo stayed; Kigarama climbed the hills and made a home there. Then the rains came. It rained and rained and filled the valley floor. Mburo drowned in the lake, while Kigarama watched from the hills. Today the lake is named after Mburo, the hills after Kigarama.

To break up the trip back to Kampala after gorilla tracking, we stopped at Lake Mburo National Park for the night and stayed at Mihingo Lodge.

Mihingo is a beautiful lodge built into the side of a rocky hill. Ten permanent tented rooms overlook the park and a watering hole at which impala gather to drink. The food is fantastic, the view stunning, the pool a really lovely place to spend an early evening with a beer and the sunset.

I was totally impressed with the two managers, a young British couple named Dom and Kate, who have been running the lodge for the past nine months. Kate teaches literacy courses in the nearby village and raises money through the sales of honey and locally made crafts, the proceeds of which goes to specific projects that benefit the community. Most recently they sent a young girl to Kampala for an operation to fix her cleft palate. Dom has resuscitated the Leopard Research Project. The money he raises from massages at the lodge all goes toward buying cattle to replace those which leopards kill when they stray beyond the boundaries of the park. Farmers normally retaliate by poisoning the dead cattle meat in order to kill the leopard when it comes back to feed on it. A replacement cattle from the Leopard Research Project stop them from doing this. The more I talked to Dom and Kate about their good deeds, the more I kept thinking, are these people for real? How can two people be so good? And run a really amazing lodge?

Lake Mburo is the closest national park to Kampala – about a 4-hour drive – and it is one of only three places in Uganda to see Burchell’s zebra (the others being the much less accessible Kidepo (near Sudan) and Pian-Upe (near Mt. Elgon)) and the only place to see impala, for which Kampala was named.

The park also has buffalo, warthogs, vervet monkeys, hippos, waterbuck, topi, baboon—all of which we saw—as well as crocodile, leopard, hyena, eland, and a few other types of antelope, which we didn’t see.

On an early morning boat ride, we watched fish eagles high in the trees, kingfishers on branches sticking out of the water, and the African finfoot skirting the water’s edge.

I would have liked to stay longer poking around in the park, and another night at Mihingo, but we were due back in Kampala that evening, with a flight to Tanzania the following morning.

Air Uganda

2008-03-13T13:01:00.001+03:00

Uganda has a new national airline, run by Italians, as far as I can tell, which we flew to Mt. Kilimanjaro airport from Entebbe. With the new airline comes a new in-flight magazine, managed by the Aga Khan, who also runs the Ugandan newspaper The Daily Monitor, among other things. A friend gave my name to the new editor of the magazine and I wrote two articles for the second issue, which was due out a few weeks ago. I had high expectations of finding the magazine on our flight, opening it up, and showing my family the articles I had written. Alas, and not surprisingly for a new operation in Uganda, the magazine was not there. It has been delayed and delayed and delayed, for various reasons. I have still not seen a copy, but I am picking up my check today, so that’s something. I’ll have three articles in the third issue...More on this soon, hopefully.

Gorilla Tracking

2008-03-12T14:49:00.005+03:00

Was I feeling a mite unprepared? For gorilla tracking, I had no hiking shoes, no good pants, no real rain gear. My parents brought us ponchos from the States and soccer socks to protect us from any ants in the forest. Otherwise I had to wear a nice pair of khakis and my running shoes. The lodge packed a lunch for us and, with water for four people, the pack weighed about eight tons. Bring on the porters.

Our permits were for Habinyanja group, or H group, and our guide was named Kenneth. To find H group, we had to get back in our cars after a briefing at the park headquarters and drive about thirty minutes northeast. The only time we actually entered Bwindi Impenetrable Forest was for the briefing at headquarters.

The mountain gorilla is an endangered species. There are only 700 of them left in the world. They reside only in two areas. One is Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in southwest Uganda. The other is in the Virunga mountain range, which extends across three countries: Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and a corner of Uganda. You can track the mountain gorilla in Rwanda and Uganda without a problem, as long as you can get your hands on a permit. (In 2007 the price of a permit was raised to $500 and the three countries agreed to keep it all at the same cost.) In Congo, as recently as July 2007, mountain gorillas were killed by the other kind of guerillas and the area remains unstable and dangerous. (The BBC has a nice feature online of a diary of the Congo mountain gorillas: here.) Bwindi has about half the population of the mountain gorillas within its forest, or about 340. Four groups of gorillas have been habituated for tracking and with eight permits available each day to tourists per group, that means there are 24 total permits available daily. (Two more groups in Bwindi are currently being habituated. One of these groups will replace M group, which has been tracked in Bwindi the longest, since 1993, and which now has an aging silverback at its helm. When a new silverback takes over the group, it will no longer be safe for tourists.)

We parked at the bottom of a steep hill with a wide dirt road running up it. With walking sticks in hand and porters as our caboose, we fanned out and began the steep climb. Later we dubbed it the pastoral route, as we passed through a local village’s farmland, plantations of tea and matooke and cassava. Small children followed us with their eyes, their elders mostly ignored us. It was steep, but otherwise not a difficult walk. There were always dirt paths to follow and Kenneth stopped often to let us rest.

After a little more than hour of walking Kenneth received a call on his radio: the gorillas were quite close. They were eating the bananas on someone’s farm and since the farmer preferred the gorillas off his land, it would be better if we hurried.

As we left the farms, the path grew narrower and the undergrowth thicker. Dark clouds gathered overhead. It was about 10:30 in the morning. We left our packs with the porters and took only our cameras with us the last few hundred yards to the gorillas. I followed closely behind Kenneth, leaving my family behind to take their time sorting out their belongings—considerate of me, I know—and as we turned a corner around a stand of trees, a crash of branches and a thick black shape took me by surprise. I had not realized they were so close.

It is a shock to finally see the mountain gorillas sitting before you on a hillside, calmly munching on a branch, fat as buddhas. They are lovely amongst the greenery, powerful, stately. They watch you with weary eyes, when they take any notice at all. The monstrous silverback sat under a low tree and never moved the entire hour we were allowed to visit with him. Nearby a three-month old gorilla swung from the branches of a taller tree, playful and energetic, while its mother sat in the seat of the trunk and sometimes watched, but mostly just ate. H group is 23 gorillas large and we had glimpses of eleven of them. The rest of the group’s presence was felt further up the hill, hidden in the bush, but evident in the sway of branches and the crash of broken tree limbs.

Our tracking group, in addition to the four members of our family, consisted of another American couple from Montana and two German women. Kenneth and two other assistant guides led us up and down the slippery hillside, cutting down low underbrush with a single swipe of a machete, and urging us closer and closer to the gorillas.

After thirty minutes it began to rain. Our porters appeared at the edge of the stand of trees with our packs so we could fish out our ponchos. The gorillas took cover in the bush. The silverback crossed his arms and edged closer to the tree for protection. The baby clung to its mother’s stomach, leaving only a tiny hand and a tiny foot visible from the side. The younger silverback in the group lay down on his side and rested his hand on his hands for a nap. We stayed for our entire hour, but there was little movement to be seen and mostly we just stood and watched the gorillas attempt to nap.

We were back at the Gorilla Resort by 1:00 PM. We spent the rest of the afternoon cleansing ourselves, eating, and napping – not unlike a bunch of gorillas.

Anniversary

2008-03-12T14:46:00.000+03:00

One year ago today, J, my in-laws, and I sat in our packed Brooklyn apartment waiting for the movers. They were fifteen minutes late. I called. The person who answered the phone told me we weren’t on the calendar. There had been some sort of mix-up. But the movers got a crew together and arrived within the hour. J and I swept out the empty apartment, showered and walked down to the very end of Smith Street for lunch, just to kill some time. Back home, we sat on our luggage until it was time to go to the airport, the apartment now loud and echo-y with nothing in it to absorb the sound. That night we boarded a plane bound for Amsterdam, then later another one bound for Entebbe. One year later, here we still are.

The Second Best Shower in the World

2008-03-11T12:38:00.007+03:00

The summer after I graduated from high school, I lived with my friend Kate and her mom in their house on Martha’s Vineyard. The house had an outdoor shower, encased in weathered wood and on the small bench inside Kate’s mom kept industrial-sized bottles of Aveda Rosemary Mint shampoo and conditioner. After a day at the beach — or, as was more often the case that summer, a long day spent behind the counter of the Black Dog Bakery, picking up the slack for Beth, who got so stressed out one Sunday morning at the sight of the long line that stretched out the door and around the corner that she had a seizure and forever after waited on customers at her own damn pace — that outdoor shower was the sweetest shower I have ever experienced. The cool evening air blowing over the walls, the smell of the shampoo, Mrs. S’s fluffy towels hanging in wait. That shower was heaven.

The Gorilla Resort lies in Buhoma just outside the gates to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. On Wednesday, February 27, we left Kampala at 6:00 AM and did not arrive in Buhoma until 4:30 PM. There were brief stops along the way—coffee to go at the Equation Café at the equator, bathroom break in Masaka, lunch in Rukungiri—and then we spent three and a half punishing hours on 75 kilometers of dirt road from Rukungiri to Bwindi. The road gave you an instant headache, rocky and unkempt, and we didn’t have a clear idea of where — exactly — we were going.

Our first target was Katobo, which we passed through quickly after leaving Rukungiri (and stopping twice to ask if we were really on the right road). Next we began to look for Kambuga. Kambuga lay on the other side of an enormous gorge. First we climbed, then we went down and through.

Still there was no sign of Kambuga. We stopped a boda driver and asked how far; he told us five kilometers. Ten kilometers later we were still out of luck. From the front seat my father and Jason called out village names as we passed through them, asking me if they were on the map, no matter how many times I repeated that that there was nothing marked between Katobo and Kambuga. Kambuga, “the mythical city,” as my father began to refer to it, didn’t materialize until an hour and a half outside of Katobo. On the map Kambuga was equidistant from Katobo as Katobo was from Rukungiri. I studied the map and the other towns we had to pass through and I doubted we would make it to Bwindi before dark.

Kanungu actually had some pavement through the center of town and for a brief thirty seconds we could think clearly again, there was peace in the car. And then Kanungu ended, that metropolis in the middle of nowhere, and we were back on the jarring dirt road. Kanyantorogo (you’ll notice each town starts with a K, making it very easy for everyone else in the car to mix up the names and have to ask me, who was holding the map, to repeat where exactly it was we were going to next over and over and over), Butogota, and finally, Buhoma arrived in fairly short order. Sunset was still two hours away and we hadn’t made a single wrong turn. Still, the tension of those last three hours in the car were slow to leave my body — until I was introduced to the shower at the Gorilla Resort.

The lodge has six permanent tented rooms overlooking the forest. The rooms are spacious with wooden floors; in the bathroom the bathtub was as long as I was. A large shower head hung from the ceiling directly over the middle of the tub. The water comes straight down, hot, hot, hot, and is a prerequisite to the beer on the porch later that will bring total relaxation in the absolute solitude and quiet of being on the edge of the wild.

Back

2008-03-10T13:16:00.003+03:00

My parents left this morning to return to the States. I had two articles due today, but I called my editor and because of delays on the last issue (seriously, more on this soon, I’m just waiting for damn thing to come out so I have something to show you), which no one is surprised about, the next issue has been pushed back and I have some extra time to write. My parents, J, and I saw and did a lot in the past two weeks; I’ll start at the beginning.

The Trusty Escudo: Not So Trusty?
On my parents second day in Kampala, which was also their second day ever in Africa, I planned on taking them on a small gallery tour in the morning starting with Tulifanya. I missed the turn to the street the gallery is on and had to circle around. As I turned left onto Nile Avenue, I felt something pop and give in the back left tire. I thought I’d blown the tire, but when we pulled the tire itself looked fine. I got back in the car and drove backward and forward a little ways up the street. The tire wobbled in its well and felt lose. What do we do in an emergency? We call P.

P. arrived after a short wait. My dad and I were convinced it was the axle; P. was convinced otherwise. We followed him to a garage he trusts and the whole time I kept waiting for the wheel to just fall off entirely. At the garage, as they tried to remove the tire, it quickly became apparent that when we bought our used car, it did not come with the special thing you need to remove the locking lug nut. I tore that damn car apart looking for special hiding places, having no clue really what the thing was suppose to look like. As everyone else stood around contemplating this problem, others joined in from off the street and one guy jury-rigged a contraption out of his own tire iron and a small nail. We were in business.

The tire came off. The tire went onto some machine. The tire was deemed to be not the problem. Some people in the crowd might have been surprised by this. My father and I were not. P. called his mechanic.

Okay, so it wasn’t the axle either. The mechanic took one look and said we needed to replace the mountings. I was not happy about the cost (see picture above) but it could have been worse. The mechanic drove the car away, P. took us to Kabira for the afternoon. No galleries for us. Later, we couldn’t find an Internet connection anywhere, nor could we find an ATM to dispense any money. It was an Africa day. My parents, however, loved it. They got to see what my life is really like.

Teaser

2008-03-01T17:14:00.003+03:00

Me and Blogging

2008-02-26T15:11:00.003+03:00

I'll be busy the next two weeks showing my parents around town, tracking gorillas, and traipsing around Tanzania. Posting will be light, but stay tuned.

The Uganda Museum

2008-02-22T15:48:00.003+03:00

Last Saturday, J, N., and I ventured to the Uganda Museum, the oldest museum in East Africa. Though the museum lies only five minutes from our apartment and we’ve driven by it a hundred times, for some reason we’d never found it particularly inviting. Perhaps because it’s on such a busy road. Perhaps it’s because the letters on the outside of the building are unevenly spaced. I’m not sure.

The map in the lobby shows three wings to the museum. We decided to start in the middle and then tackle the two side branches afterwards. The center section is a mish-mash of old cars, beer bottles, advertisements for the Malaria Consortium and the National Forestry Authority, and framed vintage posters from the Olympics. I believe this is the “Science & Industry Pavilion.” Very, very strange. Why is there a display of beer? I’m not sure because nothing is really labeled.

Things that are labeled are inadequately so. See “umbilical cord,” below.

The left wing of the museum is really just a hallway. There appeared to be some art hanging on one side, but it was covered up. Back in this area a woman played music for five minutes. Was it only because we were back there? Was she following us?

The right wing proved to be the most interesting. It dealt more with Uganda’s cultural history and things were slightly better labeled.

In all it took about 45 minutes to see everything. Totally worth it.

Rachael & Phillip

2008-02-21T16:08:00.000+03:00

Saturday’s Mystery Date seemed to me a little sad this week. Rachael, 22, who says “comedy” makes her laugh, maybe needs a little more self-esteem, and Phillip, 34, who somehow got out of the what-makes-you-laugh question, maybe a little less.

Rachael:
“Phillip is such a wonderful guy who really cares. He told me a lot about his life and business. He also told me that he is an actor and he promised to make me an actress.”

Oh, sweetie.

“Sincerely, I don’t think he liked me. At some point he told me he was seriously looking for a girl and mentioned the qualities he wanted. I don’t think I have the qualities. Maybe it was a way of telling me that he was not interested in me.”

Low self-esteem, or just very perceptive and honest with herself.

Phillip:

“I noticed she was difficult to talk to. She answered few of the many questions I asked her. Even then, she would take very long to answer and do so with ‘yes’ and ‘no’ replies. She was not even informed about current affairs and many other important issues. She does not know street names, buildings and important places in town. Therefore our conversation failed to flow and the date became boring…I want a sharp woman who can run my business. She is not that kind of girl. So, in a way she is not very relevant to me. We have nothing in common.”

Doesn’t anyone, aside from Rachael, go into Mystery Date looking for love anymore? Could the problem be the move from Kyoto to Choma? After all, Choma doesn’t have a swing under the stars like Kyoto…

Book Club

2008-02-17T12:46:00.002+03:00

Wednesday morning my new book club met for the first time at my friend M.’s house in Ntinda. M. had created the group with two other Dutch women, whom I had never met before, and they had chosen What is the What by Dave Eggers before I got involved. Having read the book last year, I spent Monday and Tuesday quickly skimming through the story. In my book wrap-up (link) I failed to mention that my hardcover copy of the book, a Christmas present last year from J, was misprinted. When I got to the last 20 pages, I discovered that every other spread of pages was blank. Just when everything was getting all wrapped up! I had no idea what finally happened to the beleaguered Valentino Achek Deng. At the time I considered writing to McSweeney’s to complain and hopefully get a new book, but I had just moved to Uganda. Where would they send the book? When would I actually get it? Plus, just before leaving for Uganda, I had spent some quality email time with a guy from McSweeney’s customer service (Are they big enough to have customer service? It might have just been some guy who worked there – god knows what his real job was.) about how the copy of The Children’s Hospital I had ordered from them had got lost in the mail and how I was leaving soon and they couldn’t resend it to my office since I no longer worked there and they would have to send it to my parent’s house since it would probably arrive after I had left for Uganda. I already had one enormous McSweeney’s hardcover waiting at home for me, I didn’t feel I needed a second. So I never found out what happened.

Fast forward nearly a year and I am sitting in M.’s living room with M., the two Dutch women, and one of their British friends who is visiting from London. Everyone has read exactly two thirds of the book. No one has reached the end. I am destined not to know how this book ends.

However, we still had a lovely conversation about the book. I enjoyed it perhaps more than anyone else, giving it four stars out of five, while the others gave it three or three and a half stars. Not a huge difference, but I still felt myself somewhat distanced from their reactions. The others said they had difficulty getting into the book, while I picked it up and read it straight through, pretty much fascinated the entire time. Even this second time around, I read the first sentence and thought, that’s a fantastic first sentence. “I have no reason not to open the door so I open the door.” Who’s behind the door? What’s he letting in? It’s evocative and symbolic and sets up a lot of questions. But how to account for the difference in responses between me and the other members of my group?

After reading through my 2007 round-up of books, N. remarked that I seemed to have read a lot of books I loved, that I was very enthusiastic about almost all of the books I had read last year. Am I perhaps too generous in my praise of books? In realizing how difficult it is to write my own novel, have I become overly empathetic to other writers, forgiving them their faults, overlooking their inadequacies while I delight—perhaps too much—in their victories of prose and structure?

Next up is On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. We’ll have to wait and see.

Bubbles, Wednesday, 5:00 PM

2008-02-15T14:42:00.001+03:00

With Kabira’s Internet on the fritz this week and tired of paying Ush 10,000 for two hours of Internet time at Rwenzori or Crocodile, I’ve taken to frequenting Bubbles O’Leary more often of late, where a soda water costs Ush 1,500 and the Internet is otherwise free.

On Wednesday I arrived in the late afternoon, just as the school next door was letting out for the day and the street was packed with cars as parents retrieved their children. Bubbles’ parking lot, meanwhile, was nearly empty. Inside nearly ever seat was taken on the bench along the perimeter of the room. Each person sat with a computer open in front of them on the small table, next to the requisite Coke or bottle of water that allowed them to sit there, undisturbed, for as long as they wanted.

I found N. at the bar and took the seat next to him. CNN aired on the television overhead, something about Steven Spielberg that quickly disappeared and was replaced by a piece on the Iranian president. I asked N. what it was all about. He wasn’t sure but it was CNN International, meaning it was on a loop, and all the pieces would re-air in about five minutes. “How long have you been here?” I asked N. “Since noon.” It was now nearly five o’clock.

A few minutes later L. stopped by on her way out. “I’ve been here for hours,” she said, “and I’ve only now just noticed you.” Shortly after that M. came in the front door and stopped by to say hello. “I’ve been seeing you all over town recently,” N. said to her. “Using the Internet,” he explained to me. M. eyed the spot L. had just vacated.

When I left Bubbles, N. still sat at the bar, M. had secured the only empty seat along the wall, and the parking lot was full. I waved to P., waiting patiently to drive N. someplace, and pulled out onto the street, where the students still seemed to be getting out of school, and the parents still hadn’t figured out how to drive. Traffic jam.

Travel: Egypt

2008-02-14T17:04:00.001+03:00

Yesterday I borrowed The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton from a friend and came across this passage, written by Gustav Flaubert, regarding a trip he took to Egypt in late 1849:

“It is like being hurled while still asleep in to the midst of a Beethoven symphony, with the brasses at their most ear-splitting, the basses rumbling, and the flutes sighing away; each detail reaches out to grip you; it pinches you; and the more you concentrate on it the less you grasp the whole…it is such a bewildering chaos of colours that your poor imagination is dazzled as thought by continuous fireworks as you go about staring at minarets thick with white storks, at tired slaces stretched out in the sun on house terraces, at the patterns of sycamore branches against walls, with camel bells ringing in your ears and great herds of black goats bleating in the streets amid the horses and the donkeys and the pedlars.”

The description, minus the slaves and plus a few cars, seems to me still oddly fitting.

Mystery Date: Masuud & Pamela

2008-02-11T10:52:00.000+03:00

A good one this week, people! What exactly does "detoothed" mean? What is "American height" - short or tall? Look what makes Pamela laugh. Amazing.

Masuud

What makes you laugh? Jokes

The girl was beautiful but not the kind of woman I want for a wife. I am a reserved person who minds what society thinks of me, but she was too bold in dress and behaviour. She looked too easy – like she had met me before. She drunk a lot of booze almost without end! She had no sense of privacy – she told me a lot of things about herself and it seems she has a lot of problems. She has kids and I don’t know why their father refused to marry her.

But there must be something you liked about her?
I said she was beautiful. I was trying to ignore her boldness when she detoothed me, a stranger, without any embarrassment! She asked for airtime from the counter and told the waiter that I would pay! I was annoyed; I could have refused to pay but I chose not to embarrass her. But that was cheap of her. I lost interest and didn’t even ask her for her phone number. But she kept on asking if I was going to call her again for another outing.

You won’t see her again?
I am not interested. Girls who show me too much interest put me off. Whenever the photographer would show up, she would reach out for my hand like we were lovers, ignoring other people in the bar!

How would you want a girl who has fallen for you to show it?
I want a slower, reserved woman who doesn’t come all out at me. There are many ways a woman can show a man without appearing cheap. At least the very first time, don’t show that you are totally overwhelmed.

Pamela

What do people find attractive about you?
American height
What makes you laugh? Watching a fight

I was surprised because I did not expect my date to be that groomed. The first impression floored me. The guy was okay; the colour I want, the height, the way he speaks and his intelligence. He is a man who would give you pride to walk with along the street. He is courteous, humourous and I think romantic.

Oh my! Are you describing an angel?
Hold on; I am still telling you: He told me he has a son and other men would have hidden it to get what they want first. So he is truthful. He is also a gentleman. I noticed he felt uncomfortable holding hands

But there must be something that he did wrong!
Nothing. I liked everything I saw. He did everything I wanted.

Would you marry him?
If he asked? Yes.

What if he didn’t ask, what would you do to draw his attention?
I am a very bold person, so I would tell him my feelings. I have ever done it. Am I not a human being? I can never be ashamed of my feelings; they are natural.

What if you asked him and he said no?
Once I have said it, I keep on trying – especially when I know he doesn’t have another girl, till I lose hope. But he would have to be a very stubborn and stone-hearted man to resist me.

Nathan's Birthday

2008-02-08T14:29:00.000+03:00

We had a bbq for Nathan's birthday a few weeks ago, just getting to posting these pictures now. Doesn't everyone look adorable? Adorable.

The Super Bowl

2008-02-05T13:47:00.000+03:00

When we arrived at Just Kicking at 1:30 AM for the highlights from the previous Patriots’ Super Bowl, we were the only group in the bar. We claimed a group of couches directly in front of the large screen projector and ordered a few beers (Red Bull equivalent had previously been consumed in the parking lot). Shortly before kick-off we were joined by another group of about six Americans. The bartender settled in for a long night with his own small television on which he watched alternately skiing and nudie pictures flashed in stills on the screen (different channels, I’m assuming).

No Super Bowl commercials for us. Instead ESPN International showed the same commercials they’ve been showing ever since we started watching American football games in the middle of the night three months ago—“In Their Words,” which features sound bites from aging world sports celebrities either giving advice to aspiring athletes or reminiscing about the glory days (they only have about a dozen in rotation and ESPN seems to favor some over others); an NBA/ESPN commercial featuring Celtics players in an RV watching Hoosiers; and a montage of great soccer goals spanning the last thirty years. Rewind, repeat.

By the end of the game we were too forlorn, too tired, too at loose ends with the world—surely the moon had drifted off course or the sun was about to implode, how else could the Patriots have lost?—to do more than nod our heads at our companions in farewell and pile into the dark Escudo, alone in the empty parking lot before sunrise.

When your team loses a big game, you take some comfort in collective misery. A whole sports nation in mourning together. Each person’s tragedy unique, yes, but softened by a public’s common response. The sound muted, the colors subdued, life on pause. On our drive home we passed people on the street in their nice clothes, walking along the quiet roadsides in the early morning darkness. “They’re going to work,” J said. And I thought, how lucky they are not to feel this way AND damn them for not understanding. There were no muted sounds, no dimming of the brightness, no softening of the colors.

It dawned on me, not for the first time, that this was all our fault. If only we hadn’t been in Uganda, the Patriots would have won. The same way that if we hadn’t been in Uganda the Red Sox would have lost the World Series. Because I wanted to be there for the Red Sox win. Because I wanted to be home for the Patriots loss. The point is, when you’re a sports fan living far removed from your team, you can’t win.

Why It's Impossible to Sleep Late in Uganda, and a Sad, Sad Day for New Englanders the World Over

2008-02-04T16:43:00.000+03:00

1. Cats. Having arrived home at 6:30 AM after watching the Super Bowl (pictures, full re-cap tomorrow) we feed the cats and let them outside, bypassing our usual need for one person to wake up early and take care of them. We think we are golden for a nice long stretch of sleep before Joan shows up at noon and J has to go to work. At 8:30 Sarge starts meowing. She climbs up the outer gate and sits on the ledge of the small upper window looking into our bedroom. She sees us in there. She wants to be in there. And she has no problem letting us know it. For what seems like hours. I get up and let her in, thinking she’s after her favorite napping spot under the bed. But oh no, she wants to play. Play and meow. I entertain her while J sleeps, knowing I am being too indulgent but too tired to care.

2. Construction. Someone’s got their hands on some power tools. No more simple ripping apart of stones by hand, there is now full on buzzing and whirring, along with the standard hammering of the tin roofs.

3. Trash. It’s always the trash with me, isn’t it? I’m not sure I ever even concluded the garbage saga for my faithful readers. Long story short: we now separately pay two guys to collect our trash. Simon comes knocking at 10:00 AM. Persistently. I get up and bring him the trash.

4. The road. If it’s not garbage, it’s the roads. I’m a broken record, I know. I should probably read the Cormac McCarthy book—can the horror of his road match the horror of the roads in Kampala? I’m interested to see. So they’re actually repaving the road below our apartment. They started two weeks ago or so. That means they should finish by June or July. Even though they’ve smoothed out most of the potholes, there still seem to be enough for passing trucks to hit, rattle around in, wake us up, and then be on their way. This time I’m up for good.

Pats lose. We get no sleep. Everyone’s cranky today.

2007: My Year in Books, Part II

2008-01-31T08:37:00.000+03:00

July - December

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov—I supposedly read this in college, in my advisor Roman Graf’s class on Faust, but I only recalled the first two or three chapters. I don’t think I ever actually read more than that for the class. The beginning is slow. I can see why I stopped reading, particularly in that class when I was always so behind. My idea of myself, though, as a student who always read everything assigned, has been slightly dashed. I swear I read absolutely everything else. Glad I persevered this time around. Deeply layered, allegorical, fantastical, amazing.

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell—Cloud Atlas is one of my favorite books and what impresses me about David Mitchell is that he’s so versatile. It’s one of those books that when I try to explain it, it sounds terribly boring. But it’s so not. It’s so magical.

The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym—Someone’s graduating lecture at Bennington was on Barbara Pym and I thought she sounded pretty awesome, so when I was in Cape Town in June and couldn’t pass up a book sale at the mall and came across this novel, I thought, why not? I thought, it’s nice and small so maybe J will hardly notice that I’ve bought another book when theoretically we have a moratorium on purchasing more books until we had read what we’ve brought to Uganda with us. I enjoyed the writing, which seemed sort of charmingly old-fashioned, but I wouldn’t say I was blown away by the book. Perhaps I chose the wrong one to start with.

Harry Potter Books 6 & 7—Reread Book 6 before 7 arrived. Book 7 was just about everything I wanted it to be.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy—Mind-blowing, mind-blowing, mind-blowing.

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky—I finished my time at Bennington and Harcourt almost simultaneously and suddenly I no longer had any required reading, so I decided I would read some of the books that everyone else was reading. Some of those books proved incredibly disappointing and made me lose heart in the human race—like Running with Scissors—and others, like Suite Francois and Black Swan Green—renewed my faith. Though with this book I found all the supplementary material about the author’s life almost more interesting than the novel itself.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer—YA. Vampires. The second half of the book is totally different than the first half, but totally riveting.

Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro—Lovely, astonishing.

Rules for Old Men Waiting by Peter Pouncey—Another book I found on the sale table in Cape Town. I’d remembered reading a lot of positive reviews for it when it came out. It was a fine, elegant book, but not something I could get really excited about.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl—I started reading this on our trip to Egypt and recall being so happy to spend some time with it by the pool in Luxor. I wanted to hate it, but I loved it. My only complaint is it’s about 200 pages too long, which is a lot really.

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard—A really slim book, but I read this little by little over the course of a few months, starting in May when my friend Kelly sent it to me the day I left my parent’s house to return to Uganda and ending in October. Parts definitely spoke to me as a writer, while in other parts I felt Dillard took herself way too seriously.

The Stranger by Albert Camus—One of those books that appears so simple, but is so powerful, and I’m left wondering how that happened. Shattering, in so many different ways.

The Children’s Hospital by Chris Adrian—I nearly gave up on this book, but I’m so glad I didn’t. In the beginning I was confused, annoyed, and judgmental. I thought Adrian was being obtuse and I really wanted someone to give him a good slap. And then something happened. Something magical. Totally original, imaginative, epic, complete.

The Magus by John Fowles—If I were forced to make a top ten list of my favorite books, this would be on it. This was only the second time I had read it, and though it wasn’t as much of a mind-fuck as I remembered it (perhaps that can only happen on the first reading), my impressions this time was that it’s complicated, sophisticated, and ambiguous. I found myself comparing the reading of the book to the God game in the book. Nicholas Urfe feels there is no real choice in continuing with the game—how could he go on with his life knowing these beautiful women exist, Conchis and the house exist, knowing the mysteries are there and still unsolved? And I thought, halfway through, if I put this book down right now, how could I go on with my life knowing this book exists unfinished? I couldn’t.

The Anchor Book of New American Stories, edited by Ben Marcus—When I finished the Magus, I only had a few days left before flying back to the States for Thanksgiving. I didn’t want to start anything major or start something that would mean I would need to take two books on the plane just in case, so I decided to read a few stories in this collection until I left. I had rifled through the book before and read a story here and there, but this time I started at the beginning and went straight through until it was time to leave. I made it about halfway through. This is supposed to represent the canon of the contemporary American short story and I suppose it is that pomposity on the editor’s part, to think he and few friends can conceive this, that bothered me so much. The first few stories I loved. And then I hit a few in a row I just couldn’t understand what they were doing there. So I started to question everything: I love Christine Schutt, but why was she in there and not Amy Hempel? Why this Lydia Davis story? Etc. Until eventually I came to despise this rarefied world of the short story. Like the Weezer song, why bother? It comes across as so f-ing pretentious and half the
time really boring. And then I felt bad about being bored. For not being more studious of these stories. For not trying harder. But seriously, can you define a canon when it’s still in the process of being created?

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby—What makes this book so good is Hornby’s self-reflection, his ability to understand himself and others like him. He knows how to interpret a scene with humor and compassion. And yes, I think it helped that where he said “Arsenal” I could replace it with “Red Sox” and totally understand what he meant.

The Naming by Alison Croggon—More YA fantasy from the big brother! I don’t think I’ve read this much fantasy in a year in, I don’t know, ever. But this was a good, solid read. For being really cheesey, the protagonist was also incredibly loveable. I sort of need the sequel, like, now. (Sam, M&D will be here for my birthday and I'm sure are willing to ferry packages...)

Stop Time by Frank Conroy—It’s not necessarily his story that makes this book so good, though it is interesting, it’s Conroy’s choice of words, his images, the beauty he was able to create in unbeautiful circumstances.

2007: My Year in Books, Part I

2008-01-26T13:26:00.001+03:00

January - June

For the two years I was at Bennington I had to read four or five books each month and annotate them. After graduating last January, I didn’t miss annotations at all, but I still felt the need to keep a record of the books I had read. My friend A. from Bennington used to do a semester round-up of her books (one example here), which is sort of the inspiration for this list.

I should also note that after two years of required reading at Bennington and trying to keep up on Harcourt's books at the same time, I took the opportunity to read some less serious books, and always exactly what I wanted. I brought all these intense books with me to Uganda, thinking that with few other options I would force myself to read some of them. This was, for the most part, wishful thinking.

Eragon by Christopher Paolini—Last January I went off to Bennington for my last residency and J went off to Uganda. I wouldn’t see him again for two months. At Bennington I was terrified of giving my lecture, broken-hearted to be away from my husband for so long, proud to be graduating, but sad to be seeing my friends for the last time for who knew how long. Instead of dealing with any of these emotions, I curled up on my maddeningly uncomfortable dorm bed and read Eragon before falling asleep each night or between lectures (okay, sometimes during lectures, too). It was good escapism reading. And the secret is now out that I like fantasy literature.

Plainsong by Kent Haruf—There are characters to fall in love with in this book. Simple writing, complex characters.

O. Henry Prize Stories—These types of collections seem to be created for the sole purpose of alternately infuriating and breaking aspiring writer’s hearts. I would read one story and think, “Garbage! Why isn’t one of my stories in there?” and then I would read another and think, “Oh. Well, yeah, that’s damn good,” and proceed to feel sorry for myself for not being a better writer.

The Dead of Summer by Camilla Way—Good, suspenseful, quick reading. I might even say chilling.

Eldest by Christopher Paolini—Definitely not as good as Eragon. Kid needs to learn how to write about love, or just not write about it all. Still, impressive and at times very entertaining.

Life as We Knew It by Susan Pfeffer—Just before I left Harcourt I swiped this book from the Kids department. It’s a young adult novel and I had seen it mentioned on a lot of the literary blogs I used to read. The idea is that a huge asteroid crashes into the moon and knocks it off course, closer to Earth, which causes huge weather disruptions when the gravitational pull is altered. Chaos ensues. The narrator and her family hole up with a huge stockpile of food. The book is narrated through diary entries, which gets a little tiresome, and it can also get quite sappy, but for the most part I admired the concept and found myself growing somewhat attached to the characters. The big disappointment was that Pfeffer left the idea completely unresolved. It ends with this feeling that the government (or somebody, it’s unclear who really) has somehow learned to deal with the situation and everything’s going to be alright, but why? How?

Waterland by Graham Swift—A book I feel I need to reread to fully appreciate. I found the going slow and writing style sometimes tedious, and yet I’m pretty sure I loved this book.

Sabriel by Garth Nix—The first book I read upon arriving in Kampala. That first week here I had no idea what to do with myself. J had to work and we were staying with a friend and I felt self-conscious walking around the neighborhood (not much to walk to anyway) and self-conscious sitting around the house with the houseboy in constant attendance. Just generally unmoored. So I closed myself in my room and read Sabriel. And I thought it was awesome. Totally engrossing fantasy with a strong female protagonist and no f-ing elves for once.

Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything by Charles P. Pierce—The second book I read in Kampala. Obviously I wasn’t ready for anything too serious. But I pretty much love Tom Brady and clearly so does Charles P. Pierce. Go Pats!

Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan—I flat-out love this book. It’s quiet, sure, but so beautiful. Even better the second time.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen—This is me catching up on my classics. It's shameful some of the books I haven't read yet. But this was awesome.

What is the What by Dave Eggers—I had my doubts that Eggers could stop being Eggers for five minutes to convincingly give voice to a Sudanese character, but I was impressed. Even though there were some Eggerisms in there—rarely—this was Valentino Achak Deng’s book. Totally moving. Loved it.

Lirael by Garth Nix—The sequel to Sabriel. I read this on our honeymoon in Zanzibar. Great beach reading, if not as good as Sabriel. Totally left hanging at the end and I had no hope of getting the third book any time soon, which I suppose is a lot like how I’m feeling about the fourth season of Lost.

Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco—Dense and not good beach reading, though I also started this in Zanzibar after finishing Lireal. The driving plotline is completely compelling and the book overall is so smart (too smart?), but there were too many references that went over my head (and no wireless Internet connection at home to check some of them out) that it felt really bogged down. And made me feel kinda dumb.

The Rotter’s Club by Jonathon Coe—I picked up this book on the street in Zanzibar because Coe seems to blurb other writers quite frequently, including Scarlett Thomas, who wrote one of my favorite books, The End of Mr. Y. I thought he would be worth checking out. Well-written and with interesting subplots, but I read this and thought, what’s the point? I just couldn’t seem to care.

The Untouchable by John Banville—One of those books that leaves you thinking about it long after you’ve finished. You’re left with so many questions—but not the annoying kind of questions that ultimately have no answer, but questions that make you want to go back to the text and look for the answers. Loved it.

Abhorsen by Garth Nix—Okay, so it didn’t take me that long to get the third book after Sabriel and Lirael. Liked this one better than Lirael and probably as much as Sabriel. Lots of questions get answered, a lot of different components come together. Solid stuff.

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs—I know a lot of people must have loved this book for it to have been on the bestseller lists for so long, but I hated it. I thought the writing was—hmm, how do I say this nicely?—shit. Also, I thought this book was supposed to be funny? I found it only utterly depressing.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde—Ditto catching up on the classics. But also a story in the Faustian tradition that gave me something to think about while writing my novel. Loved it.

A Fan’s Notes by Frederick Exley—There are books I think of as Bennington books, meaning books I had never really heard of, but everyone else at Bennington seemed to have read them and talked about them all the time and I felt stupid for not knowing them. Glad I read this, can’t say I loved it as much as I expected to—perhaps it was talked up a little too big that it could only be disappointing. But the story is amazing, tragic and hopeful, smart, surprising-all the good stuff. I just wish Exley could have been reigned in a tiny, tiny bit.

First They Burned the Field, Then They Tore the House Down...

2008-01-25T15:03:00.000+03:00

...by hand.

Sadiq & Josephine 4eva

2008-01-23T18:07:00.000+03:00

Last weekend I went with J to his office to use the Internet and do some work. They had an old New Vision from mid-December lying around and J mentioned they had been saving it for me because there was a good Mystery Date inside. I brought the paper home and started reading about Sadiq and Josephine. The first three quarters of the date was fairly banal stuff. I couldn’t figure out why J and N thought it worth saving...until I got to the last paragraph.

Sadiq has already spoken to the interviewer about the date—he found Josephine (nicknamed Baby Face, by the way) to have a nice voice, he liked her ambition to be a singer, and thought she was beautiful. However, she didn’t look him in the eye when she spoke to him. Alas.

Moving on to Baby Face, the interviewer discovered that she found Sadiq to be gentlemanly and comforting, if not a little full of himself. And then the interviewer asked, “Will you go out with him again?” Here is Baby Face’s answer:

“I didn’t keep his phone number, although he gave it to me. I feared my husband might find it. I also didn’t give him my number despite the fact that he asked for it. He is a nice guy but I can’t continue with him since I am committed.”

Um, husband?? Doesn’t she fear that he might see the Mystery Date article? Why are you going on dates if you’re already married?

But it was obvious Baby Face wasn’t a keeper from the beginning (aside from the fact that her nickname is Baby Face): What makes her laugh? “Comedy.”

Well, yeah. That’s sort of the point.

Ssese Islands

2008-01-21T12:23:00.001+03:00

On Saturday we celebrated J’s birthday at the Mirembe Resort in Kalangala District on Buggala Island, part of the Ssese Island chain in Lake Victoria.

I’ve been told that two things start on time in Uganda: the movies at the theater in Garden City and the ferry to Ssese Islands. The ferry leaves at 2:00 PM on Fridays and returns at 8:00 AM on Sundays in and out of Entebbe (if your driver doesn’t know where he’s going, good luck finding it). It’s a three-hour ride. Our ferry left at 3:30 PM, which means we either got very unlucky or when everyone says the ferry leaves on time, they really mean it leaves an hour and a half late.

We arrived in time for some football on the beach and some quality drinking before dinner was served—coincidentally also an hour and a half late.

We spent the remainder of the evening around the bonfire in the company of good friends and good scotch.

Despite a little rain in the morning, the day turned clear and mild. This was actually preferable to hot hot hot like it has been since we had all decided swimming in bilharzias-infested water was not for us. Even without the swimming, reading and playing cards in the shade on a beautiful beach is not the worst way to while away a day.

Me: An Update

2008-01-15T13:40:00.000+03:00

Novel #1 is being shopped around to agents. Meanwhile, I have commenced work on Novel #2 in earnest.

The cats like to help, but so far they have proven only that a) they’re knowledge of World War II history leaves something to be desired; b) they don’t know how to type; c) they’re unable to stay awake for more than 15 minutes at a time between the hours of 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM. If, however, the success of this novel was in direct proportion to how many grasshoppers the cats killed and then ate, I’d have a freaking bestseller on my hands.

At the moment, for research, I am reading a Short History of World War II by James L. Stokesbury, The Great Starvation Experiment by Todd Tucker, and Another Part of the War: The Camp Simon Story by Gordon C. Zahn. Not for research I am reading Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, but I’m having trouble getting into it. I just finished last summer’s Atlantic Monthly fiction issue and the New Yorker’s most recent Winter Fiction issue (yes, I realize I’m way behind the times over here) and, though I enjoyed one or two stories in both issues, for the most part I was disappointed. In November I was reading The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories collection, so I suppose I could just be sick of the contemporary American short story right now. Or sick with jealousy to be a part of the conversation. It’s difficult to tell the difference sometimes.

During my downtime I am planning my parent’s visit here in late February/early March. So far we are going gorilla tracking in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest on February 28, staying at the Gorilla Resort, stopping for a night at Mihingo Lodge on the way back to Kampala, then heading to Tanzania for a 6-day safari visiting the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and Lake Manyara National Park, staying at Serena Hotels.

Notice above the cribbage board in the background. This reminds me that I have recently learned that Terry Francona and Dustin Pedroia play cribbage every single day during the baseball season. How did I learn this? I’ve been watching the 2007 Red Sox World Series Collector’s Edition DVD box set, of course! Not quite as exciting watching games that happened months ago and already knowing the outcome, you say? Not so, I say. Not so at all.

Speaking of fun with electronics, my new iPod nano and, more specifically, the armband that came with it—J gave me both for Christmas—have changed my life. I’ve been running for the past 15 years of my life and only now have I learned of the miracle of the armband. Hands-free! Nearly weightless! Who knew it could be so easy? Needless to say, I am back on the treadmill after a short break over the holidays.

Lastly, I have a new computer. Or rather, J has a new computer and I have inherited his old one. This may not seem like such a big deal in a person’s life, but I found it to be a rather rough transition. I had grown rather attached to my old computer. Every time my fingers rested on that keyboard it was like coming home again. J’s computer is better: it’s faster, has more and better functionality in many of the programs, more memory, more music loaded onto it…and yet it’s not quite mine yet.

For now the old computer is out because there’s an ebook on there I’m using for research that I couldn’t transfer, but soon it will go in a drawer and gather dust until we can sell it or decide to use it as a rather expensive picture frame and set it up for constant photo rotation.

(I had stupid pictures of the computer, too, but after three days and fifteen tries of trying to load all of these, I'm finally admitting defeat.)

And now you’re all caught up.

Mystery Date

2008-01-12T12:43:00.000+03:00

Action movies make him laugh? At least he didn't say comedies, right? I'm pretty sure if I read in the paper that a guy I had gone on a date with had suggested I was a liar, I wouldn't be calling him any time soon. Aren't artistes just the worst? I like artists much better.

Prince Jjuuko Thaddeus
Occupation: Artiste (Matendo Band)
Interests: Watching music videos, singing, playing badminton
Favourite Film: Beyonce (Nigerian)
Music: Reggae
What don't people like about you?
My dreads
What do people find attractive about you: Self respect
What would you love your mystery dream date to be: Not rude, respects herself and respects me, shows me love and likes my occupation
What makes you laugh? Action movies

I had no idea what would happen during the date. When I arrived at the restaurant, I found her already seated. I began by teasing her before eventually revealing myself as her date. I first asked her whether she had ever seen me before and she said she had seen me in my music videos on TV. When I asked her who she was waiting for, she said it was somebody she did not know. It was then that I told her I was the one she was waiting for.
She became excited and told me how she had planned to take off had he turned out to be an old man.

What did you find impressive about her?

She is a cheerful girl, a black beauty and portable (slender). She is also very friendly. Can you imagine she promised to visit me and to call me to visit her friend with whom she had watched my video? She said she had always looked forward to a day she would meet me every time she watched my videos.

Does that mean you are considering her for a serious relationship?

Not really. I was just asking to find out how she felt about me. She is still a student and I would like her to concentrate on her studies. Nevertheless, I can't rule out a serious relationship in future. For example, when I asked if her parents would have a problem with me marrying her, she said she was mature enough to make her own decisions.

Was there any weakness you noticed in her?

As an artiste, I can tell a liar. She told me she usually goes to Lido Beach yet she doesn't drink, but I have never seen anybody at Lido Beach who doesn't drink. Moreover, according to her talk, she seems like someone who enjoys hanging out.

Any memorable incident during the date?

The time we ordered for our dinner. Whereas I chose a chicken burger, she opted for a beef burger but according to her reaction, it seemed she had never tasted it before. I even intend to compose a song out of that.

Rehema

Occupation: Student, soon joining university
Interests: Swimming, resting in bed
Favourite Film: Akabadi (Amarula Family)
Music: Eagles Production/band music
What don't people like about you?
I'm reserved
What do people find attractive about you? I'm smart
What would your mystery dream date be? Smart, steady, loving
What makes you happy? Meeting someone I love

I arrived at the venue at around seven o'clock but didn't find anybody. After a short time he came from the opposite direction and went to the reception.

Thereafter, he came to my table and began asking me questions. He asked for my name and whether I had ever seen him anywhere before. I told him I had only watched him on screen.

What impressed you about him?

He is a smart guy and a good conversationalist.

Did you notice any weakness in him?

Not at all. He was perfect.

If he told you he loved you, what would you say?

I would ask him to give me some time because I need to study him before making a response.

Do you hope to stay in touch?

He gave me his phone number but I did not give him mine because I usually don't give men I meet for the first time my contact. But since I have his, I may give him a call one day.

Kenyan Bloggers

2008-01-12T12:35:00.000+03:00

This is a list of bloggers in Kenya covering the situation there, for those who are interested. Thanks to my dear, dear husband for putting it together.

Kenyan Pundit
Kenyan Jurist
Insight Kenya
Kenya Image
Bankelele
White African
8 Months in Nairobi
Caked in Red Clay
Kenya Diaspora Pro-democracy Movement

In terms of mainstream media, J recommends the Financial Times for the best coverage of what’s going on in Kenya right now.

This Was On Purpose

2008-01-11T14:02:00.000+03:00

The people in the house in front of our apartment set their entire field on fire.

They seem to do this every few months and it doesn’t smell like garbage, so I assume it must be for some other reason. To get out of mowing the lawn?

The Rainforest Lodge

2008-01-08T10:59:00.000+03:00

Still catching up. Here's an older post I never got around to:

Before our trip to Paris, J and I spent the night at the newish Rainforest Lodge in Mabira Forest, about an hour outside of Kampala. It was awesome to get out of the city, but we were the only people staying there, which was a bit strange. Difficult to feel inconspicuous when you’re the only guests. We were there because I had a writing assignment (more on that later) to review the lodge and, knowing that, the staff was outrageously attentive. Otherwise, it’s a peaceful place.

(I took some better photos than these, but I’m not sure yet if any are being used with the piece and I don’t want to piss my editor off by “publishing” them here first.)

Looking for monkeys on our porch:

Our cabin nestled in the woods:

Aside from taking a guided forest walk, there seems to be little else to do except lounge around here by the pool—at least you get some exercise hiking up and down the steep incline that leads to the pool:

Everybody in Uganda is Okay

2008-01-04T11:58:00.000+03:00

We appreciate the concern coming from friends and family, but seriously, we're totally safe here in Uganda - at least as far as the violence in Kenya is concerned. Feel better?

I wish I had some inside information for you, but my source - like yours - is the world wide web, only yours probably moves faster than mine does.

Happy New Year

2008-01-03T08:44:00.000+03:00

I know I'm a few days late, but I'm just getting caught up on entries.

Last New Year’s I was on Cape Cod; for the five or six New Years’ before that I was in New York City. This year I rang in 2008 from an island in the middle of the Nile. The Hairy Lemon sounds like a hippie commune at worst and at best something like the secret Eden described in Alex Garland’s The Beach. But it’s just your basic bunch of huts hidden amongst jungle greenery on a bilharzia-free inlet on a tiny island. Basically, the middle of nowhere. Basically, pretty awesome.

I thought it was in Jinja, but as we consulted the web site’s directions, it quickly became clear the island is someplace else entirely, someplace between the two and a little bit north. A two-hour drive from Kampala, thankfully mostly on paved roads, but roads that seem seldom used. At least, we hardly passed any cars. The last 20 kilometers is on dirt road—with one noticeable wet patch. Noticeable because my friend JB, who was following us in his car, got stuck in a deceivingly deep ditch on the side of the road.

When N and J and JB walked the circumference of the car to investigate, they ended up knee-deep in mucky water. Pretty quickly the car was surrounded by Ugandans of all ages. More arrived by bicycle as it became clear we needed more able-bodied men to lift the entire car up and out of the ditch.

We continued on our way until the road ended at the Nile in a small parking lot and thatched hut to protect visitors from the sun while they wait for the boat from the Hairy Lemon to arrive. You must clang on an old tire rim to alert the Hairy Lemon to your presence. It’s a short ride to the island, only a few hundred yards really, on which the resort sits.

There are private bandas and camping options, but we chose the in-between dormitory for our sleeping arrangements, which was situated right on the bank of the Nile, the rushing water a pleasant sound to fall asleep to.

We swam. We played cards. We drank. We went home. Like I said, awesome.

The Price of Gas

2008-01-02T14:19:00.000+03:00

Kenya is rioting and roadblocks are preventing gas trucks from crossing the border into Uganda. The price of gas has skyrocketed; we filled up on our way to the Hairy Lemon before the jump, but are using the car only when necessary until gas becomes a sure thing again. I had to do some off-roading on my way to Kabira this afternoon—cars waiting to get into the Total station blocked the street.

Paris in Pictures

2008-01-02T14:06:00.000+03:00

I posted a few from the road; here are (some of) the rest. I caught a cold the other day and it got exacerbated on the flight home, on which we were surrounded on three sides by screaming children belonging to parents whose strategy it was to sit staring straight ahead as though nothing were happening. Deny, deny, deny. Halfway through the flight when the kid behind us finally cooled down, a group of three small girls in front of us decided to sing. And sing and sing and sing. New Christmas present iPod nanos were made for 10-hour flights like these. Also, with my coughing fits, I was no gem of a passenger either.

I had a religious experience with this couch in the Musee D’Orsay. I’m not sure what it means yet, but I will let you know if God speaks to me through the furniture again. I look at this thing and I think, if this couch were a novel, what would that novel be? And can I write it?

From Paris II

2007-12-22T20:26:00.000+03:00

Because my mom is awesome and sent creative and amazing gifts across the Atlantic, Christmas has come to our hotel room. This is a grow-a-tree, a weird and sprightly little thing - the packaging says it isn't toxic, but the crystals that grew on the paper leaves when I added water are a little disconcerting. I've decided it's best not to touch them, pretty as they may look.

This morning we checked out Sainte Chapelle, built from 1242-1248 and still absolutely beautiful:

From there we went to the Centre Georges Pompidou, the modern art museum. From the top floor (where there was a Giacometti exhibit underway) there are some amazing views:

After lunch and a wander through the Latin Quarter, we ended up once again in Luxembourg Gardens before heading back to the hotel for a rest up before dinner:

From Paris

2007-12-21T12:02:00.000+03:00

We arrived in Paris yesterday afternoon after a few delays. Passing through Brussels a small snowstorm held us up, but Paris itself is clear and cold and beautiful.

We are staying at the Hotel du Pantheon, so when we walk outside this is what we see:

Pretty amazing.

Our cold weather clothes arrive today with my in-laws. All layered up in Luxembourg Gardens yesterday at sunset:

(Having spent most of my blogging career uploading photos from Uganda, I had no idea how fast and wonderful blogging could be from a first world country. Possibly expect more photos from Paris over the next few days...)

Hiatus, Dec 19-26

2007-12-19T12:31:00.000+03:00

Because J and I are the most spoiled people ever, we'll be in Paris for the next week. Lots of pictures and rubbing your noses in it when I get back.

For those of you who celebrate it, have a great Christmas.

And You Thought CHOGM was Over

2007-12-17T12:54:00.000+03:00

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Works and Transport just announced to Parliament, “CHOGM roads just temporary.” Awesome. I hope they start construction again soon.

Safe and Sound in Kampala

2007-12-15T11:41:00.000+03:00

Western Uganda has been fighting the Ebola virus since August. Rumor has it the severity of the issue was kept quiet until after CHOGM-no need to worry the Queen or make Uganda look bad, etc-but who knows what really happened. In any case, I've been assuring concerned friends and relatives all is well in Kampala, at least, and I am safe from not just Ebola, but also the plague (also in the west) and yellow fever (in the north).

The American embassy in Kampala just emailed this out to all registered U.S. citizens here. I'm not sure if it makes me more scared or more reassured. (Note that before this I wasn't really concerned at all.)

Ebola - Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can I get Ebola while riding on public transportation?

People can only be exposed to Ebola virus from direct contact with the blood and/or excretions and secretions of an infected person. The virus is often spread through families and friends because they come in close contact with such body fluids when caring for infected persons or during washing the body of the deceased for burial.

It is highly unlikely that you would contract Ebola from riding on public transportation unless the person next to you was visibly ill, with profuse bleeding or sweating. You are far more likely to contract respiratory illnesses such as tuberculosis or influenza when riding public transportation than contracting Ebola.

If Ebola were easily contractible from public transport, the number of infected cases would be much higher than it currently is.

2. Will the government or the airlines restrict my ability to travel outside Uganda?

As of this time, there are no travel restrictions imposed by the GOU or any of the national or international airlines. There is no rapid test for Ebola and a certificate of wellness only indicates someone does not have a fever at the time they were seen by the healthcare provider. Likewise, the U.S. Government has placed no ban on travel, either into or out of the United States.

3. Has Ebola been confirmed in any district outside of Bundibugyo?

Not as of this time. The CDC has set up a testing center to test blood samples within Uganda. The only samples that have come back positive for Ebola are in the Bundibugyo district, although additional suspected cases are being identified and tested on a daily basis. To date, there has been one Ebola case in Kampala, although the individual was infected in Bundibugyo District and when he experienced symptoms he immediately checked himself into the isolation ward at Mulago Hospital.

4. I've heard this is a new strain of Ebola. How does the CDC know it's checking for the right illness in its testing?

In November, the CDC identified this new strain of Ebola, which at this time appears to be less lethal than previous strains, with a lower mortality rate among infected persons. The testing lab set up at Uganda Virus Research Institute is set up to identify any strain of Ebola.

5. How can I avoid getting ill with Ebola?

One of the most important preventive practices is careful and frequent hand washing. Cleaning your hands often, using soap and water (or waterless alcohol-based hand rubs when soap is not available), removes potentially infectious materials from your skin and helps prevent disease transmission.

Avoid contact with dead animals, especially primates.

Do not eat "bush meat" (wild animals, including primates, sold for consumption as food in local markets).

If you are required to personally care for an ill person with an unknown illness or suspected Ebola, use barrier techniques. These precautions include wearing protective gowns, gloves, and masks, in addition to eye protection to limit your exposure to blood and body secretions. Transport the person immediately to a health-care provider, limiting your contact with others. Notify the health-care facility you are transporting someone potentially infected with Ebola.

Sterilization and proper disposal of needles and equipment, appropriate handling and disposal of bedding, and proper disposal of patient excretions are also important to prevent the spread of infection.

The Golden Compass

2007-12-15T11:29:00.000+03:00

Went to see the Golden Compass last night. We tried to go last weekend and when I got the text message for the movie times it said the Golden Compass was playing Saturday at 7:00PM. We showed up, but no such luck. The Golden Compass didn’t start playing at the theater until last Wednesday.

I enjoyed the movie a lot, but I admit I let myself be charmed by it. J was not so sold. As we talked about it, I let all of its faults seep through. A lot of liberties were taken to fit the book into a 2-hour movie, which didn’t bother me because I remembered the story well enough from reading the book a couple of years ago. Lyra is well-cast and I thought the actress did a good job with the part. Is it possible Nicole Kidman isn’t actually human? She absolutely glowed in this movie and it seems more likely she comes from another planet. Seriously, light emanates out of her. It’s amazing. Daniel Craig: disappointingly little screen time.

But here’s my real problem with the movie. One of the things that makes the book the Golden Compass so amazing is the introduction of daemons, that every person has an animal incarnation following them around, representative of their true being. It’s impossible not to imagine what your own might be. The relationship a person has with her daemon is the closest relationship a person will ever have. Your daemon is not just your best friend, it knows you more intimately and loves you more unconditionally than is possible for any other person or thing to know and love you.

In the movie, Lyra’s daemon takes the form of an annoying sidekick. It didn’t change shapes enough. The sense of relationship was so lacking, that when the danger arose of them being separated from one another, it didn’t really bother me. Daemons are as complex as their owners, but the movie over-simplifies their characters. Mrs. Coulter’s monkey is not beautiful but menacing (like Mrs. Coulter), she’s just a bully of a monkey, plain mean.

I like to think my daemon would be a doe. J says mine would be a bush baby, but hopefully he was joking.

Surreal

2007-12-13T16:04:00.000+03:00

I'm writing this from Kabira's super secret, Internet, members-only, lounge room where a group is currently filming some sort of movie. Every once in a while they yell, "Silence! Sitting Room Scene, take 6," (or whatever) and I attempt to type very, very quietly. Otherwise no one seems to mind my presence.

Edit: I should mention the actress in the scene was wearing only a short, silk robe. I thought I had stumbled onto the set of an Ugandan adult film, but all she did was talk on the phone (and not dirtily either).

Changes

2007-12-12T15:07:00.000+03:00

A few thoughts now that I've been back for a little over a week and have had time to digest some of the recent changes in Kampala:

1. Joan, our housekeeper, has malaria (again). Guess who's getting a mosquito net for Christmas!

2. Kabira's wireless has been down since before I left. Don't they realize they're losing business? And they're sneaky jerks, to boot. I've been a member since March and only yesterday did I discover there's a fancy lounge room for members, which also has wireless Internet. I would exactly call it lightning speed Internet, but it's doing the trick. Why did no one tell me this after months of me complaining about the Internet while flashing my membership card around? Okay, I exaggerate, but still. What's with the big secret?

3. The police force around Kampala are wearing fancy new uniforms. Guess what color they are? White! I can't imagine what the dry cleaning bills look like. Who chooses a white uniform in the dustiest place on Earth?

Everything else is pretty much the same.

Mystery Date

2007-12-09T10:51:00.000+03:00

Audrey, Meet Raymond; Raymond, This Is Audrey...

How fun to have Mystery Date to return to. I like Audrey because she doesn't beat around the bush. Also, when asked "What makes you happy?" she answered, "Comedy by Amarula family," where most people just say, "Comedy." Her specificity makes it a real answer.

AUDREY

I arrived before him and when he appeared I thought he was a receptionist. His face was familiar and he, too, knew my grandmother with whom I stay.

We come from the same area called Kitebi on Rubaga Road. I did not like him and that made me bored and uncomfortable. What I only enjoyed were the drinks and the food. They were really nice.

What exactly didn’t you like about him?

I had asked for a light-skinned, tall and medium-sized guy, which he wasn’t. I had also wanted an educated guy with a good job and a car. I wanted a man I would be comfortable with in public. So when he asked me where I was working I refused to tell him.

Assuming he asked to take you out again, would you accept?

No. I can’t. I do not even want to see him again and that is why I gave him a wrong cellphone number when he asked for it.

What if he came to your grandmother’s house since he knows it?

I told him point blank that I didn’t want to see him again since we knew each other. Although I don’t have a boyfriend, when he asked me whether I had one, I said ‘Yes’ just to keep him off.

Now Raymond is not really a receptionist; he's a videographer. What makes him happy? "Cracking jokes." It was never meant to be for Raymond and Audrey, but you have to give him credit for his perseverance.

RAYMOND

When I arrived, I found her already seated and she welcomed me. I greeted her and she was happy to see me. Everything went on well but the problem was that she wasn’t lively at all. She seemed to be fearing me because I was the one asking questions all the time.

What was your impression of her?

She was beautiful and looked presentable except that she was quiet. It seems she is shy.

Are you going to make a serious move?

That is actually what I want. In fact I love her.

What about if she rejects you?

It is OK. I will just try and if it fails, I will try another one.

Back

2007-12-06T10:52:00.000+03:00

Apologies for the overlong silence. I am now back in Uganda after spending three weeks up and down the East Coast—Portland, Cape Cod, Boston, Cape Cod, Sugarloaf, Portland. It feels good to unpack the suitcase(s).

Uganda has a smell. It hits you the second you step off the plane. It’s warm and earthy, and intoxicating to return to. Every time I arrive in Uganda and smell it, I’m reminded of my first arrival—when I was uncertain but excited, tired but relieved—and in remembering those feelings, I experience a different kind of relief: a certain pride at how far I’ve come in not feeling so uncertain anymore and the comfort of returning to the place we've made our home. Knowing the smell is fleeting and I would all too soon grow used to it again, I tried to enjoy it this time as long as I could, taking deep breaths as we waited in line for our visas (due to both the front and back doors of the plane being open for disembarking, we were the very last people off the plane and hence the last people in the visa line), as we searched the fancy (for Uganda) new luggage belt for our suitcases (packed with granola bars and three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs), and as we scanned the crowd outside the airport and discovered P.’s smiling and familiar face. It waned the closer we drew to Kampala, overpowered by wafts of cooking meat and smoke as we made our way along Entebbe Road, and had all but disappeared as we unlocked the gate to our apartment. But by then I hardly noticed—N. came over to hear about our trip and afterwards we put in an episode of Entourage Season 3 and ate a box of our imported macaroni and cheese and were awash in contentment.

Are You Ready for CHOGM? (Pssst…What is CHOGM?)

2007-11-23T23:44:00.000+03:00

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) is currently under way in Kampala, ending tomorrow. Before moving to Kampala in March I had never heard of CHOGM; in the past eight months, it’s all I’ve heard about. Billboards around the city demanded, “Are You Ready for CHOGM?” Then billboards featuring local celebrities appeared, announcing, “I Am Ready for CHOGM!” While I’m quite certain the radio DJs and football players have been ready for months, what I’m wondering—while I’m sitting here in Massachusetts in front of the fire wearing a wool turtleneck sweater and eating open-faced turkey sandwiches followed by leftover pecan pie—are the roads ready? Is there electricity? Constant water supply? TB-free beef? Is, in fact, Kampala—and the rest of Uganda—ready?

CHOGM is hosted every two years by a different former Commonwealth nation. Though it has been around in some form or another since 1887, when the meetings were known as Colonial Conferences, the CHOGM title was only adopted in 1971. The purpose of the meetings is to “discuss global and Commonwealth issues, and to agree collective policies and initiatives.” Other cities that have hosted CHOGM include Valletta, Abuja, Coolum (in 2001 the meeting was moved to this smaller site in Australia for security reasons), Durban, Edinburgh, Auckland, Cyprus, Harare, Kuala Lumpur, Vancouver, and London on a few occasions. But I doubt any of those cities have put as much hope in the event as Kampala.

For those of us who have been speculating for months on what the horrors of CHOGM could be—people stuck in their houses without water or electricity with all of the roads blocked and the supermarkets sold out—I imagine CHOGM will actually be a lot like Y2K. A lot of hype, a lot of preparation, and when the event actually happens, little actual chaos.

Yesterday 53 presidents and prime ministers descended on Uganda, plus Queen Elizabeth II, plus 5,000 delegates. Another leg of the advertising campaign has billboards that read: “1.6 billion pairs of eyes on Uganda.” I find this idea of so many disembodied eyes a little creepy and somewhat frightening, considering the current state of affairs.

New hotels have been built all over the city (and no one seems to be asking who will fill these hotels once CHOGM is over), massive structures in peach concrete with purple highlights. Before we left a little less than two weeks ago, I found that the spots on the side of the road where massive piles of garbage are regularly burned have been moved out of sight, though not out of smell. From our apartment on the hill we could still see the plumes of smoke rising through the trees below us. My favorite roadside vegetable stand had also disappeared; I suppose its disintegrating yellow façade was considered an eyesore. Vendors of earthenware giraffes and planters were allowed to remain; small boys who sell bananas from baskets on top of their heads were not. Trees and flowers had been planted. Women in headscarves crouched in the street attempted to keep the ubiquitous red Ugandan dirt off the pavement with bundles of sticks tied together that acted as brooms. Everything seemed more orderly and in many ways less Ugandan.

Before I left, the electricity was out more often. Our water disappeared for days at a time; a disconcerting sucking noise was all that emitted from our faucets when we turned them on. Internet connections—once slow and intermittent on the best of days—were often nonexistent at the variety of cafés I regularly visit. Our apartment is on top of one of Kampala’s seven hills and every road off the hill was blocked with construction. Was this all related to CHOGM? Did everything have to stop functioning before in order to be functioning now?

Like most expatriates, I don’t work for an NGO or at an embassy. I sit at home all day and work on my novel. In this limited capacity I have discovered Kampala’s root problem.

It’s the roads.

Kampala can’t take itself seriously as a city until it fixes its roads. In their most natural form they are kept in atrocious condition. They are riddled with debilitating, axle-breaking potholes. The city sends out a few guys who work a quick fix. First they cut out square sections surrounding the pothole with six-inch rims, which they leave in place for a few days. While I might have been able to navigate the pothole in second gear, it will now be necessary to use to first gear to drop the six inches into the square ditch and back up again. Eventually the men come back to fill the squares with overflowing cement, making the pavement uneven and still quite jarring. Rain only delays things. While they work and close half the road, a man with red and green flags (used indiscriminately) might be there to tell you when it’s safe to pass, or he might not. He might be eating lunch. Or just resting. These quick fixes deteriorate at a rapid rate until the potholes once more appear, less than three months after the road was closed for four days so the potholes could be “fixed.” Construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction are constant.

The second problem with the roads is a lack of traffic signals. Of the handful of traffic lights in the city, only one or two work at any given time. Most of Kampala’s electricity is generated from hydroelectric plants based on tributaries to the Nile River near Lake Victoria, about 35 kilometers away from the city. Water levels dropped in 2005 and 2006 and since then energy has been in short supply. Two diesel-fueled generators have been constructed in Kampala, but they are an expensive and insufficient solution to the problem. To cope, the city is forced to practice constant load shedding, mostly affecting the poorer neighborhoods, but often also taking out traffic lights in the process. The police send wardens to direct traffic during rush hours, but they often seem to do more harm than good. A piece in the local paper the Daily Monitor recently suggested that some wardens tamper with the traffic signals in order to create more work for themselves. The same piece also claimed that many drivers do not understand the meanings of these new-fangled traffic lights and so they choose the wrong lanes and clog intersections in their confusion.
Compounding the lack of traffic signals is the increased number of cars on the road. Between 1997 and 2001 the number of new cars on the road increased each year by an average of a little over 7.5%, and current conditions indicate the same has been true in more recent years. As Uganda’s economy continues to grow, so do the number of drivers on the road. There may be more cars, but there certainly aren’t more roads. There are no incentives for carpooling. There are no highways to ease traffic.
The city council, however, did choose to install the seemingly brilliant idea of solar and wind-powered streetlights along stretches of downtown byways. Kampala is a dark and sometimes scary place to drive at night, and not just because Ugandan drivers are for some reason reluctant to turn on their headlights. What streetlights are available are inadequate for making out the potholes. And so these solar and wind-powered streetlights downtown sounded like a welcome and cost-effective addition to the dark roadways. If only they worked. When they do work the power generated by the turbines or solar cells are insufficient to provide adequate lighting. The bulbs are just a dim reminder of the myriad failures of Kampala’s road maintenance.

I’ve written here about how many times J and I have been pulled over by the police. Only once has someone not asked for a bribe. Traffic police must be enforced to stop drivers for real traffic violations and not simply in hopes of padding their wallets with the shillings of white visitors. But corruption is a huge and widespread problem on a much larger scale, as well.

Since gaining independence from England on October 9, 1962, Uganda has had only three presidents: Milton Obote (1962-1971, 1979-1986), Idi Amin (1971-1979), and now Yoweri Museveni, who led the National Resistance Movement and took power after the second Obote government in 1986. Uganda established its constitution in 1995 and the following year Museveni was officially elected to his first five-year term, then re-elected in 2001. At the end of Museveni’s second term in office, he pressured parliament to change the constitution, dissolving any term limit and allowing himself to run for a third term, which he won easily in February 2006. He has already announced that he will run for a fourth term in 2011, despite pleas from his own people and international leaders to step down. He recently scoffed at Mozambique’s former president Mr. Chissano for suggesting Museveni leave office in order to win the $5 million Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. (Mr. Chissano left office in 2004, forgoing a third term for which he was eligible, and was the first winner of the Prize.)

Though Museveni has been lauded for bringing a country ravaged by the horrors of the Amin regime, followed by a period of further corruption and political upheaval during Obote II, to a one of relative stability—by promoting economic growth, encouraging the return of the Asian community, expanding freedom of the press, and appointing a Human Rights Commission. Twenty years later, though, it might be time for fresh ideas, no?

For CHOGM, by the end of 2006 the government approved and spent over 110 billion Ugandan shillings ($64.5 million) to prepare for the meeting. In 2007 alone, Uganda has already approved and will spend an additional 153 billion Ugandan shillings ($89.7 million). That money is being spent on building construction, road construction, and beautification projects, for the most part. Judging by the results, the money seems ill spent. An audit of the spending is expected next year and no one will be surprised when huge chunks of money go unaccounted for. As reported in the Daily Monitor on November 8, CHOGM spokesperson Kagole Kivumbi held a press conference in which he asked reporters not to question how CHOGM funds have been spent. “These are issues we need not discuss during CHOGM…CHOGM will end in 20 days, and then we can deal with these other issues,” Kivumbi said.

Boda bodas and matatus are what amounts to public transportation in Uganda. Boda bodas are scooters driven by guys in colorful winter parkas (despite the 80 degree heat) and sunglasses but without helmets. They crowd the roads and are extremely dangerous. Darting in and out of traffic to avoid jams, they pass on either side of your car without warning. Shortly after arriving in country, I saw a small piece in the Economist published in early 2007 stating Uganda would be ridding the roads of boda bodas in preparation for the Queen’s visit. But boda bodas are like cockroaches; there is no getting rid of them. The city council has posted small signs demarcating boda stands and here twenty men on bikes will gather and yell out “Muzungu! Muzungu!” (the Luganda word for white person) when I pass. Picture packs of Hells Angels all over the city—a little less tough, wearing less black, and with smaller bikes.

Matatus are white minivans that are supposed to hold only 14 people, but often carry many more than that. There is one main taxi park in downtown Kampala and matatus are either heading toward the taxi park, or away. If they have regular routes, it’s a mystery to me. They pull in and out of traffic without warning. They break down often and prefer to do so in the middle of an intersection. There are no designated areas for them to stop on the roads—it could be anywhere. One popular stop on a two-lane road I frequent has no turn-off, the matatu just stops in the outer lane, funneling everyone else into the inner lane and causing a traffic jam.

Bodas are accidents waiting to happen and there are an estimated 1 million of them in Uganda. Matatus—an estimated 8,500 strong—aggravate already bad traffic. They need official stops. Both need to be regulated. A public bus system with full-size buses was announced to be in place by CHOGM, but it has yet to materialize.

Finally, for a country that is in a rainy season almost half the year, it has yet to learn how to handle them. Rains are crippling. Poor drainage systems create flash floods in the smallest of rainstorms. Even when not in an actual rainy season, afternoon storms are a common occurrence. If it’s raining, I don’t go out. It can take an hour after the storm ends for a flooded road to clear of traffic.
Even if Uganda managed to solve the problems with its roads, it still faces another major challenge: the Uganda driver. Uganda has plain terrible drivers. They have their own peculiar system for using their blinkers. A boda might keep their right blinker on as it cruises along the outer left-hand side of the road not because he plans on turning right across traffic any time soon, but just so you’ll know he’s there. Pass with caution. When a car or boda actually wants to turn, it turns the blinker off. I’ve pulled up to an intersection where the only option is to go left on a one-way street and the car in front of me will put on his right blinker, and then turn left. It is common to pass other cars on blind curves, to pull out onto a street without looking, or to pull out and then look and then stop in the middle of the road, forcing oncoming traffic to stop and wave the person on. (In researching this entry, I discovered a right signal can mean a warning against other cars against passing, while a left signal indicates it’s okay to pass. Or the person could just be turning. Or neither. Who knows? I’m not sure the person in the car knows.)

Traffic jams are endemic because of the bad drivers, the bad roads with their bad drainage outlets, the bad traffic signals, the bad cops, and the bad public transportation, which are all themselves representative of much larger problems: a lack of proper infrastructure and an honest government which knows how to implement funding properly to promote public works.

Is Uganda ready for CHOGM? They might pull it off. They’ll tidy the route the Queen is taking in her motorcade so that she experiences a clean, smooth, flawless ride, giving her a false impression of a universal Ugandan experience. Kampala’s politicians are probably patting themselves on the back for getting everything prepared in time, but does anyone care that it will all be a lie? Is the point really to deceive the Queen of England and the 53 other heads of government into believing Uganda is a country that is functioning perfectly well? Why not show them the true Kampala—with its slums and shanty roadside markets, its epic traffic jams and jolting rides through town, its smoking garbage piles, its crazy drivers, its blackouts and water shortages—and then see what they can do to help?

When I return to Kampala in December, the roads will still be freshly paved—for three months at least. And then they will start to deteriorate again and when they do, without CHOGM looming in the future, what will be the incentive to repair them?

An Africa Morning Right Here in America

2007-11-14T01:34:00.000+03:00

Apologies for the overlong silence. I arrived back in the States on Monday for a three week visit—Thanksgiving or CHOGM, not a tough decision to make, and I’m not that good at making decisions. Bring on the turkey. And my heart goes out to all you turkeys stuck in Uganda this month. Go buy more water. Now.

I called my doctor’s office this morning just after it opened to make an appointment. A receptionist informed me that all of the schedulers were in a meeting, but one would call me as soon as the meeting ended. An hour later I still hadn’t heard from anyone so I called back. This time the computers were down and no appointments could be booked until they were back up.

Whoa! Computers go down in America?? (In my six months absence, have I glorified “home” perhaps a little too much?) I hung up the phone thinking to myself, but I thought I left Africa.

I called back an hour later but the computers had still not been restored. By lunchtime I gave up on ever receiving a call back and went to the grocery store. Rediscovering old favorites? Priceless. Favorite buys: frozen sweet potato fries, Us Weekly, cranberry juice, red seedless grapes, and my number one craving while in Uganda, Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream. (I didn’t even eat this flavor ice cream all that much before we moved, but boy did I miss it.) Actually, not so priceless. I spent $87 on what amounted to, essentially, a whole bunch of snacks.

Posts will be sporadic these next couple of weeks. Also, I forgot the chord that connects the camera to the computer, so pictures will be nonexistent until I get back to Uganda.

For those readers who have passed through the Entebbe airport, has that stuffed impala always been outside the departure gates, or is that part of the multi-million dollar refurbishing? If so, I say money well spent! Perhaps the best spent of all the $150 million CHOGM money across the entire country…

The Fabled Kisiizi Falls

2007-11-06T11:22:00.000+03:00

In the morning J and N. went off to the clinic for the day. P. returned to the hotel where I presented him with my Bradt Uganda guide and showed him the map of Queen Elizabeth National Park. It looked to be only 50 or so kilometers from Rukungiri, but P. confirmed it involved backtracking before continuing north and once we got to the Park, he didn’t think his sedan would be able to handle the rough dirt roads. Ishasha, in the southern section of the Park and home to the tree-climbing lions, looked closer and more accessible. P. called one of the campsites, but they said it had been raining and the roads would definitely be unmanageable in P.’s car.

So we shut the book and I announced I was going to walk around town. P. liked the idea and we set off on foot. Though Rukungiri is bigger than most of the villages we passed through, I quickly realized our walk through town would take all of twenty minutes.

The day yawned before me. I spent ten minutes in an Internet café and when I came out, P. said, “We go back?” and I shrugged and said, without much hope, “Do you think there’s anything else to see?” P. responded “Let me ask someone.” What I love about traveling with P. is he takes care of business. He’ll talk to anyone to get the information we need and never puts me in the uncomfortable position of trying to communicate with people and look like an idiot Muzungu.

P. stopped a man nearby and he asked what we’re looking for. Since we didn’t really know, we told him, “anything worth seeing.” A second man stopped and suggested a hotel. We shook our heads. We were not particularly interested in visiting another hotel. The first man suggested a second hotel. “Anything else?” P. asked. The second man said rather casually, “Well, then there are the Falls.”

It’s a tactic I might use on a small child, asking with excitement if the small child would like to go pick up my dry cleaning with me or watch paint dry and then in a bored voice say, “Or we could ride the ponies.”

Of course I wanted to go the Falls!

The man said they were 30 kilometers away, which P. and I agreed was not so bad. It was only 10:30 AM, J and N. would not need to be picked up from the clinic until 5:00 PM at the earliest, and still I figured we would be back at the hotel by 2:00 PM. P. got directions and we walked back to the hotel to get the car.

For the first 15 kilometers we were on the paved, surface road. Then we turned off onto a dirt track. We passed through a village and then rode through hilly farmlands without a house in sight. Five kilometers in we passed a large farmhouse and then another couple of kilometers on another small village. If I thought Rukungiri town was the middle of nowhere, these people were in the middle of the middle of nowhere. We passed only the occasional pick-up truck carrying a bed full of workers. There was no water in sight.

Ten kilometers in we crossed a small bridge over a swamp of standing water. We took this as a good sign. The Falls could not be much farther. We came upon two men with a herd of cattle and asked them how much farther it was to the Falls. They thought maybe another ten kilometers. We went on.

After another seven kilometers, we passed through another village and stopped again to ask how much farther. An old man told it was about ten kilometers.

“Still?” I asked P.
“That’s what the man says.”
“This is turning out to be very far. Should we turn around?”
“We have come this far,” P. said and went on.

We crested a hill and could see the dirt track stretch out before us and pass between two hills. “It must be beyond those hills,” P. said. But when we got to the hills, there was nothing on the other side except another small village and still no water to be found. Ahead of us the road turned from its dusty, pale, hard track into a soft, dark patch of fresh earth. A tractor stood on the side of the road, but had not yet matted the road. “If it rains, we will be stuck on the other side. I will not be able to pass over this again,” P. said. Both ahead and behind dark clouds shadowed the horizon.

“Will it rain soon, do you think?” I asked.
“Very soon,” P. said.
“Maybe we should turn around.”
“We have come this far,” P. said and drove on.

By then it was close to 12:30 and my stomach started to grumble. I ate an apple. Lunch was a long time away. We had driven 40 kilometers and I began to think how typically Ugandan the situation was, for someone to tell us something was 30 kilometers away and have it turn out to be much more than that. An easy trip quickly morphing into a long adventure. We stopped another man and asked him how far to the Falls.

“The Falls?”
Yes.
“Kisiizi Falls?”
Yes.
He considered it and then said, “25 kilometers.”

I was distraught. “P., it’s too far. We should just turn around.”
But we had come this far.

We found a gas tank in the middle of a dirt track on the side of the road. A man pumped gasoline into our tank by turning a lever. We asked how far it was to the Falls.

10 kilometers.

We drove another ten kilometers and yes, finally hit the town of Kisiizi. P. stopped and asked a man how to find the Falls.

“The Falls?” Blank stare.
Yes, Kisiizi Falls.
More blank stare. “You should ask someone at the Hospital.”

I was quite sure now the fabled Kisiizi Falls was an elaborate joke played on Muzungu tourists. Let them drive 50 kilometers into the middle of nothingness only to find more nothingness. We parked by the Hospital, a fairly substantial complex of buildings and bandas with a handful of Muzungu doctors walking around in white lab coats.

We accosted a small boy to show us the way to the Falls, but he seemed confused on which direction to go. An older man came up to see what the problem was. After what seemed to be a rather elaborate set of directions, P. asked a question. The man sighed and took off down the road, waving for us to follow. We passed through the hospital grounds and a series of fences that brought us through a cow field. The man walked at an increasingly faster pace until he was practically jogging across the field.

Finally I heard the Falls. The man trotted up a hill and I fell behind to take pictures. When I came up to the top, he and P. were deep in conversation in Luganda. I caught my breath, took pictures, tried not to think about when I might eat lunch, and tried to look grateful for finding the Falls. I paid the man less than a dollar for his troubles, which he seemed very happy to receive, and he left.

After such a long journey, P. and I felt like we had to put some time in at the falls, appreciating their beauty. The path ended a good distance from the water with no negotiable path down. The falls themselves were thirty to forty feet high and it seemed impossible to reach the top from where we stood. I felt five minutes were sufficient.

And then we left and drove the 50 kilometers back to town, during which time I was in a sort of hunger-induced waking sleep that made the return trip go by rather quickly.

Rukungiri or Bust

2007-11-05T11:50:00.000+03:00

J had business to attend to in Western Uganda, so I decided to tag along. We hired P. to do the driving and he picked us up Sunday afternoon for the five-plus hour drive to Rukungiri.

Most cars in Uganda don’t really do air conditioning, despite the constant equatorial heat, and we rode with the windows down through the green countryside, interspersed with matooke fields and tiny villages of concrete structures painted in alternating colors of red (for Celtel), yellow (for MTN), and blue (for Uganda Telecom)—all advertising cell phone companies. Occasionally you’ll also the see the green for Tororo Cement. These villages have the feel of a movie set for a Hollywood Western, a ghost town, mere facades with nothing behind them. There are people in front—tiny children running about without any seeming supervision, women cooking, men eating and drinking, people darting into the middle of the road to sell goat meat on a stick to passers-by, women walking with absurd loads on their heads like a stack of chairs or a pile of lumber that I’m quite certain would bring me to my knees if not to a complete lying down position—but behind all this nothing but fields. As we passed through the bigger towns of Mbarara and Masaka, Coke signs dominated the roadside, the new flowery logo sprouted up over each directional posting—every school, hospital, hotel, and university building lived on the Coke side of life.

Rukungiri is a town that does not even qualify an entry in the Bradt guide. By the time we grew close it was dark and chilly, a chill I haven’t felt since leaving New York in March. When we woke up we were surprised to find ourselves in the mountains. Well, if not exactly the mountains, some big hills. It’s beautiful, rolling, green country and from our hotel we could see for miles.

We stayed in the best hotel in town, the Rukungiri Inn, with a floorplan like one of those mazes you stick mice in. They even have DSTV and when we arrived Sunday evening half the town was filing out of the place after watching the Liverpool-Arsenal game. In our room we checked to see what other channels were available, but it turns out there’s just one channel and that channel is whatever the people in charge of the hotel decide to watch. You could be getting into a really bad Ashley Judd movie on the movie channel and all of a sudden, just when Ashley Judd is getting drunk again and about to go home with a real sleezeball at the bar, the channel changes to Big Brother Africa and everyone in the house is sleeping. (Big Brother Africa is on 24 hours/day on one channel. Amazing.)

For the trip we had braced ourselves for 24/7 Ugandan food, which is not our favorite type of food ever and since there is little variety and a lot of starches, it can get quite old quite fast. But the Rukungiri Inn, we were pleasantly surprised to discover, had curries and cheese sandwiches on the menu, as well. I had my first Rolex, technically a Ugandan invention as fast I can tell, in which a fried egg and sometimes cheese is rolled up in a chapati. The best thing I’ve had here in a long time.

Short Hiatus

2007-10-27T14:13:00.001+03:00

I'll be in Western Uganda until Thursday. Since I'm unsure of what the Internet availability will be like, I'm not planning any entries until I return.

Africa: Where Clothes Come to Die

2007-10-26T09:56:00.000+03:00

These are the buckets in which Joan washes our clothes:

This is the clothesline on which our clothes dry:

After eight months in Uganda, we have holes in everything (the discoloration is a mystery to me as Joan does not use any bleaching products when she washes; notice also the distortion in the neckline, many of my crewnecks have become V-necks):

Shoes are no exception, though obviously the holes in our shoes have nothing to do with the buckets and the clotheslines. But we did quickly learn never to leave canvas shoes outside. Don't ask me what eats the canvas, but something does:

These were so beat up, J left them in Egypt:

On the bright side, it seems that our bags will be significantly lighter when we return from Uganda. More room for salad tongs and animals made of wire and beads!

Eulogy for Pants
In late 2001, when I was preparing to leave Boston and move to New York, for the first time in my life I paid over $100 for a pair of jeans. They were a pair of Sevens, when Sevens were still new and the fact that a pair of jeans could make someone’s ass look that good was a phenomenon.

I had my friend B. with me. B. is the person you want with you when you are buying a pair of jeans, or any article of clothing really. B. was born with fashion magic embedded in her little stubby fingertips. When you try something on in the store, she can tell if it’s something you’ll want to wear every day for the rest of your life or if you’ll wear if once and then regret ever buying it. It’s one of her many gifts.

B. sent me into the dressing room with a stack of jeans and when I came out in the black Sevens, I cried, “They’re too tight!” and B. said, “They’ll stretch!” and I said, “I think I need a bigger size,” and B. said, “Don’t do it.” And because I trust B. with my fashion life, I took her advice. She was right. (She’s always right.) They were the perfect pair of jeans for three years.

Then they stretched a little too much and they became Sunday jeans. Soft and comfortable, they were more soothing than a VitaWater and bagel sandwich when I had a hangover on a Sunday morning.

A few months before leaving New York to move here, small holes developed in the crotch. It seems the pants wanted only to live in New York. I sewed the holes shut and continued to wear them. After each washing here, the holes slowly grew larger, burst their amateur darning, and morphed into a monster shredding (recently patched):

It was the spring of 2002, a few months after I arrived in New York, and I took my measly publishing paycheck to a consignment store called Tokyo 7 in the East Village, which sold only lightly worn designer clothing. There I bought my first pair of Marc Jacobs pants for $50. They fit like a dream, had a nice texture to the fabric, were just a little bit short in the leg, which I liked. They looked amazing with flats.

There were no hints of rebellion. One day the crotch simply opened up. I search for a way to fix them, but the tear was not a simple rip along the seam, but had started there and exploded into a complete disintegration of crotch:

So, is it me? Is it my crotch?

Or is it Africa with its lack of washing machines?

Or is it the pants companies, purposefully distressing the fabric in the crotch so it wears out in two to three years, forcing customers to return to them over and over?

Who do I blame, third world Africa or corporate America? I suppose that’s going to depend on my mood.

Or am I just asking too much of my pants?

Interrogated

2007-10-22T15:35:00.000+03:00

Last week I met a friend at Efendy’s for dinner. Efendy’s is a Turkish restaurant located in Centenary Park, an area devoted to five or six restaurants across an expanse of greenery. As I pulled into the drive, I was stopped, for the first time, by a guard.

Me: Is everything okay?
Guard: Everything is okay, maybe.
Pause.
Me: Okay.
Guard: Where are you going?
Me: Efendy’s.
Guard: Are you carrying any firearms?
Me: (laughter, then realizing he is being serious) Oh, no firearms.
Guard: Now everything is okay.

The system does not exactly seem foolproof, does it?

Egypt - Day 5

2007-10-19T11:14:00.001+03:00

MTV Europe is mesmerizing. They play videos! All the time! When you’ve had little exposure to American pop culture or television in general for six months, this truly seems like a worthwhile way to spend your time on a Monday morning when you’re in a comfy Sheraton bed in Luxor, Egypt. Eventually we roused ourselves to the pool.

The Sheraton has had the most brilliant idea of putting an ice cream stand right next to the pool at their hotel. Ice cream in waffle cones, blazing heat, vacation—brilliant. (Please note that ice cream in Uganda can taste like shredded pieces of newspaper on all but the most rare occasions.)

In the afternoon we hired our most crazy cab driver of the whole trip and had him take us to Karnak. He spoke quite fast and unintelligibly and turned out to be oddly persuasive. (After coming out of Karnak, J said, “Do you remember what our cab driver looks like?” and I said, “Just look for the crazy man,” and we had no trouble finding him.)

Karnak is vast. Over a 1300-year period, successive pharaohs, in order to make their marks, added to and changed the temple, which began as the Temple of Amun, dedicated to the king of the gods.

Colossus of Ramses II:

Great Hypostyle Hall (it has 134 columns):

From the backside:

J, taking a break:

From there, we had the crazy man drop us at Luxor Temple, and then we had to pay him off to get rid of him.

And the avenue of sphinxes, which once stretched almost 2 kilometers, all the way to Karnak.

We walked back to the hotel as the sun set, ordered room service, watched a movie, and called it a vacation.

The Third Type of Vacation

2007-10-17T15:31:00.000+03:00

A friend recently reminded me that in addition to the beach and ski vacations, there is also the eating and drinking vacation. An excellent point, especially as we are going to Paris in December, which has neither beach nor mountains, and I am very excited about it. Though of course we’ll be seeing the sites and I’m looking forward to just wandering around in that beautiful city again, what I’m really looking forward to is the eating and drinking. Likewise, J and will be in New York for a weekend in November, which will also be an eating vacation. We have already mapped out our restaurants.

One more entry on Egypt coming shortly…

Egypt - Day 4

2007-10-15T15:36:00.000+03:00

Luxor. We did it up and stayed at the Sheraton. Even thought there is absolutely too much to see in Luxor, we made time for the pool because we were dying for some actual “vacation” time.

The train got us into town around 6:00 AM. We checked in at the Sheraton and decided to get right to business in order to beat the heat. We hired a cab for the morning and headed to the West bank of the Nile. Our guide book was last revised in 2005 so we kept waiting for the driver to pull over at one of the ferry landings so we could take a ferry across the river. As far as we knew it was the only was across. But apparently sometime between 2005 and now, a bridge was built and so, no ferry for us.

First stop: Valley of the Kings. Think middle of the desert, think hot, think lots of red-faced tourists wandering about.

There are 62 tombs in the Valley of the Kings and only a select few are open at any one time. The ticket you buy to get into the area allows you access to three tombs. I suppose more diligent tourists would have read up on each of the tombs before going, come up with a list of their top ten preferences, and then, you know, have seen which of those were open, etc. J and I opened our guide book once inside the park and said, this one looks cool.

The Tomb of Tuthmosis III (No. 34, for all you near-future visitors) was built 98 feet above ground and is reached by a long metal staircase.

Once inside, you then have to climb down a narrow, dark, rickety wooden staircase into the tomb. The tomb has two levels. The first is empty, save for the hieroglyphics lining the walls. Down another claustrophobic staircase—not to mention it is quite warm in there with little air circulation—the second level has more hieroglyphics plus a red granite sarcophagus. We climbed back up the stairs behind a fantastically out-of-shape tourist who moved in slow motion so when we came back out into the fresh air we were breathing easily. We sat down to check our book for the next tomb of choice and we were right outside the entrance to the tomb, after you come up the decently long flight of stairs out of the tomb but before you go down the metal staircase 100 feet to level ground. People are out of shape! Most people came out of the tomb sweating, red, and bent over at the knees trying to catch their breath. There’s a thing at the gym called the Stairmaster—if you want to visit the Tomb of Tuthmosis III, hop on.

Next up was No. 14, the Tomb of Queen Twasert/Sethnakht. Originally intended for Queen Twasert, the wife of Seti II, it was appropriated instead by the pharaoh Sethnakht because he was having problems with his own tomb. Photography was not allowed in any of the tombs, but open entering No. 14, J and I found ourselves all alone. We were right by the entrance where the light was still decent and the hieroglyphics on the walls were just spectacular. We might never be allowed back in Egypt for admitting to this, but we took a couple of pictures. And oh man was it worth it. Check this baby out:

Do you just feel like you’re so there?

Anyway, big, awesome, beautiful tomb.

For our last tomb, if I’m remembering correctly, we went next door to Tomb No. 15, which is not listed in the guide book because it’s not important enough. The guy at the entrance said, you guys know this is your last tomb, right? And we were like, yeah, we’re cool with that, and he looked kind of skeptical that we knew what we were doing, but let us in anyway. Way to sell your tomb, dude.

I don’t think you can really go wrong with any of the tombs. I was just as impressed with poor, neglected No. 15 as I was with any of the others. I mean, Tuthmosis III seems to get a lot of props just for being built so high up (fat lot of good that did from keeping the robbers out), but I would say his tomb was much less spectacular than No. 14 or 15.

Our three tombs were up and it was off to Hatshepsut Temple. Right this second, try to pronounce that. Say it aloud. Come on. I dare you. J and I couldn’t the word to save our lives. At first our driver looked at us like we were insane. Where did we want him to take us? But once he figured it out, he found us hilarious. He sounded it out for us. We repeated after him. But we could just not get it. It was beyond us.

Are you still thinking: hot? Because it was hot, people. Look how hot we are:

The temple was built for Queen Hatshepsut in the 18th Dynasty. It’s built into the mountain and looks out over the desert. It’s stunning.

After this we headed back to the hotel for lunchtime, pooltime, naptime, in that order. We had the best of intentions of heading back to the West bank and the Valley of the Queens, etc, but we just never made it.

In the late afternoon we walked into town to check out Luxor Temple, but once we got there we realized we had forgotten the camera and everyone knows if you don’t take pictures it’s like it never happened. So we decided to go back the next day and had a nice leisurely walk along the river and then back to the hotel.

Day 4 in Egypt also happened to be our one-year anniversary. That night we got all gussied up and had dinner at the Italian restaurant at the hotel. We sat outside by a fountain long abandoned to algae and ate mediocre food and it was just lovely. Truly.

Egypt - Day 3

2007-10-14T11:13:00.000+03:00

Saturday, our last full day in Cairo. Another quiet morning around town. We hired a cab for the morning and went out to Giza to see the pyramids. We wandered around by ourselves for an hour. We sat on one of the pyramids for a few minutes; it was the only place to find a little shade. You used to be able to climb the pyramids, but too many people died and they don’t allow it anymore.

Our driver then took us down to Memphis, about an hour away. If I had done a little bit more reading before leaving, I might have suggested skipping Memphis altogether. Though it was once the capital of ancient Egypt, there’s pretty much nothing left there except an open-air museum housing a few relics, the coolest being this guy, a massive limestone statue of Ramses II:

Next it was on to Saqqara, the royal burial grounds for Old Kingdom Memphis. The most exciting thing in Saqqara is the step pyramid, which was the precursor to the pyramids in Giza.

In the distance on the left you can see the Bent Pyramid in Dahshur, which we didn’t visit, but is supposedly Egypt’s first proper pyramid—i.e. not a step pyramid.

There were lots of other things to see, tombs and such, but it was super hot and we were hungry, so we went back to our driver who took us to a pretty horrible restaurant, but which seemed to be our only choice.

We arrived back out hotel in Cairo mid-afternoon. The hotel gave us a room to clean up in, as we had already officially checked out, and we left our bags there for another few hours while we went down to the gardens at the Marriott hotel. We had a few hours to kill before our overnight train to Luxor, so we relaxed a little by playing cribbage and having a few drinks and then an early dinner.

We picked up our bags at the hotel and caught a cab out to Giza train section. Being our typical selves, we arrived an hour early. The crossword puzzle in my $9 People magazine was not such the time-waster I had hoped for—it took all of five minutes to complete. Which left 55 minutes of listening to the loud American students next to us talk about how awesome they are.

Our overnight train experience was pretty uneventful. We actually slept.

Happy Independence Day, Uganda

2007-10-09T16:42:00.000+03:00

If I were a less lazy blogger, I would have walked down the hill to the airstrip to take pictures of all the festivities going on. Instead I sat at my desk and tried to write while listening to marching band music. All. Day. Long. They've been practicing since we returned from Egypt on Wednesday and I am so sick of what I assume is the national anthem.

Here's to 45 years of an independent Uganda, marching bands and all.

Egypt - Day 2

2007-10-08T14:27:00.000+03:00

Friday morning we hopped in a cab and went straight to the Citadel. The streets and sidewalks were completely empty, making the ride to the other side of town non-life-threatening and quick. Passing through Islamic Cairo was like entering a whole different country. Suddenly the encroaching desert became more apparent, the buildings older and more ornate, darker and yet brighter at the same time. The colors in Islamic Cairo are neutrals on either end of the spectrum; downtown Cairo has a slightly richer, wider palette.

The Citadel is massive. The most popular site inside of it seems to be the Mohammed Ali Mosque, a “newcomer” to Cairo, having only been built in the mid-19th century..

Because I was wearing short-sleeves and shorts, I had to wear a funny green cape to cover my arms and legs before entering the mosque, of which J had no end of fun taking pictures.

This is out in the courtyard of the mosque (I haven’t grown a humpback since moving to Africa; I’m also wearing a backpack under the cape.)

The clock tower was a gift from King Louis-Philippe of France in exchange for the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde in Paris and was damaged upon delivery and has never been fixed. Inside, the vast prayer hall:

From the Citadel’s walls, there are some amazing views over Cairo. In this picture, the pyramids are barely visible in the distance (though I’m not sure you’ll be able to see them in the reproduction).

We checked out the military museum, had a Coke at the café, and then called it a day for the Citadel. We walked back down to the street and found a cab and asked the driver to take us to the Khan, but since it was still only mid-morning, the driver told us the Khan would still be dead with everyone at services. So he took us to Coptic Cairo instead.

Coptic Cairo is the oldest part of the city, a compound lying within the walls of the 3rd-century AD Roman fortress of Babylon. Our guidebook dubs the Hanging Church the most beautiful of all Cairo’s churches. It is called a “hanging” church because it was built on top of the Water Gate of Babylon, possibly as early as the 4th century, though the original structure was destroyed in rebuilt in the 11th century.

For some reason, I was somewhat more enamored with the Convent of St. George, reached via an underground passageway, dating to the 15th-century.

We also visited the Ben Ezra Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in Egypt, and the Church of St. Barbara, both of which were sort of pushed upon us by a guard eager for a tip even though we were ready for lunch.

Our cab driver had waited for us outside the walled confines of the compound and now took us to Khan al-Khalili in heavy traffic (which he was not happy about). After getting directions from fifteen different people, we finally found the Naguib Mahfouz Café, named after the dude who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988.

Khan al-Khalili is a massive bazaar selling everything imaginable. It’s difficult to capture what the Khan is really like in a photo—narrow passageways, hordes of people, constant haggling…

We planned on getting lost in the maze of the bazaar but didn’t last long before extracting ourselves from the fray and catching a cab back to the hotel. The cab driver we found didn’t speak English very well. We told the guy we’d give him 30 pounds. He didn’t understand. He asked for 20. We told him it was a deal.

Back at the hotel, we watched Quantum Leap on television and started an episode of Nash Bridges when the power went out. We sat in the dark for a few minutes—this had happened once before and the power had immediately come back on—but nothing happened. We became homesick for Uganda. J called down to the front desk.

This is what I heard:
“We were just wondering if the power was coming back on any time soon…The electricity? Is it coming back on?...We have no electricity in our room.”

Apparently they had no idea. We sat in the dark for another ten minutes and J called down again. The front desk told him someone was on the way. We sat in the dark for another five minutes, wondering desperately how Nash Bridges was going to catch that darn stalker and now we surely would never know. Just as J went out in the hallway to investigate, the power came back on.

We dressed for dinner and went out front to ask the doorman for a cab to La Bodega, what turned out to be a trendy restaurant in an old mansion. He told us it was close enough to walk and gave us directions. His directions involved getting to a certain street and then asking someone whether to go left or right. We got to the street and couldn’t find a single person who spoke English. Already the restaurant was turning out to be not five minutes away, as we were told, but a good solid twenty minutes on foot. We were tired even before we started walking and now late for our reservations. We chose right, which was of course the wrong way. We stopped at a little bodega on the side of the street (sadly not La Bodega) and again no one spoke English. Exasperated, J turned to me and exclaimed, “Why now of all times can we not find anyone who speaks English?” And a man passing by turned and said in an American accent, “I speak English.” Oh.

The restaurant was urban and modern and made us miss New York, but the food was really only average. Afterwards we stepped outside and decided we could swing the walk back to the hotel, now that we knew what we were in for. But we didn’t know what we were in for. We got lost. Zamalek is a lovely neighborhood to get lost in. There are a mess of embassies and other beautiful mansions, but after thirty minutes we were exhausted. It was the first time in my life I thought I might actually be able to fall asleep while walking. After two sets of bad directions we hopped in a cab. When we got back to the hotel, the same episode of Quantum Leap was being repeated on television.

Egypt - Day 1

2007-10-05T13:12:00.000+03:00

We woke up Thursday morning freaked out about money. We tried another ATM close to the hotel, but again: no money. We went to Citibank in Garden City, a lovely little neighborhood—leafy, narrow streets easy to get lost in—because I had a U.S. Citibank account and we also had a Citibank credit card we figured we could take money out against if everything else failed. Our trip happened to coincide with Ramadan, which was sort of unfortunate, but we figured it would be easy enough to work around it. The bank was supposed to open at 8:30, but because of the holiday opened an hour later than normal, so we killed an hour walking around. Then one of the tellers told it was both impossible to access my U.S. account and to take an advance out against our credit card. She advised getting the PIN number to our credit card over the phone, which I was pretty sure was impossible to do, but she assured us to the contrary.

Ignoring our financial woes, we exchanged what little U.S. currency we had left (Citibank couldn’t even do that for us – they sent us around the corner to another bank) and went to the Egyptian Museum, nearly killing ourselves crossing six lanes of traffic instead of taking the underground tunnel. But before going inside we needed to find some water. It was nearly 10:30 and we’d been walking since 8:30 and only now had the currency to buy a bottle of water. Except between Garden City and the Egyptian Museum there are NO places to buy a bottle of water. We took a side street near the museum looking desperately for some sort of convenience store. Nothing. We were accosted by an older man who wanted to know where we were from (what turned out to be the most common question ever uttered in all of Egypt). Friendly dude, sure, and he continued to follow us down the street talking to us. Finally we asked him for help finding a bottle of water, completely unsure what he really wanted from us. He brought us down another street to a blessed oasis in the dessert of downtown Cairo. I was so thirsty at that point I would have married the old man, but instead all he wanted us to do was buy some perfume.

We felt obliged to go into his store (classy place, as you can see) and let him smear oil up and down our arms—he got as far as gardenia and lotus, at which point I offered to buy the smallest amount possible. This turned out to be too small an amount for him, thankfully, and he let us go. Lesson learned: never talk to strangers unless you’re really, super desperate.

Finally, the Egyptian Museum. We couldn’t take pictures inside, but here it is from the outside, that pink building in the distance there...

The museum feels more like a storeroom for newly excavated treasures, with all the pieces waiting to be labeled and properly displayed. It’s just a mass of old shit, basically. Really cool, old shit. There is an imposter Rosetta Stone as soon as you walk in the front door—the original is in London—but everything else is the real deal. Outside the museum a bevy of freelance guides attack all visitors who are not obviously traveling with a tour group and offer their services. Even though I imagine a guide can come in handy since little in the museum is labeled, J and I were not interested.

This might be a good opportunity to describe the type of tourists J and I are. We fortunately fall into the same category, otherwise I doubt we would ever take another vacation together again. J and I do not like tours. We do not like to stand around and listen to someone drone on for long periods of time. We do not like to rough it. We like to wander around at our own pace. We like to take it easy. We like to look at a thing and move on. If we really like it, we’ll read about it later. I suppose you could call us lazy tourists. I like to think of us more as laid back. To me, there are two types of vacations: beach vacations and ski vacations. The separate occasions J and I backpacked around Europe we do not consider vacations. That was work. Egypt was not really a vacation either. It was down and dirty business. Do you know how much there is to see in that freaking country? This is one reason I might recommend the tour group package for all but the most laid back tourist, if you’re really concerned about seeing everything. J and I had resigned ourselves to the impossibility of seeing everything and had decided to be content with whatever fit into our laid back schedule. The other reason I would suggest this option is the harassment. You will get harassed for everything in Egypt: museum tours, sure, but also taxi rides, boat rides, camel rides, horse-drawn carriage rides, bathroom attendant tips, to buy postcards, laser-printed papyrus, small sandstone pyramids, kaftans, statues …whatever. And these dudes don’t take no for an answer. Not ever. It gets really, really tiring, especially when you’re just trying to take a leisurely stroll along the river at sunset. I imagine if you’re in a tour group you get harassed less for taxi rides and more to buy souvenirs, but safety in numbers might help even that.

The fantastic thing about sunset and Ramadan, though, is once that sun dips below the horizon: freedom. Everyone goes off to eat and J and I were left in peace. Bliss.

So anyway, we fought off the museum tour guide offers and made our way inside. To avoid the crowds we went upstairs and checked out the animal mummies, various sarcophagi, jewelry, scrolls of hieroglyphics, what-have-you. I believe we’ve discussed my issues with really crowded spaces, plus the museum was hot, so I had a little sit-down to calm the nerves and contemplate the truly tragic wardrobes of most Europeans while J sussed out the duds from the must-sees. The must-sees included the colossus of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, about 30 feet tall, the Amarna Room, which showed the new style of art that developed under Akhenaten’s 15-year rule with figures with elongated faces, and the Tutankhamun galleries—1,700 items from the boy king’s reign.

We left the museum shortly before noon and stepped out into the blinding heat with the intention of walking a short distance to a restaurant S. had recommended. S., who you will recall was in Uganda for the summer working with J and N., once lived in Cairo and had emailed us a list of places to eat and things to see. (Very kind of him and very handy.) On the way we passed an Egypt Air office so we stopped in to book a flight back from Luxor (we took the overnight train there). By the time we left it was approaching 1:00 PM and we were beginning to feel the early gnawing of hunger. We found the restaurant, but only the take-away section was open. The sit-down part appeared to be closed, the cause of which we took to be Ramadan. No biggie: we were in downtown Cairo; there was bound to be at least ONE restaurant open despite the holiday.

Okay, so there might actually only have been ONE restaurant open for lunch in downtown Cairo. It took us another hour and a half to find it. I was saved only by the apples we stole from the breakfast buffet at the hotel that morning. We were really, super desperate, so we talked to another stranger. We asked him if he knew a restaurant that would be open and he pointed us down the street. In exchange he asked us to come into his perfume shop. We told him we’d come back after lunch. We never went back; we are such assholes. But we were hungry assholes.

We ate at a French restaurant with a lot of other white people. Afterwards we hopped in a cab to go back to the hotel and call various banks/credit card companies to try and figure out our money situation. On the way we stopped at the train station and picked up our train tickets to Luxor. Though we weren’t seeing much that day, at least we were taking care of business.

This is about how we felt upon arriving at the train station:

And we only had to wait an hour or so to get the tickets…

Back at the hotel, J called Citibank, who of course said they couldn’t give out PIN numbers over the phone and who also said the bank should have been able to give us an advance against our credit card. Awesome—because banks are closed on Fridays and Saturdays in Egypt and were already closed for the day because of Ramadan, so fat lot of good that did us. Our only hope lay with Bank of America.

Never put all your hope in Bank of America.

J talked to a woman in Customer Service who said a block had been put on our debit card as soon as we tried to use it in Egypt. J asked if she had any record of us being in Africa; she didn’t, even though J called back in January to alert the bank that we would be traveling around the continent. He asked if they had any clue we had been using the card in Uganda for the past eight months and that maybe this would indicate that we were in this part of the world and therefore less suspicious that we were using the card in Egypt. They had no clue. But she said she would take the block off and the card should work immediately at an ATM.

J went to the ATM. The card didn’t work.

J called BoA again. He talked to someone, explained the problem, and was then connected to a recorded message asking him to verify certain aspects of his account. He verified them, the recording thanked him, and then hung up. This happened twice more. On the fourth call, J told the person if he connected J to the recording again basically he would hunt the man down and pull out all his fingernails. The guy stayed on the line, listened to the problem, checked the account, and informed J that the woman he had originally talked to had “messed up” taking the block off the account. So they went through the whole rigmarole again. He seemed to ask a lot more questions than the original woman, including verification of recent purchases on the card.

“Do you know what a charge for $122 would be for?” J asked me.
“Amazon,” I said. “The day before we left.”
“You bought that many books?” he asked.
I planned on having books sent to my parent’s house to pick up when we are visiting in November. I should have just said yes and let him believe that (I certainly would have no problem spending that much on books), but instead I told the truth: “Your anniversary present.”

And now J knew exactly what I had bought him for our anniversary, still three days away. The Red Sox 2004 World Series DVD Collector’s Edition (plus a book or two for myself for consolidation in shipping purposes). Surprise officially ruined. We spent $50 on six phone calls to Bank of America. But the block finally came off and the ATM finally dispensed Egyptian pounds into our grubby mitts.

Awesome day in Cairo! Never fear, all was not lost. S. came through for us with his recommendation to eat at Abu Al-Sid in Zamalek, the same neighborhood as our hotel. A huge, unmarked door on a quiet side street led into a dimly lit, elegant/bohemian smoking den with low Victorian-style couches, thick wooden tables, and darkly painted walls seen through a haze of shisha smoke. We ate delicious Egyptian food—hummus and lamb kofta and a yoghurt salad—plus we tried Koushary, made of lentils, rice, pasta, and tomato sauce, which I can’t say I was all that into but was happy to try.

Once the meal was over, I was so exhausted from the day’s walking/non-eating/non-drinking/non-money-having, I nearly fell asleep sitting up. In our desperation to get back to the hotel and blessed sleep, we nearly sprinted out of the restaurant and into a cab. But we didn’t have to tell the cab driver to step on it because cab drivers in Cairo are crazy people and drive faster than one would think possible through openings one would think not big enough to fit the old Renault through and they dodge and weave better and faster, but no less nerve-wrackingly, than Christine Taylor in Dodgeball.

Not to worry, more (and better) pictures on the way. The rest of our trip we actually saw stuff…

Lessons learned in this blog post: When traveling to Egypt, call your bank before leaving not once, not twice, but perhaps three times to confirm that they have all info down pat; think about tour groups and whether you are that kind of person; when someone asks you where you are from, keep your head down and pretend you are deaf/don’t speak English/Spanish/Italian/French/German, but if you must talk to someone, perfume dealers are surprisingly helpful; carry lots and lots of snacks; close your eyes while traveling in taxis; remember that U.S. dollars are still magic, despite their declining value; upgrade your hotel—the more comfortable bed will be so worth it when you come home at the end of the day exhausted and dirty.

Return from Egypt

2007-10-05T13:05:00.000+03:00

Sorry for the delay in posting. Our flight got in Wednesday morning and I spent the day napping and finishing my book. I didn’t want to like Special Topics in Calamity Physics – what with its young, pretty, intelligent author, but it’s just too good. The only grudge I can hold against Marisha Pessl is having her narrator announce that Hannah is a name for troll babies. If that’s true, I was the freaking cutest troll baby ever. Yesterday I had hints of a migraine, freaked out, and stayed home watching One Tree Hill Season 2 instead of heading to Kabira to use the Internet.

J and I left for Egypt last Wednesday afternoon. We changed planes in Nairobi (perhaps my least favorite airport I’ve ever passed through) and paid $9 each for copies of US Weekly and People magazines. That’s how desperate I am. Tmz.com takes way too long to load in this country. Our next flight stopped in Sudan, though we didn’t have to get off the plane. It was dark when we landed so I couldn’t see much. A shocking number of people got off in Sudan, though, and a shocking number of people got on. The woman next to me who got off was studying some numbers labeled something along the lines of “Exit Strategy for Refugee Camps,” and I can only imagine everyone else getting off and on also was also some sort of aid worker. It’s not exactly a vacation destination, right?

We arrived in Cairo late that night and stopped to use the ATM in the airport. We tried three and none of them worked. We used U.S. dollars to take a cab to the hotel. We were tired and we figured we would deal with it in the morning. Maybe there was just something wrong with the airport ATMs…

Hiatus

2007-09-25T12:49:00.000+03:00

Internet has been spotty the past few days and tomorrow we're headed to Egypt for vacation. So this is it until the end of next week. Look forward to lots of pics and stories about pyramids and sphinxes and things.

Mystery Date

2007-09-22T13:19:00.000+03:00

The New Vision is full of gems today, including my favorite.

Ezra:

"Since this was my first time to go for a date, I did not have much expectation. I knew it would be challenging, but I still had to prove my worth. Everything looked strange. In fact, I kept wondering what topics to discuss with her. But since Betty is friendly and social, we shared sweet moments. I enjoyed myself very much. Indeed, she made my evening.

Tell me more about the sweet moments you shared
(Loud laughter) I remember the moment we looked straight into each other�s eyes. We then used our forks to feed each other. It was very romantic. Before the photographer arrived, she was very free. When she saw the camera, she became very scared and tensed. But I reassured her that all would be fine.

When are you taking her for another date?
(Hesitates) Hmmnnn�.! I would be willing to take her for a date but we did not get each other�s contacts. I did not ask for her phone number because a friend of mine once advised me that I should never ask for a lady�s phone number. It is the lady to give me her number or ask for mine; not vice versa. Asking for a lady�s phone number would make her feel proud.
However, she directed me to her workplace along Nasser Road and I shall try to trace her from there. If she is interested, we shall keep in touch and remain very good friends."

Betty:

"When I walked into Kyoto Restaurant, my heart almost skipped a beat. I was scared stiff and I did not know what to expect. It was my first time to meet a stranger on a date.
When he arrived, our initial conversation left me quite disappointed. He was not asking me any questions at all; I took the lead in the conversation. Even when I asked him simple questions, he merely scratched his head. We are agemates but he is not as sharp as I expected.
I would like a man who asks me questions and challenges me to think but he did not. (shakes her head) Maybe he is still young. How about arranging another date for me with an older man who is sharp? I did all that I could do to make him happy and to enable him feel free but he remained tensed.
He kept telling me about his childhood but little about his present life. That was not bad but I was more interested in knowing the present person.
I was amazed when he told me he is a student at Kyambogo University. I imagined a university student would do better than that.

Anything you liked about him?
(Brief silence then takes a deep breath) Have you ever been in a situation where everything is negative? There was nothing good to remember. I did not bother to get his contacts.
Actually, I did not like him. He is still young. Maybe we can be friends but I don�t see myself keeping in touch with him."

How did I know from the beginning this would not work out? What makes Ezra laugh: Jokes. What makes Betty laugh: A person with big teeth.

Pic of the Week from the New Vision

2007-09-22T13:00:00.000+03:00

"READY FOR CHOGM: A worker of Sekanyolya systems Ltd installing street cameras at Clock Tower in Kampala ahead of CHOGM. Several cameras will be installed in most parts of the city."

And what will these cameras do exactly? Granted that there's electricity and they're functioning correctly?

I can think of SO many other things that would be at the top of my list ahead of traffic cameras, if I were in charge of CHOGM. They still have more than half the roads in the city to repave, for example. But obviously I'm not in charge of CHOGM...

New England 38, San Diego 14

2007-09-18T12:17:00.000+03:00

J and I went to bed at 9:30 Sunday night in order to wake up at 2:30 in the morning to go over to a friend’s house to watch the Patriots-Chargers game live on ESPN. You know, Pringles taste pretty good at 4:00 AM; sour cream and onion-flavored are way preferable to BBQ at that time of day. Take my word for it.

I was so tired on Monday, but I can’t tell you how good it felt.

Go Pats!

(I'm too depressed about the Red Sox to even talk about it. I should have known they'd put us through the wringer AGAIN.)

Response

2007-09-18T12:12:00.000+03:00

In the Letters section of the Daily Monitor, the paper includes SMS feedback to specific questions. Yesterday the question was, “What’s your view on gays and lesbians’ demand for their rights?” I thought I would share a few of my favorite responses, so you could get the tenor for what people are saying in these parts:

“Human Rights Watch should know that nobody can have rights do wrong! Homosexuality is worse than Osama and nuclear combined together, all able bodies should fight that witchcraft.”

Come again? The real tragedy here is this person’s lack of command of the English language. Education breeds understanding, no?

“There should be specific anti-homo law, like the anti-terrorism law and also set up a gay crack unit to prohibit the media from giving them publicity.”

Um, dude, there is a specific anti-homosexuality law. This is a big reason why the gay community has no rights in this country. Which is why you’re being asked to respond to this question.

“It’s a shame to legalise such. That behind thing is very dirty.”

And now my blog is very dirty.

“These gays and lesbians all over the world are unbelievable. In science we learn that same charges/poles repel as unlike ones attract. So?”

So…No, I’m still lost.

After reading the paper, I picked up Vanity Fair from July of this year, the special issue dedicated to Africa, which a friend recently lent us. And now I’m going to include a quote from that issue, from the Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa:

“I come from a situation where for a very long time people were discriminated against, made to suffer for something about which they could do nothing—their ethnicity. We were made to suffer because we were not white. Then, for a very long time in our church, we didn’t ordain women, and we were penalizing a huge section of humanity for something about which they could do nothing—their gender. And I’m glad that now the church has changed all that. I’m glad that apartheid has ended. I could not for any part of me be able to keep quiet, because people were being penalized, ostracized, treated as if they were less than human, because of something they could do nothing to change—their sexual orientation. For me, I can’t imagine the Lord that I worship, this Jesus Christ, actually concurring with the persecution of a minority that is already being persecuted…I think God is weeping. He is weeping that we should be spending so much energy, time, resources on this subject at a time when the world is aching.”

Mystery Date!

2007-09-13T12:50:00.000+03:00

Whoa. There was a mystery date last weekend and I almost missed it. A good one, too. I’m basically going to excerpt the whole thing, but you can also view it here.

Raymond:

“We had a nice time except she wasn’t very free with me. She even refused to reveal her occupation and her surname. She claimed she was a student in some college but I didn’t believe her. I shall carry out my own private investigation to establish what she does for a living. Otherwise, I really had lovely time in her company.

“Brother, that girl has a figure that can sweep any man off his feet. She moves with a catwalk that left me breathless, simply beautiful! Her cute attire blended so well with her beautiful figure. I call it ‘figure eight.’ I loved her disarming smile, romantic eyes and sweet tender voice. She sat in an appetising posture that gave me a chance to drool at brown thighs. Eh eh eh…! Her smooth skin was so tempting that I wished we could spend a night together. Ha! Ha! Haaa….! I was taken up! She is lovely, friendly and sexy.

“In fact, I am planning to take her for another date.
“We need to be in some romantic hide out for at least three days. But I still want to know her surname and her occupation. I am concerned about the surname because of the risk of dating my clan mate.

“Otherwise, she is a girl I would love to be with. In fact, after this interview I am going to call her.”

Now Gloria’s favorite movie is Spiderman 3, so she either hasn’t seen very many movies or there’s something wrong with her.

GLORIA:

“It was a nice date but with several disappointments. Raymond began by talking about his work and I found that boring. When he changed, it was about the places he wanted us to hang out. But the problem was he wanted instant intimacy and such discussion rubbed me the wrong way.

“He said he was willing to drop his girlfriend to be with me. When I told him I was in an intimate relationship with a caring guy he said there was nothing wrong with cheating on my guy. Can you imagine? I can never cheat on my boyfriend because he is simply perfect. I found Raymond’s behaviour very strange.

“He was forcing me to take more beer than I wanted. He also kept persuading me to go with him to his place even after I had told him that I wasn’t interested in that. On the first date?! Horrible! Relationship is a process; you don’t get everything on day one. His hands couldn’t rest in one place. I was so embarrassed by his constant touch that I told him to stop it but he kept forgetting. (takes a deep breath) Oh!

“He gave me his contacts but I don’t think I am ready to call him. I don’t mind casual friendship but he seems to be out for instant intimacy, not mere friendship. I am not ready at all to walk down that path. It is therefore safe to avoid any future contacts with him.”

What’s confusing to me is why either of them chose to go on a date if they’re seriously involved with someone else. I get Raymond, but Gloria (with her “simply perfect” boyfriend)? Is just the free dinner? Are they really after friendship? The glory of appearing in the New Vision?

Gloria is an artist and her surname was printed in the paper, so obviously Raymond was going to find out eventually. Also, when asked the question, what makes you laugh, she answered, “Jokes.” Go figure.

I like Raymond because he answered, “If my girlfriend tells me the truth.” At least there was a little thought put into it. At least he has a personality, even if he is a dog. The stock answer for the question of what makes people laugh seems to be “Funny movies,” or better yet, “Comedies.” Or “when someone says something funny.” Maybe it’s just a bad question.

Why the Red Pepper Sucks

2007-09-11T19:03:00.000+03:00

Saturday morning J and I stopped by the side of the road to buy the newspapers from a guy. We asked for the Daily Monitor and the New Vision. He was out of the New Vision, but brought over a Red Pepper and, for amusement, we took that instead. (Newspapers are less than a dollar and cost the same on weekends as they do during the week.) I had read the Red Pepper only once before. It’s a gossip rag, total garbage, but the one other time I had read it, I remember being impressed with its treatment of women. They seemed more comfortable with modern female roles than most other media.

I’m not sure where that came from. The Red Pepper is basically pornography. A columnist called the Hyena describes incidents in which he “shafts” women because they just can't stay away from him - it's all clearly fiction. Which is whatever, as far as I’m concerned. It is what it is. The worst part about the Red Pepper is its treatment of the GLBT community.

A few weekends ago I was talking to a friend who told me the Red Pepper had published a list of homosexuals in Kampala, most of which suffered much abuse and many of which also left town. I remember my friend adding that it was only a matter of time before they did it again.

Well, they’ve done it again. In Saturday’s paper we noticed an ad for Sunday’s paper, which promised to out the 500 homosexuals living in Kampala, their full names and addresses, where they work and what cars they drive. We bought the paper again on Sunday; the list included some 50 names with the promise to continue it next Sunday.

Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and many people really believe it’s a sin. There has been a lot of controversy over it recently (you can read about some of it here) which I suppose is what prompted the Red Pepper’s repeat performance. What really seemed to irk the paper was the image of a party of homosexuals sitting around patting themselves on the backs for evading the media. A war between the press and the gay community in which the gay community thought they were winning. So this is why the Red Pepper is really going to show them. The paper also portray gays as modern day vampires—insanely rich, intelligent, beautiful, well-dressed, love to party, and constantly trying to lure non-gays into their clutches. Like anyone can be turned gay.

The whole thing is beyond absurd. A few choice snippets so you all can see how sick the Pepper is:

Under the heading “Characteristics of a Gay Man:”
“—They rarely get drunk for they are always watching for their prey
“—If they spot a sexy looking man who is not a gay they will make sure he becomes one of them
“—They watch beauty contests simply to learn how to walk.”

But this is my favorite
“—If you get used to hanging with them you can tell that you are gay. They are sexy, smart, sharp, handsome, loaded, and stylish; they know all the designers in the world.”

Well, then, I must be gay. Who knew?

The Garbage Saga Continues

2007-09-10T15:30:00.000+03:00

Some of you may recall my run-in with Bin-It, one of the local trash collection agencies in town, and how I eventually gave up on them in favor of Simon, a man who works on the grounds of our apartment complex. Simon picks up the trash every day, or at least every day we have trash to put out. We leave it right in front of our apartment and it’s rarely there longer than 30 minutes before Simon sees it and takes it away for us. It has been a very convenient arrangement.

A few weeks ago a man came banging on our gate one Saturday afternoon. He told us he would like to arrange to pick up our trash. We told him we had a guy and we didn’t need his services. He told us his company had all the legal rights to central Kampala and using anyone else was illegal.

“It’s illegal for us to use Simon?”
“That’s right.”
“We’ve been living here for four months, where have you guys been?”
“I have been by, often, but no one is ever home.”
“I work from home,” I said, “I’m here every day. You’ve never come by.”
“I am here now and you must fill out a contract.”
“We’ve paid our other guy through the end of the month. Why don’t you come by in a few weeks when we’re ready to start using you?”

The guy seemed to fall for this and he went away; we figured we’d see him a few months later and we could maybe use the same trick again. But he came back right on schedule. Simon seemed to take the news alright. With our new service, we must use the trash bags they give us and they only come twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. They give us one trash bag at a time.

Last Friday, we loaded our trash bag and put it out back of the apartment. Monday and the garbage was still there. J called and yelled at them. The guy came by in the afternoon and apologized. There was a new guy working the grounds and he didn’t know which house was ours. He had a gray bag with him, which I assumed to be ours as he said he had picked up out back. A few minutes later I walked up to the car to head out for a few hours and there was our trash bag from Friday.

They’d picked up the wrong bag. Where the hell they got this other bag, I have no idea. It’s beyond inept.

Oh, Simon, how I miss you.