Cats Update

Pictures, as promised.

How our cats traveled:




Bea meets Maya:

Home

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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