The Week without Lights

Well, I had really wanted to be good about writing up this week but we had an issue with power. A heavy storm came through and wiped out power for a while and then when it tried to come back on, we had a brown out. There wasn’t enough juice to power the tea kettle, much less a computer. It was pretty miserable—the tease of having electricity but not really. Luckily, Wednesday night, it came back on. I was a little panicky because I really needed to stay at the station Thursday to get things caught up in data entry (among other things) and was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to do any of it.

Highlights of the week:

Saturday: Went searching for this lodge that is supposed to be around this botanical community garden. Almost got T-boned by this idiot as I was trying to turn right—he was trying to pass me on the right. I think I’ve mentioned this in my previous blog. . .if not, I’ll share the story with you when I get back.

Sunday: Hung out here for a bit and then headed into town with the Chapman girls and Kat so that she could pick up her friend. Got treated to some pork (I’ve been craving protein!).

Monday: Went searching for a couple of lodges that were new or we didn’t get a chance to look at last year. There’s a new farm that took a while to find but when we did. . .WOW!! You enter and drive through huge flowers to this open area of about 70 acres. There’s a swimming pool, organic gardens, a kick-ass bar! Holy cow! The owner I think is married to a mzungu (white guy) but I’m not entirely sure. Anyway, it’s absolutely beautiful and we are conducting that interview on Friday. We headed over to this other lodge—Ataco that specializes in weddings. It’s a pretty neat sight too and the people are very nice. I need to email the owner so that I can get permission to talk to the manager since the owner stays in Kampala. Then we took a look at another place but this may be a last priority because it’s questionable that they even have mzungus as guests.

As nice as this was, I also felt like a total jackass on this day. Not a couple of days before, some of Freerk and Goesha’s former employees came by. The great thing about a long term project is that you can sustain salaries for a while. The bad thing about a long term project is that many of these people employed may not know how to save or just don’t. So the new mzungu in town gets the visitors. First the cook came. I was a bit annoyed at this because I had the doors completely closed and she still knocked. I was exercising and was sweaty and didn’t want to open the door all the way. She wanted me to loan her money and I had to tell her that money was not mine and I couldn’t loan her money nor could I employ her—I already have a cook. Then another one came around, who is still employed at least for half a day and we looking for work—which I don’t have. She started to tell me about her struggles and how she has to pay for transport because the bike these researchers bought her got stolen. I apologized a lot and told her that I couldn’t employ her. Well, then Monday morning, she comes by again. Asking, again. I became annoyed because now I can’t eat breakfast outside and enjoy the morning—and it became cold. She wanted me to tell Joel of her problems but I told her that I didn’t have contact with him but he’s coming soon but even then, I’m not sure what he could do. Then she asked me to talk to Patrick about the new clinic that is going to open up. I told her that I have nothing to do with the clinic and even that I don’t think Patrick does either. I hate being placed in this position to say no—I feel like a total mean jackass. Then after she left, Kiiza came by trying to sell a stool that he made because he wanted to buy sugar. Kiiza must be in his 80s and I knew that he wanted sugar so when I interviewed his wife, I bought soap and sugar. So I told him that I gave him Sugar the other day. He realized that he wasn’t getting more from me and then sold the stool to Tom’s crew. Then I got into an argument with the parking girl because she didn’t give me the correct change. It just was a way off day. And the big rains came and knocked power and reception for the phone out. Scott tried to call like six times but we couldn’t talk. I text to call in a few hours but by the time he got through, I had had a glass of wine and a small glass of Amarula and just beat down from the day—I think we only talked for about 15 minutes.

Tuesday: We went out on a search for this Rural Family homestead that was about 15km from Fort Portal. It seemed longer than that. I thought we were heading into DRC—we are on our way to the border town. We finally found it—pretty decent but I can’t imagine anyone wanting to stay this far away but we’re talking to him next Saturday morning. I can’t decide if he is opportunistically shady. Then we went to the Amabere Caves because they have a group of women who make baskets for the gift shop. I’ll be talking to them next Monday at 2. So then, we went back into town to eat and wait for Diana, a researcher under the Chapman’s. She works for a radio station in Montreal that does programs about Africa. She wanted to join me to talk to the women’s group about basket making. It was my first group interview and I was pretty nervous about it but I agreed. It went better than I expected. These women were so nice! Some of my questions don’t work well so I need to work around that a little. But in the end, I was nervous about my gift for them. We’ve had people not be happy about soap in the past—wanting sugar or money. We passed out a long bar to each woman who were so appreciative. I thought I would cry. They were saying that soap is too expensive for them and they can’t afford it (many of them are looking after orphans in addition to their own children). After we took pictures of them and their baskets and gave soap, one of the women came back and gave both Diana and I a coffee basket—it’s beautiful, navy blue and brown. I know she must have worked extremely hard on it and to give it away, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t expect it at all. Again, being from a highly emotional family, I thought I would cry over this. I can’t wait to go back and bring them the photographs. We had to drive back in the rain—something that completely stresses me out, it’s a wonder I don’t have a panic attack. We made it home and it was a nice way to end the day.

Wednesday: Headed to Bigodi. Was a little concerned because we didn’t have much of a program because we couldn’t get a hold of Peace—there’s hardly a network down there. I did interview a group of 2 women who are trying to start their own basket group. Again, some of the questions couldn’t be applied to them. Went over to KAFRED to try to find the chairperson of the women’s group and to run into Andy Lepp who did his PhD at UF and was now a professor at Kent State and was taking some undergrads around. He’s a cool dude. Did his PC service in Katonga Wildlife Reserve. Made a program with the KAFRED women and then went onto Mantana Lodge to schedule a program too. Then came back to try to talk to the chairperson of Parent’s Concern who had a group of women who made baskets—many of them widows or looking after orphans. So we were able to get that taken care of. We crashed an event for the founder of Parent’s Concern. A missionary group from Alabama was there to visit. I got to see the children do the traditional Batooro dance of shaking their booties and the women do the traditional Bakiga dance which I have a funny feeling they are going to teach me on Wednesday. I can’t keep myself still when I watch them and am unconsciously moving to the beat—some of them noticed and I don’t think that my field assistants are going to let me leave until I learn. We shall see. . .

Thursday: I’m at camp trying to get some stuff done while Erimosi is out looking for individual basket makers—this group may be more difficult but we’ll see how it goes. It’s nice to stay home and it’s quiet for the most part.

Friday: The plan is to interview Richard Tooro about his tour operation (I pray he remembers) and then head to the guest farm at 1pm. I’ll post this in the afternoon and then head on home.

Hope all is well with everyone. Feel free to email or send a message via facebook. Take care of you. =)

Another Week Finished

I haven’t felt like writing much though much has happened. I’m just really tired at the end of the day. I’m sleeping but I don’t think I’m getting that deep sleep that I need. The peeing every 2 hours in the night doesn’t help either.

Let’s see if I can recap the highlights of the week:

My shoes got fixed. They sewed them back together and they work really well. I won’t be bringing them back with me though. They are comfortable still and are useful for the light walking that I have to do.

Kat and I had more than us at dinner the other night. We were joined by 3 other UF students who are in zoology. One of them is an RPCV who did his service in Uganda back in the 90s. I can appreciate the dry humor he has. . .he was pretty damn funny. Paco, the Italian chimp researcher with the Pacific Island tattoos all over his body joined us also. When he decides to be sociable, he’s really neat to talk to. The main topic of discussion at dinner was mainly about lice. Yep, lice. One of the UF students studies lice and how it transfers to different monkey groups. Two years ago, she was here darting monkeys and putting colors on them. Something happened with the groups—I think they were darting 2 different groups and didn’t know it. Now she’s back taking poop for DNA testing of the ones she has. Somehow that conversation when to human lice too. As gross as that may sound, it was pretty interesting. Then the conversation changed to Paco witnessing chimps eating colobus monkeys in West Africa—that was pretty sad. It grosses me out. Anyway, we had a great time with the talk and stayed up pretty late. Those guys are gone now traveling before leaving.

The next few days are kind of a blur for me. My brain must be just fried or something. I do remember almost getting into a couple of accidents. I was trying to turn at a fork in the road—looked right, looked left and then back to the right to see this minibus flying and not even moving over. He must have been a few inches away from us. Not my fault. Remember, I’m driving on the left side of the road. I was on the tarmac yesterday and had my signal on to turn right and I was slowing down to turn right and this asshole behind me decided that he didn’t need to wait for me and decided to PASS me on the right as I was trying to turn. I saw him in my sideview mirror—and stopped turning so that he wouldn’t hit me. Then he had the nerve to honk his horn at me, like I was in the wrong. Oh if he would have hit me. . .he would have wished he hadn’t. Again, I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t get it. Africans in general are laidback and time isn’t that important but put a steering wheel in front of them and all of a sudden, they have to get somewhere and EVERYONE is in their way. It’s the damnedest thing.

We brought Adheeryi some food the other day. She was so grateful. I told her that I expected her to be fat by the time Joel gets here. She’s so sweet. Got new pictures for her too since her kids took hers.

Went looking for this lodge that we heard about around Fort Portal. Went over this countryside to find this site where log cabins are being built. Super cool. The dude is British and has been here for a few years. Taught himself how to build log cabins and trained some guys to do so as well—hoping that they can start a business after finishing these. His site is right at a crater lake that is not like one I’ve seen—it’s U-shaped and huge! Quite nice. His market will obviously be up-market and he hopes to be open by Christmas. Said some pretty interesting things about the community and having to get workers from Masindi rather than from the area but things are slowly turning around.

I have two interviews this week with women’s groups. Both seem really excited to meet with me and so I’m hoping to get some really good information from them about their group and basket weaving. Other people around camp seem really interested in what I’m doing too—I’m a bit surprised but I guess we are all a little self-conscious about our work and are surprised when others take an interest in it. We’ll see how it goes. One of the girls works for a radio station in Montreal and wants to tag along to get some soundbites.

So the Chapman’s crew is here and so is Tom’s crew. Amazingly, it’s pretty quiet but everyone is nice and it’s mostly girls. We’re slowly getting to know everyone but it should be a nice summer.

I talked to Keith, guy who was a recruiter in Atlanta, the other day. He’s interning with Mercy Corps this summer in Kampala. When I called to see how things were going, he was sitting on the top of Garden City at this Indian Restaurant getting ready to have dinner and then go see the new Indiana Jones movie. I was so bummed after that! I have way too many movies to see when I get back.

Nothing else too terribly exciting going on. We went for a walk in the forest this morning to try to see as much as we could. We didn’t see a whole lot other than avoiding safari ants and lots of trees. We did see the black and whites and red colobus monkeys. It was worth getting up on your day off. I think we are heading into town to pick up Katrina’s friend and eat at a pork joint. I don’t really want to go anywhere but my body is craving protein—more than I’m getting from eggs. Besides, their pork here is so good.

Hope all is well and I will do a better job writing next week, I promise.

Tread Off My Tires

We started off this week trying to finish what we began: contacting LC’s and getting them to sign the letter we generated for being in the area. Making contact with the LC’s makes it easier to work with communities and it’s the polite thing to do. It just takes up so much of your time.

Monday, we were on MUBFS side of the park getting signatures and greeting LC’s. We spent over an hour and a half waiting for the LC 5 (highest LC) to sign the damn paper. I watched as all these people barged in front of us. In the end though, he was really supportive. He happened to be a former researcher who studied ecotourism and insisted that I get a copy of the district tourism report. He put in some calls to this guy, Sam. We went to the building but the document was in a locked room and so we can’t retrieve it until Wednesday (hopefully). Did some other signatures but missed a few because of market day. We called it an early day and I came home to work on some spreadsheets.

Tuesday, we went to Bigodi to work on getting signatures there. And we ended up with a lot more than we expected. Peace knows EVERYONE. It was good to see him again and Bigodi is a pretty peculiar place—a little crazy but with really nice people. There are still a few more signatures to get but we definitely made progress.

Note to self: Make sure your old pair of tennis shoes are still in good condition. I thought mine were and didn’t notice they were falling apart until I was walking and walking felt funny. My entire bottom of the shoe came off! Well, it’s hanging on the tip. When we go into Fort Portal tomorrow, Erimosi will take it to a shoe guy in the market to glue it

on. Everyone tells me that they are still a good pair and that the problem should be fixed with no problem. I’ll test it out. I may have to get Scott to bring over my other pair of old tennis shoes so that Abe can bring them. I should have just invested in a good pair before leaving but just didn’t have the time. I’ll know better for the next time.

Anyway, I ended up buying a pair of flip flops and wearing those the rest of the day. And if it couldn’t get any better with my relationship with “tread”, I blew out a tire on the vehicle on the rocky terrain. Well, it wasn’t a complete blow out. Got out to have lunch and heard this hissing noise and the tire going flat. We changed the tire and put on the other one we had. Took the flat tire back to Bigodi to get fixed and to put air in the tire we put on. Everything is cool now. The tire is fixed but needs more air. We’ll do that in town tomorrow while the tires on my feet get glued on too.

I was reunited with my 3 yr old “boyfriend” again. He’d forgotten about me and didn’t really know who this crazy white lady was. But then he started coming around and waved good bye to me and blew me a kiss. I took Peace and Erimosi back to wait on the tire and get a soda. As we were sitting there, Aaron (my little boyfriend) comes running looking for me. I see this little guy walk past the restaurant we were in—this little shadow. Then the breeze picked up the curtain and I see him staring at me. He comes in and has a sip of my soda, waves goodbye and goes back to his grandmother. Later he comes around and is in my car wanting to drive away with me and tells me that he’s going to marry me. He’s as cute as buttons!

We saw Adeeryi, the old woman that seems to have been adopted by the project. Every time she sees us, she starts to cry. She is looked after by the school children she lives next to. Someone was able to bring water to her place and now someone is building her a new house. She’s been ill and told us that she spent 3 months in the hospital this past year. We’re going to bring her some food when we go toward the end of the week. She’s such a sweet woman.

Finally, we went to take a look at a new place called Chimp’s Nest. Not expecting much because it wasn’t even thought of last year, I was blown away by what they already had. What a nice little place to stay! All locally made and tastefully done. The guy who owns it is Dutch and said that he would be happy to participate in my research. I was very happy to see that I had another interesting place to look at. I’ll show pictures when I get home. While the internet lines are faster here than they are on my office computer, I don’t want to mess with the mojo with uploading right now.

Came home just before the rains hit. We hadn’t had really any rain since I arrived—which is good for driving but not good for anything else. Our huge water container was empty from when they fished out the dead lizard and cleaned the tank. We’ve been taking water from another container and that was was getting low too. It just didn’t rain, it poured! For a straight hour it rained heavily and the wind was blowing and it was actually getting on the porches. It’s still raining now at 8:30pm but it’s getting lighter. There were puddles all over the place but when it let up, the ground soaked it up quickly. My very dirty and dusty vehicle was washed clean of the dirt. I think we got a decent amount of rain in the water container—now I hope it stops. If it keeps raining through the night, then the roads are going to be a wicked pain in the ass tomorrow.

The weather went from pretty hot to “Damn, I need a sweater,” with the incoming rains. It’s nice that these houses are pretty insulated and you can feel the degree difference when entering. I still have the tea going for more warmth.

Jolly is trying not to cook as much food but she still doesn’t quite get it. How many different carbs could you possibly have at one meal? So far for me, I’ve counted 4! I’m hoping that if she sees that I have devoured all the vegetables and left much of the carbs, she’ll get it. She brought over matoke—the potato banana that I could care less for. This is going to be a work in progress if I am to “reduce” my size.

Tom Gillespie’s students came in last night. Haven’t seen much of them but I’m sure they are good people. Tom is good people and I can’t imagine him bringing in crap. I think once they get used to the place, they will be more sociable. I hear the Chapman’s and their army of students are coming in Thursday. I may have a roommate. I’m not too excited about it but what can you do? Hopefully I’ll still have my bedroom to myself and just have to share the common area. It’ll make exercising a little more difficult but I’ll figure it out. With all these people coming in, I’m not really sure where Abe and Joel will stay. I’m not going to worry about it until closer to time. Can’t do anything about it now.

Ok, I see that I’m rambling now. I’m sure things will get more interesting next week when I actually start interviewing people and things start getting interesting around camp. I’ve been hanging out with Katrina since she’s my neighbor and she’s cool. We’ve been eating dinners together and decompressing from the day’s work. She’ll be heading out soon though. Anyway, hope everything is well on your end and I’ll report back with an update by the weekend sometime. =)

In Kibale

Nothing too exciting. We arrived on Thursday. The ride was not eventful other than dodging suicidal chickens and black & white colobus monkeys. The camp is pretty quiet. Some people were leaving and I hve a duplex to myslef for now. I thought Joel and Abe were also staying in my duplex but I guess not and it looks like I will be getting a roommate by Wednesday--hope she's cool. Anyway, my neighbor, Kat, is pretty cool. She's working on black & whites looking at some behavioral stuff. She's leaving soon--she's been here since Feb or March.
We have electriciy for now. We had a dead lizard that got into our water tank. That finally got taken care of on Friday. It's unhealthy to have a dead bloated lizard in your water tank. We've been using water from another tank. It's been dry--rained a little but no heavy downpours. This is good for driving--not so good for needing to stay clean.
I'm working on getting settled, when we get back to camp, I'll do a little more organizing and make plans for next week. I'm driving better than I had expected. It's like riding a bike and the new bumps and old bumps are suddenly becoming familiar. We'll see how long the good driving lasts--it won't be fun when it starts pouring. Erimosi and I have been riding around \trying to get signatures from Local Counsel before getting started. This is pretty necessary before doing research.
While out yesterday, we found a new lodge to talk to as well as a women's initiative that makes baskets. We will be talking with them pretty soon. They seem very excited to be talking to me.
Other than that, nothing spectacular going on. The camp will be full by midweek and we will start the actually research, hopefully by the end of the week but definitely by the following Monday. Scott called yesterday. It was really good to hear from him but like every time, I burst into tears after talking. Separation never really gets any easier for me. But the countdown starts and we'll both be busy.
Watched a movie with Kat yesterday--girlie movies are awesome when no boys are around! =)

Anyway, I wish I could share with you something amazing but it's a slow start. We're heading to Bigodi on Tuesday to take care of LC stuff and I get to see my 4-yr old "boyfriend" then. WooHoo! Take care everyone. Miss you.

Funny. . .

I'm working on a computer that actually runs FASTER than the one I have at work. I knew it! Need to get that fixed when I get back. . .

Landed in Uganda

Ok everyone, I'm here. I made it. The flight was LONG and made longer when I had to sit by strangers willing to do more than their fair share of talking. The woman on the first flight was headed to Guam to see her "successful" daughter but complained about her not-so-successful daughter who was getting arrested for pot and other things. She was a little too goofy for me--especially when she wouldn't even consider that she may have something to do with her daughter being this way. The second leg of the trip I ended up sitting next to this woman heading to Romania to do some Christian work who admitted she uses Ambien to handle the plane rides and one time took too many. I was waiting for her to take another one and not talk so I could sleep. Then she prayed for me as the plane was landing. Nice lady--just gives too much information.
Had some time in Amsterdam. Became severely discouraged when I exchanged some money for Euros and wouldn't you know that $40 only gets you 20Euros?? Ended up paying something like $14 for a crappy panini and a juice. Then when I went to sit at my gate, there were swarms of white people. There were like 4 or 5 random groups heading to Uganda to help in some way or another. One was a group of young college kids for Invisible Children, another was helping orphans somewhere, aother for AIDS and several missionary groups. One group was going to some villages out west to "evangelize" and save the villagers over there. I got lucky enough to sit just behind them on the plane and got to here them singing (not well either). Thank God they stopped when the plane started to take off. Full flights all the way.
I was rewarded though. I got through customs at record speed and my bags were some of the first to be unloaded. All made it. Ran out of there before the army of mzungus and Charles had a sign with my name on it. We got out before the swarm and into Kampala in record time. I was even able to make the last call at the restaurant--got a really good chicken in coconut sauce. =) Got some sleep, I never sleep through the nights here. Felt good this morning.
Patrick and I ran some errands--got a new stove since our stolen one looks like it never returned. We got a better one this time. Piddled around looking at some of the crafts shops but didn't want to get too carried away--but got some ideas. =) Had lunch and dropped off all the necessary paperwork that needed to go. Exchanged money. It's depressing to see that $1 gives you 1652USH and the Pound will give you 3,000-something. It blows! Anyway, went and tried to buy a propane tank and they almost didn't give it to us. They wanted us to have our own can--well we didn't and how do we get a can if we don't buy and make a deposit. We were about to leave and look someplace else but they decided to give it to us. One tank will last the whole time. And Shell is the only station that can sell. I hear Ft. Portal is out.
Anyway, we head out to Kibale tomorrow. I probably won't get to email for another few days unless we have some time in Fort Portal tomorrow. We aren't leaving until 10 so that traffic can die down. Looking foward to cooling temperatures as it is hotter than hell in Kampala. Nothing else exciting yet. Heading to my favorite Indian restuarant tonight and then it's Ugandan food from here until the end. =) Take care.

Oh my number is still the same as last year. . .I think. I didn't change SMS cards, just added minutes. So it should be 011.256.773.26.3629 for anyone wishing to call.

Talk to you soon. =)