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.
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