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. =)