HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOTTEN!!!!
the craziest thing about that ferry:
instead of docking at every stop (of which there were a few every day and night), the ferry just stopped about 1km away from shore, and about a dozen rickety little and slightly bigger boats rushed up to the side of the ferry. instant chaos. the people either paddling or driving the boats, and every ferry passenger who needs to get off at this stop, and everyone who needs to make a purchase to the boat, is yelling at the top of their lungs. i'm assuming they were yelling things like, "catch this rope!!!!" "take my baby!!!" "come on this boat!!!" "i need three dozen pineapples!!!"
and suddenly there are people on the second deck holding the little boats to the ferry with ropes, people are scrambling out of the first-deck windows onto the boats, throwing their suitcases and bags, passing their babies to strangers, breastfeeding while clambering down.....
the funny thing is that it simply did not get old. a few times a day, and it was the highlight of every few hours. :D
also, at one stop Gil decided to jump off the ferry. from the third deck, so a good three or four stories from water level. and he swam around for a bit before joining the boat-loading chaos. hahaha, one of the boatmen tried to make him pay for climbing onto his boat, so gil just looked at him like, "does it look like i have money on me?!" .... nope.
and two stops later sean decides to do the same. crazy folk. and the people on the boats seemed to be used to this kind of insane muzungu behavious... they must have seen it before, i guess. :D
they didn't even glance twice at sean when he was in the water, and when he got onto a boat, they were 100% business... handing him bags to pass to other boats...
ok, now -actually- on to zambia:
after having travelled half of TZ's north-south distance on the ferry, we touched down at yet another dusty lake-side town called Mpulungu.
OH YEAH!!!!
interjection! when we got onto the ferry, our plan was to get off the ferry at the last stop in TZ, and take buses from there to Malawi. the plans changed when Gil and Ben convinced us that we -had- to go to zambia because livingston was the shit and we -had- to go to zimbabwe to see the great zimbabwean ruins and and and and....
so we just kind of... stayed on the MV Liemba for another stop until we were in zambia.
okay, so now in mpulungu, zambia. our plan is to take the next bus to Lusaka, if one exists, or take it in stages depending on how far a bus will take us, or take a bus to the train station and see what happens from there. so we check in to zambia (which involves an extensive search of our bags for drugs..) and leave the ferry terminal, and this guy walks up to us and asks us if we're going to Lusaka. HOW DID HE KNOW?!?! maybe everyone getting off that ferry is going straight there.... who knows. so he set us up with a conductor (buses have both a driver and conductor, who takes care of selling tickets and loading bags onto the bus and dealing with everyone's shyte).
the bus doesn't leave for another nine hours, so we go on yet another epic search for a place that serves beans. two hours after walking down -every- street in the town, we find a little spot with picnic tables selling the best meal EVEr! chipsy maya. basically an omelet with fries in it (as if the fries are onions or tomatoes or something).
by the way, i have a bum now. and hips. i'm proud of my africa-pounds, esp since they'll double as a winter jacket pretty soon.
at a bar in mpulungu later, we end up playing cards to kill time, and get joined by six local folk, three of whom i'm fairly sure were.... ehum... ladies of the night. it was good times, because they taught us this absolutely ridiculous game that involves no strategy whatsoever, and as soon as anyone does anything, everyone yells "YOU ARE THE WINNER!!!!!" and everyone gets high-fives. it sort of became the joke of the trip with Ben and Gil and Sean and I. if any of us did something a little stupid, we'd yell "you are the winner" and have a round of high fives. :S
i've got to say, zambia was probably the most hillarious place we went. the only downside to the country is that transportation is hella expensive. and it's a huge ass country. so from mpulungu we went to lusaka, the capital, and were horribly depressed at how western the city was, but took advantage of the movie theatre to watch the latest james bond movie... is it james bond? that guy who has gadgets and fucks every woman who has a role in the movie, except his boss? in this flick, though, he barely had any gadgets, to sean's utter dissapointment. but it was pretty chill nevertheless. in every country we sort of have an obligatory all-business day when we check out the internet, a bank, a forex, and stock up on food.
the train
after a few days in lusaka, we jumped onto a train to livingston, which was the ultimate destination of the trip. so within a week we made it from the far north of zambia to the far south.
the train was a... supposed to be twelve but turned into 16 hours... trip to remember. it had no classes - everyone just slept on benches, which were surprisingly comfortable. and i think we made the better choice by taking this train, even though the bus was only 6hrs. the bus is 30,000Zambian Kwatcha and the train is 12,000. so $30 vs $12.
and mum you'll hate to hear this, but we found a spot ont he train where we could smoke. as soon as we were on the train, the staff brought us back to the staff car ("the train is unsafe, people will steal while you sleep"), where people who didn't have tickets were stored until the next stop to be dealth with by the local authorities (probably put in jail for a bit, or bribe their way out). and the staff car just happened to be at the very back of the train, so we could sneak to a little back spot, open the doors, and smoke with our feet dangling over the tracks.
livingston
in short, i think everyone should stay a jollyboys, beautiful lodge, awesome croud, fab.
111m bungee, 120m crater above the zambezi
the bridge you jump from is in no-man's land between zambia and zimbabwe. luckily, you don't have to pay to get back into zambia, you just get a piece of paper and walk out.
it's hillarious, because they set it up so that there's absolutely no way that you can back out of the jump. because before you see the bridge, you go to this little covered desk where you pay and sign a paper that basically says, "this is non-refundable," and then go for the jump. so as we're paying, i'm realizing that... if i don't jump, i've wasted a good chunck of money.
hahahaha, so you get to the middle of the bridge, and by this point your heart is racing, you're freaking out, and the staff there is welcoming you, explaining that this is safe, there's a 100% success rate, and they start strapping you in. they look at the numbers on your wrist (the people at the desk weigh you and write it on you) and get the appropriate bungee cord. while they're putting your harnesses and ropes on, they're telling you that this one can hold 5tons, this one can hold 6. then they start strapping sean and i to each other (we decided to go in tandum). don't worry, you're attached at three points, the bungee cord ataches at your feet and if that breaks then it will swing you right side up and you'll be attached at the chest, and two to of you are attached to each other at five points. blah blah blah. and they sit you down and start getting your feet prepped. two folded towels wrapped around each ankle, and a thing that looks like a dog leash (this can hold 5tons) wrapped around your ankles, and this is what they atach the bungee cord to.
the whole time sean and i are absolutely petrified. looking at the towels and the dog leash and the eetsy ropes, and the way the bungee cord is atached to the bridge by a little rope....
they explain to you that they will be counting "FIVE FOUR THREE TWO ONE BUNGEEEEEE4"
and on one you bend your legs, and on bungee you jump. and suddenly we're at the edge, i'm freaking out, sean's looking pale, they're trying to make us hold on to each other, which we're glad to do do in this situation. every time one of us looks down they tell us to look to the horizon. and they're still explaining the ropes and you're safe and five tons this and six tons that and keep your arms out and FIVE FOUR THREE TWO ONE
and suddenly you realize that, shit they pushed us, and SHIT THE TREES ARE RUSHING BY AND WE HAVE 100M TO FALL AND
your mind goes blank. sean said later that the whole fall i was making a suppressed "nnnnnnngggggggggg" kind of sound. and we kept looking at each other like, "what the hell are we doing, this is not the variety of thing that by brain is comfortable with." and your brain really does fully shut off. it's like, "i don't know how to deal with this, so you're going to start thinking that these trees rushing by are quite pretty, and the water rushing towards your face is quite interesting, and this person next to you seems to be screaming.... and so are you"
and that moment you realize that you're screaming is the moment you begin to think that this is just fucking dandy, and you start to laugh your ass off. probably purely in hysterics.
and of course all of this happens within 10 seconds (9.8m/s/s???), and by the end of it you start to feel the rope tightenning on your ankles and you're fully upside down and your eyeballs kind of hurt. and once again sean and i look at each other and laugh like there's something seriously hillarious about this situation, being thrust off a bridge and then right back up at it and bouncing around upside down holding onto each other, feeling the rope tugging at your ankles and getting tighter and tighter, and our faces are turning bright red, tears being forced out of our eyes,
if i had the choice, i would do it again.
12.31.2008
12.30.2008
TZ
we moved on from there to Tanzania. we basically went down the west of tanzania, half on shyte roads, and half on a ferry. Nyakanazi was a piece of shit town that surprisingly had great beans, tea that tasted JUST like froot loops, and really pleasant hotels (which tanzanians call "guestis"). this was my second ever basin wash, which is surprisingly not that difficult to get used to. Heh, the best thing about this town though is that it illustrated to me the extent to which everyone knows everything that's happening in the town. we told one person that we wished to travel on to kigoma the following day, and the next day when we came out of our guesti, the first person who saw us said, "you are travelling to kigoma, i will take you to the stage." (people call bus stops "stages")
On to Kigoma. a town on the shore of Lake Tangyinika, second largest lake in africa (after lake victoria). it's a long very thin lake that stretches north-south, bordering the DRC to the west, TZ to the east, and barely touches Burundi at the north and Zambia at the south.
So we took advantage of the fact that we could get to zambia via the lake.
but before i get to the ferry, i have two short notes about Kigoma. first off, it's a dusty, boring, yet pleasant town. sean and i were there for... i think four days. so it's the first place we lingered. and not because the place kicked ass, but because the ferry that usually runs on wednesdays now runs on saturdays, and every second week is taken by the UN to repatriate DRC refugees. so we wandered Kigoma until we found the one spot along the shore where we could swim. we had lots of fun at this place, because they served fanta (my fave) and coke (sean's), and it was almost always populated with a bunch of kids who wanted to have water-fights with us. sean and i figured out how he could swim under me and put me on his shoulders, and suddenly everyone around was attempting to jump UP onto each others' shounders.... unsuccessfully mostly. a blast. we had ourselves a good 45 minute walk in the POURING rain one day, and made absolute mzungu fools of ourselves, jumping in puddles and trying to make the best of the fact that we were indeed frickin freezing and both had to pee REAL bad.
the ferry.
that's a story in itself. we boarded on saturday after sunset, and arrived on monday morning. so two nights and only one full day on the ferry. there are a few very notable things that happened on our few days there. but the best things were meeting fellow travelers. first class (the only real option --- third class is the hull, crammed with hundreds of people with nowhere to lie down) is on the top level of the boat, and populated by both rich ass mzungus and rich ass locals. most people use the boat to bring pineapples and mekene (little eety beetsy fishes) to zambia and down the coast of TZ. so we met a few guys:
Carel: South African guy, real cool, well travelled, packed full to the brim with good stories.
Gil: Israeli, very cool aswell (who am i kidding, they were all incredibly cool), who'd been travelling the dark continent for six months at this point.
Ben: Australian guy, very layed back, who'd been in africa for four months, i think.
both gil and ben joined is for a good chunck of time after the ferry, all the way to livingston for gil, and zimbabwe for ben. they were both reaching the end of their travels, which made their paces and sean+i's very compatible (we all wanted to see as much as possible in the shortes period of time possible).
so the bunch of us discovered this spot at the back of the ferry that wasn't fenced in, about three stories above water level (sorry mom, sometimes you have to put yourself in harm's way to avoid serious clausterphobia). so we sat there most of the days and enjoyed each others' company.
overall, the experience in TZ was pretty damn good, but it was hella difficult to find places who served beans (the only local dish that vegans can eat). English is very common in most of the palces we went, but in western tanzania, it was difficult.... OHMANIIHAVETOIPEEEE......
BRB111111
On to Kigoma. a town on the shore of Lake Tangyinika, second largest lake in africa (after lake victoria). it's a long very thin lake that stretches north-south, bordering the DRC to the west, TZ to the east, and barely touches Burundi at the north and Zambia at the south.
So we took advantage of the fact that we could get to zambia via the lake.
but before i get to the ferry, i have two short notes about Kigoma. first off, it's a dusty, boring, yet pleasant town. sean and i were there for... i think four days. so it's the first place we lingered. and not because the place kicked ass, but because the ferry that usually runs on wednesdays now runs on saturdays, and every second week is taken by the UN to repatriate DRC refugees. so we wandered Kigoma until we found the one spot along the shore where we could swim. we had lots of fun at this place, because they served fanta (my fave) and coke (sean's), and it was almost always populated with a bunch of kids who wanted to have water-fights with us. sean and i figured out how he could swim under me and put me on his shoulders, and suddenly everyone around was attempting to jump UP onto each others' shounders.... unsuccessfully mostly. a blast. we had ourselves a good 45 minute walk in the POURING rain one day, and made absolute mzungu fools of ourselves, jumping in puddles and trying to make the best of the fact that we were indeed frickin freezing and both had to pee REAL bad.
the ferry.
that's a story in itself. we boarded on saturday after sunset, and arrived on monday morning. so two nights and only one full day on the ferry. there are a few very notable things that happened on our few days there. but the best things were meeting fellow travelers. first class (the only real option --- third class is the hull, crammed with hundreds of people with nowhere to lie down) is on the top level of the boat, and populated by both rich ass mzungus and rich ass locals. most people use the boat to bring pineapples and mekene (little eety beetsy fishes) to zambia and down the coast of TZ. so we met a few guys:
Carel: South African guy, real cool, well travelled, packed full to the brim with good stories.
Gil: Israeli, very cool aswell (who am i kidding, they were all incredibly cool), who'd been travelling the dark continent for six months at this point.
Ben: Australian guy, very layed back, who'd been in africa for four months, i think.
both gil and ben joined is for a good chunck of time after the ferry, all the way to livingston for gil, and zimbabwe for ben. they were both reaching the end of their travels, which made their paces and sean+i's very compatible (we all wanted to see as much as possible in the shortes period of time possible).
so the bunch of us discovered this spot at the back of the ferry that wasn't fenced in, about three stories above water level (sorry mom, sometimes you have to put yourself in harm's way to avoid serious clausterphobia). so we sat there most of the days and enjoyed each others' company.
overall, the experience in TZ was pretty damn good, but it was hella difficult to find places who served beans (the only local dish that vegans can eat). English is very common in most of the palces we went, but in western tanzania, it was difficult.... OHMANIIHAVETOIPEEEE......
BRB111111
winter, here i come!!!
i have got to start posting stories about our adventures.
in short, there are a few epic things that simply cannot go unsaid. the ferry on lake tanginyika, the 110m bunjee jump into a gorge in no-man's land bt zambia and zimbabwe, some chiller towns like Nkhata Bay, Kigoma, and Nyakanazi. stories are coming, guys!!! esp now that sean is spending hours in internet caffees to apply for jobs in Korea, i'll have tons of internet time to bore everyone with africa!!!!!!! :D:D:D:D:d ...... :P
man, we started off with the hills of Rwanda, which are undoubtedly a little bit more than "hills", they're fucking huge ass ridiculous mountains with winding roads and beautiful houses (in african standards... they have walls that aren't made of crumbling mud), terraced agriculture.....
we only spent one day in Rwanda, which was enough to figure out that neither english nor my french were understandable to anyone. when it came to mimming picking up food from a plate (my hand), and putting it towards my mouth.... simply to find a place to eat... have food... manger... j'ai faim... we want to purchase food..........
the language barrier was a bit much. but hey, to all my friends who learned french in english schools, you'll do just dandy in this country. everyone understood sean's broken school-french better than my attempt at not sounding quebecois. :S
in short, there are a few epic things that simply cannot go unsaid. the ferry on lake tanginyika, the 110m bunjee jump into a gorge in no-man's land bt zambia and zimbabwe, some chiller towns like Nkhata Bay, Kigoma, and Nyakanazi. stories are coming, guys!!! esp now that sean is spending hours in internet caffees to apply for jobs in Korea, i'll have tons of internet time to bore everyone with africa!!!!!!! :D:D:D:D:d ...... :P
man, we started off with the hills of Rwanda, which are undoubtedly a little bit more than "hills", they're fucking huge ass ridiculous mountains with winding roads and beautiful houses (in african standards... they have walls that aren't made of crumbling mud), terraced agriculture.....
we only spent one day in Rwanda, which was enough to figure out that neither english nor my french were understandable to anyone. when it came to mimming picking up food from a plate (my hand), and putting it towards my mouth.... simply to find a place to eat... have food... manger... j'ai faim... we want to purchase food..........
the language barrier was a bit much. but hey, to all my friends who learned french in english schools, you'll do just dandy in this country. everyone understood sean's broken school-french better than my attempt at not sounding quebecois. :S
11.07.2008
restaurant-bar
briefly, two new things:
sean and i just organized a fund-raising event, held on Oct25th,. it was a fashion show..
don't worry, the nature of the event was out of our control. it's ridiculous that it was a fashion show, but either way, the event was held at Ginger on the Nile. and managed to raise UGX700,000. which is ~$500 for Students Partnership Worldwide. look it up, it's a neat NGO.
now we work for the Restaurant where it was held, because the manager of both the event and the restaurant left. so the two owners grabbed sean and i and we're stuck.
not to say that we're truly stuck. i was starting to feel very stuck at the place, and we're going to reassess our employment soon. well, as soon as we get back from a trip. we're going to check out Kigali, Rwanda. and spend most of our time around Tanzania. starting in Kigoma, a small town along the shores of Lake Tanginyika, and taking a train ride accoss the country to Dar Es Salaam, then a fairy to the island of Zanzibar. the final destination is the island, which has "stown town" at its capital, and beaches all over the place. then, back home via kenya. sean has friends in both kampala and kigali. mum hooked us up with a family friend in Dar. we have a couch surfer in kenya, and wil hopefuly find more in kigoma. i doubt we'll have much luck in zanzibar, because it's mostly a tourist destination. but here's hoping.
i'm secretly hoping that we'll be able to change our hours at ginger when we get back. because as is, we're working from 10am to 11pm six days a week. so we figure that when one of the owners gets back from the UK, we'll be able to do a standard 8hr shift, five days a week. for the sake of remaining sane, and enjoying our time here.
i think that's all for today. uganda is beautiful as ever. i'm dreading winter more and more as canada gets colder and dips below zero. it stil rains every night here, which is the most pleasant way to enjoy a rainy season. i had no idea it would be this way.
ps, this keyboard for some reason can't type double-letters. so putting those two t's in the word "letter", wasn't as easy as it should have been. i can't even back-space twice. or make two periods or spaces in a row.
i'm off!
sean and i just organized a fund-raising event, held on Oct25th,. it was a fashion show..
don't worry, the nature of the event was out of our control. it's ridiculous that it was a fashion show, but either way, the event was held at Ginger on the Nile. and managed to raise UGX700,000. which is ~$500 for Students Partnership Worldwide. look it up, it's a neat NGO.
now we work for the Restaurant where it was held, because the manager of both the event and the restaurant left. so the two owners grabbed sean and i and we're stuck.
not to say that we're truly stuck. i was starting to feel very stuck at the place, and we're going to reassess our employment soon. well, as soon as we get back from a trip. we're going to check out Kigali, Rwanda. and spend most of our time around Tanzania. starting in Kigoma, a small town along the shores of Lake Tanginyika, and taking a train ride accoss the country to Dar Es Salaam, then a fairy to the island of Zanzibar. the final destination is the island, which has "stown town" at its capital, and beaches all over the place. then, back home via kenya. sean has friends in both kampala and kigali. mum hooked us up with a family friend in Dar. we have a couch surfer in kenya, and wil hopefuly find more in kigoma. i doubt we'll have much luck in zanzibar, because it's mostly a tourist destination. but here's hoping.
i'm secretly hoping that we'll be able to change our hours at ginger when we get back. because as is, we're working from 10am to 11pm six days a week. so we figure that when one of the owners gets back from the UK, we'll be able to do a standard 8hr shift, five days a week. for the sake of remaining sane, and enjoying our time here.
i think that's all for today. uganda is beautiful as ever. i'm dreading winter more and more as canada gets colder and dips below zero. it stil rains every night here, which is the most pleasant way to enjoy a rainy season. i had no idea it would be this way.
ps, this keyboard for some reason can't type double-letters. so putting those two t's in the word "letter", wasn't as easy as it should have been. i can't even back-space twice. or make two periods or spaces in a row.
i'm off!
10.16.2008
the jogs
i've decided that our roommate is the shit. she's gotten sean and i into eating salads all the time, and into jogging.
so after three years of not jogging for sean, and one year for me, we're on the run. so sean and i went three days ago, and were joined by six ugandan kids. they taught us some luganda words (sean knows mostly lusoga), and kept up with us for the entire ~3km's. heh, they were absolutely hillarious! they were running backwards, racing each other, hitting their heels with their hands,... almost laughing at us for being so tired, and definitely getting a kick out of us.
two days ago erica and i went, and we had seven kids with us. they jogged us all the way home, and asked us if we were going again. i said, yeah!!! six oclock!!! see you then!
and yesterday sean and i were just chilling at home, him with a cough, so we decided to stay home and drink orange juice (and made weird-ass chappati pizza). and they rang our doorbell! even though i'd decided not to run, i figured... hey, these guys are good motivation... might aswell, right? so there were three kids at the door. and another three hiding around the corner in the stairs. and then another four just outside with the eskari (the guard outside our appartment building). we picked up another few along the way, which made me feel an awful lot like that running guy with cancer.... terry fox. by the end of the run, about4km's later, i had 14 kids with me. and -man- are they ever pestistant. and they're not the best-fed kids either. they just have tons of energy.
other than running around, not too much is new here. we're chilling.
sean decided to apply for a piece-of-shit job at a shitty NGO, just for the hell of it. well, for the hell of having an actual big-boy adult job on his resume. our roommate works at this NGO right now, and comes home with a good mouthfull about her boss, who would become sean's coworker... i think. so he'd be working with a douche, basically. but he's got confidence in his ability to deal with bullshit (thinking of the water-mamas at BH, i kinda believe him :S). and job opportunities here are few and far inbetween.
so i'm hoping that he doesn't get the job, because it's just downright shitty... but hoping that he does, because the experience is pretty handsome on paper.
anyways. at this point i'm just killing time on crackbook while sean skypes with his dad. i'm entirely out of things to say.
lots of love :D
so after three years of not jogging for sean, and one year for me, we're on the run. so sean and i went three days ago, and were joined by six ugandan kids. they taught us some luganda words (sean knows mostly lusoga), and kept up with us for the entire ~3km's. heh, they were absolutely hillarious! they were running backwards, racing each other, hitting their heels with their hands,... almost laughing at us for being so tired, and definitely getting a kick out of us.
two days ago erica and i went, and we had seven kids with us. they jogged us all the way home, and asked us if we were going again. i said, yeah!!! six oclock!!! see you then!
and yesterday sean and i were just chilling at home, him with a cough, so we decided to stay home and drink orange juice (and made weird-ass chappati pizza). and they rang our doorbell! even though i'd decided not to run, i figured... hey, these guys are good motivation... might aswell, right? so there were three kids at the door. and another three hiding around the corner in the stairs. and then another four just outside with the eskari (the guard outside our appartment building). we picked up another few along the way, which made me feel an awful lot like that running guy with cancer.... terry fox. by the end of the run, about4km's later, i had 14 kids with me. and -man- are they ever pestistant. and they're not the best-fed kids either. they just have tons of energy.
other than running around, not too much is new here. we're chilling.
sean decided to apply for a piece-of-shit job at a shitty NGO, just for the hell of it. well, for the hell of having an actual big-boy adult job on his resume. our roommate works at this NGO right now, and comes home with a good mouthfull about her boss, who would become sean's coworker... i think. so he'd be working with a douche, basically. but he's got confidence in his ability to deal with bullshit (thinking of the water-mamas at BH, i kinda believe him :S). and job opportunities here are few and far inbetween.
so i'm hoping that he doesn't get the job, because it's just downright shitty... but hoping that he does, because the experience is pretty handsome on paper.
anyways. at this point i'm just killing time on crackbook while sean skypes with his dad. i'm entirely out of things to say.
lots of love :D
10.02.2008
poop
a few too many mouthfuls of Nile water, and both sean and i had a case of the shits yesterday. so, we're going to the school for the P6's today instead of yesterday.
i'm attempting to upload pictures to facebook right now, but the computer at this internet cafe doesn't have the right plug-in. so i'm using the five-pictures-at-a-time version of the application. pfltth...
we'll see if any of these pictures make their way onto the internets. it might end up being one at a time...
i'm attempting to upload pictures to facebook right now, but the computer at this internet cafe doesn't have the right plug-in. so i'm using the five-pictures-at-a-time version of the application. pfltth...
we'll see if any of these pictures make their way onto the internets. it might end up being one at a time...
10.01.2008
monday monday!
we had our first day with the kids on monday. it was pretty kick-ass :D! all we did is play two games with the P7's. they're the smallest class, and the one with the best english, so it was pretty easy to get along with them. the first game was one i picked up at camp, and we used it to get to know our kids and learn their names. we got them to throw my hacky-sack around, and the thrower had to say the name of the catcher, and say something they liked about them. we were surprized by how easily they complimented each other, the vocabulary they used, and the fact that the boys didn't mind throwing to the girls and vise versa. cool.
then we played red rover. for hours. we had such a good time with that one. one thing that i find so charming about kids here is that they get so engaged with games, and their teachers don't mind being thrown to the ground. they were competitive in a playful way. by the end of the day, i think sean and i somewhat knew everyone's names, and had a feel for most of their characters. we're mostly happy about how easily they warmed up to us, and how honest they were.
on a very different note, yesterday sean and i went white-water rafting. it's an entire day thing,.. you show up at backpacker's for breakfast, get a run-down of what the day is going to look like, and get fitted with lifejackets and helmets. then jump on a "bus" (the kinds of trucks they use to cart soldiers around... pretty much a trailer with a metal frame to hold onto). so we split up into groups, thank god, that suited us well. on our raft there was sean and i, a scottish guy, an italian guy, and a couple of girls, one from the UK and one scottish. on the other raft: a group of obnoxiously talkative and loud,... incredibly typical americans tourists.
we went through 11 rapids, most of them seperated by a couple of kilometers of still water. they conveniently start off easy and end with the hardest. so for the first one, we flipped over the raft, practiced the safe way of floating through a rapid without the raft (they call it the crusifix, you go down feet first with your arms in an X on your chest), and then after the rapid we practiced getting back on.
our raft, for some reason, mastered fucking up incredibly easy rapids (we flipped at the grade 2.5 rapid, and not at the grade 5 ones :S). at one of the rapids i got the shit scared out of me. well, at all of them, but particularly one. it was a grade4 rapid, and i got thrown off the raft, and somehow ended up far below the surface, with no idea of which way was up... i remembered, though, hearing the instructions, "when you're underwater, don't move or try to swim, just let the lifejacket bring you back to the surface." but shit! when you're down there, and you don't see people, or the raft, or the sky, you downright panic. regardless of the instructions i knew, i kinda tried to swim for what i thought was up, which i still don't know if it was up, and eventually gave up and let my lifejacket save me.
i showed up at the surface way after i ran our of breath. at took a good gasp when i got up. and turned out to be right in a standing wave. right next to the upside down raft.
the way they set it up is that for every raft there's a handful of kayakers who are there to rescue you. because everytime the rafts flip, a decent number of people end up pretty far away from it. and swimming in the Nile's current is pretty much useless. one thing that i still don't get about these kayakers is that as soon as you get to the surface of the water, one of them is -right- next to you. it's like they know exactly where everyone is going to show up. the same guy saved me three times.... we got to know each other through our chatting while he was carrying my back to the raft...
you should have seen, though, the skills of the guides and the kayakers. they know every nook and cranny of the Nile for a stretch of like 20km. the way the kayakers skillfully work the waves is absolutely insane. and the instructions of the guides are pretty impecable. the only instructions we had to remember were, "FORWARD!!!" "FORWARD HARD!!!" "GET DOWN, GET DOWN, GET DOWN!!!!" and "LEAN IN!!!"
my personal favorite was "foward hard" when we were trying to gain momentum climbing into a huge ass wave. your paddles barely reach the water, and you're looking up at this 8ft wave, thinking, "shit, when is he going to yell at us to get down so that i can hold on for dear life!!!"
Silverback, the best rapid we hit, had one huge dip, and then three ~7ft standing waves. and we miraculously made it through without flipping. man, if anything fosters team spirit, it's making it through something like that.
alright, enough about rafting. we didn't bring a camera to that bc it's not waterproof, but i'm going to bring the camera to this internet cafe next time we come, and put some pictures on facebook.
we're thinking of playing the Human Knot game with the P6's today. and the radar game. let me know if you can think of any games we should play with the P5's tomorrow.
i think that's all i wanted to say today..
see ya!
then we played red rover. for hours. we had such a good time with that one. one thing that i find so charming about kids here is that they get so engaged with games, and their teachers don't mind being thrown to the ground. they were competitive in a playful way. by the end of the day, i think sean and i somewhat knew everyone's names, and had a feel for most of their characters. we're mostly happy about how easily they warmed up to us, and how honest they were.
on a very different note, yesterday sean and i went white-water rafting. it's an entire day thing,.. you show up at backpacker's for breakfast, get a run-down of what the day is going to look like, and get fitted with lifejackets and helmets. then jump on a "bus" (the kinds of trucks they use to cart soldiers around... pretty much a trailer with a metal frame to hold onto). so we split up into groups, thank god, that suited us well. on our raft there was sean and i, a scottish guy, an italian guy, and a couple of girls, one from the UK and one scottish. on the other raft: a group of obnoxiously talkative and loud,... incredibly typical americans tourists.
we went through 11 rapids, most of them seperated by a couple of kilometers of still water. they conveniently start off easy and end with the hardest. so for the first one, we flipped over the raft, practiced the safe way of floating through a rapid without the raft (they call it the crusifix, you go down feet first with your arms in an X on your chest), and then after the rapid we practiced getting back on.
our raft, for some reason, mastered fucking up incredibly easy rapids (we flipped at the grade 2.5 rapid, and not at the grade 5 ones :S). at one of the rapids i got the shit scared out of me. well, at all of them, but particularly one. it was a grade4 rapid, and i got thrown off the raft, and somehow ended up far below the surface, with no idea of which way was up... i remembered, though, hearing the instructions, "when you're underwater, don't move or try to swim, just let the lifejacket bring you back to the surface." but shit! when you're down there, and you don't see people, or the raft, or the sky, you downright panic. regardless of the instructions i knew, i kinda tried to swim for what i thought was up, which i still don't know if it was up, and eventually gave up and let my lifejacket save me.
i showed up at the surface way after i ran our of breath. at took a good gasp when i got up. and turned out to be right in a standing wave. right next to the upside down raft.
the way they set it up is that for every raft there's a handful of kayakers who are there to rescue you. because everytime the rafts flip, a decent number of people end up pretty far away from it. and swimming in the Nile's current is pretty much useless. one thing that i still don't get about these kayakers is that as soon as you get to the surface of the water, one of them is -right- next to you. it's like they know exactly where everyone is going to show up. the same guy saved me three times.... we got to know each other through our chatting while he was carrying my back to the raft...
you should have seen, though, the skills of the guides and the kayakers. they know every nook and cranny of the Nile for a stretch of like 20km. the way the kayakers skillfully work the waves is absolutely insane. and the instructions of the guides are pretty impecable. the only instructions we had to remember were, "FORWARD!!!" "FORWARD HARD!!!" "GET DOWN, GET DOWN, GET DOWN!!!!" and "LEAN IN!!!"
my personal favorite was "foward hard" when we were trying to gain momentum climbing into a huge ass wave. your paddles barely reach the water, and you're looking up at this 8ft wave, thinking, "shit, when is he going to yell at us to get down so that i can hold on for dear life!!!"
Silverback, the best rapid we hit, had one huge dip, and then three ~7ft standing waves. and we miraculously made it through without flipping. man, if anything fosters team spirit, it's making it through something like that.
alright, enough about rafting. we didn't bring a camera to that bc it's not waterproof, but i'm going to bring the camera to this internet cafe next time we come, and put some pictures on facebook.
we're thinking of playing the Human Knot game with the P6's today. and the radar game. let me know if you can think of any games we should play with the P5's tomorrow.
i think that's all i wanted to say today..
see ya!
9.28.2008
bloggidy blog blog bl
this town is deserted on sundays. church here isn't just a two-hour deal on sundays, it goes on all day. especially in the villages, it's an all-day event. most of the shops are closed, as are many of the internet cafes. a lot of the store-fronts here are the income-generating side of christian projects. cool idea, but it sucks on sundays.
has bridgehead moved yet? i'm kinda nervous about coming back to a brand new bridgehead. and hoping, fingers super crossed, that i'll still know most of the staff. anthony, megan, jjess, phil, bryce, mark, jamie.... you'd better still all be there. well, unless you go insane, jamie. in which case we all understand. without the insanity, though, you have no excuse. :P
ever since i had that nightmare, i'm scared shitless of what it's going to be like to go back home. i'm sure i'll adjust. but i'm starting to understand that the culture shock of coming back home might be a lot more difficult than the one you get leaving home....
christine, i wanted to tell you all about our trip to visit derrick. as much as sean and i wanted to just hang out with derrick and his grandmother, we spent the entire day either travelling (on the bus or in WV's car), or talking to WV people. the drive into kampala was... probably about as bad as trying to get into toronto during rush hour. but it's always rush hour in kampala. so we woke up at 6am, and didn't get into town until 9am. there we met with a few World Vision people at their office, who briefed us on the project that derrick is in, and on how to behave while we're there (basically, wear appropriate clothing, and don't sexually abuse the child, and don't take pictures without their guardian's consent). from kampala, we drove to derrick's town, about another two hours away, and talked there with the people working on the project.
there are about 3000 sponsors for that area. all of their money doesn't go straight to the children, but goes to providing schools, shelters for people who don't have them, and a community of people who provide AIDS/HIV knowledge. i'm not sure about this one, i'll have to check with sean, but i think they also provide family's with potential sources of income. derrick has three goats, a few coffee plants, and some banana trees. overall, i think that their goal is to provide communities with all the means to have more productive and successful lives. encouraging them to make money, go to school, eat proper meals, and be educated in HIV/AIDS.
our visit with derrick himself was very brief, only fifteen minutes perhaps. it was difficult speaking with him and gramma (we had three WV people translating for us), because of the language barrier, and because derrick was so shy. other kids of his age have very functional english, and he seemed to understand what we were saying, but mostly just seemed shocked at our presence. christine, you should have seen how happy gramma was to see us! even though she couldn't understand us, she seemed very touched by the visit. that's one of the things volunteers and visitors like so much about uganda... they people here have a very good relationship with visitors. people contiually tell us that our presence makes them feel hopeful, that they're so happy to have us here, that our help is very welcome...
so, mostly, we drank tea, ate meals with, and spoke with the WV folk. they seem to have a pretty solid way of putting their projects together. sean might have something different to say on that front, but he's more educated and more critical about projects around here.
oh yeah, i don't know if i mentioned this in a previous post, but sean and i are going to be teaching lifeskills to the P5-P7. we tested their basic knowledge of HIV/AIDS on friday, took the anonymous tests home and analyzed them. this coming week we're just going to play games with the kids, ice-breakers and stuff, and get to know them. monday with the P7, tuesday P6, wednesday P5. we've decided that we're going to focus on basic AIDS knowledge with the P5 level. the older grades already have basic knowledge of the disease (unlike the P5, they don't think that you can get AIDS by playing with or sharing clothes with an infected person). so with P6+7 we're going to focus more on self esteem, confidence, and especially trying to break down the stigma surrounding infected people. of the ~100 tests we handed out, only two kids said that someone with AIDS is not different from themselves. and about 2/3 said that they have seen people being treated poorly because of their disease.
anyways... i should be off. i spent 20 minutes waiting for this page to load, so i've been here fourty minutes now. it gets expensive after a while.
bye now!!
wish us luck with the school!
has bridgehead moved yet? i'm kinda nervous about coming back to a brand new bridgehead. and hoping, fingers super crossed, that i'll still know most of the staff. anthony, megan, jjess, phil, bryce, mark, jamie.... you'd better still all be there. well, unless you go insane, jamie. in which case we all understand. without the insanity, though, you have no excuse. :P
ever since i had that nightmare, i'm scared shitless of what it's going to be like to go back home. i'm sure i'll adjust. but i'm starting to understand that the culture shock of coming back home might be a lot more difficult than the one you get leaving home....
christine, i wanted to tell you all about our trip to visit derrick. as much as sean and i wanted to just hang out with derrick and his grandmother, we spent the entire day either travelling (on the bus or in WV's car), or talking to WV people. the drive into kampala was... probably about as bad as trying to get into toronto during rush hour. but it's always rush hour in kampala. so we woke up at 6am, and didn't get into town until 9am. there we met with a few World Vision people at their office, who briefed us on the project that derrick is in, and on how to behave while we're there (basically, wear appropriate clothing, and don't sexually abuse the child, and don't take pictures without their guardian's consent). from kampala, we drove to derrick's town, about another two hours away, and talked there with the people working on the project.
there are about 3000 sponsors for that area. all of their money doesn't go straight to the children, but goes to providing schools, shelters for people who don't have them, and a community of people who provide AIDS/HIV knowledge. i'm not sure about this one, i'll have to check with sean, but i think they also provide family's with potential sources of income. derrick has three goats, a few coffee plants, and some banana trees. overall, i think that their goal is to provide communities with all the means to have more productive and successful lives. encouraging them to make money, go to school, eat proper meals, and be educated in HIV/AIDS.
our visit with derrick himself was very brief, only fifteen minutes perhaps. it was difficult speaking with him and gramma (we had three WV people translating for us), because of the language barrier, and because derrick was so shy. other kids of his age have very functional english, and he seemed to understand what we were saying, but mostly just seemed shocked at our presence. christine, you should have seen how happy gramma was to see us! even though she couldn't understand us, she seemed very touched by the visit. that's one of the things volunteers and visitors like so much about uganda... they people here have a very good relationship with visitors. people contiually tell us that our presence makes them feel hopeful, that they're so happy to have us here, that our help is very welcome...
so, mostly, we drank tea, ate meals with, and spoke with the WV folk. they seem to have a pretty solid way of putting their projects together. sean might have something different to say on that front, but he's more educated and more critical about projects around here.
oh yeah, i don't know if i mentioned this in a previous post, but sean and i are going to be teaching lifeskills to the P5-P7. we tested their basic knowledge of HIV/AIDS on friday, took the anonymous tests home and analyzed them. this coming week we're just going to play games with the kids, ice-breakers and stuff, and get to know them. monday with the P7, tuesday P6, wednesday P5. we've decided that we're going to focus on basic AIDS knowledge with the P5 level. the older grades already have basic knowledge of the disease (unlike the P5, they don't think that you can get AIDS by playing with or sharing clothes with an infected person). so with P6+7 we're going to focus more on self esteem, confidence, and especially trying to break down the stigma surrounding infected people. of the ~100 tests we handed out, only two kids said that someone with AIDS is not different from themselves. and about 2/3 said that they have seen people being treated poorly because of their disease.
anyways... i should be off. i spent 20 minutes waiting for this page to load, so i've been here fourty minutes now. it gets expensive after a while.
bye now!!
wish us luck with the school!
9.27.2008
me minus some metal
two brief new things:
sean took my tongue rings out, so i now have no metal in my face.
and i had my first fear-of-leaving nightmare. apparently sean used to have the same ones. i dreamt that i somehow accidentally made my way back to ottawa, and was absolutely devestated. i was talking with the buddies, thinking nothing was wrong, and slowly realized that, "heyyyyyy, i was only in uganda for three weeks! it was supposed to be four months!! how did i get back here?!" devestating.
and i had no more money left to get back to uganda... :(
gotta run!
sean took my tongue rings out, so i now have no metal in my face.
and i had my first fear-of-leaving nightmare. apparently sean used to have the same ones. i dreamt that i somehow accidentally made my way back to ottawa, and was absolutely devestated. i was talking with the buddies, thinking nothing was wrong, and slowly realized that, "heyyyyyy, i was only in uganda for three weeks! it was supposed to be four months!! how did i get back here?!" devestating.
and i had no more money left to get back to uganda... :(
gotta run!
9.23.2008
s23
at a few points in every day, i notice something, or something happens that makes me think, "wow, that's something worth writing down and remembering." and when i get around to writing anything down, my mind goes blank. there are two things i can think of right now: traffic, and language.
yesterday we went to kampala. people say it used to only take a bit more than an hour to get there. it took us an hour and a half to get to the outskirts of town. and then it was traffic jam. an hour of inching along, trying to get into town. but, that's expected. most cities don't grow in a way that will make traffic good. once we were in town, though, holy.. it was insane even trying to cross a road. there was a ridiculous (extravagant, even) of all variety of travelers. people on foot, on bicycles, on bike-bodas, on boda-bodas, in cars, mini-taxis, buses, and sometimes an oldschool greyhound bus. it took me a little while before i could figure out exactly why everything was so hectic: it's the combination of the sheer number of people moving around... and that every single one of these people (regardless of their mode of transportation) thinks that they have the right of way. pedestrians just barge accross streets, bike and bodas almost never wait or slow down before crossing a jammed and fast intersection...
as entertaining as the traffic is in that city, i hate kampala. it's basically a huge version of jinja. if you look 150 jinjas and crammed them all together, without widening the streets for traffic, you've got kampala. and might as well throw another 10,000 bodas into the equation. crazy!
language. so every once in a while, when i forget that i'm in uganda, and i'm somewhat sleepy or disoriented, i'll be incredibly surprised when i tune into the sounds around me, and the talking that's happening, and notice that none of these people are speaking english.
i'm heading out now, but just a quick note: i took a D in a long drop for the first time!!!
yesterday we went to kampala. people say it used to only take a bit more than an hour to get there. it took us an hour and a half to get to the outskirts of town. and then it was traffic jam. an hour of inching along, trying to get into town. but, that's expected. most cities don't grow in a way that will make traffic good. once we were in town, though, holy.. it was insane even trying to cross a road. there was a ridiculous (extravagant, even) of all variety of travelers. people on foot, on bicycles, on bike-bodas, on boda-bodas, in cars, mini-taxis, buses, and sometimes an oldschool greyhound bus. it took me a little while before i could figure out exactly why everything was so hectic: it's the combination of the sheer number of people moving around... and that every single one of these people (regardless of their mode of transportation) thinks that they have the right of way. pedestrians just barge accross streets, bike and bodas almost never wait or slow down before crossing a jammed and fast intersection...
as entertaining as the traffic is in that city, i hate kampala. it's basically a huge version of jinja. if you look 150 jinjas and crammed them all together, without widening the streets for traffic, you've got kampala. and might as well throw another 10,000 bodas into the equation. crazy!
language. so every once in a while, when i forget that i'm in uganda, and i'm somewhat sleepy or disoriented, i'll be incredibly surprised when i tune into the sounds around me, and the talking that's happening, and notice that none of these people are speaking english.
i'm heading out now, but just a quick note: i took a D in a long drop for the first time!!!
9.20.2008
pillows
we moved into our place today. after waiting for a couple of hours for the landlady to copy keys for all of us, for a guy to clean the place (so we could move our shit in) and for an huge armoir to be taken. so it's erica, sean and i. and maybe brooke, if she can keep her job here.
at some point sean went to talk to the landlady to make sure that our electricity bill would begin on the day we move in... one of erica's friends had in another situation payed four months' worth of the previous tennant. ehh. so sean came back with the biggest grin on his face, and said, "you guys have -got- to check this out!"
it turns out that this appartment has more perks than we'd thought. the staircase we take to get to our place goes straight up to the roof, where we have a choice view of lake victoria and the source of the nile, and very much of jinja. it's only three storeys tall, but that's taller than most things around. heh, as howa said, "ehhh, you canadians... you will do anything for a nice view.."
and it's true.
so today we're on a search for mattresses (sheets and nets), a countertop gas stove thingy, and we've all decided that we'll just furnish the place with pillows. and i wasn't even the one to suggest it!! erica and brooke did!!
today's probably going to turn out to be one of the more eventful days here, what with moving and furnishing our new place. and breaking it in later with some chilling on the roof.
oh hey, megan, if you can at about noon (your time), that's 9pm (our time). so if you happen to wake up before 2pm (hahahahha, it's not summer anymore! you have to pretty much every day!!!!), call us. anytime after then is probably too late for us. so like, you're not burning out with school and work are you?! take it easy, alright?
alright, i'm off. lots of love
at some point sean went to talk to the landlady to make sure that our electricity bill would begin on the day we move in... one of erica's friends had in another situation payed four months' worth of the previous tennant. ehh. so sean came back with the biggest grin on his face, and said, "you guys have -got- to check this out!"
it turns out that this appartment has more perks than we'd thought. the staircase we take to get to our place goes straight up to the roof, where we have a choice view of lake victoria and the source of the nile, and very much of jinja. it's only three storeys tall, but that's taller than most things around. heh, as howa said, "ehhh, you canadians... you will do anything for a nice view.."
and it's true.
so today we're on a search for mattresses (sheets and nets), a countertop gas stove thingy, and we've all decided that we'll just furnish the place with pillows. and i wasn't even the one to suggest it!! erica and brooke did!!
today's probably going to turn out to be one of the more eventful days here, what with moving and furnishing our new place. and breaking it in later with some chilling on the roof.
oh hey, megan, if you can at about noon (your time), that's 9pm (our time). so if you happen to wake up before 2pm (hahahahha, it's not summer anymore! you have to pretty much every day!!!!), call us. anytime after then is probably too late for us. so like, you're not burning out with school and work are you?! take it easy, alright?
alright, i'm off. lots of love
9.19.2008
a place to live
as of tomorrow, sean and i will have a place to live. we were hoping to find someone through on of his friends here, but had no luck with that. one of them, marky, told us about an post he saw on a billboard at Two Friends. we checked that out. two american girls, both working with the same NGO found a kick-ass house (huge, balcony, no smoking inside, in town... kick-ass, basically), for 400,000UGX. pennies. for three months for both of us, that's $375CAD. lucky, is what i'll call that.
yesterday we went to mbiko to check up on a school that sean had worked on last time he was here. he'd left them with all the tools they needed to continue recruiting volunteers, and he was curious to see if corruption (all too common) had had its way... or if (unlikely) it had been doing well. the unlikely latter was the outcome. the school has a whole lot of kids, all brilliant (and beautiful), 10acres of land that they grow matoke (a kind of banana), maize (weird corn), some beans, and potentially cabbage. we talked a lot with ernest, the headmaster, about his vision and his plans. this man is definitely the soul reason the school is still intact and doing so well. sean and i are hoping to attach his very underfunded school to a partnership with a school in ottawa. i don't know if you know what that is, but basically the students from both schools correspond and send updates, and the one in the developed nation does fundraisers and stuff for their partner school. ernest's plans for the school are very optimistic, and though they seem far too optimistic at times, it's clear that it's his vision that has kept the school looking up in harder times.
oh, by the way, we decided to -walk- to mbiko. hahaha, a one hour walk out of jinja, over the nile, and down a long highway. at high noon. sorry mum, i got a sunburn, but not a bad one. today, i'm wearing sunscreen for the first time in years. anyways, sean calls this highway the "aids highway".... it's the main artery from everywhere else into kampala (the capital of uganda), so there are a plethora of bus stops, truck stops, boda boda stops... and much like any other port or main artery where there are many travelers, there are tons of locals with aids. that, is how it spreads. think of how it got to america: via a shipping port. these communities along highways are the ultimate shipping port.
the most frightening thing about learning all of this was the sobriety with which ernest explained it all. it's just a fact of life.
alright, it's time to hit the town. we're meeting with brooke and erica (our roommates to be) at 4:30 to sign for the house. gotta run!!!
yesterday we went to mbiko to check up on a school that sean had worked on last time he was here. he'd left them with all the tools they needed to continue recruiting volunteers, and he was curious to see if corruption (all too common) had had its way... or if (unlikely) it had been doing well. the unlikely latter was the outcome. the school has a whole lot of kids, all brilliant (and beautiful), 10acres of land that they grow matoke (a kind of banana), maize (weird corn), some beans, and potentially cabbage. we talked a lot with ernest, the headmaster, about his vision and his plans. this man is definitely the soul reason the school is still intact and doing so well. sean and i are hoping to attach his very underfunded school to a partnership with a school in ottawa. i don't know if you know what that is, but basically the students from both schools correspond and send updates, and the one in the developed nation does fundraisers and stuff for their partner school. ernest's plans for the school are very optimistic, and though they seem far too optimistic at times, it's clear that it's his vision that has kept the school looking up in harder times.
oh, by the way, we decided to -walk- to mbiko. hahaha, a one hour walk out of jinja, over the nile, and down a long highway. at high noon. sorry mum, i got a sunburn, but not a bad one. today, i'm wearing sunscreen for the first time in years. anyways, sean calls this highway the "aids highway".... it's the main artery from everywhere else into kampala (the capital of uganda), so there are a plethora of bus stops, truck stops, boda boda stops... and much like any other port or main artery where there are many travelers, there are tons of locals with aids. that, is how it spreads. think of how it got to america: via a shipping port. these communities along highways are the ultimate shipping port.
the most frightening thing about learning all of this was the sobriety with which ernest explained it all. it's just a fact of life.
alright, it's time to hit the town. we're meeting with brooke and erica (our roommates to be) at 4:30 to sign for the house. gotta run!!!
9.15.2008
jinja!!
sean and i have successfully made it to our destination: uganda. we ended up spending a couple more days than expected in kenya because our host there was so damn cool. so we hopped on the bus (a very old version of you standard greyhound bus) at 7am and got to jinja a long and scenic 12hours later. it's absolutely beautiful here. i was expecting to be surprised at how it is here, but the image i had in my mind before leaving canada (pieced together from random stories, textbook case studies, and all that...) was pretty much right. i didn't expect, though, all the "towns" that were basically rows upon rows of 'houses' constructed from odds-and-ends materials... corrugated metal, some brick, some mud... with a bunch of 'shops' along the street. sean says they're called trading centers. there are a few companies that advertise by painting these shops in bold colours. so every village we went by had these hot pink buildings, painted by zain, and lime green ones, painted by safaricom, and in uganda there's also bright yellow ones. i think it's the only time that i've seen attractive advertizment... it adds so much colour to these otherwise brown and metal places. well, i guess the orange soil does a bit, too. the contrast bt the blue sky, rich green landscape, and bright red soil is beautiful.
so today sean and i had a couple of errands to run. i got a phone. (my number is 011 256 779 350 898, call me!!!). we're about to get me some malaria pills (there's no shot, so you take preventative pills). we had some breakfast...
we're staying at the busoga trust house, and sean's on the prowl for a cheaper and nicer place for us to stay. we went out last night to meet with a couple of his friends at a restaurant called Two Friends. it's owned by elin's mom, and apparently she offered him a job there. inflation has made things more expensive than we previously thought, so we're on the look out for payed work.
overall, i like it here a lot. jinja itself is a more modern town, by african standards. it takes ten minutes to walk across the town, and another ten to get to where we're staying. it seems to be very touristy, there are many shops with doo-dads... carved stuff, clay stuff, woven stuff... all very nice in the way that tourists like nice things. there are also way more mzungu's than i expected. we see them on the street now and then, and there are a few at the guest house where we're staying.
i should run for now, and get some malaria medication.
lots of love!
so today sean and i had a couple of errands to run. i got a phone. (my number is 011 256 779 350 898, call me!!!). we're about to get me some malaria pills (there's no shot, so you take preventative pills). we had some breakfast...
we're staying at the busoga trust house, and sean's on the prowl for a cheaper and nicer place for us to stay. we went out last night to meet with a couple of his friends at a restaurant called Two Friends. it's owned by elin's mom, and apparently she offered him a job there. inflation has made things more expensive than we previously thought, so we're on the look out for payed work.
overall, i like it here a lot. jinja itself is a more modern town, by african standards. it takes ten minutes to walk across the town, and another ten to get to where we're staying. it seems to be very touristy, there are many shops with doo-dads... carved stuff, clay stuff, woven stuff... all very nice in the way that tourists like nice things. there are also way more mzungu's than i expected. we see them on the street now and then, and there are a few at the guest house where we're staying.
i should run for now, and get some malaria medication.
lots of love!
9.13.2008
touch down
uhhhh, i just did that thing where a long post just got deleted... so you're getting the incredibly truncated version.
first and foremost: we flew, we landed, we're safe.
i'm in sensory overload, we're happy. my word of the day is juxtaposition. the contrast between the various lifestyles within kenya is... baffling.
mum+dad, sean got a new sim card, so the number you have is wrong. we're 11timezones apart, so your 11am is our 10pm. his new number is 011 254 738 098 130.
i think we're off soon to have dinner. sean and i just accidentally took a six hour nap, and its time for supper. we'll be waking up bright and early tomorrow to head for jinja. sean's face lights up anytime jinja is mentioned. all i can think about is how excited i am to be in and learn about this place that defines sean. *smiles*
lots of love.
first and foremost: we flew, we landed, we're safe.
i'm in sensory overload, we're happy. my word of the day is juxtaposition. the contrast between the various lifestyles within kenya is... baffling.
mum+dad, sean got a new sim card, so the number you have is wrong. we're 11timezones apart, so your 11am is our 10pm. his new number is 011 254 738 098 130.
i think we're off soon to have dinner. sean and i just accidentally took a six hour nap, and its time for supper. we'll be waking up bright and early tomorrow to head for jinja. sean's face lights up anytime jinja is mentioned. all i can think about is how excited i am to be in and learn about this place that defines sean. *smiles*
lots of love.
9.09.2008
t minus 2days
time's been speeding up for the last couple of weeks. our bags are mostly packed now, we've both worked our last shifts, sean found us new tickets to london w aircanada after zoom bummed out... i suppose we've gotten to the point where everything we could have done to prepare has been done. except for throwing our toothbrushes in our bags, and saying, "goodbye (for now)."
it's neat seeing and hearing of things that are going to be happening here after we're gone. those little moments where i realize, "hey, we're not going to be here for that, we're going to be.... somewhere else. cool." i just called mum and dad to say bye, that's the biggest slap int he face. mum, don't be surprised if you get a couple of five a.m. home-sick phone calls. same to you, megan. and and and and. i, uh, i've got to admit, even though it's only for months, it's hard not to get all sentimental about saying bye to the fam. and extended fam.
but that's that! bye!! keep in touch!!
it's neat seeing and hearing of things that are going to be happening here after we're gone. those little moments where i realize, "hey, we're not going to be here for that, we're going to be.... somewhere else. cool." i just called mum and dad to say bye, that's the biggest slap int he face. mum, don't be surprised if you get a couple of five a.m. home-sick phone calls. same to you, megan. and and and and. i, uh, i've got to admit, even though it's only for months, it's hard not to get all sentimental about saying bye to the fam. and extended fam.
but that's that! bye!! keep in touch!!
8.17.2008
t minus 25 days
it's hard to believe but we're pretty much ready. airplane tickets, visas, bags. all a result of sean's work. here's to the (un)official trip planner. *bows*
but seriously though. sean's done this before but i'm scared shitless. or at least i was for the first five months of the countdown. now that it's nearing, and i'm reading academic journals of random projects carried out in uganda, i'm starting to get a feel for what it might be like. but really, how on earth does one prepare for this?! i suppose everyone has their own way of mentally preparing to do something they've never done before. here's my idea: keeping an open mind. that's that. and, having sean as the best guide -ever- is the best gift i could ask for. :D
he knows the places worth checking out and the places to avoid (which we'll probably check out anyways), and how to get there without getting get ripped off. he's hooked us up with a couchsurfer in nairobi and a hotel in jinja. basically our first few days there are figured out. he's given me the task of getting us from nairobi to kampala, which should be an adventure of its own... and hopefully won't end up taking a week to do.
i'm looking foward to taking things as they come, and learning as much as i can about this entirely new place. now... how does someone -not- look like a tourist in uganda...
but seriously though. sean's done this before but i'm scared shitless. or at least i was for the first five months of the countdown. now that it's nearing, and i'm reading academic journals of random projects carried out in uganda, i'm starting to get a feel for what it might be like. but really, how on earth does one prepare for this?! i suppose everyone has their own way of mentally preparing to do something they've never done before. here's my idea: keeping an open mind. that's that. and, having sean as the best guide -ever- is the best gift i could ask for. :D
he knows the places worth checking out and the places to avoid (which we'll probably check out anyways), and how to get there without getting get ripped off. he's hooked us up with a couchsurfer in nairobi and a hotel in jinja. basically our first few days there are figured out. he's given me the task of getting us from nairobi to kampala, which should be an adventure of its own... and hopefully won't end up taking a week to do.
i'm looking foward to taking things as they come, and learning as much as i can about this entirely new place. now... how does someone -not- look like a tourist in uganda...
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