Although we enjoy a lot of things here in Uganda, there are
quite a few things that are not enjoyable no matter how hard we try. Here are a
few examples:
·
#1 = food poisoning when all you have is a
latrine. Probably the most unfun 5 experiences in my lifetime. Yes that’s
Right...5. Food in Uganda hates me. What did I eat? Well, it could’ve been
anything but I think I know at least 3 of them. An apple, a chapati (a tortilla
like thing they sell everywhere here), and a tomato. My first case was at
homestay during the first month we were even here and was by far the sickest I
have ever been in my life. Not fun but I’m glad I had Patrick there to take
care of me. Brave soul. I’m pretty sure there is an image of me burned in his
memory that he will never forget. Bambi (Ugandans say that when they feel bad
for someone…its like saying “you poor thing”).
·
Giardia. A little parasite that loves to hang
out in water. This and “tropical spores” are Patrick’s sicknesses of choice. It
causes stomach issues. I’ve had giardia a couple of times. It sucks. End of
story. Patrick’s claim to fame is that he was the first PCV to be diagnosed
with tropical spores. He didn’t
enjoy it but he eventually beat it with heavy doses of antibiotics and beer.
Typical.
·
There are many things that exist only in my
nightmares….and in Uganda. Fortunately, we have not had the pleasure of
contracting any of these yet:
o Mango
flies- (many PCVs get them regularly) Flies that lay their eggs on your wet
hanging clothes and then the worms burrow under your skin. The only way to get
them out is to plug up the hole in the blister on your skin until the worm
needs to come out for air and then you get it out with tweezers. Lovely.
o Nairobi
flies- Flies that if you smack them when they land on you give you a 2nd
degree burn with their acid that splatters.
o Schistosomyasis-
this is a parasite carried by snails that only hang out in water. You basically wind up with worms in
your lungs. Awesome. I think over 50% of PCVs that go
swimming here wind up with it. Yea, not doing that, don’t worry.
o Worms
of all shapes and sizes- I guarantee we will get them at least once. Everyone
deworms after a year though. At least guinea worm is eradicated here…if you
don’t know what that is, look it up. If it was still here I’m positive I would
not be here right now.
o Ttese
flies- Carry sleeping sickness and they bite HARD. The ones around our house don’t carry the sickness though so
no worries! They are just reallllllly annoying and mean.
·
Anything with more than 4 legs here makes me
want to go home. It’s like they are on steroids. We have flying cockroaches in
our latrines and spiders that could probably take out a chicken. I would not be
upset if cockroaches were extinct. I just hate how they love to ruin your day. Our
bathing area is outdoors, which presents many challenges. One day while finishing up an
exceptionally cleansing bucket bath, I was struck by a cockroach running across
my feet. REALLY?! UGH.
·
One of our friends that lives near us found 2
scorpions in her house the day she moved in. FAIL. Fortunately we have not
experienced any scorpions or snakes of our own. We did just recently find a bug in our rain-water tank that
was the size of a softball. It had
claws. Some sort of water monster.
We asked our coworkers if it would bite you and they said, “Oh yes! Do NOT
touch it.”
·
Public transport. Guaranteed to break down or
make you vomit with every ride. Patrick
and I rode in the front of the bus one day and promptly decided to never do
that again. You can see the speedometer in the front…you don’t want to do
that. You also get to see all the
goats, pigs, and chickens get sucked under the bus. The road from Gulu to Kitgum is the worst. It’s of course a
dirt road but its amazing because the drivers of the buses love to hug one side
of the road that is basically curved like a half circle. So, at many points in the journey, the
bus is at a 45 degree angle. Good thing they are bottom heavy, I guess. Often
times the bus is completely full so people stand in the isles or children sit
on the floor. You almost always
have a puker and at least 5 butts in your face. Many times we’ve been in the
back with vomit at our feet. Smells like roses.
·
Don’t even get me started on bridges in this
country. I’ll put it this way…the bridge from Gulu to Kitgum washes away every
rainy season. Recently, my friends and I needed to get into town while it was raining. We caught a ride with an employee of the
school we were working at. We get in the car and start going down the road at about 20-30 km/hr when out of
nowhere the entire left front wheel falls completely off and flies into a
nearby trading center. Woops. He had just gotten the car worked on and they
forgot to tighten the lug nuts. Yea, we found another ride.
·
Stuffing small cars with 13 people is not the
way I like to spend my days. I had a two hour ride to Kitgum the other day with
13 people in the car, 5 chickens at my feet, and a pony sized goat screaming on
the top. They also have these small vans/buses that can (if there is one person
to a seat) fit 16 people but usually fits about 25, sometimes more.
·
To go along with transportation, traveling by
any other means is not fun here. I feel like I’m in a real life game of Frogger
everytime I cross the street in Kampala. I was always pretty decent at Frogger
though. I guess those hours and hours of playing Frogger with Jessica in middle
school finally paid off. Sidewalks are definitely not the safest here either. I
was walking down the sidewalk once when 10 motorcycles came right for me and
had to dodge them. Also, to keep
you on your toes, there are massive holes in the streets and sidewalks that are
there for who knows what reason. They are definitely large enough to fall in,
about 4-5 feet deep, and always filled with trash and other miscellaneous
things that I don’t even want to know about. There have been some horror
stories of PCVs falling into them. Yikes. Walking around Kampala during the day
is scary, so good luck at night. Here they are:
·
Dry Season. Easily the most lame part of the
year. Dust. To. The. Face. Buy a bus ticket and get a free spray tan. I think
with the mix between the dry season and Kampala’s diesel filled air, our lungs
are working overtime. The dry season is also charming because it turns our
house into an oven. Our walls trap heat so it doesn’t cool down in our house
until around 3 am. I read on our alarm clock/temperature gauge that one night
around midnight that it was 94 degrees in our room with the fan on. The good
thing about having solar lights during the dry season though it that due to the
beaming sun all day, we usually have power all night…usually. Two more good
things about dry season = your clothes dry in 15 minutes and its only
exceptionally awful January-April.
·
Dry season also brings bush fires and bush fires
bring black snow. The grasses are burned so farmers can hunt the edible rat
with their bows and arrows…not even kidding. So the grass burns and floats in
the air like long pieces of black snow. And if your washing your clothes you
are guaranteed a few black ash spots if they are burning the bush nearby. It’s ok though because they probably
still weren’t clean anyway.
·
It is amazing the things we will now pick out of
our food before we eat it. Before we came here it was typical of me to yell at
Patrick for cutting the mold off the strawberries, but now I’m right there with
him. Weevils, little mini caterpillar like things, usually find their way into
your food somehow. Especially in beans. I’ve probably eaten hundreds of weevils
by now…inevitable. Oh and ants…brush em off. We also have a mouse that likes to
make his appearance every night around 8 pm when our window is open. He apparently
just likes to hang out without eating our food though. We actually don’t mind our
new roommate since he doesn’t really bother us. We named him Mouserson. I think
we got lucky because we have heard some pretty bad stories about PCVs having
tons of mice in their house.
·
Bees right at the hole of the latrine are
definitely not funny. I don’t even want to think about how that could end up.
I’d have a one way ticket home that’s for sure. Usually, the latrines on the
way when traveling are the worst. You know it’s bad when your eyes start to
burn. One of our friends in our group got locked in his homestay family’s
latrine once. The kids thought it would be funny to lock him in from the
outside. He then had to climb his way up and over the (spider infested) small
opening between the 2 latrines to get out on the other side. Bambi.
·
Not funny = multiple people in the village
telling me I will have twins one day.
I’m sure I could think of some more but I will save them for
when we come back to America in TWO DAYS!!!!!!!!
To leave on a funny note: Patrick, our friend, and I are
staying at the Entebbe Zoo near the airport. They have small places to stay
inside that give you free access to the zoo at all hours. Needless to say, it
has provided us with much entertainment. They have camels you can ride and when
the camels aren’t at work they roam around the zoo causing trouble. We were
walking down this small path and a HUGE camel turns the corner and starts
walking towards us. We thought we could peacefully pass each other without
making eye contact but we thought wrong. He went straight for us. We promptly
turned and starting briskly walking the other direction. Luckily, a worker was
nearby to corral the beast back in an enclosed space. Ha!
Other adventures at the zoo thus far include petting/feeding
the rhinos and feeding (definitely not petting) the lions with the workers. Probably
top 5 most intense things ever is standing about 10 feet from a huge male lion
and hyena fighting about meat through a fence. There will most definitely be
pictures soon. While taking a picture with the rhino, Patrick apparently got a
bit too close and the rhino was about 3 inches away from spearing Patrick’s
bum. It was the hardest I have laughed in a long, long time. Trust me, he
learned his lesson.
Tomorrow, we fly to London where we have an overnight
layover. Fish, chips, and good beer here we come! Then, the next day we head to
Raleigh, then Indy. We are SO excited to see everyone at home! See you soon!
Our next blog will be about camp. It was AMAZING! I've never met a group of girl more determined to have a successful future. Truly Inspiring. Here is a video of the girls singing our camp song!
