Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Flying Thoughts

Is it really July 20th already? I am hard pressed to believe that I have truly been in Uganda for 8 weeks.

Today's goodbye at the office was bittersweet. There was another bridal shower to attend, then I ordered in pizza and soda for our office as a "thank you."

A Ugandan custom that I don't think I've explained yet is the way everyone speaks at an event. For instance, even though I've never met the brides of the shower previously mentioned, I, along with every other woman in the room, offered congratulations, well wishes or advice. In my thank you party to the office, the advice was turned to thanks and well wishes to me from my office. As someone who does not like to be the center of attention, it was a little bit uncomfortable, but that didn't last long because of the things they had to say.

Nearly everyone in the office mentioned my "out-going" character and evidence of faith in my life. Now, I have the Meyers Briggs results proving I'm an introvert, so that surprised me. But one of the interns took it a step further to explain that to me. He said he had a perception when I arrived that I would isolate myself and avoid intermingling with the rest of the team. He admitted I proved him wrong and have encouraged his opinion of Americans who spend time in Uganda. Regarding my faith, I was not expecting a mention of that since everyone else in the office is a Christian, like myself. They said they were encouraged by the way my life reflected my faith, in the way I dressed, spoke and treated the people around me. Hearing that, somehow during my short 6 weeks with them, I was able to encourage the faith lives of my coworkers and friends was a very humbling moment to me. A moment where I realized the powerful impact that actions and words can have when they are communicating the same thing.

Of course we needed to have a quick photo shoot before I left!

I found it is hard to get everyone together for a group picture...

But we got it eventually!
The guys.

The gals.
Selfies are big, especially with the mazungu. They are definitely a fun and goofy group.
I am excited to come home. I have missed my family. Yet, I do not want to leave. I think there is something in the air here (and I'm not talking about the dust and exhaust fumes). Something about the way the sun sets, the monkeys swing, the children sing. I haven't been able to figure it out exactly, but whatever the combination, it's captivating and it made packing my bags one of the most unpleasant experiences.

Monday, July 13, 2015

Mangos, Bananas, Matoke, Mmm!

Ugandan chicken on a stick!
I can honestly say I have thoroughly enjoyed almost every meal I’ve had in Uganda. The one that did not sit too well with me was a dish of goat intestines for breakfast... But aside from that, its been quite delicious! Breakfast is usually eggs, toast, fresh fruit, coffee or tea, freshly squeezed fruit juice and sometimes avocado. Though I usually just have instant coffee in the morning, I have had the locally grown beans and, mm, this coffee lover is in heaven those days.
I actually prefer the little bananas to the big ones, they have a sweeter taste.
I usually eat lunch from MU-JHU (Makerere University-John Hopkins Research Collaboration Building) or a close by canteen. They serve local food every day for a very reasonable price. We usually get rice, matoke, g-nuts, beans, and sometimes a meat "soup" take away. All that filling a Tupperware costs 3,500 shillings. Lunch is often the largest meal of the day.
What lunch usually looks like (and it's actually really good!)
I actually crashed a party on my front lawn for this dinner. Goat meat on a stick, chichen, pillou (rice cooked with meat), two kinds of salad and roasted matoke (still in the peel)




Meat soup is more like a gravy with meat chunks that goes over the rice and matoke. Matoke is technically in the same family as bananas, but since I prefer them steamed in banana leaves, they remind me more of a mashed potato. Potatoes here taste very similar but are called by different names. A roasted baked potato is called an "Irish Potato," the french fries are called "Chips," and the chips are called "Crisps." Very British, I'm learning. Maize is also a big food source here. You can find it growing almost anywhere. Many people enjoy buying the roasted corn from the street vendors.

They really do grow it anywhere.
Honestly, I don't know if it's banana or matoke. My coworkers laugh at me all the time becasue I can't tell the difference between the trees...
Because lunch is so big, dinners usually consist of toast with peanut butter and a mango. Sometimes I’ll run to a market and get veggies for guacamole and days where I am very hungry I’ll make up pasta or run to the Good Samaritan Canteen. Some nights the other guests in my house and I will order dinner off Hello Food. This website has tons of restaurants that you can order from and a boda-boda will bring it to your door within the hour! It is a great thing we’ve discovered. We even had pizza the other night!

I think that will be one of the hardest things about returning to the states. I will really miss being able to buy bananas, mangos, avocados, onions, tomatoes, chipati, and any of the other foods I have become so used to buying on the street. Sure, I have to soak it in a cleaner to make sure I won’t get sick, but when a full load of groceries usually costs me a dollar at most, I’m happy to let it soak for 20 minutes.
Enough to make guacamole for days (and a banana) for ~$.65!
As yummy as the food has been, I will say I'm pretty excited to come home and have blueberries and a hamburger. It has been very fun to jump into the culture and try new things, but as home gets closer and closer, I find myself looking forward to things I haven't had access to over the past few weeks. 

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

The Jam



One of the first things you hear about in Kampala is the jam. Traffic jam. And let me tell you, I will never again complain about traffic in Ann Arbor or going through Chicago. Kampala takes the cake.
A trip of 20 km can take anywhere from 15 min to 2 hrs if you leave at the wrong time of day.  Notice in the intersection above, no stop signs, traffic lights, traffic police, anything. There's also no dream of people treating it like a four-way stop. The other picture is a road, meant to be a 4 lane highway, but the money was poorly managed and two were all that were completed.


This is one of the nicely paved roads in Uganda! The mountain in the distance is Mount Elgon, near Mbale, which we passed through on our way to Tororo. The vehicle heading toward us is a Uganda taxi, or a Matatu. Matatu drivers are some of the most aggressive I've ever seen. They seem to think they are able to squeeze those 14 passenger vans in to spaces many people wouldn't even walk... This two-lane, paved road is considered a main way. There are some roads with four lanes, but many don't even need to have lines, because drivers like to create their own lane anyways.

What the roads more often look like in Uganda - dirt with the biggest potholes I've ever bounced through.
Other ways you see people moving around include privately owned cars, private hires (private taxi drivers), Boda-bodas (motorcycles that can be a quick way to your destination, but also dangerous, depending on the caution of the driver), bicycles and trucks. With all these moving many, many people around, you can imagine how congested the small roads become.



All of the above mentioned vehicles will carry anything from produce, to furniture, to coal (as pictured below). It's amazing the things you see on a boda-boda in Uganda.

We got stuck behind this truck one day when we were in the field training children in out study. It is hard to see, the with the potholes of this road, you wonder how more don't get stuck. But hey, why not just use another truck to push it through?
Construction, bad parking, small roads, anything and everything contributes to the jam.
There are an estimated 1.2 million people in Kampala with thousands of people commuting in and out of the city every day. With only a few roads leading in and out of the city, you can only imagine the morning, evening and weekend commuter times... Work, vacation, meals, everything is planned around the Kampala jam.

It is not uncommon to pass big guys like this in the road. Long horn cattle are everywhere, even in a big city like Kampala. They often just wander on their own and I am constantly wondering who they belong to. These horns are not even the biggest I've seen around.

I have always felt very safe moving around the city. I stick mostly to walking, but will hop in a matatu if there's someone with me. A few days back, however, the hovering danger of the Kampala jam was made very real to me when I spent a morning shadowing in the adult casualty ward of Mulago. A little while before I arrived, there had been a large accident on one of the main roads involving at least 9 cars and over 50 people injured. Almost all of them seemed to come through out unit that morning. The head nurse mused that there would continue to be many more trickling in throughout the day. Some chose to go to local clinics first, then were referred to Mulago due to the severity of their illness.

That morning made me grateful for my own safety traveling about Kampala the past few weeks and also for the experience of seeing trauma triage following a disaster first hand. The doctors and nurses knew exactly what to be prepared for and worked seamlessly as the Ugandan Red Cross started bringing in patients on stretchers.

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Kampala Fun!

Now, it hasn’t been all work since arriving in Kampala. I have been able to explore, shop, rest, but maybe most importantly, experience two very important aspects of Ugandan culture: futbol and weddings!

How convenient is it that during my short stay here, the Uganda Cranes had a match against Botswana in the Mandela National Stadium? I’d say we were pretty lucky! Tory and Ronak came into Kampala for the weekend so we decided to get into the Cranes spirit as much as possible, face paint and jerseys to boot. The stadium was HUGE. Pretty sure it’s bigger than the Big House. I’d even argue the hype parallels that of us Wolverine fans. There was a pep band and a group leading cheers and motions. The Uganda spirit only continued as we scored two awesome goals in the 2nd half to win 2-0! The win made for hectic traffic, but I wouldn’t change it for the world, it was such a great day!
 
In the true fashion of Ugandan hospitality I was actually invited to attend a surprise bridal shower for one of the gals who works for GHU (whom I’ve never met). It was so fun to join in the fun to celebrate her and her upcoming marriage! Following that, I was also invited to attend the wedding that weekend! Didn’t give me much time to make sure I had an outfit appropriate for the event, but the ladies I work with were more than happy to take me into town, haha. So, we found a maize and blue African-style dress and spent all Saturday celebrating marriages! Yes, marriages is plural. We ended up seeing three couples leave the church as husband and wife! As weddings are very popular, churches will actually book them back to back. Same flowers, decorations, and even same sermon at some locations, haha. The ceremony lasts about an hour. It was actually quite fun to listen to a service that only had bits and pieces in English. The reception starts a few hours later. We were there from 4-930 and didn’t even stay the whole time!
Barbara and Ethel
Michael and Richard wanted in too!
Ethel met us at the reception.
Monica!
Ugandans love a party and they love welcoming anyone to join them. It has been too cool to hop right in and experience their lives and culture right alongside them.