It's a hard knock life in class 5

Thursday, July 31 2008

I realize that the last time I wrote was Sunday. It's been a really long week. We went to 3 schools, got about 68 blood samples, AND WENT WHITE WATER RAFTING DOWN THE WHITE NILE! Yes, that exciting (if you heard it like a used car salesman would say it). So, as hard as it is, I will start from Monday...

Monday was all about Good Times. Yes, the sitcom. You see, Good Times Primary School in Mpererwe, named themselves after that sitcom. They also happened to have so many parents show up for testing day, which was much cooler than the whole sitcom thing. We got 19 blood samples there. Not bad.

However, we were pretty impressed with Valley St. Mary's Primary School in Namere, too. I am actually pretty partial to this school because the headmaster, Julius, rocks. I'm pretty sure that the following biographical sketch is correct.... Julius is an orphan who really felt strongly about his musical talent and improving the life of other orphans in Uganda. So he got a group of musical orphans together who now give health education through song and dance. I get to see them on Monday but won't post the video because I don't have the bandwidth. Sorry.

Anyway, Uganda is at the beginning of the rainy season. There is no summer or winter here, just rainy and dry. So, as we were walking to VSMPS, the sky looked foreboding. As we walked in the door a few drips fell; 5 minutes later it was a full-on deluge. Parents still came. Probably not as many as would have come if the sun were out, but still, WOW. Everybody was wet, including one of our students who took a bodaboda and ran in the rain to get there. I think there is a picture of Henry with Lauren's shawl on him... Lauren's friends, Ruth and Anna, were visiting so they got to play with the kids at this school. Our favorite: Timothy. I have about 10 pics of him. Everytime I walk by the hospital and he sees me, he runs to hold my hand.

That night had it's own challenges. You see, the power went out just as I was making hashbrowns. Have no fear, I ate them... right after I cooked them on my new sigir (little coal stove I bought for $3.75. Problem was, I thought I may have made the whole thing non-kosher by taking coals from the family stove. Called the rabbi(s), no answer. Texted my brother, no answer. Called my mom, no answer. Meanwhile, Lauren, Rith and Anna were waiting on pins and needles for the answer so that I could explain whyI was having such a problem with cooking potatoes. Called a friend, no answer. Called another friend, Gila, who rocked before, but now rocks so much harder. She got the question, my calling card number, and my cellphone number within the 2 minutes I had left in airtime. She then called back with an answer after calling Yehuda Rother at Camp Stone (I can't and will never try to get away from that place). KOSHER! Nice; I ate them with a vengence.

Wednesday was N-U-T-S! Lauren, Ruth and Anna wanted to go to Jinja. I realized that I haven't really left Kampala, ever. So, Anna and I went white water rafting and Lauren and Ruth went biking. Both were adventures. I'm going to talk about mine because I was there, it's much easier.

It all started with an early morning bodaboda ride from Mpererwe to Wandegeya, then Wandegeya to the Lugogo Mall where we were picked up in a bus. We drove to the Red Chilli, a backpacker place, and met a huge bunch of Israelis who were very suprised to find a religious, Hebrew-speaking Jew in their midst. We drove about 3 hours to Jinja, though its only about 60 miles away and had breakfast at the lodge. I ate pineapple, good pineapple. We then took an open truck about 5km away to the head of the nile. No biggy here, just a big dam and smooth water... little did we know...

So we came to the launching site, chose groups of 7 (Anna and I ended up with "team mulalu," crazy in English) and took off. Paolo, our guide was on the Ugandan kayak team and can, without a doubt, beat you up. We had a few grade 1s and 2s just to warm up. He also had us swim through a grade 2 to "get a better feel for your life jackets, you'll use them for real very soon." And we did on our first class 5. Lauren and Ruth were able to take some pictures while we did it because they biked really fast to see us almost succeed. And almost we did. We ran though the first half pretty well. However, the second half flipped our raft front over back landing us all in the water. It was awesome!

After a few rapids, we had about half an hour of smooth water so we went for a swim. I talked with a Scottish MD about the kinds of ways we would pay for the trip. He payed a little more because a paddle whacked his nose on the first rapid. We also had a small lunch; they ate pineapple and glucose crackers. I had pineapple...and a Zone bar (thanks Weinbachs). Then we tackled "silverback," a rapid with a huge smooth drop (ie the water wasn't white, about a 20 foot drop) and a MASSIVE standing wave. We "surfed" the top of the wave and made it over.

The rest of the trip was as psychotic, flipping a bunch, trying to convince others we saw hippos and crocs, and avoiding certain death by walking around a class 6 rapid instead of running through it. There were some pretty scary times, like when you think you're about to reach surface but it never seems to come, or when someone grabs your leg after you see them get shoved under by the boat right after a class 5 rapid and you can't find them to pull them up until about 10 seconds later... yea, it was scary. But completely awesome.

The way back was in the same truck, but this time a 25km ride to camp... we rafted for 30km. On the way back the trip was made absolutely perfect when I saw at least 4 schools with the name of the company running our trip on their signs. The company gives back to the community. We chose the right company.

We got back to a BBQ with 2 free beers each, I ate couscous and lentils and had a beer. Couldn't manage to finish the first one, let alone start the second. And it was evening and it was morning, Day 4.

Today was hard. I got little sleep last night, because it felt like I was still in the rapids. It's hard to get rid of that much adrenaline. I still managed to get up early enough to prepare for Grace Primary School. We got a call about 30min before we were supposed to be there because so many parents showed up. I counted almost 40 parents. Unfortunately, about 20 left becuase their children were not the right age, but people kept on coming! We got over 25 samples at Grace. Today was a very successful day.

(sorry, after trying for about 45 minutes, not enough bandwidth to send pics. I will try again tomorrow.)