Mbale adventures

Wednesday August 6th, 2008

I'm down to one post a week. Obviously, things are really busy here; we've been visiting many schools, we've been trying to enter a lot of data for preliminary analysis, and we've been trying to procure soil samples from families we have already taken blood from. All of this happens in Mpererwe, where internet is really cheap, but doesn't even have the bandwidth to get email. I apologize.

So, I left off on Thursday last week, huh. Friday was an adventure of a different sort. I went to town with Lauren for a morning meeting with Mike (friend from Yale) and Dr. Sadigh (Yale global health MD). We relaxed and talked about accomplishments, challenges, and goals. Then, I was off to Mbale.

Travelling in Uganda is kinda like playing darts drunk and blindfolded. I jumped on a bodaboda for a ride from the hospital to the new bus park. My driver, a nice guy agreed to take beya mna'Uganda (Ugandan's price), thought I said old taxi park. Because I haven't been to either place, I thought that maybe all the nice people who were telling me that I had to go accross the street were wrong. Eventually, I made it accross the street and was escorted to a Gateway bus to Mbale, they said they were the Elgon Flyer just to get me on. 10,000USh later (fair price), I was on my way.

Busses in Uganda are the same size as those in the USA but there are 5 seats accross instead of 4. Also, there are no lights, all the windows open, no AC, and peddlers are free to come and go as they please until the bus starts moving. Once the bus moved, however, I was out cold...clutching my bag to make sure I knew that nobody's hands were going into it. (I am still a little nervous about that kind of thing because I stopped an attempted pickpocket from getting my new camera about 2 weeks ago, oh yea, I have a new camera!).

About an hour into the ride, I get woken up by people yelling to my right. I thought, that's weird, I have a window seat. There were people sticking all kinds of food and drink through the windows of the bus. I was right next to the guy selling meat and chicken, NOT FAIR. Eventually, I bought a few mini bananas and was very happy for paying only about 12.5 cents for 5 bananas. Once the bus started moving, people started to yell a lot louder; apparently not all debts had been paid. I saw at least 3 people on the bus throw money out of the window to 1 or 2 people running after the bus. I guess you have to be honest in business here (unless you're in government).

When I ate my first banana I realized that I have nowhere to throw the peel. The guy next to me explained in sign language.

- fingers peeled an imaginary banana - got it
- fingers put imaginary banana into mouth - clear
- fingers throw peel out the window - really?

Unfortunately, Uganda is it's own garbage dump. People don't care about throwing anything just about anywhere. I also only know once place to recycle water bottle... I'm saving them all for one trip.

Suprisingly, we arrived in Mbale on time. Not suprisingly, my guide/ride/hotelier was not. I waited among the bodaboda drivers in the bus park, who would not leave me alone, for my ride. The ride was worth the wait. We went into the backwoods of a small town to a tiny village on top of Nabugoye hill (check out this article written by my friend Jordan about their Jewish community). Forunately, I made it with an hour to spare before Shabbat, unfortunately, I had only an hour before shabbat to get settled, shower, and take pictures. I took no pictures before shabbat.

Shabbat was nice. Very different from what I am used to, but still very nice. The singing and congregation participation was really fresh, especially since some of Kabbalat Shabbat was in Luganda. The electricity went out in the middle of the service, so the entire room was lit only by 2 candles. It was really great. After services, we Mzungus who did not get invited for meals or refused invitations sat to a shabbat dinner. It's amazing what hanging out with your people can do for you when you've been away for so long. We spoke a lot about how the only reason we were together was because we are Jewish and a lot about the people-tend-to-sit-in-a-lunchroom-at-the-same-table-as-people-like-them phenomenon. We stayed up past 10:30, but then I slept really well.

The rest of Shabbat was really nice and relaxing. I went for a walk to the lookout point where the founder of the community sat to look at his kingdom (long story). It rained a bit, but the sunset was still spectacular.

Saturday night was a trip. We went to town to get some food and drink. We ended up getting food (I had some banananas and passion fruit) and then going to get Adam(new friend)'s beard shaved off and hair cut. The barber was absolutely wasted. He kept on messing up. So, I took over. We hung out there for about an hour and a half, and then I crashed on my friend Mitch(also new friend)'s couch.

We woke up really early, I was going to Sipi falls and Mitch was going to Kampala for a ride West. I met up with Merideth (also new friend) and we jumped in a matatu bound for Sipi. A- MA-ZING! Only pictures will do it any sort of justice, and I don't have the bandwidth. Sipi is basically a system of 3 waterfalls each at least 60 meters high all on the same river. We hiked down a huge ravine and back up the mountains to get to all of them. It was out of this world.

We finished about 3lbs lighter because of the exercise, but 1lb heavier with dirt. We called the guest house and were invited back in to take a shower. Really sweet people, I wish I had more time to write about them (the library closes in 12 minutes).

Getting back to Kampala was nuts. I ended up getting the last seat on the 2nd to last bus, so my space was shared with some chickens. I stepped on one of them by accident, it made a lot of noise and I got a lot of looks.

Note to self: in next post tell the story of the Muganda women talking about Mzungus.

My ride back to Mpererwe consisted of boarding a matatu bound for Wandegeya, getting off said matatu when it went into the worst traffic jam ever to pick up people from a concert (I had to fight the conducter for the right to leave), and jumping onto a boda. The boda's light stopped working half way through the trip. I screamed bloody murder, but the guy wouldn't stop driving out of fear that I wouldn't pay him at all. I got home and got some well-deserved rest.

Monday...Monday...hmmm. I guess I was really tired. I will continue with more about this week next time.