I Have Arrived!

Hello from Uganda!

After a year in the making I have finally made it.  Four days of travel, 20 hours of flying, a seven hour bus ride, and a taxi drive to a hotel called JoJo's Palace, I finally got to drop my 45 pound duffel, 25 pound backpack, guitar case (loaded with books in the pockets) and my stuffed-to-the-brim shoulder bag/carry-on in Gulu town.  After all that, let me say for the record, I love Uganda!!

Walter and Barbara

Back when I was in college I did a study abroad in Vienna, Austria.  The director of the study abroad told our group about the three H's.  He'd been to Vienna with many groups over the years and saw the feelings of students regarding their new city revolve around the same reoccurring pattern: 1. Honeymoon, 2. Horror, 3. Home.  He was right, though I think if I passed through a horror period in Vienna it was very short.  I fully expected upon arriving in Africa for the first time I might pass right over the honeymoon period and straight to the horror.  Or, at the least, have a good mix of horror and honeymoon.  However, I am in a full-fledged honeymoon stage.   Of course there are things to be horrified at here, but I am continually surprised at all the things I love about this place.  Here in northern Uganda I am surrounded by people of the Acholi tribe and they are the warmest, friendliest people I've ever encountered.  Walter, one of the interpreters I work with greets me every morning saying "Moghan!!  You are SOOO beautiful today.  You look the most lovely I have ever seen."  Mind you, he is NOT hitting on me, he is very happily married with two children.  That is just the way he is.  It is not uncommon at all for people who hardly know each other to walk hand in hand.  If you have issues with personal space, you'd best leave them at the airport in Kampala. 

My room in Jojo's palace.  Looks palatial, right? 

One enormous quirk (and serious hindrance to the progress of these people) is that the electricity goes out all the time.  Most businesses have a back-up generator, but I have learned that even if you only have electricity for one week out of four in a month, you still pay for four weeks of electricity.  The cost of running a generator on top of that is just too much for many, so they just go without.  A few nights ago I desperately needed to wash my hair.  We'd spent a long day traveling down very dust roads to a few villages outside Gulu town.  The shower in my room stands over a very small tub, so I have taken to bathing in sections.  I had worked up a good lather with my head hanging upside down and was watching with amazement as the red-colored water fell from my hair to the tub, when all of a sudden the lights went off.  Back when I used to work night shifts in the coal mine, I would be down in the pit and lunch time would hit.  All the machinery would shut off their lights and, surrounded by the black coal, that was the darkest thing I'd ever experienced.  Until now.  In America, even when it's dark it's not really dark.  There is always light peaking through from somewhere.  But standing in that bathroom, with my soapy hair dripping into the bucket, no lights on anywhere in town, it was dark.

I have had a very busy week traveling around with Barbara and our two interpreters, Walter and Fiona, visiting all the cooperatives, meeting all the women, and participating in my first week of market days - where we purchase their jewelry.  It was wonderful to meet them and I loved seeing them in their home environment, surrounded by all the beads they had worked so hard to make.  Apparently the last project manager was a pretty awful manager, so the women all greeted me with a lot of joy and excitement over the out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new potential. 

Not the goats we hit, just a few hanging out outside my hotel.  That's normal.

We went to a village called Opit yesterday and hired a driver named Frances to take us there.  He was listening to the radio very softly in the front when I detected hints of a Bob Marley melody coming through.  I asked him to turn it up and that set the three of us in the back, Walter, Fiona and I, to singing along happily,  "No Woman, No Cry."  Up ahead we see a small herd of tiny baby goats, and as all drivers here do, instead of merging out of the way or slowing down, Frances just honks his horn and continues on as before.  The goats all started moving when at the last second one little guy cuts across and walks right in front of the car.  I screamed and Walter and Fiona and looked back and assured me he had gotten back up and walked off just fine.  Mind you, drivers don't just honk at goats, they honk at people on bicycle, motorbike and on foot, and then they drive forward at the same speed in good faith that people will move over.  And generally they do.  But sometimes you run over a baby goat. 

Me and Fiona, hanging on for dear life.  And laughing.

The three happy travelers.

A few more miles down the road and we hit an enormous pothole - the only thing drivers slow down for here.  Our car reaches the very middle of the pothole and it will go no further.  We're not stuck, his car is out of water.  Seriously?  Does that happen anymore?  Yes, in Africa it does.  Frances takes off to find a hut and borrow some water, and in the meantime an enormous truck pulls up to ask where we are headed.  They offer to give us a ride, free of charge.  Fiona and Walter are fully confident they have no weird ulterior motive, and they won't even try to kidnap us.  So we all hop in the back (except Barbara, she sat upfront between two large African men) and hang on to the bars as we drive full speed ahead to our next village.  Fiona (who seems to be very much an African city girl) and I laugh and laugh at how much fun this is and she tells me she wants to put the pictures on her facebook. 

Overall it has been a crazy adventure of a week.  I'm so looking forward to getting to know the women better and putting up their stories and pictures here so you can get to know them better as well.  I feel so happy here with the wonderful people and crazy-hot sunshine.  I feel again, for the first time in a long time, I'm right where I should be. 

Of course when you travel it's all about the food.  Before coming I was fairly terrified of eating here, but I've mostly gotten over that after being assured food is well-prepared and safe.  So, at the end of each blog I'll put up a few of my food highlights throughout the week.

Best thing I've eaten so far:

Ground nuts (peanuts) picked and roasted that morning.  Oh my.  Heaven.

New food I love and now don't know how I'll live with out it:

Jack's Fruit.  Oh so good!!

Jack's Fruit.  It's a fruit I don't even know how to describe, but it is so yummy.  It's incredibly sticky so everyone coats their hands with olive oil before they eat it.  It looks like a green porcupine on the outside and tastes like candy.