Vignettes

Sorry for the tardy post.  Busy weekend + no power + dead battery = no blogging.  However, I'm now back in Kampala for an emergency trip to get  more paper.  So I have nothing to do at night and can post.  I decided to just write a few very short stories to give a feel of life here from another angle.  Between my being stuck in Kampala and the changing the style means no photos... Sorry!  Hopefully you'll read anyway!  OK, I'll throw in a photo, just for fun. 

Main traffic circle in Gulu Town just before a storm.

Succulent Seventh Sin

I had been craving pineapple all day long.  Mouth-watering, sugar-part-of-the-brain-screaming, is-this-what-it-feels-like-to-be-pregnant?, craving.  I had some errands to run in town, so on my way back to the office I stopped into the market and purchased and lovely golden pineapple.  The woman selling it offered to cut it for me and I agreed wholeheartedly because truly, I wanted to eat the entire thing myself.  All at once.  I knew if I took it home for Concy to cut for me I would have to offer it for dinner to be shared by all.  But I wanted to horde all the golden citrus in my own stomach.  She only cut the prickly outside off the fruit, which I found a bit odd, though sufficient.  Happily I bounded back to the office, sacked pineapple in tow.  I finished my work for the day with the pineapple sitting on the corner of my desk, staring at me, reminding me every two minutes that it was waiting for me.  And then the rain came.  It was the beginning of rainy season and I had fairly forgotten the inevitable storm right at the moment I would try to head home.  I was starving by this point and the pineapple had now gone from mere bi-minute reminders to downright taunting.  So I caved.  I picked that pineapple up by its end and shoved my face right into the middle of it.  I chewed with great satisfaction and a big grin on my lips. Again I dug in right to the middle.  And then again, and again and again – just like I was eating corn on the cob.  Only with juice dripping down my face, left and right and spattering on the floor.  I tied my handkerchief around my neck to catch the flow and then watched the rain fall out the back door as I gluttonously finished the pineapple.

First Encounter

It was my first bus ride up to Gulu, I’d been in the country less than 24 hours.  I’d had no idea what to expect from this bus.  I half expected to board the back of the truck and sit on a wheel-well for five hours with chickens in coups next to me.  But this was actually a bus-bus.  Kinda ghetto, well, pretty ghetto, but a bus with cushioned seats and all.  There were three seats on one side and two on the other.  I felt lost and like I didn’t know which way was forward as I walked back to the first empty aisle seat I could find – on the three seat side.  I asked the kid next to the window – looked to be maybe 17 – if I could sit.  He smiled a friendly smile and said what I think was, “Yes, of course.”  I found a place for my bag overhead and sat.  Window kid said something directed at me.  “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”  

“What is your name?”   

Ah, names, OK, I do that.  “Morgan.  What is yours?”    

He said something, I know he did, I just had no idea what it was.  I knew these people would speak English, and I knew it would be with an accent, but I didn’t expect it to be an accent I couldn’t understand at all.  I repeated what I thought he’d said, but he shook his head and said again, “Ton Ton.”   

“Ton Ton?” I asked.  He nodded and smiled.  Our conversation continued this way for as long as I could take pretending to understand him with his accent over the roar of the bus engine and its horn that sounded like a virtuosic saxophone bleating every 30 seconds.  I started to write in my journal, looking up every few minutes to see if there were giraffes in the distance.  There weren’t.   

I braved conversation again and asked Ton Ton if I would see any animals on the ride?  He nodded, confirming that I would.  “There are gorillas all along the road.”   

I was astounded, “Gorillas?” I asked incredulously.  I had expected wild animals, but gorillas?  Out here in the open?  Unbelievable!  I couldn’t wait.  I looked up from my journal with more frequency for the next hour.  I didn’t see a thing, so I concentrated a bit more thoroughly on my journal.  Until Ton Ton tapped my arm and pointed.  And lo and behold, there was a “gorilla.”  Standing in the middle of the road.  OK, not a gorilla in the slightest, actually.  A baboon.  I didn’t know yet that Ugandans call anything resembling a monkey by the name “gorilla.”  But I was thrilled and stretched and strained my neck to watched the baboons crawl around the road, nonchalantly getting out of the bus's way. 

When Pigs “Fly”

The missionaries from my church had asked me to go with them to visit Nancy, a girl who was to be baptized that Sunday.  We were supposed to leave at 7:00 pm – dusk.  In typical Ugandan fashion (and I think typical missionary fashion) they were running late, so we didn’t leave until 8:00 pm – full dark.  I didn’t realize until they showed that these were not the missionaries with the truck, these were the missionaries that “foot it,” as they say here.  We set out heading north towards town on my busy unlit road, walking briskly and passing many of the ever-slow-going Ugandans, trying not to trip over the liter and pot holes along the way.  One guy saw us pass and decided to keep pace.  He began asking them if I were available to marry.  Elder Mbunda thankfully detoured him by saying in his eager way, “I don’t know about that, but I know the gospel has been restored!”   

Tag-A-Long Guy persisted, “Yes, I am also a believer in God.  But what of this one?  Can I get her name?”   

Elder Mbunda was also persistent, and still eager, “That is not important, this is important; the gospel has been restored!”  When Tag-A-Long Guy finally realized he was getting nowhere, he lagged behind.  We chortled about that all evening.  “That is not important!  THIS is important!”  We finally turned off to head toward the village that housed Nancy.  As we walked amidst the deep ruts in the dirt road we suddenly heard a child scream - High-pitched, elongated, and clearly in pain.  And the scream seemed to be coming nearer.  We simultaneously heard the unmistakable hum of the “boda” taxi motor coming our way.  We quickly shuffled to the side of the road so as to get out of the way, all the while trying locate the source of the scream that was now growing louder and more painful to listen to.  I realized as the boda was nearly upon us that the screaming child was actually on the motorbike.  I suddenly snapped into fight mode, ready to protect this poor child.  Until I realized as the bike passed us, the screaming was actually more of a horrified squeal and was coming from a fat pink body rather than a skinny black one.  Mr. Boda had a live, full-sized pig strapped to the back of his bike. 

Double or Nothing

I boarded the bus at 6:30 am for my first supply trip down to Kampala.  I found an empty row and took the window seat on the west side of the bus so as to avoid the oppressive sunshine that would soon beat down on the non-air conditioned bus. The empty seats were quickly filled by a young girl of about 13 years sitting next to me and a mother holding a baby on her lap in the aisle seat.  We’d been driving about two hours on the six-and-a-half-ish hour bus ride when the girl next to me very quietly leaned forward and vomited.  All over her skirt and handbag.  She didn’t say anything, the woman next to her didn’t say anything, so I didn’t say anything, I just stared in shock thinking, Did that really just happen?  The bus just kept moving and no one noticed or thought anything of it.  She a had a plastic sack with clothing in it at her feet and she dug out a black tank top and began mopping up her mess.  Finally, after getting my bearings and taking in exactly what had just occurred and how stuck I was, I asked if she was alright?  She didn’t acknowledge my question – she very well may not have understood me.  The woman next to me told me it was motion sickness.  I offered her a hard candy to suck on and gave her a plastic bag I had in my purse, because you just never know when you’re going to need a plastic bag.  After finally reaching Kampala at nearly 2:00 pm, I negotiated with a boda driver to get me and my bag to my hostel.  I walked in and asked for a single room.  They didn’t have any.  What do you mean you don’t have any??!  I need a room!  I’ve got to get out of these vomit-smelling clothes!  But the incredibly insouciant receptionist insisted, there was no single room.  Well, is there a double?  Nope.  I huffed like a spoiled American, sat down on the lobby floor (if you can call it a lobby, which, I don’t think you can) and pulled out my laptop and internet modem to try to look up another hostel I’d heard of but had no idea where it was located.  I wanted to make sure it had a room before I trekked across town to no avail.  What was I supposed to do if I couldn’t get a room there either??!  Just as I was connecting, a maid came to the receptionist who then told me a double room had just become available.  Great.  Get me in there.  The maid took me to the room and opened my door.  She showed me in and went over to the window with a bed directly in front of it and started to open the curtains.  In her attempt to do so, she pulled the whole thing, rod and all, down on top of her.  I dropped my bags and rushed over to help put them back up.  We were finally successful, though the curtain rod was very precariously perched on the wall and I could see exactly why they came down.  Then the maid proceeded to try to open the curtains again.  Again, they came down on top of her.  Again, we got them back in place and again she tried to open the curtains.  This time I curtailed her curtain attempts and told her I didn’t need to see outside.  I liked them closed, just as they were.