Full-Time Fundraising

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, after two serious weeks of fundraising, our Friends of Friends Fundraiser has brought in a total of $6,854!!!!  Wow, wow, WOW!  The most remarkable thing about this is, it's April.  April means, babies and weddings and finals and graduations and moving and all manner of other things.  So I've only had about half my army of fundraisers able to bring in money the last couple weeks.  And we are well over halfway to our goal!  Let's give our fundraisers a big round of applause, shall we??  Come on, they deserve it!

And let me tell you, being on the receiving end of all this money is a little overwhelming.  When people I know and love are forking over large chunks of change, and telling all their friends how amazing this project I'm trying to start is, and then their friends start forking over large chunks of change, it puts on the pressure!  I get a little giddy every time a PayPal payment shows up in my inbox, and I'm so happy every time I'm able to figure out whose friend it is that donated.  My friends have such great and generous friends!  Sending out thank you's and tax info has become a full-time job.  One that I relish.  Every $10 donation brings us closer to getting this recycling project started. Fingers crossed, that start will be the end of May!!

In other news, I've been working on putting together a garage sale.  My friend Ericka gave me the idea - said she raised a load of money doing a humanitarian garage sale one year.  Starting this project has led me to do all kinds of things I ain't never done before - a garage sale being one of them.  In my family, if we had something we didn't need anymore, we just gave it away.  So this is all new to me, and if anyone has any pointers, I'm all ears. 

I started talking to the people in my neighborhood, and then Saturday my parents and little brother helped me knock on every door and hand them a flyer asking for donations for the garage sale.  Wednesday was the pick up day and my mom and I drove around the streets hauling away goodies left on people's porches (marked for us, we didn't steal anyone's porch chairs, I promise,) We wound up with quite the loot!  And this is just the beginning!  So many houses said they had stuff for us, they just weren't ready to give it to us yet, but check out this garage: 

This is a garage to have a sale out of, no?  In this stash you see a washer and dryer, two entertainment centers, a TV, four bicycles, an electric fireplace, kitchen cupboards, and of course loads of books, clothes, dishes...I mean, there is a lot of stuff here!  If anyone in the area wants to donate their spring cleaning stash, I will gladly come take it off your hands!  If anyone in the area wants to buy some of this awesomeness, come early Saturday morning, May 5th!  It's gonna be fun!


Here's to getting Recycling for Hope started off very very soon!  Thanks everyone, for your donations, both monetary and....stuff. 

100 Friends, 1,000 Donations, 10,000 Dollars

Guess what?!  In less than a week, we've raised a total of $2,660!!  Yippee!!  We are on the right track!

In case this is the first you've heard of it, let me clue you in:

We are doing what I'm calling the Friends of Friends Fundraiser.  I am asking 100 friends and family to commit to asking ten of their friends for $10.  That means each friend will end up with $100, and if I have 100 friends with $100 to donate, then I have $10,000!  Like my friend Brett said, the math is really good, but will it work?  Well, we'll see. 

Essentially, I'm looking for one-thousand $10 donations, and with $2,660 raised, that means I am at 266 ten-dollar donations.  In actuality, I've had some wonderfully generous people donate, so I haven't really had that many people donate, but whatever the number, I'm exceedingly grateful!  I've given everyone two weeks to raise the money, and April 26th is the deadline, so with just over a week to go we're a bit low to hit our mark.  However, I know everyone is trying really hard, and I couldn't ask for more.  I have great faith that this fundraiser will be highly instrumental in my going back to Uganda.  I have great faith I will be able to start this recycling project.  I have great faith that together, we are all going to accomplish something wonderful. 

So I have two questions for all my readers;

First - if you're not already, do you want to be one of my 100 friends and help raise $100?  If so, shoot me an email, leave a comment below, call me, or fly a banner over my roof (actually, forget the banner, donate those funds, and just knock on the door.)

Second - if you can't be one of my 100 friends, will you donate $10?  That's all I'm asking for folks, $10.  Like my friend Rachel said, that's a meal at Chipotle.  So eat spaghetti tonight instead and donate $10!

Everyone who has followed this blog has been so amazingly supportive, and I am so thankful for all the love I've felt in a very foreign land.  I really believe in this project and want be back in Uganda for one more round, so please do what you can to help me out.

If you haven't seen my website yet, check it out!  www.RecyclingForHopeUG.com  It's a bit bare, hoping to remedy that soon, but the donate button is there, and the back story is here on the blog.  And of course, if you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Let me leave you with our video, and tell me what you think!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiJTh4CIE1g

Recycling for Hope

I hadn't been in Gulu for more than a week when I asked David, my office mate at the time, where I could take my old water bottles.  I was beginning to feel guilty for all the waste I knew I would accumulate throughout the year since tap and well water is undrinkable.  He looked at me smugly and in a you're-obviously-new-here-and-have-no-clue kind of voice informed me, "There's no recycling center in Gulu."  I was surprised, and to this day, I do not think it was naive of me to be.  Gulu had been terrorized for 20 years.  The town had spent the last four years rebuilding itself almost entirely, and every NGO and development initiative imaginable had been involved.  How had recycling been left out so completely?

I was just sure it hadn't.  So I started asking around and found out about a church that was supposedly making gift cards out of recycled paper.  Well, it was a start.  I began trying to track it down so I could ask if they could use my waste paper.  It turns out, it wasn't a church - but a church's initiative, and it wasn't gift cards, it was sanitary pads.  They gladly accepted the paper I brought, and gave me a full tour.  I watched the women pulping the paper with a huge mortar and pestle, mixing it with papyrus leaves and laying it out to dry in the sun.  I saw them sizing and cutting and stitching and sterilizing.  My mind was blown.  This was so much cooler than anything I had been imagining.

Pads make from recycled paper - amazing!

A couple weeks later I returned, my head swimming with questions about their waste paper needs.  I was able to talk to the director who told me about how in addition to giving the sanitary pads to school girls along with an education program, they take in formerly abducted women, or battered women, or victims of sexual abuse.  They counsel with them, and of course, being church affiliated, teach them the gospel, and finally teach them a livelihood.  She also told me how they wanted to expand their efforts, and how they could use all the waste paper from all of Northern Uganda, but currently were forced to buy nearly all their paper and ship it up from Kampala.  Before I really knew what I was saying, I blurted out, "I am your woman!  I will get you more paper!"  I don't think I walked out of the compound that day, I floated.

The poster a friend made to advertise our concert.

Unfortunately, I left for the Galapagos shortly thereafter, (not that going to the Galapagos is ever truly unfortunate...) and almost immediately upon returning my job went from not-enough-to-do to three-people-should-have-my-job.  A couple months later though, I met Pilgrim Metts.  Pilgrim (and yes, that is his real name, and yes, he has white-man dreads) wound up in Gulu for the summer sort of by accident, and he didn't have anything to do.  I told him he needed to run my recycling project for me.  He agreed, he did.  We worked on it a bit together that summer, and though we weren't able to get nearly as much accomplished as either of us would have liked, (though we did put on a great benefit concert together!) through the meetings, the attempts, and all the discussions I had with people, I came to see just how passionate about this project I really was.  It took everything I had to continue working on the micro-enterprise project I was responsible for, rather than just bucking it altogether and concentrating solely on recycling.

Made entirely from water-bottle bricks! 

A week after Pilgrim left, I randomly found myself in a van full of female expats I'd never met, including a girl carrying an inordinate amount of empty water bottles.  I asked, "Why all the bottles?" and she told me they were building houses out of them.  My eyes lit up and my brain started churning.  I asked her if I could donate my own bottles??  (All the while trying to figure out how in heaven's name I hadn't met this girl before?!)  She answered with an emphatic yes, and said she was always trying to get as many as she could.  About a month later I brought her a large box full of water bottles and talked to her about my latest ideas for my recycling program.  I needed to know, could they handle the capacity of bottles I was prepared to get for them?  She said yes.  Would they be able to pick them up from the collected locations?  She said yes.  So I told her of my current dreams of going home and fundraising for the money to come back in 2012 and do the recycling program full time.  Could they wait four months for this?  She said yes. I don't think I walked out of the compound that day, I floated.

A few days later Elizabeth (water bottle recycling woman) called and said there was a dinner she wanted to invite me to.  There I made two important contacts - first a guy named James who wanted to start a new initiative in his existing NGO using old grocery sacks.  They would be ironed and re-purposed into what looked and felt like patent leather, then sewn into useful things like Kindle cases to be sold here in the US.  He was very interested in my proposed project and even wanted to pay me for the materials I found for him.  Second was a blessed man named Noah who asked me what I needed to get started on my project.  "I need about $3,000 to get the recycling boxes cut - that's the first thing."

Prototype of the boxes Noah agreed to buy. 

"Oh, well, I can give you $3,000."  ......  Seriously? .....  Just like that?  So, that did it in my mind.  If this guy was willing to fork over that much money, that easily, then I would do this project.  I would do everything in my power to make it a reality.  About a week before leaving Gulu I had another man promise me about $2,000 after a five minute conversation.

I came home at Christmastime with a goal to be back in Gulu with an additional $12,000 by mid-February.  A bit of an unrealistic goal, I'm now realizing, but which I blame on saints like Noah and P. Jackson for donating funds so plentifully and willingly.  I've had some rough patches and had to re-examine my goals and aspirations and methods several times, but every time I've come to the same conclusion, I need to make Recycling for Hope a reality.  And I fully believe I will.

I have had wonderful support from so many wonderful people, and I currently have an army of nearly 100 people helping me fund raise and network and get online and on and on.  How does one girl get so lucky?  Together, we will make Recycling for Hope a reality.  Just watch us!

(Visit www.RecyclingForHopeUG.com to learn more and make a donation!)

Website banner created by the lovely and talented Courtney O'Dell

Born a Leader, Died a Friend

Obviously, I dropped off the blogging earth.  Life went crazy, it got hard, and blogging something upbeat seemed too difficult.  So I just stopped for a while.  And then it felt like I had to do so much catching up that I felt overwhelmed at even attempting that.  So I've decided there will be no catch-up.  If you really want to know about the last four months of my time in Gulu, shoot me an email and I'll happily fill you in.

No, now is the time for me to start afresh, to blog about my new project, and all the successes that I am certain are going to happen therein.  But first, there is one catch-up post I need to write.  It regards something I haven't been able to talk about to anyone.  I haven't told a soul.  The current project manager of Paper to Pearls told me, so we discussed it a bit, and then Barbara, the director of Paper to Pearls called me one day and we spoke briefly about it.  But that's it.  I haven't told anyone out loud that Sarah passed away.

Sarah Akot - the beloved chairwoman of the Gulu co-operative for Paper to Pearls -the woman I accompanied to the Galapagos, and the woman who single-handedly showed me how much potential every single woman in Gulu has, died on February 11th of....well, we don't really know.  It looks like she had many health complications.  She always complained of having an ulcer that bothered her, but I was unaware that she had AIDS, so in the end, I guess the doctors decided it was a combination of that, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

I haven't been able to tell anyone, because there isn't a single person I know who fully understands what Sarah means to me and what she did for me.  I'm blogging about it now because I'm still not ready to discuss it out loud, but I feel unable to continue blogging until I address the issue in some form.  So I will try to express what Sarah meant to me exactly, and why I'm devastated at her loss.

I would have quit if it hadn't been for her.  And she doesn't even know that.  She showed me the ropes because the past project manager refused to respond to any of my pleas for help, so it was Sarah who took me to Kampala, and got lost with me trying to find all the places I needed to go to pick up supplies.  Sarah told me how to be tough with the women so they didn't take advantage of me.  And when things got really hard and it felt like none of what I was going through was worth it, I could think back on the moment Sarah danced like a rock-star in front of a room full of admiring artists in Ecuador and I saw the worth of an individual.  Then I knew I was working for the individual women - not for me, not for the demanding director and client back in the States, but for the women trying so hard to care for their own and working so hard at something they learned to really excel at.  And then I knew that it was, indeed, worth what I was going through.   And each one of those women were and are capable of more.  And from there I learned that each woman (and man for that matter) living everywhere, are bigger and more capable of the circumstances they currently find themselves in.  That is what Sarah taught me.  

Sarah and I did get along perfectly all the time, that is no secret.  I called her out once in front of all the women for lying to me.  I felt like if I let Sarah get away with lying to me, all the other women would feel like they could do it to.  One woman was so upset with me over it, she nearly quit coming to roll beads.  Sarah and I had been together pretty much 24 hours a day for nearly three weeks straight when we were in the Galapagos.  And let me tell you, there is nothing like waking up to a big ol' naked African woman sleeping in the bed next to yours.  When I got home, I wanted to hide from her - I just didn't want to be around her.  And there was the time I desperately needed help with my project's endless quality control issues, and I hired a young girl from my congregation to be that person.  The women didn't know her and didn't trust her, and she was younger than they were, so they weren't very nice to her.  And I let Sarah have it for not supporting me.  See, I knew Sarah was absolutely the leader of the pack.  The women all looked up to her so much that if she didn't support me, no one would.

But in reality, I had immense amounts of respect for the leader that Sarah was, for how capable she was, for how much initiative she took, and for her creativity.  Sarah filled my version of Gulu.  I simply cannot imagine the place without her.  I don't do well without closure, and that - I have discovered - is why funerals are so important.  Everything I know of Gulu includes Sarah, and my mind refuses to accept that she's not there.  I believe it will continue to do so until I can see for myself she's no longer running things.  I am unavoidably and uncontrollably jealous of the current project manager who was able to be to her burial, to mourn with her family and the Paper to Pearls women.

I truly thought Sarah (who was only 52) would live to be a crazy 80-year-old Acholi woman, spinning stories with deep wrinkles and bossing her great grandchildren around.  I imagined introducing my kids to her when I came to visit for summers with them.  And now stories and photos will have to suffice.  

The last time I saw Sarah. 

It is for women like Sarah who die too young and of a disease that we should be able to better control, that each of us needs to strive to improve the world.  To help the needy and the sick and the uneducated.  For those of us who are healthy, educated and financially stable, I really believe it is our duty as citizens of this world to do our best to improve these issues.  Even if we are only able to improve one person's life.  What if that one person had been Sarah, and I could still have her for my next African adventure?  Each person is just that valuable.

Sarah taught me that. 

Ode to My Guitar

Welp, that was a hiatus I didn't mean to take.  Remember that time I came back from the Galapagos and I said I didn't foresee taking another long blogging break?  Well, let's just say I certainly did not foresee this.  Work has literally been insane.  Plus I stopped being as big a hermit (still hermitize as often as possible however,) as I was the two months after Ecuador, so that has taken up a lot of free time that may have been spent blogging.  But don't get me wrong.  I have just had long day after long day.  This is the blog post I started to write five weeks ago, but then ran out of time and haven't been able to get back to since.  I figure I'll pick up where I left off, and then try to get a few more in this week to catch everyone up to speed on the happenings of my life.  Here goes!

There are a few things here in Uganda that have kept me sane through the insane times during my stay.  There have been very lonely times, very bored times, and very retrospective times.  All in between all the good stuff, of course, but it's definitely been there.  

My first link to sanity is my computer.  Without my email/blog outlet (which truly means hearing from all of you more than my being able to write - though writing is exceedingly therapeutic for me) I can't imagine what I would do.  It is literally my link to the outside world/everything that is familiar to me, and without it, I would probably cry a lot more often...  

The second bit of sanity is my nook - the eReader by Barnes & Noble.  I stuck a load of books on that thing before I came, and I cannot tell you what a relief it is to know that when I finish my book two hours into my six hour bus ride, I didn't have to pack another book that may or may not be attainable at the moment, I can just hit a button, and voila!  There is the next book!  It's also a very cozy friend on a rainy Saturday morning when I won't have to leave the house for several hours.

The third sanity-keeper is my guitar.  Before coming to Gulu, I knew I would miss my music, but I often wondered just how much I would miss it.  About six weeks into my stay I started fantasizing about practice rooms and pianos and taking voice lessons and singing in recitals.  Needless to say, I miss it a great deal.  If it weren't for my guitar out here, I truly don't know what I would do.  I will often sit and play for an hour, look up and realize there is actually a whole world surrounding me that I had forgotten about.  

I feel extremely blessed because all three of these things - the computer, the nook and the guitar were all very generous gifts from wonderful people in my life.  Unfortunately, I can't share my eReader with everyone, but I can share the computer with everyone through my blog and emails, and I decided it was time for me to share the guitar with everyone.  It has been almost exactly one year since I first started learning, and I am a rather poor self-taught guitarist.  I know about 20 songs, and I play those same twenty over and over, but I still love it.  I look forward to teaching in a music store again sometime so I can trade lessons with a guitar teacher and actually learn a thing or two about this instrument.  

There are three people I owe my guitar playing to, first is to a former student of mine who was also a guitar teacher.  One day he was telling me about a song he'd sat down and learned to sing and play one evening and I expressed my sincere jealousy of his guitar playing ability - just to be able to go home at the end of a long day and sit and play and sing, how great would that be?  He said, "You can borrow one of mine, Morgan, I'm made of guitars."  Later that week he brought me one and I went right home and re-taught myself all the main guitar chords (I had taught myself back in undergrad.)  I became obsessed with it over the next four-ish days and bragged to a friend of mine at work that I knew played guitar really well that I had learned to play over the weekend.  He told me I needed to show him my skills, so I went over to his place that night to play Scarborough Fair and 500 Miles.  He told me to stop strumming the bottom strings when I played my D chord.  I told him I tried, but I wasn't very good at it yet, and thus was born my informal guitar lessons.  He taught me a half-dozen or so songs over the next couple months, and consequently quite a few technical things I would never have gotten on my own.  

During those months I became so attached to playing the guitar everyday I did not want to give my student back his guitar, but since I was leaving DC for Utah before coming to Uganda, I knew it had to happen eventually.  I mentioned to my boss at the music store that I was looking for a cheap used guitar and he followed up with, "Well, now I know what to get you for your going away gift."  And sure enough, my last night teaching before I moved, as I was about to leave, he asked if I wanted blue, black or orange.  I could not have been more thrilled walking out with my very own guitar.  So, you three (who probably are not reading this,) thank you a million times over for my guitar start and my consequential moments of musical sanity over here in Africa.  

So.  Now.  Onto the music.  I only did 60 second clips or less so I could actually get them posted using my ridiculously slow internet. 

This first song I learned for my dad so I could play it for him while he recovered from surgery last fall - I know it's a song that has a lot of meaning to him so I thought it might cheer him up.  I never actually played it for him though...sorry about that daddy.  But, this one is for you.  (And I'll play it in full when I get back home.)

This song is the one I attribute to being the first "real" song I learned on the guitar.  Meaning, the first song that I didn't just play lame chords I found on the internet and pretended I knew a strumming pattern for.  It's also one of those songs I would put on the soundtrack of my life.  If my life had a soundtrack....

This song is for my momma.  Not because I sometimes feel like a motherless child, but because she has told me many times how much she likes this song, so every time I hear it I think of her.  And, of course,  thanks to her I never had to feel like a motherless child.  

This song reminds me of my childhood.  It was actually the song I played at my very first piano recital (a very impressive and virtuosic seven-year-old rendition I might add...) and of course, I grew up listening to Simon and Garfunkel and their beautiful canticle version.  Here's my own!

Lastly, I was in Kampala over the 4th of July weekend, and every Monday night on the lawn of the National Theatre, they do a sort of open mic night.  Somehow my friends talked me into singing and playing.  I had never played in front of an audience bigger than two people before (other than the random passersby when I would play on my front porch at my old place.)  So I'm not sure why anyone thought it would be a good idea.  It certainly wasn't the performance of a lifetime, but it did feel good to be infront of an audience again.  I did a cover of The Cranberries' Zombie.  It's a fun one :-)  The performance is too long to upload, so you'll just have to settle for a very dark picture of me and my borrowed guitar. 

Next up on the guitar docket?  Benefit concert for my recycling program!  It's August 19th - more details to come!

Hope you all enjoyed the concert!  I'll be back again soon with my next post....promise!

Gulu, In Pictures

I have made it back to Gulu after another week in Kampala.  The good news is, I made it through the week without any tragedies, calamities, or breakdowns.  I'm making progress!!  I had a bit of an odd day yesterday, though not entirely unique to Uganda.  As many of you probably already know, I love making lists, so here's another one:

1.  Mailed some stuff and licked stamps for the first time in years.  The stamps included one of the Pope's visit to Uganda in 1983.
2.  Got lost on a boda in an industrial neighborhood called Ntinda.  That was after the driver assured me he knew how to get me where I needed to go.
3.  Ate a grasshopper.  On purpose.  The lovely lady selling me seed beads and jewelry wire insisted.  So I finally caved.  It....really wasn't bad.  I'm not going to run out and buy a full serving for myself or anything (I can't take the eyes staring at me) but it certainly didn't make me gag.  This is huge for me, folks.  I don't do bugs.
4.  Was grabbed a little too aggressively by a fellow selling in the market.  I threatened to hit him (by, you know, swinging my fist quite near his face.)  He screamed like a girl and backed down.  He then tried to recover his bravado in front of his friends of course, but I think he'll think twice before grabbing/pulling the next "Mzungu" girl.
5.  Figured out how to cut a full day and $50 off my next and subsequent Kampala trips.  (Given that all goes well with the printers, that is.)  Yippee!
6.  Saw one of the huge cranes that fly around Kampala get hit by a car and get back up again.  I think he was gimpy and couldn't fly because he was just hobbling around both before and after the hit.  Poor little guy.  Or maybe he was drunk?
7.  Went grocery shopping at a real supermarket and dropped too much money starting my food supply for the next six months.  All the little spices and cans of chickpeas (!) really add up quick!  But I'm so excited to go home and cook!!!
8.  Ate dinner at the hotel to the soothing teenage rock tunes of the late '90s.  God must've spent a little more time on you!
9.  Finished the evening off watching a movie (Young Victoria) on my laptop thanks to the generous expat community's shared movie files....  

Quite a day!

Now, to make up for the last post with no pictures, I thought I would take you all on a picture tour through Gulu.  The following are most of the places I visit on a regular basis.  It's not exhaustive, but it'll give you a decent idea of my little world.  So......here we go!!

W E L C O M E   T O   G U L U ! !

We're starting at the house I spent my first four months in.  This is the front side that you would see from the main road that leads to Kampala.  I lived around the back side on what would be the left side when looking at this photo.  The middle there is the small shop they ran out of their home.

We're walking, we're walking....

This is where my office was.  I say was because David hired a few more people and there just wasn't room for me there anymore.  I'll be working from home now when I'm not with the women, which has been a whole lot more in the last month or so than before, so it's just fine by me.  Still, I spent an awful lot of time here my first few months, so I thought you all should see the place.  It's all locked up because I took the photo a few hours ago - Saturday afternoon.  It's usually bustling with people concerned about their savings.

Let's move on to the market.

This is the entrance/outside street of Owino Market.  Same as in Kampala, Owino translates to Everything, though it's MUCH smaller than the one in Kampala, and much less pushy.  Still, you really can find just about anything here.

Anyone care to stop and shop?  Table runners, anyone??

Here we've arrived at my church.  I visit every Sunday morning and often on Friday evenings (they do ward activities every week at 5:00pm followed by ward choir - recently started by yours truly.)  We'll be moving buildings soon for two reasons; one, as you can see, this place is kind of a dump....  two, we're busting at the seems in here!

These two women happened to be at the church when I went to go snap a shot of it and insisted I take their photo.  Ugandans LOVE  having their picture taken.  They want to see the display screen and they want you to have it.  That's all. 

OK, let's move people!  Follow the umbrella!!

We've now arrived at the Gulu branch of the Uganda Post Office.  I visit almost daily.  Though I rarely have mail.  Pathetic?  Maybe.  Mostly just desperate for some contact from the outside world.  Do you feel guilty now?  Don't feel guilty, just send me something!!  :-)  I really wanted to take a picture of the red side of the building for my Ugandan Profundities segment because it used to be HOT PINK!!  I laughed every time I saw it because where else can you find a pink government building?!  Nowhere, only in Gulu.  But then, they painted it while I was in Ecuador.  Tragic!!  I still lament the loss of pinkness regularly. 

 

Upwards and onwards, folks!  

Now we've reached the Momma Florence home.  They are one of my favorite families here in Gulu.  There are seven children and the mother (occasionally the father, but he's in the military stationed in Central Africa) staying in this tiny one room apartment.  When I say one room, think "old log cabin" one room.  As in, this door you see here is the only one in the home.  I'm not really sure how they manage it, but they do.  And they are one of those families where everyone is welcome all the time.  In fact, this photo has only one of their seven children in it (you can only see part of her head, she's hiding in the back.)  The rest are just neighbors hanging around waiting for the rest of the family to come home. 

This is Happy - she's the one hiding in the other photo.  She's standing in the alley you have to walk through to get to her home. 

Vhen du willst (that one's for you Meaux and DLJ!) let's stop here at Pece Stadium.  I wouldn't say I come here regularly, but lots of events are held here.  Rugby, football (soccer), political speeches, etc.  Today was the high school field day with lots of loud music blaring out of those over-sized speakers.  I seriously can't figure out how those kids can stand that close to them! 

We're now arriving at BJz.  This is the pub that holds the pub quiz every Thursday night and is where a lot of the expats hang out on the weekend.  It's also where I watched my first real rugby match and fell in love with it. 

Let's keep moving.

Here we have my current residence.  I moved in with my friend Tiziana on the first of June, and she has been a very gracious host for the last few weeks.  Thankfully though, I think I have found a permanent place to move in to (*fingers crossed*, *knocking on wood*) so I should be moving out again soon.  It's a house split in two, we live in the right side.

Good work, people!  We've reached our last destination; where I am seated right now, due to yet another power outage; Coffee Hut.  It's the place that has free internet, only with over-priced Americanized food.  It definitely serves a purpose, and I have been grateful for it on many occasions, but I think I have just spent too many hours in here.  As you can see, this is another expat favorite.  Or near necessity, take your pick.  Anyone care for a milkshake while we're here?

And there you have it, folks!  The wonderful, busy, small, dirty, and yet fairly enchanting town of Gulu.  That's my world for a year.  It's little, but I'm happy with it.  Thanks for visiting, we hope you have enjoyed your stay and we hope you come back soon!

You Are Now Leaving Gulu. 

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.