Tranquility in the waters of Lake Victoria

Last weekend I went together with Isaac, Elin (a girl who normally studies at Abo Akademi) and Astrid & Olav (a Norwegian couple) to Ssese Islands in Lake Victoria. Apparently it was once a place where many white tourists used to go, but not anymore because of the bilharzia (little things living in the water that penetrates your skin and can make you very sick). We left on Saturday (the day of lilla jul! = “little Christmas”) in the afternoon with the only ferry going there from Entebbe. It was a nice little boat ride that lasted for three hours and took us through waters with many islands that are surprisingly hilly (for some reason I always picture islands to be flat). We reached the quiet Bugala Island in the early evening and by the time we’ve found a place to stay it was already dark. The island was very beautiful with its palm trees and white sandy beaches and the water looked very tempting to jump into. It would have been nice to go for a swim, but knowing about the “lovely” little creatures that live in it we all preferred to stay on land instead. There were not many things to do in the evening and to find a place where they had food was a challenge. Bugala Island have many resorts to stay at but very few guests and I suppose that’s the reason why they don’t have anything left for those people who haven’t ordered food in advance. Eventually we found a place to eat and our exclusive lilla jul-dinner consisted of french fries and omelet and beer of odd brands that I’ve never knew about until then. After our dinner we moved down to the beach and played pool and looked at the few people who had a little party around the bonfire while we had a few more beers before it was bedtime.

The next morning we woke up to the sound of rain and that rain never wanted to stop. Despite the rain we decided to go for a walk around the place. We through “sandwiches” (you know, when you have a flat rock and throw it so it jumps a couple of times on the water surface) at the beach and were followed by ten children who all wanted to hold our hands. After the walk, we decided to leave the place since there was really nothing to do there and the weather was still not nice. Bugala Island was beautiful but so empty on people that it almost felt a bit spooky.

We got a car that took us across the whole island on a bumpy road, passing the tiny Kalangala “town” and green fields where people ran around catching grasshoppers for eating. At the other end of Bugala we caught a small ferry taking us to Masaka in western Uganda. Our plan was to take a bus from there and go straight to Kampala, but as we reached land we realised that we were very close to Lake Nabugabo, a small bilharzia free lake where you can actually swim! So, instead of going straight home we decided to go to this lake for one night. We got a taxi (a normal 5 seated car) that would take us there and as we entered the car we found out that there are also other people going with the same car. We squeezed together and managed to fit in four people in the back seat, four people in the front (including the driver who was more or less hanging out of the window while driving) and the boot of the car loaded with fresh fish.

Lake Nabugabo was also a very quiet and peaceful place but less spooky. We were the only once staying in our guest house on the lake shore and food was again not very easy to get. But we had a nice little time playing cards and UNO in the evening.

The next day we went for a walk along the lake and found a place where we could rent little local canoes. We jumped into the little boats that weren’t very stabile and paddled back to the place where we stayed. That was nice! During our boat ride we met two guys who sat on a surfing board and paddled by using two plastic plates. When we reached back to our place, we swam and had lunch by the water before we returned to Kampala.

The day after we got back home it was time for me to move out of Akamwesi hostel. It feels a bit strange to no longer live in Wandegeya, which is OH so close to town and everything else compared to where I stay now. But I like the new place and it actually feels like I come home to a real home now in the evenings and not only to a room in a house full of other people. And the best part is the cows, pigs and the donkey that I now have as my neighbours :o)

Explosions in Africa

Oh no! Today the “e”-button on my laptop fell off –just like that under my very gentle fingers! I have to admit that it made me a bit nervous. For some seconds I could see a picture of how my dear little friend, the computer, would crumble into many little pieces. There’s never a good time for a computer to break down and die, but now the timing would have been worse than ever. Luckily, there’s a little MacGyver living inside me too so I managed to fix it without any bigger problems. Just hope that the button will stay where it is now and that no other buttons decide to come off too.

Things seem to break all the time here. Last Friday I came to the office in the morning and found out that the power is gone once again. The generator was running though, so we could still use the computers. A woman from a Danish organisation for disabled people was here working on a project proposal together with the NUWODU staff and she used her own laptop. While I was sitting by the computer alone in one room I could all of a sudden see a lot of smoke coming out of the computer I was using while it did a buzzing noise. That’s when I said “oh shit!” afraid that the whole thing would explode. I ran up and turned off the power by the wall while the others, who could only see smoke in the room I was sitting in, wondered what was happening. Ten seconds later the Danish woman (who is disabled and can’t get up from a chair without help) yells that smoke is also coming out of her computer, so once again I rush to turn off the power to her laptop. The result: one computer and one laptop adapter are completely dead. It reminded me, once again, that it’s very easy to die in Africa. It’s also not long ago that my hotplate, that I use for cooking, was about to explode while I was using it. That one doesn’t work anymore either...

I’ve had a period now when I’ve been a bit down and very annoyed with all the people here and how they always yell “muzungo” and treat me differently. It makes me tired and I have many times just gone straight home and locked myself inside my room refusing to come out. I don’t like to see how angry and unfriendly I become among the people. I like to be smiley and happy! Anyway, I think I’m about to recover from this “dark period” now, because I can smile again when people give me more attention than I actually want. I’m getting back to a normal and happy Pamela.

A lot of people take it for granted that every white person comes from USA, which I find rather irritating. This includes me, of course, because I’m white and I speak English to them (that’s enough to qualify for being a person that comes from USA). So, one day on my way to NUWODU office a man came up to me and asked if I was from America or (to my surprise) China! I just looked at him trying not to laugh out loud. I would have loved to know why of all the countries in the whole world he picked China. It must have been my curly blond hair and blue eyes that fooled him...

I’m about to move out from my hostel in Wandegeya. Finally! This is what I wanted since I came back here. It wasn’t very easy to find a place that I’d like to call my home and to my surprise it was very difficult to find a place with a green garden. People seem to like concrete here, which I suppose is guaranteed to not become muddy when it rains. I looked at several places but one place won the price: the extremely tiny toilet had a big hole in the ceiling and the one and only socket in the kitchen was melted. I laughed and said no thank you to the house broker who then took me to the place that is now mine. It’s an apartment with 2 bedrooms, 1 seating room, kitchen and bathroom. I have no idea what to do with all that space so I really hope that I’ll have some visitors from home while I’m in Uganda. *hint hint*
Unfortunately the yard isn’t very green, but outside the walls that surround the house I have banana plants, green fields and cows. It’s going to be a quiet place; maybe I’ll get a shock and miss the noise and all the people in Wandegeya.

A friend who works for an organisation of deaf people has asked me if I’d like to go with him up to Gulu in northern Uganda in the beginning of December. He’s going for some field work and he knows that I’ve been complaining about sometimes being a bit bored since there’s not always so much work for me at NUWODU. I’d love to go and I have not yet been to Gulu, but I’ll see whether I can go or not. That’s after all the time when I should be moving into my new home AND it’s time for me to go back to immigration office to carry on with my visa-struggles. One month has already passed! I wonder if my visa will be ready now...

Oh, and I don’t think that I’ve told that I’ve done a language course in Swahili and that I also try to learn sign language. My Swahili course lasted only for one month, so I still have more than lots to learn. But it was good, at least I understand now how they build sentences and I know how to count to a million :o) I learn sign language whenever I meet me deaf friend and that’s fun! Very logic but I find it hard to control my fingers that want to point in a lot of wrong directions.

Another little story before I finish. On Saturday I went out together with my deaf friend and that was a lot of fun until the very early morning. My friend left me alone for 5 minutes and it didn’t take long until one Ugandan and one Indian guy came up to me, both wanting the same thing: my phone number. I told them that I’m Anna from Switzerland and that no one will get my phone number. The Ugandan guy was ok, quite entertaining, but not the Indian guy. All of a sudden the Indian guy pulled money out of his pocket and held them straight in front of my face. I didn’t know exactly what he meant with this, but I interpreted it as he thought he could buy sex from me. I got extremely angry and kicked him right between his legs with my red semi-high heeled shoes. That’s when he finally left, but only to try a bit later to come back but then didn’t dare to because he saw me getting ready to attack him again. Oh dear, all the things you have to go through before you die!

Why make it easy?

Last week I went to Kumi, which is a tiny town in eastern Uganda with only one street where there are shops. The rest around are open fields and some roads with residential houses. Kumi itself wasn’t so exciting, but I liked the area around the town. It was very rocky! Big round rocks here and there and there was even a place where they’ve found old paintings in some caves.
I went to Kumi together with some staff from NUWODU, because NUWODU had organized a work shop on HIV/AIDS for a group of disabled women living in Kumi town or nearby villages. I didn’t do much during the work shop days, I mostly sat and listened to a language that I couldn’t understand in between as I took photos of what happened and spoke to the women who attended. Sometimes all the waiting got a bit boring but I really enjoyed to meet all the women and to see what happens outside of Kampala. Many of the women couldn’t speak any English and were illiterate, but they still liked talking and joking with me and they all went crazy about my camera and wanted to take pictures with me.

I also got caught by the police already on the first day in Kumi. I was walking back to the guest house from the work shop together with Phionah, a girl who is also volunteering at NUWODU. We crossed an open field which had the road right next to it on one side and some buildings on the other side. As we were walking along a track, which went across the field, two police men came up to us and told us that we’re trespassing. Ooops, we said sorry and we didn’t know because it’s our very first day in Kumi. Still, the policemen wouldn’t let us go obviously attempting to get some money from us first. They kept talking about the sign on which it says “no trespassing”, but as I asked them to show us that sign (because I could really not see any such sign around) they couldn’t, simply because there is no such sign –surprise surprise! I started to get angry and told them that they can’t hold us for anything since there is no sign or a fence around the field that would indicate that people can’t walk around there. Logical to me but now to them, so instead they started talking about us going to the court meanwhile I became more and more angry biting my teeth together to avoid saying something stupid. Eventually the others from NUWODU came there including the boss of these two police men and then there was no problem anymore. We could easily just walk back to the road and go back to our place without bribing or going to court. This is what happens when you give little boys a gun to carry: their dick grows but not their brain.

While I was in Kumi I also got to hear several crazy stories about when the rebels stayed in that area in the 80’s (I think). The rebels weren’t very nice. There were too many stories about them raping anyone who wasn’t from that area, other kinds of attacks and the digging of a mass grave. And in some strange way the people still considered the rebels to be the ones that protected them…At the same time the government (the same one up until today) burnt the people who wouldn’t give it information about the rebels (mostly innocent civilians that had no information to give).

The trip back to Kampala was a shopping trip. Since food is so much cheaper to buy in the village than in Kampala we all loaded the car with live chicken (except for me, I felt sorry for those poor little things hanging off the car), rice and posho flour, charcoal, fruits and vegetables. To this I added a pumpkin which cost 10 cent and one chair. Not bad :o)

Back in Kampala starting a new week I went to the immigration office –AGAIN. This is the place that could make you seriously start thinking about packing all your things and leave the country forever! You who have been there know what I’m talking about… The lack of clear rules of how everything functions results in everyone telling you different things each time you go there. Now, this Monday I’d finally come so far that I could go to the bank and pay for my first visa. I went and paid and the whole procedure took three hours including waiting for a receipt that took 2½ hours. When I finally got my receipt I took a taxi back to the immigration office only to find out that I’ve paid too little money. Note: I only paid what it said on the bank slip that was given to me by the cashier at the immigration office. This meant that I had to get another bank slip and go back to the bank which would not be able to get my receipt ready before it closed for the day. So, my dear little contemporary visa could not be completed although I spent a whole day trying. My struggle continued the next morning and by noon I finally got a handwritten visa in my passport. That was only step one. I’m still working on my real visa which might be ready to be paid for in a month, I’d like to believe it but I doubt it. I’m lucky to get my visa before it’s time to leave this country.

And for you my dear little Norwegian friends with whom I went to Fort Portal last year. Guess what? I’ve once again been to the local pubs of all the local ones where they serve local beer only :o) But this time I was in Kampala. It made me laugh and that warm, sour, muddy beer still tastes as wonderful as I can remember it :op Drinking sour “mud” with extremely long straws, now who came up with that idea?! I only say one thing: go Nile!

That looks like a dead cat

Some days ago I was walking down on my home street in the evening. It’s a muddy street full of holes and rubbish lying around and it’s dark. As I walked I looked down and saw a lumpy thing on the ground. I joked and said that it looks like a dead cat and was about to step on it when I realized that it was a dead cat. Welcome to Wandegeya, the place in Kampala that never sleeps and which has become home to me.

Kampala is just as I left it: noisy, dusty and full of life. People still yell “muzungo” after you as if they got paid for every time they said that word and it’s a never ending line of random people who start talking to you in the streets or hand out their business card. Today as I sat in the taxi on my way to the office I must have looked like I really wanted to have a cake because a woman who sat right next to me gave me, without a word, her business card on which it showed that she’s making cakes for birthdays, weddings etc. Yesterday as I was standing in the street talking to a friend, three girls at the age of 11 came up to me and bombed me with lots of questions such as my name, where I come from and what I believe in. These people are harmless and I don’t mind, but what about the Indian man who pinched my bum meanwhile I was hugging Isaac when we were out at a bar one night. Pinching wasn’t enough. He still came back and stood 2 meters away from me staring in such a way as only Indian people can stare –very persistently. I’ve now considered starting up a freak show with only me in it. “Come and watch the freak! 5000 shillings only!” I could make lots of money only by being myself! The definition of “white” is interesting: here it could mean anything between very good and very bad. White is never just white.

Still, I’m happy to be here. I stay at the same hostel as last time I was here and you just have to feel like home when you have people in the street yelling “oh, Pamela! You’re back!” the same evening you arrive. I’d like to move out from the hostel, and I will later on, but I think it was good to go back there now to start with. It made me feel less lost. I’m planning to look for a little place on my own and move out from the hostel sometime in December. Until then I stay in Wandegeya and let the people in office and the guards at Akamwesi (my hostel) laugh at me. I blame Isaac for that, a muzungo girl together with a black guy?? Oh dear, oh dear…

Last time I stayed at Akamwesi, the electricity was almost always gone. This has now changed, I have rarely problems with power but water in my room is scarce. Don’t know exactly what the problem is, but at least I can get water from the tap outside. I’m happy I live on the first floor and not on the top floor. Big buckets with water are heavy to carry.

My work at the National Union of Disabled Women of Uganda (NUWODU) is fine. I say fine, because sometimes it’s very good and I get to go to interesting places, see a lot of things and meet a lot of people but there are also times when there’s absolutely nothing to do. Like right now, I’m in the office but write on my blog instead of doing some work. I hope this will change at some point. But the people that work here are wonderful and I’ve already seen and learnt lots despite the lazy days.