Bye bye mzungu!

For everyone who followed my blog during my travels through South-America, the topic ‘traffic’ might sound slightly familiar to you.. Well... I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with it again, as traffic here in Africa ain’t much better It’s actually interesting to see that the famous ‘mini buses’ are so widely used, all in the same chaotic manner… Despite the chaos that they bring along, there seems to be a kind of structured organisation among the buses (so called ‘matatu’s’), although this system is impossible to figure out for outsiders or tourists.. In South-America I’ve had billions of ‘okay-this-is-it-goodbye’ moments, hanging on the edge of a cliff, balancing on 2 wheels, buses with maniac drivers, etc. etc. Been there, done that… But guess I hadn’t had enough of the traffic thrill drug, so suddenly you find yourself again in those crazy situations that would have caused at least 88 fines back home.. Nevertheless, I must say that (so far) I’m enjoying it better than I did two years ago in Peru and Bolivia.. Maybe I’ve finally learned to just relax and actually enjoy the whole scenery outside. It’s like a movie passing by, in which you convince yourself not to be part of that movie when your matatu just managed to avoid 5 crashes in 5 minutes.... It’s an exciting movie though, never gets boring and always has good endings… so far, at least. An average scene would be as follows: some persons hopping on the matatu, usually followed by a mumbled ‘mzungu’ (white person) from someone else in the matatu, then you start moving (if lucky, it might take a little longer as they try to stuff as many people as possible in there before actually starting the drive…), a guy hanging out of the window most of the time while screaming the destinations, all accompanied by a stuffy and sweaty smell… However, as if this chaos isn’t enough thrill yet, another interesting vehicle has been brought into the exciting world of traffic in Kampala: ‘boda boda’s’ they’re called.. Small motorbikes driven by the so called ‘boda guys’. Every time you pass one of them, they ask you to ‘sit here’, pointing at the back of their bike. Okay, and then…?! I’ll just sit there? Haha. Anyway, every boda ride is good for a great portion of adrenaline flowing through your body.. Especially when you take a ride along Kampala Road, the main and busiest street in town. You don’t want to know how many matatu’s, normal cars, taxi’s and other moving objects are trying to make their way through the city there. And although the boda boda’s are definitely the fastest way to get around, I can’t imagine it being the safest way… After every ride I’m happy my feet are still there. Having the curb on the one side, a matatu on the other side, some other boda boda’s in front and behind, and huge pot holes in the roads, definitely makes you believe in your guardian angels when you get off alive J The rides are great though! Yesterday when we took a boda boda home, I suddenly heard a loud bang and for a split second I thought this would be the first shooting in my life… Then my guy suddenly stopped and pointed at the electricity wires that suddenly had come down a few meters in front of us... Alright! But I guess this is not something to worry about, as we just drove over the wires that were now on the ground… No big deal.

 

Speaking of which, electricity in general is quite interesting here.. Every night around let’s say 19.00, it just stops working. On our first night here, while getting ready to go into town for dinner, just having put 1 contact in, having the other one ready to put in my other eye… bam! Darkness… Great. Luckily, thanks to my South-American electricity experiences, I’ve prepared myself pretty well and am loving my headlamp so far (although it looks anything but charming when wearing it..) Last night we finally got our electric cooking stove and had all ingredients ready for a great meal, we suddenly realized that we had an electric stove… Which means that we have to cook before 19.00 to make sure we have a meal.  well, guess you get used to it, it’s like camping in your own house and candlelight isn’t that bad either J

 

Right now, we’re kind of settled down in our house in Kamokya, a neighbourhood close to the center of Kampala. I’m sharing a house with Vera and Billie. Vera is my friend from university and Billie, another dutch girl, is working on the same project as we are… Billie and I went to the same high school, but never really knew each other, and now we’re sharing a house, very funny..

Well, when Vera and I arrived at the house last Saturday it was totally empty and dirty, and after a trip of almost 18 hours and not having slept a single minute, I can say that we were seriously bummed out when we got there… We didn’t even have beds yet! So, Allen, our supervisor from SchoolNet Uganda (partner organization of the World Population Foundation), took us to a local market around the corner to get mattresses and pillows. Walking around the market we immediately had everyone’s attention of course, our winter skins were so horribly white that we were almost reflecting the sun light, haha. It was great though to see all those people and especially the children, all running towards us, while screaming ‘bye bye mzungu’! And all showing their beautiful smiles.. At the same time, it’s kind of weird to always attract everyone attention, as you’re usually the only mzungu around. The Ugandan people are super friendly though, all willing to help you around, all being interested in what you’re doing here, etc etc. Though, the guys are a bit too interested most of the time and being very straightforward: ‘oh you girls are so beautiful, what are you doing tonight, wanna go out with me?’ Ehm… But in Slow Boat, a local pub where we play pool almost everyday, the guys (hardly seen any girls in the pubs…) are really nice and not trying to make a move.. at least, not yet… haha.

Anyway, at that same market, I immediately smelled something familiar… Chickens! Aargh no, not again, not that smell! So when trying to avoid the hanging chickens and other lord-knows-what-meat on the right side, I looked at the left and then saw all these chickens stuffed into little cages, live… No! These are hard times for a fanatic vegetarian… But well, what can I do…

At least we now have mattresses, a table, 4 chairs, a couch and two big chairs and our house is finally starting to look like a house. Since yesterday we even have a fridge and a microwave, which only works when electricity is present of course… Buying our furniture was also quite a story. A guy from SchoolNet took us to a market somewhere and as soon as we got out of the matatu we had a bunch of guys around us, all trying to sell us their stuff. After having picked one of them, we followed the guy to his ‘shop’, going through narrow doors and pathways, then through a work place and a few more paths with huge holes and bums till we got to his place.. Meanwhile, the whole troop of guys had been following us, I seriously don’t have a clue how they work, apparently they all work together somehow.. Then, the bargaining began.. Pff, not easy! Their tables and chairs were all made out of real African hard wood, good quality, bla bla. But we only need it for 7 months… ‘Yeah, but this is really good quality’… Yeah, I’m sure it is, but we don’t need good quality! Anyway, a few hours later we managed to get a package of a table, chairs and a couch, with a pick-up service, even J A few minutes later everything was piled up in the back of the pick-up truck, including 4 guys on top of our stuff, haha. Billie and were allowed to sit in front, which was pretty interesting as well, as I sat next to the driver, with the gear in between my legs… Hmm, just a little weird… When getting home with all our stuff, we had about 6 guys to help us, haha. Somehow we have men here for everything, so far we had our electricity guys, the water man, some other electricity guys (more interested in having a chat about favourite football clubs, then in electricity…), and our cute cleaning man (who just sweeps the floor, but guess ‘cleaning’ has a bit of a different meaning here…). And although we’re, of course, very emancipated, we absolutely don’t mind having all these guys fixing everything. ‘Daar heb je mannetjes voor toch…’ J

 

Then, internet is just something else here. I though I was quite experienced with slow internet after South-America… But believe me, African internet is SLOW in capitals, sitting in an internet cafe you must really control yourself and inhibit every urge to throw that bloody computer out of the window.. We’re now trying to get a wireless connection in our house, but even that is going to be frustratingly slow, but as we really need it for our research, it’s kind of necessary to get it. Our tactic is now to type every email, every journal entry, sort out photos before going to an internet place to upload everything (when you’re lucky enough to get into your inbox anyway…). Well, as being an internet junkie, not being able to get online all the time might actually be good for me for a change Although I do have a Ugandan phone number now.. Laptop, phone.. Never been so sophisticated while travelling.. Last night we even watched a movie on my laptop, what a luxury!

 

Well, this is it for now. Got so much more to write about, but we might lose electricity any moment, so I’ll save the rest for later…

 

Thanks for all your text messages and emails by the way, really nice to hear from you all!

 

Veel liefs,

Marieke