Van Persie’s sister, disorganizing rain and drunk ancestors…
Hey everybody!
Oli otya? Thank you all for all your messages… It’s always so good to read them!
Right now, my last month here is starting… For the ones that don’t know it yet, I have (once again) extended my flight.. With two weeks. Not very surprising for those who read my blog during my South-America trip, I guess, haha. But this time it’s not because of a bankrupt flight company, no... this time it’s for the research. We weren’t able to finish it otherwise…
So things are kind of busy now, next week the post-test questionnaire for the teachers is going to be administered, which will be done through an online survey. Which is quite a challenge with the internet and power problems here.. So hope it will all work out!
But besides all the work and stress, the good thing is that our ‘Mama Billie’ is back! She came back last week to supervise the post-test questionnaire for the outcome evaluation. And it has been really fun to have her back, in like 10 minutes after she arrived all three of us already had sore muscles from all the laughing.. Haha.
So well, after having spent almost 7 months in Uganda, I now almost feel like a local. But despite a lot of sun and a nice brown tan, I will never get rid of the ‘mzungu-label’ of course… Though, being a mzungu can cause funny conversations, so here’s a compilation of some of the funniest ones (of what I could still remember):
Traveling around as a mzungu-girl alone, brings you into funny situations sometimes.. For example, hotel workers hitting on you, calling you in your hotel room with the excuse of: ‘Oh, I thought you were from America, cause I’m trying to get this grand to study in the US and I was hoping you could help me a bit... Alright, so you’re Dutch? Okay. But can I still come to your room to talk to you?’
--
Boda guy: ‘okay, that would be 5000…’ What? Don’t charge me the mzungu-price huh?! I know it’s less than 5000. It should be biri bitanu (2500) maximum! No, it’s 5000. Uh-huh no! I’m not paying that much, you’re cheating me!
But well, what can you do?! You are a mzungu with money (they think…)
--
Having lunch with the head mistress and some other teachers at a girls school in Arua: so, please, help yourself. Oof, chicken, I’m in trouble! What to do? Just be honest, just be honest… So ehm, I kind of have my own religion: I don’t eat meat. No, not even fish or chicken, no animals…
--
‘So do you have spaghetti today? Remember, the same dish as I had yesterday, with the white sauce? Oh, you didn’t serve me? Is that other guy here today?’ No.. ‘Alright, no problem. So I would like to have the spaghetti with veggehtabols (I already adjusted my accent to the local way of speaking) in that white sauce.’ Ah… (imagine a face like you’ve just arrived from another planet), so you mean the veggehtabols spaghetti?’ ‘Yes, but WITH the white sauce… ´Oh, you want the spaghetti with the white sauce?´ ´Yes, that’s right, but WITH the veggehtabols also. Spaghetti with vegetables AND white sauce.´ ´Ah okay´. ´Do you have it?´ Yes? Good…
5 minutes later: ´Oh, excuse me madam, we don’t have the white sauce and not even spaghetti. Sorrry sorry sister.’ Aaargh! NEVER MIND guys, just give me plain chips…
--
Getting lost on a boda boda:
Hi, gebale ssebo (how are you sir?). So I gotta go to this and this school, can you take me there? You know where it is? Yes? Are you sure? Alright, tugende (let’s go)! 5 minutes later”: So ehm, ssebo? I think we’re kind of going in the wrong direction.. Maybe we should ask these other boda guys? Hmm, right I thought so. It’s the other way. Do you really know where it is? Yeah yeah I do. Hmm, so why do we have to stop like 5 times to ask other boda guys for directions then…..? Sigh…
--
Situation: I’m sitting in a parked matatu (minivan taxi) waiting to leave, after having spent 5 hours on a bus, and another hour packed in another taxi, accompanied by 21 other passengers (they’re allowed to carry 14…), 2 babies, 2 little children and a chicken, driving fast on a dirtroad avoiding the potholes… In other words: I’m exhausted and grumpy..
Then, some other passenger sitting behind me starts talking to me: ‘Mzungu, mzungu! Where are you from?’ Aah, from Nedderrrlands! Are you Van Nistelrooy’s sister? Or his cousin?
Me (still grumpy): No! What do you think?!
And before I could even react to his mumbling words: Oh maybe she’s Van Persie’s sister then..’, he already got out of the taxi, screaming out loud to the other people on the street: Guys, guys! Get into this taxi, we got Van Persie’s sister in here!!!
Hmmm, despite my grumpiness, I couldn’t resist bringing a smile to my face… 
--
After all my bus adventures, I finally found a GOOD bus to travel to the other side of the country. Big seats, only 1 person per seat, and even a ´before-hitting-the-road-prayer’, We were safe, nothing could happen to us... And before the conductor started the prayer, these beautiful words were spoken: ‘there’s no fish and chickens allowed in this bus’. What? Did I hear that right? Wow, I found a Marieke-friendly-bus…! (until I found out that the chickens were stuffed in some kind of small lack-of-oxygen-hole down in the bus L)
--
Uganda is a very green country. Which means that it rains quite often… And if it rains, it rains HARD.. Disorganizing everything ánd everybody. For example, last week. I was going to meet a friend in town when it started raining… I’ve already become so local that I don’t even bother and just wait at home until it stops raining. Then, about two hours later my friend called: ‘I’m sorry my dear, but the rain has really disorganized me’.. I should not even try to use this excuse back home, haha, I could sit at home all year long in that case… But here in Uganda, rain is a VERY good and well accepted excuse… 
When you’re really unlucky you’re just seated on a boda boda when ‘the disorganizing rain’ starts… Last week I had one of these lucky days. Together with Vera I was going home on a boda, when it just started pouring with rain… Hmm. Not very pleasant, but you know, we’re wet already, let’s just continue, that’s what we thought. But our boda guy had different thoughts about the rain. He took the first turn to a building with a roof to hide for the rain. So there you are, accompanied with about 10 other boda boda’s with their passengers. When we asked him after 5 minutes to start moving again, he looked at us with a face like we had just gone totally mad: ‘What?! You girls don’t fear rain?!?!’
--
One of ‘my’ boda guys to me, when going home: ‘So, you know, I like mzungu’s, I want to have one as my friend! Can you get me someone? Or actually, I want YOU to be my friend, not someone else.. 'Don’t you want to marry a muganda?!' Well eh, I already have someone, a Ugandan even…. 'Oh, you have someone? But you can have me on the side! No problem!'
--
Every week at the jam session at the National Theater, the rastafari’s are always good for some good laughs.. Stoned as can be, some of them make really random comments to everyone. Yesterday, some Dutch guy (with Ugandan roots) started talking to Billie and me, when one of the rasta’s was around. This dutch guy had put hair gel in his hair (nothing special for a Dutch guy, right?). But here, haha. The rasta guy could not stop staring at his hair.. With a stoned voice: ‘Man, what did you do with your hair?! Are you a model? I have never seen this before… This is not African. You’re shining around, man!’
--
This same rasta guy was introducing himself to Billie after the ‘shiny-hair-guy’ had left and when they have been smoking ganja (weed) they might be difficult to understand sometimes. It went like this:
Rasta: ‘Yo gal, what’s your name?
Billie: ‘Hi, I’m Billie’
Rasta: ‘Hey Billie, nice to meet ya girl, my name is Mystic’
Billie (with a very serious face): ‘What? Biscuit?’
Rasta (not even noticing the difference): ‘Yo man, one love!’
--
A few days later we went to the reggae-ragga night at one of the bars in Kampala, great fun! Of course the whole rastafari-community was present again and they made sure we left with sore bellies from laughing so hard… A few interesting quotes:
After opening his beer, we saw one of the guys throwing the first sip on the ground.. So we asked him: why do you do that? ‘For the ancestors man, we share, you know!’ But not too much! Cause then they’ll get drunk…’
Yeah, look at his long dreads! Hair is power, man! Power is energy! Let me give you my power… You know, you guys are here for the energy, not for work, it’s the energy, one love! Hair is power!
Also, you see some of them running around with the Jamaican flag or singing in their mobile phones and hats, totally in their own world… Very amusing
--
