Saturday, July 13, 2002
Totally Alone...
Yesterday I moved into my new house and although I feel I should be excited to finally have my own space, I feel incredibly isolated and alone. I live on the sub-county compound, while everyone else I know lives on the health centre compound - it's not far, less than a 1-minute walk, but the health compound seems like such a close little community, and there's hardly anyone neighbour-wise around my compound. Plus, I didn't feel like as much of an oddity in the health compound as Richard and Ellie also live there with the other doctors and nurses; I've got an audience of children and construction workers everytime I leave my house to go to the bathroom or want to get water or anything. I've tried to be friendly and wave everytime I see someone, but I don't think the novelty of having a muzungu around will ever wear off. People are so curious about me that I've even had people come up to my windows or around my back porch if they notice I'm in my house - the only English they know is "How are you? I am fine." and then they run off. This sounds bad, but it is extremely difficult to be "on" all the time - sometimes you just want to be invisible and free to live your life without feeling like you're part of some reality-tv spectator sport.
Then there's the sad reality that Richard and Ellie are gone for 3 weeks. I've only known them for a week but they have been unbelievable in helping me try to acclimatise - they know how hard it is because they had to do the same when they got here a year ago, but at least they had each other. Even so, they told me that it took them a good long while before they started feeling comfortable, and had even contemplated quitting in the first few months. It's just been nice to have all these crazy emotions and feelings validated somehow by people who have gone through it all. Plus, they're just really nice and sweet people - I think it's amazing that they have managed to stay somewhat sane (a testament to their characters, in my opinion). Last night, as everyone was leaving my housewarming party, I had a breakdown when I said goodbye to R & E. The reality of being alone suddenly came crashing down on me and I just started bawling. They came over to give me a group hug, cigarettes and comforting words, not even fazed by my complete lack of mental stability. They have promised to send me text messages from England and bring back other good stuff (although the very dark paranoid side of me firmly believes that they're never coming back to Kihiihi.....)
Finally, it's been really hard being cut off from the world in terms of technology. I REALLY MISS TV! I hate that I have to be standing in the "money spot" (to quote Stefan) in order to get messages and calls. There's no daily mail (see below for the exciting news regarding my mailing address re: the fact that I now have one). I feel bad about using up internet access time since I have to use Simon (my boss)'s laptop in his house and also that he pays some outrageous fee per minute of connection, so I try not to give in to the urge to web surf and email as often as I would normally - I think I have it down to every 2-3 days or so. I think that it's really easy to feel completely isolated from the outside world when you're living in a remote area like Kihiihi, and that's the reason why R & E go to Kampala every 6 weeks or so (even though it's bloody expensive as a city and in terms of petrol) - you just have to reconnect with the rest of the world every so often. I think I may have to save up to splurge on a night at the Sheraton (best hotel in Kampala), complete with facial, manicure, pedicure...the works! Please send money to support the "Help Isha Save Her Sanity" fund. :)
Oh yeah, a big thank you to everyone who has been sending emails and reading this blog, as well as sending text messages. Even though I may not have a chance to respond often, I hope you know that they are all very much appreciated and are helping me to not go insane. BTW If you send a text message, make sure it's within the allowed number of characters, because I've gotten a few really nice messages that have no names attached to them, and I can't find out who sent them because they were sent through the MTN website. Please keep it up, though - I can't even express to you how much they mean to me.
Today has generally been a miserable day, a few hours of shopping in the market with Maria (Simon's niece who is staying with him) interspersed with a nap and a few crying jags. I've decided that I will subsist on fruit and veg (bananas, mangoes, passionfruit, avocados and tomatoes) until R & E come back, for fear of setting my house on fire every time I light up the paraffin stove. Long live the African Slim-Fast diet! I've been being really lighthearted about not having any running water and electricity, but sometimes it's just annoying when you want a glass of water but you have to go pump some more, then purify it, then boil it, and then drink it 4 hours later, or when you're hungry but the 3-hour task of cooking over a paraffin stove just seems too arduous, you'd rather go hungry (again, a tenet of the ASF diet). Tonight I managed to get invited to dinner at Simon's (yay, no cooking for me!) and chose to eat a bit of rice, potatoes and beans; I declined the offal!
Weird Things
1. Due to decentralisation, Uganda has 6 levels of government or LCs (local councils): town (LC I), parish (LCII), sub-county (LCIII), county (you get the pattern yet?), district and national. Ugandans also take their politics very seriously, so whenever there are new visitors (like me) there are all these formalities you have to go through, pay a visit to the appropriate people and whatnot. I have met more politicians in my first week than I have in my entire lifetime thus far (it's strange how we in Canada could go our entire lives without having contact with any politician). This has been kind of stressful because I'm having trouble keeping everyone's name straight, plus the fact that each politician seems to have one or more assistants so there's 2 or 3 times as many names to remember. I drew up a hierarchy tree because I really don't want to offend anyone by not recognizing them or remembering their name. Also, there are quite a few women in government due to affirmative action - I met both the female MP for this sub-county (Kinkizi West) and the LC5 Chairperson and it was neat to see how powerful these women are, with lots of male assistants obviously paying them lots of respect.
2. A lot of Ugandans think all Asians look alike. I showed a picture of the "Joy Luck Club" (taken last summer with most of my Asian girlfriends - the ladies!) to Maria and Zephrain (a nurse here) and asked them to pick me out of the group - most of them thought I was Stella. That's ok, though - I got a lot of laughs when I told them that I thought all Ugandans look alike.
3. Many Ugandans have 3 names: a Christian name, an African name and a (last) family name. When they introduce themselves, they say the last name first. And the Christian names are very strange, names you would only see in the Bible - so far I've met an Erasmus, an Immaculate (pronounced "Imma-chu-late" in that unique Ugandan way), a Gideon and an Enoch, to name a few. I've also met a Pascal and a Talent (she's a little 8-year old girl) and a Provia.
4. Ugandan cuisine consists of starch, starch and more starch. A typical meal could consist of matoke, potatoes, rice and groundnut sauce (basically 3 types of starch plus a sauce that looks like pink vomit). Maximum fillage of stomach for minimum cost. My eating ideal of "at least one green thing per meal" has suddenly been thrown out the window. Also, the food is extremely bland, no spices or anything, not even black pepper! This is excruciating for someone like me whose favourite cuisines are Malaysian, Indian, Sri Lankan, Mexican....basically anything that has a lot of flavour. I honestly would be in heaven if I could just have a nice green salad. Yesterday Ellie made fresh cheese and we ate it with cherry tomatoes and fresh basil from their garden, a kind of tomato and bocconcini salad if you will, and it was delicious.
5. Yesterday I had a housewarming party and Simon had one of his goats slaughtered just for the occasion. They roasted it and served it with chips (fries). It was quite good but I made sure I didn't see which goat they picked - there's no way I would have been able to eat it had I seen its face!
MAILING ADDRESS!
R & E have kindly allowed me to use their post office box in Rukungiri (a larger town about 2 hours away) as my mailing address. You can now write to me:
c/o Richard Allen/Ellie Cramer
P.O. Box 36
Rukungiri, Uganda
Apparently the postal service in Kihiihi is not very reliable, and R & E have a vehicle so they can get to Rukungiri every 2 weeks or so. I am dying to hear of any and all news from back home, so please send me something if you can - letters, magazines, books, pictures, CDs (I've been listening to my small collection non-stop when there's power and it's only been a week! I'm going to need new stuff soon!), really I'd like to get anything to remind me that I do come from "civilized" territory (and yes, Scarborough does count as civilized when it's compared to Uganda!)
Happy Birthday!
...on the 14th to my dear friend Yoniti, who is living it up this summer in Brooklyn. I miss you!
...and an early birthday greeting to my always-far-away-from-me darling pal Heidi, who is making her annual visit back home to Toronto from London (UK) in a week or two. I am really disappointed that I won't be there to see you, since I don't very often get the chance. I am so used to missing you that I almost (ALMOST!) don't notice it anymore. Hope you have a fantastic "Champagne 27" and I also hope that I get to talk to you soon!
Yesterday I moved into my new house and although I feel I should be excited to finally have my own space, I feel incredibly isolated and alone. I live on the sub-county compound, while everyone else I know lives on the health centre compound - it's not far, less than a 1-minute walk, but the health compound seems like such a close little community, and there's hardly anyone neighbour-wise around my compound. Plus, I didn't feel like as much of an oddity in the health compound as Richard and Ellie also live there with the other doctors and nurses; I've got an audience of children and construction workers everytime I leave my house to go to the bathroom or want to get water or anything. I've tried to be friendly and wave everytime I see someone, but I don't think the novelty of having a muzungu around will ever wear off. People are so curious about me that I've even had people come up to my windows or around my back porch if they notice I'm in my house - the only English they know is "How are you? I am fine." and then they run off. This sounds bad, but it is extremely difficult to be "on" all the time - sometimes you just want to be invisible and free to live your life without feeling like you're part of some reality-tv spectator sport.
Then there's the sad reality that Richard and Ellie are gone for 3 weeks. I've only known them for a week but they have been unbelievable in helping me try to acclimatise - they know how hard it is because they had to do the same when they got here a year ago, but at least they had each other. Even so, they told me that it took them a good long while before they started feeling comfortable, and had even contemplated quitting in the first few months. It's just been nice to have all these crazy emotions and feelings validated somehow by people who have gone through it all. Plus, they're just really nice and sweet people - I think it's amazing that they have managed to stay somewhat sane (a testament to their characters, in my opinion). Last night, as everyone was leaving my housewarming party, I had a breakdown when I said goodbye to R & E. The reality of being alone suddenly came crashing down on me and I just started bawling. They came over to give me a group hug, cigarettes and comforting words, not even fazed by my complete lack of mental stability. They have promised to send me text messages from England and bring back other good stuff (although the very dark paranoid side of me firmly believes that they're never coming back to Kihiihi.....)
Finally, it's been really hard being cut off from the world in terms of technology. I REALLY MISS TV! I hate that I have to be standing in the "money spot" (to quote Stefan) in order to get messages and calls. There's no daily mail (see below for the exciting news regarding my mailing address re: the fact that I now have one). I feel bad about using up internet access time since I have to use Simon (my boss)'s laptop in his house and also that he pays some outrageous fee per minute of connection, so I try not to give in to the urge to web surf and email as often as I would normally - I think I have it down to every 2-3 days or so. I think that it's really easy to feel completely isolated from the outside world when you're living in a remote area like Kihiihi, and that's the reason why R & E go to Kampala every 6 weeks or so (even though it's bloody expensive as a city and in terms of petrol) - you just have to reconnect with the rest of the world every so often. I think I may have to save up to splurge on a night at the Sheraton (best hotel in Kampala), complete with facial, manicure, pedicure...the works! Please send money to support the "Help Isha Save Her Sanity" fund. :)
Oh yeah, a big thank you to everyone who has been sending emails and reading this blog, as well as sending text messages. Even though I may not have a chance to respond often, I hope you know that they are all very much appreciated and are helping me to not go insane. BTW If you send a text message, make sure it's within the allowed number of characters, because I've gotten a few really nice messages that have no names attached to them, and I can't find out who sent them because they were sent through the MTN website. Please keep it up, though - I can't even express to you how much they mean to me.
Today has generally been a miserable day, a few hours of shopping in the market with Maria (Simon's niece who is staying with him) interspersed with a nap and a few crying jags. I've decided that I will subsist on fruit and veg (bananas, mangoes, passionfruit, avocados and tomatoes) until R & E come back, for fear of setting my house on fire every time I light up the paraffin stove. Long live the African Slim-Fast diet! I've been being really lighthearted about not having any running water and electricity, but sometimes it's just annoying when you want a glass of water but you have to go pump some more, then purify it, then boil it, and then drink it 4 hours later, or when you're hungry but the 3-hour task of cooking over a paraffin stove just seems too arduous, you'd rather go hungry (again, a tenet of the ASF diet). Tonight I managed to get invited to dinner at Simon's (yay, no cooking for me!) and chose to eat a bit of rice, potatoes and beans; I declined the offal!
Weird Things
1. Due to decentralisation, Uganda has 6 levels of government or LCs (local councils): town (LC I), parish (LCII), sub-county (LCIII), county (you get the pattern yet?), district and national. Ugandans also take their politics very seriously, so whenever there are new visitors (like me) there are all these formalities you have to go through, pay a visit to the appropriate people and whatnot. I have met more politicians in my first week than I have in my entire lifetime thus far (it's strange how we in Canada could go our entire lives without having contact with any politician). This has been kind of stressful because I'm having trouble keeping everyone's name straight, plus the fact that each politician seems to have one or more assistants so there's 2 or 3 times as many names to remember. I drew up a hierarchy tree because I really don't want to offend anyone by not recognizing them or remembering their name. Also, there are quite a few women in government due to affirmative action - I met both the female MP for this sub-county (Kinkizi West) and the LC5 Chairperson and it was neat to see how powerful these women are, with lots of male assistants obviously paying them lots of respect.
2. A lot of Ugandans think all Asians look alike. I showed a picture of the "Joy Luck Club" (taken last summer with most of my Asian girlfriends - the ladies!) to Maria and Zephrain (a nurse here) and asked them to pick me out of the group - most of them thought I was Stella. That's ok, though - I got a lot of laughs when I told them that I thought all Ugandans look alike.
3. Many Ugandans have 3 names: a Christian name, an African name and a (last) family name. When they introduce themselves, they say the last name first. And the Christian names are very strange, names you would only see in the Bible - so far I've met an Erasmus, an Immaculate (pronounced "Imma-chu-late" in that unique Ugandan way), a Gideon and an Enoch, to name a few. I've also met a Pascal and a Talent (she's a little 8-year old girl) and a Provia.
4. Ugandan cuisine consists of starch, starch and more starch. A typical meal could consist of matoke, potatoes, rice and groundnut sauce (basically 3 types of starch plus a sauce that looks like pink vomit). Maximum fillage of stomach for minimum cost. My eating ideal of "at least one green thing per meal" has suddenly been thrown out the window. Also, the food is extremely bland, no spices or anything, not even black pepper! This is excruciating for someone like me whose favourite cuisines are Malaysian, Indian, Sri Lankan, Mexican....basically anything that has a lot of flavour. I honestly would be in heaven if I could just have a nice green salad. Yesterday Ellie made fresh cheese and we ate it with cherry tomatoes and fresh basil from their garden, a kind of tomato and bocconcini salad if you will, and it was delicious.
5. Yesterday I had a housewarming party and Simon had one of his goats slaughtered just for the occasion. They roasted it and served it with chips (fries). It was quite good but I made sure I didn't see which goat they picked - there's no way I would have been able to eat it had I seen its face!
MAILING ADDRESS!
R & E have kindly allowed me to use their post office box in Rukungiri (a larger town about 2 hours away) as my mailing address. You can now write to me:
c/o Richard Allen/Ellie Cramer
P.O. Box 36
Rukungiri, Uganda
Apparently the postal service in Kihiihi is not very reliable, and R & E have a vehicle so they can get to Rukungiri every 2 weeks or so. I am dying to hear of any and all news from back home, so please send me something if you can - letters, magazines, books, pictures, CDs (I've been listening to my small collection non-stop when there's power and it's only been a week! I'm going to need new stuff soon!), really I'd like to get anything to remind me that I do come from "civilized" territory (and yes, Scarborough does count as civilized when it's compared to Uganda!)
Happy Birthday!
...on the 14th to my dear friend Yoniti, who is living it up this summer in Brooklyn. I miss you!
...and an early birthday greeting to my always-far-away-from-me darling pal Heidi, who is making her annual visit back home to Toronto from London (UK) in a week or two. I am really disappointed that I won't be there to see you, since I don't very often get the chance. I am so used to missing you that I almost (ALMOST!) don't notice it anymore. Hope you have a fantastic "Champagne 27" and I also hope that I get to talk to you soon!
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
Wow, it's been a while since I've had the opportunity to update my blog (I know that my one devoted fan was very disappointed!) On Canada Day I got some weird stomach bug that left me bedridden with aches and pains and gastric problems for the entire
day, and I haven't felt quite right ever since. So much has happened over the past week that I don't know where to begin....
Clubbin' Kampala Style
Last Wednesday some of the NetCorps boys and I decided to experience Kampala night life. We went to a club called Ange Noir and it was an extremely interesting night. Clubs are generally the same as they are back home, but this one had very few muzungus and an upper "executive" level which had a more expensive cover charge and therefore the clientele was a little older and better dressed (the one o'clockers as they are called, because they leave relatively early as they have jobs to go to in the morning.) One of the most fascinating things about clubbing here is the prostitutes. There are very many of them and they just flock to the white men. The thing is, you can't really distinguish them from the local girls, because they are dressed even more conservatively than them (no fishnets and stiletto heels and that generally trashy whore look). The only way you know that they are working girls is the fact that they come up to the white men and dance provocatively with them, bumping and grinding. The other interesting thing is that Ugandan men like to
dance, and they have no problem doing it with groups of other guys. Very refreshing change from the irritating tendency of Western men to just stand around the dancefloor with beers, ogling all the dancing ladies. The music was a mixture of African and reggae, with healthy doses of Britney and BSB thrown in every now and then for good measure - however, the beat of the music stays fairly regular and not very fast by our standards. All in all, a good night, especially because I didn't feel like everyone
was staring at me, they just took an initial look and then went about their business - they were just there to have fun like everyone else.
Arrival in Kihiihi and the Best Hosts Ever!
So I finally arrived at my placement on Saturday, after two excruciatingly slow weeks at Lweza. My supervisor, Dr. Simon Kalyesubula Kibuuka (try saying that ten times fast!), came to Lweza to fetch me, and I enjoyed an 8-hour ride from Kampala to Kihiihi (pronounced "Chee-hee-hee" - "ki" is pronounced "ch" in Uganda). Long journey, but really the last two hours were worth it, as we travelled through the Western Rift Valley, up and down hills. It is undescribable, really - truly gorgeous green landscape. The only problem is that the paved tarmac road ends about 2/3 of the way there, and the last 1/3 of the distance takes about 1/2 of the time!
I am gradually becoming acclimatised to my new environment with the help of Richard and Ellie (the aforementioned Best Hosts Ever!). They have kindly offered to be my hosts while renovations on my house are being completed, and have also been acting as my guides to a different way of life. Rural African life is what I wanted, so rural African life is what I have here in Kihiihi. It's amazing how much I took for granted seemingly simple things like running water, electricity and cell phone reception! Water is pumped and brought daily in jerry cans (plastic jugs that would usually carry gasoline back home) by a man who Richard and Ellie suspect has HIV - he is just so thin and gets tired very easily; however, he has a family to feed and any work is appreciated. The toilet consists of the pit latrine, which is a remarkably clean and not-very-smelly concrete room separate from the house that has a 20-30 foot hole in the ground (but apparently R & E have the "Rolls Royce" of pit latrines). They bathe using a cup and basin of water, but have offered me the use of one of their solar showers, which is basically a huge hot water bottle with a nozzle at the end (I like it much better than the cup-and-basin method, feels like I get cleaner somehow and it's less labour-intensive. The medical compound and surrounding area gets power from around 7pm - midnight each night (depending on when the guy running the generator decides to turn it off. After that we use paraffin lanterns for light.) The generator is fuelled by gasoline which is extremely expensive here, so the sub-county can only afford to have it running for a few hours each night. As for cell phone reception, the only place in town where you can get a strongish-enough signal is directly in the middle of the health compound, in front of the radio antenna. I go out there every day to check for text messages and voicemail, and I'm constantly wandering around in the field, searching for the best signal. It's annoying, especially when I'm trying to have a conversation with someone and the whole compound (doctors, nurses and inpatients) can hear it! Supposedly the cell phone reception will improve in a few weeks as they have recently put up a new tower or whatever in a nearby town - I hope to be able to have conversations in the privacy of my own home soon!
So, those are some of the basics of rural life here in Kihiihi. I've not yet experimented with cooking as R & E have been doing that for me or we've eaten out, but I'm sure using two paraffin burners to make pasta will be quite a challenge. Unfortunately for me R & E are leaving for a holiday back to the UK on Saturday, and will not be back for 3 weeks. I will be the only muzungu in this town! Let's hope I decide not to hole myself up in my house for the entire time they are away....
Will write more soon about my house (which I should be moving into by tomorrow or the next day) and my job (which has started quite sooner than I had anticipated due to the unexpected extremely high interest level of the locals). Stay tuned!
day, and I haven't felt quite right ever since. So much has happened over the past week that I don't know where to begin....
Clubbin' Kampala Style
Last Wednesday some of the NetCorps boys and I decided to experience Kampala night life. We went to a club called Ange Noir and it was an extremely interesting night. Clubs are generally the same as they are back home, but this one had very few muzungus and an upper "executive" level which had a more expensive cover charge and therefore the clientele was a little older and better dressed (the one o'clockers as they are called, because they leave relatively early as they have jobs to go to in the morning.) One of the most fascinating things about clubbing here is the prostitutes. There are very many of them and they just flock to the white men. The thing is, you can't really distinguish them from the local girls, because they are dressed even more conservatively than them (no fishnets and stiletto heels and that generally trashy whore look). The only way you know that they are working girls is the fact that they come up to the white men and dance provocatively with them, bumping and grinding. The other interesting thing is that Ugandan men like to
dance, and they have no problem doing it with groups of other guys. Very refreshing change from the irritating tendency of Western men to just stand around the dancefloor with beers, ogling all the dancing ladies. The music was a mixture of African and reggae, with healthy doses of Britney and BSB thrown in every now and then for good measure - however, the beat of the music stays fairly regular and not very fast by our standards. All in all, a good night, especially because I didn't feel like everyone
was staring at me, they just took an initial look and then went about their business - they were just there to have fun like everyone else.
Arrival in Kihiihi and the Best Hosts Ever!
So I finally arrived at my placement on Saturday, after two excruciatingly slow weeks at Lweza. My supervisor, Dr. Simon Kalyesubula Kibuuka (try saying that ten times fast!), came to Lweza to fetch me, and I enjoyed an 8-hour ride from Kampala to Kihiihi (pronounced "Chee-hee-hee" - "ki" is pronounced "ch" in Uganda). Long journey, but really the last two hours were worth it, as we travelled through the Western Rift Valley, up and down hills. It is undescribable, really - truly gorgeous green landscape. The only problem is that the paved tarmac road ends about 2/3 of the way there, and the last 1/3 of the distance takes about 1/2 of the time!
I am gradually becoming acclimatised to my new environment with the help of Richard and Ellie (the aforementioned Best Hosts Ever!). They have kindly offered to be my hosts while renovations on my house are being completed, and have also been acting as my guides to a different way of life. Rural African life is what I wanted, so rural African life is what I have here in Kihiihi. It's amazing how much I took for granted seemingly simple things like running water, electricity and cell phone reception! Water is pumped and brought daily in jerry cans (plastic jugs that would usually carry gasoline back home) by a man who Richard and Ellie suspect has HIV - he is just so thin and gets tired very easily; however, he has a family to feed and any work is appreciated. The toilet consists of the pit latrine, which is a remarkably clean and not-very-smelly concrete room separate from the house that has a 20-30 foot hole in the ground (but apparently R & E have the "Rolls Royce" of pit latrines). They bathe using a cup and basin of water, but have offered me the use of one of their solar showers, which is basically a huge hot water bottle with a nozzle at the end (I like it much better than the cup-and-basin method, feels like I get cleaner somehow and it's less labour-intensive. The medical compound and surrounding area gets power from around 7pm - midnight each night (depending on when the guy running the generator decides to turn it off. After that we use paraffin lanterns for light.) The generator is fuelled by gasoline which is extremely expensive here, so the sub-county can only afford to have it running for a few hours each night. As for cell phone reception, the only place in town where you can get a strongish-enough signal is directly in the middle of the health compound, in front of the radio antenna. I go out there every day to check for text messages and voicemail, and I'm constantly wandering around in the field, searching for the best signal. It's annoying, especially when I'm trying to have a conversation with someone and the whole compound (doctors, nurses and inpatients) can hear it! Supposedly the cell phone reception will improve in a few weeks as they have recently put up a new tower or whatever in a nearby town - I hope to be able to have conversations in the privacy of my own home soon!
So, those are some of the basics of rural life here in Kihiihi. I've not yet experimented with cooking as R & E have been doing that for me or we've eaten out, but I'm sure using two paraffin burners to make pasta will be quite a challenge. Unfortunately for me R & E are leaving for a holiday back to the UK on Saturday, and will not be back for 3 weeks. I will be the only muzungu in this town! Let's hope I decide not to hole myself up in my house for the entire time they are away....
Will write more soon about my house (which I should be moving into by tomorrow or the next day) and my job (which has started quite sooner than I had anticipated due to the unexpected extremely high interest level of the locals). Stay tuned!
