August!

And so it's August. I've passed the 2 month mark a few days ago,
I'm 4/5s done with the trip (yay! I want to go home!) and halfway
done with Uganda (sad...I like it a lot here) and I've been in Africa
four different months. While I've been away London's gotten
attacked, a supreme court judge retired but not the one I expected,
the sox have made it to first place and Manny yet again is still on
the team, I've missed and will miss a variety of parties and
gatherings of friends at home, I've been homesick as hell (more
in Ghana but also here with new triggers - the guy who brought his
computer, etc), I've become ready to go back to school and read
and write papers, I've read a ridiculous amount of books here, I've
loved the experience, I've learned a lot about travelling in general
and Africa and refugees and poverty and sustainability and reality
versus our western impressions of the world..... Time's gone by
impossibly, unbearably slow and also unbelievably fast. In Ghana
the last two weeks flew by; here they probably will as well.

As I was walking down the side of the road to the internet, a herd
of cattle came at me. This guy was getting his 20 cows to cross
the street and I was walking by as there was a gap in the traffic.
There was an old woman right in front of me too, and I couldnt'
tell if she was just as unsettled as me or if she was laughing at
the herd of cows running at the muzungu being beaten by a guy with
a stick.

Anyway, this weekend lasted forever because of the day off Thursday
for the "election" which is in no way democratic or meaningful and
was held at a cost of 30 million US dollars to please overseas
donors. Meanwhile the president last week very very quietly
abolished the two term limit as he's served his two and the next
election is next spring. While he seems to be popular and he has
done a damn good job cleaning up Uganda from the mess Idi Amin made
of it, having no term limit is a damn bad idea in general and in an
African country especially (where, as a guy in med school here
whom I met on a metatu (taxi) was saying, a leader or wanna be
leader will often not concede that he has lost an election).

School's been good. I've done more art with the kids which is just
a blast - seeing them have a chance at creativity, handing out
stickers, etc. Today I tried to have the third grade illustrate
the stories I'd read to them, though many didn't remember most of
them. It was still fun to see them draw, and a whole bunch of boys
started doing football players from a newspaper they had and
"aeroplanes" which were actually helicopters.

We always have a break from 10:30 to 11 when the teachers have
snack and the kids are fed. The snack is an option of peanuts,
chapati (very fried, somewhere between fried dough and tortilla, that
they like to wrap around an egg and I like to put sugar on),
casava fries, and my favorite, sambusa or samosa - fried, delicious,
full of peas and crunchy around the edges and greasy as hell. The
teachers talk away in Luganda so I usually read a book though on
occasion they'll pull me into a game of Uno with a deck of cards.

I really enjoy my walk to and from school. After I convince myself
to get out of bed in the morning it's a really pleasant walk rambling
through beautiful scenery and I always want to keep walking when I
get to school. The walk back at 1 is a bit warmer usually so I am
glad to get into the cooler house and have something to drink, but
it's very relaxing and enjoyable. There's always animals to see
and kids waving and such.

At first I was really glad to be living in the flat in town and
having such a light schedule. I needed the break after Buduburam,
and getting imersed in a village at that point may have been too
much for my nerves. But now I kind of wish I was in one of the
closer villages. There's still opportunity to go to the pool
and come into town or go to Kampala for the weekend, and having
been out to Nagalama (half an hour's drive) this weekend it's
really nice. Leslie, the program coordinator here, has made
sure that even in the village volunteers have their own nice space,
a room or two in a compound, and it seems that in the village with
the outreach organization out there, there's a lot more to do and
a lot more impact to be made. Then I tell myself that someone
needs to be doing art and stories and games and creativity and
giving encouragement to the kids I'm with as well. And I do love
my cute little kids.

Adventures with African public transportation:
Friday I went to Kololo to meet up with a Swattie. Kololo's a suburb
of Kampala, so I got on a taxi at 8:15 on the side of the road.
Well it was empty which meant that in the next town it stopped to
fill up. After sitting there for over 20 minutes I wanted to get
off and pay just for that leg and they tried to put me back on the
damn taxi. A nice guy who had gotten on but also thought it was way
too slow helped me get off and we caught a taxi into Kampala. He
was the medschool guy who talked to me about politics and malaria.
At the first roundabout into Kampala I got off and got a bodaboda,
fixed the price, and told him wehre I wanted to go. I asked him
if he knew the place (it's a pretty big landmark in Kololo) and he
assured me he did, but of course he didn't so we rode around the
hills of Kololo in the dark for a while until I convinced him to
stop so we could ask a security guard for directions. Then he wanted
more money cause it had taken a long time. But I got there safely.

Then yesterday, coming back from this village, the guy who is
volunteerign was sitting in a window seat of the metatu with his
elbow hanging way out. All of the sudden we here a crashing noise
- the side mirror has just been taken off by a car passing the taxi.
I don't understand how in the world his elbow didn't get taken off
as well given that it was sticking out as far as the mirror.

Anyway, I'm enjoying my last week of teaching and then it'll be off
to raft the nile river, do a brief safari and then Banda Island on
Lake Victoria and then home!