Tuesday, June 29, 2010

About the title and running out of airtime.

    Ugandatronics? What the hell is Ugandatronics?
I wish I had a better explanation than the one I'm about to give. Something insightful, that makes the nonsense of this title mean something...
The truth is that now, every time I visit my own blog, I have to suppress a twinge of embarrassment.
 Like the picture of you as a kid dressed up like a girl and loving it. Like the recording someone found of post-pubescent you pretending to be a master thespian. You just kinda wish you could change it... or something.
What about the blog settings? Can't you go in and change it to something witty like "Uganda-believe-its-not-butter" or, "Uganda-hell-in-a-handbasket"?
The sad fact is that, coupled with an overall laziness that will ensure no change to the title will occur, It grows on me in some way. How else are we going to differentiate our blog from everybody else's? I guess nonsense is as good a way as any.

     We are visiting home for most of July, and I judged it prudent to call and verify with the Entebbe Airpoirt that our flights were scheduled properly and we will be having no travel-day surprises. What was less prudent was that I made the call with only 1500 shillings airtime on my phone. I knew out the gate that it was a gambit, but I figured "these people are in charge of shooting people through the air, maybe they will have their crap together and do the old flight-number-verification-respond-quickly routine."

Alas, this is Uganda.

   After asking to verify my flight, I was instantly placed on hold, then listened to the same 5 second loop of something Kenny G-ey ten times in a row, not because they only had that much of the song, but because someone kept taking me off hold, then putting me back on again.
This continued until the nice voice-lady for MTN notified me that my call would be dropped due to "insufficient funds" - as if I was some kind of checking account delinquent. I need to do some real planning on how I can double check our info - will it cost me more to hang on the line for thousands of shillings worth of airtime, or to just hop a taxi to Mbale, a bus to Kampala, a taxi to Entebbe, jump on a businessman's back, and get this done face-to-face?

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Bumba


     This is Bumba. You won't find him at the local drinking circle. More likely than not he is at home building some doors, or off building a house. He provides for his family and plays with his kids. I wanted to take an opportunity to recognize a Ugandan man who doesn't follow the norms of his culture. He has helped us since we moved in to our new place to make it somewhere that feels like home, and has never asked for a shilling for all of his work. He helped me (and is still helping me) build my thatched hut, again trying to dodge my offers of payment. He has been a translator, policeman, and friend to us. I am happy to know that there are people like him in this country.

Monday, June 7, 2010

About hiking and human skulls.

     I think you can really consider yourself a soft, out-of-shape, sorry excuse for a hiker when a group of heavily-laden Ugandan women shout words of encouragement to you as you ascend a slope that they have been going up and down all day. In my defense, this was no baby slope. We were in the foothills of Mt. Elgon and the last several hundred yards of our hike to "the cave" was one degree shy of vertical (if my mental level is any guide). Imagine my surprise to find that even these unforgiving tracts are still farmed to the gills by the locals. Beans and maize on an 89 degree angle... it was magnificent...to use for foot/handholds (we can discuss the wisdom of cultivating at such a landslide-inducing angle later).


     We finally crested the top and gazed in wonder at our feet while we caught our breaths and congratulated ourselves.
     We took a break that was certainly too long for our high/middle school age guides who, incidentally, spent some of the time deliberating about whether or not we were faster than the 2 fully-habited nuns that they had come up with some time before. It was agreed that we were faster, but I wasn't convinced that they weren't just saying that.


  
     On we went, and soon found ourselves at the base of a small rock. In the small alcove created by this rock there was a pile of human skulls.


     Apparently this is a pile of human skulls with no story, since we tried for rest of the weekend to get the story from someone, anyone, to no avail.
     About halfway down the mountain (let's call it) we discovered why our guides were nervous about our leisurely pace and long breaks. It began to dump rain. Not to be put out, we used the occasion to take another very long break, and under the eaves of a nearby primary school got our fill of being stared at by children and mimicked with that accursed nasal voice. (apparently it's what we sound like, which makes me even madder.) 


Thursday, June 3, 2010

My blog, my rules

     A short update: I'm not going to try to recap the events since last posting, we all know I'm much too lazy for that. I really am trying to turn over a new leaf with the blog, and have downloaded the Scribefire extension for Firefox to make the whole experience easier (might do the trick).
     Perusing the last blog post brings up an interesting tidbit. The very snake that I dragged out of the house those months ago struck again. Unfortunately it was on its A-game this time. No, it didn't get me or Cassandra, but one of the teachers at my primary school. he is mostly recovered at this point (about 2 weeks later), but he was down for 2 days with a severely swollen leg, then had to adopt the crab walk before being able to use a stick to walk. Turns out that the snake really is poisonous.