You think you’ve finally adjusted, and then you move and it’s a whole new cultural experience. We shipped off to Iganga this morning (two and a half hours later than planned), and after crossing the Nile and about two and a half hours of flying down the road we arrived at the BfL office. It’s a nice, but simple house, and when we arrived there were bowls of matoke, g-nut sauce, rice, mystery meat (goat, beef?), spinach, and bananas ready to be eaten by the hungry travelers. After lunch, the other intern and I unpacked, and were excitedly talking about how clean everything was, and how nice it was to have a closet, a shower, and a real toilet. After my rustic village experience, I am not so keen on bucket baths or pit latrines. One of the office workers took us around Iganga so we could go see where everything was, and it’s actually quite a busy little town. Crossing the main road is still reminiscent of Frogger, but not so intense as the Kampala edition. We got to the grocery store, which was small, but well stocked, and decided that since we will be cooking dinner for ourselves we should get a loaf of bread. The woman helped us find a nice loaf of prepackaged bread, and off we went to the market. On the way home it started to drizzle a bit. The woman asked us if we wanted to stop, but it was hardly raining so we decided to just keep walking the rest of the 15 minutes back. The other intern didn’t mind getting wet, so we just kept walking, until the point where we were soaked by the torrential downpour and being cheered on by all the Ugandans standing under the cover of their doorways. About half way back m clothes looked like they had been dunked in a tub, and we looked like drown rats. In case we didn’t already stick out here, I can’t imagine what else we could have done to make bigger fools of ourselves – it was great. Fortunately the only casualty in my bag from the rain was my last pack of travel klleenex, which are impossible to find here, but hardly something to lose sleep over.
This weekend at the conference it poured harder than I thought was actually possible. Apparently, hurricane like rain is quite common here. The hotel we stayed at had a lovely little balcony off our room, but my roommate and I found it not so lovely when there were about 2 inches of water standing on the floor by the end of the storm because the balcony was ever so slanted towards the door, and naturally the door doesn’t completely seal at the bottom.
Back to Iganga. After getting back, I was a little surprised to find out that no one is staying here with us at night. There is a night guard though who watches the gate, mom. We got the house all locked up, and it’s surrounded by what I am becoming quite used to: a tall brick wall with coils of barbed wire on top. We went to go make dinner, and the power went off. Unfortunately, I had also just noticed that the bread bag had a large whole in the end, which had apparently not been a questionable thing to the woman who actually grabbed it for us. After debating about the safety of the bread, I opted for some peanut butter, half a mango, and some digestive biscuits. Yum. I should also mention that sanitation is a lot more complex here compared to Kampala, and after not finding any dish soap, we started to get a bit worried about using the dishes. The water out of the tap is not as clean here as it was in Kampala, which wasn’t all that clean either, but we were advised to bleach everything in Iganga just a bit (from dishes to fruits and veggies – even the outside of mangoes). When some pasta Karen had made fell on the floor she grabbed it up and longingly noted that she while she might have just popped it in her mouth at home, but here, no way, and she longingly threw it into the trash
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The lights came back on about 20 minutes later, and Karen walked into the bathroom and calmly walked back out to inform me that there was a large cockroach in there oh by the way. Later, I was in my room getting my peanut butter out when Karen shrieked. I ran over and asked if she had seen another cockroach, and she said it was far worse – a mouse! Fortunately, we are going to be good at supporting each other because mice don’t faze me, but the sole cockroach living by the toilet has made me minimize my trips to that bathroom.
Iganga is a very small town, but huge compared to the first village I was in. The kids are really excited to see us as we walk around, and we had multiple boys telling us how much they loved us and would like to be our friends while we walked back from the market. Men here are very forward, and the way dating happens is someone just walks up to a girl out of the blue and asks her out, and she says “no,” which obviously means “yes.” We asked our friend how a girl actually says “no,” and apparently you have to sit down and explain to him why not. Have a boyfriend? Pshh, as if that matters. Having multiple girlfriends or boyfriends is not totally out of the ordinary.
The main mode of transportation is by bike here in Iganga, and not motorbike. There is a little seat right above the back wheel and ladies just hop on sidesaddle. There are some mud huts out here, but otherwise many of the houses are small shacks or very small brick buildings, but there is a main street with actual stores. We go buy food at one of the small grocery stores there (picture the size of a gas station store), and I had a nice omelet with tomatoes and pepper cooked in the bottom of a weird metal bowl. The store has one brand of shampoo, eggs that are straight from the chicken (see chicken poop still on shells), and sippy yogurt (it comes in a bag and you drink it with a straw – delicious!). I was going to have the sippy yogurt for for dinner instead of eggs, but it was frozen at the store, so I figured I’ll have it tomorrow for breakfast once it defrosts in the fridge. Most places here don’t have fridges. We have one, but before you get all excited for me, there is not enough electricity here to power it. The BfL office apparently didn’t plan this one out well, but we have a beautiful fridge that sits in the kitchen at room temperature. Makes a decent place to store food though without the ants, mice, or other assorted creatures being able to enjoy it before you do.
As with all things here, my work schedule is a bit up in the air, and I guess I am not actually starting the health program until next week. I have really become ok with whatever happens here; it’s just out of my control, and there is no point worrying about how things go or when they happen because they could easily go another way at any moment. I wish I could bring this attitude back to my life at home. Then again, it does have some problematic outcomes when everyone in the country seems to have this attitude.
I am exhausted, and I think it is mostly just from going through yet another change of place, coworkers, timing, and stresses, including flakey electricity, no fridge, questionable water, hot temperatures, and masses of mosquitoes. That being said, I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else in the world than Uganda at the moment, and that’s a great thing to be able to say.
I no longer have wifi I can use at the office to upload photos, so they will be fewer and far between, but use your imagination until I can put up some.
Charging things also only happens when the power decides it feels like cooperating, which is not very often. The power may be on, but sometimes it’s not enough to charge a cell phone.
About to pass out and it’s 9:15 p.m., but that’s okay because I have to be up at 7 to unlock the office door for everyone else.