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Trip Start May 03, 2010 Previous
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  Kampala, Uganda
Saturday, June 19, 2010

Monday 14th

Today we travelled to Masaka. What an adventure it was! Robert dropped us off infront of a taxi that would take us to the taxi park in Kampala. Right when we went to walk on the taxi my sunglasses snapped when I went to take them off. Oh great, I thought. This should be a good trip. Let me describe the taxi park for you. It is right in the middle of the heart of Kampala. Boda bodas fly past you every two seconds and you have no personal space because people are brushing past you up and down the streets. Taxis are at a stand still because of the traffic and you have to sprint across the street and not hesitate otherwise you will get knocked. Every couple of meters people are selling things on the street-airtime for cell phones, nuts, jewelry, baked goods, anything at all.

So Kim and I got out of the taxi and got the driver to show us where we could get a taxi to Masaka. He weaved his way through the crowd with us sprinting behind him for at least ten minutes. If you wait to let someone pass infront of you you will be standing in that same spot for hours, so I would just push my way through the crowd reminding myself that I am in Uganda and not Canada. Finally we reached a street corner and he pointed at a bus two streets down and told us to turn right and we would reach the taxi park. I paid him 1,000 shillings, 50 cents, and we ventured off on our own. This whole time we were carrying our backpacks which were stuffed to the brim with our clothing for the week. I had my running shoes, which were still pretty much sparkling white (I have worn sandals everyday except two) dangling from my pack and knocking people as I passed by.

In minutes we were lost in all the people and the taxis and the bodas as if we had been swallowed whole. I said "I don't know what to do". And then I asked for help. The man took us right up to the taxi park. Once we got inside we were amidst another sea of taxis and people. We walked around aimlessly for a while until one man approached us and asked if we were travelling to Masaka. We followed him to the taxi and waited while they pulled out people who were passed out inside it. Then we got in. The taxi was almost all full, which was lucky for us because the taxi won’t leave until it is full with people. As we waited vendors pushed up against the windows carrying their goods for sale. Bread, nuts, apples, trinkets, water, soda, plates of lunch. I bought an apple and waited for the taxi to start. I was beside the window which was a relief except that half my body was directly in the sun and with my backpack on my lap and Kim squished up right beside me with her luggage I was already sweating. It took a long time to get out of the taxi park as our car had to weave slowly in and out of all the traffic.

It ended up taking us about 3 hours to reach Masaka for only 8,000 shillings which is 4 dollars. We met up with the other Douglas College practicum students who were living there and enjoyed the peace and quiet of their home. We also were thrilled that there were two full bathrooms for six of us. What a luxury. At Carli’s we shared two with twenty one people.

Tuesday 15th

Kim and I went to work at the day care at the hospital today. This is where Kim had been working her first two weeks in Uganda. We arrived just before 9 and were there until 230. The daycare is made up of a big UNICEF tent and a rickety old playground with grass. The supervisor sweeps the dirt floor, puts down a tarp and some mats and then pulls out some toys and the kids play. Their parents are usually waiting in line for hours and hours to get treatment so this is a safe place they can stay and have some fun as well. The kids didn’t know much English, so we had to use all the Luganda words we had learned. The trick to learning a new language is to work in a place caring for children because you learn very useful and basic words and  have to say them over and over and over. And if you say it wrong they will laugh and correct you. So we sat and played with the kids for the day, some would leave and then their place would get filled up by other new kids. One boy badly cut his knee and Kim and I panicked because we didn’t know if he had HIV or not. The supervisor had to take him to get bandaged up but the next day he came back and had taken it off so his scab was open to get infected and possibly to infect others. After the first day of daycare I decided I could never be a daycare teacher because I felt like napping the entire time. If you are having sleeping problems I suggest playing with lego or beading a necklace in the blazing sun because it is a sure fire way to fall asleep.

But anyways, afterwards we were really hungry so we walked to a street vendor and I attempted to bargain for a pinapple. He told me a ridiculous price and I looked right at him and said “Is that the muzungu price!?” Then he laughed. We ended up buying the pineapple for 500 shillings more than we should have, but it gets to a point where they won’t lower their price because you aren’t Ugandan. 

While we were getting the pineapple we noticed a huge slab of beef hanging from a doorway. They don’t refrigerate meat here. It just hangs outside all day. Same with eggs. Africans must have the best digestive system in the world! You are probably wondering why the heck they don’t get sick from eating it like that- the reason is because they have been eating their meat like that for centuries and centuries and their bodies have adapted to digest the meat properly and handle the bacteria. People probably still get sick from time to time, but the general population eats the meat and is totally fine.

I also have to mention the gigantic birds they have here. They looked like pterodactyls and when they stand up they come up to the height of my hip. THEY ARE HUGE!!!!!! They are in Kampala too, and they perch on top of trees and it looks ridiculous almost like a cartoon because they are so big. Anyways, I took pictures.

Wednesday 16th

Went to the daycare for a couple hours again today. Taught the supervisor how to sing nursery rhymes and carols. Luckily the kids didn’t notice how bad we were, or if they did they didn’t show it. Played with some play dough and did some painting. Then I got a text from Carli saying that Robert came down with malaria and that we couldn’t go to Kabale, his village. We were really disappointed but knew that there was nothing we could do. Everything happens so fast here. Everything changes in an instant. You can have well thought out plans and then woosh just like that they are gone. We have gotten used to going with the flow, because that is really all you can do. Choochee had recovered from his bad bought of malaria so that was good and we knew Robert would be okay too once he got treatment.

That night we went to Ten Tables, a restaurtant that supports Aid Child and NGO that supports AIDS orphans and we watched the Spain vs. Switzerland game. What an awful awful game. After Spain lost to Switzerland (for the first time ever, I might add), I was officially in depression. Kim and I took a boda home and saw the big setup people here use to catch grasshoppers at night. They have huge bright lights and metal sheets so when they get stunned from the light they fall onto the boards and slide down into the barrels. People here loooove grasshoppers. I tried some but they don’t really taste like much. I didn’t eat the heads though. The whole time I kept thinking about Brad’s lizard he used to have and the smell and noise of the crickets he would feed them. When Ugandans like a type of food here they say” it’s sweet” but it never, ever, EVER means it is actually sweet. Well not for Kim and I anyways. It is usually an acquired taste that we just haven’t acquired too.

The night was calm and the moon was in the shape of a smile. We went on the pavement of the courtyard and did yoga, all the while realizing how out of shape we felt.

Thursday 17th

The Douglas College girls were heading off to Murchison Falls on safari and we decided to head back home to Kampala. It was pouring down rain as we boda’d  to the taxi park. My driver told me the price of the ride was 10,000 shillings. I knew it was 500. I laughed and said I know the price. It is 500. I ended up paying him 1,000. I knew that someone who didn’t know the proper price would have paid the 10,000 for sure, but I wasn’t about to be conned. It’s really frustrating that everytime you try and buy something people are constantly trying to con you and make you pay a ridiculous price. I understand they are trying to make a living but it feels awful to be treated a certain way because of the colour of your skin. It is true though- muzungus are rich. Even though I’m a student I’m richer than the majority of people here. So sometimes I just have to suck it up and know that the way the people here are stereotyping me is actually correct. It’s a weird feeling.

We sat in the taxi for a half an hour while we waited for it to fill up. A man selling traditional healing products stood at the door for ten minutes trying to sell his goods while the entire taxi did not even give him the time of day. The entire ride I was squished up against the window because four of us were sitting on one bench seat-Me, Kim, a tall man, and a fat man. The bigger man worked for the taxi driver and everytime we went up a hill he had to reach down into the parts of the car and turn a crank to jump start the engine. Everytime Kim and I would look at eachother and hope it wasn’t going to break down. Once we arrived in Kampala the traffic overwhelmed us. We realized how far away Ntinda, where Carli and Robert live, actually was. We made the decision to take bodas because otherwise we would be stranded in a taxi for an hour trying to leave the city. I asked a woman how much she would pay for a ride to Ntinda but she couldn’t pick my English and soon a man came up to us and I asked him the same question. He went to some boda drivers and a couple minutes later he told us he had negotiated a deal for us to get to Ntinda for 4,500 shillings. He shook my hand and asked me if I was saved (what a certain type of Christian is called here) and I said yes. He had saved us from being stranded in downtown Kampala for hours. Twenty five minutes later we arrived on our street. Kim and I were so flustered from the ride and so thankful to finally be back on solid ground. As we walked home we gave each other a high five and talked about what food we were craving. It felt like we were coming home after a long long voyage and it was really great to see the kids again. I realized how much I missed them and how much I missed living in the house. Robert was starting to recover from the malaria and there was a pizza sitting on the table. Everything was good again.

Friday June 18

Today we went to work at the Watoto Baby’s Home. Usually on Fridays they don’t take visitors but Carli talked to Ross, the head of maintenance who I had met before at the meeting, and he said we could come help.  The place wasn’t as big as I thought- there were four main bedrooms rooms and then a small one for the premature babies. Then there were other rooms for bathing and making their meals and also a clinic. They take babies from birth and take care of them until two years of age. After that they take them to the Watoto Villages and they grow up with a family of seven other siblings and a house mother. We had to sit and wait a while for the babies to wake up from their naps. Once they woke up we were put straight to work. I was helping the children that were 6 months to one year old and Kim was with the 3 to 6 month old babies. I checked their diapers, then put them out in the main area to sit on blankets. I helped the nanny prepare the bottles then put them in their chairs and fed them bottles. Two of the children only got a quarter of a bottle because they were so malnourished, and apparently the worst thing you can do is overfeed a malnourished child. The children they get in the Baby’s Home are taken from the free hospital in Kampala usually after their mothers die in child birth or they are saved from the bottom of pit toilets and rubbish bins. After their bottles they played with blocks and one set of twins that were really active jumped in jolly jumpers. The babies were sooooooooooooooooooo cute! Each one looked soo different and I wondered what stories they would be able to tell if they could talk. One 6 month old girl named Rebecca had the tiniest hands and feet I had ever seen on a baby of that age. She was soo delicate and when I lifted her up it was as if I had lifted a magazine. She was one of the very malnourished babies. Then the nanny brought rice cereal and avacado and I helped feed the babies. After that one of the nannys in training changed all their diapers, covered them in Vaseline and changed their clothing. By this point it was almost twelve oclock, and they were ready for their second nap. The nanny in training carried them to their cribs while I watched them on the blankets. I was left holding little Rebecca. I asked if I could take her to her crib. I picked her up and placed her in her bed. No one wanted to sleep, they were all standing up or rolling around in their cribs. I went and got my camera and took some final pictures. I got someone to take a picture of me holding Rebecca. Everytime she smiled I got a deep urge to pick her up and take her home with me. I told her I’ll see you later, then we thanked everyone, they thanked us for helping, and we left.

Our journey to the Baby’s Home had been a complete joke so we were wondering how it was going to be going home. Our boda driver in the morning had no idea where he was going, even though he initially said he did and had to stop people for directions at least 5 times. It took us 35 minutes to get their and it was muddy and wet. Our boda ride home was hilarious because two of us went on one boda and it went sooo slow. Everytime we went up a hill we slowly chugged up it as all the cars and bodas passed us. We stopped at a take away restaurant and ordered sausage and chips. Then after we quickly used the internet we decided we had had enough of bodas and walked the 25 minutes home.

Saturday 19th

We went to a craft market today. It was different then the one we went to before. We took a boda there and ended up spending three hours searching through all the items in the shops. I left with three bags full of things. We took a boda back home and sat and watched the Ghana vs. Australia game. Carli made a nice salad for dinner with garlic bread and fruit and I ate it very happily. That night we watched the Cameroon vs Denmark match. Cameroon had about 10 perfect chances to score and kept shooting just over the cross bar. Denmark ended up winning, which was totally ridiculous. Both teams had really horrible defense so there was lots of action in the game.

Sunday 20th

I have one week left in Uganda. It feels weird saying that. I don’t think it is going to hit me that I’m leaving until I have to say good bye to everyone and when I’m flying away on the plane. This has been a completely different trip then backpacking around Europe. I have been living here. Not travelling. I have been living with a Ugandan family and have gotten used to it. I’ve gotten used to getting around, I’ve gotten used to dealing with the kids in a very different way, and I’ve even gotten used to talking in this funny backwards way they speak English here. I’ve gotten used to seeing kids in ripped clothing with ringworm on their heads. I’ve gotten used to seeing lizards running up and down the walls. I’ve gotten used to seeing people with so much potential living a life they don’t deserve. It is strange to be able to see the poverty that exists here and not cry every time. But if I did that I would be in bed all day every day sobbing my life away. And I am of no use to anyone if I do that. I have learned that even though I am a very emotional person, I can’t cry for everyone. Instead I have to acknowledge they are in a horrible situation and then work hard to try to improve the conditions they live in.

The kids don’t know it yet, but tonight we are taking them to the cultural centre to watch the traditional dancing show we went to see a couple weeks ago. I am sooo excited because they will absolutely love it! At the end of the show they call all the children up to dance and I am so excited to watch them up there. They truly have talent!

Tomorrow Kim and I will be away on a trip-but I won’t say where! I’ll write in a couple more days and let you know how it went. I’ll give you a clue: it involves helmets and the Nile River.

Until next time,

Stay classy Canada!

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