Its been a while

It’s been a while since I wrote last. The power has been out more often than not so I have been writing in my journal rather than on my blog. But once I have written in my journal and emailed, I just don’t really feel like typing everything out again. But I have some time now at work before we actually start collecting data so I figured that this is as good a way to entertain myself as anything else…

I don’t really remember where we left off last time…oh yes naked witch doctor. Turns out that he is just a crazy guy who wanders around. There are unfortunately a lot of people who have serious psycho social problems as a result of the war. Also lots of alcoholism. Ehhhh! I wasn’t going to make this depressing. I am giving Africa a very negative impression and actually there is a lot of great stuff here. For example…

As some of you may or may not recall, when I first arrived I stayed with friends of Lacey, my fellow researcher from Emory. Well this past weekend, one of the fathers, Leonard Olobo, went back to his village to deliver mass. He and several friends went home on Friday for a weekend at his family home. Lacey and I were invited and jumped at the chance to go to the country and experience legendary Ugandan hospitality. We arrived at the bus park in Gulu around 9 am to begin the one hour journey to Dima, the small trading village where we would be picked by Leonard. To be fair, bus park is a bit of a euphemism. It is about half the size of a football field, filled very haphazardly with buses and minivans and people and food sellers and junk vendors and garbage and goats and chickens. Anyway, we arrived at 9 and were directed to a bus that was going in our general direction. The bus was only half full when we got there and the thing about buses here is that they don’t leave until they are completely full. “No problem” we thought, “Maybe a half an hour, not so big deal.” Until we saw a friend on the bus who had been there since 7 am waiting for it to fill. Around 1045, it was deemed full enough with people and chickens (live chickens by the way) to leave. After about an hour of tipping side to side (the roads are so bad in some places that it is actually easier to drive off the road, sort of at an angle. This can be very frightening in a large bus, overfilled with people and animals), the conductor who had taken our tickets, taken our money and noted our destination asked where we were going.
“Dima.”
“Oh, Dima. But we already passed Dima. Tsk.” I am not sure how to explain how this was delivered. A combination of confusion, surprise, and also somehow exasperation, although it was our fault that the bus had not stopped.
So it was decided that the bus would stop at the next trading center after Dima. Only it didn’t. So we tried to explain that our friends had a car and they were following the bus (they had been signaling the bus to stop for about 5km at this point) and just drop us on the side of the road.
“No, no. Next stop. We will get you a taxi back.”
“No, we have a car. Just drop us.”
“No, no. Taxi at the next trade center.”
“We just passed the next trade center. Leave. Us. Here.”
“Almost there. Stay here.” (Here is standing in the aisle with chicken pecking at my feet and a kid poking me in the stomach)
Finally, we get to the third trading center and they decide that apparently that is far enough to take us, so they stop in the marketplace where we immediately start getting catcalls, muzungu, muzungu calls, and kabobs shoved under our noses. Leonard’s cousin found us while Leonard commenced to yell at the bus driver for about five minutes.

We ended up driving about 20k back up the road to get to Dima, but we made it. About 3k from the road is a dirt path that serves as the driveway for Leonard’s home. We drove up this path for 1, maybe 2 km, and then all of a sudden were in his homestead. Two houses, three ots (thatched huts covered with reeds), several pigs, goats, chickens, a cooking building, and a latrine building. And surrounded by maize and palm trees. Its on a small hill so turning to the south, you can see for miles and there is no one else that you can see. Its beautiful.

The second we got out of the car, we were being hugged by the people we knew and the ones that we didn’t, and being offered seats. Our bags were ceremoniously taken into the house and beers appeared in front of us in about 30 seconds.

Quick side note… Guinness and coke is a wonderful beverage. I know my mother is clutching her chest at the thought, but its actually really delicious…
Beers in hand we started telling the story of why we were late and all of a sudden, there was chicken in front of us for breakfast because we hadn’t eaten there and they were sure that therefore they needed to feed us. And we didn’t stop eating and drinking for about 28 ours. Really. If I was up, I had a beverage of some kind in my hand (generally alcoholic. The Ugandans really like their booze) or food. Its very rude to refuse food so basically you eat and drink the entire time you are awake. In fact, the only time that I wasn’t eating or drinking was when we went to Catholic Mass on Sunday.

After eating breakfast, we six of us piled into Leonard’s car and drove down to the community church. It is under construction currently however, so we had Mass outside. Since we are 1.white and 2. Leonard’s guests we were seated in the front with the fathers, facing the congregation. I am fairly sure that this was done to facilitate staring. Tip: to avoid stares, bow your head and pretend to pray. Mass was conducted in Luo, the local language, so I understood even less of what was going on than normally. After Leonard finished, he asked each of us to address the congregation. Of course since I am neither catholic or acholi, I had no idea what to say. So I looked helplessly at the crowd for a good three seconds, chewed my lip, and then said the only words I know in Acholi “pweya” (pronounced afoyo) which means “thank you”. Brought the house down.

On the way out, I started taking pictures of the kids and was immediately mobbed by small children. This country is inundated with small children. Leonard had to act as bodyguard to get me into the car. Small taste of what it would be like to be famous.

When we arrived back at Leonard’s, we immediately started eating and drinking again (ugh my stomach hurts just thinking about it). All of a sudden, another car came tearing up the driveway! It was another father from Kampala who decided that he just couldn’t miss the party so he drove the three hours up here with his friend. Jubilant celebrations started taking place. More beer was passed around. More boiled chicken was rushed out. Lots of pictures were taken. General good times. Around 2, we decided to head back to Gulu and since we now had two cars, we could be driven back. Hooray! The cars were a bit packed out as there were nine of us, but we managed just dandy. Once we rolled into Gulu, priorities were set. First, we needed to stop and get a drink. So we went to a restaurant that we knew about and ordered more beers. Then Joseph, one of the brothers that we were with, called one of his friends, a military man stationed in Gulu. Suddenly, we had an invitation to the military base. To do what…? Drink.

Five minutes, there is a military truck at the restaurant waiting to escort us to the base. The group split at this point as some people went back to Kampala, but Leonard, Fred, Joseph, Jasper, Lacey and I piled into the military vehicle and were on our way. We were waved through security and pulled up to the barracks. Since Isaac, Joseph’s friend, is a Lieutenant, he has private quarters. We entered, sat down, and within a minute, there were soldiers of lesser rank bringing us beers. Many introductions were made, comments made about the base yada yada. It came up in conversation that Isaac had been in Gulu for 21 years. This stopped the conversation. You see, the civil war here, which has displaced almost 2 million people, and killed hundred of thousands, started 21 years ago. So, Isaac has been a soldier at the most dangerous base in the country the entire length of the war. It was pretty overwhelming to think about what he had seen and done. Leonard especially was affected. His family is very near to the unofficial border of the war and was often in danger. Members of his and Jasper’s family, were killed or abducted and they were obviously very affected by how long Isaac had been there. It took some time to get out of the mood that talk of the war puts people in but luckily, boiled chicken made an appearance and we started eating. Again.

Finally, after about two hours or so, we left and were taken home. Lieutenant Isaac came along as well to accompany us to our place, which meant that we had a real military escort. We were broken up into two vehicles and the one with the Lt in it had an armed guard. I would like to reiterate at this point that the war is over. There has been no rebel activity for a year. We are PERFECTLY safe. But he is military and apparently pretty high up, hence the escort. It was pretty disturbing actually. There has been so much destruction and disruption here, by both military and rebels, that people are extremely wary of soldiers. The whole time we were driving, people on the streets were looking at the trucks with a mixture of fright and curiosity, particularly when we arrived at our compound. The gatekeeper, Joseph, looked terrified that the military was there until Lacey stuck her head out of the car so he could see that we were ok. He told us later that he thought that we had been arrested for taking pictures of things that we shouldn’t have been and that the military had come to the guesthouse to tell the sisters that we were in jail. Poor guy. We scared the heck out of him. But he was immediately telling all of his friends about it because when we left the next day, everyone was asking us why we were escorted by the military. We are quite the stars in the neighborhood right now.

Since then, life is pretty normal. Everyday Lacey and I are picked up, we come to the office, and we are taken home again. Last weekend was nice because we walked into town on Saturday and did a little shopping. It was a total of about ten km so a nice long walk. We bought some avocadoes which are two or three times larger than those at home and about thirty cents each. Delicious. Hmm…is it sad that that was really exciting to me and probably the highlight of our Saturday? I think not. I was pretty jazzed about it. Oh no. The highlight of my Saturday and everyday since is the huge block of Gouda cheese that I bought. It is so stinky and delicious and I have been eating a really inappropriate amount of it. Probably I should follow that statement with saying I have also been really active and healthy and running a lot lately, but frankly that just isn’t true. I have been running more than the first month I was here, that’s for sure, but somehow it’s still hard to talk myself into running around at 630 in the morning, being chased by little kids and made fun of by teenagers.

I have been playing a lot of poker lately. Enrique, my neighbor from Costa Rica, Lacey and I play every two or three nights with the change that we have managed to accumulate. I won big the first night and have since been losing slowly. Not much, mind you (mom I can feel you slowly steaming about me gambling my money away), just the equivalent of two or three bucks. Although actually I think that all I have lost is what I won the first day. So breaking even. Perfect.

That is pretty much how I feel about this whole experience. Some days, like yesterday, I am so frustrated with our inability to get anything done and the ridiculously slow progress of our research, I just want to quit and come home. Other days, when I actually get to do something, like go out to a health facility or a camp, or I have a chance to interact with people, I am amazed at the opportunity I have and the awesome things that I am seeing and doing. It usually goes one day on, one day off. So I am pretty much breaking even. Although really, I suppose that’s pretty good.