African milk tea and chapati, tea and chapati

This is what I am eating and drinking right now.  U JELLY??!!

I'm at MMU's staff canteen down at Kabundaire, where all faculty members get a free mid-morning tea.  Pretty sweet deal, eh?  Why doesn't America have tea breaks?  We had one every day in Ireland when I was working at the National Museum.  Eleven o'clock sharp.  Interns and staff alike met in the museum cafe and engaged in witty, scintillating conversation while chowing down on chocolate croissants and individual pots of tea.  Lovely.  Here, though, half of the conversation is in Rutooro and I don't understand it (although I've made flashcards, so I'm learning words and phrases which Nino can understand when we meet again in Michigan).  In all seriousness, though, I think it's a great thing.  It really did provide us lowly undergraduate interns with the opportunity to ask questions and talk about our work with our supervisors, and I think it just breaks up the day nicely.  Tea at eleven, lunch at one!  Perfect.

Ah, well.  So, work is going well, and we are steadily moving through processing the documents.  Evarist just went to Kampala again (I think I mentioned this in the last post) and brought back 200 lid boxes, which are MUCH nicer than the disintegrating cardboard boxes in which the documents are currently housed.  This is a major success, people--he has been negotiating and dealing with the suppliers for a long while and they have been less than cooperative.  So, now we can begin re-housing the documents into safe homes.  It's the little things!!!!  :D


Mzungu pizza night was last night, again, and I was the only non-Irishman in a group of seven others.  HEAVEN.  As per usual, I pestered the ones I hadn't met about where they were from, what they thought about NI current events, the Queen's recent visit (and Obama's, too!), etc.  Did you guys know I love Ireland?  I got ambitious and ordered a regular-sized pizza instead of the "baby" size--first time!--big mistake.  My stomach still hurt when I woke up this morning.  More pizza tonight, though; I'm taking Moses and his little girl, Janet, to Gluepot so she can have her first taste of pizza :)  I'll get a calzone.


Can't WAIT to get to Entebbe this weekend.  As most of you know, I recently went off of my meds (for better or for worse), and my body has really been feeling the effects, both physically and mentally.  It kind of feels like having a hangover every day that just doesn't go away.  I'm trying to battle through it, though, and things have improved slightly since last Wednesday (first day of no pills at all; I tapered off over a 3 wk pd).  Still a grumpy witch a lot of the day, but I'm no longer staring at the wall for hours on end like I was the first two days.  Anyway, I'm really excited to go to a new city and meet up with a fellow UM student!  Apparently she's found a pretty decent flat for us to rent, with a kitchen and WI-FI INCLUDED (and hopefully hot water...), so I'm fairly optimistic.  New project, new people, new place!


So, like I mentioned earlier, my Picasa album will be inundated with new pictures sometime this weekend.  Keep an eye out!


As always,
N

In which Natalie realizes that g-nuts are really just Ugandan peanuts.

Fo reelz.  It's taken me so long to figure this out, and I'm not really sure, seeing as I've been eating matooke, posho, sweet potatoes, and g-nut sauce for lunch for the past two weeks.  The g-nut (ground nut) sauce is pretty delicious; they make it with the mashed nuts and eggplant.  Kind of like a blander Thai peanut sauce without the chili fire or lime juice.  Anyway, I just realized the fact that g-nuts = peanuts today and thought it was kind of funny...

Right now I'm music-battling with Felix, who has an unabiding love for U2 and plays them on repeat.  Thankfully, I have a vast music library (however unorganized it may be), and I first pulled out some R. Kelly--Ignition (Remix) to appease his co-worker, Jed, who is staying with us for the next three days.  He countered with Jefferson Airplane--Somebody to Love, which was alright, but then continued with some really, really bad, sappy, easy-listening type romance song.  My move?  Oh, just a little bit of ANDREW W.K.--PARTY HARD ON FULL VOLUME!  Shows him.  Then it was a little Aretha, with Son of a Preacherman, followed by the Beatles' White Album.  I may conclude with a little bit of Temptations--Papa Was a Rolling Stone.

SO, guess who has a chair and desk now?  With only two days left to go in Fort Portal?  That's right--ME!  (Well, as of Monday.)  Two lovely large desks and chairs appeared at the Archive on Friday, although we had to do a big of negotiating with the carpenter in the courtyard of the Kabundaire campus, as the quality was a bit...lacking.  He came on Saturday and fixed some things, so now the drawers can actually be pulled and pushed (not smoothly) and will lock properly.  I've been spending the past three days comfortably situated, then, at a desk--in a chair--cleaning documents with the other guys in the archive.  ROCK!!

This is my last week in FP, folks.  As of today, I've been in Uganda for exactly a month.  And the world didn't end when I got here!!!  (Take that, Harold Camping.)  It's off to Entebbe this Saturday, where I'll be meeting up with Ashley, a UM PhD candidate.  I spoke to Okello, the Director at the National Archive, today, and Ashley and I will begin work bright and early on Monday morning.  Can't wait!  Till then, I'm just hangin' out, eating pizza at the Gluepot, cleaning documents, getting my g-nut and posho on with Adolf at lunch, and trying to introduce Felix to the beautiful intricacies of music outside of U2.

Alright, I'll add more later.  Like, tomorrow, perhaps.  Lots to tell.  I'm just tired right now.

And expect a lot of new pictures this weekend...I'll be staying at a hotel in Entebbe that has FREE WI-FI!  I won't have to conserve my internet usage this weekend :)

Love you all,
N

Justin Bieber is on repeat...and I cannot cook goat.

Hi guys,

I'm hearing the Bieb's "Never Say Never" for the second or third time today.  I had Dave Matthews blasting a minute ago and took the earphones out cause I figured I needed to concentrate on writing this...but I can concentrate better listening to the Dave man crooning and whining than to prepubescent imitations of crooning.  SORRY, Selena Gomez, your boyfriend is *not* quite a man yet.

On the straw mat today again, but hopefully it's the last time!  The carpenter has apparently finished the worktables and chairs that we ordered, so all that remains is for Evarist to get back from lunch and pick up his colleague's truck--and then it's off we go to find Natalie some legitimate seating for her last week in Fort Portal!  Das right, people--next week is my last week of work in Fort Portal before heading off to Entebbe, and the National Archive, on June 25th.  I haven't quite been here for a month, but it feels like it's been forever!!  Other mzungus are trickling out, too; Ciaran, Jonathan, and Kate left some time ago, but Regina finished up her work last week and is honeymooning around Uganda right now with her husband.  She'll be back in FP for a night next week, so I'll be able to say goodbye.  Perhaps, then, it's good timing that I'm peacin' outta this joint in a week.  Poor Felix, though, living all by himself...he'll manage.  He's got his chickens, and is soon to have his rabbits (as soon as his hired carpenter comes out of isolation and delivers on the rabbit cage that Felix has already paid for, that is).

It's really fascinating to see the result of our mad second-hand clothing donation habits here, by the way.  I walk around and actually see the people who benefit from our actions, which is quite cool.  I feel most people here appreciate clothing for it actually being clothing, as opposed to its ability to appease the fashion bloggers of the world.

Case in point:  Saw a student here at MMU the other day wearing a McDonald's polo shirt.  A polo shirt?  Cool.  Polo shirt.  No holes.  I dig it.  Yellow "M"?  Who knows, maybe his name was Martin and it just happened to be a fortunate coincidence.  Maybe he knows what McDonald's is...maybe he doesn't.  Point is, a shirt is a shirt is a shirt.  I think it's pretty awesome.

Other interesting shirts I've seen thus far:

• Annapolis Soccer 2006
• Purple "Take Back the Night 2010" shirt (proudly worn on multiple occasions by my neighbor)
• Sorority bid night shirt  (I don't think I could find a single person who could tell you what a sorority is, let alone bid night)
• Aforementioned McDonald's polo
• Pink, puffy, puff-sleeved winter coat as worn by one of the Kagote boda boda drivers
• Damn.  I see one or three of these every day and keep meaning to write them down.  I'll think of more.

Adolf came with me the other day to the market to help me buy some meat, where I bought 1/2 kilo of goat.  Brought it home and tried, failing spectacularly, to light up the grill and barbecue.  It took me about an hour to try and get the fire going, and then it was to hot, and then not hot enough...I ended up spending about three hours preparing the goat with vegetable skewers, trying to cook those, eventually throwing everything in the oven, and nearly breaking my jaw trying to chew the goat at the end of it all.  Even the sweet potato refused to bake in the oven.  How the hell does one manage to screw up a BAKED POTATO?  Like I said, spectacular failure.  I had 3/4 banana, 1/2 sweet potato, and some banana bread for dinner, at the end of it all.

Another funny story (sorry Omid):  Adolf and Sylvester pulled up my facebook profile page at work and started flipping through my pictures.  They came across the one of Omid and I at SI prom and Sylvester, looking over Adolf's shoulder, exclaimed "JESUS' BROTHER!!!"  And thus ensued a furious debate over whether or not Omid looks like Jesus, as everyone convened around the computer and commented on the resemblance.  (They even pulled up a picture of Jesus from the internet to compare, side by side.)  Icing on the cake?  Finding out he's Iranian.  "Oh, so he must know how to make AK-47s, eh?"

Went to Boma today with Evarist, which I'll describe in my follow up post in a little bit--don't want to overwhelm y'all.

In which Natalie attends church with Moses and bakes banana bread, and remembers Pete.

Yep.  I went this morning to St. John's Cathedral with my co-worker, Moses, for a Sunday service.  All of my co-workers are very, very religious, and he invited me to prayers with him this weekend.  It surprisingly wasn't too different from services in America, although they sang every. single. verse. in every hymn. They did do a little bit of dancing and clapping, which was pretty great, and the church was completely open (all the doors were open and sunlight filtered in everywhere), so it was a really nice experience.  I did, I have to admit, fall asleep for a little bit...  No surprise there.

Went to Moses' home for tea with his five year-old daughter, Janet, who is perhaps one of the most beautiful little girls I've ever seen--think Angelina Jolie's daughter, Zahara, except with a shaved head.  It's so unfortunate that I barely speak a lick of Rutooro, though, because trying to have any sort of conversation with the children around here is near impossible.  I was quite the spectacle at Moses' compound; while he prepared tea, all of the little kids crowded into his room and started at me.  White skin!  Nose ring!  Tattoo!  Oh man!  And, of course, all of his neighbors thought it was hilarious that Moses was having a mzungu woman over for tea, so there was plenty of cackling.

I've only been in Africa for a few weeks and every day I'm overcome with a million sensations of gratitude and white-person-guilt (inevitable) and awe at the strength of people who live here.  I won't go into details of Moses' story, but suffice to say he has been through an incredible number of trials, and has yet managed to graduate from MMU, raise a daughter on his own, and pursue his career with loads of optimism and tenacity.  Most of the people, in fact, that I've met here have similar life tales.  One of my co-workers bikes to work for an hour and a half each way every day (and it's hilly).  I see old men pushing bikes loaded with bananas down the road; old women with towering baskets of produce or linens balanced on their head look at me indifferently as they shuffle down the road.  Someone asked me yesterday what a nursing home was, and was rather baffled by the concept--children take care of their elders here.

Anyway, I could go on and on about the hardships that I see being suffered every day here, but that would get boring and be pointless.  I'm just glad that I'm working on projects this summer that, although not providing food for the hungry or health education for rural villages, at least are intent on fostering local and national pride...opening the eyes of the government and citizens to the importance of their own cultural heritage...and hopefully, eventually, prod people into taking direct action within their communities to preserve their historical resources...as well as making resources available for the first time to researchers, human rights workers, aid workers, whoever, so that a clear and accurate story of Ugandan history can be told and the nation can build on said story.  Everyone has heard that it is the victors who write history, and it is that very concept that we are trying to negate.

PHEW!  I have been trying to figure out different ways to cook with bananas and thus far have made fried matooke chips and banana bread (the latter of which has been HUGELY popular with the housemates and Nino).  I think I'm going to move on to banana fritters.

Today is six months to the day since Pete died, and fittingly, it is pouring down rain here.  I can't believe that he has been gone that long.  I would have loved to tell him all about Uganda, and he would probably respond to all of my stories with "Ahhh, siiiiiiiiick!".  But, I suppose he's out there keeping an eye on me, anyway, so he knows what's going on.

Love always, man.
Peter Ruhry
December 12, 2010

In which Natalie gets sick, is chased by a camel and gets a 2nd degree burn.

Well, it’s certainly been an interesting few days…I think that I’ve pretty much experienced anything bad that could happen to me in Uganda, barring being robbed (fingers crossed that won’t ever happen…!).  I went to the hospital on Wednesday a very, very sick girl, and am better now—but it was scary.

I had gone to a local place called The Gardens to have lunch and get some work done, and started feeling pretty awful right after my food arrived.  I managed about two bites before I nearly passed out, and thankfully was able to call Jonathan to pick me up and take me to the hospital.  It was so strange, and we haven’t been able to figure out what happened—I was seeing black spots and was dizzy, my fingers, toes, and face were numb, I was sick to my stomach, and I was absolutely freezing and couldn’t stop shaking.  Jonathan said my lips were blue…  Anyway, I hobbled my way into the hospital, convulsing most of the way, and it turns out I had a fever, thus an early diagnosis of malaria.  Thankfully it wasn’t so and my blood tested negative for parasites, so they just hooked me up to an IV and gave me a few shots and let me rest.  (Shots in the buttcheek are no fun…apparently it’s standard for Ugandan hospitals, but OW)

Thank God for Jonathan!  He sat with me through the whole ordeal and took me home once they discharged me.  Doreen and Nino came to visit me, too, which was very sweet, although 3 year-old Nino was rather worried about the whole hospital/IV thing.  So, I got home several hours later and, apart from being a bit weak and exhausted for the next 24 hours, recovered splendidly.  Any informal medical diagnoses?  I was plenty hydrated…  We’re rather mystified.

Thursday I travelled out to a small village outside of Kasese with Jonathan, where he conducted two interviews with community elders who had fought through the various conflicts in the country from 1954 until the early 1990s.  The interviews were pretty fascinating—one of the men said, “Some of the things I could tell you would make you shed tears”—Uganda’s had a pretty tumultuous history, to say the least.  It’s amazing how resilient people can be.

I also peed in a pit latrine (not the first time), but it was truly the most foul-smelling thing that I have ever encountered in my life.  Thank God for American toilets and Clorox.

Friday: went to Kyuninga Lodge with Felix for a swim and some watermelon, as it was Martyr’s Day here and everyone had off of work.  Burned my leg on the tailpipe of a boda boda, and it's pretty nasty-looking; Kate declared it a second-degree burn, but says that I'll survive.  Phew.  Then yesterday went to a sort of lodge/country club/pool/farm combo with Jonathan and Kate and Maurice and co., where I got chased by a camel.  Yep.  There was a field with horses, cows, and a camel, so we went in and I began petting the camel (of course).  She was very sweet and kept nuzzling me and laying her head on my shoulder, so we went back to get my camera and returned to find the camel lying down on a dirt patch.  I sat down and started lovin’ up on it (there are pictures), and then got up to go say hello to the horses.  Camel got up—started nibbling at me—I backed away—camel kept coming with bared teeth—Kate and I started running—camel started running.  After us.  I’m sure we gave the staff quite the laugh…

And tonight: made a BOMB pizza, from scratch!  Mom, you’d be so proud.  Lots of garlic, fresh tomatoes and onions, basil from the garden, gouda cheese…mmmm.

That’s all for now—hope everyone is well.  OH, and I won’t be posting any more pictures until I get to Entebbe, as doing so eats up a lot of my internet data transfer subscription thing.  (The noob doesn’t know the technical name.  Omid, I’m looking at you.)

Love you guys!

N