Life here has been good. For my second international trip since arriving here, I joined Malavika and a group of her friends for a long weekend in Uganda. We got to spend about a day and a half in the capital city of Kampala, where two members of our crew have been conducting different types of health research since the summer.
There wasn’t much of a plan going into this leg of the journey, but just in the first night we experienced an African art gallery, a blackout speed dinner with the assistance (and entertainment) of head lamps, an outdoor street ball-style basketball game under the lights, and Ghana beating Brazil for the Under-21 World Cup (on TV). As if that wasn’t interesting enough, the power was also out for the art gallery. As far as we could tell by the light of our cell phone flashlights, some of the paintings were amazing, and all were nowhere near our price range. The basketball game was also unforgettable. Team Power ended up narrowly defeating the Falcons despite a miraculous fourth quarter comeback, but the basketball was outstaged in the end by a “loose cannon” fan determined to entertain. We started to get the idea that he may have been under the influence of something after his over-the-top performance in a halftime shooting contest.
For the rest of the game, he took it upon himself to practice his moves (with or without a ball) out on the court during timeouts. He was eventually forcefully removed from the premises, later to return with a bandage around his head. He did a good deal of wandering around the court after the end of the game, and managed to find his way to our group to tell us about Diego Maradonna and [unintelligible]. All in all, the game was a success. The next day we all met up again for lunch in a modern shopping mall food court, where we were swarmed by waiters in a 1:1 ratio and presented with just as many different menus.
We then walked through what has to be the busiest part of Kampala (or K’la for the cool kids): the bus stand. The five-minute walk from the main road to the bus we eventually chose was exhaustingly overwhelming for me. People traffic, road traffic, and and endless stream of aggressive wandering merchants combined to create a perfect storm of “get me out of here.”
Luckily, we did make it out of there after some miraculous shuttle bus maneuvering. Oh yeah, and the bus took us north to the city of Jinja, where we were to go rafting at the source of the Nile River. Minor detail. I think the whole group (seven of us at the time) had either read or heard something about this rafting experience, and only two or three of us had been rafting at all before. Another four joined us for a fancy dinner complete with “hot banana brandy” for dessert, before we shared some time cringing at the stereotypical extreme sports/snowboarder party taking place in front of us at the campsite’s bar. On the bright side, this bar had a porch with an amazing view of the river from the top of a cliff.
While waiting for our ride to the rafting company’s headquarters in the morning, a talkative Scotsman named “Fraggle” guaranteed we would have the time of our lives that day. He also tried to point out the falls in the distance that would be a 30-meter sheer drop. We found out later that this was a slight exaggeration, probably because the party was still taking place that morning for Fraggle. Next came breakfast, a safety briefing, and a cattle car parade of foreigners through town to the river. Let’s just preface the rafting story with the undeniable fact that I applied two (2) generous layers of SPF 50 sunscreen before we departed. My group of seven ended up with the coolest rafting guide ever, hands down. His name was Tabani Tabani (meaning “be happy”), and he was the steady elder guide with realistic expectations for what the group could do. During the day, he showed us around his “office” and took us through a series of class 1-5 rapids. He gave us a thorough on-boat safety crash course, and we would typically stop for a few minutes before each serious rapid to discuss the plan of attack. During one of these pep talks, Tabani bluntly informed us, “This one will affect you psychologically.” Thankfully, we handled that one well and our psyches emerged unscathed. We went for a few swims (voluntary and involuntary), had some water wars with other rafts, saw huge monitor lizards, and had fresh pineapple for lunch on the boats. I ended up in the front of the raft for the whole day, I guess because I was the one who didn’t want to go on the “easy raft.” In reality though, everyone took some spills and nobody was seriously hurt. There was one possibly broken finger in our boat, but only two of the five minor injuries I ended up sustaining in Uganda were rafting-related. Speaking of spills, my group only ended up flipping twice, including the last run in “The Other Place,” sister falls of the infamous “Bad Place.” The first flip was actually much more fun than it sounds. Our raft made it through one big swell, but suddenly was turned to the left in a trough as we approached the next wall of water. The next thing I knew, I was floating down the river with my paddle and scanning for the helmets and life jackets bobbing up and down around me. I swam back to the raft and grabbed onto the rope as Thabani pulled himself up and stood on top of the flipped vessel, spontaneously bellowing a triumphant song of joy, before hooking onto the rope with his paddle and leaning back to flip it over again. Everything about the day was so perfect that something had to go wrong, right?
Well, let’s just say I was marked with my first equatorial sunburn that day. The tops of my knees and feet took the brunt of my 2nd worst sunburn ever, but improved greatly after a week of aloe and painful walking. That said, the trade-off was fair, but I’ll take some long pants next time. Unfortunately we couldn’t take cameras along on the river (obvious reasons), but you can get a feel for it by reading this article or visiting the website of the company we went with.
While waiting for our ride to the rafting company’s headquarters in the morning, a talkative Scotsman named “Fraggle” guaranteed we would have the time of our lives that day. He also tried to point out the falls in the distance that would be a 30-meter sheer drop. We found out later that this was a slight exaggeration, probably because the party was still taking place that morning for Fraggle. Next came breakfast, a safety briefing, and a cattle car parade of foreigners through town to the river. Let’s just preface the rafting story with the undeniable fact that I applied two (2) generous layers of SPF 50 sunscreen before we departed. My group of seven ended up with the coolest rafting guide ever, hands down. His name was Tabani Tabani (meaning “be happy”), and he was the steady elder guide with realistic expectations for what the group could do. During the day, he showed us around his “office” and took us through a series of class 1-5 rapids. He gave us a thorough on-boat safety crash course, and we would typically stop for a few minutes before each serious rapid to discuss the plan of attack. During one of these pep talks, Tabani bluntly informed us, “This one will affect you psychologically.” Thankfully, we handled that one well and our psyches emerged unscathed. We went for a few swims (voluntary and involuntary), had some water wars with other rafts, saw huge monitor lizards, and had fresh pineapple for lunch on the boats. I ended up in the front of the raft for the whole day, I guess because I was the one who didn’t want to go on the “easy raft.” In reality though, everyone took some spills and nobody was seriously hurt. There was one possibly broken finger in our boat, but only two of the five minor injuries I ended up sustaining in Uganda were rafting-related. Speaking of spills, my group only ended up flipping twice, including the last run in “The Other Place,” sister falls of the infamous “Bad Place.” The first flip was actually much more fun than it sounds. Our raft made it through one big swell, but suddenly was turned to the left in a trough as we approached the next wall of water. The next thing I knew, I was floating down the river with my paddle and scanning for the helmets and life jackets bobbing up and down around me. I swam back to the raft and grabbed onto the rope as Thabani pulled himself up and stood on top of the flipped vessel, spontaneously bellowing a triumphant song of joy, before hooking onto the rope with his paddle and leaning back to flip it over again. Everything about the day was so perfect that something had to go wrong, right?
Well, let’s just say I was marked with my first equatorial sunburn that day. The tops of my knees and feet took the brunt of my 2nd worst sunburn ever, but improved greatly after a week of aloe and painful walking. That said, the trade-off was fair, but I’ll take some long pants next time. Unfortunately we couldn’t take cameras along on the river (obvious reasons), but you can get a feel for it by reading this article or visiting the website of the company we went with.
Last weekend I just kind of hung out around Moshi. The international school across the street had a sports weekend in honor of its 40th anniversary, so I went over and joined in on a soccer game with my neighbor and some of his middle school friends. I'll probably try to start going to play pickup soccer if it's possible, since this was the only time I have engaged in competitive sports I've since I arrived here. At college it was tough for me to go a full week without joining an intramural volleyball game or playing some hockey, so these two whole months have been a challenge in that sense. At least I got to see a big rugby tournament at this school a few weeks ago. Teams came in from Kenya and Uganda, and at the end there was a drum/dance celebration that was cut short by rain.
It has actually rained probably 8 of the past dozen days, which is a huge change after it rained maybe three times in the first month and a half (two of those in the first week). Monday night we had torrential rain, which made getting to work on Tuesday tricky and messy. The short rainy season isn't supposed to be until December, but maybe it's getting an early start after the long drought.
It has actually rained probably 8 of the past dozen days, which is a huge change after it rained maybe three times in the first month and a half (two of those in the first week). Monday night we had torrential rain, which made getting to work on Tuesday tricky and messy. The short rainy season isn't supposed to be until December, but maybe it's getting an early start after the long drought.
Two weeks ago I actually added an element to one of the projects I’ve been working on at the hospital. I have been working on preparing three versions of a village survey for the Community Health class all the first year medical students at Tumaini University are currently taking. Because of my background and time spent with the survey, the professor invited Sumera and me to give a lecture on interview strategies and etiquette. We learned that morning that at least 90% of the students are straight out of high school, but it’s still tough for me to think that I’m at all qualified to lecture to medical students. Nevertheless, the talk went pretty well. We actually had people asking a few questions and coming up to us afterwards to clarify things. This past week we went with the same group on field visits to different villages in the region. I spent the day with a group that will be interviewing leaders and families in a town called Mamba, near where most Kilimanjaro climbs start. It was a very small town and 100% of the group interview was in Swahili, but it was nice to see a different setting and learn some new things (after translation). The day as a whole was one of the strangest I've had in a long time, though. On top of the fact that there was basically zero English spoken the whole day, the shuttles set up for the students were about as organized as dala dalas. We were delayed in the morning when it was time to leave because, surprise...50 people can't fit into a 30 person bus. The solution? Squeeze everyone in and drop off ten to take a dala dala the rest of the way. The interview time also had an unusually high concentration of awkward silences, especially when things shut down for a 15 minute peanut break and silence prevailed. All of this is from my moderately acclimated American perspective, however, and I think the day was beneficial for everyone in the end. That night some folks from the hospital went around the corner to the tiny grocery store for their special pizza night. This old German couple who has been here off and on since 1961 and have run the radiology department at KCMC basically ever since treated all 11 of us. The wife was born in East Prussia, so I spent some time speaking German with her and discussing the work (and pronunciation) of one of my major advisor’s favorite public health minds: Rudolf Virchow.
For Halloween a bunch of people got together to return to the ex-pat bar called the Watering Hole for a little party. It was mostly just a chance for the Europeans to laugh at the Americans, but at least half of the people ended up coming in costume. Due to a lack of real costume resources, I decided to go as “mzungu sana,” or “very white/foreign.”
My head lamp, travel guides, hand sanitizer, and Nalgene bottle actually came in handy, plus I learned what IKEA stands for.
My head lamp, travel guides, hand sanitizer, and Nalgene bottle actually came in handy, plus I learned what IKEA stands for.
Today was my third hash, and I actually decided to run it for the first time. My cross-country coach would be proud—this course took us through a huge coffee plantation and across a river. While it wasn’t necessarily the same as running XC (because you need to find the proper trail), we covered about 7.5 km in less than an hour. This time I even actually remembered to bring my GPS watch along, which is the true sign of a dedicated hasher. The walking group ended up pretty significantly off course, but all was forgiven after an assisted shortcut and pizza for dinner afterwards.
The internet saga at home continues for me, and it's only working in one of the two offices at work. Basically I received a “special free offer” for the first month when I bought the my modem. I was told it might be a little slow, but then it ended up being very fast. Two weeks ago I renewed it and bought another month of airtime thinking it would still be fast...and it was very slow. So we know it's possible for my modem to be fast, but they say they don't know why that happened. In reality, I know there’s a guy sitting in a cubicle at the office who pushed the SLOW button when I renewed. After way too much time researching the issue, I have found that this particular provider (rhymes with Slowdacom) has two options:
- Unlimited usage internet at a very slow speed and reasonable price
- Limited usage (1GB, 2GB, or 5GB over 3 months) at a moderately fast speed and high price
I’m really hoping more than ever that the mysterious fiber optic cable will inspire them to flip the switch back to FAST sometime soon.
I didn’t set my clocks back last night, but that’s because we don’t observe daylight savings here. That means the time difference just jumped from 7 hours to 8 hours, so keep that in mind if you’re trying to get in touch from the States.
Dala dala/Matatu themes:
Big Boss
Big is Big
Back to Jesus
Obama Express
Fun is a Must (Land Rover, but I'll count it)
Obama Express
Fun is a Must (Land Rover, but I'll count it)
New York Rangers
Texas Rangers
New York Mets
Pittsburgh Penguins
Toronto Maple Leafs
Houston Astros
San Diego Padres
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Toronto Blue Jays
New Jersey Nets
Golden State Warriors
Golden State Warriors
This week's soundtrack:
Phil Collins – One More Night
Cyndi Lauper – Time after Time
Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
Incubus – Are You In?
Sublime – Jailhouse
The Beach Boys – Good Vibrations
Fatboy Slim – Build It Up, Tear It Down
Modest Mouse – Trailer Trash
Modest Mouse – Fly Trapped in a Jar
Counting Crows – Round Here
Led Zeppelin – Kashmir
James Brown – Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag
Hockey – Song Away
Arcade Fire – Windowstill
Ronnie Hudson – West Coast Poplock
The B-52’s – Rock Lobster
Timbaland – Here We Come
Next time:
Another day trip safari, a blood drive, and Thanksgiving in Kenya, among other things of course.
In other news:
I don’t think I mentioned that I actually saw Lake Victoria for the first time. Awesome. Below is another picture of the river to make up for my lack of pictures of the lake.
I love reading about your life! What does IKEA stand for?! These are the great mysteries of life. Loved the pictures! I hope your internet improves so we can talk more!
ReplyDeleteExcellent. How incredible! So tell me, how far apart timewise are you and I? Only 2 hours? We do daylights savings here and I'm 6 hours apart from the states...
ReplyDeleteGreat saga. The hashing experience sounds familiar as a walker. Always glad when I knew where everything was! And, the rafting sounds great too. Don't stop the adventures. They go by so fast. And finally, thank heavens for the rains even if they make you grow 2-3 inches when you walk to work.
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