the first few days....
Hellooooo!
So Africa is incredible. Absolutely insane. Complete chaos, that for
some reason kinda works.
We arrived in Kampala, the capital city, on Monday. The first thing wedid was meet our driver Emmanuel and load up all of our luggag into
this small bus, maybe a little bigger than the short buses for the
special kids. We had three bags each, and by the time the baggage was
loaded, there were three rows left on the bus for the 14 of us ACTS
people and the three African guys. But, in true African style, we all
crammed in there, 5 people per 3 person row. Luckily it was only an
hour and a half drive into Kampala from the airport.
We stayed at a super nice guest house in kampala. It was up above the
city, and completely walled offf, with a huge gate. When you enter it,there was a big brick courtyard surrounded by grass and tropical
bushes climbing up the walls. Lots of flowers and big ass banana tree
leaves and stuff. It was kinda like a fancy hostel inside. There were
nice big tiles on the floor, and intricate flowery designs carved out
of the walls to form entry ways and in designs in the ceilings. The walls werewhite and bordered by dark dark wood molding that matched the darkstained doors. There were also two huge balconies off the front thatlooked over the city. It was pretty sweet.
The city itself was just ridiculously crazy. We drove through it, and
ther were what seemed like billions of people everywhere. There is no
rules when it comes to driving, and everybody comes really close to
crashing all the time. There are crazy van taxis and boda bodas, whichare like motorcycle taxis, and then of course the bicyclists that load up their bikes with more crap than you'd think possible. Everywhere we walked in the city we were a huge spectacle...14 whities walking around. I might as well have been naked.
YEsterday we left Kampala and headed out to Mbarara, which is kinda
like our home base. The drive was really nice, we went from crazy
urban shanty towns into straight up jungle. There were even some zebrasitings along the way. We crossed the equator at one point, and paid 10,000 shillings (about $5.50) to have this guy pour water into a funnel and show us how it drains in opposite directions on each side,and straight down right on the equador. Well worth the ridiculous tourist price. We stopped for lunch in Masaka. It consisted of Matooke, a plantain mash that is not really that great, Posho, a corn mash that is just about tasteless, dodo, a spinach equivalent, and a couple of meat stew/curry like things. Not bad really. I will be living on matooke and posho at Rubingo though, so I will have to develop a taste for them.
Here in Mbarara we stay at the ACTS "headquarters" called Canada
House. It's a pretty sweet spot. It's walled with hedges that
apparently make you blind if you get the juices in your eyes. There
are some crazy big bugs, and mossquito nets are definitely needed.
Last night we had a gecko friend crawling around the room, but we only managed to catch its tail. It kept wiggling for a while. There is also a dog here named Nala, who is pretty crazy. He loves to nip at you, which is kinda annoying. He terrifies all the Africans. Also, we can't get into our heads that the dog is a male, cause he has the same name as Simba's girlfriend, the famous Princess Nala.
TOday we will take some language lessons and are currently exploring
the "city". We still get stares, but the people here remember last
year's team, and have already been very friendly. Everyone in this
country dresses really nicely. They wear perfectly pressed slacks and
long sleeve dress shirts with some pretty fancey shoes. Our driver had these pointy shiny boots that were pure pimp style. We all look like slobs. Its crazy cause you can see that these people live in shacks,but manage to keep their wardrobe perfect, and give the impression of being pretty rich.
The people are always trying to get more money out of us cause we are rich mzungus, so we are trying hard to avoid the mzungu price. Haggling is something I haven't quite gotten down yet, but I'm getting the hang of it. We were looking into buying a live chicken for dinner (luckily one of our team lives on a farm at home, so he's cool with killing it) and the guy tried to sell it to us for 80,000 shillings, which is about $55. Chickens shouldnt cost more than $2...
I only have a few minutes left, so I'll update more on this later!
graeme
PS the connection here is dial up and finnicky. Phone will be much
more reliable. I can receive calls for free! Dial 011-256-75-268-2947
So Africa is incredible. Absolutely insane. Complete chaos, that for
some reason kinda works.
We arrived in Kampala, the capital city, on Monday. The first thing wedid was meet our driver Emmanuel and load up all of our luggag into
this small bus, maybe a little bigger than the short buses for the
special kids. We had three bags each, and by the time the baggage was
loaded, there were three rows left on the bus for the 14 of us ACTS
people and the three African guys. But, in true African style, we all
crammed in there, 5 people per 3 person row. Luckily it was only an
hour and a half drive into Kampala from the airport.
We stayed at a super nice guest house in kampala. It was up above the
city, and completely walled offf, with a huge gate. When you enter it,there was a big brick courtyard surrounded by grass and tropical
bushes climbing up the walls. Lots of flowers and big ass banana tree
leaves and stuff. It was kinda like a fancy hostel inside. There were
nice big tiles on the floor, and intricate flowery designs carved out
of the walls to form entry ways and in designs in the ceilings. The walls werewhite and bordered by dark dark wood molding that matched the darkstained doors. There were also two huge balconies off the front thatlooked over the city. It was pretty sweet.
The city itself was just ridiculously crazy. We drove through it, and
ther were what seemed like billions of people everywhere. There is no
rules when it comes to driving, and everybody comes really close to
crashing all the time. There are crazy van taxis and boda bodas, whichare like motorcycle taxis, and then of course the bicyclists that load up their bikes with more crap than you'd think possible. Everywhere we walked in the city we were a huge spectacle...14 whities walking around. I might as well have been naked.
YEsterday we left Kampala and headed out to Mbarara, which is kinda
like our home base. The drive was really nice, we went from crazy
urban shanty towns into straight up jungle. There were even some zebrasitings along the way. We crossed the equator at one point, and paid 10,000 shillings (about $5.50) to have this guy pour water into a funnel and show us how it drains in opposite directions on each side,and straight down right on the equador. Well worth the ridiculous tourist price. We stopped for lunch in Masaka. It consisted of Matooke, a plantain mash that is not really that great, Posho, a corn mash that is just about tasteless, dodo, a spinach equivalent, and a couple of meat stew/curry like things. Not bad really. I will be living on matooke and posho at Rubingo though, so I will have to develop a taste for them.
Here in Mbarara we stay at the ACTS "headquarters" called Canada
House. It's a pretty sweet spot. It's walled with hedges that
apparently make you blind if you get the juices in your eyes. There
are some crazy big bugs, and mossquito nets are definitely needed.
Last night we had a gecko friend crawling around the room, but we only managed to catch its tail. It kept wiggling for a while. There is also a dog here named Nala, who is pretty crazy. He loves to nip at you, which is kinda annoying. He terrifies all the Africans. Also, we can't get into our heads that the dog is a male, cause he has the same name as Simba's girlfriend, the famous Princess Nala.
TOday we will take some language lessons and are currently exploring
the "city". We still get stares, but the people here remember last
year's team, and have already been very friendly. Everyone in this
country dresses really nicely. They wear perfectly pressed slacks and
long sleeve dress shirts with some pretty fancey shoes. Our driver had these pointy shiny boots that were pure pimp style. We all look like slobs. Its crazy cause you can see that these people live in shacks,but manage to keep their wardrobe perfect, and give the impression of being pretty rich.
The people are always trying to get more money out of us cause we are rich mzungus, so we are trying hard to avoid the mzungu price. Haggling is something I haven't quite gotten down yet, but I'm getting the hang of it. We were looking into buying a live chicken for dinner (luckily one of our team lives on a farm at home, so he's cool with killing it) and the guy tried to sell it to us for 80,000 shillings, which is about $55. Chickens shouldnt cost more than $2...
I only have a few minutes left, so I'll update more on this later!
graeme
PS the connection here is dial up and finnicky. Phone will be much
more reliable. I can receive calls for free! Dial 011-256-75-268-2947
posted by graeme at 2:24 AM
1 Comments:
Graeme, Awesome - you made it. Love the descriptive writing, with your down to earth observations! It is great. Last week of rafting trips on the South Fork American 10/15, we should have water too! Take care and keep us posted. All the best from A/O gang!
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