I ate a grasshopper!

Crunchy green tubes, about 1 inch long, looking a bit like green beans, until you look closely enough to see that they have eyes. I was walking back from tea with some friends and a guy went by selling bags of these. I had seen them being sold on the road before, and assumed they were green beans. Well, the guys I was walking with got quite excited and bought a couple of bags, and insisted I should try some. Grasshoppers are crunchy, a little bit gritty, and have a kind of toasted flavor. They aren’t bad, but not good enough for me to be able to get over the grossness of the fact that they are bugs.

Traveling for errands and work is not fun!

Not much going on here. Too much traveling, on Friday I was in Kampala for a meeting and I picked up my plane ticket. Then on Saturday I went to Mbarara for a development studies conference. We left at 5:30 in the morning and weren’t back until 9:30 at night. The conference had some interesting speakers; there was an American who was excellent, but also the usual problems with time management and facilitation. Particularly ironic is that one of the speakers mentioned this problem as one of the things that is holding Uganda back from development, and yet his 10 minute speech took nearly 40 minutes. The problem is acknowledged by everyone, yet no one wants to exercise restraint when they themselves are speaking!

Then yesterday I found out from human resources that they needed two more passport photos to send to immigration. Seeing as I became an illegal alien on Friday when my initial entry permit expired, I had to go to Kampala to get the photos right away. So yesterday I was again traveling!

I think I’ll have a relaxed couple of days here, then head to Jinga this weekend for some rafting, and, if I can work up the courage, bunging jumping! Or possibly Queen Elizabeth for a safari.

And there goes freedom of speech.

http://www.monitor.co.ug/news/news11243.php

hmm... I wonder how long it will be before The Monitor (the idependant or opposition newspaper, depending on who you talk to) get shut down. I predict that it will be within the month.

More on Ugandan politics

So, in the last week and a half, Besigye was arrested, his supporters rioted, one protester was killed, people were arrested for putting up posters on his behalf, protesting was banned, armed paramilitaries invaded the High Court, Besigye was court martialed (raising double-jeopardy issues) and Besigye's lawyers were charged with contempt of court for arguing their clients case (by the head of the military tribunal). All in all, democracy is not thriving in Uganda!

Here's a link to a pretty good article on the situation: http://www.monitor.co.ug/news/news11251.php

Anyway, if you have a few minutes, please call your MP and ask him or her what position Canada, as a donor nation, is taking on this. Uganda is dependent on monies from donor nations (Canada, US, Britain, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, and others) and that influence should be used now to halt Uganda's descent into dictatorship. As well, please ask your MP to oppose Uganda's bid to host the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. Donor nations must make it clear that they will not accept a return to political oppression in Uganda.

Get the fatted calf ready for slaughter, I'm coming home!

Hi everyone, wonderful fantastic news: I'm coming home for Christmas! My wonderful father, having been lobbied on my behalf by my fantastic sisters, is buying me a plane ticket for Christmas! I can't even begin to say how happy I am to be able to spend the holidays with my family and friends. I'll be home for two or three weeks, stay tuned for exact dates as I firm up my travel plans. I'll be flying into Halifax, so if anyone plans to be there around December 19th and would like to give me a ride home, I'll be happy to split the gas, and maybe even buy some drinks at Baba's (after the car is safely parked, of course!)

I'm Safe, and Sorry to worry ya'll

God, I'm so sorry to freak ya'll out! Please don't worry, I'm fine and I'm safe.

Good suggestion on the embassy, I actually registered with the consulate as soon as I arrived, it’s recommended for all Canadians who are planning to be overseas for more than three months, plus it’s a requirement of the program I'm with. So the consulate knows where I am, has my email and cell number. And I know where to find the nearest full embassy as well, it’s in Nairobi. And I'm checking the Canadian and American travel advisories, but the only advisory at the moment is to stay out of Northern Uganda (and that has been the case for about 15 years!)

I don't think things are going to go pear-shaped here just yet, and if they do at some point the area where I am isn't likely to be a part of it at first. I'm in a small village an hour and a half away from any major towns (and thus the riots). As well, the armed group that Besigye may or may not be involved with (which may or may not actually exist!) is hanging out in the Congo and Sudan, if (and that's a big if!) a bush war were to actually break out it would start on the borders, giving me plenty of warning.

If need be I have enough credit on my visa to buy a plane ticket out, and enough hard currency to bribe a fisherman (Hell, stuff is so cheap here it’s probably enough to buy my own boat!) to take me over the lake (which is about 10 minutes from here) in a worst case scenario.

In any case, I think that it’s unlikely to be anything more than occasional riots until after the election. So, I will be careful about staying far away from political rallies and large crowds. And as a Muzungu, I am obviously not a voter, thus not someone to be influenced as far as voting goes. And neither side would want to be seen to be mistreating whites at this point, as both are hoping for the support and recognition of the international community, which tends to get pretty pissed when white folk are inconvenienced in the slightest!

So, to sum up, I don’t think that things are going to get very violent yet, I’m in a very safe area, and I know how to get out of the country quickly if need be.

Col. Besigye arrest links

http://www.monitor.co.ug/news/news11157.php
http://allafrica.com/stories/200511141465.html

So, Besigye is the only person likely to give Museveni a real challenge in the upcoming elections. And yesterday he was arrested. Riots broke out in Kampala. This election is going to get messy.

The matatu I took from Nyendo to Kalangala. 

Shack where you can buy chapatis and corn on the cob while waiting for the ferry. 

The ferry finally arrives. 

Traditional fishing boat on Lake Victoria 

Me on the ferry going to Kalangala. 

Can you find the bird in this picture? 

After supper we had a fire on the beach. 

Boat on the beach 

Bird on the beach 

A view from the beach 

Accross the bay. 

I relaxed in a hammock after doing some early morning kayaking 

Here is the view from the hammock 

The ferry passed lush islands on the way home. 

Just Chillin'

I arrived at Hornbill Campsite by boda boda, and was greeted by two dogs very aggressively running at the bike and barking and growling. Not the most auspicious welcome, though once I had been there a few minutes they started acting like puppies wanting their bellies rubbed and generally being very friendly.

So I didn’t get to do much, just chill on the beach and a little bit of kayaking in the morning. (I suck at kayaking, I kept going in circles and drifting out to sea until my arms were aching and I managed to get back into shore.) Still it was nice to get away.

There was a huge group of Danish and German volunteers at the campsite, and in the evening we had some beers and a campfire which was nice. But the best part was after everyone else had gone to their tents, I got into a hammock under a palm tree and lay there for quite a while just staring up at the sky, feeling incredibly peaceful. I wanted to just stay there and sleep under the stars, but sleeping without a net isn’t a great idea! But I think if I go back there sometime I might take my mosquito net and see if they’ll let me string it up over a hammock instead of tenting.

I also took a number of pictures; I’ll be posting them later tonight.

I'm a lazy expat bum/neo-colonialist scumbag

Well, I finally did it. I've hired a village woman to clean my room and do my laundry. I'm trying to justify it to myself by saying that I'm creating employment and redistributing my income, but I feel guilty as hell as a white western woman to be paying a poor African woman to do my housework. I'm paying her a pittance, and though it's more than the usual wage, I know that if I was a big multinational paying a third world woman of colour so little, I'd be the first to boycott.

My first parasite, not for the faint hearted or wek stomached!

Well, it was bound to happen, I got a tropical parasite. My first, and hopefully my last!

About a week ago I noticed a small spot of my one of my toes. It looked like a raised mole and was tough like a calus. I didn’t think much of it, it didn’t hurt or itch or anything. But then this weekend I noticed it had gotten WAY bigger, and was a little tender, though only when I pressed on it. So today I made my way to the nurse’s office and showed it to her. The Diagnosis? It’s a jigger.

A jigger, properly known as Tunga penetrans (shown above, pic is from a website, not the actual one from my foot!) is a small insect living in the soil and sand in parts of South America and Africa. The female burrows into the feet of mamals for food and stays there while laying her eggs. Yuck!

So, the nurse sits me up on a bed covered in cracked vinyl and takes a cotton ball, disinfectant, and a needle (a new one, I watched as she opened it) and starts digging it out while scolding me for not having taken care of it sooner, because its “grown too big.” Eventually she has to take a small razor (also from an opened package, I was nervous and ready to flee if anything that looked remotely like it could have been used before came near me!) and poking, cutting, and squeezing gets the jigger out. And shows it to me. Yuck!

Then she gives me a bandaid, tells me to keep it clean, and that next time I can dig it out myself with a safety pin! (And to do so before it gets big.)

An Overwhelming Shopping Dichotomy

Game is a South African version of Wal-Mart. I went in Kampala on Saturday and went to Game to look for an XD card for my digicam. And it was totally bewildering. I walk in and It all white and Wal-marty, and there’s so much stuff that I feel like I should buy something, but the pure abundance makes me unable to think. And there are white people everywhere, which is weird because usually I know all the other white people, and also I had no idea that there were so many other muzungus in Uganda. So I wandered around, dazzled by the florescent lights and the rows and rows of stuff and left without buying a thing. It was just too much.

So then I went to Oweno Market. I had been meaning to check it out for a while; it’s a huge market by the taxi park. And it is huge! Everything is sold there, food, pots and pans, used clothing (which was my main reason for going; I got a shirt and a skirt). It’s dark and crowded and muddy and maze-like. There is a musty small to the whole thing, but every now and then the smell of spices or fresh oranges from a stall will hit you. Everywhere I walked people in the stalls were calling out to me, “Muzungu! You look here!” or “Sister, sister, look at these sheets!” And when I the owner of one stall talks to her friends in luganda as I look at clothes, laughing, and the only word I can understand is “Muzungu.” I seemed to be providing them with lots of amusement, anyway.

Overall, the contrast of the two shopping experiences in just one day out in Kampala was overwhelming, to say the least.

Bored and Homesick

Hi all, this post is just to let ya'll know that I'm still alive and stuff. Nothing is really happening here, just work and sleep. Who knew that Africa could be just as, if not more, boring than PEI. Nkosi is a very sleepy little place, smaller and more conservative than Charlottetown, and without a great group of friends to "make our own fun" with I'm not having the greatest time. I guess I'm just homesick. Especially since I hated missing Halloween. Heather sent some pics of the Baba's Halloween party, it looked like tons of fun. Anyway, I miss ya'll tons, I'll post again when something interesting happens.