It's been one of those "interesting" days. Just about the time the unusual (hauling water, living by candle light, smacking white ants, flushing with bath water...) becomes usual, something comes along that tweaks the senses - or the sensibilities. A little of both drifted by today. The first came after picking up a package at the Post Office. The guys that work there are friends now - we know each others names, greet on the street - it's nice. I know my packages will be OK there - once they reach there... So I picked (that's the expression here - not "picked up," just "picked) my package and paid for it as post office conversation mingled with a cacophony of sounds from seemingly everywhere outside. A wedding, celebration, what? Things like graduations, National Handwashing Day, National Women's Day - merit a marching band. This is most assuredly not a marching band. Horns - lots of horns. Once outside I am treated to the sight of at least twelve piki-pikis (motor cycles) all decked-out with posters for Prayer Night (tonight) leading a procession of SUVs. But it's the male drivers that caught my eye. How do I say this? These studly guys are are wearing 18" tall pointy cone hats made from the posters. The contradiction of this hits me: cone hats, cone heads, dunce hats, witch hats. They mean nothing here of course, so I'm the only one that seems to find this funny. After such a spectacle, I don't know that I could follow these folks in Prayer. But I wasn't planning on going anyway. I'm in for a nice quite evening at home. (They're ALL that way unless we play a rousing game of scrabble.... or get excited about the power being on or hear water running - then it gets down right titillating.) Read this and weep all you people stuck with having dinner out at a French restaurant, being forced to watch a first run movie... taking a hot bath.
Moving right along, considering this parade, I wandered up to Coffee Hut with the hope of finding some of the group there and salivating over what treat I might indulge in to celebrate getting off "mid day" (2:30) from work. I saw a man getting his Cheeseburger with fries and said "I'll have what he's having," victim of a momentary lapse - dreaming of a Fudrucker's or Jimmy Buffetts Cheesburger in Paradise. It was not to be, but it was somehow a close enough facsimile to do the trick.
As I was waiting, storm clouds moved in and I braced for the downpour. Before that - a medium size young man walked by clutching a smallish bird that was most definitely NOT a chicken. What IS that? He held up a baby owl he is trying to sell? Oh noooooo. I try to conceal my horror, but also know that this is livlihood or dinner. I actually thought for a moment about buying it and releasing it or raising it, but I a don't think I would be a very good Owl-mama and know it will die if I don't figure out how to regurgitate meat for it... Then another little boy walks by with yet another baby owl. I'm glad Mom's not here to see this. The man across from me has tears in his eyes, and I know from the perspective of people needing food, this is probably a sloppy sentiment. But we are who we are and I am bothered. And how the hell do you rob an owl's nest? I am informed that this is honey harvesting season and they've probably discovered the nest while foraging for bee hives.
Where is my friend Lizzy - rescuer of all creatures great and small - when I need her? Lizzy, I know you're reading this and I remember your carrying around a little basket of baby birds one spring and feeding them with an eye dropper. I know you would know what to do for these little babies. In the overall scheme of things, we are the only ones bothered by owl babies being taken from the nest. Here - where many small things don't get what they need, baby birds just don't matter that much, unless they are a meal, and then they matter quite a lot.
Tomorrow night on a lighter note, the Search for Miss Uganda contest is happening in my very own front yard - literally. Diana Gardens, the club whose music I hear until the wee-hours is hosting the contest and it starts at 6:00 PM. Since I won't get a wink of sleep, I may as well join the fun . Where else will I get such an opportunity? 10,000 UgX (less than $5) to get in ;-) Tonight I can be saved and tomorow night I can help pick Miss Uganda. That's what I call a full weekend.
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