I take back everything I said about this being a “kinder, gentler”
dry season. What ever relief that was
rendered with the teaser of rain on Sunday (by various account – 4 drops of
liquid fell from the sky and that may have been bird droppings for all I know)
has been compensated for with a
vengeance. It’s horrid. Even the white ants have vacated. And Lizzy,
thank you for your offer of a roll of duct tape to fix the holes in the screens
to keep the little bastards out.
Unfortunately, there’s not enough duct tape on the planet to fix this
place. They come under the doors, through the
“screened” vents, through the open places around the windows. Too bad I can’t learn to like eating them.
Next lifetime perhaps.
Soon – and it’s already getting there – it will not even cool down
at night. The upside is – there is still
water, though my neighbors say they have been hauling theirs. I think I just still have some in the
tank. Thank you God. Climate change, whatever its origins, is also
manifesting here according to the locals.
This year there has been spotty rain in the middle of dry season –
almost unheard of. Usually, when it’s
dry season, there’s not a hint of moisture anywhere.
Last weekend I spent a day playing tour guide to an Irish woman who
will be here for two years with VSO (Volunteers Services Overseas). I love it
because she has a potty mouth (or trucker’s mouth it’s been called) to match
mine, but she does it with an Irish brogue and it is somehow … charming. You’d
hardly know you’d just been told to “go to hell.” I’ll have to work on a different accent I
guess. She’s also closer to my age (i.e only 20 years younger as opposed to 40
years younger…) and it’s nice sometimes to pal around with someone in your
century. It was fun showing a new person
around, but in this heat – exhausting. I
also paid a visit to Peter, my “surrogate Ugandan child” who has now finished a
week plus in school. He greeted me with
a reminder that he still needs 13 notebooks.
This is costing more than I anticipated.
Silly me – I should know better.
So – in the god-awful heat, I went to find 13 more notebooks… and
delivered them back to the school. This
is going to be interesting and I can only hope that it will help him change his
life. Maybe just knowing someone out there cares will make a difference for
him. If he’s a good student and can stay
engaged, it will be he’ll have a better shot at life. Anyway, after the errands
the only respite from the heat and grit was a few minutes in the shower. The perversity of it is, that dry season - when all you want is a cold shower - is the
ONE time of time the year that the water is hot.
So today, there was another planning meeting. Ugandans love planning meetings. These things take on a life of their own, so I
sat chatting with the only other Munu in the room, another British VSO
volunteer who told me his tale of going to a workshop in Pakwach – I
think. Stayed in a hotel (loosely called
– a bed and a “proper toilet.”) Went to flush the toilet and three frogs came
out. After being flushed into the bowl,
they climbed back into the tank. So of
course – the entertainment value of this
frog-show being high in the village of Pakwach – he flushed again: again
producing three frogs – and so on and so on this went. Then he told the tale of going to a
restaurant which he assumed would have a “proper bathroom” and found it – but
had to share it with a pig.
The other adventure was the purchase and cooking of a frozen
chicken. Yes – even cooking a chicken can
be an adventure infused with mystery here.
Here, if you want a chicken – you kill it yourself. My last effort at this – and I was just a
bystander – was gruesome because cutting off a chicken’s neck with a knife that
will hardly cut butter – is well – grisly for both cutter and cut-ee. Not doing that again… So I have found two
places where I can sometimes buy a very pricey frozen one. Still – it’s not all that straight forward,
because one needs to know it’s been frozen the whole time since processing. As you know, power has the habit of going in
and out, so that’s the way a lot of stomach problems happen here. You eat something you think has been refrigerated
from start-to-finish, and realize it’s been thawed several times. So, back to the chicken. It was a scrawny little runt of a thing, but
I took it home and cooked it. Most chicken
you get here is so tough it is truly un-cuttable with anything but a bandsaw
and I haven’t actually tried that. It
gives new meaning to the term rubber-chicken.
This one was edible, if a little tough. From the carcass of this entire chicken - picked absolutely clean,
I got a little over a cup of meat. With
the broth I made Mexican chicken soup with fresh (or shall we say “revived)
cilantro on the top and it brought me right home to Texas. So it was worth it every shilling. I doctored the rest of the meat with the
Marsala spice Mix and have had a few meals from it. My new excitement is
iceberg lettuce, which I would hardly give a second look in the States, but
it’s a rare delicacy here. So I’ve
chicken salad, tuna salad, veggie salad!
Life is thrilling.
In other worthless news, but perhaps it will re-ignite the pioneer
spirit deep within, is the adventure of the stopped up sink. Normally one might hop in the car or maybe if
you’re an environmentally sensitive sort – you’d hop on your bike or walk to your
local supermarket-hardware-store-Jiffymart: any of which would be likely to
have drain cleaner. You’d pour some of the toxic stuff down the afflicted
drain, go have a cup of coffee or ICE TEA, watch an episode of Downton Abbey,
do a chore – something…. And in a bit of time you would return to a clear
drain.
Not so here. After wasting my
time pouring boiling water down the drain, picking tidbits of slime out with a
pair of tweezers, etc. I walked through a cloud of dust dodging Bodas, bikes,
cars and goats to the nearest grocery store and tried in vain to explain drain
cleaner. Clerk: “Ah! You need JEK (local
Clorox product).” Me: “No, I don’t want
to sanitize it; I want to open it up so water can move.” Clerk: “ You first try …. (demonstrating a plumber’s friend with
great up-and-down clasped hands motion.”) No, I explained, there’s a curve in the sink and besides the last
one turned up its little rubber lip and died that way. There is no such chemical as drain cleaner
in town – at least at this place. So I
left with a new plunger. Admittedly,
this one was an improvement over the last, but still pretty poor action. Finally, I used a crochet hook, tweezers and
a pair of 14-inch knitting needles (in lieu of the required wire coat hanger of
which there are none in all of northern Uganda) and performed minor surgery on
the drain. I’m happy to report that
both patient and surgeon survived and the drain now does what’s it’s supposed
to – but slowly-slowly as they say in Uganda.
How someone can write two paragraphs on clearing a clogged drain
would have been incomprehensible to me 18 months ago. But here I am, brought to my knees by a
clogged drain, white ants and dust. How
will I ever adjust to civilization again?
Better hang on to those knitting needles…
New rant: Planning ahead is not done here. It’s always a continuing source of
frustration, but for some organizations, it’s an art form. I - along with all staff - are expected at a
big regional symposium this weekend.
It’s in one of those places you can’t get to from here. So it’s a full
day of travel Friday. Meanwhile, I have
made plans for the weekend that if I cancel will impact others. Organizations do this all the time. Failure to plan is one of the reasons Uganda
is still a “developing country.” They
continue to do it because everyone just drops everything so things that were
scheduled don’t get done, etc. etc. etc.
I screwed up my courage and said I could not go, due t short
notice. I anticipated horrible fall-out,
but there was none. Note to self: don’t right short stories about consequences,
just stand your ground…
And in other news not to be missed is: Uganda launches mouse into space.
The picture come from a FB invitation from PCVs to PCVs to help celebrate the event, consistent with at least the younger crowd's commitment to find any excuse for a party ;-) Thank you Andrew.
Now - if I could just recruit those mice in my kitchen... for space, not partying. All evidence would indicate they've been having one in my kitchen - and I can tell you they are not nearly this cute or well groomed.
And in closing, I have discovered quiet in
Gulu. I’m sitting at Sankofa, a little
eating place on the “outskirts,” where the Ex-pats live and it is blissfully
quite except for a few chickens crowing in the background. It’s still morning,
so the lunch crown hasn’t hit and I’ve come here to work. Out office is moving – theoretically sometime
this year. It’s almost twice the distance for me to walk, so that means no more
going home for lunch, but it’s close to this place. I think it might be a blessing in disguise,
although I’ll have to start buying lunch.
That's all for now. Probably should get back to work.
No comments:
Post a Comment