A Perspective on White-ness

some musings from one of our team members Alex... check it out

http://interculturaladventure.blogspot.com/2010/04/is-white-color.html

Near death expereinces in Africa

ok... so dont get too excited about the title, but wanted to share some tidbits of danger from Kampala. As mentioned we are back in Kampala and have been since Monday. This week has been a bit more lax than the last two and our schedule has not been as full. After returning we spent our first few days visiting some Rotary projects in schools and in mother awareness clinics an AIDS care center, a farm, and some cultural sites around town. At the mother awareness clinic I personally vaccinated 2 babies for Polio (kind of cool) they were actually going to let us give babies shots too if we wanted but I decided to opt out as I likely would have passed out. So... on to the near death experiences.
1.) Almost Fell in a hole: On Tuesday Peter and I set out to find the safari office to confirm our reservations for the safari some of us are going on this weekend. In this process we managed to get lost in Kampala (which was not the scary part at all). As we were walking i was looking around for the 5th street sign. What we found out the hard way was there are no street signs anywhere in Kampla. So while looking around Peter yells out "hole!" I look down to see a 2x2 hole in the middle of the sidewalk that I was about one step from falling in to. It was about 5 feet deep and full of trash. Good chance that if I would have stepped into it I would have knocked out all of my teeth and I am pretty sure Dentists in Kampala are not winning too many awards. So that was experience #1
2.) Almost ate Glass: On Wed. we visited a dairy, poultry, pig and coffee farm. After driving 2 hours through unexpected road construction we arrived, then it down poured for an hour, then we had lunch and headed back. Kind of an unproductive day but hey we got to see a farm and have lunch with the owner in Uganda so no worries. After we got back Alex and I went to the hotel Africana for a drink and a snack. The Africana is likely one of the top 5 hotels in Kampala so a pretty decent place. We ordered a drink and some samosas. After the second bite of samosa I noticed something hard in my samosa. Now I have gotten rocks in my rice a number of times here so I figured no big deal but this seemed big. I reached into my mouth and pulled out a green pea sized piece of GLASS!!!. I cant make this stuff up. Thankfully i didn't down it and caught it. After some thought I decided to not say anything because with customer service not really being king, prince or even the butler here i figured I would have no traction. So i finished my samosas carefully and had a beer and went on my day
3.) Rode on a motorbike in Kampala traffic: In the previously mentioned story with peter we got lost. In addition to that we were also running out of time to get back so we hopped on a "boda boda" which is what they call these motor bikes that you get from place to place on here in Kampala. Imagine three grown men riding a motor bike and weaving through Kampala traffic. Our ride was not too risky but none the less something that probably was not the safest.
So all in all an eventful week back in Kampala. We're off to some meetings tonight and then to a coffee processing and bottled water plant tomorrow before setting off on SAFARI on Saturday.

Phone cords, sandals and light bulbs…

Back in Kampala. Driving in to meet the team each morning I notice these guys coming in and out of traffic on foot. Some are selling papers (makes sense) some are selling airtime minutes for phones (makes sense) and then there are these guys with the most random pairings you could imagine. I saw one guy selling car cell phone chargers and women’s sandals. Another on selling light bulbs. Seriously when was the last time you were sitting in hot smelly traffic and thought to yourself man I need a new cell phone charger and then saw the pair of sandals he was pedaling and thought those look great I need them. Anyway I always concerned that these guys are going to get run over by the motorbikes that use space in between the 3 lanes of traffic (one of which I rode on today) Three grown men on a motor bike is quite a sight... for another set of lanes, but we all have to make a living somehow right? Gulu was wonderful, happy to be back in the sights and sounds of the city… looking forward to another week in Kampala.

Flat Tire = Church Service

Sunday we left Gulu. Our ETD was 12 noon… we of course left at 2:30 (see previous post on timeliness) About an hour and a half into a 4 hour trip we blew a tire. We had the blowout right in a very small village that was about 1/2 thatched huts and 1/2 make shift brick storefronts. The locals were very friendly and helped us out right away. Ugandans are very friendly and we never really felt this to be an issue to be stranded. Our van driver proceeded to get the spare out from under the car. One issue was that the spare was leaking air. So the locals helped us out. They ended up running the tire up the road about 5 miles on a motorbike to get a repair. Was about an hour pit stop but we got on our way. During the tire fixing business we noticed about 100 yards from where we stopped on the road was this big beautiful tree. Under it there was drumming dancing and preaching. This was a Sunday church service in the village. A few of us ventured over for some brief dancing and some gospel while our other team mates entertained some locals with their guitar and stayed in the shade by the van. The man preaching was speaking Acholi but they had someone translate some into English for us white folk. If I didn’t mention it already we are white people or Mizungus which we get called all the time by little kids. Anyway they played their music and spread the word, We danced a bit with them, had some fun and then got back on the road. One more experience for the book.

Clubbin... Gulu Style

Sunday AM here and we are getting ready to pack up and head back to Kampala. The week in Gulu has been an interesting one, which in the last two nights included some night clubs. I love hospitality but I don’t think there was one night when I was here that I had any less than 3 beers. And their beers are ½ liter beers which can really knock you down. Their clubs were fun and showing up before 12:00 is unheard of (see previously mentioned dinner at 10:30 pm.) The clubs were clubs, loud plenty of music and such. The big difference between here and home though is that at home you would never see the Provost of a university out at the club shaking it at 1am. All in all a good week here, plenty of cultural experiences that really change the way you look at things and make you realize how easy our lives really are in the U.S.

You're Welcome! to be :30 minutes late

As many of you know we are a timely culture in the U.S. The reality is that time means less and less in different parts of the world you go. Uganda is one of those parts. Each day this week we have been slated to get our days started at 9am and the earliest we have gotten out of the gate has been 9:30. the time issue is even more so magnified in the rural area of Gulu where we are now compared to Kampala. The people are wonderful, friendly and welcoming but the sense of urgency and attentiveness to time is something that is not a high priority, so this has been an adjustment for me of course. The other adjustment or mindset change is the “you're welcome” statement. At home when we say you're welcome it usually comes after a thank you. Here “you're welcome” comes when you come into someone’s office or home… meaning you are welcome to my place. At first it took all of us aback a bit as we thought it was a presumptive statement to our thank you that then needed to come, turns out they are just being friendly not rude.

my host families

One of the great things about this GSE experience is our accommodation. We stay with host families the majority of the time. These are families of people that are in Rotary. I’ll tell a bit more about mine.
In Kampala:
Evelyn and Samson… LeRoy and Layton. Evelyn is 31 and works part time in marketing she attended Makerere university in Kampala and is from the western part of Uganda. Samson works for USAID in medical research. He has his PhD in Epidemiology from Oxford in the UK and was a Rhodes Scholar… pretty smart guy. Then there is the little ones. Layton in just 3 months old so I don’t see or hear much from him. And then there is LeRoy. He just turned 4 on Monday and the kid is a trip. He is always saying cute little kid things so he is fun to have around. When talking with Mary on Skype the other day he came in and of course had to put the head set on to chat. Now he asks where Mary is. He’s fun to have around.
In Gulu:
Vincent and Claire… and John Baptist. Claire is a stay at home mom and they have a 3 week old John Baptist. He is seriously the best behaved child there is as I have not heard him cry once since we have gotten to Gulu. Vincent is the the Gulu University Secretary which would be like our university president or Provost in the States.