Signs and sayings

We have been upcountry again, taking Eric to Murchison Falls, our last safari here most likely. We never tire of the beautiful landscape and creatures there. Okay, so Eric has not become an avid birdwatcher, but he did get into the lions and elephants. We got into a huge rainstorm on the little boat up the river and he turned into Cap’n Eric tying canvas down to try to keep us all dry. (It might have been the cute Italian girls onboard that turned him into a savior …) And, yes, we had a “small problem” with the car on the return – the starter wouldn’t work so we had to leave the motor on until we reached a garage with a wrench (“a spanner”) in Masindi. What is it with this road???

As we dodged potholes on the journey I was reminded about the signs we have seen. We always write down the oddest ones so I have a little collection (see Steve? I’m getting to this finally!). And we try to write down the odd or endearing things that people say too. So here’s a list:

Signs we’ve seen

• Termite Construction Company


• “Suffer now, enjoy tomorrow” (slogan outside a primary school!)


• “Love many, trust few” (slogan outside a boutique called Friends)


• “The rich also cry” (outside a trading center stand)


• Talk and Work Motor Shop


• Be Patient Painters


• Hope in Jesus & Mom Mary (name of a shop)


• Galileo Surveying Company (Adam, we think this is a good name for a survey co.!)
  
  Sayings we’ve heard
  
  


• “It is finished” (nothing on the menu actually available, so this is a common comment when dining, as in “The chips are finished.”)


• “It will not rain until 4” (every Ugandan knows what will happen with the weather and they will tell you without any hesitation what will happen. Unfortunately, they are often wrong.)


• “Nice time” (just an expression, kind of like “ciao”)


• “You are very welcome” (whenever you enter a place, this is what you hear. They mean it!)


• “Are you born again?” (lots of shopkeepers will ask you this. Not sure if the price goes up if you say no)


• “I’m sorry” (They say this whenever you talk about something bad. So if you say, “I was walking and got caught in a huge storm,” they say, “I’m sorry.” We now resist arguing that it is not their fault; the truth is, they are genuinely sorry you had that experience.)


• “Deep in the village” (this is one of our favorites. I always picture a village way, way out in a dark placewhere no one goes. In reality, it refers to some practice that only happens away from the population centers, but it can just be in any village. I mean, we have been “deep in the village!”)


• “Here in Uganda we have a small problem” (Preface to something that is really a BIG problem, like war)


• "When did you produce?" ("Produce" means give birth)


• "First let me laugh at you." (The parking attendant downtown said this when I handed her two parking slips, when I needed to give her 14. After she had her laugh, she ran to a booth, where we should have gone, to get them for us.)
  
  There are many more, and we will start another list. The Ugandan people are very sweet and soft-spoken. Our friend Jon jokes that instead of worrying about pickpockets you are more likely to have someone running after you to return your wallet if you drop it. Of course, as anywhere, we do hear stories about theft and violence, but we choose to focus on the better aspects of life here!

Check it out!

Our blog friends will certainly want to check out Theresa's wonderful article about Murchison Falls, which will be published in the print edition of the Seattle Times Travel section on Sunday, and has now been posted online. Here's the link to the story, and be sure to go to the photo gallery for the gorgeous photos by our friend "Dr. Charles," Charles Steinberg:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2003829144_uganda120.html

More later, we are heading for downtown with Eric to buy a guitar so he can compose a little African music while he is here!

"Isn't it like being at the zoo?"

That's what people wonder sometimes about these national parks, where you can get so close to the animals and they seem, at first, so tame. Last weekend for example when Theresa and I visited Kidepo National Park -- Uganda's most remote, on the border of Sudan -- we took this picture of zebras from our porch, and there were also buffalos, hartbeest, oribi, water bucks, jackals, and the amusing warthogs grazing in the same grassland a short stone's throw from us.

There are constant reminders that these animals are still very wild, and still very much in a threatening environment. When the jackals wandered through the field, the water bucks -- who easily could kick the little animals across the savannah -- still watched them warily. When two male zebras got into a territorial dispute, they didn't care that they were in the shadow of a human resort: they galloped wildly after each other, biting and screaming; the pursued crashed into a tree and fell to the ground and the pursuer pounced on him. The buffalos snort at you meaningfully, and sometimes take a few steps in your direction, and whenever you walk up to the main lodge at night someone comes to accompany you. And most of all -- at night you are awakened by the sound of the deep, long, loud roars of the lions, sounding so very close you are glad you do have walls around you. That sound must send chills through all the rest of the animals.

The vultures overhead, the bones on the ground, the scars on the big male lion's forehead -- these animals are on their own, and nobody will be there at feeding time with a nice dependable meal. This isn't the Africa of 100 years ago, before the Great White Hunters and local poachers decimated the animal population. But it's not a peaceful little Queen Anne neighborhood, either. That's what makes it so wonderful.

What decade is this?

There are lots of contrasts between life here and at home, but one of the biggest is the use of ledger books (okay, carbon paper too).

• Bill’s New Vision driver picks him up in the morning and takes him to the paper. At the gate the driver has to sign a ledger book.


• When we set up a bank account, the entire transaction was done via a ledger book.


• The other day we went to a movie (The Simpson’s – the Ugandans did not laugh, but we did), and the ticket taker made a note of the ticket in a ledger book.


• We went to the post office to pick up some books Kate thoughtfully sent and our errand was noted in not one, but two ledger books, each at different tables in the same room. (The picture is of a post office ledger book.)


• At our neighborhood grocery you pay a deposit on beer and coke bottles, then when you return them the clerk carefully writes down that you did so in a ledger book, what kind of beverage you returned, and how much you should get back (or have deducted from your new purchase). Then he fills out a receipt in a little book and gives it to you with a carbon copy.


• At the entrance to every national park, you have to sign a ledger book.
  

I am doing some work helping set up a library at an orphanage. Eric is coming so we thought it would be great to have him build a little database to record the books. But the woman helping me, a British professor who teaches in New York and who has lots of experience in Uganda, suggested -- well, you know, using a ledger book.