That Ugandan sun ...

It is 8 p.m. and 73 degrees. Eat your heart out, Seattle. I am sittng here in a sarong and tank top. Recently out of the pool.

Okay, so it is not always paradise, but we are holding onto the heat for now, since we know once we get home we will FREEZE. Sarah says she will bring blankets to the airport.

But the sun is something, here on the equator. We were in Lira this week, where it is extremely dry and hot, much moreso than in Kampala. At some point it was as if we had crossed a line; the temperature switched from medium to hot. On the way home yesterday evening - bounce, bounce, bounce; once again I lost an inch of height, I  think in some vertabrae in my neck - we came down a hill outside of Kampala and the bright orange African sun was setting. The sun was as big as a huge beach ball, and the color of orange is something you will never see anywhere else. It's, as they say here when something is bright, "shouting." It was creating a silhouette for the banana trees and these very weird plants we call Dr. Seuss trees with branches every three or so feet, evenly placed. (We have a tree book, but I can't find them. They look like a bottle brush sticking straight up, very tall.) The landscape was in reverse, the sun was in charge.

On the other side of the road, we could see the full moon rising. A smaller beach ball, with a promise of some sort.

We are homesick on and off, of course. But riding with the sun and the moon, I thought, "Okay. This is an alright kind of place." When we are home, we realize we will miss this.

Sippin' home brew

Last week we traveled to Soroti in Eastern Uganda for some more training. Our friend, and regional editor, Kenneth Oluka, invited us to his family's home property, where they had prepared a feast for us - including the local beer made from millet. We sipped the beer through long straws from a pot. Bill, obviously, really liked it, beer drinker that he is. I thought it was okay, but I really liked the fact that everyone was sitting around positively obsessed with watching us drink it. They could hardly contain themselves! We like providing entertainment for the Ugandans ...

There are many more pictures of our trip on Picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/morrow.ristow/SorotiTrip# Highlights include me grinding millet for flour, not my first skill. But good to know, just in case I run out of flour at home. Of course, I'd have to find a smooth stone, and long piece of wood. I'm sure there are some things like that close at hand on Queen Anne Hill, just like on the Soroti compound.

Yes, it's an engagement ring!

Eric proposed to Asia, whose full name is Asia Kamukama, right after he got back here to Uganda. Rumor has it he proposed out on a rock in the middle of the Nile, very romantic.

The ring is beautiful, as is Asia of course. She called that evening and said, "Hi, Mom," causing all sorts of excitement here. And then last Friday we went out to see their new house, which Asia had built while Eric was in the US. It's really nice, big lot, pretty setting, plenty of room. Like all houses, it isn't finished, but they are working on that.

We are thrilled to have Asia as an unofficial (as of yet!)member of the family, and to be here to help celebrate. And perhaps paint ...  Next week we are going to a Muslim celebration for Idi with Asia's family. There is some promise I will learn to weave a mat; little do they know my craft skills are pretty much nonexistent. But we like providing entertainment for the locals.

Crash! Zap! Boom!

         They DO have their thunderstorms here! More dramatic than anything I ever experienced, even growing up on the east coast and making regular visits to the midwest, which is proud of ITS storms. We noticed that in our first trip; the thunder has a deeper rumble, a longer duration, an intensive, building wave of sound.
          When we visited Murchison Falls last month there was another big one the night we stayed on the Nile. I even got up to enjoy it, and at one stage found myself counting the seconds between flashes of lightning. Literally, for 20 minutes there was never more than a single second without a burst of light; the river was illuminated, churned up by the winds. Exciting and dramatic!
         Last night's entry in the thunderstorm sweepstakes was highlighted by the force of the wind, and the intensity of the rain. Combined, they created a horizontal wall of water in the middle of the night, sending water straight through our living room screen and soaking the floor 10 feet away (soaking me, too, as I slipped and slid across the floor to close the windows).
        When it rains like this, you feel a little like you are IN the River Nile. A full-fledged waterfall cascaded down from the rooftop drain just past our bathroom window, and as always, any street outside suddenly becomes a torrent of rushing water, red mud and garbage flowing to a new location.
       But it passes in a few minutes...and with any luck, the badly polluted air of Kampala will be a bit cleaner, at least for a few hours!


        

The man with the key has gone ...

So Uganda has this culture that is very, uh, paced. The title to this post is also the title of a book someone wrote, very accurately, about this place. You can sit in traffic jams for hours to get someplace, and then you hear, "The man with the key has gone." So you go away because there's no hope for getting what you came for. This is very common.

When we were in Soroti we were reminded of this. First of all, we had no power our first night in a stifling room with a still fan. Bundled in a mosquito net and no air.

 Our hotel included breakfast, and the first morning we were surprised to see a shiny espresso machine on the buffet table. We said, with some trepidation, "Does it work?" The waiter looked at it curiously and said, "No." Nescafe for us.

Standard fare at a hotel like this is chicken and chips (french fries; chips are crisps), or talapia and chips. The menu had three pages of items, but really what they have is the above. No "Adam's ribs" of mutton. No "Maryland chicken." They list pizza, so on the third night we thought we'd give it a go. A long discussion ensued about how big a pizza we needed for two, since "it depends." Then we discover it takes an hour and a half because "we build it completely." I'll have the talapia and chips, please, and Seebo (sir) the chick and  chips. Again.

A mzungu guy we met told us to  try "paste meat," the traditional food. So for dinner we went to the restaurant we were told serves it, across from the bus stage. Only open for lunch.

We decided to buy a modem for Internet while we are on the road. We find the Orange (telecom company) office. It is full of people sitting around, looks like they are waiting. The glass counter is completely empty, except for some orange fabric. Two young woman slouch, their heads lolling on the counter, and barely move as we enter. We say, "Orange modem?" They don't even stir, their heads don't move. "It is finished until Monday." This is Friday, and we leave Sunday. Everyone stares at us as we leave. What are they waiting for???

We take a walk, pretty little town. We pass a Catholic church and I decide we should light a candle; it's the date my dad died some years ago. We jiggle the main door lock. It does not open. Outside we meet a couple of nuns who say some  "mad men" might try to enter the front door, so go around the side. We do. Mass is going on, men in long garments standing in the doorway. We sidle up, but, oh my, we are so wrong in our little REI garb. We back away.

In the morning, I order one fried egg.  I get two.

We go to our training session. But the reporters have not had lunch, and training has been delayed. People lie under the mango tree. We start 40 minutes late.

The man with the key has gone. Mzungus, slow down. 

Who is this picture for?

We were in Soroti last week and saw this great sign. We thought it could be a sign for Sarah (who is getting married), or Kate (who likes horses). Or could it be for Bill because he likes beer?

4th century B.C. (or whenever), meet the 21st A.D.!

 

            Alongside the road to Masindi, northwestern Uganda: 100 men, maybe 200, many of them barefoot and shirtless, glistening in the noontime African sun. They are wielding pickaxes and shovels, tools of prehistoric times, to dig a narrow, miles-long trench … for a new fiber-optic cable. They are being paid by the meter, our friend tells us; overall, it is far cheaper than bringing in heavy equipment.

            Odd to think that before very long, packets of digital information will be zipping through this trench at nearly the speed of light, passing only a few feet from the round mud huts with straw roofs that line this road. Those packets will be carrying Google Earth maps, Facebook updates, yearnings for new lives or new friends somewhere else, and all the other business of the modern world, while up above, the women dig in the earth to harvest their cassava.

            Three years ago Theresa and I came along this same road, and it was just being paved for the first time ever. Now, the men are preparing a space for the information superhighway, one swing of the pickaxe at a time. How things change.