Making decisions, making a list

It is hard to know if a decision is the right one. Some are small such as:

‘Should I wear/buy this dress or that one?’

‘What do I want people in shiny big cities to send me for Christmakah?’

“Should I have really spent my  paltry end of year teaching bonus on a Mac or should I instead have invested it for my old age?’ ( I don’t give enough thought to the fact that one day I will be old and unemployable.)

Some are really big such as:

‘ Should we move to Uganda?’

‘Should we take our dog?’

‘Should we adopt Casanova?’

‘Should we buy the Beast?’

‘Should we open a business?’

I feel we have had a significant amount of big decisions to make recently. Far more than we would have if we had taken the other route and continued with our lives and status quo in Montreal, 3 years ago.

So how do we make a decision? Guts mainly? I think if you cannot decide something you need to lie very still and listen. Which voice is louder? The yes or the no side? It may take a long time to tune out the noise and really listen but I do believe this is the only way.

I am tired of the big ones, although they do keep the heart beating and ward off any comforting signs of boredom. It would be perfectly pleasant to chill out for a while. However, there are more coming; and they do not involve dresses or shoes, sadly.

On a happier note, I have a few small and fun little conundrums to solve. I am compiling my  Xmas list of what I want friendly and cheerful bestowers of goodie boxes to send. It is an interesting challenge. The items must weigh next to nothing and be small. They have to be quite inexpensive. ( Despite jewels fitting into category #1, they get swiped off the list with #2. ).

So:  small, light and cheap.

Thus far I have got as far as lip gloss and Yogi tea bags.

The mind hums.

A cure for the grumps.

Yesterday was a most frustrating day. I suddenly felt trapped, overwhelmed and generally in need of a Starbucks, a decent shoe shop and a group of girl friends all piled into a living room, wine and laughter a- plenty. I know there will be days like this, I am aware that my rose tinted glasses may smudge now and again, I just need to distract myself until the ennui passes.

My extremely patient husband offered an excellent distraction by way of a drive around the neighbourhood. Between work, the grocery stores and home, I haven’t let myself out of the cage much recently. And this drive was an eye opener. When I lived in Trinidad one of the greatest frustrations was my inability to walk anywhere. I was car bound, and (and here it is: confession time) I was a total wimp about driving there so really I was house bound and dependant on rides. Terrible.  Anyway here my frustrations are similar in that Kampala is not a walking city. Whenever we want to go out, we need to take the Beast.  Anyone from the burbs will be familiar with this concept, but as a true inner city girl, this hurts.

So back to the point. Yesterday I carried my bad mood into the car and as we drove around and observed life around us, the mood slowly started to slip off. Mere minutes from our house, life is very non urban. In fact, it closely resembles an African village and it is easy to see how anyone who has made the move from the country side to Kampala could feel instantly at home.  It emphasizes my previous point about Kampala being a place of two cities.

Turning left outside our gates the road continued on its bumpy route for a very long way. So long in fact that we needed to turn the Beast around rather than continue and risk getting lost.  Without pause there were small shops, stalls and many children lining the road, alongside sleeping dogs and the odd bemused looking horned cow. The little girls here, who mainly wear the clothes that children in the Big West neither want nor fit, were by and large attired in what seemed to be old party frocks. The clothes that we saved so lovingly for that special occasion are now mud splattered yet happily worn by smiling children who yell “Hello Muzungu!” to each and every foreigner that drives past.

By the time I got home, I felt refreshingly alive and freed from the dusty cobwebs of my grumpy mood. I was reminded that I live in Africa, and no matter how cross I may get, I love the fact that each and every day an eye opening world exists right outside my gate.

The little things

It is the little things that make us crestfallen. The real little tragedies are the things that were just ever so close.

Like the time we were just about to press play on a marathon night of Entourage and the power just went out. And then when I thought “ No problem we can play it on my Macbook!” we couldn’t get the DVD out of the machine. ‘Cause the power was off.

Or imagine the power going off in the middle of an urgent MSN tween chat with your best friend in the world! Tragic! ( Try explaining Ugandan power supply to a 12 year old at a time like that.)

These are the little things that matter so much.

How about the time I decided to have a rare after school nap and just as my head made contact with the pillow the electric saw and Mr. Mosque started their duet.

One time I arrived at the club excited for my latte ( please don’t even whisper Starbucks, I will hear you) and the expresso machine was broken. Just then, and only then.

I was crushed.

Chocolate doesn’t taste the same here. The Cadbury we get is either made in South Africa or Kenya and who would know geography can alter the taste of chocolate so much? It is not even the same food! Only 2 kinds taste similar and when you want a chocolate bar as a matter of some urgency and those two kinds are not available for love, money or wishes; it is truly, deeply sad.

(By the way many things taste different. Funnily the Alpen tastes of cinnamon.)

Right now I sit here very disappointed. Just a highly strung bundle of wants. Could someone please send over a Tall Non Fat Extra Foam Latte and a large yellow Toblerone?  Pronto.

A tale of two cities

Kampala is two cities, One is a shiny supermarket, mall, restaurant, computer high tech, Panasonic showroom kind of place, The people there drive cars, drink wine and watch CNN. They live close to a 1st world city life, (with some rather important exceptions.)

 

The other lives as if they were still in the village. They have no electricity, so no fridges or TV, no running water nor flushing toilets. They work in the markets and in manual labour, cultivating their own small patches of land or selling chickens.

This last group makes up 90% of the city. This is what gives this city its remarkable flavour. Standing beside a BMW x5, there might be the bike man of 1000 brooms.  Just outside the gates of the school is a family of goats, one of whom has a pregnant belly so large and so round that Princess can’t help but emit a squeal of laughter every time we pass.

Boda Bodas carry entire families.  The sight of small, neatly uniformed young students walking out of huts and climbing onto  Boda Bodas, on the way to school is a sharp contrast to the SUVs that drop off my students at school. When I see a woman clutching a blanket wrapped baby, merely weeks old, I think back to the time I wasn’t even allowed to leave the hospital in Canada without a car seat! Here we just leave the hospital and hold the baby on a Boda Boda, ready to begin the wild ride of life right then and there, no time to waste.

 

In this city of two worlds there is an extraordinary presence of guns.  Often you will find yourself surrounded by 3,4 or 5 men holding very large weapons. These men have a job, they protect buildings. shops, schools, car parks; any public place actually. At the end of the day when the job is done both guard and gun climb onto the back of a Boda and go home. These guns are strangely not alarming. The people holding them seem very relaxed, certainly no one is poised and ready to shoot. It is just a fact of life and perhaps the reason that Kampala is a safe place to live. There is no sense that at any time people will be inclined towards random crime, rather, it would just be a waste of time and the 90% of this city that works hard to just to eat and live have better things to do.

 

The guns tend to be replaced by machetes in the country side. Men walk along the road, large potential weapon dangling from their wrist and I think how dangerous that would be in the USA.

 

It is a funny place. Never a dull moment and never a shortage of things to look at.  Guns, machetes, babies on motor cycles, pregnant goats, cow horns, piles of charcoal in a strange yet symbiotic relationship with gym buffed, SUV riding, handbag toting, Thai food eating city dwellers.

 

Questions of the utmost importance

A couple of things I have to deal with on a daily basis:

Shall I bring the wet washing in off the line?

Life without a washing machine and dryer can be trying at times. I can just feel a washing machine somewhere in my future but in this climate a dryer seems like an unnecessary extravagance. So I will continue to stand, one hand on hip, one on the damp towel, head up weighing the options of a dry or rainy night. Last night, when I was awoken by an almighty crack of thunder, I knew I had lost. I think I will never have soft, fluffy and sweet smelling towels again.

What do they do with all the large horns when they kill the cows?

They pile them up and leave them beside the road. This is the part of our morning  drive when we all take a collective deep breath and hold our noses until we have passed. The pile of horns is huge and resembles a bizarre grouping of sharp yet headless cows. The horns are huge and the putrid stench coming off them is like nothing I have ever smelt on the way to work before. Strangely, there is a random sprouting of sunflowers that has popped up beside the horn patch.

Why do I have to go to at least 4 stores before I complete my grocery list?

Ahhh. A tough one this, and a conundrum I was familiar with living in Trinidad. For some reason each store has its very own likes and dislikes and this is reflected in its purchasing policy. There is no supermarket chain and all stores are privately owned and operated.  So, although one store never stocks low fat milk, another always does, but that is not the right store for cheese. One store has the best olives and meat but they haven’t got the right pasta, another has the best fruit and vegetables but never has apple juice. The list goes on and on. Shopping involves extraordinary levels of patience and petrol.

Why is my fridge outside  my kitchen and my sink outside  my bathroom?

This particular Uganda habit arises from a lack of space. Rather than simply  build enough space to fit in said fridge or said sink, it is assumed that the hall way will suit just fine.

Why do eggs taste a bit fishy?

Because they feed the chickens fish.

Why is traffic so terrible?

There are only 4 traffic lights in Kampala and not enough roads. Paved roads are the exception rather than the rule and a crater sized pot hole can cause a pile up for miles. This is also the answer to the question below.

Why does every car squeak, spew black smoke and look like it is about to fall apart?

See above.

Why do the women seem to be doing all the digging and carrying and the men seem to be doing a lot of talking, gesticulating, reading of news papers and walking empty handed?

I have no idea other than to thank my stars that I am not born a poor African woman and that I come from a land of enlightened feminism. But who am I to judge?

Does no one work on a Monday morning?

The ever present disco across the road continues to pump the music ‘till 2 am on Saturday and Sunday evenings. Who goes to a disco on a Sunday night? I have no idea but I do wish they wouldn’t. I should add that it is not a simple case of music and dancing, rather it is an occasion to listen to the DJ shouting at the top of his voice, singing along to Celine Dion and generally making a nuisance of himself. He brings out the most violent of tendencies within me.

Happy.

It is a tricky thing, being a foreigner in these parts;  tricky for the mind. We all perceive each other in such different ways and what I have come to learn and realize, even in my short time here, is how happy people are despite what they do not have. When I was walking around the school on the island facing Bushara I was conflicted. One part of me wanted to rush back to Canada, raise funds and return with computers, decent desks and tons of books. Then I stopped and realized that aid is a very complicated thing. Yes, the school was poorly funded and pupils were writing exams on the seats of chairs; certainly the library was small and insignificantly stocked; but the kids were laughing, smiling, happy and taking their studies very seriously. On the whole they were very happy to talk to me and let me snap photos, only two girls refused and asked for money and those two will probably end up running a municipality in Uganda.
Running in with arms laden with supplies is not the answer. Who would ever help themselves if people are always there to run in and save the day? This school was better than most, there were plenty of notebooks and pens, something that many schools lack, yet coming from my high tech school complete with smart board and IT lab, I did wish they had access to computers. Perhaps a better answer is to enable and inspire students to find the tools to empower themselves. They can work for what they need, figure out whom to ask, learn how to raise the funds and purchase their own laptops.
Like I said, it is a tricky one. I did wonder, after meeting so many happy people, if perhaps we are the ones who have it the wrong way round. Rather than rush in and tell them what they need, it might be those that live with less who will the last ones standing when the earth implodes under the weight of tossed ipods, computers and appliances.
One area that does need some kind of assistance is in the realm of opportunity. I met one young man who anxiously wants to go to University. Unless he is either very wealthy or comes top of his class, his chances are slim.

Heaven is a place called Bunyoni.

I think I have found heaven and its name is Lake Bunyoni. To be more specific, it is one of 29 islands in the lake and is called Bushara Island. How to describe an island in the middle of a lake, small enough to walk around and never be lost, yet big enough to be completely alone? There is something nostalgic about being on a lake with docks that harks back to summers in Canada; but this was most certainly Africa, from the sounds of the drums, to the Crested Cranes, the cows and goats, the electric green Chameleon and the song like quality of the local language.

It is a dusty and very bumpy 8 hour drive ( 11 hours if one of your party loses her clutch ) but it is worth every minute of the drive. The name Bunyoni means lake of little birds and I now see bird watchers and their little binoculars in a whole new light. I am not going to suddenly start pulling out notebooks and frantically writing down the name of birds, but I am amazed. Birds are twitchy, nervous, skittish creatures, always looking around for the next crumb or the bird round the corner who might come by to swipe it. I have never appreciated their sudden movements, finding them a little too startled for me. Yet, lying still on a deck chair in the sun, in front of my safari tent, it was hard to read with all the bird drama going on around me. Diving and swooping they were possessive of their branches and I noticed that they never hop in a straight line. I had to go all the way to Bushara to sit and really look at birds.

We slept in permanent tent structures and lived without electricity, hot water or flushing loos for 4 days, and it was quite magical. You could feel your pulse dropping as the birds called and the drums from the lake beat an invitation to church. We ate by candle light, walked back to our tents with torches and zipped ourselves up for the night. We travelled to other islands in a dug out canoe, carved from one of the tall Eucalyptus trees that cover the island. It was chilly, which came as a welcome change after the heat of Kampala and it was bliss to wrap up in a sweater and sit beside the fire place in the evening. The thick black night offered us a theatre of star gazing and the mornings arrived with an orchestra of bird song.

I did not see our children. We travelled there with two other families and the mix of children was perfect. Throw a few younger boys into the mix and the girls shake off their pubescent concerns and turn into rope swinging Tom Boys. They ate together, slept in facing tents, swam together, and generally ran all over the island with joyous abandon. There is little opportunity in Kampala to walk freely, let alone run wild, so this was a chance for children to live for a few days in a strange kind of kid heaven. Wrapped up in an idyllic state of perfect childhood they managed to spend days together, problem solve together and despite the lack of lashings of ginger beer bare a close resemblance to the Famous Five.

We took two trips to other islands, one to explore a former leper colony, now a secondary day and boarding school, and the other to hike to the top of a peak to gasp at the 360 degree view of the lake. We also had the chance to walk around Mukoni Village. The life of an African child is one of joy and barefoot freedom, and we were followed all the way back to our canoe by 6 children singing, skipping and laughing. They had quite special names, a case of an English word turned into an African name. Gift, Grace, Secret, Marvelous, Innocence, Adamson, and Frank ( whose parents must have found such names inappropriate for a young boy.) The children proudly sang us an English song they had learnt in school, happy to show off their English to the Mzungus. ( white people.) Dressed in torn, muddy clothes they sucked sugar cane with the widest of smiles. Joy and openness ran across their faces. They must be aware that once they grow up a life of hard work awaits.

It was hard to leave the island. I cannot think of anyone we know who would not find it a magical place. I know we will return.

Gone fishing.

Tomorrow we are leaving Kampala once again, but this time for five days. It is midterm break here which gives me pause for thought. We are half way through term one!  We have been in Kampala over two months now and when I look back and reflect on the first weeks here I am sometimes shocked by what we have achieved.

There is no denying that this was a hard move. Selling everything, storing valuables and up and leaving for Africa with less than 30 boxes is Crazy. Most people who move here are young and do so as a temporary but adventurous addition to their youth; or they move with a company that bestows upon them a shipping allowance. I have not met anyone in our position, married with two tweenish daughters, starting lives from scratch.

We have moved out of one apartment (the infamous cockroach palace) and into a town house. We have purchased essential items ranging from kitchen knives to shower curtains and laundry baskets, we have bought a car and painted our house, settled into new jobs and school, made friends, laughed, cried, photographed, regretted, pondered and questioned our sanity; we have, without exaggeration, started all over again in AFRICA.  It is an immense undertaking and there have been moments when I have wondered if we are not possibly quite mad.

Yet here we are, half term starting today, and we are happily heading to the border of Rwanda, to a lake called Bunyoni. We will be staying on a little island in the lake by the name of Bushara. It is a 7 hour drive, up and down pot holed roads, through villages and a landscape I cannot yet imagine. We are going to a remote corner of Uganda that is cold in the evenings and bears a lake of crystal clarity.

I promise to return with photos, stories and impressions.

Casanova

Casanova is the name of the dog who sits outside our front door during dinner. He is the dog who lives in our little compound of 8 homes. I assume he was a mutt pulled from the streets but he has the gentle eyes of a pooch looking for love.

He forages for food and scrounges for love. His ticks and fleas force him to scratch frantically day and night. He sleeps curled in a tidy ball behind one of the houses, waiting for day light and sniffing for crumbs trailed by the split rubbish bags.

One sunny day, when the sun beat fiercely upon the hot red dirt, we delivered some bones purchased from the “God Loves You Butcher” up the road. They came in a black bag, heavy, with a warmth and moistness I could sense. Trooper and Princess were thrilled to tip the messy coil of innards and bones onto the ground and Casanova, eyes bulging and face spread into a surprised grin, couldn’t believe his luck. Due to the intense sun I was happy not to carry these left over bits of carcass around in the tank of steel, known as Beast all day,

Casanova howls when we come home. He runs beside the car and looks hopefully at us. He gently approaches us when we sit outside. He is not our dog but slowly he is slipping under our skin. His eyes speak of a love scared to speak and rarely delivered,

And now introducing Happy Princess.

Princess knows where everything in this house is. Anyone want to know if we have any batteries and how many of them? She’s your girl. Lolly pops I hid after a birthday party? She will be the one to know. She fills this house with cheerful disposition and eagerness to please.

After her traumatic arrival here we have been amazed at her sudden transition back into happy girl. She wakes up smiling and eager to go to school. She rarely complains and is only a bit cross when we do nothing “fun.” She is not keen on boredom. Happy as a cartoon she pops around school smiling and chatting. When she is home she contentedly lies on my white bed and reads. (Or hits her sister.)

Still, we were very surprised when she readily agreed to go on the outdoor education trip. It was due to take place on the shores of Lake Victoria, learning to sail. She was mildly irritated about the sailing part, having been to a really fun sail camp in Trinidad (fun, except for the sailing.)  She wanted the camping bit, the socializing, the camp fire and the chance to be surrounded by people and fun.

Not only was she happy to go, but she turned the whole thing into a whirlwind of excitement, candy shopping and chats about sleeping bags and tents. Lists were drawn up and fierce discussions about tent mates, held. Finally on the day to leave, the morning OF we drop her off at school worried that she might just melt down but off she went with a smile and a wave. I am immensely proud of her transition and eventually happiness here. I think she has really nice friends. That is what it is all about.

You could really be anywhere but if you have a tent full of friends, you’re good.