Weird Stories...

Again, sorry for failing to keep my blog up to date. I have been soooooo busy doing field work and trying to get many things accomplished in the short time that I am here. Anyways...

Sunday was a typical day, just trekking around, doing some field work, laundry, and what what. Some people from the hostel were hooting about a Bobi Wine concert that was being held at the Agip Motel. Bobi Wine is a local Ugandan musician that is very famous. We even have a poster of him at the office. He is a representative for the statement, "Be a Man," which protests against polygamy in Uganda. In any case, we have been told that concerts here are quite entertaining, so we ventured over to the motel venue later that evening. When we arrived, sure enough there were, what we thought, to be many people packed into a smallish outside area. What we didn't know was that over the course of the night, the number of people present would raise into the thousands! So we got comfortable, standing in an area with a good view of the stage. Initially, I wasnt sure what we were watching. People would come onto the stage, lip sink to some music, dance moderately well, and then be booed off the stage. Other 'performers' that remained on stage for some time actually had spectators give them money as they performed. Weird custom. Apparently that is the norm for Uganda. It turns out that these people on stage are just regular Ugandan's trying to make it "big" in the industry, but were really just serving as a form of mock entertainment. This began at 8 o clock at night. The lipsinking and dancing was ok for maybe 1 hour or maybe 2, but it went on for 4 hours!!!! This was almost unbearable for me. I had a nasty bout of illness for the majority of the weekend so at midnight, I was pretty much at my limit. But then, the "show" began. A supposedly famous Ugandan artist came onto stage. He sang one song then stopped the show for a serious moment. I did not understand what he was talking about at first, but then he changed to speak in English and stated that all homosexuals should be burned. WHAAAATTTT??????? So this pushed me beyond my limit and I was so perplexed at what this man had just said and better yet, had no idea how this was even relevant to the concert. Sick! We were so mad that we spent the next hour discussing this topic with surrounding spectators, trying to inform them that in fact this type of hatred is unacceptable. By this time, it was almost 1:30pm. Still no Bobi Wine. I had given up. I was rounding up everyone at the concert to leave when sure enough, at 1:45am, Bobi Wine entered the stage. His performance was awesome, but we were only able to enjoy 15 minutes of it. By 2am, we were spent and ventured home with wide eyes regarding the interesting music culture within Uganda.

The rest of the week has been spent in the field evaluating beneficiaries to determine their readiness to receive goats. We had a really endearing conversation with one of the ladies in a parish. Her dairy goat has been bred and is soon to give birth. She was trying to tell us that she was going to treat her dairy goat right and milk it properly unlike some people in other parishes. We were puzzled and asked her what she was talking about. Then she told us of this other woman who has a young child that gets on all fours and sucks from the goat's teats. The mother tried to punish the boy and even beat him, but he refused to listen and still suckles from the goat. The kicker came when the beneficiary said "and the boy hasn't even got Brucella yet!"...aaaaiiiiiieeeeeee. Later as we told this story we found out that apparently this behaviour is common even among some adults with cows. Talk about weird...

Random Photos

1) "Yummy cat" from the office climbing an avacado tree in the yard.
2) A beautiful flower called the African Flame Plant.
3) The dogs, "Puppy" and "Max," from the office, both of whom are alive and well.

Mzzzzzuuuunnnnggg\guuuuuuu

It has been some time since the last post. Sorry for that. We have been spending a lot of time in the villages and the internet here has been really bad. On top of that, our office has lost the ongoing battle with the electricity companies and we have been without power for 3 days now. It is great to be back and I am loving the work out in the villages like usual. I have been busy helping the other vets here brucella testing and vaccinating goats as well as trying to source goats for purchase. We have made some great headway on goat distribution already, but there is still much more to do. We have now bought and distributed 14 goats in a new parish called Kyera. The people there are very much so in need. We saw many old women caring for many young dependants. This parish is a bit unique because there are also male members. One man in particular is caring for his children following the death of his wife. Sadly this practice is not too common and children usually become orphans after the death of their mother. In any case, this parish is VERY organized and I was happy to be distributing goats to these people.

After the goat distribution, we were fed a feast for kings. The chairperson prepared more food than I could imagine and it was delicious! What a perfect day.

Now, we are busy investigating sources for more goats to purchase and are going to be travelling to the Joy Children's Center in Masaka on Monday to look at dairy goats. I wonder how many goats we will fit into the Suzuki this time... :)

Back to Cold Showers and Squat Toilets

We had a very interesting bus ride to Mbarara. First, we arrived at the bus park far too late in the day. Normally, people arrive early in the morning, between 7 and 9 am to get a bus and they dont have to wait too long. We, however, decided to spend the day in Kampala craft shopping and did not arrive at the park until 1pm. When our car pulled up to the station, we were mobbed by a group of men. This is a fairly normal occurrence, except that the driver decided to open the trunk before we exited the car, and the men began carrying our luggage away. After chasing them down to recover our luggage, we then had to explain where we were going. No one spoke english (or pretended not to) and we just stuck with one man who took us to the crappiest bus I have ever seen, way down at the end of the park. After he dropped our luggage, he demanded money. "Five thousand," he yelled. Now let me just say, five thousand shillings will feed 5 people for dinner or pay for 5 boda rides for people to go somewhere. That is a lot of money, but of course, he is asking for the 'mzungu' price! I refused to pay him but he tried to take my luggage, so I dropped him 1ooo shillings. That wasnt enough. I finally just caved, and gave him all of my change so that we could get on this doomed bus. The bus was empty. This meant that we would have to wait until it filled out. This turned out to be 2 hours... Anyways, with the bus being empty we had our free pick of seats and got settled for our extended wait. The first person to get onto the bus was a young woman with a newborn infant. The bus was empty, but she chose to sit right beside me. Interesting choice, but this turned out to work in our favor. She made very little small talk but after waiting in the hot bus for what felt like forever, we were on our way. Many people got on and off the bus selling all sorts of random things. Radios were a popular comodity, but mostly people were selling food, water and sodas. We did meet a particularly interesting sales man who tried with all his might to sell my sister and I a man's beard trimmer. He came up with all sorts of reasons why we may want this, but he too eventually moved on, with his beard trimmer in tow. The bus ride started out VERY rough. In fact, I though I was going to die. I will say though that unlike my fear of flying, this was a very rational fear. The bus swayed from side to side, nearly toppling over as the bus dodged pot holes at a speed somewhere around 130kph. I was frightened, as was the woman beside me. Laura tried to calm us by saying that people with relaxed bodies tend to survive crashes better, like drunk drivers in car crashes. The woman beside me then said that the bus driver was likely to do ok then, because he WAS drunk. Great!!! She then told me about her bus trip last week to Kampala when the bus caught on fire and she had to crawl out of a window with her 2 month old baby. Well, gosh, that sure made me feel better. Ugh. After 4 hours on the bus from hell, we finally arrived in Mbarara, and to my amazement, all in one piece! Then we again had to deal with a mobb of men trying to take our things and load them into their cars, and of course, requesting an insane amount of money for a very short ride. This is where Jackie, the woman with the infant, came to our rescue. We had been ripped off all day. They overcharged us for the bus ride, did not give change back for the chapatis we bought and ran away with 5000 for gonja (fried banana) without giving us what we requested. Jackie had seen this throughout the day and yelled at these men, but nothing happened. I guess her fuse was finally blown. She yelled at the man in the car to give us a fair price, but after he refused, she came with us all the way to our hostel to ensure that he did not take our money. Then she continued on her way. I am still wondering why she was so kind to us...maybe a simple act of generosity??? or maybe not. Time will tell. Anyways, it was a very chaotic day and after suffering from a horrid migrane for the entire day, trying to get fare price was the last worry on my mind. Thank goodness for Jackie!!!

We are now back at Aquaview hostel and Lola was nice enough to book me into the same room that I had last year. I set up the mosquito net that I bought in Kampala and gagged at its smell...I never thought permethrin would smell like a dead goat, but somehow this is the aroma that the net took. Anyways, we finished off the day with some local food and tea. Matoke and G-nuts never tasted so good! I must have been tired though, because I still managed to fall asleep in 2.5 seconds despite the smell of dead goat and the blaring Ugandan music. Ahhhh it is nice to be back :)

Arrival

So I made it!!! I arrived in Entebbe yesterday afternoon after a relatively uneventful lot of flights. I think I may have made some progress on my fear of flying, but I think the wine may have had something to do with this! I didn't think I was going to die until I was on my flight from Addis Abba (Ethiopia) to Entebbe (Uganda) when we experienced horrible turbulence for the entire flight. Good thing it was at the end of the journey, or I may be trapped somewhere in Dubai!!! I was also lucky enough to have an additional encounter with the grumpy Air Canada flight attendant on my flight to London. If you remember my story from last year, this is the lady who refused to serve us food and who threw shoes at us when Sarah and I flew from Toronto to London. This time, she had a breakdown, complete with profanities, beside my aisle after she couldnt stack the food trays. After she dumped garbage all over the airplane floor, she started throwing things and yelling. Quite entertaining!!! At least this time, her anger wasn't directed at me! I ended up sleeping in the Heathrow Airport and the Dubai airport and arrived in Entebbe relatively free of jet lag. Everything here is pretty much the same as I left it. We spent the night at the always comfortable and reliable Green Valley Inn and spent the morning today at the Entebbe market and at the botanical gardens. I have just arrived and already I have had several people ask for my mobile number and email, etc. Ahhhh Ugandans! Now that I am with my sister, we seem to attract a lot more attention. Many people here have not seen twins before. Now that we are travelling together, I should technically change my blog name to "Nykato Lillian and Nyangoma Lola do Uganda!" Anyways, I don't have too much to report since I have been here for less than 24 hours. We are leaving for Kampala tonight so I am sure to have stories soon. We are going to venture onto a matatu with all of our luggage...scary. Oh and one last thing. I forgot just how much I missed the annoying bird and bug noises here. Trying to sleep with a choir of bugs and waking up to the "Hoo Hoo Hoohoo" noise of the doves here is truely priceless. I have yet to have matoke and g-nuts...but soon.

A Little Ray of Sunshine

I left Mbarara on the morning of the 24rd. Hilda and Deborah came with me on the bus. Once we arrived in Kampala, we went to Mango hospital together to visit Anthon. It was really good to see him and his mother. He had surgery the day before but was still in good spirits. They removed the infected portions of bone and put an external fixator in (pins to stabilize the bone). He was on lots of antibiotics and pain medication but his mother told us that he was being strong. He had not cried for a single one of his injections. When I asked him how he was doing, he said that he was feeling much pain, but from the outside you never would have known it. What a courageous little boy! I hope he continues to do well.

Anthon, Me, his mother and Deborah:

My Last Day in Mbarara

My last day in Mbarara was actually spent in Masaska, buying goats. We did not return to Mbarara until 430 pm and then we got lost trying to find the place where we were to drop the goats off. It was starting to get dark, but I made one last visit to some of my favorite kids in the villages. I had some photos printed earlier and I gave these away to the kids. They were very happy to finally receive a hard copy of a picture after having many taken. I gave some other small gifts away and it was a really good night! I finished off the night by taking milk tea and casaava. It was a nice way to end the day.

Me and Elizabeth:
Me and Anthony:
Me and Fareed:
All the kids:
Me and Ida:
Meeka with his new shoes: