June 10

June 10, 2009

Well, today was a busy and fulfilling day. I got up at 7:00 with very little sleep. I rushed around to get ready, cleaning up, and grabbed some breakfast before we headed out for the day. We had a meeting established for 10:00 at the foundation. Probably only about 4-5 miles away by a direct route. Yet, we take the taxi (mini-buses) so it takes us about an hour. It didn’t really matter one way or another though cause the people we were scheduled to meet with didn’t show up. We rescheduled for Friday. We sat a while at the Foundation talking to Rev. Obed and Andrew awaiting some other guests. We met a Dr. something from the U.S. that was here with her daughter. Come to find out, they are from Baton Rogue and the mother is a resident under Dr. Muhumuza at his clinic. She is here to look into women’s reproductive health and establish relationships for helping out in the future. They were very excited to see us. We all went into a round table discussion, yet in actuality we were crowded into a small office, and discussed the education program.
As usual, our short run down of specialties turned into lengthy conversation, as is the culture of conversation here. We insisted that Rev. go ahead and re-explain the entire program to allow the guests to get an understanding of what is going on and to check the validity of what he says. This went on for a couple of more hours, followed by a Q&A and the discovery of some new material that we not previously shared with us. Things are starting to become much better understood on my end and I am feeling much more comfortable about the success of our project. We found that the mentors complete weekly reports on each individual school including challenges, progress, and recommendations. Mentor supervisors, there are 3, do reports on the mentors they are over on a weekly basis as well. The entire team gets together once a month to run through recommendations of how to deal with proposed barriers. This material is all at our disposal. Three years worth of it. Now, all that we need to do is to figure out how to get through it all. I think we will have some down time after our proposal goes up for review, so it should be a good task.
Lunch was then brought in for us. Matoke (banana meal), chapatti, rice, steamed potatoes, greens, and your choice of half a tilapia complete with scales, tail, and head or goat stew complete with intestines, still articulated appendages, cartilage, and you name it. I chose goat, a meaty rib piece at that. Luckily I did not get any intestines or other innards but the site of them on Ginger’s plate did not look appetizing. A clear piece of esophagus and what looked like stomach. No thanks. The meat I had was really good though, this being the first piece of meat that I have actually enjoyed.
We sat with our fellow Americans and discussed what each of us had learned so far. We gave them suggestions on places we had been so far, showed them some places on the map, and exchanged phone numbers and made future plans for dinner. It was comforting to realize that they found the same things novel as we do such as the gigantic birds and the intricacies of culture. We gave them our stories of the taxi experiences and insisted that they try it. Hope it didn’t freak them out too bad.
We had a couple of things we wanted to check on in town and asked Andrew to accompany us so that any translations could be made if needed. We crammed on a taxi and headed back to the city center. After seeing the lack of resources at the Uganda National Library, Andrew suggested we check out the British Council as they were known for being a wealth of academic resources. This turned out not to be the case. We had to go through metal detectors and have our bags searched to proceed and were buzzed into a reception are complete with black pleather couches and red pleather chairs. Andrew instructed us to take a seat and rest in the air conditioning while he took care of everything. And he did. Come to find out you have to become a member to use the resources. Membership is only granted on a yearly basis, no monthly memberships, at a rate of 150,000 Ug.Shs. This only really paid for the internet access since the library was a false advertisement. They didn’t keep books in stock but one could place a request to have books shipped in and then be picked up. A inter-library loan type deal. Well, the money really wasn’t worth the resources.
We left and requested Andrew inquire into wireless internet for us from one of the well known telecommunication companies. That too was in vain. It would cost us upwards of $400.00 over our time here. This was also not feasible. We are back to square one. No regular internet access, no reliable place to use the internet, and no reliable connection when we are able to get access. Frustrating is an understatement. It is causing me to have to re-think the necessity of certain issues or communication, causing me to make more in-person visits and phone calls, and causing me to use my on-line time carefully. All things that are arguably positive. The only real barrier is in access to information. We have yet to find anything that is comparable to a library and have no mean of downloading necessary articles and publications to inform our research. This one is a big problem.
Andrew needed to run an errand in stopping by the SAS clinic. I wasn’t far from where we were and we wanted to meet his sister Grace, one of the leading physicians at the clinic. She was very happy to meet us and welcomed us warmly. As is usual with all medically minded individuals we came across, they ask if we are taking our antimilarials, are we drinking the water, do we feel ok, do we need medical assistance, etc. It seems very genuine too. Motherly almost. It makes me feel comfortable though. They were nice enough to forfeit their desks to us to allow us to answer e-mails and do some blogging without having to pay. After thirty minutes of slow connection and frustration, I gave up. While Ginger finished up, Andrew and I ran down the street to a small, out of the way internet café. He decided that it would be the best place to get my photos from my memory card burnt onto a CD. And he was right. I finally have photos to add to the website. Now just the matter of actually uploading the. We shall see.
We crammed on another taxi and headed home. Having headed out at 9:00 and it now being 4:30, we had as much as we could handle in the city. There are always interesting things to see on the rides around town. This time we saw a fellow “white person.” A girl dressed in black workout pants, a white see through tank top, and a lime green sports braw, walking with her I-pod. She stuck out in the crowd to everyone. Next were two guys in their late teens or early twenties holding hands. Homosexuality isn’t tolerated here so male-to-male affection is often just a sign of friendships. My Western lens still does not let me see this fact and so I was intrigued for the rest of the cab ride with them to whether or not they were actually a couple. The end of the cab ride proved difficult.
Our conductor didn’t let us off where we asked. We also got way over charged and when we tried to protest he pretended to no know English, of course. Here you can’t really make a lot of commotion over things since you can be arrested for starting a commotion or starting a scene. It really leaves the hands of the tourist to be very much tied.
By the time we reached the house we were exhausted. I still had a lot of work to do and the proposal, but refused to take a nap in hopes of maybe getting a good nights sleep. I started working and after a couple of hours decided to make dinner. I am really craving some good ole American food but have yet to find anything comparable at this point. I chopped up a bunch of fresh veggies and decided to make a stir fry. Of course, we were out of rice. Instead I just decided to sauté them and add them to some penne pasta with olive oil as sauce. Bland to say the least, the veggies were good though. Gonna get back to work now.