July 8 Part I

July 8, 2009

Days Events: damn cat, no-show meeting, pizza, slums, orphans, prostitute and pimp, emotionally drained

Man, I was in a bad mood to start this day. I think the weight of this place just kind of builds up and starts to get me down. I knew that Ginger had an appointment at 10:00 so I stayed shut-up in my room until I knew she had left. That way I could have the entire morning to myself. It was great in theory, but this damn cat is the whiniest thing that I have ever seen. He probably isn’t helping with my nerves. I was able to get caught up on everything despite the fact that I had a whining cat crawling all over me all day. I left the house about 30 minutes prior to meeting time and grabbed my usual bota driver to take me. I should probably learn his name. Anyway, I got there and no one showed. Elizabeth, the girl also doing research, showed up as well and called around only to find that the meeting had been canceled. Granted, this was after I had been waiting for and hour and a half. Even Ginger didn’t show on time. Apparently my request to meet with Rev. on Friday at 2:00 was changed to also be the supervisor meeting without informing us. Communication remains to be a problem, needless to say.
My pissiness and need for food led us back to my usual pizza place for a fresh Hawaiian pizza (spelled Haway here). It was amazing. Still being irritable I was reluctant to call Willie for our planned trip to the “slums” of southern Kampala but did it anyway. He met us at the restaurant so he could escort us out because otherwise we would have gotten lost without a doubt. We had to wait an additional 30 minutes after paying for him to show up, which I wasn’t crazy about but dealt. We crammed on a taxi and headed off to Gaba Road. This took us about an hour because of our having to wait in the taxi park for our connecting ride to leave and because of the 20 minutes, dead stop traffic jam. Just one of the many things you have to get used to here. Anyway, we were off to Gaba Road, more specifically Kabalagala. This is where the U.S. Embassy is, the most famous bars are, as where the highest rates of prostitution are. This is only aiding in perpetuating the immoral image of the U.S., but I found it kind of funny. Anyway, our destination was the slums of this area which had been hidden from view by roadside shopping/strip mall complexes. Our informant, Willie, grew up in this area though and still lived there. We walked up the nicely paved street with nice wide sidewalks and brick flower beds to enter a dirt ally. Only it wasn’t and ally after all, it was the main road for this community. It was one lane at best and when cars, mini-bus taxis, and boats sped through you had to jump into a store to get out of the way so you had to keep your eyes out. The street had no real support or delineation, it was more like a path. Stores selling everything one could need crowded the slender road and street vendors occupied the small widened spots in the road. Many women set up shop with stacked 2x4’s so that they could take them with them at the end of the day. The smoke from cooking fires filled the square and added a haze to everything you saw. We walked a good way through the maze of shops to find an old lady propped up against a food stand pealing potatoes. This was the informant we were to meet. She was an elderly woman in her 70’s that had been living in this neighborhood since 1977. Her house sat off the road probably 500 ft. from the roadside. There was a huge tree that graced the dirt yard that separated the house from the shops. The house was showing it’s years of wear and tear and many kids played around the house kicking up dirt as they ran past. We never got her name, but she was Willie’s aunt. She was dressed in traditional garb and walked with a small limp in her tire-tred shoes as she pulled out benches for us to sit on. She refused help which showed her determination to do things on her own. Ginger and I sat on either side of Willie on one bench facing the lady on a bench of her own. Willie translated back and forth for us as we asked question about her life, living in the area, her current situation, her knowledge of HIV/AIDS, and prostitution. She looked at us intently as she spoke, her eyes cloudy with cataracts. Her concentration stayed on us with only minimal comments yelled at the children she was taking care of. She was currently taking care of eight kids. Four of these children had been dropped on her doorstep and the other four were her grandchildren left to her when their parents died of AIDS. She explained to us how two of them had gotten sponsors so were able to go to private school. The rest were in Ugandan Public Education which is grossly inadequate. She also explained to us that other than food her biggest struggle was having enough clothes for these kids. They grow so fast that she can’t afford to clothe them. They each have one school shirt and pair of pants. When we saw them (ages 2-12) they were playing in only shorts, shirts with underwear, only underwear, or burlap sack cover-ups. It was a big realization of what poor really is. They also didn’t have money for school books or supplies so just attended school for lectures basically. At the conclusion of our interview, since it was time to make dinner, she did ask if our organization could help her with the orphans. It really bothered me to have to tell her that our foundation didn’t provide aid and that I couldn’t promise her any help. I can tell that anthropology field work is going to be difficult for me because I become easily attached, because I am.
Our next stop was to go see where Willie lived. We walked further away from the road, past the house, and down the hill that sloped down into a maze of houses. We walked past the community trash pile filed with food scraps and anything else. It was being picked through by the local dogs, chickens, geese, and ducks which probably explains why they taste so funny to us. The trash pile shared a border with the soccer field on one side (the only flat piece of land around) and what I call the community entertainment room. I can’t remember the actual word for it, but it was a structure made out of tin sheets that housed a single television. People in the community could come pay 200 Ug.Shs. (10 cents) to watch TV, a movie, or a soccer game since most don’t have TV’s in their homes.************