June 30

June 30, 2009

I absolutely can not believe that I have been here for a month. Ok, maybe I can, but things are going by much faster now than it did when we first got here but I will defiantly be ready to go by the time this field season ends.
Today is Ginger’s birthday. She has a number of things planned for herself (like a massage and haircut) plus the housekeeper comes today so I planned to get a LOT of work done. I went ahead and made my grocery run as soon as the housekeeper got here so I could get that out of the way and be able to work all day, and did. I got up around 9 and started typing with my only break being my grocery store run. From 9-4 it was like on of those business peoples days, and I didn’t like it.
Anyway, after that I decided to take a quick nap before getting ready for dinner and then Ginger’s birthday party. I got up and began checking my e-mail and Andrew showed up. I know, two hours early. This is the first time a Ugandan has been early to anything, and it completely threw me off guard. I went ahead and hoped in the shower and got ready. When I got out Ginger pulled me aside to talk which is really odd. She told me that her and Andrew were talking and that in this culture the one having the birthday supplies food and drinks for everyone invited. This being the case we had four people coming to our house expecting food and alcohol. I told her that it wasn’t a big deal, decided on some liquors, and sent her and Andrew to the store. In the mean time I threw together some food. We had sliced cucumber and tomatoes with a lemon vinaigrette, a cheese and salami plate complete with pickle spears and olives, a fruit salad of pineapple, mango, and banana and then fried rice including veggies, eggs, and finally the banana bread.
Everything seemed to go over really well. All the food was eaten, drinks were had, and then we all set down to watch a movie. We found these bootleg movies that are 10 to one disk so we picked up a couple. We watched 7 pounds with Will Smith. I played host and clean up crew so I didn’t get to watch enough of the movie to know if it was good or not. After all was said and done, people were starting to clear out. Joan was the first to leave so I offered to walk her until we could find her a taxi or bota. Andrew headed out about an out later, and Ham stayed the night. It was the walking Joan to the road part that started the night’s second adventure.
As we had approached the street Joan and I both heard meowing coming from somewhere but could not pin-point the origin. After a few minutes, Joan boarded the taxi and was gone. I turned on flashlight (on my phone) and began seeing if I could determine the whereabouts of this noise. I had almost satisfied my curiosity when I directed the light into the 3 foot deep, steep, concrete ditch. There, floating on an island of plastic bags and questionable food scraps, was an orange and white tabby kitten struggling to stay out of the river of questionable liquid. The ditches are deep enough that this .5 pound kitten would have never made it out. I laid down on my stomach and scooped the cat out of the ditch. As soon as it was in my arms it buried its head and fell asleep. I came in the door and introduced the cat to Ginger whom was luckily not upset. She took the pitiful thing and gave it a bath in the sink. I dried the car off and we fed him some milk. I constructed a bed for it I my room out of a cardboard box, newspapers, an old shirt, and hung a mosquito net above it to spare it from attacks.
Needless to say, it was an exciting day.