A best friend visits -- part three.

On Monday, Erin and I got up late (as usual), and Sam came to get us. We went to Endiro Coffee, a nice little cafe/restaurant in Kisementi, where we got coffee and lunch. We sat around for a while thinking about what to do. I asked Sam if there was anything he had always wanted to do in Kampala, and he suggested that we go to K.K. Beach. I had been there once before, but it had started pouring as soon as we got there, so I figured it didn't count. So we went out to Ggaba Road on Sam's bike and I successfully navigated us to the beach. There were lots of people around and enjoying the water, which Erin and I couldn't go into because of schistosomiasis (a parasite that's in Lake Victoria). We decided to take a boat ride over to the "island," although it's actually just another part of Kampala -- apparently if you keep walking on the road, you end up in Mukono, which we passed on the way back from Mbale.

 

On the other side of the water, there was just one road that we walked along. We encountered lots of kids, including a group who were going to get water in jerrycans. They decided they were fascinated with holding our hands, which happens here frequently. At one point, I had four kids arguing over who got to hold my two hands. One girl kept jumping up and trying to feel our hair. They tried to steal my rings, I think mostly because they were shiny. Sam was quietly amused; they didn't pay him any attention at all.

 

We made it back to the boat sans children and rode back to the beach. We got sodas and sat at a picnic table on the beach until it got dark, and then we went back to the apartment. Sam stuck around and watched as Olivia tried to make passion fruit mousse from a recipe she had learned in Brazil. It called for something called "creme de leche" or "cream of milk," and we thought maybe whole milk cream would do the trick, but it didn't. Apparently she was trying to whip it into peaks, and it just got frothy. So that experiment was kind of a failure. We sat around in the dark with candles lit for a while, and then we all got tired so we kicked Sam out and went to sleep.

Tuesday was Erin's last day here, but she didn't leave until 11:30pm. We got up early and spent some time trading and editing photos, then we went to Fasika for lunch. It's this Ethiopian place in Kabalagala, and it's probably the best Ethiopian food I've ever had. Then we called Sam to come get us so we could go get photos printed for him -- he wanted some of the photos of him and me together. The nicest photos actually didn't transfer to my flash drive; the files wouldn't open at the photo place, but we still got him 15 photos of him doing touristy things in Kampala, and some with me. We went to get coffee at Good African Coffee, and then went back to the apartment and Erin packed. Olivia came home to say goodbye to Erin, and then Erin got in a taxi and left me. Wah.

All in all, it was a fantastic 10 days. I'm really glad she came, and I'm glad we stayed in Kampala -- because I got to really explore parts of Kampala I never saw (like the old taxi park and Owino market) and do a bit of adventuring in Sipi. Now I have three days before I leave Kampala, which is just insane. I'm really sad to be leaving, but I'm also in "winding down" mode and think I will be ready to go (or, as ready as you can be when you really, really want to stay somewhere) come Friday. Almost time to go back to reality.

A best friend visits -- part two.

The next day, we got started late. We went and got coffee for Erin, and then we went to the Baha'i temple right near my house. Sam came with us again. There was a Baha'i man there this time, who wanted to tell us everything about the Baha'i faith and where there are temples -- and he was very insistent that we visit the Baha'i temple in Chicago (the only one in North America; there's one on each continent, plus one in Central America), until he found out how far away Chicago is from where Erin and I live. We walked around the grounds, which were as beautiful and peaceful as I remember them.

To be honest, I don't even remember what we did for the rest of Thursday. At some point, though I don't remember exactly when, we went to the National Theatre craft market. Erin got some things, and I got more things, and it was pretty typical. That may have been on Thursday, or it may have been on Sunday -- this is the problem with blogging a week later. I forget exactly when we did what.

In any case, on Friday we woke up really late again and went to Kabira Country Club, about a mile from my apartment where you can pay 30,000 UGX (they raised prices!) to use the pool. It was a bit overcast, but we were working with limited time, so we went anyway. The sun came out in full force briefly, at which point we jumped in the pool, but it shortly started thundering and threatening rain, so we got out and went into the restaurant. They have pretty excellent Indian food, which we ordered. After lunch, we went to this dress shop in Bukoto that Emily had told me about, where I showed the woman this beautiful and huge bolt of fabric I had bought at the craft market and asked her to make me a dress. She said it was a lot of fabric, so Erin decided to have a dress made as well. We picked out our designs and got our measurements done, and then the day was sort of over. We briefly thought about going out to Iguana, the nightclub I always go to when I go out. However, we had decided to go to Sipi Falls over the weekend, so we made an early night of it.

On Saturday morning, Olivia, Erin and I woke up early and went to the bus station, where we caught a 9am bus to Mbale, a town in the eastern part of Uganda, near the border with Kenya. The bus ride took exactly four hours, and it wasn't bad at all. The bus conductor was hitting on Erin, but it gave us an opportunity for conversation with someone, so it was fine. When we got to Mbale, we had to get on a matatu to go to Sipi itself -- or so we thought. It turned out the matatu conductor spoke no English, so when we tried to speak to him to ask where we needed to go, he just ignored us. They also crammed more people into the matatu than I've seen in a while -- in South Africa, there are regularly 20 people in the matatus (which have seats for 12 people), but in Kampala they generally stick to 14. In Mbale, there were 25 people in the matatu; we were literally on top of each other. A Ugandan sitting next to me told us that we had to take the matatu to "the junction," and then get on another taxi. We got to the junction -- but by then, it was only the three of us left, and they just turned the matatu off and got out. We were like, what do we do now? But as soon as we got out, there were boda bodas who were asking us where we wanted to go. There was a sign that said Sipi was 12kms away, and one of the boda drivers was from Sipi, so we got three bodas and went up to Sipi.... in the rain. Which hurts on a boda, by the way.

We got to Sipi at around three in the afternoon, and the place we had made a reservation at was kind of a dump -- but very cheap. You get what you pay for. Still, we decided to stay. We ordered lunch, but they had to go into town to buy the ingredients, so it took about an hour or so for the food to be ready. We ate and then went out into Sipi, which has literally one road, to look around. We just sort of walked around a bit, attracting a lot of attention to ourselves. Everyone kept asking us if we wanted a guide to go to the falls, but we had already made an arrangement with someone through the hostel. It started to rain again, so we headed back. There was no electricity, so we read in the failing light -- and when the sun well and truly set, the hostel provided us with a kerosene lamp. Erin and Olivia both fell asleep really early, but I read for a while longer before finally being tired enough to sleep.

We woke up the next morning, ate breakfast, and set out for our hike. I was really nervous, because they kept talking about a 10km hike, and I was imagining it was all uphill and that I was going to die. But we ended up paying for the "medium circuit" hike, and I was actually fine. We hiked to two tiers of one waterfall, then over and up behind a second waterfall. The area is absolutely beautiful, and the waterfalls were very pretty. I slipped in the mud and fell down at one point, getting really dirty but thankfully not hurting myself; inevitable. We walked back into town just as everyone was getting out of church.

We were finished with the hike and back at our hostel by around 1pm, and they called boda bodas to take us back down to the junction to meet a matatu back to Mbale. We had planned to stay the night in Mbale, but it was early enough that we got another bus back to Kampala that very afternoon, which I think we were all happy about. Sam met us at the drop-off point, and Olivia, Erin and I went to dinner immediately -- we hadn't had much to eat that day. Sam offered to wait, but it was his day off and I didn't want to feel rushed (I hate when people are waiting for me), so I told him to go home. He said he would, but then after dinner he was still there. Sigh. So Sam took me home, and Erin and Olivia shared the taxi that we had all planned to take home. Sam gave me a present -- a bunch of sweet bananas and passion fruits, and then he left.

A best friend visits -- part one.

I got back to Kampala from Johannesburg at around 7pm. My best friend, Erin, was due in on a flight from Amsterdam at 10:15pm, so I just decided to wait in the airport for her. It was a pretty boring couple of hours -- I read some, I ate some, I watched some football. I actually ended up missing her arrival, because her flight actually landed at 9:30pm, and I wasn't paying attention yet. At around 10:10, I went over to the waiting area and saw that the flight had landed, and I sort of flipped out. She came sauntering back in after about 10 minutes, and had apparently been wandering around outside looking for me. Okay, so a rough start.

On her first day, Sunday, we woke up late-ish and did touristy stuff. We called Sam, even though it was his day off (he insisted he wanted to see me), and we all went to Gaddafi National Mosque. I had been there before with Ben, but it's the only true tourist attraction in Kampala, so I thought we would start there. We climbed to the top of the minnaret this time, which afforded some pretty nice views of the city. And sadly, I learned that this mosque is actually the third largest in Africa; Idi Amin had plans to build the biggest one, but the beginning of the foundation lay untouched for 40+ years, and when the Libyan architects came in, they tore it all down and built it a bit smaller. Ah, well.

We spent some time inside the mosque and learned more about the history and its upkeep. Apparently, it's so huge and so expensive that Gaddafi promised to pay for it for the first 25 years of its existence. The guy who was showing us around told us about how huge some of the bills are, and there's no way Uganda could pay for it -- or maybe they could, but Museveni isn't a Muslim, so he wouldn't. I asked the guy what would happen if Gaddafi were removed from power, and his answer was, "We will pray to God." Not the most practical plan in my opinion, but there you go.

After the mosque, we went to the Kasubi tombs. This was a risk from the outset, because I knew they were really damaged by a fire in March 2010 and I wasn't sure how much there really was to see. Four kabakas ago (the kabaka is the king of the Buganda kingdom) decreed that all kabakas should be buried in one place, the Kasubi tombs. So the site holds the remains of the last four kabakas, although the big building and the tombs themselves were basically destroyed in the fire. They walked us around the compound and showed us where all the princes and princesses are buried, and the widows of the kabakas, but there was really not very much left to look at. They're furiously rebuilding, because the current kabaka is also supposed to be buried there -- but right now, there's no there there. I left a small donation to help with the rebuilding.

The next day, we decided to take a look at the "other" Kampala; the places where all the normal Ugandans spend their time. We went to the old taxi park, which is this giant bowl in the city where all the matatus (the shared taxis) begin and end their journeys. I had read in the guidebook that there was one particular restaurant with a good view over the taxi park, so we climbed up and down buildings trying to find it. We eventually decided that it must not exist anymore, but we found a pretty good view anyway.

You can almost make out some method of the madness. We went down into the park itself, where there are actually signs indicating where all the taxis in a certain area of the park are going. Erin and I were planning to go to Jinja the next day, so we found the ones going to Jinja and asked about prices -- Sam helped a lot. We would never have been able to navigate without him.

After the taxi park, we went on foot to Owino market, which is this huge multipurpose market where Ugandans basically buy everything. They sell clothes and shoes and food and spices and everything you can imagine. It's labyrinthine, and again Sam was indispensable. The photos (from Erin) don't adequately capture the utter and complete chaos, but maybe you get the point.

After Owino, we went back to the apartment. We went out for dinner, and then went to bed early, because we had to be up early the next day to go to Jinja.

Jinja is the source of the Nile, about two hours east of Kampala. Diane and Bruno's brother, Michael, drove us along with Ben. The day was actually sort of a failure -- Jinja is known as the adrenaline capital of East Africa, and Erin and Ben both wanted to go bungee jumping, but Michael mostly just drove us around. We went to Bujagali Falls, which is mostly just a set of rapids, then we drove to the source of the Nile -- which is conveniently located behind a man-made island, and they charge you 20,000 UGX per person to go out and see the actual bubbles coming up from the ground. We passed.

We got back to Kampala late-ish and called it a day. Sort of lame that we wasted a whole day on a failed trip to Jinja, but c'est la vie.

A public holiday.

Today was a public holiday -- Heroes' Day, although no one has been able to tell me who the heroes are. I had made plans to go to Qaddafi Mosque with a few students from another law school who are in Kampala, but I realized last night that I didn't have any small bills to pay for a boda, so I canceled. But then this morning my phone rang, and it was Ben who wanted to go to the mosque -- so we ended up going after all. While I was waiting for him to come by with the boda, I watched some local kids playing soccer on the field near my flat -- I like to watch people from a distance, because it means I can take pictures; and with the incredible zoom on my new camera (thanks, Mom and Dad), it looks like I'm taking the photos from way closer than I really am. I am a creep.

I had called one of the law students and told her we'd meet her there, but she thought I meant somewhere else (the old taxi park), so when we got to the mosque, they weren't there. Oops... But the mosque was so huge and beautiful and I actually forgot we were even meeting anyone there at first. This mosque was begun by Idi Amin over 30 years ago, who had a dream to build the biggest mosque in Africa. When funds for construction ran out, Col. Qaddafi supplied the rest -- he and Idi Amin were buddies, and he and Mouseveni are still good friends. So the mosque is named after Qaddafi, and it's on Col. Muammar Qaddafi Road, which runs through a Somali neighborhood in Kampala. I was reading an article before we went about how the mosque revitalized Old Kampala, which is a very run-down neighborhood in the city, and completely changed the skyline of the eastern part of the city.

The mosque is beautiful. It's up the hill in Old Kampala, so it's a little bit removed from traffic and the rest of city life, and it feels very quiet there. I got yelled at by the guard for being dressed inappropriately as soon as we got there: we were so busy gawking at the size of the building that I had forgotten to take out/put on my head covering. Apparently, my (knee-length) skirt was also too racy, because the guard made me rent a piece of fabric and tie it around my waist to make an ankle-length skirt. Once I was properly dressed, though, the guard was very friendly and pointed us to the entrance and a guide who would take us inside. There was no one inside the HUGE prayer room -- this mosque holds 15,000 people.

The inside was also beautiful, with big chandelier-type light fixtures and Arabic passages written on the walls. I was mildly surprised that I was allowed into the men's prayer room, even with all my head coverings and other modest accoutrement. But the guide didn't seem to think twice about it, and he even let Ben go up into the women's prayer balcony as well. As it turned out, the guide was the muezzin, the guy responsible for chanting the calls for prayer five times a day. He showed us this giant version of the Q'uran and chanted a full page of it for us, which was beautiful. Then he translated the text, and it was all about how if you follow Islam, you go to heaven, and if you reject Islam, you go to hell. It sounded better in Arabic.

 

He checked the time and realized it was time for a call to prayer, and he asked us if we wanted to stay inside and watch him do it. Which -- duh, of course we did. He stood at a microphone in a niche in the wall and chanted the call to prayer, which (I imagine, though I couldn't hear it) was broadcast out into Kampala through speakers in the minaret. His voice echoed rather magnificently inside the mosque itself... it felt really cool to be able to watch him.

After that, he had to leave to attend and/or lead prayers, so we walked around for a bit. We were still trying to meet up with the Georgetown law students, who were on their way to the mosque. Ben had spied a cathedral on the next hill over, so we decided to go check it out and then come back to the mosque to meet the others.

The cathedral was St. Paul's, a protestant cathedral (which I didn't even know existed). It seemed a bit dull after the grandeur of the mosque, but its location was fantastic. It was even higher up and away from the city than the mosque, and it felt like a completely different universe. It reminded me forcibly of the Cloisters in New York -- there were students sitting around on the grounds doing work of some kind (art, maybe?), and people seemed like they were just lounging among all the greenery as a break from the noise and pollution of the city. And there were butterflies everywhere.

After we were done at St. Paul's, we decided it was time for lunch. So, instead of going back and meeting the other students at the mosque (we kept missing them all day... never did meet up with them), we took a boda into town to Centenary Park Gardens to get some food. We ended up trying a place called Kyoto, which does a combination of Japanese food and American food. Strange fusion, but Ben and I both got Asian-style dishes, and I think they were both good. I can say with certainty that my noodles were pretty yummy. It took a while though, and by the time we were finished it was already 4pm. We had toyed with the idea of going to the Kisubi tombs, where the Baganda kings are buried, but instead we went back to Etana Motel to hang out with Diane and Bruno.

Diane and Bruno (especially Bruno) were glad to see me; going to the motel feels kind of like going "home," as silly as that sounds. Diane made us her amazing ginger tea, and we got maize from a stall on the street, and Bruno came down to play cards with me. I always beat him when it's just the two of us, but then Ben and Diane joined in, and things went downhill from there. Bruno got desperate to win and started cheating horribly, which was actually pretty entertaining. After a few hours, I suggested that I should get back to my flat, but Diane insisted she was cooking for me. And what was she cooking, you ask? Well, she was cooking goat meat. I felt a little bit pressured to stay since she was making me food, and... well. Goat meat was interesting. It smelled amazing while she was cooking it, but the meat itself was really chewy, which put me off it. Add in the fact that Ben was making comments about muscles and joints and other anatomical features of goats, and I really didn't manage to eat very much. I felt terrible about it, and I hope I didn't offend Diane in particular, but I just couldn't do it. I got a ride home from Bruno, and that was that.

A crafty weekend.

So, I haven't updated in a while -- almost a week, I think? I really don't do very much interesting during the week, just go to work. We had a long weekend this week, with Friday off for Martyrs' Day. This week (tomorrow), I'm theoretically starting to work on a humanitarian parole case for someone my organization and others have been working to protect. The case is pretty sensitive, so I won't go into too many details here. But humanitarian parole is a temporary grant of asylum, basically -- usually less than a year, and it's for providing a safe, secure environment to people who are in constant danger for some reason. It could be a medical emergency, it would be a continuing risk of rape (I worked on a case like that with a few Haitian clients during the school year), or it could be a political danger. I hope the case isn't too far along, because it could theoretically involve a fair amount of interesting research and writing for the application. I'll find out tomorrow.

This weekend, one of Emily's interns arrived. Ben is an American who goes to school in Scotland, and has been teaching English in Germany for a year. He seems really cool, and we spent most of the weekend with him, helping show him the ropes. On Friday, we had to go rescue his taxi driver, who got lost trying to find the motel (the same one I stayed at for the first two weeks), and then we took him out to lunch nearby and to get a phone at Nakumatt Oasis. Nakumatt is a giant department store kind of thing, with a grocery section and all sorts of modern appliances. He was pretty tired from but my two flatmates and I went out on Friday night, along with some other of their friends who all seemed really nice. We went to a bar/dance club called Iguana, and Bruno (the guy who owns the motel) brought some friends to meet me. I ended up splitting my time between the Ugandans and the mzungus, which made for a sort of interesting night. And I got a ride home from Bruno and one of his friends, which meant I didn't have to take a boda really late at night -- victory!

On Saturday, I woke up before Emily and Ula (I had come home a little bit before they did), and Ben was bored, so he came over the flat and we chatted just the two of us for a while before everyone else woke up. Then Emily, Ben and I went to an art fair put on by the Alliance (sp?) Francais and German Cultural Centre. It was all local African artists, and a lot of organizations using art to further social causes. They weren't that interested in bargaining, I think because a) there were TONS of mzungus there, and b) the stuff was real art, and much higher quality that what you find at markets. I still ended up buying a fair amount of stuff -- a bracelet, an African love knot, a little figurine made out of Fanta bottle caps, and a poster of a gorgeous piece of art that I wanted but was much too expensive. There was a lot of live dance going on, including traditional Buganda dance that was seriously impressive (see below). We met up with some of Emily's friends from her French class, who have all been so nice so far.

I also got a pair of blue splatter-painted canvas flats that only sort of fit, but I liked them.

After we finished shopping/browsing, we went behind the Alliance Francais and found a spot on the ground to wait for the concomitant live concert of African music. There was a huge variety of music, from jazz to soul to hip-hop, but it was all really amazing -- there are some seriously talented musicians in Kampala. The concert lasted about 3 hours, and then Emily's classmate Sharifa gave us all a ride back to our place. Ben, Emily and I hung out for a bit longer, and then Emily escorted Ben back to the motel on a boda and then came back to the flat.

Today, we all got a bit of a late start -- like 1 or 2pm late. Ula (my second flatmate) suggested that we go to a craft market, and we invited Ben and Emily along as well. We all met at Nakumatt first because Emily had to exchange money, and we ended up getting lunch at a place there called Pizza Connection. I got a burger, which was actually really good... I find myself somewhat pining for American food on the weekends, since I mostly eat really heavy Ugandan food for lunch all week. The Ugandan food is really good -- the woman who cooks for us at the office is amazing in the kitchen, but it is really different. Sometimes you just want a hamburger and fries.

We made it to the craft market by around 5pm, and I was... a bit disappointed, to be honest. It's all in open stores, rather than stalls like in South Africa. Nobody is really that interested in bargaining, which I've always thought was part of the fun in markets. I also don't love the stuff they have for sale; I think partially the novelty of it has worn off after three trips to Africa, and partially I've gotten more responsible. Do I really need another pair of earrings that I'll never wear? No, so I stop myself from buying them. It saves me money and is probably a sign that I'm growing up (the horrors), but it's not as fun.

I did get another nice piece of art (sorry for the flash, it kind of ruins the effect) and a beaded basket/bowl for all the jewelry I brought with me. I thought a little basket would be nicer than the plastic bag I had them in before, and make it easier to look through and find things.

As the craft market started to close up, we all got on bodas and went our separate ways. Shortly after I got home, though, Ben called me to tell me that Bruno and Diane were at the motel until 11pm tonight, and they wanted me to come over. The power actually went out while I was on the phone with him, which I took as a sign from God that I should go. I took a taxi down to the motel and spent a few hours there with all of them. Emily came a little bit later, and actually there's another mzungu staying there who I had met at the art fair on Saturday. It's a small mzungu world. Bruno and Diane were wonderful as always, and made us dinner (matoke) and gave us Diane's amazing ginger tea, and later they broke out the wine. And they wouldn't let Emily and me pay for any of it. The power went out at the motel too, and one of Bruno's friends theorized that it's because the government was moving weapons and soldiers in the area. That didn't make a lot of sense to me, but it was interesting that that's where his mind went.

We played cards for a while... there's a Ugandan game that they taught me while I was staying there that's a bit like Uno, where you have to match either the suit or the number of the card, etc. Bruno and I have a bit of a competition going, because I beat him during our last "tournament," two days after learning how to play. Diane played with me and Ben tonight, and she's good. I lost a lot.


Emily and I came back home when Ula informed us that the power was back on, and now the weekend is over. I really don't want to go back to work tomorrow -- even with the new humanitarian parole case, Kampala is so much more fun when I can just spend time riding around and exploring the city.

There are more big protests against the government planned for tomorrow, but not near where I work. There's an outside chance things will spread/spiral out of control, but for now, the plan is to go to work as usual. At least Thursday is another public holiday!