Picture Me Walkin'

How big is our thanksgiving turkey? Big enough to ride.

How about this for a strange little story that kind of changes my perspective on everything: First the backstory: I don't like my landlord, he's kind of a punkass. Everyone hates their landlord and thinks theirs is the worst ever, but this one is on another level from home. He is allegedly the richest man in the district (vaugely like a state), and allegedly gets personal phone calls from the president. He is very fat, in a country where being fat is a major statement of wealth. Everytime I see him he tries to renegotiate the terms and fanangle us out of more money, contract be damned. The last time I paid rent he said he was tired of dealing with us and that he'd just evict us that night unless I paid him more money on top (I didn't). During the months it took to get him to sign the contract and my organization to clear the funds to pay the rent, he would just randomly show up at our house unannouced at like 7 am ready to do business and demanding money. I had thought...

Well be back. Well be back. We've had a busy last week picking up our newest MAPLE field team members from the airport, whisking through Kampala and heading back to Mbale. We arrived safely Thusday afternoon, only to turn around and head up to Sipi Falls for the weekend to celebrate the Fourth of July and Luke's Birthday. Sipi Falls, some of you more dedicated readers may remember, is the site of our previous misadventures with the rastas. So naturally, we couldn't resist the temptation to go back. This time around, though, what with it being a big celebration, we opted to grill some meat. Beef and swine, typically the first choice for such occasions, were out due to various dietary restrictions and a general fear of flies-covered meat. Delicious chicken, while easy and satisfying, is just not special enough. That really only leaves one option: Tin Can Tony I. The first in (hopefully) a long line of Tonys that will be eaten by the MAPLE Uganda field team. I wish I could say...

Healthcare in Africa An essay by Luke Healthcare in Africa is no joke. Of everything we've seen here it's the hardest to make funny, because really, it just isn't. I got malaria a couple weeks ago (allegedly, though doctor number two said doctor number one was a crackerjack). It sucked. It really sucked. It felt like I imagine you'd feel if you ran a marathon then drank cheap whiskey till you passed out, then got woken up two hours later. It sucked. Then things went wrong somewhere and I got a lung infection or pneumonia or something. So I couldn't breathe. That sucked more, because then the locals were worried. Tell an African you have Malaria, his response will be along the order of "That's a bummer. The last time I got malaria was a few years ago. It sucked." So when they got worried I got really worried. I went to the hospital a few days later in a very much second- or even third- tier Ugandan city. It was scary. Not because there were human bo...

We are beginning to settle into some sort of routine again, now that we’re in Mbale. Or at least as much as one can while sharing a hotel room the size of a very stingy dorm single and eating out every meal. This time around we won’t be pulling up the stakes and moving to a new town, so things are good. Still loving things in Mbale, still smile every time I look up and see the huge mountain, still very happy in my new home. We’ve found our spot for internet: it’s fast and always empty, the computers are totally legit with brand new mice and keyboards, which goes a long way around here. We’ve found four places with really good (and relatively cheap by our standards) Indian food, dinner is usually one of those three. We found a handful of pretty decent local spots, where we do breakfast and lunch. Breakfast is always eggs and tea, because that’s really the only choice. Lunch is always some combination of: rice, beans, cassava, sweet potato, matooke and meat of one kind or another. Let me...

Several times here, we've been informed that Americans are just too damn sensitive about race. I don't want to get into just why that might be, or whether it could be a good or bad thing, but I will just say this. I was surprised to see the image on one of the bank notes here. Let's put it this way. I don't think this is something you would see in the US. If that makes us oversensitive, so be it. In other news, we finally have a mailing address. If anyone wants to send us some sweet things from the motherland (that we won't have to pay import duties on), send us an email and we'll hook you up with the address. Although you'd probably need to send it tomorrow for it to get here before the end of September. Word on the street is that the Pony Express around here is on the slow side. Also, a sign said that it is illegal to send things that are offensive to Muslim sensibilities. Based on the picture, that means that pigs stuffed into envelopes will not be delive...

Since its the end of the month and all the banks are super busy, our most recent adventure has been trying to find a house here in Mbale. It's been an interesting experience, particularly given that both of us have been having tons of fun dealing with our old landlords in the States. Also, as it turns out, asking for an already furnished house is about the craziest thing people have ever heard of. Lesson learned. Does that mean we need to buy a fridge, stove and beds? Maybe. Does that mean we should just try to find a few apartments instead? Possibly. Are we completely fumbling around in the dark on this? Absolutely. Is that any different from what we normally do? Nope. Otherwise, I just wanted to post a quick visual comparison between Mbale and Lira: (Mbale: Note the charming clock tower...) (The mountain that keeps us cool) (Lira is equally charming, in its own way) (But seriously hot and dry)

So we're back in action after a long weekend of relaxification and fun. Sorry for the huge downtime in posting, but I think it will be worth it because we actually have something interesting to talk about now. For everyone who sent me angry emails for not keeping up on the posting, it's nice to hear that y'all are staying interested. We decided it was time for a little vacation and went to the mountains on the border with Kenya. We cruised up to Sipi Falls, on mt. Elgon, with our friend we've been staying with in Lira. When we got there, we met up with some French girls and some Rastas named Brown, Roots and Dennis (don't let the decidedly un-irie name throw you, homie can hang ). It was my first time ever really hanging out with forreallife rastas, it was everything you'd expect it to be. We basically spent the entire weekend listening to reggae and laying around in hammocks. It's a hard life, it really is. (burn it down) (breakfast at speed zero) The plac...

And we're back... There hasn't been a lot of electricity in Lira this past week, so that means no internets. These things just happen. But we are going to take advantage of technology, the time change and quantum molecular mechanical dynamics and just retroactively post some things. Highlights include reggae night in lira town, chillin in the mountains with rasta brown, roots and the french connection and straight Mballin in Mbale (haha. get it? probably not). (for the fam)

OK, time for a confession. When I was a kid, I used to watch Unsolved Mysteries, a true crime type show about real live criminals who had done heinous things and were out running around. I think the show especially focused on bad dudes who did bad things to good little kids. Clearly, I wasn't supposed to watch it, because it was not kid-friendly tv. And I didn't even really want to watch it, because it scared the hell out of me. But every time I flipped past it, I'd stop to watch a bit (and we only had maybe five channels, so it's not like I had a lot of other options). Anyway, I used to get so freaked out by this show. Just the music would probably give me cold sweats even today. Because I used to wake up in the middle of the night, hearing something. And living out in the country, there was always something. Probably just an animal, but something out rustling around. So I'd wake up, hear these sounds and just be convinced that my time was up. I'd try to convin...

[Luke, Monday afternoon] We have now arrived in Lira, just got some lunch. This is like first-first impression, seriously we've been here for less than an hour. We're waiting for a driver to take us to where we will be staying. Could be five minutes, more likely to be five hours. We have no way to know. It was a long hard drive, but we made it. So far nothing too shocking, very rural. Lots of jungle, lots of mudhuts, lots of monkeys. The landscape on the way here was very beautiful. We crossed the Nile, which was pretty cool. We would post pictures, but the word is if the soldiers on the bridge see a camera they stop you and you have to pay your way out. I guess, cameras must be pretty dangerous. After we crossed the Nile, things started getting progressively less and less beautiful. Now we're in Lira, and it hasn't bucked the trend. So anyway we go to our temporary home for the next couple days in the house of this NGO here in Lira. Hopefully we make a good enough impr...

We've been here in Kampala now for about a week. By now you've heard all about our various successes (and less about our failures, natch) meeting with people and getting our little fledgling organization off the ground. That whole aspect of the trip is going reasonably well. But there's a completely different process also happening (and I can only speak for myself here). The one where I go from being totally overwhelmed, shocked at the things I see and just being generally at a loss to process life here. To be honest, when we landed, I really wasn't sure how I was going to survive six months here. Not survive, really, but settle in and enjoy the time here. It was just too hectic, too different. Too damn hot. (some. other. business.) (going. on. here.) But here I am a week later, and things seem relatively normal. Still very unsettled, given that we haven't gotten to Lira yet and are living in a hostel, but I don't have that overwhelmed feeling of "what t...

Everything's good around here. We're at the business school just kickin' it. Pat's doing some work revising our project proposal, so that means I'm doing nothing. As per usual. We've been meeting with execs from microfinance institutions in Kampala all week, which is absolutely awesome, We managed to get linked up with someone who is as entrenched in this stuff as you can be and is interested in working with us on a research paper using data from project. The stars really aligned for us on this one. So the meetings have been an interesting thing. We are ALWAYS, no matter where, the worst dressed people in the room. By a wide margin, coat and tie vs flipflops. It was pretty uncomfortable at first, but we're getting over it. I guess people realize that 1) We're here to do field work out in the sticks up north and 2) our little white bodies aren't built for this climate. So anyway, I am for the first time seeing how one could enjoy working in the greate...

So here we are, another day down. I can't speak for the big man Pat, but I'm having an absolute blast in Kampala. We have the best hosts a person could possibly ask for. Actually this whole trip (Boston and Italy included) has really been amazing in that I've had locals showing me the real scene. I have never really felt sketched out since I've been here, and I know that if anything were to go wrong we have one of the best problem solvers in the game in our corner from the business school. So we're having lunch the other day with like a who's who of the business school in East Africa. It comes up that there's an event on Friday night, do we want to come? Ofcoursewedo, what is it? It was a beauty pageant. We went to an African beauty pageant. I can honestly say it was in the top few most coolest cultural experiences of my life. But it wasn't just any beauty pageant, it was to crown miss MUBS (that the name of the business school). I cannot even begin to ...