At War

There is a gaggle pack pride group of bodaboda drivers who loiter around and play pool table right down the street from where I work. I pass them twice (at least) a day and always refuse their offers of "Tugende?" We go?

No. We don't go.

Sivuga bodaboda. Njagala okutambula buli lunaku. I don't ride bodaboda. I like to walk every day.

While I wish, every freaking day during my 45 minute walk to work and my 45 minute walk home, that I rode bodas, I can't. It's against Peace Corps policy for volunteers to ride motorcycles. Too dangerous (says Peace Corps). From what I understand, it's Peace Corps policy worldwide that volunteers are not allowed to ride bodas. In the past, like when our country director Ted Mooney served, volunteers were issued their own motorcycles, but no longer. Too many volunteer deaths lead to a worldwide ban on motorcycles. So I walk. A lot. Everywhere.

The boda drivers in town have certainly noticed. While they've slowly started to realize that I don't take bodas, they now pester me about my "fear" of them.

"Why do you fear them?"

"You don't know how to ride boda?"

*sigh*


The other day my co-workers went out for lunch because the girl who cooks didn't come to work that day. As we walked past the group of boda guys my supervisor overheard them talking.

Supervisor: *laughing*
Me: What?
Supervisor: The boda drivers. Did you hear what they said?
Me: No. What'd they say?
Supervisor: They said you've launched a war against them. They're trying to figure out what they did.
Me: Oh.

So apparently I'm At War. Never knew.

I'm determined to be nicer to the boda guys from now on, even though they make me so very angry during each encounter. The harassment female volunteers get from boda guys is intense. Kissy-kissy noises, whistles, "hey sexy momma," yelling at me in a weirdly high-pitched voice "Muzungu we go?". There's no end to the harassment from boda guys every day. They find immense pleasure in making white girls uncomfortable. And they do it well.

I guess that's all on that subject for now.

I'm going to post some pictures from Christmas now. They're in Reverse Order because I uploaded them wrong. So you can start from the bottom and work your way up and it'll probably be more right, time-wise.

My Christmas was spent in a small town about 40k from me at an orphanage. There's a Peace Corps volunteer that works at the orphanage and school who invited anyone who wanted to to spend the holiday with the kiddos. It was a nice way to spend my first Christmas away from home. We made dinner the night before and a Christmas lunch of chicken, meat, rice, beans, spaghetti, irish potatoes, matooke, a bean/maize salad (really good), some type of slaw, and other stuff I've forgotten about.

Grasshopper Season

First of all, I know all of you have been waiting for my new address so here it is:

(my name)
P.O. Box 972
Masaka, Uganda


Well I finally moved into my new house. It took nearly a month, but I'm moved in and almost settled. It's a small two room place with a bathing area and flush latrine (!) accessible by outside doors. I'll try to post something visual once I get it all set up. My organization is supposed to provide me with a bed frame, table and chair, but so far they've only given me a bed frame (I bought the mattress myself), so my house is fairly bare. I'm slowly acquiring some shelving, etc and it's slowly becoming a home. I'm planning on planting some sunflowers that grow insanely big in front of my bathing area so it provides some sort of fence to the house. I'm also planing on planting a small area of herbs sometime this week too. It'll be nice to be able to cook with some fresh herbs again! Also this week I'm going to try making my own yogurt. It's supposed to be really easy and I can make a small amount each afternoon and it'll be ready in the morning! I'm hoping it works well and I don't make myself really sick. :)

So like the title says, grasshopper season has begun. I was thinking grasshopper season was in December, so it snuck up on me a little! The grasshoppers here are bigger than they are in the States, but slower, I think. All the little kids at the center (where I work) run around with grasshoppers in their hands, torturing the poor little bugs. They throw them up in the air and try to catch them as they fall back to the ground. The impact when they hit the ground stuns the grasshoppers a little so they kind of flop around a little, just slow enough for the kids to grab hold of them again. They inevitably lose legs, wings, etc and die a slow death....I'm not much of a fan of this activity...can you tell? ha

I really like the way they catch grasshoppers here. They set up a bunch of metal barrels with long lengths of metal siding sticking out of the barrels. They then hook up lights above the barrels so that the light shines on the metal siding and attracts the grasshoppers. When the grasshoppers see the light they fly into the metal siding and, I guess stun themselves, so they fall in the barrels and can't get out again.

All the people I talk to here (including most Muzungus [foreigners - usually white people, all Asians are called "Chinese"]) really love them. I'm not sure how much I'll enjoy them, but I'm determined to try one. The idea of eating a bug really grosses me out, but if I can get past that, I think I'll actually enjoy them.

I stole this picture from someone else's site:

Pictures from my site visit/language immersion week