Due to jet lag, internet connection problems, and mainly our curiosity, which has been pulling us down streets and into shops, (if you can say into-almost all the shops are outdoors) and pretty much everywhere, we haven’t yet contacted anyone from the outside world.
We flew from Dulles Airport to Istanbul, which was a smooth flight with Turkish Airlines, and from there we went to Rwanda, which was O.K. but our pilot practically bounced the plane off of the runway, which scared the heck out of the passengers, but no one was injured. When we finally arrived in Uganda (roughly 20 hours of flying, plus going 8 hours ahead made us lose over a day) we were greeted with a humid, strikingly rainforest-like climate, which was immensely refreshing after being in a stuffy airplane for so long.
Uganda has nice, clean air because it is not inhabited by smoke belching factories or, for that matter, any sort of significant air polluting thing. From what I’ve seen, the economy is composed of small, unique family businesses. This is because Uganda is dominated by only a couple of banks, most notably Barclay’s (which is especially disliked because as well as being expensive, it is British and Uganda gained independence from Britain relatively recently) that command unusually high interest rates, so all of these entrepreneurs cannot afford to improve their businesses without saving up for years or having outside investment. We talked to the owner of the J. Residence Motel, where we are staying, and he says that he and friends had been saving for years, and he also has a bunch of micro-loaners. Most people can’t do this, which is quite unfortunate: You can only imagine how much more Uganda might thrive if these businesses had the ability to invest in proper equipment and expand.
Despite this issue and very high unemployment, Uganda is the home of quite possibly the happiest people in the world. Smiles light up the streets. Laughter is a common noise. As a saying goes, “They [referring to the rich] are rich but physically poor” — We have been working at the Malayaka House (for more information see http://www.malayakahouse.com) each day, playing with the children, thumb wrestling with them, (after we showed them this they got very into it) reading to them, pushing 4 or 5 of them at a time on a tire swing for long periods of time while they yell “higher!” and shout with glee–they are some of the kindest, most helpful to each other, happiest children I have ever met. One of the girls has a broken leg and whenever she calls out someone will stop what they are doing and run over to help. If they are eating a mango [they have a tree] and you pass by, they will hold it out for you. They call the volunteers there ‘uncles’, but because I am so young they sometimes call me brother. Celebrating the New Year we had a party and danced for hours, and they made sure to pull out everyone onto the dance floor. Two days ago I introduced the idea of creating a jump for their toy truck, which they constructed on the end of a slide and worked on for a solid hour. A while later I asked them to show me the jump, so one of the boys scrambled up the slide, and gently pushed it down. It bumped against the jump, turned sideways, and then toppled over it. I felt slightly disappointed, but the playground erupted in cheers. “Again! Again!” they chorused. They repeated the process.
If they get this excited about these things, I cannot imagine how excited they will be when they see that we have hired a full band for them through TUBA: (The Uganda Baltimore Alliance, see past post on it) the band will march up through their gates and play for a bit, and then after that we will have a small party. I also have trouble imagining how they will react when we show them and give them these little helicopter-like things called Wacky Whirlers and when they also are given these rubber poppers that you push inside out with your thumbs before placing on a table/surface where they rocket upwards.
We are slowly getting used to the culture. When we first got here we weren’t so sure of ourselves: driving back from the Airport we saw people walking down the street with rifles around their backs, and we were told that many people do that just for security. However, this is not too common and is very rare during the daytime. The same sort of thing happens in America too, but we just have the rule that you must conceal your weapons. Another thing to get used to is driving. Taxi’s are EVERYWHERE, and they carry many passengers at a time, functioning much like a train. Whenever they see a possible customer they just stop, still taking up room on the road, and then try to talk the person into coming aboard. This causes a certain hazard for the car behind the taxi, as it must swerve out of the way, sometimes dipping into the other lane briefly before cutting back in with a narrow escape. To add to this experience, there are also Motorcycle-taxis, called Boda’s. They are stationed in groups next to the road, and all you need to do is negotiate a price and hop on the back of one. We are planning on taking a ride, for the experience, but a certain family member (cough cough Carter cough cough) is adamantly against the idea.
I will be sure to post a segment on it if we do end up doing it.
The Brighams Of Baltimore 