The Doha Lounge

Let’s start with how to get to the lounge. This is usually sort of complicated in airports, but not at Doha. They gave everyone color-coded boarding passes. There is no way to be lost in the Qatar airport as you are carrying a boarding card that let’s all the helpers around (and there are zillions) direct you to the right place. These colors even indicate whether or not you are on a short transfer so you can get priority security check in if necessary. Prior to landing, there is an instructional video on the different terminals and how to navigate them.

Walking into the lounge felt like walking into an exclusive club. I felt like I needed a map or a tour before choosing a place to sit down so I could make an optimal decision. I did a quick walk around before settling in a spot and saw all sorts of people in various phases of being pampered or resting. The sleeping chairs were so nice- window facing around the perimeter of the room and surrounded by plants so there is privacy but you’re not sleeping in a weird dark enclosed room with strangers.  There was a game room with PS3s and a nursery for children; prayer rooms and a cloak room. And most of all free internet without stupid passwords!

Boy did I wish I was hungry. I had just been fed on my last flight so unfortunately wasn’t up for trying out all the different beautiful restaurants in the lounge (and me turning down free food is so rare!). I wasn’t totally sure of the protocol but flagged someone down and got a pot of tea to keep me awake until my next flight. So I got at least 50 cents worth of the benefits of being there. 

I'd like to say I will stop raving about Gulf Carriers but I'm taking Emirates for my return flight so I can't promise anything.

Qatar Airways

Sitting in the airport I was almost peeing in my pants with excitement to fly a gulf carrier- pen out, ready to take notes on the luxury.

The Africa Leg

While there were some definite perks this leg didn’t quite live up to my admittedly absurd expectations. Like all airlines, they use their crappier, older airplanes for Africa. They also clearly didn’t send the most motivated crew who seemed to oddly enough be Chinese-Americans. Sorta disappointing on that front. But just knocked my expectations down low enough to be wowed on the next leg.

The Asia Leg

I think heaven is probably a Qatar airways international flight in business (not coming from or going to Africa). I spent the eight hour flight either being in a coma-like sleep or being delighted by every detail that I noticed.

Most notably:

Hot towels: unlike some airlines where they clearly throw these in a microwave two seconds before take off so there are weird hot and cold patches, these towels were literally steaming. They were like a sauna in a washcloth. I couldn’t identify whatever scent they had on them but it was luxurious.

Leather bound menus and fresh flowers in a vase on the wall: Sure, this is totally unnecessary but it does make you feel like you’re in a restaurant instead of on a plane.

Gendered amenity kits: no idea what is in the man’s kit but mine was Salvator Ferragamo and came with hand cream, perfume, and lip balm. A note on hand cream, I don’t really get it. Doesn’t it just make your hands slippery? My friend lectured me that your hands age quickly and that is a spot that indicates your true age. Thing is, I don’t think I have ever noticed a person’s hands (unless they were slippery when shaken). That saying “I know it like the back of my hand” perplexes me because I’m reasonably sure I could never recognize my own hand-backs in a line up. I can’t picture my husband’s hands. Hands just aren’t on my radar (anyone want some fancy hand cream?).

Timing of things: you ordered your meal from the menu before take-off which made the food service portion go much faster. Also they gave you the noise-cancelling head sets immediately so you could pop them on before take-off.

Functional sinks: sinks on airplanes are a pet peeve of mine. The meager stream of water is always too close to the bowl so you end up touching the sides. You have to hold it down with one hand to wash the other. The sink bowls are made for carnies (small hands, smell of cabbage). And there is that mysterious sign that says “as a courtesy to your fellow passengers consider using your towel to wipe the sink”. What are people using these tiny sinks for that the drain can’t handle? Also, what towel? Do you mean the single ply toilet paper or the single ply tissue? Well Qatar airways has fixed the sink. It’s a regular sink-sized sink, this a regular faucet-sized faucet. You can press the red button for hot and the blue button for cold, and then the water flows without you having to hold it down. Also there are ACTUAL TOWELS.

Updates: The plane (to Asia) were newer and hence had little lights that indicated when you could use your cell phone, next to the fasten seat belt sign. There was also a new-addition to the regular lecture which was “no electronic cigarettes are permitted on board”. Wow, maybe that’s a thing here.

Pajamas: They gave me pajamas. And none of this one-size-fits-all bullshit, but the flight attendant came up to me and said “I’ve selected a size medium for you, however let me know if you’d like to change”. They are comfy and made of grey fleece. There were matching socks and an eyeshade all in a little bag. I’m such a sucker for little bags.

Seats: The seats (on the Asia leg, not the Africa one) lay out to 180 degrees and could be adjusted with only three sets if arrow buttons. None of this 15-button monstrosity on some airlines where you can never quite figure it out. Also there was a “save” button so when you’ve found the perfect position and then get up to go to the bathroom, you can get right back to your sweet spot.

Entertainment: So many movies. There were a few new releases, but then also a great selection of foreign films. And they were just the foreign films I wanted to see- not the high-brow, super famous ones I’ll hear about in the US anyway, but the dumb popular ones that I love. The equivalent of “The Vow” (which I’ve seen twice on planes) from each country. I watched a fabulous Egyptian romantic comedy (more later) and a pretty scandalous Bollywood film. Best of all, because we had the headsets on our seats when we arrived, I got through half a movie before we even took off.

$15 and two hours

I finished up my meetings, checked out of my kampala hotel, and had $15 worth of Ugandan shillings left and 2 hours to kill before leaving for my flight. The possibilities were endless. I went on a walk following the directions of the hotel receptionist toward a coffee shop I knew. Her instructions were decidedly wrong, as she told me to just continue straight until I got there when in fact, straight was not an option after about 200m. Anyway, I just wandered a little bit and it started to drizzle. I like a little drizzle, however this was inconceivable to every passing Boda-Boda that pulled over to try to “rescue me”/earn 50 cents for a ride, but those things are risky enough in bright sunshine, let alone rain. Eventually it started to pour so I jumped in a little restaurant and had a delicious chicken sandwich while the city got dumped on. I love finding little spots by chance- especially when I don’t end up with food poisoning afterward. 

Expired Money

My hotel in Mbale, for some reason, only accepted visa cards. That’s a new one. I had an Am Ex and a Mastercard on me. So I ended up having to pay for my week’s stay in cash. That wasn’t a huge deal because at this point, I keep stupid quantities of cash on me for such situations. However, this time when I paid they told me my dollars were expired! They even had the big heads!

The change desk in Kampala told me they’d give me a better rate if I changed a post-2006 bill, which was weird, but whatever. But in Mbale they do not accept pre-2006 bills as legal tender.

This lead to me having to go through my three different money hiding spots in the lobby and looking through all my bills for ones that were post-2006. Not pleasant.

At least now I can feel okay about leaving $1000 in my suitcase when I go out for the day, because apparently all that money is “expired”.

Entebbe Airport

Oh airports. Always something weird. 

There are the usual oddities at the Entebbe Airport- like not being allowed into the departures terminal if you arrive more than three hours before your flight (which those of us who are flight-paranoid and vastly overestimate the effects of traffic on the ride to the airport frequently are). Or having a series of weird 'gates within gates' AKA glass holding chambers where you go through security, wait an undeterminable amount of time, then go through another check to wait in the next one. Third time is the charm, and then you get to walk down a flight of stairs to get to the tarmac. 

But a really perplexing design issues at Entebbe Airport is how the parking lot and drop off area for departures, is two stories below the departures hall and there is no elevator or ramp. So when you get out of the car with all your baggage, you have to contend with two flights of stairs to check in. Thankfully there are some dudes there to help. Now these are either prisoners, or airport employees who wear surplus prison uniforms, but either way, not super confidence inspiring.

I’m currently sitting in the business class lounge which has some fantastic 80’s furniture. Black and tan leather couches in alternating colors with throw pillows.

There is also inexplicably this giant stone sculpture? Decoration? Non-functional fountain? Not sure.

Is peanut butter a liquid?

I bought a jar of peanut butter in Uganda for emergency snacking and left it in my backpack. Now what I learned in science was that a liquid was defined by its ability to flow. Regular old peanut butter does not flow. Security at Uganda disagreed with me but let me keep my peanut butter. Security at Thailand was furious.

Molestation vs Massage

I don’t go through the full-body scanner at security. The choice has something to do with thinking it is pointless, the frequency with which I fly and would be exposed to rays, and a distrust of TSA to properly maintain their machines.

So when you opt out of the machine, it’s a different experience depending on where you are.

In the US, as I’ve written before, you get a narrated molestation detailing every place they touch and what part of their hand they are going to use. 

In Belgium the security agent just said “and now it’s time for your free massage”!

In Thailand, they just let me walk around the machine and bypass the search altogether.

Can’t-wash-your-hands Diet

I’ve been doing a lot of field work lately so the meals are a bit sporadic.

So lunch didn’t happen today and not because I didn’t have food, but because I couldn’t touch anything that would go into my body with my nasty, nasty hands. On a long day in the field, the only thing that can overwhelm your appetite is the thought of exactly how dirty your hands are. How many hands have you shaken? Door knobs have you touched? Snotty children have you picked up?

At home I wash my hands approximately 20 times a day—and not because I have OCD tendencies but rather because I drink an excessive amount of water and am constantly peeing, and then clearly I wash my hands (because I’m not nasty).

Here I quaff much less due to non-potable tap water; also the bathroom experience is much less pleasant. And lastly, who has time for body functions on business trips? Not I, my friends.

A note on hand sanitizer

You want to be able to wash your hands in a subtle way so as not to imply “I think you’re dirty” instead of the true “I’m an epidemiologist and just know too much about disease transmission”. However, hand sanitizer is really smelly so everyone knows you’re using it. Then you have to offer it to everyone and it becomes a novelty to explain. And this whole “my body just isn’t used to the same germs” talk is usually met with suspicion. At best it comes off bizarre, at worst rude. Not worth it, especially since TSA is going to take it away when you mistakenly leave it in your purse.

BFD

Accordingly to the hotel chain I’m staying in, I am a BFD. This is the first time I’m staying with them but I stayed in two different locations this trip for a total of 8 days. 

The first night, no biggie, other then they changed my reservation for me so that my breakfast would be free. 

The second night I was at a different location and they upgraded me to an executive room. Pretty sweet and unexpected, but then again, there weren’t very many people in the hotel so maybe it was just a policy to upgrade if it’s available. 

Last night, I was back at the first hotel, and again they upgraded me, but this time to an executive suite. It was literally larger than my apartment. It had two sofas. It had a desk larger than my office in NYC. The balcony had seating for four. They also gave me a coupon for a free BOTTLE of wine with dinner. Not a glass, a bottle. My “welcome packet” had a personalized letter and a survey where I was asked if there are any rituals I have at home that the hotel might be able to replicate to make my stay more comfortable. “Yes, I like to sleep in a bed for free”. It made me really wish that I had friends in Kampala so I could invite them over to hang out in my giant room and help me drink a bottle of wine.

So all this special attention got me thinking about what between my first and second night got me (erroneously) flagged for VIP treatment? Here’s my list:

-paid with a business AmEx?

-had lots of stamps in my passport?

-good tipping?

-nice luggage? (I LOVE MY EAGLE CREEK BAGS!)

-low probability that I would have a prostitute sex party in their big room?

They did ask me for my business card “to facilitate check in”. So maybe they were sneaky, looked up my company, and decided we are high rollers. Apparently they skipped over that whole “nonprofit” part.

Anyway, it’s cool. I like being treated wonderfully for no reason. It’ll make my upcoming vacation to India more exciting when we stay in 16 person hostel rooms and eat street food J

Weird Face

I would like to learn more about child brain development and when facial recognition stuff starts to happen.  From my observations, babies don’t mind me, 1-3 year olds are terrified of me, and 4+ year olds are thrilled to see me. I wonder if there is some key facial recognition learning going on at that age and seeing my weird-ass face just blows their minds?

Nourishing the Soul

My favorite perk of my job is hanging out in African villages. I just love old African ladies. We have some weird bond and get along smashingly despite no common languages. We mostly hold hands, high five, and hug a lot. It’s pretty wonderful. 

I met an old lady yesterday and we had our little non verbal love fest and then I went to another house for a medical visit. When I came out she had prepared a meal for me and offered me one of the orphans she takes care of. My colleague refused on my behalf, mostly due to time constraints but also recognizing that my system might not do so well with the food but I was sorta sad. I would totally have had a bout of food poisoning in exchange for chilling with my old lady friend for a little while. Demolish the body, nourish the soul.

I then spent the rest of the day observing follow up visits with new moms and holding their three-day old infants. So yeah, good contact across the life span. Who else gets to do this stuff?

Delight

The most delightful part of my week/month (depending on how ambitious or lazy I am) is that moment when I finish one book and get to select which one to start next. Today this happened with this view in the background:

P.S. Yes I eat and read at the same time. Unhealthy I know...

Straight Labels

I appreciate the straight-forward labeling here:

On the left is chocolate that you drink. It's up to you whether you do so hot or cold.

On the right is tea-whitener. No false claims linking this to any sort of dairy product. This is just some powder that is meant to change the color of your tea.

How to eat real animals

While certainly not a rule or coherent philosophy, back home I’m not a huge meat-eater. This has something to do with having a vegan husband in combination with taking too many infectious disease epi classes and reading too many Michael Pollan books.Anyway, so I don’t eat a ton of meat in the US but I certainly have no problem with it in Africa. 

But ordering meat in restaurants is challenging, because wussy me was raised on the boneless skinless chicken breast and the fish filet. I somehow never learned how to politely (or at least non-comically) eat a fish that still has all its bones. I made a mess of my chicken stew tonight because my dear friend chicken was still in possession of every part of itself that it had prior to death, excluding the feathers.

I feel like I’m in need of an etiquette class entitled “how to eat real animals”

P.S. To earlier readers, this version has the poop parts removed for your reading pleasure.

My corn

When eating corn here I choose to imagine that it came from people who spread a tarp out on the ground in their yards in order to dry the kernels:

Instead of those who decide to leave all of their corn directly on the payment to be dried by the exhaust fumes of cars.

Kids

When walking through people’s fields there were bunches of kids yelling “hello” and waving to me. One set of boys yelled “hello” and then continued on to say more words I didn't understand. I asked Fred what they were saying and his response was “they are saying made up words that they think sound like English". This is awesome; the English equivalent of “durka durka”.

I tried to get them doing it on camera but no luck. Instead, they ran out of their corn fort when they got wind of the fact I had a camera. (I typically try to avoid the riot-incitement of whipping out a camera around kids but these kids clearly deserved an exception). We then had a 10 minute photo-shoot.

Sipi Falls

I got a late start to Sipi Falls so the whole adventure revolved around trying to stay ahead of the afternoon downpour. I actually considered aborting once it started to drizzle and we hadn't even started yet, but perseverance paid off. I'm not sure it totally mattered whether it was actively raining or not because the mud looked pretty consistently treacherous. 

My guide, Fred, came with a giant walking stick that I almost turned down—which would have been disastrous. Wedging that thing in any solid spot was the only maneuver that helped me on the descents.

We went on a “medium” hike which included visiting two different falls and took about 2 hours. The beginning involved weaving our way single file down a narrow path through corn fields and people’s backyards.

We crossed a few non-confidence-inspiring but incredibly-photogenic bridges.

We made it under the first set of falls at which point Fred asked "Do you want to get wet” and clearly I responded in the affirmative.

I sorta thought this was it and we were headed back to the car but I was in for the best part yet. This involved going under some barbed wire until we came to the "very large ladder" to take us to the lower falls.

So all in all, a fantastic tourism day. Good exercise, great pix, and if anyone finds themselves in this part of the world, I can give you Fred's cell phone number.

Improper footwear

Adventures in hiking in 10-year-old off-brand sneakers, during the rainy season. And it isn't that I don't own great hiking boots, it's that I never know if I'm going to get a "tourism day" during a business trip and those beasts are too heavy and bulky to bring on the off chance of an opportunity to don them.

I literally took my sneakers off at the hotel entrance, embarrassed by how caked in red mud they were. The receptionist took them from me to clean and I sort of wanted to tell her she can just throw them out...

In retrospect I should have taken a picture to post.

Tourism Day

Tourism Day! These are pretty rare occurrences during business travel as there is always spillover work from the week that needs to done during an always-too-short visit. However my colleagues here are working hours way beyond their contracts so I'm trying to set a good example by not going into the office this weekend. I'm of course secretly answering emails and Skyping with New York from my room, but I also managed to escape the confines of the hotel.

So with a weekend devoid of scheduled activities, off I went to see Sipi Falls. Last time I was here in Mbale I only saw the inside of my hotel room and the inside of my office, so now I can proudly say I saw the big sight in Eastern Uganda.

Indians

So there is something really weird going on between Black Ugandans and Indians here. I've been on the receiving end of statements like "oh, that hotel is not for you, it's for Indians" and "That place is no good, it's Indian!"

So knowing that hypersensitivity to race is not a thing here (as evidenced by everyone calling me Mzungu or "white person" when I walk down the street) I'm curious about where this anti-Indian thing comes from...

Love in an elevator

It just occurred to me that I have never been in an elevator in Uganda. Now this makes sense, since the power outages would make for a terrifying elevator experience. But it also poses a challenge for hotels with six floors and people with heavy bags (ahem). I find the need to make excuses the whole time I follow the porter up the stairs, carrying my massive bag. "It's all work stuff!" "Sorry it's so heavy!" "It'll be lighter on the way down!"

Triple 7

Ugandans speak English, but it is a very special kind of English. Here are my notes:

* When sharing a phone number with repeated consecutive digits, always say "double" or "triple". I got a phone number dictated to me as 0 triple 7 1 double 4 5 triple 8. My brain simply does not process that kind of information

* Visit is a one syllable word, pronounced "Vist"

*People say thank you all the time for things that I don't think deserve thanks. If someone knocks on the door to the office, you can say "thank you" and they come in. A perfectly acceptable response to "how is your day going" is "thank you". Super-polite or lazy?

*Introducing someone as "son of the soil" or "daughter of the soil" never gets old and you can use that monniker for all 20 people in an hour long introduction of everyone present

*You can greet someone an unlimited number of times a day. It's not just the first time you see them that you do the whole "Hello, how are you". You do it every time they enter a room.

More as I notice it...

As promised:

*"Can't" seems to mean "don't want to" "shouldn't" and "won't". Example "Ugandans can't visit Sipi Falls" "Why" "Because they have seen it so many times already" "Is there a limit on how many times you can go?" "It cannot be interesting for us" "Oh"

*"serious" seems to mean "professional" "competent" and "sane" and being called "not serious" is a major insult.

Ebola Gossip

I had a long drive to Mbale from Kampala and got to talking about a great many things with my driver Moses. One of them was Ebola. Right after I left Uganda last time there was an Ebola outbreak that was reported on weirdly in the US and I wanted the inside scoop-- boy did I go to the right place. Apparently Moses is a driver for an agency that was actively involved in the response so he was up to date. Here's what I learned.

Once upon a time there was a man in Kibaale who got in a fight with his wife. He went West to the DRC to find himself a new wife. "I'll show her!" I imagine him saying. He picked up a lovely lady in DRC and brought her back to his family in Kibaale and she started to get really sick. Witchcraft! Everyone assumed the first wife had cast a spell on the second and was making her sick. The police arrested her and threw her in jail. In the mean time, sick new wife infected everyone NOT in jail in the family with Ebola and they all died. And the moral is, don't take a second wife, she could have Ebola. Moral two: there are some upsides to being accused of witchcraft- like unintentional isolation during an epidemic.

Anyway, the less dramatic part of the story involved the death count which was almost entirely from that one family (excepting the first wife) plus two health workers. One of the health workers worked for the organization in Kampala where Moses drives his vehicle. So a colleague of Moses's drove this infected person to Kampala (and that's where the weird headlines about Ebola in the capital came from) but she died before arriving and they did a U-turn and when back to Kibaale--- the hospital wasn't super interested in letting an Ebola-ridden dead body out of the car.

At this point my question was "it wasn't this car, right?". It wasn't. But Moses has had to go back and forth to Kibaale to drive epidemiologists and aid workers who don't want to spend the weekends there.  Super comforting. I made some awkward comment like "well, here's hoping you wash your hands a lot!" and then stopped asking questions.