Hot Date with Kindle

I had a hot date with my Kindle the other night at the Hotel Restaurant and decided to up the romance by reading Khalil Gibran's The Prophet. So in the spirit of his poetic wisdom, I offer my contributions based on today:

On Playlists: she said "one shall never make a playlist for consumption in public spaces that is fewer than 4 songs long on repeat"

On Meeting Americans in Hotel Bars: she said "beware, sometimes said conversation partners are mildly racist and speak loudly"

On Turn Down Service: she said "let us not be fooled into thinking a person capable of renting a hotel room is incapable of turning the corner of her blanket down, but thanks for the chocolate"

On Tiny Short-Haul Flights: she said "let thou always be vegetarian"

On Exit Row Seating: she said "lucky are those who obtain these prized spots, let one not be an asshole by getting offended when the flight attendant confirms that you speak English, it's her job and is a totally reasonable question"

On Kenyatta Intl Airport: she said "architect be doomed"

Not quite as profound as Khalil...

F bombs

I'm back in Uganda and back chatting with taxi drivers. In this case, I was a little thrown off because in the same conversation my Taxi driver both seamlessly dropped an f-bomb and told me "oh, that totally sucks!". My initial reaction was to ask "wow, so you hang out with a lot of Americans, huh?"  It wasn't until that moment that I realized that people here don't really curse. That makes sense- cursing in your non-mother tongue is not easy-- I'm not awesome at spontaneous cursing in French or Arabic (okay, I got some good practice in Arabic)-- and perhaps marks the cherry on top of full fluency. But also, people are just way more polite here. So when I heard him swear, my instinct was "American influence". And I was right.

Apparently he served in Iraq.  I had forgotten that Uganda was among the "coalition of the willing" and this taxi driver was one of the 10,000 Ugandans deployed to Iraq (I did my homework when I got home). Crazy world.

Auntie

One thing I love about Indian and African culture is that little children call people they meet “Auntie” or “Uncle”. You don’t have to be related, just older and of the associated gender. Kids don’t have to remember everyone’s names, just a term of endearment. This strikes me as lovely- I feel instantly connected to a little kid when he calls me Auntie.

Another thing that I’ve noticed kids do in Morocco and Uganda is to present themselves and greet a whole room. They enter, start working clockwise and handshake or kiss every person in the room. Hello Auntie. Hello Uncle. My colleague’s son who was 4 already had it down. Love it.

Be a marine!

I spent one afternoon with my colleague and his friend and 1.5 year old son. We did some fun budget review while playing with the child which I of course loved even if it mostly involved the kid in my lap briefly chewing on my food before returning it to my plate and strangling me while grasping my shiny necklace.  Small prices to pay for some toddler time. I’d venture to say that all mundane business tasks should be livened up with a little child.

Anyway, the point of this story is that the kid’s Dad kept saying he wants his kid to grow up to be a Marine. I assumed there was some Ugandan Marine Corps or something but actually, he aspires to have a son who joins the American Marine Corps. This struck me as odd- it’s rare that you hear about people wanting their progeny to grow up to fight for another country. Most of all, my inner liberal-arts-free-spirit wanted to be sure that the child wasn’t stifled by his father’s vicarious aspirations. Don’t you think we should rule out that he’s not the next Mozart, Gandhi, Monet, Dalai Lama, Mandela, Einstein, or Pasteur before we ship him right into the Marine Corps?

$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.

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.