Doin Jinja Up Right, Days I and II

There are funny sorts of birds here. Funny sorts of plants too. Lots of phenotypic similarities, but then quirky differences that your brain can’t process properly so you’re left with a bottom-up understanding of the thing itself. The bogandelias (sp?) grow as muffin-shrubs, ganja is free growing all over the place, the chickens and roosters don’t have feathers on their heads, there are these pterodactyl ‘Maribu Storks’ that stand at about a 10 year old’s height with their long backwards legs and a huge pink testicle sac dangling from their gaping beaks and then the turkeys: a vomit inducing cross between peacocks and those penis men from Star Wars (JEST knows what I’m talkin bout).
But the children, oh man, these children are beautiful. The Ugandan skin is dark, real unsweetened baking chocolate dark; the Bugandan people (mostly Bantu I think) don’t have those wide, cheekbone heavy faces…more compact, succinct, focused and proud. The children are much smaller than kids in America, little bodies and little hands and these big weepy eyes…how I’m going to avoid going broke giving them all hundreds of shillings I don’t know. There isn’t a lot of that whole ‘electricity thang’ around here either, so the prospect of being indoors isn’t too enticing for those under 12 or so. The smaller boys and girls dance around in their front yards or in the streets making spazzy embarrassed movements, throwing whatever’s in their hands into the sky, laugh-screaming, “Muzungu, Muzungo!!” as this band of 8 really American Americans (think Sarah H, Sarah I, Shannon H, Shannon C, Annie and Andrew) stroll through the red colored streets.

Today we entered the market for the first time. I was asked yesterday by a very educated, very jaded Ugandan woman if this was my first time in a ‘developing country’…it was a caddy cold kind of comment, one I wanted to shrug off with a “yeah…so.” But this afternoon I realized it isn’t quite as easy of an in as I’d thought. The avenues between the vendors in the market are about a meter wide, just long enough for two small toddlers to clasp their begging fingers from opposite sides. The vendors shoulder up next to each other hiking prices for the Wellingtons and the pineapples, the plantains and the underpants…it isn’t aggressive like Mexican markets, but it’s a different kind of heavy…just so many things I suppose. I’m not sure yet.

We continue to tip toe into Luganda; it’s the predominant dialect spoken in central Africa, in the Buganda kingdom. My organization is in Busoka Kingdom where they speak Lusoka, I’m told they’re similar. It’s not a very sticky language, as in my brain doesn’t seem to want to let it stick. But im not scared to practice in public and the reception is namely positive, so alas, I’ll persevere.

According to our ‘Culture Shock’ session with the FSD coordinators I’m experiencing the Honeymoon stage. As in the euphoric high stage that peaks right before we inevitable plunge into the depths of the inferior/angry/depressed/inadequate/misunderstood/dark phase. As was explained by our PC Jen, ‘you’ll all experience it, just uh, just make a list of all the things you hate about home. That oughta get you movin back up the ladder !’ I wouldn’t say I’m homesick, I just wish home could experience this too; I guess I feel a bit detached…but I am half a continent and an ocean away and its 1000 shillings/minute to call home, so that seems reasonable.
But here's a goat for my mom.