Life, Lately....

For anyone on a carb-free or protein-free diet, Uganda is not the place to go to satiate your culinary desires.  Traditional food is all about carbs and protein.  I hardly ever leave a meal not feeling super stuffed and heavy.  Let me describe what a typical meal for me is (note: I don't eat animals, but if you do, add something like fish, chicken or goat to the combo)......

1. a plate of carbs consisting of rice, sweet potato, "Irish" potatoes (a.k.a. regular old Russet potatoes, which were brought by the Spanish conquistadors to Europe from Latin America and spread to places like Ireland, where blight caused famine, and was taken by the British colonialists to Africa, where they became nationally identified as "Irish"), matooke (boiled and mashed bananas/plantains) and posho (cassava flour mixed with hot water and solidified into a white thick blob)

and

2. one or two "sauces", usually groundnut (a.k.a. peanut) sauce, peas in a sauce, or beans.

Usually the carb portion of the meal will have at least two of those things, or in a restaurant it could easily contain ALL of those things.  The peanut sauce is also nothing like a Thai peanut sauce, it's a light greyish brown sauce made from peanuts.  I think they roast the peanuts first in a saucepan and then mash and boil or boil and mash....not really sure.  You can buy the paste in the markets, so all you have to do is add water and heat.

Sometimes, if you're lucky, you get some greens.  They have collared greens which camouflage under a totally different name here, and some other type of red and green leafy plant that I don't think I've ever seen before.  These are usually boiled to death and not really seasoned.  But no worries, just smother it in groundnut sauce or beans.  Oh, and there's also cabbage.  Although, I wonder why they don't call the cabbage "Irish"?

This meal will cost you about $1USD.  Maybe it's more if you want meat.

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Now that I've moved into my own flat, I cook more for myself.  I've been going (as in, I've gone twice) to the market in Wandegeya.  For about 10,000 UGX (Ugandan shillings) I'm loaded with produce for at least a week....that's roughly $4USD.  Staples that you can find in the market: tomatoes, red onions, avocados, collared greens, the mystery greens, green beans, potatoes, cabbage, garlic, pineapple, bananas, passion fruit, beans, lentils and eggs (usually the most expensive part of my groceries, running about 6,500 UGX for more than 2 dozen).  That means that for less than $2 I can buy a load of veggies.....AWESOME!

A nice thing about the market is that the ladies there may laugh at my Muzungu-ness, but they never try to rip me off with their prices.  The prices are what the prices are....muzungu or mubuntu (human) or muganda (person of the Baganda tribe). 

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I'm still trying to understand the Ugandan sense of humour.  One of the things that I've noticed is that they laugh at everything.  I mean, I'm someone who laughs a lot at just about any thing and sometimes totally inappropriately, but this is a whole new level of stomach exercising laughter that I don't really follow.  Maybe it's just an expression of agreeableness? 

For example, I walk into the office (the Law Faculty at Makerere) and greet Gillian in Luganda and they all laugh, then they ask me how I am and I say Ndi Bulungi (I'm good) and they laugh.  Then they ask me about my bracelet and I say, it's just a string with safety pins and a key on it.  They laugh.  They ask me where I got it.  I say I made it.  They laugh.  They ask me what I've eaten since I've been here, so I list the foods.  They laugh.  They ask me if I like it.  I say it's okay and they laugh.  I don't understand yet why they're laughing or what's so funny about seemingly quotidian language, so I just kind of smile in confusion.

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Wandegeya is what I call the student ghetto.  It's the neighborhood just east of Makerere University, so loads of students live there and hang out there, shop there and eat there.  It's a ton of little shops and markets with all kinds of little corridors and pathways that wreak of unheavenly smells at times and can get super gnarly in the rains, but is fun to wander through on a nice dry day.  The people are friendly and will talk to you, ask you what you're looking for and where you're going.  They're super helpful about telling you where you can find things....which is crucial because the place is like a medina filled with bazaars.

Supposedly almost all of the land is owned by one guy (no idea who, but in my mind he's a slumlord with a fancy car with dark tinted windows and super polished black shoes), who rents out the little shacks and buildings.  This is partly why the place is so run down and never really improves.  Some of the land he's given away to his people and some he's sold, probably also to people he knows.  In some ways, I feel like it's a microcosm of greater Uganda.  Ruled by a slumlord who owns nearly all the principal assets, which he shares with his family and close friends, although most of it he hoards and won't let go of.  The place is run down and he does nothing to fix it even though he completely profits off of it, and the people live their lives and accept things as they are; so as it goes, life goes on.  This is my new barrio by way of domicile.

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My new apartment is nice.  It's got two bedrooms and is fully furnished.  I had to get some kitchen things, sheets and towels and things, but for the most part...it's got what a body needs.  Best of all, it's RENT-FREE!!!!  I can't believe how lucky I got.  Christine is the lady who comes and cleans it once a week.  I pay her something like $10/week, which for the laundry alone is almost worth it.  You know you have to hand wash your clothes here yeah?  I HATE doing the laundry as it is with machines and all, which means hand washing is a whole other level of torture.  So, Christine is like my new best friend. 

Christine is the single parent of Kristabela (no idea how to spell it), a young quiet child.  For some reason I thought she was 4 years old, but I must be wrong because she's already in school.  Christine is hoping that she can find someone to sponsor Kristabela's education.  I want to tell her that I'm not like the other Fulbrighters that have come through this apartment in the past (all lecturers int he U.S. with real salaries and publications to their name)....I'm a recent graduate of my 2nd law degree and have made a whopping oh, maybe $500 max, in the last 5 years.  I'm not exactly in a position to fund a child's education.  I'm not even in a position to fund my own education!  But I know that Christine wants a different life for Kristabela.  So, originally I was going to say that I didn't need a maid or that maybe she could come just every other week...but then I realized that she needs this job and I'm not paying rent, so what am I doing being such a stinge.  So deal is, I'm an expat living in a sweet apartment with a maid who cleans and does my laundry for me every week.  Bizarre.

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Yesterday, I met the neighbors...went around to the three other flats and introduced myself.  "Hi, my name is Elaine, I just moved into A2."  They'd all noticed that there was someone new and were going to come by and introduce themselves as well.  These are university flats, so most of the people are university employees, lecturers or staff, married to or the child of one of those people.  The woman on the top floor, Ann, is new this year, she teaches entymology in the zoology department.  Then there's Steven and Anni with their two children Cindy and Michael(?) and the dog, who's currently sick, who have a little garden in the backyard that I'm hoping to start a composting pile in.  Below us is Joy and her two nephews, Robert and don't know the other one yet.  Joy is the matriarch of the apartment building, she's the eldest and has been here the longest.  Steven and Anni have been here 13 years, so I can only imagine how long Joy has resided here and how many people she's seen come in and out of these flats.

It's been a year and a half or so since the last Fulbrighter, Tavis and his wife Arshiya, lived here (I know this because I met them at orientation and they told us about this place), so I think the neighbors are happy to see someone here.  There is one simple rule....everyone cleans the area in front of their door and the stairs directly below.  The other neighbors keep the front area clean and there is a whole routine with hallway lights and locking the front gate that I'm just beginning to learn.

I came home at nearly 11pm on Saturday night because I'd gone to Jinja with Shaima and her brother, who's visiting and then traveling back with her through Turkey to the U.S., and we had dinner there so it was late when we got back and the front gate was locked.  I knew there was a padlock on the gate but all the other times it just hung there and the gate was always open.  Not this time and I had no key.  Of the 4 keys they gave me, two work....one for the top lock of my front door and one for the balcony padlock.  The other two keys are useless....I've tried them on both the main gate and the second lock on my door.  So, actually, the only way to keep my front door closed is to lock it with the key hanging in the keyhole....otherwise it just pops open and stays there about 6 inches ajar.  Joy said she'd cut me a key for the front gate, so hopefully I won't have to be banging on the padlock late in the night much longer.

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There's something in the water.  Seriously, I see it.  I've been boiling my water here.....not just like, take the water to a boil and turn the heat off, but like boil for minutes straight until I'm convinced that most things in it are dead.  Then I turn off the element and let it cool and move it into a glass pitcher in my fridge.  I swear it tastes slightly better when it's cool.  Thing is though that it's never really a nice clear water color, it's always got a colored tinge to it and there's always this light film of something floating on the top with little bits of who knows what floating around inside.  It's a little unsettling for someone who's grown up with water potable from the tap; fresh, clean and clear.....even fluorided (I might've made that word up) for our dental well-being.  I've been drinking it and feel okay so far and I've asked Ugandans and they say it's fine as long as you boil it....so I know that this is totally psychological, I'm sure the water's safe.  But, I'm telling you....something's in the water.

A couple people have suggested that I just buy the bottled water in the stores.  It's so cheap here, I think you can get a liter for less than a quarter sometimes.  Thing is, I've got this thing against bottled water and it's not just about the plastic bottle, although that's a serious nightmare in and of itself.  It's everything about clean freshwater.  Think about how many lawyers, activists and citizens have struggled for potable free public water in the U.S.  For what, when you turn around and buy privatized water that's not even of comparable quality?  It's sad enough that our water has to be so heavily treated these days.  I remember when I used to take my bottle and fill it up off the springs of Yosemite and the water trickling off the rocks on the side of the trail.  Now they say we can't do that anymore.

And what about here in Uganda?  I'm taken back to the Greening of Water Law in Africa conference that I went to a week or so ago.  Most of this country is water rich, but not even here in the capital is there potable water running out of the taps.  Lots of people don't even have taps....they carry the yellow jerrycans daily to fetch water from the wells or a neighbor's spigot (and don't be confused that this is just your generous friendly neighborhood humanitarian, they are selling this water for money).  And I'm talking about Kampala, forget about upcountry in the villages where most of the people still live.  Even the rich people with their own wells find them poisoned or contaminated sometimes because fact is, world's waters are all connected.  You can build the nicest house you want with the best view in town and the highest wall and the scariest armed gunmen to keep all the rifraff out, but in the end, the rich and the poor drink from the same source. 

I guess we could take the "bandaid the problem" approach and purify and treat all our waters....but wouldn't it be nice if we could still drink the water straight off the mountain?  If our waters were clean from the source and not just from the tap?  But here, I'd be so happy if the water was just clean from the tap....

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Today I met Sophia, the pro-bono lawyer for AMANI.  AMANI means "peace" in Swahili.  It's the name of the company that Lutale, Jamal, Robinson and friends want to start to create a local peace park and peace center (research institute, interpretation center, cultural center, community center, etc.).  Lutale at some point was put in touch with Todd, who founded International Peace Park Expeditions and came down to Costa Rica and Panama with me on my field research trip to Parque Internacional La Amistad, that will soon become an experiential learning course at UPeace (just to pimp Cory's awesome new video: http://www.vimeo.com/16940715 and the upcoming course, check out the website, http://www.peaceparkexpeditions.org/)...and Todd put him in touch with me, since I was coming out here to Uganda.

Sophia and I are working on the Memorandum for AMANI and the Articles of Incorporation and I may also recruit her as a research assistant, looking up the environmental laws of Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC.  This is actually an idea from a former Fulbright student here in Uganda.  He made a comment at orientation about how the Fulbright grant money is for people to do research, but a lot of people end up kind of saving a lot of it for themselves to use afterwards.  So, he thought the ethical thing to do was to spend the entire grant in-country on research related things....like research assistants and a research manager.  It makes such sense to me, plus it's kind of like the Christine situation.  You can live off of so little here that for a period of 10 months, I actually have relative wealth.  So, why not turn some of it around and channel it through people, especially when they're helping me out anyway (whether it's laundry or research)?  It's kind of like I get a grant and turn around and parcel out a bunch of microgrants.  I may not walk out of here with anything in the bank, but at least I will have done the work and research that I want to accomplish here and maybe even have helped some other people along the way.