Dusty

Dusty is the name of the used car I just bought.  Ever since we left Kampala, it has been a dusty shade of reddish yellow.  Something like the color of this savanna bush that I've been spending most of the last days roaming around.  I don't know if this poor little car knew what was going to happen to it after I bought it.  Basically, as soon as the car was out of the mechanic, I took it into the field.

The ominous foreshadowing that this wasn't going to be easy on little Dusty was the battery failure the day before we were scheduled to leave.  A friend of mine was flying in from Boston to join me for a week or so of adventures in the parks (I mean, rigorous academic research) and the plan was to leave the morning after he arrived.  Dusty had other plans in mind.  Basically, the car wouldn't start the Friday before we left.  It had been parked at the UWA headquarters for two days, no movement.  Something was draining its battery.  When they tried to jumpstart the car for me, the cables sparked - something was wrong.  That night, my car that had just come out of the mechanic's the day before...went back to the mechanic's.

Godfrey, the UWA mechanic told me he'd call me with news at 10am the next morning and hopefully the car would be good to go.  He knew I had a long journey ahead of me...all the UWA guys knew that I was worried now, so they kept telling me I'd bought a good car.  The next morning at 10:03am, Godfrey calls me and says the car is ready.  Some fuses had gone bad and were draining out the battery, he'd replaced them, so they should be good now.

That day, we loaded up the car and headed out west for Toro-Semliki Wildlife Reserve where we'd stay with Paul, the Law Enforcement Warden, for the next few days.

 Paul and me in front of his house at Toro Semliki Wildlife Reserve

Next shocker, gas prices.  Fuel here is more expensive than it is in the US, I think, although I'm not up to date on fuel costs in the States these days.  Without doing any mental math or conversions, a liter of petrol is ~3200-3250UGX (I think the exchange rate is somewhere around 2300UGX/$1USD these days).  So, about $1.40/L.  At 60L, a full tank can cost me about $84...this is for a little rav-4.  They say my car should get about 6-8km/L.  Anyway, point is, travel is not cheap out here.

Not to mention, all the costs of service and repairs.  Since I left Kampala, I have been to two different mechanics in Fort Portal (Stitch & Sew and Shell, both of which service UWA's vehicles) on three different days.  First time because my front right tire kept losing air.  So Shell patched the tire while Stella (the Community Conservation Ranger I was going around different outposts doing interviews with) and I had lunch with Moses, the Warden in Charge at Semuliki NP.

 Stella, the Community Conservation Ranger at Isunga, Kibale N.P.

Then the next day Stitch & Sew tried to fix this foot block thing for me, discovering meanwhile that this metal plate in the bottom front of the car (helps protect the undercarriage in front I presume) was loose and needed to be attached.  So they fashioned clamps and welded them tight to the front cattle pusher (that's what I call the metal bars in the front for lack of a better technical name).  When they did this they pulled the car up on a ramp and discovered that the Z-link on the left side of the car was disconnected and basically tied in place with a rubber strap and that the CV joint drive shaft boot on that same side was broken, both the inner and outer.  They welded the Z-link and replaced the drive shaft boots.

 Bending metal to make a clamp

 Mechanics at work

 Tools

 Stitch and Sew: they say an old pumpkin is not easy to uproot

All the while, I was trying to understand what was going on, so I was covered in dirt and grease and quickly becoming friends with the mechanics.  It was election day so thankfully I had no plans, I spent the whole day at the mechanic.  When they finally sent me off, I treated myself to a drive up to Ndali Lodge on the top of a hill overlooking three crater lakes, then made my way back to my own little banda on the edge of crater lake Nyabikere just as the sun set.

 Garden at Ndali Lodge

 Crater lake

Crater lake in the distance

 Swimming pool at Ndali Lodge

 Ndali Lodge

 Crater lake in the distance

Two days later, I was back at Shell.  This morning, I went out to the parking lot to discover that the front right tire was completely flat....not just low, dead flat.  A guy at the Mountains of the Moon Hotel had to catch a boda boda to fetch the mechanic with tools to switch the flat out for the spare tire so we could drive to the Shell station.  The mechanic tried to do a simple repair on the tire only to find it losing more air.  He took the tire off the rim and there it was, at least a one inch gash all the way through.  He told me he could patch it but I would need to get a tube to help maintain the pressure.....a tube....for my tubeless tire.

I was really starting to worry.  This is just one week in!  I still have 4 weeks to go!  Of bush and savanna and forest and rocky dirt roads....I can't have the tires going on me like this.  Especially since I'm critically missing a jack for the car and the spare, well the spare is hardly in good condition.  Besides, all these repairs and parts and things are starting to cost up.  I can't afford to be at the mechanic every other day with some new thing falling apart or needing to be replaced.  I was beginning to think that I had bought myself a car of woes and bills.  Not so trusty Dusty.

I'm going to monitor the tires and pray for the best.  For now, I'm driving slowly and trying not to rip through the bush or these rocky roads too harsh.  But yikes, I can't say I'm happy to be owning a car right now.  Even if it gets me out to these outposts and remote places. 

Welcome to the World of Consumerism and Responsibility

Tuesday, February 8th, I made the biggest purchase of my life.  I mean "biggest" in so many ways.

1.  I have never spent so much money on any one thing, except for education, but that's an awesome intangible thing that no one can ever take away from a person (except for maybe by degenerative mental illness or something)

2.  I have never owned any one thing that made me feel so (unwantingly) responsible, with so many legal implications and what feels like a gajillion strings attached

3.  I rarely purchase things that are not easily carried, granted this thing will move on its own and with all my worldly possessions in it, but usually the stuff I buy fits in my backpack, a large suitcase, a guitar case, on my body, something of that sort..maybe this is tied to that overwhelming feeling of unwanted responsibility

For 8.5 million Ugandan shillings, I bought myself a 2-door black 1998 Toyota Rav-4.  I still feel completely strange about it.

This purchase was no small feat either.  It took nearly a month and the time and efforts of many people.  First, I had to put the feelers out....ask different people about buying a car in Uganda.  Feel out prices, models, and all the various strings attached (insurance, licenses, selling the car when I leave, etc. etc.).  This way, people were aware that I was at least theoretically interested and I was doing my research on the possibilities that exist and what it would seriously involve.

Then, after some contemplation and various discussions, I decided to make the inquiries real.  I notified different friends that I wanted to buy a car, please help me look.  I told them that I wanted a small short chassis (what they call 1-door here) 4x4 in the range of 4-6 million shillings.  4-6 million shillings would buy me a junker and all kinds of grief probably, but I had to start low or they'd start bringing me stuff in the double digit millions....something I was not willing to pay.

One day, Boaz took me to a bond lot (where car owners drop off their car to have a middleman sell it for them for a cut) to look at a bunch of different cars, mostly Rav-4s.  At this point I learned that there are only so many of the type of car I'm looking for....Suzuki Escudo, Mitsubishi something, Pajero, or Toyota Rav-4.  I was told Pajeros overheat and lose value quickly, it won't sell well.  Mitsubishis...I can't remember why, but they're also no good....also bad resale value.  Suzukis and Toyotas are probably the most reliable vehicles, but Toyotas have the advantage of being very commonplace in Uganda (meaning, I can get it repaired and serviced all over the country, no problem and people like them, so it will sell quickly and for a good price).  Suzukis are more rare and harder to sell.  So it was set....we were looking for Rav-4s....now I was also starting to talk in the range of 6-8 million shillings.

Eventually, I recruited Lutale's help.  I asked him to look at cars for me....I didn't want the sellers to see me.  Once they know a "muzungu" wants to buy the car, they quote high and refuse to negotiate.  They think money grows on trees in our cold countries of fat lonely people (ahh, stereotypes).  Lutale had his friend Abdallah help and the next day, they found the car that I eventually bought.  They negotiated the price down from 11 million to 9 and then drove it over to Makerere for me to see.  It looked nice enough to me, but I needed a professional's opinion.

The next day, we took it over to the UNICEF offices and Mark had his driver take us to their mechanic.  Islam, a kind of intimidating looking old man who'd probably scare me if he ever smiled, had his mechanics give it a quick look-over.  They reported back that it was in fairly decent condition, the airbag light was on and the back tires need replacing, but it was generally good.  Islam told me he'd value the car at 8-8.5 million.

I tried to get an idea for what the airbag problem could be and learned that it could be anything from a small wire misconnection to the airbags are gone to the computer has serious issues and this is just symptomatic.  With this information, I told the seller maaaaaybe I'd pay 7 million for it.  My argument....it's worth 8, but it's got all these things that have to be fixed, so with all those costs...if I buy it at 8, fix it, in the end I will have spent what it's worth...not to mention, we don't even know how much the airbag problem could cost.  This got us to 8.5 million.

Then we took it over to the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), where I had their transport people take a look at it for me.  Festo, the transport captain, looked it over, had his mechanic look it over, had some of the drivers look it over; meanwhile, they murmured amongst themselves, jibbering away in Luganda.  I had no idea what was going on, but I fed Festo some of the back story....how we started at 9 mil, went to the UNICEF mechanic and they said this and that and now we're at 8.5.  Festo pitched 7.5 as the guys poked around at things under the hood.  They told me all the main things were there though.  The body is good, the engine is good, it's just little things here and there....he pulled me aside and asked me if I had the money, said I could buy it at 8.

The seller was stubborn though, he stayed at 8.5 for days.  They had fixed the airbag problem, said it was just the wiring.  Eventually Festo did a quick look around the market for me and told me I should buy it.  Even at 8.5.  I was getting slightly frustrated by this time anyway.  I'd been in Kampala for nearly 3 weeks, when I'd hoped to be back in the field right away, and it seemed the car was more trouble than it was going to be helpful.  I just wanted a way to move through the parks!  All this effort was overwhelmingly discouraging.  So I did it, I called Abdallah and Lutale and told them I had the cash, let's buy the car.

The next day Abdallah and the seller came to meet me at UWA.  They took another look at the car, at the papers, at the fat stack of cash that I'd brought tied up in two rubber banded bundles and stuffed into a used envelope come from Benjamin in Germany via the U.S. Embassy's diplomatic pouch and started to fill out the paperwork for me.  Festo, Abdallah and Rodney signed as witnesses, counted and paid over the cash, which Innocent (the seller) tucked into his left sock and pulled his tight jean leg over and then lastly, I nervously signed while Abdallah took photos on his phone camera because my little Freecycle hand-me-down had decided to stop working again.

Photos of this momentous moment taken by Abdallah on his camera phone:

 Witnesses sign

 I sign!

Post-signing and feeling awkward.

There I was with some papers, 8.5 million shillings no longer burning a hole through my pocket, and a car sitting out in the parking lot.  I never felt more uncertain of what I had done.

I was unsure whether or not I'd made the right decision.  Was I really one of those?  A car owner?  Had I gotten myself into more trouble than I was bargaining for?  Not to mention, paying huge chunks of money for all that grief?  Cars come with all kinds of issues, costs, accidents, repairs and servicing, fuel and emissions, not to mention eventually, inevitably, the thing will come to its resting place, leaching into the soils, back to where it was ripped out of the bowels of this beautiful Earth.  I never thought I'd be buying a car, let alone, buy my first car in Uganda!

But there it is, sitting at the UWA office in the safely guarded parking lot, waiting for me...bizarre. 

This Saturday, I will take it for its first test drive.....a good 7-8 hour roadtrip to Semuliki National Park out on the western border where the Semliki River winds its way, dividing Uganda from the DRC.  For a month it will live in the parks with me, amongst the lions, the leopards, the elephants and kobs, the chimps and the mountain gorillas.

I think it needs a name.

We come into the world naked and we will leave the world naked

Two somehow related events.

My friend Lutale's sister's life has been sadly, unexpectedly and abruptly taken in a boda (motorcycle taxi) accident.  I'm not sure exactly what happened, when or where, all I know is that I couldn't get a hold of Lutale for some time when I finally received news from his friend Abdallah that they were in the village for the burial of Lutale's sister who had just died.  Today, I found out that it was a motorcycle accident and against all hopes, she didn't make it.

Sorry bambi.

In times like these, I believe that no amount of words can suffice, heal or fix things.  It is what it is.  The circle of life gives and takes.  The universe acts in mysterious ways.  It's heavy news and I can't help but feel like lately, all the news I get is about death and tragedy.  You think it's true what they say?  How we must know sadness to know happiness, to know darkness to know light? 

One afternoon somewhere on a bumpy dirt road between Lake Bunyonyi and Mgahinga Gorilla NP, I had a conversation with Alessandro and our driver, Gorsham.  Gorsham was arguing that evil people and atrocities happen for a reason - so that we might learn from them and so that other people can stop them.  In his view, genocide must happen in order for us to learn that genocide is bad and for some part of humanity to have its opportunity, its shot at destiny, to fight genocide, so that perhaps genocide will not happen again.  God makes some people evil so that God may make some people good. 

Typical to my contrariness and love for argument, I disagreed.  Without even getting into the whole religious aspect of his view, I will not agree that we must all experience genocide to know that it is a horrible thing that should not be permitted.  I have never been privy to witnessing such an atrocity, I mean, yes...in my lifetime various genocides have been committed around the world....but not by machete or AK-47 in my hands, in front of my face (minus media, of course), to my very family members.  And yet, I can say definitively with every cell and sub-cellular particle of my being that it is wrong and should be prevented by all means possible. 

Never again, as they say in Rwanda.  I've been told that in Kinyarwanda, "Never Again," actually means "again and again and again".  What this might mean for life and the universe, intrigues and perplexes me; but, I'm sure it will make for some interesting discussion in times to come.

Lutale's sister's death....for what?  Is Gorsham right?  So that we might learn something?  To heed the warnings about taking bodas?  I'm lucky I survived an accident with a scarred up knee and a healthy bit of fear.  This fear fed by the hour and a half of horror stories rattled off to me by my friends in the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) transport office about motorcycle accidents, animals chasing motorcycles through the parks and their riders up trees, people assaulting or killing riders to steal their bikes, and so on.  All this to lead me to my second bit of news.....

I'm buying a car.

Today's the day, I'm handing over 8.5 million Ugandan shillings to some guy with a green log book and some transfer papers for a small 2-door (they call it 1-door here, 1 on each side) 1998 Toyota Rav-4.  My first car. 

I'm still in a state of semi-disbelief.  I never thought I'd be the kind to buy a car.  What I really wanted was a motorcycle.  Open road, two wheels, wind in my hair, not to mention it's way cheaper as a means of transport and fuel would cost less.  Or maybe I should say, what I really want is to never have to buy a vehicle and to just have awesome public transport everywhere I go.  But in a world all-too-influenced by automobile manufacturers, all these events in my life, the accident, the UWA stories, Lutale's sister's death....I feel like the universe has something else in mind for me.  So soon, I will be the awkward owner of a small 4x4 that with a couple new tires and a complete servicing, I will take out to the parks in a heartbeat.  I'm itching to be back out in the field.  That, and I'm becoming slightly concerned that I don't have enough time!

Time, that funny people-made abstraction.  It's not just that I'm nearly 1/3 of the way through my Fulbright, but it's also that I'm ever so vividly aware that life is a fragile thing.  Every day, species extinct, gone forever.  Every day, individuals pass on to some other form of existence.  Every day, must be lived.

"For only this actual moment is life."
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Tainted Unions: Conflict minerals and life partnership

Rangers are still getting attacked in the Virungas.  This is the last correspondence I received:

"I know the man in Virunga will not have much time and interest. They are fully busy, there was another rebel attack yesterday and a ranger killed, another seriously injured." (Feb. 1st, 2011)

A week ago it was Dara's birthday.  We've hung out twice now; appropriately, once on my birthday and once on her birthday.  For Dara's birthday we went to dinner at David and Alexis' apartment here in Kampala.  The two are engaged and working on compiling a ring - bits and pieces of places they want to go.  One of the things that they mentioned was some rare mineral from the DRC.  This peaked my interest, so I asked them what the name of the mineral is.  They couldn't remember, something they use in computers or something like that.

You mean....coltan?!

Of course, I couldn't let this go.  Here I am getting news about rangers and people dying, women getting raped and civilians displaced by the millions in the Virungas and this nice couple wants to set off their marriage with a Blood Diamond style Conflict Mineral....can't be.

This couple, so happily in love, works for UNICEF and have lived in different parts of Africa for a handful or so years; they must at least in part think that they're out here doing some good in one way or another.  I couldn't let them be another part of the problem.  Another willfully ignorant consumer, party to a reprehensible violent conflict.

I say willfully because most of us who have grown up in North Atlantic countries and their Pan-Oceanic analogs (i.e., Japan, Australia, New Zealand, etc.) are relatively highly educated with an incredible amount of access to information....and yet, we live these insular ignorant lives, we are the force that is so much greater than all of those who want to break endless poverty cycles, live in a "world" free of wars (and I use the term "world" in the completely subjective sense that we each inhabit completely different worlds, despite overlaps here and there....let me show you my world), walk for water and firewood without getting raped, over and over and over....when is it ever over?

That's one thing that I think we all have a say in.  Forget that the conflict is seemingly so far away....Afghanistan, DRC, Tunisia, Cambodia, Egypt, Cote d'Ivoire, Israel, Palestine, Mexico, the list goes on.  Globalization says it's not.  We are all by mere participation in global consumption, markets and trading, a close and intimate ally to extreme violence, human rights abuses, arms trades, trafficking (of humans and natural resources), not to mention...ecocide.

In the U.S., we've been dumbed down to think that democracy means voting, maybe once a year, punch a hole in a card and you've fulfilled your civic duty, pat yourself on the back and call yourself a good citizen, Patriot even.  But, now they say there are other ways to vote.  Three times a day with the food you eat (where's it come from, how's it made, who's your farmer?), every time you make a commercial transaction, every second your money sits in a bank and they're off investing it in massive hydroelectric projects, massive logging concessions, oil drilling in some eco-fragile region with disenfranchised populations, you get the point.

So as rangers die and happy couples plan their lives together, all I can do is hope that somehow connections are being made and we're using all that privilege, education and access for something....preferably something good.

Arm yourself with information, demand peace and dignity for all life on Earth.

Some resources on Coltan and Conflict in the DRC dredged up from the first page of a simple google search (a.k.a. you can probably find better stuff than this if you care to):

- Guns, Money and Cell Phones: http://www.globalissues.org/article/442/guns-money-and-cell-phones
- Coltan and Conflict in the DRC: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/RMOI-7P73BC?OpenDocument
- Conflict Mining 101: Coltan, the Congo Act and How You Can Help: http://planetgreen.discovery.com/work-connect/conflict-minerals-congo-act.html

- Coltan Mining in the DRC: http://www.gesi.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=PoQTN7xPn4c%3D&tabid=60
- Coltan Exploitation in the Eastern DRC: http://www.iss.co.za/pubs/Books/Scarcity+Surfeit/Chapter4.pdf