Kapture in Kampala, Part II: The Ledge of Glory

When we last left or intrepid but increasingly annoyed heroine, her visa debit card had been heartlessly snatched by a greedy ATM machine and was being held hostage until the end of the so-called "Easter Monday" holiday.  What happened next is a tale of betrayal and redemption, the story of one woman's rise from poverty and rides on escalators.  And like most stories from this part of the world, it ends with vomit on a bus.
I wasn't sure what to do with myself on Monday.  My traveling companions headed up to Jinja for two days of adventures on the Nile; I decided to try to join them on for bungee jumping if I was able to get my card back in a timely fashion.  The common sense nodule of my brain whispered at me that this was unlikely to happen.  I ruthlessly suppressed it.
With very limited funds and no real idea what to do, I went into my default travel mode: aimless walking, people-watching, and caffeine abuse.  Although, caffeine abuse usually results in the walking being aimed toward finding a public toilet.  I have to say, the restrooms at the National Theatre are pretty darn nice, at least by my low and rapidly falling standards.
After a few hours of wandering, I found The Mall.  Even now, I can only speak of it in reverently hushed and capitalized tones.  There was a food court.  There was a movie theater and a bowling alley.  There was a store devoted entirely to lamps.  There was an escalator going up.  There was an escalator going down.  And next door, there was Another Mall.
That afternoon, I was faced with the classic hero's dilemma.  I was very hungry, but also very broke.  I would smell the fried aromas of the food court tempting me, even as I stood outside the National Theatre and read a poster for the musical adaptation of Twelfth Night that was being staged that afternoon.  My food hole was empty, but so was my culture hole, and I only had enough money to satisfy one desire.  I chose culture.  Ugandan traditional dance is nothing like Rwandan traditional dance.  Rwanda is all about the arms and the feet.  Uganda is all about tying a giant piece of fur onto your booty and shaking it.
Tuesday dawned bright and clear and full of the tantalizing hope of getting my card back and going bungee jumping.  The common sense nodule of my brain still under lock and key, I headed out to Barclay's and arrived right as it opened.  I was promptly informed that the ATM fairy had not yet visited, and that I should return at two.  I decided to come back at noon.
Twelve rolled around and found me once more at the bank, where I was told that I could not be given my card because the system was down, and that I should return at two.  At two o'clock sharp, I went through security for a third time, the common sense nodule of my brain quietly being bludgeoned to death by the paranoid fear nodule of brain.  Sure enough, the system was still d own.
So I waited.  By three, paranoid fear had been replaced by indignant annoyance.  I went once more to the ATM lady's desk.  The following conversation happened:
      "Is your system still down?"
      "Yes.  But we have your card."  She holds it up for me to see.
      "But you can't give it to me."
      "No.  The system is down."
      "Why is that a problem?"
      "When the system is down, we cannot photocopy your ID."
      "Can I go out and make a photocopy?"
      "Yes."
Twenty minutes and one more trip through security later, I had my card back.  I resolved to never use a Barclay's AT again.  Fortunately, Kampala is a city of banks, and I quickly fond a KCB that let me use my card, no strings attached.
Obviously, the only thing left to do was go spend my new-found wealth at The Mall(s).  Specifically, at the food court.  It was a good afternoon.  By the time I waddled back to the hostel, I was content with my vacation.
On Wednesday, I decided to while away the morning at the Kasubi Tombs, a museum dedicated to Uganda's still-present monarchy.  Let's just say, it's good to be king.  Later in the day, I met up with my erstwhile traveling companions.  Of course, we went to The Mall(s).  Then we went bowling in our socks.  I choose to believe that my game would have been dramatically improved with the aid of proper footwear.  To cap off the night, we ate dinner at a Korean restaurant with a dizzyingly extensive menu.  I could have eaten the tofu all night.
The only buses going to Rwanda depart at night, so we had all day Thursday to hang out in Kampala.  We went to The Malls.  Steph convinced me that I would be a fool to squander this opportunity to go to the cinema, so we headed to the matinee showing of Man on a Ledge.  The plot is only slightly more complicated than the title might suggest.  Maybe this is merely a side-effect of not having been in a movie theater for 18 months, but I can honestly say that Man on a Ledge was one of the most riveting cinematic experiences of my life.
Suddenly it was night, and after a few minor misadventures at the bus station, we boarded the 10 p.m. GAAGAA bus to Bujumbura, via Kigali.  The roads in Uganda are not as well maintained as the roads in Rwanda.  There are many potholes and no noticeable speed limits.  I went airborne at least half a dozen times.  But maybe I should have stayed in flight, because during one particularly twisty portion of road, my seatmate vomited on my shoes.
Later, when safely back in Kigali, Steph and our channeled our inner monsters in order to text our feelings about the GAAGAA bus experience:

      - "GAAGAA coach had its license revoked in January because of to many fatal crashed.   I'm not that    surprised."

     -"I'm shocked.  I guess I can't read their p-p-p-poker face."

     -"They want your psycho / your vertigo stick / Gonna bounce until your neighbor gets sick. /   Gonna  vom on you / Vom vom vom upon your shoe."

     -"Eh eh, nothing else I can say.  So sit back down where you belong / in the back of the bus / where my thighs feel numb."

There was more, but it's now been lost to eh great inbox in the sky.  In the end, we made a solemn pact never to ride GAAGAA again.  Some puns are just not worth dying for.

So that was my relaxing holiday getaway.  Maybe one day I will return to Uganda, armed with an ample supply of cash.  But until then, it's back to real life in Rwanda...

Kapture in Kampala!

In Rwanda, there are many things which can capture you.  I have been held hostage by the rain, church, staff meetings, slow-moving goats, and mildly interesting spectacles on the road, to name just a few.  Uganda has a different approach.  Here, they capture you with machines and public holidays, then give you santimonious receipts to prove it.
This spring break, I went up to Uganda with two other PCVs.  After a ten hour bus ride, we spilled out into the hot Kampala afternoon, tired, hungry, and in desperate need of a place to change money.  But we'd forgotten that it was Easter, and there were no places open.
In what I had assumed was a brilliant move, I brought my American visa card, intending to simply withdraw cash once I got to Uganda.  But clearly, I had forgotten the number one rule of doing anything, ever, in Africa--Nothing Is Simple.  This is closely followed by rule number two--Any Day Can Be A Public Holiday.  And, of course, rule number three--Haha, Stupid White Man.
There was a Barclay's ATM right down the street from the bus stop.  We set off, with not a shilling to our names.  I put my card it, went through all the necessary steps, and just when I thought the vacation would be financially feasible, the ATM began to shriek in what I can only assume were the throes of agony.  After almost a minute of this, the ATM spit out a most unhelpful receipt.  "Card Capture," it read across the top.  "Please bring this receipt to your nearest branch."
So now we were left with the double problem of having no shillings and no way to get any.  This is when we were saved by rule number four--There Is Always A Guy For That.  In this case, it involved questionable modes of transportation, a semi-deserted side-street, and a guy with chapati in his hands and a fat stack of bills in his pants.  Long story short, we got cash.
As today is Easter Monday (who knew?), I'm capture in Kampala until the bank opens tomorrow.  With any luck, we'll soon be celebrating Liberation Tuesday...

Spring Cleaning? Not!

Some mornings, my first though upon waking is "I should bathe today."  This is almost immediately followed with another though: "But why?"  I'll leave it to the perceptive reader to guess which though presents a more persuasive argument.
Whenever I finally do get around to making the hygiene, I enlist the aid of my trust partner in grime, Baldric the Basic.  Baldric is your standard-issue Rwandan basin: fire-engine red and big enough to sit in.  Baldric helps me to do unspeakable acts of hygiene.  He is my bath, my sink, my cutting-board, my rain-collector, and my occasional conversation partner.  And, when I'm feel particularly Rwandan in my pronunciation, I refer to his as Bardlic.  Then I picture a scene straight out of a scandalous Elizabethan palace drama:
     "Didst thou espy the latest play by that rakish Will Shakespeare?"
     "Aye. Verily, that's a bard I wouldn't be loath to lick."
     "Tis true, 'tis true."
When you live along with no computer, no electricity, and an ever-shortening attention span, you get a lot of time to sit around with your imagination.  Obviously, things can get weird.
Making the hygiene in Rwanda is a constant process.  During the dry season, dust runs rampant, coating everything and everyone in a thin layer of red.  I always feel so disillusioned after my weekly bath, as the dust comes off to reveal the fact that I am not actually tan.  And even after you bathe, the dirt is quick to reassert its superiority.  One time, after an especially satisfying hair washing, I shut the door of my shower shack only to have a large chunk of mud-brick fall directly onto my head.  The dirt here blitzkriegs you, and there is no appeasement.
In the rainy season, the dust is contained but the mud more than makes up for its absence.  The red mud here is composed of three parts dirt, one part glue.  I've arrived at school with mud half an inch thick clinging to the soles of my shoes.  And this phenomenon never seems to affect my Rwandan counterparts.  I suspect they know how to hover.
It's safe to say that Baldric and I have our work cut out for us.  The dishes are piling up, the hair needs washing, and the underwear sure ain't cleanin' itself.  So here we go once more into the breach, armed with soap and bleach.  Wish me luck.

Walk Like a (Wo)man

Gutembera is one of my favorite verbs in Kinyarwanda.  Literally, it means to walk, but that's just what the black and white pages of some dictionary know.  Gutembera is to walk, to stroll, to amble, to lallygag, to hike up steep hills and slide on your butt down muddy slopes, to have feet stained red with dust, to hop on rocks across trickling streams, and to practice coming back from market with a bag of avocados on your head.
Rwandans like to ask me "where are you going?" every time I leave my house.  The beauty of gutembera is that you don't need a destination--you can just go.  There are some wonderful hiking trails, perfect for an afternoon gutembera, and the various conversations that ensue:

"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to walk.  I like to see the hills."
"Yes, very."
"Mmmmmmm."
"Mmmmmmm."

"Katerina, you are walking."
"Yes.  You are washing clothes."
"Yes, my child's clothes."
"Mmmmmmm."
"Mmmmmmm."

"Katerina, you are walking."
"Yes.  It is a good day to walk."
"But you have not for many days."
"Mmmmmmm."
"Now you are fat."
"Very."
"Mmmmmmm."
"Mmmmmmm."

"Katerina, where are you going?"
"Nowhere."
"Where are you coming from?"
"Over there."
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing.  I'm just walking."
"Mmmmmmm."
"Mmmmmmm."

The best gutembera is one that shakes me out of my daily monotony.  The best gutembera is one with a quirk, a twist, a little glimpse into the unexpected, or an unexpected reminder that life is beautiful.  One of my frequent gutembera encounters is with Goat Man.  He's one of those classically Rwandan character that is difficult to explain to anyone that hasn't lived in this country for awhile.
Goat Man wears the standard old guy uniform--tattered suit jacket, baggy blue pants, dusty orange foam flip-flops.  He's choses to forego the usual fedora; instead, his wiry hair sticks straight out, the odd gray strand providing a sharp contrast with his deep brown skin.
His eyes don't quite focus and his hands tremble, but his grip is like iron.  Handshakes with Goat Man end if and when he chooses.  The only English he knows is "Good Morning" and "Come Here," both of which he will shout at you while capturing your hand in a death grip.  And wherever he is going, he always leads two goats on a tether.  He scared the living bejeezus out of me the first time we met, but now I begin to to worry if I go a week without seeing his blissfully smiling face and faithful goat companions.
So friends, come gutembera my mountains with me sometime! You never know what you'll find...I'm sure that somewhere out there, there's a Rwandan with a story about how he was out walking in the hills and met with an orange-haired strangers wearing pants and picking daisies...

A True American Hero?

Awhile back in Tanzania, I bought some ibitengi with Obama's face on it.  It came in two pieces-- I'm saving one for when I get back to America but have been using the other as an all-purpose wrap for doing "works at home."

I'm torn as to whether I should feel patriotic or treasonous while wearing it.  One the one hand, you can't get much more American than wearing your president's face around your house all day.  But on the other hand, I am frequently wiping my dirty hands, spilling food, or sitting on Obama's face.  Hero or traitor?  This could very well be the Supreme Court's toughest case yet.  I can just picture it:

In the case of Howell vs. America, the prosecution will now present its evidence.  Witnesses state that the defendant did willing, and repeatedly, make remarks and actions of questionable patriotism with reference to her wearing of the president's likeness on her posterior region.  Some examples highlighted include, but are not limited to:
1.  On January 18th, 201, the defendant did unthinkingly wipe her avocado-smeared hand across the president's face, followed by fully three minutes of helpless laughter by the realization that a particularly large green glob was positioned directly below the commander in chief's left nostril.  The defendant was heard to remark aloud, "Why Mr. President, snot a smart look for you!"
2.  On February 7th, 2012, phone records show that the defendant send a text message to an unknown recipient, stating "I'm stargazing on Obama's face!"  The Secret Service was quickly alerted, only to discover the president safely in a cabinet meeting.  Satellite imagery later revealed that the defendant was, in fact, sitting outside on her ibitengi, gazing up at the constellations.  Still, the cost to the taxpayers of mobilizing the Secret Service for such a false alarm cannot be overstated.  The public cries out for justice.
3.  On February 13th, 2012, the defendant did, while using her ibitengi in the course of ordinary domestic chores, spill a small portion of bleach across the president's likeness.  The prosecution acknowledges that such an accident is not, in and of itself, worth mentioning; however, inside sources reveal that the defendant then comtemplated sending a text message to the aforementioned unknown recipient, reading "Hahaha, I just made Obama white."  Furthermore, the same source can authoritatively state that the defendant was only prevented from taking such reprehensible action by a lack of airtime.
4.  Finally, the prosecution has irrefutable evidence that on February 21st, 2012, the defendant did, while wearing her ibitengi as a cape, spend fully thirty minutes standing next to a hole in her wall, killing termites with a shoe and gleefully proclaiming, "Captain America demands that you die!"
The prosecution rests its case.

I don't think the defense can make an adequate rebuttal in the face of all that evidence.  I just hope I can keep up with my blogging from federal prison...

Muffins and Musings

Next week marks the 16 month anniversary of my arrival in Rwanda.  I know that some people read Peace Corps blogs expecting tales of adversity and epiphany...well, this week I had my own moment of quiet reflection, and thought I would share.
It came from what we PCVs like to call "student gems."  That's when a student writes something that isn't quite correct, but is still somehow true.  As I sat at home, grading exercises on antonyms, I stumbled upon this unexpected revelation: "A ship is not the muffin."  It was such a profoundly simple statement, yet so profoundly...right.  You can't argue with its logic: a ship IS not the muffin.  Why, just a few weeks back, I bought a muffin in Kigali and sat staring at it in utter bewilderment for fully five minutes.  Should I butter it?  Should I set sail on it?  What if pirates try to snatch my muffin?  How will I defend it?  What if I want my ship toasted?  Can I outfit raisins in the hull?  And why is it A ship and THE muffin?  Is there only one muffin that a ship cannot be?
So, this little blog post goes out to all my fellow Ed 2 PCVs.  Here's to the last sixteen months--sometimes we love out jobs, sometimes we want to quit, sometimes we find inspiration where we least expect it.  And sometimes, just sometimes, if we're lucky, we can have out ship and eat muffins too.

A Very Unlucky Weekend

Superstition has it that bad things happen in threes.  In Rwanda, irksome things happens in threes.  To my face.
Somedays, the universe sends  you an unequivocal sign that you should just crawl back under your mosquito net and stay there all weekend.  I received one such omen last Friday and foolishly chose to ignore it.
Rwanda is excellent bird-watching territory.  There's a dazzling variety of colors, shapes, and sizes flitting about.  Some volunteers are proud to have identified as many as 13 different species.  But what the guidebooks unanimously fail to mention is that the birds of Rwanda are equally adept at spotting you.
The back window in my living room room overlooks the nearby valley and banana groves.  In true Peace Corps fashion, I can spend hours standing there, staring out it, watching the mist come in and recede across the hills.
It's also the best source of light in my house, so of course I lurk next to it while doing my morning hygiene routine.  Apparently, my lurking skills aren't quite up up to skulk, because last Friday I was viciously attacked.  In the face.  By a hummingbird.  On the plus side, I decided to claim it as a new species.  So next time you're in Rwanda and a hummingbird dive-bombs you, you my dear friends, have just positively identified the Howellus Intheface-us.  Most bird-watchers go their whole lives without catching so much as a glimpse of this rare and dangerous avian.  For those who do encounter it, its sharp feet and pointy beak often it the last thing they ever glimpse.
The trials of my face continued the next day at the Ministry of Justice.  I'm involved with a really awesome program to teach English to the judges and staff at the Supreme Courts of Rwanda.  And it gives me a perfect excuse to shout "lawyered," even if only in my head.
So there I was, revising prepositions of location, with a room full of professional adults, feeling quite professional (if slightly precarious myself) in my high heels, when the fold-out whiteboard abruptly collapsed.  Into my face.  It was, however, a great teaching moment.  Howe often can the phrase "the whiteboard is on my face" be both true and applicable to the lesson?
By Sunday, I was firmly gripped by paranoia.  And I was going to be spending most of the day on buses.  Vomit seemed likely to be the crowning glory of my unholy trinity of facial unpleasantness.  But I made it back to my village completely unscathed.  My nose didn't even get sunburned.  I got smug.  Complacent.  I let my guard down.  I made tea on my petrol stove.  A giant fireball exploded in my face.  Thankfully, my eyebrows remained intact, even if my dignity was slightly singed.
So, I will no longer scoff in the face of superstition.  Monday passed without a single facial incident.  It would seem my bad luck has run its course...for now, at least.  Although I did stub my toe on a goat this morning...