Booted!

For those who know of our terrible, terrible luck with parking tickets, we thought you’d get a kick of out this. Apparently we neglected to pay our 15 cent parking fee last week when shopping downtown. There is a pay for parking system with attendants who collect fees when you return to your car. Sometimes, they aren’t there though and we didn’t realize it was our responsibility to track them down and pay our 15 cents. Of course, we tend to stand out here and as a result, no parking infraction goes unnoticed. So, yesterday when Ben went shopping for some Thanksgiving wine he found our car was booted. Yep, apparently they have 1 car boot in all of Mbarara and it’s reserved for us. We aren’t thrilled about the $12 fine but we can’t help but laugh at how our Berkeley parking karma has followed us all the way to Uganda.

Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving!!!! We had a fabulous feast provided by Nneka (the UCSF research coordinator who lives up the road from us). We gorged on all the traditional fare – turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, greens, pumpkin and apple pie and so much more. It was all incredibly delicious and I think I consumed more calories in that meal than in all of the past week. Many thanks to Nneka and those who helped her with the feast!

African Pigeons

When referring to animals and petulance, it seems that often the adjective “African” denotes a more extreme version of what we westerners are accustomed to (e.g. African killer bees, African ants with their 4 feet anthills, etc…). In this spirit, I’ve deemed these birds “African Pigeons”. These things are all over Mbarara – mostly scavenging out of trash dumpsters and in parks. I think they are called Maribous and they are huge creatures with a massive wingspan (around 5-6 feet). At first, I was intimidated by these birds but I’ve become quite fond of them.

Last week I pulled a lower-back muscle and for the last few days I have been suffering from an “African cold”. Thankfully we don’t have any mirrors in our house but occasionally I glimpse my reflection in a window and wonder who that hunched old woman is. It’s at these times, I make sure to take a stroll past the nearest trash heap and look closely at the marabous. I feel absolutely radiant by comparison.

Books

Well, we’ve crossed the half-way point of our stay with 9 weeks in Uganda and 7 more to go. Looking back on my previous blogs, I’m not sure the posts have conveyed how bored I have been. Don’t get me wrong – the scenery is beautiful and the people are friendly, but I don’t have much to do and I don’t have the wonderful distraction that is television. Ani is good company but conversations with a 1 year old only take you so far. I’ve even come to relish the task of doing some of Ben’s data cleaning and anyone who has spent time cleaning data knows that I am truly, truly bored.

So, I have been doing a lot of reading. I scope out books from the libraries of other muzungus who are mainly British and Canadian, so I’ve expanded my knowledge of British and Canadian authors. Here’s a list of books I have read thus far. I have starred the ones that were particularly good in case anyone is shopping for a new book:

• The Mighty and the Almighty – Madeline Albright*
• The Invisible Cure – Helen Epstein*
• The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder
• March – Geraldine Brooks*
• This Body – Tessa McWatt
• In the Skin of a Lion – Michael somethingorother
• Life of Pi – Yann Martel*
• The Foreign Correspondent – Alan Furst
• A Long Way Down – Nick Hornby
• How to Be Good – Nick Hornby
• Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson
• The Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant
• Cargo of Orchids - Susan Musgrave
• To Be Someone - Louise Voss
• Slave - Mende Nazer*
• Their Eyes Were Watching God-Zora Neale Hurston*
  

Fort Portal

This weekend we went on an excursion to Fort Portal, a town about 3 hours north of Mbarara. The drive went past incredible scenery – glistening tea plantations, the Queen Elizabeth Park savannah lands, and the Rwenzori mountains.

Here are a few photos: (1) lunch at a hotel overlooking Queen Elizabeth park, (2) A family photo of us taking a walk in the jungle where thankfully there are no snakes this time of year, and (3) Ben and Ani in front of one of the many crater lakes.

Happy Halloween

We hope everyone had a fun holiday. Halloween is definitely not celebrated here in Uganda and if we thought everyone was staring at us before, they surely were perplexed to see Ani sporting wings fashioned out of mosquito netting and wire hangers. Ani was either an angel or a mosquito, depending on her disposition. We went “trick-or-treating” at the Canadian NGO house and scored some good produce.