First Impressions

A typical day involves being woken at 6:30am by the rooster crowing, a run through the banana patch at 7am, showering with cold water and buckets, brushing your teeth, wearing western style clothing like blouses, pencil skirts, cardigans and putting in earrings and jewellery. Everyone dresses up here and unless you want to be seen as a dirty backpacker like most foreigners are viewed as, you do what you can to fit in. Except for the stench of sunscreen and mosquito repellent, we do fit in. Breakfast is at 8am and you take your doxycycline malaria pill immediately after and work starts at 9am. The smell of burning fills the air in the morning as people throw their garbage on the sides of roads because there is nowhere else to put it and when the garbage gets high enough, someone will light it on fire. Electricity is variable it can be on for 2 days and then off for 2 hours, then on for an hour and off for 5 days. I have learned to charge electronics when I can and to keep my flashlight close. Most nights we eat dinner in the dark, headlamps and cell phone lights lit up. The sun goes down at 7:30 exactly and it feels like all the light in the world has been sucked up into the stars, making them look so bright you almost need sunglasses.

The most interesting experience you will have in Uganda is taking a taxi (because I have never taken a botabota, or at least that is what I tell my mother). In Canada we think of taxis as vans or cars, painted yellow that transport one group of people that are known to each other to a specific location. Not so in Uganda. Taxis are buses that are privately owned, painted white with blue racing stripes and travel 100km/h over potholes, construction, dirt roads, honk at every person, botabotas and vehicle and pass between objects, sometimes only with 1cm of extra space, as the drivers expertly navigate the roads. Each passing of a vehicle of the road seems like it will be a car accident, and then surprisingly never is. Uganda has the 2<sup>nd worst car accident rate in the world and it is easy to see why. The taxi will pick you up and you must first bargain for a price, muzungas always can expect to pay more, anywhere from 3,000- 5,000 shillings (~$2) and then the fun begins. Expect to stop and pick up anything. One time you’ll pick up a woman, her daughter, a baby and the 8 feet of bananas they plan to sell at the market. At the next stop you will pick up a man with 4 chickens tied together at the feet and whenever they squawk he will beat them unconscious with his fists. PETA and the SPCA would have a fit over here. At the next stop you’ll pick up a family. When it is crowded you’ll be sitting on top of each other, when it is empty, you will sit on the side of the street for hours, looking for more people to fill up the taxi with. But no matter if you are coming or going, you will always run into someone you know, often people will say "hello Kirsten," and I’ll have no idea who they are but grin back and ask how they are doing. If you are having trouble finding a taxi, it is best to take a botabota to the next small village on the route and wait for a taxi there, I wish someone had told us that earlier before Greg got frustrated and paid 40,000 shillings to buy an entire taxi to take us home.

The markets are lots of fun to visit and I always get asked where I am from and if I have pictures. People are very friendly and enjoy having their picture taken and seeing what it looks like, children especially could do this for hours. Many people here have huge smiles but often adopt a more serious, closed mouth look for the photo. With thoughts of the "male gze" swirling in my head I handed over the camera to the Ugandans and said they could take pictures of anything they liked, I plan to post those pictures on Sunday. Another time I was walking in the market when it started to rain, knowing it was about to bucket down a salesman called out to me "Muzungu! Come join us in here!" where we proceeded to talk about his family and Canada.

A few nights ago we attended a graduation party in one of the small villages. Two women were graduating from secondary school and many speeches, food and dancing were expected. As we arrived, a large group of over 100 children crowded around Leandrea and I and without saying a word, smiled at us with curiosity. Thinking that they were bothering us an older woman picked up a large tree branch and wielding it with two hands, aimed it at the children’s bums, bringing it down on one male child and making him cry out. The children quickly scattered.

The dancing was started out by the traditional dancing by the men and women in the village and ended with our group being asked to dance in front of everyone. I will post videos and pictures of the night.</sup>