It's korite!

Ramadan is OVER. Today is the big (think christmas-big) holiday to end it. Man, were the streets deserted today. This made for a very nice, light on cars run. Highlight of the day was running into kids all dressed up coming to the gate to ask for money (they go around the neighborhood like this, kinda like halloween in formal wear.) I declined (running clothes, no room for change in the pocket!) but we had a laugh because to what child is a girl out running not funny? My favorite part was they chased me to the corner where I said "Attention!" and we all waited patiently for no cars to be coming (I was being waaay more responsible than I would sans kids, I confess) and recommenced chasing on the other side. Okay, I lied, my favorite part was next, when I outran them. These African kids, man, often they are embarrassingly more fit than you. Maybe it's just that these city kids are soft.

Lost a 10K bill (about 20 bucks) by the time I got back. Considered retracing my steps, decided whoever found it could probably use it more than I could and also I was really, really tired and hot. Happy korite, somebody.

UPDATE: Found the 10K bill; it was hiding somewhere in my clothes. Happy Korite to me, then!

En mission

 We had an FIP (fairly important person) visiting from DC, and he wanted to visit our sites, so we drove three and a half hours north of Dakar to visit where the irrigation works will be, outside Saint-Louis.
Saint-Louis was the French capital of Dakar, and it has a lot of old colonial buildings, now universally run down. It is on an island in the Senegal river, and you can walk from end to end in maybe half an hour. Less? I thought it was quite lovely.

Sheep, kids, palms, river.

Our hotel (and vehicle, too.)

View of the Barbary Coast (la langue du Barbarie) from my room.

Fishing boat, Senegalese flag.

A mosque under construction next to our hotel.

Anti-President Wade graffiti in 'downtown' Saint-Louis.

Oh, also we worked. Sort of. We "engaged with stakeholders" some. Here we are engaging with rice producers drying out paddy rice. 

Here I am engaging with a rice grower on the irrigation perimeter. He had two false teeth in front that bounced when he talked. We couldn't tell if they were joking when they said he was an imam.

Not a spy.

 Engaging with a map of irrigation projects.

And of course the best thing about coming back from outside Dakar in my opinion: Mangoes are sold in units of buckets. Un sceau, 1500 CFA. Yes, please! These particular mangoes became mango bread. True story : Cooked mangoes taste like peaches. Amazing tropical peaches.

Ramadan

Ramadan ends next Tuesday or Wednesday, and I can. not. wait. And I'm not even fasting. Background: Ramadan is the ninth month of the Koranic year, which falls almost exactly in the month of August this year. During Ramadan, Muslims who observe it don't eat or drink between dawn and dusk. You are also supposed to do certain extra prayers, refrain from smoking or other vices, and be generally more spiritual/less worldly. So among other things, there's no live music this month, and the beaches are pretty abandoned.This is my first time in a majority Muslim country (well, technically I've been to Indonesia, but I was only on Bali, and the island is the Hindu exception to the rest of the country.) and spending Ramadan here has been an intense way to be introduced to the religion/culture.

[Sorry, little to illustrate this post, but The Big Picture has some awesome pics from around the world. No Senegal representation though, disappointingly. Also, if you can read French, I thought this was funny : http://www.rue89.com/2010/08/30/au-senegal-les-fraudeurs-du-ramadan-font-semblant-164302]

My boss usually observes Ramadan, even though she isn't Muslim, just because she has spent so long in Senegal and she wants to be in solidarity. My other boss wussed out completely last year and never did it once; this year he did a whole week. And of course my office mate, Senegalese and a rather observant Muslim, would be fasting. So there was some explicit and implicit pressure for me to at least try. I had decided, though, that there wasn't really any reason for me to do it, and it fact the soft pressure of conforming to someone else's religion kind of offended me. And of course, for me, touching my food habits feels like a particularly intimate violation. After a couple days, though, I felt wretched going about my day and feeling(/imagining) everyone's suffering around me, and being jealous in a way that the rest of my office didn't have that guilt. Then I realized what was obvious, that it was fully within in my control to be what I wanted to be (this is true in more cases than I realize generally; I'm making an effort to recognize them more often), and in this case even easier since all I had to do was not do something, right? I decided I'd fast the first day I wasn't planning to exercise. Side effect was that I worked out a lot that week, but by the fourth day of Ramadan I was out of excuses...and totally anxious about it. I interrogated expats (mostly former Peace Corps) who were fasting about strategizing and felt anticipatorily unhappy and deprived.

Finally on Wednesday or Thursday I woke up in the dark and stuffed my face and chugged water before dawn. Okay, before-ish dawn; I kept deciding it wasn't quite light enough to qualify yet, but 6:30 or so felt pretty darn early. I left to work with an oddly light burden; just my purse since I didn't have my habitual snacks and lunch or gym stuff. I resisted the temptation to bring something along in case I wussed out at some point. I also gave myself permission to do basically nothing all day. (Sorry, boss, if you are reading this.)

I meant to live blog fasting, but I was so completely out of it I sat down to write and managed a gibberishy sentence and gave up. That said, almost all of my misery was anxiety and anticipating suffering rather than the actual suffering. I had managed to cram so much into myself in the morning I didn't even get hungry until mid afternoon (I do not think this is how you are supposed to do this, but whatever, I followed the rules.). I did get thirsty almost right away, but again, I think that was mostly just anxiety thirst, and really I wasn't feeling too bad until after work. I had cleverly scheduled a massage ($20/hr for Clementine to come to your house. Not the best massage I've every had, but the best cost:convenience/quality ratio.) which did a good job until seriously about an hour before dusk and breakfast when I went from that stage where you are so hungry you don't feel hungry anymore to so hungry you feel ill. 7:00 to 7:40 was a pretty black time, I'll be honest. And then come break fast time, I felt so ill I could hardly eat.

I'd been thinking I might fast again now that I knew the drill and wasn't freaked out about the unknown of it, but that put an end to that. I was not interested in making myself ill by starvation. It is kind of too bad, though, because taking out the fear factor would make it very doable the next time...except for the radical drop in my work productivity. Don't think MCC would appreciate it if I did 1 week's worth of work in 4 of my 10 weeks here. Ok, that could just be a justification, but I am at peace with having fasted one day. Oddly, the one day fast completely alleviated my sympathetic suffering for other people, probably because whatever you are imagining is going to be worse than the reality, or now I feel like I shared it, even though 1 day out of 30 is entirely negligible. It has proved at least amusing to occasional Senegalese folks I tell that I have fasted. Either way, sorry Pape, but I am drinking water while I work even if you aren't and I am trying not to crunch audibly, but I am not going to leave the building to do it.

Sunset = break fast time. Do not try to get a cab at this hour.

A few more thoughts on Ramadan:
It makes you realize how basic to human interaction eating and drinking is. It has really chilled the tone in the office now that we aren't sharing coffee, cookie, or candied peanut breaks. Lunch is a furtive rather than a social activity. Meetings aren't softened by pastries or tea. Differences between the expats (and the Catholic minority, too) and Muslim Senegalese are drawn out. And of course people are fatigued and more somber than usual. It is inspiring in a way of course; the dedication everyone demonstrates each day is really remarkable. And since the contrast is so marked, I'm just going to go ahead and say it: Lent and Passover are for pussies. Quit yer whining.

My life in Dakar: The Early Days

Backyard of where I am housesitting

I am being a very poor autobiographer in terms of writing contemporaneously, but let's pretend. My first few weeks in Dakar were very work-focused, and it took me a while to get my legs here. I felt like Kampala opened itself up to me as a visitor more easily, but that could be:

• some retrospective rose colored glasses (it may have taken me longer to feel at all embedded in the city than I am imagining now); 
• related less to the city than my living circumstances (I'm living alone here, well, mostly; there I had a rotating crew of...at least six roommates I can think of to guide me or at least share discovery); geography (I'm living and working in rather residential, removed parts of town); 
• or just straight up chance.

(I really like bulleted lists.)

Either way, Dakar felt at first very quiet, and more like a more inconvenient, overpriced (seven dollar cereal, no almond milk, etc.) version of a Western city than something wholly new.  I'm getting past that, getting to different corners of town, out of town, and trying to reach outside the US government environment. Of course, as I am familiar with the last eight (!) (nearly consecutive!) summer internships, just as you are getting accustomed, you are on your way out.

My daily routine (ha! compare this regularity with my "day in the life" posts of earlier in the year):
7 or a little earlier (the sun is just up at this point, as I learned when I observed Ramadan one day. More on that later.) I get up, let Scout out, (my chocolate lab charge for the summer, who I'm feeding & watering in exchange for free rent. Good trade!)

Rush to cut up some mango/papaya for snacks during the day and spread some avocado on Erik Kayser whole wheat baguette for breakfast, (You can tell I am suffering here. Where else is there that voluptuously delicious tropical fruit and boulangeries every other block, including some that are seriously world class?), fill Scout's food and water, pack up my work clothes (I go in gym clothes usually, work out at USAID's gym around the corner from our office, then shower and change.)
7:40 Hope I am outside by the time my officemate, Pape (pronounced like 'pop') swings by to pick me up. We drive mostly along the coast about fifteen minutes to get to the office. If I am on time, the horoscope is just about to finish my sign. (I tell Pape I just like to listen to it because it is good listening comprehension practice, but I am pretty sure we both know the truth.) Sometimes Pape pulls over to the Brioche Doree boulangerie (it's one of a chain) at one of the rotaries on the way for a pain au chocolat to supplement his petit dej. There's always a line at this hour. Well, there was before Ramadan. Now we never stop since Pape eats only before sunrise this month.
8:00 Workout for half an hour, spend another half an hour desperately trying to get down to a normal enough body temperature that I am not still bright pink and dripping when I get back. There is just not enough cold water in the world if the air in the shower is 95 degrees. A daily battle, followed by the gauntlet of greetings of anyone I might run into between the gym and my office. I'm friendly with the USAID guards and they keep trying to get me to speak Wolof. Their tenacity is amazing given that every day I can respond to "hello" but then stare blankly. Well, little by little.
9:00 At my desk (ocean view!) checking emails that have come in the half day that Washington was still at work after we left the last night.
1:00 Go with Pape to the USAID cafeteria, hoping there is thieuboudienne with fish today. (classic spiced dish served with rice. Not very helpful Wikipedia entry says it is made from "fish and tomato sauce and the other ingredients are onions and peanut oil". The name is from the Wolof for fish and rice. Aside: It was only invented maybe 50 years ago, around the time the French were trying to push their rice  surplus from Indochine on non-rice eating Senegal. ) NB this is also pre-Ramadan. Now Pape is fasting and I try to hide my grabbing a sandwich or eating a packed lunch in the next room.
6:00ish Take the Pape bus back home, feed the dog, go to the Lebanese grocery if I'm low on grocery items [very confused exchange with cab driver: I'm going to Parcours Grocery, says I. Au bas la? says he. NO, not down there. Go straight, I reply. We argue for a while. Turns out he was saying "Hoballah" which is the name of the owner.], sanitize fruit if I've stopped at the market, get a massage on my floor from Clementine if it's Wednesday, read whatever's currently on my kindle (taking suggestions!), or meet people for dinner (trying to beat the breaking fast rush at 7:45), etc.

Is there anything interesting in there? Maybe. I'm going to say yes and move on to catching up on google reader.

Dakar? D'accord.

Oops, I'm going back to the States in a month, a large part of my potential
audience are on their own adventures post-bar, and I am just writing my first post. Let's just count is a good thing that I felt too busy to write, yes? Let's also ignore the decreasing relevance of the blog name. Shall we focus on how lovely it is to be by the ocean? Oui.

La Madrague, the hotel I plopped in my first night. Overlooking Ile Ngor.

View from my room at La Brazzerade, the hotel two doors down to which I quickly decamped facing the shockingly overpriced Dakar hotel scene.

One last post on Uganda

Thanks for the sweet going away gift, Crater Lakes, but I really wish you'd left the tags on that vicious attack of billharzia.

Whew ! Got that out of my system (so to speak), onto Senegal.

Goodbye, Fort Portal. Ndakurora obundi!

Stayed up late last night for a final sauna and stargazing. So many stars we could see by starlight; feel very lucky my last days were around the new moon. Stayed up until I caught one last shooting star. Teary goodbye this morning, ride to Kampala spent running through more good memories than I have words for while trying to sponge up the scenery. Feeling just full of love and gratitude for this place and this time.

Kampala clubs tonight, Rome on Tuesday, Boston 3/20-3/23, LA 3/23-25ish, drive Palo Alto for Spring Quarter, then...Senegal in June? Hard to stay sad for long with so much to look forward to, especially as I feel in my bones I will be back here before too long. After all, all I have to do is make it happen, so why not?

GUEST POST: Mom & Mitch in Uganda!

Loren’s last few weeks in Uganda’s paradise are drawing to a close. I am moved to write this guest post as Mitch and I were very fortunate to be able to spend an amazing four days in Uganada in early January. This was also the first stop on our first trip to Africa. Loren’s beautiful lodge was a kind and gentle introduction to a very different landscape.

After an overnight stay at a lovely innwhich was surprisingly close to the main airport at Entebbe, Loren, Mitch and I were lucky to have Fred, the lodge mechanic, meet us for the challenging, sometimes arduous six hour drive north and west to the lodge, of course in a sturdy four-wheel drive vehicle. The orange dust was omnipresent, even the palm trees growing close to the road were coated with it. It was difficult to tell if some of the one story buildings which line the road were painted a cell phone company orange or if it was more of the dust. We quickly learned that almost all the buildings, homes or small stores, sported the trademark paint of one or another of the major cell phone carriers. Free paint for free advertising we wonder?

The altitude climbed, and we began to see spectacular tea plantations stretching into the the distance. They looked incongruously lush amid the dry orange-dust roadbed. Tea, Loren explained, cannot grow in rich soil.

Stopping for a quick snack did not involve fast-food McDonalds but rather, fast street food. Fred seemed to just pull over at a random spot along the highway and the car was immediately thronged by an array of helpful vendors, young boys with boxes of bottled water, women with fresh cooked chicken and roasted plantains on skewers, baskets of beautiful mangos. Kampala mangos! We must buy, so much better than the Fort Portal variety. Loren and Fred quickly managed the transaction and we were off!

We had already seen many photos but we were still stunned when we turned off the highway, drove through one of the tea plantations, turned onto a series of smaller roads that finally just came to the roads end, we were there-it was paradise. The crater lakes,so beautiful that they grace the Ugandan twenty-thousand shilling note are spectacular, surrounded by unspoiled, lush foliage.

Loren’s home is a village of English cottage married to African architecture perched on the edge of the craters. Each guest quarters consist of a private cottage with patios, French doors, open air, private bath and thatched roofs. The porches are furnished with the heavy wooden furniture made locally including specially made coffee tables with a built in dog bed woven at the bottom. We came, of course, to love these 4 lodge dogs and counted ourselves “special” if one of the sisters chose to spend a night on our porch.

One of my most treasured memories from this short visit was our morning walk with Steven, the lodges all knowing, kind, low-key nature guide. Our destination was the vanilla plantation but along the way were introduced to the unbelievable array of birds, wild banana trees and cultivated vanilla. We were surprised to see a few cows wondering in the jungle as monkeys called overhead, incongruous to us, but typically Ugandan. Steven knew every English and Latin name for every plant and animal. Heading back to the lodge we climb up a steeply terraced hill and found the lodge’s kitchen garden. Some plants, beans and herbs were familiar, others were new and strange but a beautiful, Alice Water’s worthy endeavor. We arrive back just in time for a luxurious lunch.

Impromptu safari

The lodge turned out to be full a few nights in a row, so we decided the only sensible thing to do was to decamp on safari for the duration. When I started writing this post, I had idea how thoroughly awesome our little jaunt through the nearest national park would be. I should have known, because we asked to borrow the lodge owner's famous luck, and he graciously agreed to lend it for our trip. With luck and water bottles in hand, we set off with our hired car and tour guide and arrived in the park in time for a short evening game drive (you have to be out of the park by 7, because the animals are more dangerous after dark, I think partially because they are mostly more active and night and partially because you just can't see them as well if a hippo happens to wander across your path, and I don't care how big your land rover is, you really don't want to hit a hippo.)

Our guide was pretty negative about evening game drives and thought only the morning was really worth the time, but we were overexcited from a couple of hours in the car and insisted on some safari before dinner. Within ten minutes, he glimpsed a lounging lioness a distance off. Oohs and ahhs and a few photos of a tannish blob. Then he pulled a sudden right turn practically in front of the No Off Road Driving sign and hurtled toward the now not so lounging lion. We giddily took some photos out of the roof (I don't think most of mine are very steady. She started looking pretty pissed) as our driver urged us “Take your picture...quickly. Quickly!”

Feeling smug back on the road, we dutifully enjoyed the herds of Ugandan Kob, cape buffalo, and waterboks, a few warthogs, and some long distance elephants. Then the car stopped again. Just to our right, a few yards away, was sitting a gorgeous, golden, spotted

LEOPARD.

To give you a bit of perspective, I have talked to many people here who have been here years, including our hosts, who have never seen one. I felt lucky last time I was here to see a footprint. This was full-on, photogenic leopard, which our selectively sign-blind guide again chased with the car into the bush where it majestically ran a few paces for our amusement. Wheee! Thanks for the luck, sir. Magic, just magic.

(see it running in the lower left.)

We drove out of the park high on success and after a lake fish dinner (giant Lakes Albert and George are in the park, so we had perfect fresh fish, and for about $2), we headed to a lux lodge a friend of ours manages just outside the park to celebrate. The manager is German born to a French teacher in Kampala, and totally obsessed with wildlife and Jason Mraz. We wound up having an ipod speakers dance party (light on Jason Mraz by unanimous request) and swimming in the pool until three in the morning, at which point we went back to our much more affordable lodgings ($10ish for a one man tent) for a wee nap before our 6:30am game drive. We were oddly alert, and rewarded with six more lions. Amazing. Headed back to the lodge to take advantage of their hammocks before an afternoon boat trip for hippos and elephants.

After the boat trip and a bumpy ride to the other side of the park to a friend's campsite left us thoroughly prepared to sleep like rocks, even though we were in a tent that went mostly concave in the huge winds we got that night. We all worried about it for about five minutes before passing out dead asleep for a solid nine hours until the next game drive. Sadly, we didn't get any of the tree climbing lions that neighborhood is famous for, but one can't get greedy. We did get to seeTopi and a little piece of the D.R. Congo across a fairly narrow river. Tempting to try to cross just to say we did, but having already used up a lot of our borrowed luck, we just drove home, rocking out to Lion King selections standing out the open roof soaking up the morning sun over the savannah and thoroughly weirding out passing safari vehicles.

Lungs tired from singalongs and faces a little red from dust and sun, we rolled into the lodge drive and cannonballed into the pool. Life is hard in Africa, let me tell you.

Elections

Just in case Uganda's national elections reached the US news, FYI, nothing interesting particularly happened, which is what you want really. (They happen every five years I think, for President anyway, and took place last Friday.) Probably helped that everyone knew what was going to happen. In the words of a ten year old pal just beforehand, "I wonder who is going to come in second." So, congratulations Museveni...

UPDATE: Heard from folks in Kampala. You know how Ugandans have trouble with Rs and Ls?Apparently they got a lot of text messages urging them to get out for the major erections. Awesome.

School garden glamour shot

Learning! Fruits! Beans! (Passionfruit, cape gooseberries--possibly the world's most delicious berry, and a bean whose English name if any we have yet to find but is called entendigwa here and apparently tastes like peas.)

Puppies!

We visited friends in Kampala last week. They have a promiscuous dog who has learned to open the gate herself to go on dates. A couple of years ago this produced two of the lodge dogs, and a few weeks ago they got some younger half (we assume) siblings. Too, too, cute, and I don't even like dogs. The one year old in their house is adorably terrified of them. I mean, makes sense, from his perspective they are giant (to get their actual size, see splayed barbie for comparison.) I was a little obsessed.

My office today

Sybil thinks she is my secretary.

Day in the life 3

It is a school day, so I set an alarm just in case, but wake up comfortably before it. I scope out the breakfast table, and decide to join rather than hide in the bar area (my normal wont) as the guests seated are ones I met and liked over dinner last night, an expat couple one of whom works for a French relief org in Kampala and an older couple doing church funded (but interesting!) development projects in a northern district and their visiting daughter and son in law. Or son and daughter in law? Never quite got that straight. Lord of the lodge joins as well and we all chat as I hurriedly down black tea with ginger and eat my plate of fruit (and my seconds on fruit) while dodging curiosity about my rice, avocado, fresh chili, and a condiment that shall not be named here that has been my breakfast solution. I know, I know, odd, but as it is the only meal of the day I get to choose anything about, I try to make it as healthy as possible while making it as easy on the kitchen as possible, and this is the simplest cooking-free/mostly cheap ingredients solution.
Defensiveness about food choices done for today, I dash to print a sheet from Livestrong.com on vitamins in amaranth greens (called dodo here, grows like a weed; and no, I don't feel bad about using a commercial dieting/fitness website as my scientific source for African children who don't know any better...). The solar starts screeching at me that it is almost out of power before I even turn on the printer, so I race against the clock to get my information out.
Keeping my fingers crossed all the while that no guests will ask for a tour of the vanilla farm next door so Stephen will be free of guiding duties can come show us how to transplant the dodo in our school garden (and absolve me thereby of coming up with something else to do.) Stephen is our sage guide and gardener, who always seems to surprise you with a new field od expertise-birds, trees, lecturing at a local university, starting a school, preaching at a church, you name it.
I come back up to find not only has the otherwise nice couple taken Stephen(but at least they arer distracting the dogs from following us), bur the mother has even taken my translator who is also the lodge's spa trainee to give her a facial, so I hike towards school with my skeleton team of local secondary students who have been helpers while school is on holiday.
Stickers go to the four kids who are on time and we play with an inflatable globe I found in town while we wait half an hour for the other 35.

As the kids trickle in and I struggle to take attendance, BB John, the lodge's mad but amazingly dedicated and energetic tree guru appears out of nowhere. Hurrah! We sing what we've learned of "The Garden Song" (just a perfect song for this club's purposes, and totally adorable) and head up to the garden. BB lectures (at some length) in the local language about saving seeds, eating fruits and veg, self reliance,starting a business, his history of making his own living by raising and selling seedlings as taught, avoiding chips and muchomo (french fries and fried meat kebabs, neither of which these kids have probably had) blood pressure, (he is impossible to stop once he gets going, but makes a good bootstrapping/conservationist rolemodel) and demonstrates planting passionfruit, a local bean whose english name we cannot figure out, and cape gooseberries-yum! My favorite. (You can buy them dried as incaberries at wholefoods.)

Kids look a bit hot and bored after an hour so I gently steer us back down to the shady clearing for final instructions and we part till Thursday.
BB and I hike back, my helpers opt for motorbike taxis back laden with cassava they have been allowed to gather from the garden. (Not my planting; cassava is pretty nutritionally void, not to mention incredibly dry and equally tasteless, but for some reason it is a treat.)
BB likes to recount his (crazy) 100k walks and daily runs, but I am able to best him in number of the 185 steps (Mr Lodge counted) up to the lodge run (me:100; BB:96).
Return shinyeyed and energetic after a successful class and rattle on to the lady of the lodge about possible projects before we head to fish and chips lunch. I try to fill up on guac appetizer and dodo side dish.
As lunch concludes it is nearly three when I am meant to be out of my cottage as the lodge is full tonight, so I jump to pack up my things for lugging to the spare room in the owner's house. I've gotten the process down to a little over half an hour, enhanced by motivational music through my spiffy new mini speaker.
After packing, consult and chat with Stephen for a while, take a bath, play some pretend backgammon (neither of us remembers the rules) with Lala, the very sweet daughter of the lodge manager, who was born near here and has been with the lodge for its whole existence, which means she must have started as a kid.
Get a bit chilled and need to distract myself from hunger waiting for the lord and lady to finish meditating and then rubbing elbows with guests before their dinner so I pop down for a quick sauna.
Do a few emails and chat projects over dinner then we retire to the house to finish pirated Season 5 of Weeds over a glass of wine and a pot of lemongrass ginger tea. I don't care what anyone says, it has definitely not gone downhill after the first two seasons.
Just have to roll towards the guestroom, fortunately, as I am fully dozy by the last episode, dose myself with benadryl against the feather pillows and fall happily if a tad wheezily to sleep.
*Note: Sorry to dig at churches, all in good fun. They do plenty of good work here of various kinds

Day in the life 2 continued

Staff party was a hoot. Three minibuses full of lodge empoyees barrelled into town where we found a lovely outdoor tent and buffet. After dinner and dark the bossman and bosslady toured the kitchen as an educational tour for their cooks and I joined the rest of the party which was drawn out of the tent round the lovely and very fire hazardous bonfire to dance to a very global mix of poptunes. Had to give the stinkeye to a kitchen assistant working up some of our very cute and very underage local interns. Fun to see everyone dolle
d up (there was at least one wig in attendance) and festive. Demands to have pictures with me, I felt like Mickey, until the memory card filled.
The buses then headed to a local club (except the one with the interns which was sternly sent home). We stayed and drank brandy with the hilarious gregarious generously portioned german owner and his snippy ugandan wife, then tried to meet up with the staff but failed and went home to throw together very late night omelets.

Next morning I peeled myself up and dragged cranky hungover helpers to teach our promised class session. Spirits started off low, but One Fish Two Fish was a big hit with the little kids (one of my helpers said it was "very interesting." I think/hope they use that word a bit differently in uganda.) And so were the acting out of vitamin a fighting off disease and vitamin c protecting the heart that I imperiously imposed (with a smile, bien entendu), though I should have predicted the former would get a bit physical--more of a problem when you consider many of these kids are way more buff than me. And a really should have assigned someone larger and less disabled to be the attackee. Live and learn.
Came back to find the lord and lady of the lodge sipping rose cava by the pool and nibbling the last of the parma ham from kampala. Joined them and dipped tired feet. (See gratuitous adorable dog shot. Do not see omitted image of baby skink who Mr. Lodge befriended mirthfully and squashed accidentally.)

Fish and chips and epic nap, then a visit to the bossman's god-codger in fort portal for dinner and the night(he has satellite tv, and newly food network = big draw).Beautiful day today, reading over looking his huge lovely yard over tea, successful meeting at nearby hospital, crossword while the commonwealthers watched cricket, and a beautiful afternoon of speedy internet and very amateur lawn tennis at a friends lodge whose he pretends not to care about. Ah, que la vie est belle.

Day in the life 2

Woke up, took a New Year's resolution fueled run escorted by Polly (one of the younger dogs), 15 minutes out and back feels arduous and gets me an embarassingly short distance. Excuses: Altitude, hills, rocky road, time off running due to injury. Reality: This is my third run in...as I type I realize it is like 10 months. Um, let's move on.

We are guest-free today so I can take my breakfast at the main table without fear of being roped into an hour and a half polite chat with my morning meal (I often hide in the bar area with my avocado and toast) and since I'm feeling the need for protein post-run I treat myself to the full poached egg, avocado, greens, and fruits plus black tea with ginger meal. Oh man, mangoes (miyembe) are in season right now and sweet lord are they delicious. Party in your mouth for reals.

Get inspired to be productive with my energetic start to the day and send off some emails, including to the American lawyer who has dropped in like an angel to solve our NGO registration issues, then set to organizing my things which have been sitting in the various bags I've stored here or brought from home. This is mostly an exercise for the sake of it since I'll be packing it all back up in a week when we are full again and I relocate to the spare room, but it's therapeutic anyway and pretty fun to salsa my way through it to Buena Vista Social Club on my spiffy new ultra portable battery powered speaker. (Yes, I brought a ridiculous variety of electronics back with me to a place with no electricity.)

Chatted with the hosts for a bit when they came up for breakfast, now they are having an unpleasant meeting with their manager about not berating the staff whilst drunk, and I am working on crafting a grant application over the rest of my teapot. And the rest of their teapot. Why let it go to waste, right? I really hope ginger is good for you, because I am basically pickling in it internally about half of my waking hours.

This afternoon I hope to get some of this grant stuff done, then meet with an obliging doctor who is head of a local hospital in order to pick his brain about what the real health issues are here (everyone always says they have malaria--possible, sure, but probably not once a month--and typhoid--not possible. No typhoid here.) on the way to a staff party at another (less idyllic, of course) local lodge. Overheard possibility of disco later? Will report after.