Back in Kenya

So yeah, back to the internets. Uganda was amazing in every respect. We flew into Entebbe and left immediately in a bus with "In G-d We Trust" mudflaps. 8 hours, 3 juiceboxes, one package of groundnuts and a deformed slice of bread (4 inches of white bready goodness!!!!) later I was in the Kibale National Park (http://www.uwa.or.ug/kibale.html) where I ran through rain forests chasing monkeys at night and looked at air-breathing catfish (and more monkeys) during the day. We journeyed into the towns surrounding the forest (Ibora and Fort Portal in particular) and I got to interview a lots of the locals about health issues, water quality (which culminated in a hike down an invisible path and around barbed wire of ther "hey, don't walk here" variety to see a broken pump that the government and community wouldn't fix) and all sorts of interesting stuff. We met progressive pine tree farmers and toured tea plantations that were fighting to destroy wetlands (those bastards! don't drink James Finley tea!). Sure, I fell into 2 feet of swamp water in those wetlands, but I think they should stick around.

An interesting note about Kibale, the mango fly apparently lays its eggs in wet materials and tends to like to do so in your laundry. If you don't iron your clothes its larvae wind up crawling in your skin and springing out when they've matured. So...yeah. I finally learned how to iron.

We also toured some clinics in Fort Portal and I was (and still am) shocked that the only people who know how to repair x-ray equipment are based in South Africa and can take 6 months-2 years to show up due to the high demand/high prices. The WHO should get on that I'm thinking, right?

From Kibale we traveled to Lake Nabugabo where we couldn't swim due to bilharzia (yay snail vectors! soooo cute and deadly!). I did, however, get to watch a borehole pump get assembled (our resident doctor had helped fund its construction) and a puppet show (the moral of the story was, guerrilla fighters will kill wild animals when they attack you with AK-47s, it was pretty crazy). From there we went to Jinja, which is around the source of the Nile. We stayed at a swanky-ish hotel (great food, CNN international, no hot water and lots of skeeters) and watched people fish, people research people who fish and ate fish. The highlight was finding an ATM that would take my card, I had been broke for a while. You don't realize just how useless traveller's cheques are until they're completely useless.

Dave: Hi. I'd like to cash a traveller's cheque
Bank: Do you have the receipt and your passport?
Dave: Of course, would you like to see them?
Bank: No, we don't cash traveller's cheques...we were just curious.

That exchange didn't really happen, but it may as well have.

From Jinja we drove 12 hours to Mbita, Kenya. One of our trucks got stuck in what can only be described as "Gracious me! That's a great deal of mud...perhaps more than 4 or 5 feet of it!" After breaking two chains trying to push/pull it out, all 40-odd folk of us filled our other 20-passenger truck and rode it to the ferry that eventually took us across Lake Victoria. It was a trying ordeal...I'm still finding bits of mud in my shoes/pants/eyelids/etc.

Mbita is great. Yesterday and the day before we toured a community clinic/health centre and HIV/AIDS support centre. Great people, well run facilities (although burning garbage next to your wards is probably a little unhealthy) and an all around enjoyable time. Yesterday afternoon we were asked (without warning) to lead a discussion pannel about health issues at a local high school. It went really well (everyone gets a kick out of my new mohawk. Mohawk+Yarmulkah=yamahawk. Did I mention I have a mohawk? Well, I do...it looks silly. Facebook pix will go up if I have time.) and I wound up getting some e-mails for future pen-pal-ing. Kids keep asking me to give them stuff (usually cell phones, CDs or cash), which is getting old reeeeaaaaally fast, but I at least partially understand why it's hard to believe that travelling students don't really have all that much stuff to begin with. So yeah. Today I interviewed the head managers of the Lake Victoria South district water and irrigation department, bought a machete (made locally...in China) and wandered through one of the loudest markets I've ever seen in my life. Kids (naturally drawn to the yamahawk) followed me around everywhere (all they say generally is "How are you?" "Fine" or "Mzungu," but they're really, really, really adorable and we seem to have a good time even if we can't talk to each other).

So yeah, whew, there it is. The full update.

Other news:
-Yep, I heard about the carjacking/murder in Nairobi and I don't think there's much to worry about, regardless of the 8 million e-mails the state department keeps sending me. Dear US government, please stop e-mailing me. At least proof-read the e-mails if you must continue. Spelling words wrong makes me feel all weird about the state of affairs in the US.

-If you want to contact me e-mail or facebook is the way to go (radiohead5k@gmail.com). I have a phone (e-mail me if you want/need the number), but I can't promise you won't have to sell a kidney to talk for 10 minutes (yay for routing calls through Europe!).

I miss y'all lots.

Cheers

-Dave