Because They're Burning Bricks

Posted By Sika on June 25, 2010

And, that’s it for Peace Corps. I’m still going to be writing at this address, but when I get back from Costa Rica, I’m going to archive all my Peace Corps related stuff at a different address, redesign and re-title my blog, and start new(ish). Someone once told me it annoyed her when RPCVs kept blogging and otherwise acting online as if they were still PCVs, claiming an identity that no longer belonged to them.

At the time, I got what she said, but didn’t really agree with her vehemence. I feel differently now. It’s different, being a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, than being a Peace Corps Volunteer. It’s different and the fact that my Peace Corps experiences continue to influence the rest of my life don’t make it the same. It’s connected, sure, but every bit of our lives is connected. You can’t be who you are without having been where you’ve been. And yet the past is still past, and trying to hold on to it too tightly just stagnates the present.

When I made this blog, I was looking at the future, and it’s time to do that again.

Category: Malawi, Peace Corps, Philosophy, Plugging | No Comments »
Tags: change, new blog, old blog, PCV, Peace Corps, RPCV

Posted By Sika on June 25, 2010

Malawi has made me . . .. indecisive. I mean, I had occasional (frequent) problems making a decision before, but in Malawi you can make as many decisions as you want, and they rarely have any effect on the end outcome. Which is not to say there’s no point to making decisions; but, if you’re going to bother making a decision, it better be worth it and you better be ready to work for it. Where to have lunch just isn’t worth the trouble. Even things about which I would, in America, stress about—say, where I was going to sleep while traveling—seem unimportant and not worth deciding about before hand. After all, it’s all going to change 20 times anyway.

It may look the same to my friends back home, my indecisiveness. But I can explain the difference. Before Peace Corps, if I would fail to make a decision and someone stepped in to do what I had failed to do, I would suddenly have a strong opinion. Whether that was because I didn’t feel like I could say what I wanted or because I was that out of tune with what I wanted, I can’t say. Most likely it was a mixture of both. But now, when I say I don’t care, it means I don’t care. If I say I don’t know what I want, I don’t know. I can roll a die, someone else can make the choice, or whatever I used to do to be slightly less annoying in making choices, but it doesn’t change anything because I really don’t care or don’t know. I really am just waiting for a good option to present itself. And if the option I like the best isn’t available, that’s okay, because I’ll just do something else.

I can only justify caring about things I’m willing to work for. And I can’t be bothered to work for things I don’t care about.
I’m also more confidant, although that’s in a weird way I’m not aware of. I still think of myself as being pretty shy, and in large crowds, I still feel overwhelmed and out of my depth. But, if I go to a party and I know one person, I call it good: I know I can meet other people, and if I get too shy I can return to my friend like a toddler checking in with a parent. I’ll start random conversations with people around me sometimes. I’ll continue random conversations other people start more often than that.

I was at a Yakima Valley Community College game with my grandpa for his birthday, and when we all got together again that night, my uncle commented on my fearlessness: an old umpire friend of grandpa’s was cracking jokes and telling stories with the other ex-coaches, and I kept asking for details and cracking jokes myself. I mean, come on, if you heard a story about a ball thrown to an ump asking him if he needed help because of all his bad calls, and you knew he wrote something on the ball and threw it back, wouldn’t you want to know what it said, too? Yeah, well, apparently my ears are too delicate for that information, so I razzed him a bit about not telling me.

When my uncle told my mom (admiringly? horrified?) about how I just got into the conversation, I at first thought he was crazy. Of course I did, I wanted to know what happened. But upon further reflection, I realized that before I would have wondered, perhaps made up a story to satisfy my curiosity, perhaps nudged my grandpa into asking for me. But just jump in like there’s nothing to fear in starting a conversation with random people? No frakking way.

Also, I am now very passionate about when people talk about “African culture” or “African language” or “African people.” If you’re not very clear about where the generalities of those phrases fail (which is to say, practically everywhere) don’t use them. Sure, Malawian culture has things in common with that of several other African countries. But it has more things different. And to pretend that Africa is somehow one people bound by more than their presence on the same landmass is to force yourself to completely misunderstand the entire continent.

I’m sure there are other things. The lines aren’t as delineated as I thought they would be. This whole process of returning home and returning to American culture hasn’t been what I thought it would be. I didn’t have culture shock. I sort of had a slow culture miasma. I’m still sort of having a slow culture miasma. Sometimes I think this is how it will always be. Sometimes I’m sad that it isn’t.

Category: Malawi, Peace Corps, Philosophy | No Comments »
Tags: changes, culture shock, Malawi, reverse culture shock, the end

Posted By Sika on June 24, 2010

Essaouira is a great town. The medina area is old white stone, with blue blue skies and splashes of color from all the vendors selling souvenirs and fabric and jewelry and spices and fresh juice. It looks like it could be the less elegant cousin-town to the Greek towns that are always in the movies.

And it’s touristy. Dear god, is it touristy. And normally that would be a problem for me. But the thing is, Essaouira is also a working town. While still some distance from the port, you can see masses of seagulls circling in the distance. Once they’re visible, shifts in the breeze bring whiffs of fish. As you get closer to the port, the smell of salt and sea becomes stronger and stronger; the gulls sometimes block the sun as they whirl around looking for fishing boat detritus; the sound of their cries become a constant soundtrack background.

The people closer to the port have a purpose. They aren’t tourists, looking for a great deal on whatever their particular thing is, they’re fishermen, and they’ve got fish to get to market quickly, they’ve got boat repairs to make, they’ve got actual things to do.

And all of that tones down the tourism vibe to manageable levels. Plus, it’s fun to grab a fresh squeezed juice (picking out the fruit you like—I liked half a grapefruit with one orange and a few tangerines), chat with people selling fresh grilled fish, and watch the hurry.

Also, there’s ice cream.

All said, I loved Essaouira. And I stayed there until the last possible minute. I took a bus to the train to Casablanca, and arrived there late at night. Since my flight was at something like 4:30am, I just went straight to the airport, and checked in. And there I was, winging my way home via Rome and New York.

Done with Africa.

For now, at least.

Category: Morocco, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: COS trip, Essaouira, fishermen, fishing, Morocco, port, seagulls, the end

Posted By Sika on June 24, 2010

The trip with the Americans was complicated, but not actually very interesting. It took two half-days of travel (actually what I was trying to avoid; the timing of it all just didn’t match up well on public transport), but I finally arrived in Marrakesh.

Navigating the warrens of the Medina was a bit crazy-making, and the turns I had to take liked to hide from me, but after asking a couple of people (and telling them that no, I wasn’t going to the place they recommended), I made it.

I liked the open windows in the warm day, although I was slightly less keen that they opened onto the main floor of the courtyard, and downright annoyed that people smoked in the courtyard, too.

I rested for a bit, and then headed out to see the fabled Djemaa el Fna. It was gorgeous. I had dinner at a restaurant with a balcony I could see everything from. The night sky was spotted and rayed with thousands of tiny lights. Bits of the scene glowed like neon daylight, while others were entirely obscured in shadows.

After countless time watching the surprisingly large crowds, listening to sirens and the call to prayer, and the chatter of everyone around me; after countless time watching every one watching every one else; after countless time smelling the cutting scent of oranges, mixed with the musky smell of sweat and exhaustion, with the savory smell of the food of the restaurant, with the smell of the stars and the sky, I finally turned to my rapidly cooling food.

Everything in Marrakesh was like this. I didn’t do much: I tried out a hammam and went to the Saadien tombs, but the rest of the time I just wandered, watching, listening, smelling (although sometimes I didn’t want to smell). I tried to figure out where people were from based on what I heard when they talked to each other. I passed judgment on irritating American tourists, and then was surprised when they were English. I put a lot of time and energy and nose power into finding good spices to bring home.

That’s how the days passed. I walked for hours every day, mostly through the markets, and I never felt like I had exhausted anything but my feet. I could have spent several more days there, eventually working my way outward in concentric circles.

But I still wanted to get to the water and the beach, so I headed out to my last stop: Essaouira. I was excited, both to go to Essaouira, a place that had been recommended to me by every single person I talked to, and because it meant soon, I was going home.

Category: Morocco, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: COS trip, Djemaa el Fna, market, Marrakesh, Morocco, transport

Posted By Sika on June 22, 2010

Merzouga was just what I needed. I arrived around 5 or 6 in the morning, after chatting in stilted English much of the way with a Moroccan who had been in Fez for a guide job. The guy at Auberge Mohayut was incredibly helpful; when I decided I wanted to do the camel trek the first night, he still gave me a room to rest in until we were to leave later that day. And all the rooms were going to be taken, so it wasn’t even that the room was going to be empty for me anyway.

I was a little wired, though, after the long bus ride through the crisp night. I had had those slightly nauseated shivers that I get with the unfortunate combination of exhaustion and cold, but I was too awake to sleep and too tired to shower. So I started to take a walk.

I met a Berber man on the dunes behind Auberge Mohayut, and he told me it was better to walk the dunes barefoot. I tried it, and he was wrong. But then, I got the mad skills at walking funny, so it may have just been me. The sand was so very fine, and it stayed cool, at least in the morning and evening sun. The sand seemed just slightly more coarse than the beach sand in Zanzibar—the kind of sand that miraculously doesn’t get into all the places you don’t want it. It felt coarsely smooth, like dupioni silk.

Also, scarab beetles are incredibly entertaining. Their footprints look like the designs of an incredibly gifted henna artist, and, if that beauty weren’t enough, it’s entertaining to watch them move.

After a walk and a nap and a shower, I was read to face the day. More or less. I ended up on with a group of Australian women who had all come to Morocco in the same tour group.

Camels heave and jerk whenever you mount or dismount them. It’s a little disconcerting the first . . . all the times it happens. But, in a line, tied one to the other, most of them aren’t terribly interested in escaping. We asked the guides questions, like do the camels have names (they don’t, except for whatever reason, mine was named Jimi Hendrix) and whatever else. They didn’t speak a ton of English, but that was ok, because our guide spoke Spanish.

Well, it was okay by me, but none of the Australians spoke any other languages (kinda like many Americans) and while some of them seemed to think it was funny, as I tried to translate what we were talking about and the ribbing we were giving each other, a few got annoyed because we were cracking each other up. I think it felt exclusive to some of the people.

I love speaking Spanish with another Spanish-as-a-second-language speaker. It removes so much of the pressure about grammar and vocabulary and whatever else. Plus, someone who has to think about what they’re saying speaks more slowly and clearly than does someone who doesn’t have to think about it at all. It’s just incredibly entertaining.
There’s something about speaking in Spanish for me. When it’s clicking, I feel like my whole brain relaxes. It’s as if all the sudden my brain has slid easily onto the track it’s meant to be on. I don’t get that feeling from English. If someone can make me laugh in Spanish, everything is twice as funny.

Several of us scrambled up a nearby dune, slipping and clambering and slipping some more through the cooling sand, so we could be closer to the infinite stars. Running straight up a steep incline decreased the amount of treadmilling like coyote when he chased roadrunner off a cliff.

The next morning, we got up, had tea, and headed back to the hotel for breakfast. I spent the morning and evening walking through the dunes again, and swam and computered through the hottest hours of the day.

Transport out of Merzouga requires many more steps than transport in, especially since I was going to Marrakesh and not Fes, but luckily I met up with an American couple from New York who let me catch a lift as far as our paths coincided when they left the next day.

Category: Morocco, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: Berbers, camels, COS trip, language, Merzouga, Morocco, Sahara, scarab beetles, Spanish

Posted By Sika on June 21, 2010

I don’t really have much to say about Morocco. The feeling of wanting to be done with traveling ebbed and flowed, but had not passed. When confronted with the very different culture of Morocco, that feeling only intensified.

Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy Morocco. I did. But, for the first time ever in my travels, I thought my trip would be massively improved by having someone else to help me interpret what I was seeing and hearing and feeling. I know part of it was that, in the Peace Corps, I had finally traveled with people who travel like I do. People who know how to change plans when things aren’t working. People who don’t get so hung up about what they should do that they don’t see opportunities in front of them.

But part of it was just that I never was able to find my footing. My entire time in Morocco, I was worried—is this person really a good person, are they trying to scam me? And I don’t like myself when I think that way, nor do I like the world when viewed through that lens. So, a second voice, whether of agreement or disagreement, would have been helpful.
But I don’t want to solidify my discomfort by describing it too much; I feel like it would be easy to convince myself (or anyone else) that Morocco sucked, and I just think it was more me than anything else. I’d like to give it another shot—if I were traveling with the right person.

The morning after I arrived in Morocco, I headed straight for Fes on the train. The guy at the cell phone kiosk tried to get my number, but he must have been somewhat honorable, because he was giving me my number, and yet he didn’t sneak a peak.

The train ride was more comfortable than others I had in Africa. And it was entertaining, to boot. A Moroccan couple sat down in my car, across from me. We chatted a bit: the husband spoke English, the wife didn’t. They then proceeded to pay attention to each other. They did nothing that wouldn’t be PG rated, at the worst, but for Africa, they were awfully racy. At one point the husband had his thumb looped in his wife’s pocket, they nuzzled a bit. They seemed to have recently discovered how much enjoyment they could get from each other, and they were just trying to hold out til they could get home.

Then, his phone rang. He spoke in English. Here are some snippets of what I heard him say over the next hour or so, as the woman on the other line called, over and over again.

“Why are you calling me?”
“You should have some pride”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I’m married now . . . yes, I am. . . would you like to speak with her? (to his wife)Can you tell her who you are? (to the caller) she doesn’t wish to speak to you.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“We weren’t good for each other . . . you know what you . . . .we weren’t good for each . . . I’m hanging up now.”
“No, she doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“Yes, she exists.”
“Yes, she does.”
“Yes, she does, and I love her.”
(I almost took the phone to confirm the existence of the wife, at this point.)
“I met her in Germany. . . . Three months ago . . . .Why does that . . . .Yes, it was arranged. . . . I love her. . . I’m not speaking to you anymore.”

Etc.

Fes was interesting. It’s old, and it feels old. But then, popped in the middle of this old town is a swathe of modern shops and a huge McDonald’s that is amazingly popular and is used as a landmark even by those people who don’t eat there. At one point I was waiting there and a woman, walking by with her father and her son, stopped to make sure I was ok. They invited me over to their house. They spoke no English, and I spoke basically no Arabic and no French. Her father knew some pickup lines of varying levels of appropriateness in Spanish, but after he said them, he laughed at himself, making it clear he really didn’t mean them.

The Medina in Fes is amazing, especially from a rooftop. There are these old, adobe looking walls, and then there are all these satellite dishes, porcupining out of all the other roofs. And every single one of them is pointed to Mecca, so as to avoid Western TV. I asked someone if someone could change the satellite to get unapproved TV, and he said no. The neighbours would notice, and they would judge.

The leather tannery reeks from far away, and nothing distracts you from it when you’re on the balcony above, staring down. Not even the fistful of mint, picked on the way up the stairway, and held fisted in front of your nose and mouth. I thought of how the tanners worked in Elfquest, and realized that smell really doesn’t travel through books. Urine, putrefaction, and skin. There, see if that works.

The tile makers do this incredibly finely detailed work, and they work so fast I was waiting for a chisel to slice open a finger. I’m sure it happens sometimes, but not this day.

A couple of days in Fes, and I was ready to get going. I wanted some real quiet, so it was time for a night bus to Merzouga: finally, the Sahara.

Category: Morocco, Travel | 1 Comment »
Tags: Casablanca, COS trip, Fes, homesick, Medina, strange conversations, transport, Travel

Posted By Sika on June 21, 2010

It was weird to think that in the course of one day I was in three countries, and not in the hanging out in the airport sense, either. Driving through Kampala at 2:30 in the morning, I was surprised to see people on the streets, tomatoes and oranges heaped up on maize sacks, women in head scarves curled over their own body heat (although it wasn’t all that cold), sitting next to the other women and men selling in the madrugado.

Our flight to Cairo was on an unliviried plane, which always feels weird to me, not the least because I can’t really imagine calling 1-800-rent-a-jet to arrange the hire. On the plane, I had to tell a Ugandan woman, taking her first trip ever to visit family in France, how to buckle her seat belt.*

Landing in Cairo, I went to the customer desk just to find out about leaving the airport and doing something in my several hour layover. She just directed me to an unmarked desk, surrounded by people, and told me they’d arrange for a hotel. OK. I ended up waiting about two and a half hours before they called my name.

Luckily, because I am like a child when I am bored, I attracted attention. I spent a good hour of the the two and a half hours walking back and forth on the moving sidewalk, mostly the wrong way since that seemed vaguely more entertaining than the other. There was a little boy who was doing the same thing, although at the end he used the handrail to haul himself himself up and over and for a few seconds he could fly. When they called my name, but I was sitting too far away to hear, one of the other women from the Entebbe flight came to find me.

It’s always interesting to me, when I see a Muslim family and different women cover up at different levels. The woman who came up to get me was covered except her face—her hijab/abaya even covered her neck all the way to her chin. The top of her hijab was mauve instead of black, and was plasticized so it stood out from her face a bit—like a tiny cap brim. She had on black gloves and black stockings as well. Her mother, on the other hand, was not covered at all—not even a head scarf. And the girl was in charge most of the time—dealing with officials and the like—even more than her brother.

Egypt Air took us to a nice hotel called Iberahotel (keeping our boarding passes and passports, which I did not like a bit), where they comped us a massive lunch buffet. I waited for my room to be ready, nervous because the hotel staff lost the slip of paper Egypt Air gave me when they took my ID (turned out I didn’t need it).

I was trying to decide if I was going on the city tour. I was tired—two hours of sleep plus three hours interrupted sleep on the plane makes for a Sika who knows she’s likely to be grumpy. But the tour guy kept cutting the price and promised it would be short, until eventually I agreed.

It ended up being more of a shopping trip than I would have agreed to—we drove by some mosques and the citadel,** but didn’t really talk much about them. But then I couldn’t help myself. We went to a papyrus painting shop where I was sold as soon as the lady showed me how they make papyrus. And then to a perfumeria with traditional and new scents, both.

Cairo was very North African. The buildings were tall and modern, but ancient at the same time. Even nearly all the new and modern ones were ancient. The whole city tasted like sunlight and dust and history.

I returned to my room at the hotel just in time to get my wake up call, did about 20 minutes of yoga, and headed back to the airport. Nobody pointed out where to get our passports and boarding passes back, which caused a bit of a panic for me.*** I actually found the right office out of the 10 million and 5 Egypt Air offices. They had already stamped my passport, which meant they just walked me through passport control.

I bought a snack, boarded the plane, and made it to Casablanca in one piece, although the plane did brake strangely when we landed. I was also able to finally see Star Trek , albeit the airline edited version. After I landed, I got dirhams from the ATM, like I always do in new countries, and took a taxi to the hotel. It was 10 or 11pm.

So, Uganda-Egypt-Morocco in less than 24 hours.

*This was the first of three times I taught people how to buckle their seat belts. Which was odd, because I had just been talking to my mom about how silly I thought the “how to buckle the seat belts” instructions were. But  all the people I helped asked me, and the flight attendants checked them, long before those instruction were given.

**To be fair, the guide asked me if I wanted to go in one of the mosques, but I just didn’t feel up to it.

***You may have noticed that I am very protective of my passport. You may have deduced that I nearly always forget to carry a copy with me. I actually had a copy in my bag, but it’s so rare for me to remember to bring one that I didn’t remember that I had brought one.

Category: Morocco, Travel, Uganda | No Comments »
Tags: Cairo, Casablanca, COS trip, Egypt, Egypt Air, Kampala, layovers, Morocco, transport, Uganda

Posted By Sika on June 18, 2010

A Ugandan man at Chimp’s Nest stopped me and asked me if I was going chimp tracking. I said hopefully, and he offered me a lift. His name was Charles, and he was tour guiding for two Italian women, one of whom lived in Kampala with her husband and the other of whom spoke no English.

Apparently, he got in trouble because he should have had me ask them. On one hand I understood: they hired him, and I wasn’t a part of that. On the other hand, the two of them were in a van and it was a 15 minute drive, but would have been an hour and a half walk. Through two tribes of baboons. I was lucky, and was able to go with them anyway.

At Kibale there were 24 people already signed up. I wasn’t signed up, and the maximum for a group is supposed to be 18. And the guy in charge was not in a good mood and seemed disinclined to further break the rules. Charles talked to him and a couple of the other rangers though, and got me a space in the group with a Swiss couple and their three kids. Then the head guy had a hissy fit about me not having closed toe shoes, so I had to hire some sneakers for Ush3000. I was worried about my proclivity for slipping and falling, but that ended up not being a problem—I only had to worry about fungal transfer to my sockless feet*.

Chimp babies are just like human babies: they are fascinated by new people, they like to play hide and seek, and they try to pee on you. Only chimp babies do it from a greater height. That is what I learned. We also watched the first baby we saw go back to her mama, and then reluctantly submit to cuddles for a bit so mama would play the swinging game.

Later, when we were trying to track one of the the adult males, we happened upon a subadult male, just chillaxing in the grass. I took a bunch of pictures, in all of which he looks dead—unless you compare them to each other and realize he’s moving.

Also, pictures of him yawning look threatening because chimps have massive chompers. At first he would just occasionally glance up, and the look on his face was so, “This isn’t interesting. Are you done yet?” Eventually, I guess he realized we weren’t done yet. He put one arm back and rested one foot on his opposite knee, as if to say, “Fine, then. Where’s my newspaper?”

I was worried about not being able to keep up, especially when I had to trade all my shoe traction for closed-toeness, but it was pretty easy. There aren’t many hills, and those that there are aren’t that steep or that long. Balance, I think, was a bigger issue. Areas of the forest floor were entirely covered in leaf mould, and I was surprised the borrowed sneakers didn’t cause more of a problem. Everyone slipped at least once. But it wasn’t too bad because no-one, not even me, fell. Which is good—I felt I had enough Ugandan souvenirs in my banged up knee, finger, and and knuckles from rafting the Nile in Jinja, and didn’t feel I needed any more.

Of course, it would have been useful to have better equipment: trail runners that fit, or at least remembering socks to wear up over my pants in case of ants—although again luckily, those weren’t a problem. It was good I picked Kibale though. I think at Queen Elizabeth NP I would have had serious problems without proper shoes.

*Ok, I’ve had better ideas than my footgear here. I mean, I didn’t have closed toe shoes because I didn’t have closed toe shoes, but not even socks? That’s ridiculous.

Category: Travel, Uganda | No Comments »
Tags: baboons, Chimp, Chimp trekking, Chimp's Nest, COS trip, Kibale

Posted By Sika on June 18, 2010

I left Lake Bunyonyi at 7 in the morning. I could have caught the midnight bus, and in retrospect I wished I had, as my trek involved a motorboat to the shore, a taxi to Kabale, driving around waiting for the minibus to fill for about an hour before heading to Mbarara, the sweet taxi/minibus driver, Aaron, being concerned about my safety in the bus station, and so drove his minibus through the station and then waited until they found another minibus going to Fort Portal (which I keep wanting to call Port Fortal). That minibus, of course, needed to drive through town for about an hour, filling up even more than 4/4. In the back row, the last person who squeezes in applies pressure to those around him, like a tupperware lid that’s warped in the dishwasher and now bulges out instead of fitting smoothly.

In Malawi, even before going more than 3/3 was illegal, I never saw a minibus fill with more than 4 per row and maybe a one other before leaving town. What happened after ton completely depended on how many people wanted to get on, but the minibus would set off while we could all still breathe. But this one, eesh.

In the front seat there were 3 or 4 people. There were enough people that in order to let some of them out the driver had to get out and let people crawl out of his side. There were 6 people in the first row of back seats, including the conductor. There were 5 people in the next row, and 4 in the back, But then there were also a couple of people standing and at one point some guys sitting on other guys’ laps.

The professional-looking woman sitting next to me got tired of this behaviour fast, but didn’t so much about it other than sigh discontentedly, shake her bewigged head, and mutter in Luganda—only occasionally loud enough for the conductor to hear. It’s always interesting to me to hear and see what people will do when minibuses are being ridiculous. I bet we could have got them going if we had all threatened to walk out after we got to 4/4. I wonder if it’s respect for people trying to make a buck, fear of not being able to find another minibus, or what. At any rate, no one did anything to stop us from being sardined in. Not even the two army guys.

The funny thing was, shortly outside Mbarara, there was a police trap, so about 8 of the guys had to get out and ride boda-bodas* to a point past the trap where they could reconnect with the minibus. One of the older gentlemen was none too happy about being forced onto the boda-boda. At one point we stopped and traded passengers with another minibus. I asked where that one was going, and was told Kasese, which is also where my minibus was going, so I’m still not sure what that was about.

At Kasese I had to transfer again to another minibus. At least I was still in the back. Every conductor tried to get me to sit up front; none of them understood that the increase in space is in no way enough to make up for the heart attack induced by seeing everything the driver narrowly misses.

At Fort Portal, the minibus driver flagged a special hire driver,** who charged me quite a bit too much, but I couldn’t get his price down. And after 11 hours of travel, I didn’t care anymore, anyway. I continued on to Chimp’s nest even though I didn’t get the text saying my reservation had been accepted until the 8th. I was glad I continued on, though, because as soon as I got there, it was magical. Well, maybe not magical, but I had people welcoming me and taking my pack, which for once was completely welcome (how can I explain how bone tired you can get doing nothing but sitting there, being jostled around, and fitfully napping all day?).

The owners are a married couple: he’s either Zimbabwean or South African and she’s Kenyan. She asked me what I needed, suggested I order dinner before I went to my room, offered to arrange hot water, and then made sure it all happened. I could finally relax.

Bird call was all over, not as varied as at Bunyonyi, but still extensive. And then the chimps started to call, too. It sounded like they were having a party, and I was a little put out at not having been invited. The new group of chimps that are being habituated live right near chimp’s nest, so it will be interesting to see how that changes things.

After an early dinner (my first food of the day!) I met a family, 2 sons and their mother. One of the sons translated for defense attorneys at Guantanamo, and also works on tracking down money laundering. So obviously, I loved chatting with them in spite of my all-over exhaustion.

*motorbike taxis

**Can I just take a minute to be really really appreciative of how many people went a little out of their way to help me and to make sure I didn’t get lost or feel abandoned? None of them hooked me up with friends, as near as I could tell, there was no payoff that I saw, and I wasn’t getting charged the mzungu price in the minibuses. These were just people going the extra mile to be a little nicer than they needed to be.

Category: Travel, Uganda | No Comments »
Tags: Chimp's Nest, COS trip, Fort Portal, Kesese, Kibale, Mbarara, transport, Uganda

Posted By Sika on June 17, 2010

I headed to Lake Bunyonyi on a bus that went straight through to Kabale, where I caught a short taxi and then the boat to Byoona Amagara. The bus ride was a bit cramped, but not too bad—I had my own seat and played a little with the kid next to me.

When I got to the launch to catch the dugout canoe that takes people to Byoona Amagara, there were three other people there. They were two rafting guides from either Adrift or Raft Africa, through whom I had done some class 5 rafting down the Nile. The second guy was a friend of the other two, and was also a rafting guide back home in America.

Therefore, when the rains started to threaten us, still only halfway across the lake, I wasn’t much help in moving us along. We were in two dugouts, but mine went much slower because of the attempting, but failing to, help. The boat guys eventually refused to go any further, and made us pull over to the shore. The raft guides were annoyed, saying that boats float, we could’ve made it, etc. I have to admit, I was a little annoyed that I was getting completely drenched through, my rain coat rendered completely useless by the pervasive wind-blown rain. But I also figured that the guys taking us to Byoona Amagara probably knew more about the safety of the dugouts than the raft guides. And also, they probably couldn’t swim.

When the rain was slightly less wicked, we all clambered back into the dugouts and made it to Byoona Amagara, soaked but safe. I changed my clothes to the least damp and also warmest and most quick-drying clothes I owned. My options were limited because water travels through backpack material.

Then started a couple days of resting. The first night I spent in the dorms, which had no electricity. But even when I moved to one of the geodomes the next night, which had electricity, the light bulb was dim to better preserve the solar electricity. It encouraged the same sort of diurnal schedule that the power outs in Malawi did.

I did yoga looking out on the lake, nothing between me and my view except the railing.

I read about 5 books; one of the easy ones I read twice.

I walked around and looked for birds. I took about a million pictures of cranes. Because I like cranes. It was too cold to swim, although not everyone would agree. I drank a lot of Tangawizi because I love Tangawizi. I talked to the staff, and walked some more.
All in all, it was really quiet, really restful, and I liked taking my showers with hot hot water outside. By the time I was done, I was ready to travel again. Time to go see the chimps.

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Tags: Byoona Amagara, cranes, dugout canoe, Kabale, Lake Bunyonyi, transport, Uganda

Posted By Sika on June 16, 2010

Kampala is bigger than Lilongwe, and in better repair, at least in the center. Although it definitely felt like an African city (unlike, say, Maputo or Cape Town), it just felt more vast than anything in Malawi. It also has marabou storks, which I hate, a little bit because they are frigging huge and ugly (although, from that perspective I also find them a little awe-inspiring). But mostly I hate them because one pooped on me. And a bird that size . . . .

It has a lot of restaurants and stores and museums. All in a pretty walkable space downtown (well, once you get there). The museums are small but have interesting art—some of it looking like high-class curios and the rest looking like proper museum art.

On the less fun side, it has many more small children beggars than what I was used to seeing. So many wee ones with thin and spindly arms and sharp features—I guess their parents know what they’re doing, in a way, since it’s much harder to resist giving them things than it is to kids even just a couple of years older.

A Bantu language is also spoken in Uganda, and so I was able to understand a few words, although mostly I was frustrated by thinking I understood a word and then finding the definition of the word had mutated (probably centuries ago) into something completely different.

When I arrived in Kampala, I was still exhausted. I got a bed in an otherwise empty dorm room at Red Chilli Hideaway . They had good food, good wireless internet (mom had allowed me to borrow her netbook) and I had time to rest. I spent days there not doing much of anything.

During my time chilling, though, I made plans with the cousin of a friend of my mom’s, Becky, who is Ugandan. We met in town, and talked for a while about a lot of things. She’s a very conservative Christian, so I had to make sure my Sika-in-Africa hat was on some of the time. Although, generally I don’t have that hard of a time being polite and respectful with people who believe things I don’t but who I also believe are coming from a place of love. Also, she taught me a lot about how the Poverty Doctrine is misused in many evangelical christian churches in Africa, which was an interesting conversation I don’t think I would have been able to have with anyone else.

Also, it was funny when she described to me her reaction, as an unmarried woman, going to a hen party for a British friend. She seemed to be scandalized all over again while she told me about the drinking and the presents of underwear and I don’t remember what else. A cake with naughty bits, perhaps? Penis straws?

She also introduced me to a friend who was also a guide and who offered, for a discount, to take me out to the gorillas and help me find a permit. But in the end I realized I didn’t have money for the trip and the lodging and the food and the transport, and mostly for the permit. So, I decided to go Chimp Trekking instead. But first I was going to go to Lake Bunyonyi.

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Tags: Bantu, COS trip, hen party, Kampala, language, marabou storks, Red Chilli Hideaway, religion, Uganda

Posted By Sika on June 15, 2010

We went back to the hotel so I could catch breakfast and to pick mom, who was feeling much better after more sleep. I had what seems to be the traditional Ethiopian breakfast: bread with creamed fresh honey in Hello Kitty-ish plates and coffee (ok, the Hello Kitty may not be traditional). I had decided I would drink lots of coffee in Ethiopia, just for Kris.

We went back out to the churches, catching a lift in one of the ubiquitous minibus taxis that always seem ridiculous when they’re full of all of two people.

Individually, the churches are very interesting. The artistry is impressive, and they remain solid and present enough that you’re always aware of how difficult it must have been to chip away what didn’t belong in order to make them.

But collectively they’re a little dull. The interesting bits are small—a fresco here, a priest who tries to look super cool while posing for his photo there—oh, yeah, and the mummies—and are interspersed with staring at rock; looking at the representations of whether the other criminals who were crucified with Christ went to heaven or hell; taking shoes off and putting them back on again; and waiting for the priest to pose with his cross, even if you don’t really care or want yet another picture of a priest and his cross.

Oh, and arguing with your guide whether a symbolic disembowelment by the light of Christ is really such a good thing. Put that on whichever side of the tally of pros and cons you’d like.

I hope that people who are filled with the love of Christ would enjoy it all more than I did, rather than having the sense of wonder quickly supplanted by boredom, a sense of needing to take pictures because, “I might want them later,” and trying to remember how many of Lalibela’s things to do we’ve checked off so far.

Of course, a lot of this was the beginning of the end for me. I was heading home, but too rapidly and too slowly at the same time. I had already been living out of my backpack for almost 2 months, and I still had another month to go. It was getting old, and I was getting tired. While I still found things to marvel at every day, this, right here in Lalibela, was the beginning of wishing I was home already. And even that sensation was odd: Except for immediately before my first big trip, I had never before in my life wished I could be traveling less.

Mom and I left Lalibela the next day to head back to Addis, where we stayed at Desalegn again, and found the rooms that had yet to be remodeled far less charming and far more bug infested than the rooms that had been remodeled. Early the next morning, mom headed home, and a few hours later, I headed to Uganda.

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Tags: Addis, churches, coptic, Coptic Christianity, COS trip, Desalegn, Ethiopia, Lalibela, religion, tired of traveling

Posted By Sika on June 15, 2010

Mom didn’t feel like going to see the actual festival in the morning. She wasn’t totally recovered from getting sick earlier in the trip (what with the go go go pace) and we both were a bit tired of the preferential treatment and especially of all the religious stuff. Eventually, after many longing looks at my comfy bed, I decided to go to the festival. I told our tour guide that I didn’t want to get in people’s way or shove through crowds, and he sorta agreed, which I figured was the best I was going to get.

We walked up the hill, quickly,and went to the courtyard outside of that one church people with girl cooties can’t enter. I didn’t want to pass all the people crowded in the gate, but the guard made me, which ended up being a good thing—I was less in the way when we passed through because people were crowded around the gate and pressed up against the walls of the church. Apparently, there’s a Coptic belief that the Holy Spirit comes from the ground and and the best thing to do is to stay put so it can find you. So people just stop as soon as they get into the holy area. In this case, pushing through got me out of the way.

After some time listening and watching, we headed back to the square outside the main market. Again we were shepherded to a prime viewing spot, and the guide teased me for not being aggressive enough. This time the spot was behind a fence about 10-15 feet from the cross, and about 10 feet deep between the fence and the building behind us. There were many speeches in Amharic (about godly things, I’m sure). Then the Bishop and some priests circled the cross and lit it. It went up fast. One minute we were all getting close to the fence for better views, and the next we were backing up as far as the building behind us would allow. The next, the pressure of the heat had cleared everyone who had been standing in front of the cross to the sides of the building behind us.

The flames climbed the ten-foot cross and spread out, following the logs that were tossed onto the fire from several feet away.

Again, the crowd seemed both joyful and a little bit frightening, especially when combined with the destructive power of fire and the sheer joy of making the fire bigger bigger bigger. And I say that as someone who is generally very appreciative of the transcendent captivation of fire. I had a very strong sense that very soon the fire would explode out of control.

It never did.

On the way out, we stopped to watch some youths who had a drumming and dancing circle. Amongst them was a young woman I had seen the day before: hair only partially covered, looking like she belonged there, in the front with all the men, and doing her own thing. She gave me hope for the future of Coptic Christianity, from my own perspective, of course.

There were some kids in the crowd who couldn’t see and I gestured to a girl to see if she wanted up to see better. I’m still not sure she totally understood me, but I lifted her up and held her for a bit so she could see the drummers and dancers.

Category: Ethiopia, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: coptic, Coptic Christianity, COS trip, crowds, drumming, Ethiopia, festival, fire, Lalibela, Meskel, religion

Posted By Sika on June 14, 2010

At the Lalibela airport, I was once again surprised at the ornateness, suburban-Ethiopian style. We had a new problem in Lalibela: a taxi and two guides waiting for us. Apparently there was a guide convention in Addis, because the guide Nebil had arranged for Lalibela was there, too. But he had sent a replacement, and Michael had also arranged a guide for us.

They said we would sort it on the way and also, “Don’t worry!” two words guaranteed to strike fear in anyone who has been traveling for a while. Mom and I were inclined to take the guide Nebil’s friend had sent. After all, we had made an agreement with him. But this was complicated by the fact that the guy spoke poor English, didn’t appear to know much about, well, anything, and oozed a sort of mucky, officious, demeanor.

Luckily for us, they came to an agreement amongst themselves by the time we dropped at our hotel. Heavens Guesthouse was wonderful: $15/night, a comfy bed and a semi-comfy bed for mom, a hot shower, a flower garden, and a good restaurant at the hotel next door.

We arrived late Saturday morning, which was really too bad. Michael had told us to try to see the Saturday market, because it’s huge and people travel for days to get there; it’s the only big market around. But, by the time we rested for a bit and ate some lunch, the market was mostly over.

Lalibela is along the sides of a valley, and as such, there are a lot of steep hills going everywhere. Also, King Lalibela was bugnuts. I don’t say that apropos of anything, I just think it’s important to get it out of the way as soon as possible. Mom and I decided it would be best (for Mom, although to be honest, I was glad not to have to tackle those hills) to catch a lift to the market. After browsing briefly at the deflating market, we went to our first rock hewn church.

So, here’s the deal. Over about 20 years, King Lalibela built about 10 or so of these churches. Considering the churches were hewn from the cliffs that would later surround them, that’s pretty damn impressive. No one is exactly sure how it was done. One argument is that Lalibela just hired approximately a quatrillion people. But, in some of the churches at least, the work seems too regular and fine to have been done by different people of varying skill levels. So maybe there were a few experts, supervising teams of garden variety workers? Or maybe Lalibela and his artisans worked at the speed you’d expect, but then angels came at night to help them out.

We arrived just in time for the Meskel festival, and after seeing our first church—interesting, not great—and the outside of Bet Maryam, we went to see the the start of the festival.

Here’s the story of the Meskel Festival:

Jesus died on the cross. This was not an unusual death, as it was a favorite method, and the Jews didn’t want any more to be made out of it than it was. So, they took Jesus’ cross (as opposed to all the other men’s crosses), and made it the bottom of a mountainous garbage heap. Some time, years and years later, a queen (the Queen of Sheba?) came to try to find the cross. The Hebrews wouldn’t tell her where the cross was, so she lit a fire of myrrh (or frankinsense?) The smoke from the fire lead her to the cross. The Meskel Festival is to celebrate the finding of the true cross.

Foreigners had a special place at the festival—guides pushed and shoved to get to get the tourists to the front of the crowd, with an easy view of the Bishop and the priests and the cross. The Bishop even told the tourists what time we needed to come the next day in order to get a good view of the burning of the cross. Mom and I both had problems with this, Mom more than me because I was also drooling over the idea of all the photos I could take on my fancy new camera (not good, but true). But if we resisted, our guide would just grab us and bring us through the crowd of people. People for whom this whole ceremony meant something—so we could stand in front of them and snap pictures with our fancy cameras.

After the pre-festival thingamajig broke up, we walked back to the hotel, looking at the artificial River Jordan built because King Lalibela had weird delusions of Jerusalem in Ethiopia.

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Tags: angels, COS trip, Heavens Guesthouse, Lalibela, Meskel, Mom, religion, River Jordan, Sheba

Posted By Sika on June 14, 2010

We got up and threw on clothes we had set aside the night before. I brought my shama, just in case. Michael was was waiting for us in one of the blue rickshaw-like vehicles that are so common, noisy, and pollute-y in Ethiopia*.

We drove through the pre-dawn streets, which were only slightly illuminated by the street lamps. We saw a few people walking in the same direction we were driving, all of them dressed in white. According to Michael, the Mihilela procession happens every morning for a week, every month.

Which is impressive, and also a bit . . . well, with the huge amount of ritual involved—the genuflecting and the following of the (copy of the) Ark of the Covenent—and the masses (there were probably thousands of people there) it’s a bit overwhelming. Both in a full of spirit, people coming together sort of way, and in a horrible sense of how much people here have hitched their carts to the church.** Michael didn’t participate in the procession that day because he was teaching us about it, but he would’ve liked to be there as a participant: the strings of his faith, tugging him to join the crowd, were nearly visible.

It had that horrible wonderfulness that ritualized crowd behaviour often engenders. Crowds are capable of so much, and whether that so much is or good or ill—well, that can change in an instant.

Also, the sex segregation was, as usual, disturbing. The women came well behind the men, covered and separated. Our Lalibella guide would later tell us that men and women need to worship separately because men can’t control themselves, although he stopped that line of reasoning when he saw how no where that got him. Then, at one of the churches that wouldn’t allow women into the holy area, he tried the argument, “Women are closer to God and already have the Word, so they need to go out and share it. Therefore, they don’t need the inner sanctum as much as men do.” Which just goes to show how sexist reasoning thinks so little of men.

The light rose slowly, first just changing in tone as the blue of the dawning sun neutralized the orangey yellow of the street lights. And then, eventually, the sun came up all the way, and the cottony sphere that encased us, created by the night and the people and the ritual and the sense of alone togetherness, dissolved. And everybody peeled off, to work, to feed their children, to their lives.

We returned to the hotel to finish packing and to head for the airport. I was as surprised by how tight security was at the Axum airport as I had been at Harar. These airports were tiny, with no gates, just a holding area where you were called when your flight was boarding. Then you exit the door onto the runway, and walk out to the plane. But there are several xrays, some hand check stations, and you have to go through all of them. The security at these two airports was tighter than at Addis. When I asked about it, I found out that Harar security was tight because of its proximity to the Sudan, and Axum’s because of its proximity (about 40 km) to Eritrea. You could see Eritrea from the hills around Axum. Between two countries that periodically go to war, that is a little nerve wracking.

We cleared security with only a few hiccups, and headed to Lalibella to start our day all over again.

*The caretaker from the Rimbaud museum in Harar hates them because of how unpleasant they are—but Tata has new cleaner ones, so maybe that’ll help.

**All of our Christian taxi drivers crossed themselves every time we passed a church. And there are a many churches.

Category: Ethiopia, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: Ark of the Covenant, Axum, Coptic Christian, COS trip, Ethiopia, gender, Michael, Mihilela, religion, sexism, transcendant