After sorting through the menu of whats included for breakfast (basically everything but anything with meat or cheese, or the fruit because first they'd haveta go to town to buy it... So what's left?!) we began our Christmas journey down the road to the falls of bujagali. We hadn't made it the full ten minute walk before it started raining heavy drops and ever so suddenly a downpour. So we stood under a tree looking around, and the people from the shack below started waving us in, so I fled to the shack and the rest followed/slid down the already muddy hill closely behind. we piled into the building to find out it was actually a kitchen that cooked food for all the rafters. We cleared to the back and Kira took a seat next to this big ol lady stirring her Xmas chicken in a fryin pan over an open fire stove. What we hoped and thought might be a few seconds or even minutes turned into over an hour of the hardest/second hardest rainfall I have ever witnessed... That one in panama this summer was pretty rough! So we took pictures out the window, talked with the 'chefs' and discussed why I wouldn't have 17 children like the rest of Uganda, or why I haven't quote:'reproduced yet'. O the beautiful girl discount days are almostt back.. If only there were things to buy in the kitchen! Ha. What seems like a complete disaster and almsot waste of a late morning turned into an awesome and unique adventure... How many people get to hang out in a local kitchen waiting for a rainstorm to pass over the source of the Nile!? The rain eventually simmered enough for us to venture completely out to our original destination. The rapids looked decent in the rafting videos we saw over dinner the night before, but watching a crazy kayaker go down them in real life made me look like a completely sane person. The rapids were nearly huge and the little man in the little kayak was nearly tiny. So after our longer than expected morning adventure, we headed back to the Hotel and sorted items for the tournament that would take place the following 2 days. I helped make sure the colors and sizes of the donated jerseys worked out so that the same color teams wouldn't play each other except for possibly in the final game. I will explain the tournament and setup in the next post. So we organized and got dressed in our fundafield attire and headed down to the SOUL shack where this girl Brooke is working on helping the kids of the community. We had visited Brooke at the SOUL shack the night before breifly, meeting all the kids that were moreee than excited to see new muzungus in their little village. So as we headed out of bujugali, took a quick left down a dirt road, and walked maybe only 5 minutes and we were in a while new world. The shack is livable for American Brooke, with electricity from generators and an office and small tiny little third room that functions as a kitchen/storage room. Since we were such a big hit the night before, all the kids were back again to celebrate Christmas with the muzungus. Christmas is a big deal in Uganda, but of course is on a completely different level. From what we gathered from quizzing the kids on their holiday festivities, we figured Christmas means dressing in your best clothes and having a feast of rice and meat for lunch. Some of them said they take a christmas swim in the Nile, but it obviously is at a different spot than we were at all afternoon if it was true. (they lie about the weirdest things) There are no presents, no Santa, no wreaths or red and green and tacky decor. Just celebrating and an occasional branch posing as a Xmas tree, often decorated with lights and the holiday cards they receive. I think they appreciate hand typed cards vs. We appreciate hand written cards..
Anyways, what were we doing at the SOUL shack? We were cooking a spaghetti dinner for Muganda and his family.. The fundafield group had met thus boy and his family last year, and had wanted to cook them a meal. There are 17 children in this average family, with 3 wives. I'd say they are better off than most because Brooke has helped them as well. So we were really just cooking for the family, but it felt like the whole village! Cooking for them was a special experience in itself... Thank god we brought the pasta noodles and a few random ingredients from the supermarket stop in Kampala. We would've been rolling out dough in the dirt for the noodles otherwise. I think the whole pasta cooking process took somewhere around 2 hours for us inexperienced african cookers instead of the 9 minutes it takes at home on the stove. Step 1: go to the well and get some water. Two of the boys and I took some Jerry cans and jolly as our helper to lead the way. It was only about a half a mile to the well, but it took us 15 minutes each way (at least) to swerve through the jungle path, pick eggplants as our stoppers/lids of the Jerry cans and avoid slipping on the crazy wet path. Getting to the end of the path brought new little faces and calls of muzungu! Muzungu! Of course again. So the boys took turn pumping the water, having trouble pumping at a consistent speed so the water flowed out in the same spot. It probably took another 20 minutes for us to fill the 2 five liter bottles and the 2 one? Liter bottles. There is no actual sense of time out here.. Basically the sun fully set during thus whole fetching water process. Jolly taught us various ways to carry the water- on the head (ouch) with two arms, and like a sack of potatoes over the shoulder. I just had a one liter most of the way as I w as responsible for photographing and filming. By the time we got back, everyone was like what took you so long!? They were just standing around waiting for us because the kids told them it was a 5 minute walk.. And for them it very well may be. For us clumsy and incapable muzungus, it took close to an hour... Maybe even a full one. I dunno if we could survive fetching water 5-6 times a day. Luckily during our water journey, a small fire had been made by the remaining fundafield crew for the pasta sauce creation. There was no pre-made sauce at the grocery store. So they poked and pryed the cans open without a can opener to get the tomato paste out. We had local little onions and some pasta seasoning to add to the mix as well. So Riley stood there and stirred the pot of sauce.. This is officially the biggest pot I have ever seen. I got put on water watching duty in the unannexed kitchen room that Brooke helped build onto the house. Yes a fire was started in a closed and contained brick/ mud building with no vents except the door. Little sula was super shy but wanted to touch me (us muzungus are good luck you know) he hung around until he opened up and eventually sat on my lap as we waited for the new biggest pot of my life to boil. The water came to a slow boil at somepoint, the noodles went in and we finally had the dinner ready! Wahoo! So we lined up in a big assembly line, brushed off our 'clean' plates with the under sides of our shirts and had a feast. Luckily Brooke had enough utensils for all of us, since everyone else just used their hands. I've never in my life cared about using hand sanitizer, and let me tell you, I've almost gone through the whole bottle on the first week. The kids loveddd slurping up the noodles.. Most o them didn't know what spaghetti was til now. After dinner, we had a box of sour patch to pass around.. I think we enjoyed their facial expressions as much as they enjoyed the candy. Sour taste is also clearly a first for these kids. So we had a fun night with the kiddies and I went home with a head of dreads... My blonde hair is a hit along with my white skin.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Landed in Uganda!
After our forever and a day touch down in Ethiopia, we got off our final plane in Uganda!! Whooo! 23 hours of flying is a bit tortureous, even with a nice break in Dubai. At any rate, the air is warm and humid, but not too hot (thank god) and has the third world charm of burnt trash lingering in the scent.. Yes. I'm stoked. There is something soo exciting about the smell, I guess it's the smell of a new adventure. We wait in line to go through passport control, which is really just buy your $50 visa control. While waiting in the mess of a line, I took Kira to the bathroom (the only other 'girl' in the group at 12.. But she is a very mature 12 year old and fun to be around) at any rate, while I was waiting for her I noticed someone struggling to get out of the stall next to her. Eventually yelps and little shrieks starting coming too and I almost had to laugh that someone was stuck in the bathroom. I went over and tried to help, but I couldn't budge the thing either. The woman was definitely starting to panic as there was no way to crawl under or over really. I don't think her English was so hot, but after almost ripping the stall door off, I realized we had to get back to the passport line and I told her I was calling for back-up. I told the luggage man outside to go rip the door off in there, he looked very confused, and I'll never really know if he went in there or even rescued the lady.
So like Dubai, the exiting security was a joke, as we all lined up and stuck our bags and boxes of jerseys and soccer balls through another X-ray machine. The black people just walk on through. I am only allowed to call them that because they call us mzuyungu... Aka white person! (this always includes a finger gesture of sometime.. Usually just one pointing at as and chanting.. Sometimes is a bad wave which means don't even think about taking a picture of me bud, and on one occasion it was the middle finger.) so the clan of mzuyungus headed ou the airport and met up with isaacs brother, mark. Isaac is kinda like our local conductor of the trip... Sort of. Hes our part organizer to help with local logistics.. But I just made him sound wayy to fancy. We headed out of Entebbe toward Kampala (the capital) where we would spend our first night at a little guesthouse just a few streets off the hustle and bustle. It was above my expectations (which yes can be extremely low) hosting a fairly legit breakfast and a weak wi-fi signal in the little checkin room. Everything was super nice and clean, the shower was hot, and the bed even had a nice drapping mosquito net. Not too shabby at all. We headed to the mall where we got dinner and some groceries for the dinner we will be cooking soon. The food court seems at first like a reallly lame cop-out of a first meal in Uganda, but as a few of the people on the trip already knew (they've been here a few times) , it def was not. as soon as you sit Down at a table, a person or two from each of 7-8 little circling restaurants attacks you with a menu. Within 5 seconds of seating, there were definitely 30 menus sprawled across our 8 person table, with a Ugandan over every other shoulder and the rest standing back slightly as spectators. I learned quickly that like many other countries the personal bubble got left back in America. I was cracking up as they each try to put their menu infront of you and point to their favorite dishes... Which are def the ones I would never order... Sorry the cheeseburger on the 'Lebanese' menu and the grilled gizzards are not my first choice. I'm always down for an adventure, but imagine the rapid increase in sales any of these people could have if they suggested things that somewhat interested you. Anyway, after all the pointing and pushing, we all sat there like what the hell did I order? We ate and pushed our extremely still jetlagged bodies down stairs to get some water and our pasta materials the grocery store is one of my favorite local experiences always.. Here is an opportunity to really see how the locals go about their everyday lives and be a part of it. Well, this experience was a little like that time in the Egyptian grocery store, where there are people EVERYWHERE and chaos fills the air. Granted, it was like 8 o'clock which sounds like a good shopping hour (vs in Egypt we were there at midnight and it was packed) but I could reallly pull up a chair in any supermarket and just people watch for days. I grabbed a mango, but had this slight hunch that I was supposed to pre-weigh it somewhere like in Europe, but in all the chaos I thought I'd just wait til checkout to find out. I love the back of the grocery store where they have fabric, tall heaps of suitcases for sale, and random other items you would never in your life see at Safeway or Albies.
Well, that was about enough excitement for one afternoon and evening, so we worked our way back through the traffic of Kampala to our guesthouse (it's just the word for hotel here) and I had many flashbacks of being in Bali. The smells, the crowds of hectic people and the busy dirt roads of honking cars, swerving motorcycles, and people carrying ridiculous amounts of weight and objects on their heads and shoulders must've all contributed :).
The next morning started really early with the stupid jetlag wake up call of 3 am. I managed to lay til 7 before hoping in the bucket in the shower.. I felt so good and comfortable in that shitty shower that I laughed.. It was clean and good by Africa standards I'm sure, (I mean it is my first one here but I can just guess) but I had to laugh at how great it felt. We gathered our lives, called home with my last 57 cents of Skype credit on the wi-fi--mom that's why the call ended.. I toldddd you to get on Skype, and had some brekky and were all ready to go by 9, our anticipated departure time, but at morning #1 in uganda, we forgot to factor in Africa time. So we hung out on a bench, Kira did my hair, we discussed buying goats vs cows for the winner of our upcoming tournament, how the tournament would work, etc etc etc until about 10? 10:30? Who knows. The only reason we know what time it is is because we all have iPhones.. Pathetic Americans. Ha ha. I'm yet to see a single clock anywhere on this trip... Not even in Dubai. No wonder no one gets anywhere on time! Eventually issac and our driver Wilson rolled up, and then we headed to the slum to check out the poor of the poor.. No one knew how to get there because no one ever goes there,, so through the traffic and people pointing us in different directions, and through the gangs past experience of being there, we eventually made it through the "jammin" (traffic) .... La might have nothing on some of these roads. We strolled looking for this guy, eventually found his store, and found out he was gone for Christmas. There is an overwhelming amount of christian influence here, so christmas today should be interesting!! Ahhhh! Merry merrry Christmas! So strange. So anyway, for the rest of our christmas eve, we wandered and gathered quite the crowd of little Ugandan children. They all just want their picture taken so the can see themselves on our cameras.. It's probably the first time many of them had seen their own faces. Some demand things, expecting that when white people show up, they give us things. So, through the Weiss' experience we tell them to give us something first, to hopefully send back some sort of message that white people dont just show up with gifts and give them to meet the 5 year old's demands. They are cute little buggers though, and so welcoming and happy.
We next started our trek to luganzi, where st Andrews secondary school is and thus the field we are building. We took some 'backroads' to avoid traffic and it was really cool to see the different villages we rolled through. Some were having these crazy BBQ parties where there were grills cookin up a storm, and sellin pieces of chicken on stick by the bundle down the street. This may seem strange, but it seems the only way to sell anything is to stand on the road and weave between cars. Whether it be sticks of chicken, live chickens held by their armpits, plastic Christmas trees, or bamboo sticks for herding your cows? I loveee the 3-5 story chicken cages piled randomly on the side ofthe road its like a crowded chicken condo where you go to get your Xmas dinner. When you pick out your dinner, you carry it home by the feet or under the armpit like a purse. We stopped at a gas station for lunch because we were starving.. Our stomachs haven't shrunk yet! I think it was actually a restaurant attached to the station, but the cook was out, so after trying to order everything on he menu, we asked what we could eat,, basically everyone got pilau and meat.. By process of animal deduction, we decided meat is goat. That's fine. Goat is alright. And pilau is tasty rice. Some had this m---' something that is banAna mush... Also as we were eating, the radio advertisers rolled in for some petrol, and I realized that noone even flinched. This music was BLARING and everyone just carried on with life. If someone with a quarter of that volume rolls in to a gas station at home, they are greeted with discerning stares and a whole lot of rude judgements. Here, it's life... Just mind your own. We eventually got to st. Andrews after having to walk up the muddy hill. It was super cool to see the school and the field that is about to be mowed over in a few days. This will be fundafields 8th field. Right now there is grass on a slanted hill with 3 sticks stuck together as the schools soccer field.. I can't wait to see how it's transformed soon! We found more Ugandan babies to photograph.. I'm wondering if we will get over it in the next few weeks or if I will have a photo of every child in ugandA by then!
We were supposed to tour isaacs village and see the sixth field fundafield built but due to Africa time, we headed to bujagli where were staying for a few days and holding the soccer tournament on one of the previous fields fundafield built (the fifth one). what a trip..this place is REAL Africa.. I say just what you would picture in the jungles of Africa.. One dirt road with a few wood shacks barely standing lining their way to the onlyy attraction for miles and miles in any direction (the source of the Nile). Where we are staying at Eden Rock is inside the gate.. But just like Bali, don't even think of trying to head down to the falls without first backtracking to the guard booth. The guard sports a gun and it up for big debate if it actually has any bullets in it. So, we arrived safe, went down to the rafting/backpackers bar, had some din din and off to sleep we went.. Or so we tried. The last night of jet lag didn't have me up til 4:30 with the roosters and the growling large animal outside our door. It sounded like a wild boar, so in a debate if I should go check it out, or try fall back asleep, I couldnt resist the anicipation of my first real African wildlife (other than the HUGE ibis like trash eating birds that stand at least 4.5 feet tall) and fled to the window. Shame it was just two dogs, and even a bigger shame thru were growling over lisa's shoe they stole from the porch. Good morning Christmas in Uganda.
So like Dubai, the exiting security was a joke, as we all lined up and stuck our bags and boxes of jerseys and soccer balls through another X-ray machine. The black people just walk on through. I am only allowed to call them that because they call us mzuyungu... Aka white person! (this always includes a finger gesture of sometime.. Usually just one pointing at as and chanting.. Sometimes is a bad wave which means don't even think about taking a picture of me bud, and on one occasion it was the middle finger.) so the clan of mzuyungus headed ou the airport and met up with isaacs brother, mark. Isaac is kinda like our local conductor of the trip... Sort of. Hes our part organizer to help with local logistics.. But I just made him sound wayy to fancy. We headed out of Entebbe toward Kampala (the capital) where we would spend our first night at a little guesthouse just a few streets off the hustle and bustle. It was above my expectations (which yes can be extremely low) hosting a fairly legit breakfast and a weak wi-fi signal in the little checkin room. Everything was super nice and clean, the shower was hot, and the bed even had a nice drapping mosquito net. Not too shabby at all. We headed to the mall where we got dinner and some groceries for the dinner we will be cooking soon. The food court seems at first like a reallly lame cop-out of a first meal in Uganda, but as a few of the people on the trip already knew (they've been here a few times) , it def was not. as soon as you sit Down at a table, a person or two from each of 7-8 little circling restaurants attacks you with a menu. Within 5 seconds of seating, there were definitely 30 menus sprawled across our 8 person table, with a Ugandan over every other shoulder and the rest standing back slightly as spectators. I learned quickly that like many other countries the personal bubble got left back in America. I was cracking up as they each try to put their menu infront of you and point to their favorite dishes... Which are def the ones I would never order... Sorry the cheeseburger on the 'Lebanese' menu and the grilled gizzards are not my first choice. I'm always down for an adventure, but imagine the rapid increase in sales any of these people could have if they suggested things that somewhat interested you. Anyway, after all the pointing and pushing, we all sat there like what the hell did I order? We ate and pushed our extremely still jetlagged bodies down stairs to get some water and our pasta materials the grocery store is one of my favorite local experiences always.. Here is an opportunity to really see how the locals go about their everyday lives and be a part of it. Well, this experience was a little like that time in the Egyptian grocery store, where there are people EVERYWHERE and chaos fills the air. Granted, it was like 8 o'clock which sounds like a good shopping hour (vs in Egypt we were there at midnight and it was packed) but I could reallly pull up a chair in any supermarket and just people watch for days. I grabbed a mango, but had this slight hunch that I was supposed to pre-weigh it somewhere like in Europe, but in all the chaos I thought I'd just wait til checkout to find out. I love the back of the grocery store where they have fabric, tall heaps of suitcases for sale, and random other items you would never in your life see at Safeway or Albies.
Well, that was about enough excitement for one afternoon and evening, so we worked our way back through the traffic of Kampala to our guesthouse (it's just the word for hotel here) and I had many flashbacks of being in Bali. The smells, the crowds of hectic people and the busy dirt roads of honking cars, swerving motorcycles, and people carrying ridiculous amounts of weight and objects on their heads and shoulders must've all contributed :).
The next morning started really early with the stupid jetlag wake up call of 3 am. I managed to lay til 7 before hoping in the bucket in the shower.. I felt so good and comfortable in that shitty shower that I laughed.. It was clean and good by Africa standards I'm sure, (I mean it is my first one here but I can just guess) but I had to laugh at how great it felt. We gathered our lives, called home with my last 57 cents of Skype credit on the wi-fi--mom that's why the call ended.. I toldddd you to get on Skype, and had some brekky and were all ready to go by 9, our anticipated departure time, but at morning #1 in uganda, we forgot to factor in Africa time. So we hung out on a bench, Kira did my hair, we discussed buying goats vs cows for the winner of our upcoming tournament, how the tournament would work, etc etc etc until about 10? 10:30? Who knows. The only reason we know what time it is is because we all have iPhones.. Pathetic Americans. Ha ha. I'm yet to see a single clock anywhere on this trip... Not even in Dubai. No wonder no one gets anywhere on time! Eventually issac and our driver Wilson rolled up, and then we headed to the slum to check out the poor of the poor.. No one knew how to get there because no one ever goes there,, so through the traffic and people pointing us in different directions, and through the gangs past experience of being there, we eventually made it through the "jammin" (traffic) .... La might have nothing on some of these roads. We strolled looking for this guy, eventually found his store, and found out he was gone for Christmas. There is an overwhelming amount of christian influence here, so christmas today should be interesting!! Ahhhh! Merry merrry Christmas! So strange. So anyway, for the rest of our christmas eve, we wandered and gathered quite the crowd of little Ugandan children. They all just want their picture taken so the can see themselves on our cameras.. It's probably the first time many of them had seen their own faces. Some demand things, expecting that when white people show up, they give us things. So, through the Weiss' experience we tell them to give us something first, to hopefully send back some sort of message that white people dont just show up with gifts and give them to meet the 5 year old's demands. They are cute little buggers though, and so welcoming and happy.
We next started our trek to luganzi, where st Andrews secondary school is and thus the field we are building. We took some 'backroads' to avoid traffic and it was really cool to see the different villages we rolled through. Some were having these crazy BBQ parties where there were grills cookin up a storm, and sellin pieces of chicken on stick by the bundle down the street. This may seem strange, but it seems the only way to sell anything is to stand on the road and weave between cars. Whether it be sticks of chicken, live chickens held by their armpits, plastic Christmas trees, or bamboo sticks for herding your cows? I loveee the 3-5 story chicken cages piled randomly on the side ofthe road its like a crowded chicken condo where you go to get your Xmas dinner. When you pick out your dinner, you carry it home by the feet or under the armpit like a purse. We stopped at a gas station for lunch because we were starving.. Our stomachs haven't shrunk yet! I think it was actually a restaurant attached to the station, but the cook was out, so after trying to order everything on he menu, we asked what we could eat,, basically everyone got pilau and meat.. By process of animal deduction, we decided meat is goat. That's fine. Goat is alright. And pilau is tasty rice. Some had this m---' something that is banAna mush... Also as we were eating, the radio advertisers rolled in for some petrol, and I realized that noone even flinched. This music was BLARING and everyone just carried on with life. If someone with a quarter of that volume rolls in to a gas station at home, they are greeted with discerning stares and a whole lot of rude judgements. Here, it's life... Just mind your own. We eventually got to st. Andrews after having to walk up the muddy hill. It was super cool to see the school and the field that is about to be mowed over in a few days. This will be fundafields 8th field. Right now there is grass on a slanted hill with 3 sticks stuck together as the schools soccer field.. I can't wait to see how it's transformed soon! We found more Ugandan babies to photograph.. I'm wondering if we will get over it in the next few weeks or if I will have a photo of every child in ugandA by then!
We were supposed to tour isaacs village and see the sixth field fundafield built but due to Africa time, we headed to bujagli where were staying for a few days and holding the soccer tournament on one of the previous fields fundafield built (the fifth one). what a trip..this place is REAL Africa.. I say just what you would picture in the jungles of Africa.. One dirt road with a few wood shacks barely standing lining their way to the onlyy attraction for miles and miles in any direction (the source of the Nile). Where we are staying at Eden Rock is inside the gate.. But just like Bali, don't even think of trying to head down to the falls without first backtracking to the guard booth. The guard sports a gun and it up for big debate if it actually has any bullets in it. So, we arrived safe, went down to the rafting/backpackers bar, had some din din and off to sleep we went.. Or so we tried. The last night of jet lag didn't have me up til 4:30 with the roosters and the growling large animal outside our door. It sounded like a wild boar, so in a debate if I should go check it out, or try fall back asleep, I couldnt resist the anicipation of my first real African wildlife (other than the HUGE ibis like trash eating birds that stand at least 4.5 feet tall) and fled to the window. Shame it was just two dogs, and even a bigger shame thru were growling over lisa's shoe they stole from the porch. Good morning Christmas in Uganda.
Pitstop in Dubai
Back on the road/ in the air and it feels as good as ever! Dubai is as over the top as anyone could hope it to be.. I wish we had had more time for exploring.. As always. Let's say the adventure began right in the airport, where huge white columns make the passport counter look like were checking into the belagio.. Don't forget the little christmas tree subtly stuck in the corner decorated with 20-30 flat screen tvs.
Although the jetlag of a 16 hour flight was trying to wear us down, we stumbled out into the great desert to see some awesome architecture on our little tour with the taxi man as we made our way to joes place. I was super excited to see Joe as he is basically the only Australia friend I haven't seen in the past 3 years.. Good job Ashley! We stopped for photo ops in front of the largest building in the world and in the jumeirah where we had awesome views of the burj al Arab (rooms start around $2,000 a night). Everything visible glows And glitters in the night.. It's hard to not be impressed. We wanted to go out to the altlantis on the palms.. The manmade islands right next to the world islands, but we were super duper late meeting up with Joe and his friends. So after rolling past the palace where the president and each of his wives have a house on the grounds, and learning that cab drivers can get a 1000 Dirham fine for not having their shoes shined or their name badge showing, we made it to joes and met his whole crew.There were people from alll over, his roommate a local and his friend a stanford grad who will be heading to Uganda after us. Small world. He lives right next to the mall of the emirates where the indoor snowboarding is. There is also a mall to scuba dive in but I think that's the other one next to the tallest building... It's hard to keep track of all the tallest biggests and firsts around here. O did I mention that all the was in the living room was a giant like 6 person tent popped up and furnished inside!? Ha. Also learned that there are no taxes.. Not even on income, but everything costs a shitload, so it evens out. And your race determines what type of job you can hold.. Filipinos work the front desk of hotels, middle easterners drive the cabs, etc. Just in the newspaper this morning, chinese were approved to be housekeepers. Some things are reallly backwards here.. Kinda like the Muslim in full get-up taking shots at the bar. We all made it over to the closed up souk/mall where the few bars on the river were. And then we learned that the drinking age is actually 21 instead of the expected 18. We made it work for the most-part.. Shared a big bowl drink of who knows what , had a few laughs and before you knew it it was after 1 am and we had to get up at 5:30 for our next flight. Since I was the big kid incharge, I had to get the boys home so our journey was so shortly ended.. And off to bed. On the plus side waking up was no problem, it was staying asleep from 2:30 to 5:30 that was rough. I think I've only slept 9 hours over the past 3+ days.. Maybe it's been 4 days?
We got to the airport where security was a joke and a half...and then I helped Kyle find Joe across the airport to get his shorts back since he had to put on a pair of jeans for the night before. We trekked across like 3 malls within the airport, found Joe again (it was his last day living in Dubai) and turns out his forgot the shorts. So we trekked back and almost missed our plane.. Except not because none of them leave on time.. now were just chillin on our next 7 hour flight to uganda with a touch down in Ethiopia! Can I count it on my country list? The airplane man thought it'd be cute to photo us all in the stewardess hats... I tried to get the photo on here, but I'm
Having difficulties.. Sorry!
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Although the jetlag of a 16 hour flight was trying to wear us down, we stumbled out into the great desert to see some awesome architecture on our little tour with the taxi man as we made our way to joes place. I was super excited to see Joe as he is basically the only Australia friend I haven't seen in the past 3 years.. Good job Ashley! We stopped for photo ops in front of the largest building in the world and in the jumeirah where we had awesome views of the burj al Arab (rooms start around $2,000 a night). Everything visible glows And glitters in the night.. It's hard to not be impressed. We wanted to go out to the altlantis on the palms.. The manmade islands right next to the world islands, but we were super duper late meeting up with Joe and his friends. So after rolling past the palace where the president and each of his wives have a house on the grounds, and learning that cab drivers can get a 1000 Dirham fine for not having their shoes shined or their name badge showing, we made it to joes and met his whole crew.There were people from alll over, his roommate a local and his friend a stanford grad who will be heading to Uganda after us. Small world. He lives right next to the mall of the emirates where the indoor snowboarding is. There is also a mall to scuba dive in but I think that's the other one next to the tallest building... It's hard to keep track of all the tallest biggests and firsts around here. O did I mention that all the was in the living room was a giant like 6 person tent popped up and furnished inside!? Ha. Also learned that there are no taxes.. Not even on income, but everything costs a shitload, so it evens out. And your race determines what type of job you can hold.. Filipinos work the front desk of hotels, middle easterners drive the cabs, etc. Just in the newspaper this morning, chinese were approved to be housekeepers. Some things are reallly backwards here.. Kinda like the Muslim in full get-up taking shots at the bar. We all made it over to the closed up souk/mall where the few bars on the river were. And then we learned that the drinking age is actually 21 instead of the expected 18. We made it work for the most-part.. Shared a big bowl drink of who knows what , had a few laughs and before you knew it it was after 1 am and we had to get up at 5:30 for our next flight. Since I was the big kid incharge, I had to get the boys home so our journey was so shortly ended.. And off to bed. On the plus side waking up was no problem, it was staying asleep from 2:30 to 5:30 that was rough. I think I've only slept 9 hours over the past 3+ days.. Maybe it's been 4 days?
We got to the airport where security was a joke and a half...and then I helped Kyle find Joe across the airport to get his shorts back since he had to put on a pair of jeans for the night before. We trekked across like 3 malls within the airport, found Joe again (it was his last day living in Dubai) and turns out his forgot the shorts. So we trekked back and almost missed our plane.. Except not because none of them leave on time.. now were just chillin on our next 7 hour flight to uganda with a touch down in Ethiopia! Can I count it on my country list? The airplane man thought it'd be cute to photo us all in the stewardess hats... I tried to get the photo on here, but I'm
Having difficulties.. Sorry!
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Sunday, December 5, 2010
UGANDA OR BUST!
For my faithful readers (Bonnie :) ) the occassional stumbler, and those who might be concerned, I am no longer heading to Swaziland to walk across the country. SOS decided their camera crew wasn't ready or something of the sort, and has postponed the walk til June/July.. I'm completely unsure if I will still being doing that or if I'm still invited to.. only time will tell!
anyway.. FUNDaFIELD, the local charity I am now apart of, that was supposed to accompany the Steps of Swaziland project, has decided to go ahead with its Africa journey anyway, and with a little rush and a leap of faith, we will be going straight to Uganda to build our soccer field as originally intended. More info here: http://fundafield.org/FUNDaFIELDsite/Welcome.html
We are still around $700 short of funding FUNDaFIELD's 8th field.. so if you would like to purchase a $10 raffle cow poop, a Ugandan paper bead necklace, or send in a flat donation, we would alllllll sincerely appreciate it!
I will be updating my blog to the best of my wireless ability.. I hear internet and electricity are scarce to none, so this will be interesting! I can't wait! Or to pit-stop in Dubai and see one of my friends from Australia! Woo! See you on Dec 21! (or 23 when we finally get to Uganda!)
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Still Moving! Africa 2010!
Hello hello!
This December, I will be spending Christmas with my lovely friend Meredith and the kids of Swaziland as we walk across the country to bring awareness and hope to a country so devastatingly striken by poverty. Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV/AIDs in the world, and over 200,000 orphans in a country the size of New Jersey. Here is a support letter we are sending out: if you would like to help, follow the directions at the bottom (click www.nnlfilm.org > SOS> support a step> however much you want to help and add my name!)
See ya in Swaziland!
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Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
mas buenas de panama!
now i am home back in the "real world"... and am craving the simple travel, surival lifestyle i barely got to re-taste over the last week. ah. america with its routines, schedules, commitments and expectations. what a few hour plane flight can do for your brain is amazing. but back to reminising on panama...
so i was on day 2... at the house visit in cintre.. megan and I, or mostly megan was conversing with the lady who received the wheelchair. megan did a great job asking questions as i understood those and the responses for the most part. so this lady had a bad hip.. the cane was no bueno..and the the walker wasnt workin out.. and she was waitin around for seven?ish? years for a wheelchair. One of her daughters later came out to hang... she too needed a wheelchair because she had gotten some disease which caused to her lose all feelin in her right leg and left arm. completely. on top of that.. the reallly young daughter, or maybe she was the granddaughter who just called the grandma mama, she was in a leg cast from falling off a bed. jumping from cama a cama es no bueno tambien. so really.. this family could have used 3 chairs. but we brought them one.. and they were soo happy and gave us some nanci (nan-sae) juice to take with us. we didnt understand what a nanci was.. so the brother got in his car and drove to pick us a branch too. ha. people in panama are so nice and genuine. we headed back to the center of cintre for another thanksgiving and presentation. the mayor was there. everyone who was anyone relatively important was there. thennn we went to a quaint little restaurant on the coast of the pacific for an amazing fish dinner with traditional panamanian dancing. there were lots of fried sea creatures for appetizers and so we began to figure out that the 3 food groups of panama are: awesome fried fish, plantanes (look like dried bananas but taste like potatoes) and yuuka (another fake potato), and damn good pineapple. there is also sancocho which is delicious chicken -lack of noodle- soup. dont worry.. theres some yuuka in there to make up for it :) and cervice is usually corvina (white fish) "cooked" with citrus. not a bad combo of food really at all. so we enjoyed the night and our foundation pro intergracion community as we watched the sunset and enjoyed a shot dip in the ocean post dinner ceremonies. it felt like 1 am by the time we were done.. and it was only 8. ha. bunch of old ladies. so we took a swim in the pool at the hotel to stretch out the time some more...
day 3: lots of ridin in the bus back to where we came from. we stopped at a maternity ward along the way and the childrens hospital wing to share our donations we brought with us. the kids loveddd their little cars and stuffed animals. they were all so cute and so excited. we also saw pepe's rehab project which was a really cool building for kids mostly, but adults as well having to do rehab because of various injuries. it was a public donation building for lack of a better description. this was also michelles last night... we enjoyed a nice dinner and went to tear up calle uruguay. we were pretty much the only thing happening out at 10 pm on a wednesday night.. but we rocked out to the latin tunes and occasional justin beiber. liz got into this debate with the cab driver on the way home about her mom worshipping the devil because she prays to the saints and mary. this story has nothing to do with anythign.. i wasnt even there. i just had to hear about it for 2 more days because she was so drunk and worked up about it. i navigated half the troops home on foot. good job ashley. they were so proud of me. haha.
day 4: roughhhh getting up. our first tour. we went to portobello. no theres not portabella mushrooms. but there is the buried sir francis drake. apparently he was a bad guy. pirate? well this little old town was pretty cool and the home of the black christ. theres different stories of how he turned black.. but anyway people pilgrimage here to see it..adn i missed it because i was attempting to barter for monoas.. pieces of colorful fabric. they dont really barter well in panama. we learned a lot about the camino real.. which carried jewels, gems and riches across panama so they could be shipped back to spain. they would come into this area from peru, colombia, etc..adn all the pirates would hide out in the jungle and jump them! so they built an alternate route that took advantage of a river a little further out. this little jaunt across panama from the pacific to the atlantic has been going on for decadeeesss.. much longer than the canal has been around. next highlight of day 4 is stopping for fried fish and plantanes on teh caribbean/atlantic ocean. sounds all good. lunch was good. i even got some coconut rice instead. and a delicious balboa (a beer.. but yes its the name of hte currency that is =to a USD) and hence may have started my life disaster i will start to explain. its about time nature caught up with me. sooo i went for a piss in the ocean.. so did everyone else. apparently this attracks jellyfish. yea i got stung. and so did danica. not tooo bad considering how paranoid i was the entirety of my life in aus. so i warn everyone once i figure out waht it was.. adn am heading to shore.. i stop to chat with ariana, our professor lynns little girl who isnt really that little. that detail will become important in 10 secs. but what a trooper of a seven year old. were chattin and are interrupted by her stepping on something.. like a rock.. i have her pick up her foot and see there is a crab dangling from her toe. oops! in an urge to not let her see.. i go to swipe it off.. and it pinched me or had some gnarly spikes on it back or something... cuz it left my finger gushing with blood. and ariana is screaming cuz she sees the crab i didnt really get off her toe, and now im bleeding. great. so i wabble out of hte ocean with her in arms and get her to shore to calm her down and get my finger undercontrol. i am kinda over the ocean at this point, so i go to my towel on the log and wrap it around me. well that was a bad idea. cuz my towel was infested with fire ants that welted up my entire stomach. and partly on my gorgeous sunburn i was still sporting from teh weekend in SLO now a good 5 days ago. owwww. i got over it. and so did everyone else. so we headed out to colon.. which is a sketch cool old town i wouldve loved to explore.. but we were locked on the bus due to safety. adn we all slept through the driving tour for the most part. colon is a big port htat has free trade areas for ships so they can trade and do whatever since there are looser taxing laws in panama than most other countries. its also where there are lots of slums and government housing is. lots of black carribean people who were once slaves on the canal all settled here because the climate is what they are used to.. humid and hot as hell. colon is the end/beginning of the first trans-continental railway in the world. americans on teh east coast in teh gold rush would hike on down to panama, catch the train across to panama city, and then a boat up to california before there was a transcontinetal railway in the states. crazy huh?! theres not too many stops on this train as it just hauls ass through the jungle along the canal for the most part. its pretty much a tourist attraction now.. but really cool. the man-made lake that is the essense of the canal is cool as there are all these dead petrified trees just hangin out in the water. and well.. the tropical rainforest is always so cool too!
more cool observations of panama
instead of cheese, they say whiskey
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Buenas buenas!
¡Hola!
well... not all too surprisingly, it took me 4? days to get my blog up. so much for a daily event! we have been soo busy with .. touristing? and seeing how the panamaian world works that there has barely been time for sleep, let alone blogging. but im here! and so here we go!
panama is pretty awesome! its a bit toasty.. adn overly humid..but nothing I havent already experienced. there is a bit of the thai/bali feel with the warm, humid air and more or less really tan people everywhere.. and you know.. the regular groupings of garbage and people and crazy highways with physco driving that works so efficiently. theres no rules for cabs.. they crammed 7 of us into 4 seats... claro (of course!)! i love the spanish and the fact that even though the us had occupied the main part of panama up til 2001? through the canal zone... english wont get you very far at all.. so my spanish is coming back again.. i wish i was fluent .. or i would settle for being able to converse. i can understand pretty well, but responding is a 15 second struggle. eh. its good for me.
so the first day we arrived around 10ish.. got to the nice fancy hotel adn had a big fat bed alll to myself. what did we even do that first day? ate at the mall.. subway... way to go group on our first hours in panama... and then we... ah yes. we went on a tour of the pro intergacion establishment that we are working with to get the wheelchairs to the people of panama. so background.. wheelchair foundation was my senior project at cal poly.. we raised 90,000+ for wheelchairs to send to oaxaca mexico... so we sent a tonnn of wheelchairs down to mexico, and had about 100 left that were sent to panama since one of our team members, michelle, was joining the peace corps down there and had connections to make 2 small distributions. so the foundation of integration.. or something like that... helped us out. Tom was our guide all around for the first few days as we worked to get the chairs to the poeple and where to go adn what to see etc. so first day we didnt do much but eat, organize gifts to distribute, and eat again by the nice pool overlooking the city scapes of panama city. so nice.
day 2: up bright and early to begin our distribution in pananome.. small little village town where people traveled far and wide and by all types of means to come get their wheelchairs. its was pretty neat. at first i was scared taking pictures of these people and thier diformities... but as we moved them into their chiars and thier eyes lit up, it felt all ok. it was so neat. the people waited patiently in teh lined up folded chairs for thier chair size and name to be called out... apparently this was the best organzied group.. in mexico the people went nuts and started grabbing the chairs and all chaos broke loose.. ha . 2 people stood up and spoke out to thank us from teh bottom of thier hearts.. thank god liz is fluent in spanish so we have a permanent translator. it was all so cool. except for the fact how hot it was. sweltering humidity. but we lived :) we took a nice little detour to a house where an older recipient of a chair from toms organization lived.. a true mud brick home amist a few mango trees and between what seemed like two "normal" houses.. the tiny brick hut barely had 2 rooms.. one for the boy and the other where the mother slept and the kitchen was.. wow.
then onto the second distribution in cintre where it was even warmer. another foundation that was so impressed with us had a little ceremony for us to thank us.. handing us all plaques and candles made by people in the community. they were so thankful for us to be there..and all the people were so sweet to us even when they couldnt say more than hello in english... actually.. halo is the way to go around here.. leave the holas in northern america. so this distribution went a little different, with another 40ish chairs to be handed out to people patiently waiting under a tent. there were a handful of special olympic competitors that came to watch and support those receiving new chairs. one of the competitors was in a wheelchair foundation chair. its easy to spot the bright red chairs almost anywhere. i wish i could upload photos.. but maybe well haveta save that for another day. i went on a house distribution with megan around the other side of town where we had to put together the chair at the house where the mother was getting the chair. from what i could tell... she once had a decent sized house, but put a wall down teh middle and two doors on teh front so her son and one of her daughters could live righttt next door. they all seemed completley comfortable with it. we tried to converse.. megan did better than me with the questions.. be we understood that this lady caught a disease? andddddddd the internet man is kicking me out.. .more to come.
well... not all too surprisingly, it took me 4? days to get my blog up. so much for a daily event! we have been soo busy with .. touristing? and seeing how the panamaian world works that there has barely been time for sleep, let alone blogging. but im here! and so here we go!
panama is pretty awesome! its a bit toasty.. adn overly humid..but nothing I havent already experienced. there is a bit of the thai/bali feel with the warm, humid air and more or less really tan people everywhere.. and you know.. the regular groupings of garbage and people and crazy highways with physco driving that works so efficiently. theres no rules for cabs.. they crammed 7 of us into 4 seats... claro (of course!)! i love the spanish and the fact that even though the us had occupied the main part of panama up til 2001? through the canal zone... english wont get you very far at all.. so my spanish is coming back again.. i wish i was fluent .. or i would settle for being able to converse. i can understand pretty well, but responding is a 15 second struggle. eh. its good for me.
so the first day we arrived around 10ish.. got to the nice fancy hotel adn had a big fat bed alll to myself. what did we even do that first day? ate at the mall.. subway... way to go group on our first hours in panama... and then we... ah yes. we went on a tour of the pro intergacion establishment that we are working with to get the wheelchairs to the people of panama. so background.. wheelchair foundation was my senior project at cal poly.. we raised 90,000+ for wheelchairs to send to oaxaca mexico... so we sent a tonnn of wheelchairs down to mexico, and had about 100 left that were sent to panama since one of our team members, michelle, was joining the peace corps down there and had connections to make 2 small distributions. so the foundation of integration.. or something like that... helped us out. Tom was our guide all around for the first few days as we worked to get the chairs to the poeple and where to go adn what to see etc. so first day we didnt do much but eat, organize gifts to distribute, and eat again by the nice pool overlooking the city scapes of panama city. so nice.
day 2: up bright and early to begin our distribution in pananome.. small little village town where people traveled far and wide and by all types of means to come get their wheelchairs. its was pretty neat. at first i was scared taking pictures of these people and thier diformities... but as we moved them into their chiars and thier eyes lit up, it felt all ok. it was so neat. the people waited patiently in teh lined up folded chairs for thier chair size and name to be called out... apparently this was the best organzied group.. in mexico the people went nuts and started grabbing the chairs and all chaos broke loose.. ha . 2 people stood up and spoke out to thank us from teh bottom of thier hearts.. thank god liz is fluent in spanish so we have a permanent translator. it was all so cool. except for the fact how hot it was. sweltering humidity. but we lived :) we took a nice little detour to a house where an older recipient of a chair from toms organization lived.. a true mud brick home amist a few mango trees and between what seemed like two "normal" houses.. the tiny brick hut barely had 2 rooms.. one for the boy and the other where the mother slept and the kitchen was.. wow.
then onto the second distribution in cintre where it was even warmer. another foundation that was so impressed with us had a little ceremony for us to thank us.. handing us all plaques and candles made by people in the community. they were so thankful for us to be there..and all the people were so sweet to us even when they couldnt say more than hello in english... actually.. halo is the way to go around here.. leave the holas in northern america. so this distribution went a little different, with another 40ish chairs to be handed out to people patiently waiting under a tent. there were a handful of special olympic competitors that came to watch and support those receiving new chairs. one of the competitors was in a wheelchair foundation chair. its easy to spot the bright red chairs almost anywhere. i wish i could upload photos.. but maybe well haveta save that for another day. i went on a house distribution with megan around the other side of town where we had to put together the chair at the house where the mother was getting the chair. from what i could tell... she once had a decent sized house, but put a wall down teh middle and two doors on teh front so her son and one of her daughters could live righttt next door. they all seemed completley comfortable with it. we tried to converse.. megan did better than me with the questions.. be we understood that this lady caught a disease? andddddddd the internet man is kicking me out.. .more to come.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Ashley's World Adventures.. Year Two
Crazy its been almost a full year since I started my around the world journey.. and my blogging. I miss both.. and thats why I will be starting up again come June 14 when I arrive in Panama! Im not going for the same type of ragged, survive at any cost style.. especially since were staying a hotel that costs 3 times as much as the average middle level backpacker daily spending.. did that make sense? its like 150 a night.. and the middle level of spending is 50 bucks a day.. in previous months I would be trying my best to beat the scrapper level of 20-25 a day.. No opportunity for that. And its only 6 days. So I will do my best to live "the high travel life" one I was sure I wouldn't be seeing anytime soon.
Why Panama?! So soon? Nah. I've hangin in SR for 7 months now. I needddd to get out of here. I've restored my debt funds and can even make it through my week in Central America and come out on top.. i think . i hope. O and less than a month ago i got an email from my old friends at the Cal Poly Wheelchair Foundation where I felt like I slaved my life away for a year for a great cause. Respond in the next five days if you want to deliver wheelchairs to Panama. I might've took a whole 18 hours to submit my yes. Im stoked. And I have a camera again! WHOOOO! That will be taped, stapled and bound to my body in every way possible. So hopefully I collect some cool pics and build my photography portfolio and my cultural awareness on my first offical trip to the South American continent! I plan on many many more...... and trips to Africa and Antartica and more of Asia. Europe and North America can hang for a while... I feel educated on them. See ya next weeeek! Whoop WHoop!
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