I meant to chronicle each day, like an actual journal, but what was I thinking? I suck at that.
Anyhow, been in Uganda for six days now. Arrived Saturday afternoon, actually saw one of my Hopkins classmates on the flight from Addis to Uganda! We had connected on FB, since she mentioned that she was going to be here for work, but I had no idea that we were going to meet up on the plane! What a small world. I also struck up a random conversation with the guy I was sitting next to at the gate while we waited to board the plane in Addis. Turns out he is on holiday from the UK, but originally from Kampala, so we exchanged contact info so he could show me around the city when I got settled. The drive from Entebbe Airport to Speke Resort in Munyonyo took flippin forever, since there was only one lane each way. Totally wasn't used to the driving on the "wrong-side" of the road bit... Uganda was a British colony so they adopted the driving on the left business... which was almost the death of me, multiple times when I was roaming Kampala, but more on that later. Arrived at the hotel, which sits along the banks of Lake Victoria, beautiful view, nice hotel and conference grounds, lots of foliage, which is a nice change from the dusty, dry barrenness of Abuja. I got a swanky lake view front hotel room, and my own spring mattress with a mosquito net! ZOMG, you don't know how thankful I am these days for anything that's not craptastic foam mattress that I have in my Abuja apartment... sigh. But we're not talking about poopy Nigeria, I'm in the Pearl of Africa! Yeah, Jess is completely right, Uganda is WAAAY better than Nigeria. :) The weather here is definitely more humid, which is a nice respite from the awful Harmattan weather in Abuja, but it just means that my clothes that I hand-wash don't dry as fast. My skin feels nicer though, all dewy and smooth. However, the trade off is that there are heck-a more mozzies than in Abuja. Although I did come with many many bites on my feet from eating dinner outside last week at the Sheraton, I managed to get a few more here, sitting on the veranda for dinner and breakfast. I gotta say, the mosquitoes here are a bit bigger and much more lethal... I'm just not cut out for Africa living, heh.
After a lazy breakfast on Sunday, I took a taxi into town and met up with the dude that I chatted with at the airport in Addis. He agreed to show me around town, although we didn't really hit up any tourist destinations. I got dropped off at the Old Taxi Park in Kampala and we headed out on foot all around town. Let's see... where did we go... made our way through one of the larger local markets, and then walked up one of Kampala's seven hills (I learned that from my taxi driver) to the Sheraton so he could exchange money. Almost got pooped on several times by the Marabou storks that roost all over the city--they've started foraging for food in the dumpsters and have taken over the majority of the rooftops and the trees... I think they're almost as big as me... I might be a head taller. But yes, ugly looking things.
Trekked over to the National Theater, Parliament, the High Court, and the National Bank of Uganda... unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, since I didn't want to stand out more than I already do. We stopped at a local cafe, frequented by a good number of expats, and had coffee and samosas for a snack, then got ice cream at a nearby shop for good measure. It was HOT, not gonna lie, and the humidity made it all the worse... was sweating like a beast. Meandered into a more slummy area of Kampala, and got hassled a few times by street vendors, but nothing I wasn't used to. Kept almost getting run over by the bodabodas and mutatus (thanks Jess for the vocab lesson!), since I wasn't used to looking right... again, crazy wrong-directioned drivers. O_o Walking around the city gives you a pretty good sense of what it's like, not just the touristy areas-- Kampala is definitely more along the lines of what I thought a major African capital city would look like.
Made it back to the Old Taxi Park around 5ish, where the hotel taxi driver picked me up, and took the dusty road back to the hotel. First thing I did was hop into the shower when I got back-- all my clothes were soaked in sweat… gross. I ended up grabbing dinner with Andrew, one of our fellows in Namibia, and chatted about our respective experiences abroad. Food was good, seems like this hotel is owned by Indians, so their Indian food is quite top notch (better than Wakki's at least). I bummed around after dinner, scoped out the hotel grounds and then crawled into bed-- good thing there's a mosquito net in the hotel room, since I'm a mozzie magnet. Managed to get a few more bites on my feet (really need to start remembering to bug spray them when I wear flip flops), probably during dinner since I sat outside on the veranda. Also realized I totally got sunburnt from wandering around the city… t-shirt tan is really not very attractive.
Conference started Monday morning, all the talks were really interesting, only thing was that I knew that I would never see this project to the light of day… too bad. Networking opportunities abound here, and I actually bumped into one of the CDC HQ people that I met with in Atlanta. Also spoke with the lead at HRSA… wonder if I can get an internship there during med school. If anything, I've decided that, for the moment, I want to go back to domestic work on chronic disease… HIV just really isn't for me. Rather, everything that goes with working with HIV in Africa doesn't agree with me, heh. I was browsing the interwebs and came across this snippet, written by some guy on SDN, "Africa. Oh wretched continent! How long must you suffer? How long will you provide the venue to compensate for a low MCAT score? How many must die before I am accepted to a top-tier medical school?" I don't know if this is applicable to everyone to who comes to Africa but deep down, perhaps a more cynical me would tend to agree with this sentiment.
After the conference concluded Monday afternoon, Andrew and I decided to head into Kampala again to just do a quick tour of the city, see more touristy sites. Unfortunately, the infamous traffic jams of Kampala kept us mainly in the car the majority of the time. However, we did make it to the Ghaddafi Mosque, and it gave a spectacular view of the city, as it sits atop one of the seven hills in Kampala. I got scolded by one of the women on the mosque grounds for not wearing a headscarf… not to mention I also was wearing a tank top, but at least I took off my shoes to walk around… and that's a huge deal for me. Good thing they kept the grounds pretty clean. We drove by the King's palace too, but didn't go in because it was closed. They have a specific avenue that leads from the palace straight to the other side of the city, which is lined with 52 trees that represent the 52 tribes/clans that make up Uganda. There is also a special gate that only the King gets to go through, so his motorcade doesn't have to traverse the roundabout in the middle of the avenue. The things you learn from your taxi driver! :) We weren't able to get any food on the street in the city since it was getting kind of late, so the taxi driver suggested we head back towards the hotel and grab food from a restaurant on the way back. We stopped at this little roadside restaurant and I ordered chicken stew with cassava… was afraid I wouldn't like matoke, which is the standard starch of choice here in Uganda: mashed boiled plantains. Andrew ordered it, so I just tried a bite… not my favorite. At least cassava just tasted like baked potato. Also ordered a bottle of Bell, the local Ugandan beer… not the best, but at least better than Star or Nigerian Heineken. Food was definitely good though, and again, better than Nigerian local food. Just kind of tasted like home cooking… nothing too weird or spicy. We ended up treating our taxi driver to beer as well (and maybe we also paid for his dinner? haha). Got back to the hotel around 10pm and after showering and killing a few more mozzies, I completely passed out.
Tuesday and Wednesday's conference sessions were pretty much the same, only thing was that my GI system wasn't quite right after the tea break each day, so I ended up parked in front of the toilet both afternoons and missed out on the case studies and open discussion sessions. Aside from that, I slept for a couple hours, trying to make myself feel better. Skipped dinner on Tuesday night, but felt well enough last night to go to the hotel restaurant and order something… chicken biryani was pretty good, although it kind of just tasted like curry chicken over rice. Oh yes. Wildlife here… aside from the crazy amount of mozzies here, there are all manner of amphibians and reptiles here. Ok, so there are definitely enough lizards other creepy crawlies in Abuja, but here they're so much cuter. I had a gecko running around my room last night, although it disappeared into my AC after a while… and then the AC started smelling like burnt sumpinsumpin… or maybe I was just imagining it (hope it didn't get cooked O_O), and then in the conference center bathroom yesterday, I saw a little green froggie just chillin on the wall. Didn't have my camera, so couldn't take a photo of it… but hey, frogs in the bathroom! How awesome is that? The dragonflies here are also super pretty, and flit around the gardens of the hotel. The birds here are also incredibly colorful and can seriously chirp up a storm. I've never even heard some of these sounds before… I'll have to try and record it sometime tonight, since I only hear it around dusk. Must be nesting season, as there are these little round, spherical nests hanging from many of the trees in the garden.
It's Thursday now, and I'm sitting in the morning plenary session (what does plenary even mean? Interwebs is down right now, will check later). I'm not even running the wireless on my macbook and the battery is already down to 28%… something wrong with it… looks like I won't be able to save any additional money… might just have to suck it up and buy a new laptop for med school. Sigh.
