Life in Namungoona
All right you guys have all been wondering what my actual living circumstances are here. Well, it's not exactly wattle-and-daub! Here are some pictures of my house and immediate environs; a few posts ago i showed you the neighborhood.
It was an indecently beautiful day in kampala. When it rains here, it reminds me of nowhere so much as Seattle (yes, that Seattle). But after it rains, when the sky clears, either the sun reminds you in a hurry that you're just a stone's throw from the Equator, or you get these unbelieveably delicious, cool days ("cold", they call them here, but I laugh!).
Berkeley used to get like this once in a while, but here, days like this are common enough, at least during the "rainy season".
When I arrived in February (three months now!), everyone was complaining about the heat. I was just relieved it wasn't Florida or Louisiana, where I had the worst weather experience of my life one whole summer (hey, I grew up in a desert, ok? I didn't even know what humidity was until I was 18!) But I thought the heat was just normal for here, not much different than I remembered from last time I was here (July-Aug-Sept), so I was thinking i'd just have to adjust.
But adjust to this, why dontcha! No wonder these people were complaining!
Just too nice! Pinch me so I wake up.... or don't!
Anyway, those were pictures I took from my back door. Here's a shot of the back door itself.
Pretty cool, I have my own entrance and two rooms, one for my office and the other for my bed, which i don't see very often. I'll show you some pictures of the inside some other time. I have my own bathroom which even has a hot water heater (useful when the city allows us to have water, which is most of the time), and a prizewinningly inefficient toilet. No kidding, I have to use the bowl brush to make stuff stay under long enough for the great roar and whoosh of water that otherwise pours past it, to carry it away! We have electricity... um, most of the time, and it's almost predictable. I can also share the kitchen which is next to my room, but I only boil water there— when the electricity is on; otherwise I step out the back door and set up my trusty Whisperlite (20 years old and counting!) But I don't cook anything else here, since I take my meals with the seminarians (see below).
The bishop's private rooms are just above me, but otherwise the house is mostly offices (ground floor) and storage space (future offices) and a couple of guest rooms on the second.
It's very quiet here. Oh, that's nice. No cars, no tv's, no jets, no boom boxes... just these ridiculous birds that get into something with each other every now and again, and scold each other with a very strange kind of gobbling laughter.
Amazing amounts of insect sounds at night, and every now and again I wake up in the morning and step outside to a huge pile of flying ant wings. Never see any flying ants though. Just their wings.
Here are some shots of us lining up to eat. I think I am becoming Ugandan; I actually find myself liking matooke. But I have definitely lost a little weight on this diet!—
The food is white rice and beans, or white poosho (sort of like polenta) and beans, or matooke (plantain) and beans, and dried fish (cooked so it's soft) on non-fasting days; sometimes a little piece of meat. I have undertaken to supply fresh vegetables and fruit every day because we were never getting any, so now we have nakati, which is sort of a bitter spinach like thing, bbuuga, which is like beet greens (but they don't have beets), and these little white "eggplants", about the size of a roma tomato. And we occasionally have a few tomatoes, but they don't seem to be into them here. One of my plans is to make italian food one night. And to serve something SOUR for a change!
I have recently concluded that pineapple and avocado are two vigorous proofs of the existence of God.
I also found a bag of brown rice in the store the other day, man am I looking forward to eating that! $3.00, but who cares!
And these are some pictures of my trip to kampala the other day:
There are two sizeable markets near here, one in Kasubi and a bigger one just a little farther down Hoima Road toward Kampala, in Nakulabye. This is Kasubi. I started drooling over these tomatoes; you can buy one of these tubfulls for about $1. Unfortunately, though, you don't really want to risk eating anything raw here (and you don't know how much I miss having a salad). There are parasites and germs you have to be careful of.
Well, we weren't in Kasubi haggling over bbuuga very long, when Andrew said, we'd better take shelter. I mean, talk about rain!
But after the rain I got on the matatu (the toyota 14-seat bus) and made it most of the way to Kampala, talking to a Turkish guy who smelled of stale beer and cigarettes (unusual here), who is setting up a rickety little amusement park down the street from me. But because of the rain there was a traffic jam, so I had to get out and walk the rest of the way. Well, that was ok. While taking care of my errands I ran into a flock of these:
Um, or should I say, "herd". You know— like... cattle! Anyway, Maribou storks.
Anyway, they always impress me as being filthy. But I don't think we have anything like this in America!
It was an indecently beautiful day in kampala. When it rains here, it reminds me of nowhere so much as Seattle (yes, that Seattle). But after it rains, when the sky clears, either the sun reminds you in a hurry that you're just a stone's throw from the Equator, or you get these unbelieveably delicious, cool days ("cold", they call them here, but I laugh!).
Berkeley used to get like this once in a while, but here, days like this are common enough, at least during the "rainy season".
When I arrived in February (three months now!), everyone was complaining about the heat. I was just relieved it wasn't Florida or Louisiana, where I had the worst weather experience of my life one whole summer (hey, I grew up in a desert, ok? I didn't even know what humidity was until I was 18!) But I thought the heat was just normal for here, not much different than I remembered from last time I was here (July-Aug-Sept), so I was thinking i'd just have to adjust.
But adjust to this, why dontcha! No wonder these people were complaining!
Just too nice! Pinch me so I wake up.... or don't!
Anyway, those were pictures I took from my back door. Here's a shot of the back door itself.
Pretty cool, I have my own entrance and two rooms, one for my office and the other for my bed, which i don't see very often. I'll show you some pictures of the inside some other time. I have my own bathroom which even has a hot water heater (useful when the city allows us to have water, which is most of the time), and a prizewinningly inefficient toilet. No kidding, I have to use the bowl brush to make stuff stay under long enough for the great roar and whoosh of water that otherwise pours past it, to carry it away! We have electricity... um, most of the time, and it's almost predictable. I can also share the kitchen which is next to my room, but I only boil water there— when the electricity is on; otherwise I step out the back door and set up my trusty Whisperlite (20 years old and counting!) But I don't cook anything else here, since I take my meals with the seminarians (see below).
The bishop's private rooms are just above me, but otherwise the house is mostly offices (ground floor) and storage space (future offices) and a couple of guest rooms on the second.
It's very quiet here. Oh, that's nice. No cars, no tv's, no jets, no boom boxes... just these ridiculous birds that get into something with each other every now and again, and scold each other with a very strange kind of gobbling laughter.
Amazing amounts of insect sounds at night, and every now and again I wake up in the morning and step outside to a huge pile of flying ant wings. Never see any flying ants though. Just their wings.
Here are some shots of us lining up to eat. I think I am becoming Ugandan; I actually find myself liking matooke. But I have definitely lost a little weight on this diet!—
The food is white rice and beans, or white poosho (sort of like polenta) and beans, or matooke (plantain) and beans, and dried fish (cooked so it's soft) on non-fasting days; sometimes a little piece of meat. I have undertaken to supply fresh vegetables and fruit every day because we were never getting any, so now we have nakati, which is sort of a bitter spinach like thing, bbuuga, which is like beet greens (but they don't have beets), and these little white "eggplants", about the size of a roma tomato. And we occasionally have a few tomatoes, but they don't seem to be into them here. One of my plans is to make italian food one night. And to serve something SOUR for a change!
I have recently concluded that pineapple and avocado are two vigorous proofs of the existence of God.
I also found a bag of brown rice in the store the other day, man am I looking forward to eating that! $3.00, but who cares!
And these are some pictures of my trip to kampala the other day:
There are two sizeable markets near here, one in Kasubi and a bigger one just a little farther down Hoima Road toward Kampala, in Nakulabye. This is Kasubi. I started drooling over these tomatoes; you can buy one of these tubfulls for about $1. Unfortunately, though, you don't really want to risk eating anything raw here (and you don't know how much I miss having a salad). There are parasites and germs you have to be careful of.
Well, we weren't in Kasubi haggling over bbuuga very long, when Andrew said, we'd better take shelter. I mean, talk about rain!
But after the rain I got on the matatu (the toyota 14-seat bus) and made it most of the way to Kampala, talking to a Turkish guy who smelled of stale beer and cigarettes (unusual here), who is setting up a rickety little amusement park down the street from me. But because of the rain there was a traffic jam, so I had to get out and walk the rest of the way. Well, that was ok. While taking care of my errands I ran into a flock of these:
Um, or should I say, "herd". You know— like... cattle! Anyway, Maribou storks.
Anyway, they always impress me as being filthy. But I don't think we have anything like this in America!
posted by john at
12:07
