America. AMERICA!

I suck at posting. I suck suck suck. I'm sorry to whomever may care that I haven't posted in about an age... But I have good reasons.
Reason A: There were bombongs in Kampala, which is about 29 miles away from Lugazi (or something like that) and we were on lockdown for a short time, for safety purposes. So no internet for Molly.
Reason B: Eye Camp happened! It was stupendous. Fairly stressful and sort of infuriating, but so unbelievably worth it. We screened somewhere around 2000 people, gave out 600 pairs of glasses, and 137 people recieved surgery. Or some number very close to 137, not positive on the specific numerals... But SUCCESS!! I can't even say how exciting and touching it was to see people see, in some cases after a very long time. I saw a young man have his bandage removed, and he simply sat quietly on his bench, staring at his own hands until they took him to test his vision. He had been completely blind for 3 years. You can't know how incredible it is to witness that sacred moment until you see it for yourself; I've never felt humbler.
But we were busy from day until night, so I never had time to hit the internet before curfew. Nine days later...
Reason C: I got sick. Like, hurl your guts out in the nasty bathroom all night sick. It was rather horrible and had me bed-bound for a day and a half, so that prevented me from going to the internet cafe. Still no internet for Molly.
At that point, I left Africa.
That was absolutely one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. As great as my American friends are, I can honestly say that I've never known people as beautiful and loving and genuinely good as my Ugandan friends. Saying goodbye was excruciating. I never thought I could make such close, wonderful friends in 3 months, but I did. The only way I could bear leaving that magnificent country was the thought that someday, I will go back. No maybes. No mights. I will go back someday.
So I ended up in London for a few days on the way back home, and that was pretty great. I saw Les Miserables, which was awesome, and one of the Jonas Brothers was Marius... which would have been awesome-er if I cared at all about them. I can't remember his name but I feel like it was something like Max. Is there a Max Jonas? Anyway, the show was splendid! Really incredible. I also saw Henry IV at Shakespear's Globe Theatre, which rocked my freaking socks! That was some truly unbelievable acting. Never seen anything like it! The London days were a blur of cool stuff: museums, libraries, architecture... it was fantastic. I saw the Rosetta Stone! And the friezes from the Parthenon! And mummies! And ate fish 'n' chips at a pub! It was great. Expensive, but great.
And now I'm back in America. Don't know what I'm doing with my life, yet, so don't ask.

Fish Taxis. Eye Camp. G-nut.

This is probably my last post from Africa. Maybe not, but probably. I’m out of time!

Eye Camp starts on Monday. It’s going to last for eight days; three at Naggalama, two at Nkokonjeru, and three at Kawolo Hospital here in Lugazi. We’ve got eye surgeons coming from Kampala and Jinja for seven of the eight days, and the screening staff from Kawolo is coming to each hospital with us. We have supplies and staff for as many cataract surgeries as we find candidates for, which is spectacular considering all the struggles we’ve had with our lack of funding. Our buddies at Sightsavers came through at the last minute; previously we thought we’d only be able to do 100 surgeries. We’re counting on about 200, now. I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ve been one of two people who have been working on coordinating this thing from the beginning. I’ve put in a lot of time and effort to make all of this work, so seeing it come to fruition is just incredible. I’ve been to Kampala twice and Nkokonjeru once in just this last week, and neither of those places is a small distance away. I’ve spent somewhere around 13 hours on a taxi in just the last four days, which doesn’t seem so bad unless you understand what taxis are like here. Paint yourself a mental image: more than 20 people crammed in a smelly van licensed and built to carry no more than 14, typically stuffed with nice little extras like huge sacks of reeking fish or live chickens running around on the floor or thousands of ants creeping all over you. Throw in some unjustified yelling, loud fare bartering, and people randomly handing you their screaming babies, and you’ve got it. It’s great fun. Anyway, Eye Camp is going to be incredible, but we have a hell of a lot of work to do to get it done. Two days to prepare. Ugh.

Uh… what else has been happening? I don’t know. I think I’m getting too used to things here. Nothing seems odd to me anymore, though I’m sure if I stepped back and looked at the things that happen I would realize how unusual they really are. I’ll never freak out about bugs again, I can say that much. I’m more tolerant of finding weird things in my food than I probably ought to be. Dead things don’t phase me much anymore, and I can ignore any smell, regardless of how nasty it is. I’m far too comfortable around goats, chickens, and geckos. I’ll eat anything you serve me, in any quantity. Even tiny uncooked fish mixed into my g-nut sauce. G-nut tastes like salty peanut butter sauce, just so you know… imagine it, if you please. Mmmm. (That’s sarcasm. G-nut and silverfish will NEVER be an okay combo.)

Don’t let me drive when I get back. I can’t even imagine what this place has done to my idea of “safe driving”.

You know, I think I will post again before I leave Africa. This is a pathetic blog post. I need to end things with a well-written and interesting one, not a lame story about taxis and the gross stuff I don’t care about anymore. I’m lame.

I seriously can’t think of anything else to write about. I will make the next one less stupid, I promise. Later, everyone!

This one isn't very amusing. Sorry.

I have three weeks left in Africa! I'm sad that I'm going to have to leave soon because I absolutely love it here, but at the same time I can't wait to get back to the States! Ah, the States. Where you can walk down the street without having someone scream "Mzungu!" at you just for the hell of it. Where you can count on food to not give you parasites. Where you can sleep easy knowing that no one is lurking outside your house waiting to throw bricks at you. Where the streets are paved with cheese. Where you can talk about your life without feeling guilty for having so much. Don't get me wrong, I love Uganda and all of my friends here. But I am an American and America beckons me home!

The parasite thing is a legitimate concern, just so you know. One of the members of my team got worms from some kind of food! She's basically debilitated by pain and exhaustion. She is on a ridiculous hardcore medication regimen to get rid of her little friends. It easily could have happened to any of us, I'm actually surprised it wasn't me. These things tend to happen to me.


Nothing too exciting to talk about. All the projects are sailing along nicely; Eye Camp is in three weeks and the AIDS Festival is in one week! All of my old people are going to the Eye Camp, and I can't wait for them to see! At least three of them have cataracts, and there are probably others that I can't recognize with my limited knowledge. It's going to be great! I love knowing these people on a personal level. It makes orchestrating the Eye Camp so much more worthwhile.

There's a song playing on a radio somewhere that is composed of baby laughter, played in different patterns. Odd.

Who's been watching the World Cup?? ME! I love the freaking World Cup. I've never been so into it before, though I've wanted to be. There's just not enough support in the US. But here, everyone is a fan and everyone watches! Watching games is basically the funniest and most exhilerating thing you can do here; the US v Ghana game was hysterical. You should watch! Give it a try. Soccer is fun.

Last weekend I went to the Ssese Islands out in the middle of Lake Victoria. It was... fun? Not really. Adventurous? Totally. The first thing you should know about the big island is that there is one ferry that leaves at 8 am and comes at 5 pm. That's all. Number two: there is no food on the island. Seriously! We had to climb a real mountain just to find simple beans and chapati. Which is delicious, so it was okay. Also, there were no mosquito nets so I was eaten alive. In 8-10 days I will more than likely have malaria; just giving you all the heads up. But we saw a lot of animals and had some enjoyable impromptu hikes, so all-in-all it was sort of mostly worth it.

Anyway, I have very little to say. My time is growing short so I'll wind it down. I love everyone who is reading this. Have a good week!

Threats. Grr. Then Bungee Jumping and Old People! Yay!

Greetings from Uganda, again.

Let’s start things off with a few NOT rhetorical questions. How are you? How is your life, on the other side of the world? What is going on in your portion of the United States? What’s new in your life? Now, the proper thing to do is to answer these questions below, where it says Post A Comment. I know that it is a struggle. I know that it is mildly inconvenient. However, what is also inconvenient is running across town to an internet café in which the internet is as fast as molasses in order to write a blog post that NO ONE IS COMMENTING ON! Seriously, guys! Comments are the only way I hear from people. Email is not really an option at this point, for a variety of reasons. I have no contact with anyone! Maybe the reason is that no one reads my blog. I’m going to hope that’s not the case because it makes me sad to think I’ve been writing to no one all this time. Please please please tell me if you’re reading this!

Okay. On to the cooler stuff.

Our work is going nicely, I think. I’m loving every minute of it! I’m working on a variety of projects, including the Eye Camp which I spoke of in my previous post (which virtually no one commented on…), meeting with groups of elderly people for games and lessons and good old fashioned old people fun, and an HIV research project which should be difficult, but totally worthwhile. I am heartbroken that I can’t linger any longer than I am; I wish I could stay here forever, with these people that I love. But at the same time, I can’t wait to get back home and see my family and friends. I am conflicted. Either way, I’ve only got about five weeks left… I think. Maybe less. Maybe more. Click on the little calendar thing on your computer and count for yourself! If you care, that is. If not, continue on to the next paragraph.

Uh... hello, I went bungee jumping! My friend Becca and I were the only ones out of all of us to go and she went first, which was a bad idea altogether. I had to watch her topple over the edge before I went! That was when I basically lost control of my bodily functions. Luckily I was still wet from rafting. Seriously, it was sooooo effing terrifying. I've never been that scared in my life, and I've done a few scary things. The guys who ran it were cute young Australians/New Zealanders so that was nice. They both flirted with me quite a lot, which helped with the distraction a little. Until I stepped to the edge and looked down 148 feet to the surface of the Nile below me. Then I began hyperventilating. I have no idea how I mentally convinced myself that I was cool to leap off the edge; I had to jump before I could think about it or I would have been too scared. So I jumped! ABSOLUTELY PETRIFYING. No question, hands down, THE scariest thing I've ever done. But soooo much freaking fun! Holy freak. It was the most exhilarating, liberating feeling I've ever felt. AH! I dunked into the water up to my waist (the cord was around my ankles) because I didn't jump properly. It was stellar.

Also, I went whitewater rafting before that. That was amazing too! Pretty dang horrifying, but way fun. I went through Class 5 rapids! Those are the biggest, scariest rapids you can go on in a raft, at least on the Nile. I saw some Class 6’s though, and essentially burst into tears. I peed a few times throughout that adventure as well, but I was submerged under surging water every time I lost it so it was no big deal. I went over a waterfall! I flipped headlong into churning water! I lost my paddle eighty-five times! I ate a half a pineapple while floating in the NILE RIVER! AMAZING!

The worst rapid I saw was called The Bad Place. Draw your own conclusions, based on that name. I was held underwater in this roiling vortex of terror for almost 15 seconds; I thought I was drowning. It was petrifying. But the whole adventure was abso-freaking-lutely phenomenal! It was the biggest thrill of my life! Up to that point, I mean. Bungee jumping surpassed that, a few hours later.

So in one day, I went whitewater rafting, bungee jumping, and watched the World Cup US vs England game in a bar packed with Americans and Brits. Easily the most thrilling day of my life.
There are lots of pictures of all these things, so I will show you when we are all reunite! A video of bungee jumping too. You'll like that.

I went to the zoo on Saturday. I know that the concept of a zoo in Africa is a little unusual, but trust me when I say that it was baller!! This zoo was sort of unzoolike. There were only low barriers between me and the animals. They could totally have barreled through them if they’d wanted to. I saw lions! Zebras! Giraffes! Crocs! And all over the zoo on handrails and tree branches there were freaking hand-sized spiders. I know I exaggerate sometimes when it comes to spiders, but I only speak the truth this time: They were colossal. I had Harry Potter flashbacks.

I think I’ll wrap up. I’ve got 12 minutes left and it takes about 15 to post… so we’ll see what happens. Bye, everyone! Remember to post, or I’ll start taking heads!

Tomorrow I Fly

Hello, all. I am quite annoyed with slow, slow, slow internet.

I’m not feeling particularly eloquent this afternoon, so I will type the updates and a few stories, then I will go home and eat some fat, oily food, enter my mosquito net/bed cave, and sleep for the rest of my life.

First of all, I’ve managed to injure myself. It’s pretty humiliating; here’s the tale: I was playing soccer with a local team of kids that the Youth Outreach Mission (one of our partner organizations, based here in Lugazi and composed of splendid secondary- and university-aged Ugandans) started along with a HELP International volunteer, a few years ago. Don’t ask me why I agreed to play against these kids. They’re ludicrously gifted at football. But play I did, and it was so much fun! Anyway, in the midst of getting my butt kicked by a twelve-year-old, I tripped over a mountain in the center of their field and annihilated my knee. I stayed on my feet, but all I could do was say, “Um…. I think I may have hurt myself.” It was discomfiting, to say the least. I had to be assisted off the field, while a million little African school kids stood on the sidelines and mocked me in Luganda. Great. Then Wilson, the Youth Outreach president who’d been playing with us, knelt by my foot and asked if he could give it a twist. My answer was a vehement no, of course. Why the eff would I want him to twist my throbbing appendage? No. No no no. Apparently that’s what they do here, when you hurt your legs. What a beneficial practice that is.

Anyway, the knee’s not so bad anymore, just rather tender and sore. I’m pretty sure it will improve with time.

Um… oh, I am going whitewater rafting on the Nile tomorrow. Class five rapids, I’m told. It should be terrifying; I’m quite looking forward to it! And later tomorrow afternoon I’m scheduled to have a leisurely bungee jump over the Nile. I’m sure I will be absolutely petrified, but if I don’t go for the rest of my life I will think, “Why the freak did I pass up an opportunity like that?” So I’m bungee jumping. If I stop updating, that means I’ve died.

That sounds rather severe, for those with weaker constitutions. I won’t die! The company is legit; run by Australians, I think. Maybe. I promise I will survive and tell my tale upon my next blog post! Woot!

On the work side of things, my life is going rather smoothly as well. A few other volunteers and myself are working on organizing the Eye Camp, which will give a ton of local people their eyesight back! I can’t wait; it’s going to be spectacular. Preparing is pretty tedious, but it must be done, I guess. Sometimes it gets discouraging, trying to arrange and organize and manage so much when there are so few of us and such little funding. But then something happens that completely validates what we’re doing! This afternoon I went to a business training with a group of widows. I only went because one of the volunteers needed to get there and she had no one to walk with, and I had helped to create the group in the first place, so I tagged along. Thus, I was draped over a teeny little chair in a primary school classroom, simmering in the boiling heat and trying not to lose consciousness… then our translator mentioned that the women were asking about my friend Cecilly’s glasses, and saying that many of them suffered from eye problems. They wondered if there was some way we could give them eyeglasses.

One thing that I’ll say, here in the middle of my story, is that, even though we’re here to help as much as we can, there is really very little that we can do, in the long run. We can help in our small ways, and give what little we have to give, but so frequently people ask us for help, and we have to say that we can’t. It’s truly heartbreaking. So when these women asked about their eye problems and I got to speak up and tell them, “Yes! We can help you!”, it was basically the most fulfilling little moment of my life. Yay!

I have to wrap this up, I think. Wilson, one of my very favorite Africans, just sat down next to me at the internet café. Yes, the same Wilson that wanted to twist my annihilated knee. Yeah, have African friends. I’m cool like that.

Bye everyone!

Soccer/Tuberculosis/Cheeseburger

Good morning, all! It’s a strangely overcast morning in Lugazi, and I’m feeling rather nice. I apologize for my woeful neglect of my blog; life has turned me aside every time I tried to come and update! The power has been out a lot recently, and I’ve been busy from dawn until dusk, literally. I’m not normally this dedicated, it’s a little bizarre.

Much to tell! My Africa experience has thrown me a few curveballs. From attending an international soccer game (FREAK yeah!) to losing my wallet on an untrackable taxi, I’ve spent the last couple weeks alternating between complete happiness to bottomless depression.

The football game was so effing intense! Uganda and Kenya played and we had first row seats, right in the front! Let me tell you, Africans know their way around a soccer field. ‘Twas a magical thing to watch, and not just because of the talent displayed. Uh… hello beautiful African athlete. Can you marry me now? Number five on Kenya… oh boy. I want everyone who reads this to know that my heart forever belongs to a glorious, shirtless, African footballer whose name I do not know.

The wallet debacle was a bit of a rain on my parade. I’m managing though; things will work out. I did a bit of wrathful dancing/swearing/self-loathing, but I’ve mostly recovered and am making the most of my own irresponsibility.

The work we’re doing is progressing rather slowly. Right now I’m attending a lot of meetings and consults and doing much talking. Very little action. But I’m confident the hands-on work with begin soon and I can get my hands dirty! Or dirtier. The water’s been out for a while so I’m highly unwashed. But I’m working on the Marginalized Populations Committee, preparing to partner with a nearby orphanage to rebuild an income generating project that will remain long after we’re gone! I’ve learned soooo much about development and humanitarian work; I never realized how much I didn’t understand. Sustainability is so critical to what we do here, and it’s a challenge to weave that irrevocably into the projects we come up with.

Oh, yes. I’m pretty convinced I have tuberculosis. And for those of you who don’t understand my peculiar brand of hypochondria, that means I have a hefty cough and I’ve persuaded myself I’m dying of it. Realistically, I have a chest cold. Imaginatively, I have a life-threatening illness. I don’t have tuberculosis. But I’m pretty sure I have tuberculosis.

So long story short, I’ve had a thousand adventures since my last update and met dozens of beautiful people. Ugandans are incredible; I love these guys more than I thought I could, in just a few short weeks. I wish I could tell more but there’s no time! I miss the States and my friends and family there, but it’s such a short time, in the long run. I sincerely hope everything is going well for each of you, and I can’t wait to see you again! And to eat a double cheeseburger. Oh how I long for a double cheeseburger.

Happy Friday! Or Saturday or whatever day it is there. BYE!

THE FUNERAL OF HUGENESS!

Today I attended a funeral! The final rites of Brian Bukenya. Thrilling, right? Well you will understand the reason for the exclamation mark momentarily.

Part A: Two volunteers from our group were invited to this funeral by Chairman Zeewa, (a friend of our group and an influential politician) and naturally I jumped at the chance. Who doesn’t want to attend an African final rites service? Not me, that’s who. So off we go, thinking we are attending the funeral of the father of a member of the Lugazi town council. Thus, the adventure begins.

Part B: My partner and I journey via taxi to Mukono, where we meet up with the Chairman. The taxi ride was a wee bit frightening, but otherwise all was well. The Chairman takes us to some other village about an hour’s drive away, and on the way we learn that the dead man was not the father of some little town council guy. He was the son of the Vice President of Uganda. Yes! VP of the country! Holy crap.

Part C: We arrive 45 minutes late, as per Ugandan custom, and sit under a canopy thing in the rain for a few hours listening to people sing and speak in Luganda. Completely unintelligible. This was the boring bit, but Chairman Zeewa explained things as we went along so it wasn’t unbearable. Also, we were the ponly white people there. Super conspicuous. The Chairman dragged us to the front of a crowd of hundreds and made us stand before the widow and say “Mukama Abakuume”, which apparently means “God Bless You”. I wanted to melt into the mud.

Part D: We commence to the gravesite (turns out the guy died last Nov, they’re only just getting around to the final rites portion of the process) and over walks the Vice President and shakes our white little hands. Yep. That happened.

Part E: The funeral comes to a conclusion, we eat our body weight in fatty delicious Ugandan food, and the VP comes to chat with us about our presence in his country. Holy CRAP. I almost peed myself. I thought I was going to be shot. You can be arrested for taking a photo on a bridge here. Saying the wrong thing to a major, powerful political figure… Well I didn’t really speak. I did say that I was from Nevada, so all you Nevadans, I totally represented!

So that is my tale. I spoke with the Vice President of the country, for a solid 15 minutes. There are more tales of adventure but I’m out of time. LOVE!!!