T.I.A. - This Is Africa

Power outages are common here. Random times, maybe 1 hour, maybe 12. There have been 5 or 6 power outages since coming and I have had two nights so far that have been carried out with candles, flashlights and the greatest invention of all, the headlamp. One such evening, the girls and I were all making dinner for ourselves in the kitchen. The stove runs on gas so, fortunately for us, a decent dinner can still be made. Jessica and Emily W had purchased a batch of Chapatti (like naan bread) from a street vendor and had used a large pot and an inch or so of oil to reheat and crisp them. This has been done before without incident but we believe that at some point, oil must have spilled down into the burner because what came next was rather dramatic, even by Africa standards. After allowing a pot of water to boil on the same burner, I made my way over to turn off the stove and make myself a lovely cup of hot chocolate. The stove is such that the flame increases as you turn towards off, and as it happened, in this case, a sudden increase of heat on already hot oil caused a rather significant combustion: a large flame coming off the burner and smaller, but still significant flames coming out from the knob I had just turned. As a side note, I believe the lack of light in the room made this event just that much more intense. I jumped back and simply stood there staring, whilst muttering repeatedly “oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh”, waiting for someone to tell me what to do as given the nature of this place, I thought this may have happened at least once or twice before. But, fortunately for me, just as soon as it happened, Aaron, the night guard appeared from behind me and started whacking the flames with a dish towel while Emily stood yelling, “Aaron, turn off the gas, turn of the gas!”. Given the chaos of the moment, this did not register with Aaron and he instead grabbed a large bowl off the counter and threw sweet sugary high calorie milk into the flames and all over the floor. This did not extinguish the fire completely, but upon finally turning off the gas, the drama at last reached an end. What was left was a sticky mess, a lot of laughter and everyone relaying what was going through their heads at that fateful moment. Emily H coyly admitted to have thought nothing of the children and was in that instant quite ready to simply flee the house.

On Saturday afternoon, Becky, Rachel and I went to Bujagali Falls. Though not far, the road conditions make it a little risky on a Boda so we hired one of the Emily’s trusted drivers. We arrived in perfectly hot sunny weather and wandered around a bit taking pictures before accepting an “invitation” from a local Ugandan man to take the short boat tour around the river, a common tourist attraction. We agreed on 20 minutes for 35,000 shillings. The boats were rudimentary; wood, patched to the nines, made slightly more glamorous by the addition of a tarp canopy up on four wooden poles. We were asked to join a lively group of Libyan men in another boat that was taking off at the same time, but as we had already made a deal and I was already in the boat, we decided against it. There were three people in the boat besides us; the driver, our guide at the front and a young Ugandan boy whose sole purpose was to bail out the steady stream of water that was seeping in through the rudely sealed up cracks on the boat floor. And no, mom, we did not have life jackets. Our 20 minute boat ride turned into a 45 minute boat ride as we made a stop to shore and made the hike up to a view point that is also the location of the king’s son’s home, stopped at another point of shore to drop off a few beers to some random Greek men and took a quick jaunt through some very mild rapids all the while getting a running commentary including info on the birds, the country, the falls and the dam that’s currently being built a few miles downriver. I do love adventure but due to the fact that it was clear we were past the 20 minute mark and we had no clue what their intentions were, I was slightly relived to, at last, return to our starting point. No sooner had we touched ground that it became apparent that the intimidatingly dark clouds that had formed in the distance were heading straight our way so we decided to have lunch in the small outdoor café/bar near the shore that at least had a coned thatch roof for cover. The rains came slow at first but within the time it took to order, raindrops the size of marbles brought the earth to life as the dark red soil began to dance upon impact and small red rivers began carrying the soil down towards the river. The sky became dark, thunder rolled and the café became shelter for what seemed like a never ending stream of Ugandan men who seemed to prefer crowding around our small table and set of three low cushioned chairs than spreading out amongst the tables. We waited for what seemed like forever for our food to come and were forced to sit awkwardly amidst the towering crowd of people and even found ourselves shifting from time to time to avoid the leaks that were slowly forming as water leached its way through the thatch. We were optimistic in thinking it would pass by the time we had to make our way up to the car so when he called to say he was waiting we made a run for it. We ran as fast as we could, leaping to avoid patches of mud and small rivers and up a crudely made set of stone and earth steps up to the parking lot. I actually managed to stay rather clean as I was wearing shoes but as the girls were wearing flip-flops and found themselves slipping, they ran most of the way barefoot. We arrived in succession, throwing ourselves into our awaiting ride wet and invigorated. But we were not out of the woods yet. Due to the rain and its inevitable effect on the already bad road, Abdula, our driver, had us meet him earlier than scheduled and his fears were not without reason. We did make it home without incident due to his experience and diligence but not before pulling over to keep out of the way of a couple mid-sized buses that slid past us a little sideways down a particularly precarious inclined stretch of road. TIA…

P.S. If you want to call to say a quick hello or tell me to log onto Skype, or if there is an emergency (as long as it’s not between the hours of 1pm and 10:00pm, your time), you can call my cell at 00-256-777672407)