Day 101

Saturday. Wedding day. 

Everything is like plus five hours here. You can't do anything without adding plus five to it. 

Late this morning for the wedding because I needed to shower seeing that I only do that every second or third day. You bathe in cold water and let me know how often you voluntarily do it. 

Ok so I do my hair, put on some mascara, and even some Burberry and I'm out the door. 

I meet one of my coworkers on the way who after I told him I wa going to a wedding and was what I was wearing ok, proceeded to tell me in so many words that it was enh and that it would do. 

I was a bit devastated by this as I thought I was looking good. I mean did I say how I shaved for this day too? Not until after I tried to wax and then after two pulls realized it woul take far too long. But regardless, shaving?!? That's a big deal. 

Yes here in Uganda I am a smelly hairy animal. It brings me comfort. 

So I'm walking and I'm late and then I remember where I am and wait another ten minutes or so until my supervisor shows up. So my late isn't really late. 

So we are chatting and driving and I wish my dress was longer as I'm absolutely freezing. We stop at her sister and brother's place where their home and land is huge. My supervisor is stacked!!!

They were so sweet to me and everyone is so impressed with my greetings and limited language. Makes me feel good. 

So from there they are talking how they are going to be late they are going to be late, but instead of go straight to the wedding we make another stop at a friend's house. 

Holy shit. The place is huge. I'm in love and want to move there until I see roach casings on the walls. Yes I look for these everywhere now and I find them nearly every place I look minus now my house. Thank fuck. 

She feeds us. One of the things are the matooke bananas with green pepper and tomato essentially porridge made from leftovers of the previous evening. I don't think this combo entirely sucks as ghee which is like cheese and may be spelled gee, is added to the leftovers. So I give myself some. 

Next thing you know I'm being detective in my food as I usually am and realize just as I have the fork to my mouth that there is a secret ingredient in this matook porridge. Intestine. 

I'm not a fan of surprises. 

So needless to say I didn't eat a note of that. Instea made my cheeks hot and tingly from the amount of pineapple I ate. 

Such an obsession with eating. 

So we finally leave the friend's house and are on the way to the wedding. Why are there like five weddings happening by the one pastor? Gheezeus. I can't. So after we get there we wait about two hours before the ceremony even begins. 

So cold. And tired. So so tired. 

Some of the ceremony was in English which was nice. Only weird but was congratulating them as they have andutely no idea who I am. 

So ceremony done. Time for reception. Holy long. Starts off with seating. I'm starved by the way. So sit. Watch ppl sing karaoke essentially and get tipped, then watch traditional celebration dancers which I liked much more than the singers. 

Then we eat. Everyone sits and talks about me not to me. Asking all sorts of questions, but again none to me. Worst part is that these people spoke English, so it's not like they couldn't communicate with me. They simply chose not to. 

Food was cold. Too much meat. I wanted to eat nothing, but I was so hungry. Potatoes were gross and I never say that!! 

Say across from Ana who forged himself on chicken gizzard after chicken gizzard I swear I though I was going to hurl what little food I did take all across the table t him. 

Thankfully for him I was able to control myself. 

After eating more sitting. Then the bridal party arrived. More singing. More dancing. Then the speeches. Holy hell the speeches. Nearly everyone got up and said a twenty plus minute long speech. I was grateful when the gross rude guy next to me offered me a drink. Not only did it warm me, but it also made things a bit more enjoyable. 

I was so curious to see how this cake was going to taste. It tastes like ass. 

The frosting was like bitter lemon line concrete and the cake had burned after tastes and was just dense. Not good flavor. At all. 

So I don't want more cake. I actually threw mine away. Hid it in a favors box. 

Continued drinking with the gross man. Then I nearly pissed myself an then thankfully my supervisor asked if I was ready to go home. Yes. Please. Let's. 

So we leave. I feel sick. I'm saying my goodbyes. Leaving my cake behind (they gave us a huge chunk) and nearly stumbling to my door. 

These are the times that I wish I was more efficient at boiling water. 

Got in around one a.m. And I feel like trash. I think I need to sleep. 

Also I don't want to go to anymore weddings. They are too long. 

That is all. 

For now. 

Day 100

Police officers and the youth. What a combo. Maybe that's why it ended in a shit show. 

Had planned to meet with the head of the Youth For Change group today, but first I was to go to the outreach we set up earlier in the week. 

Can I tell you that when we arrived we not only arrived late, but no one was prepared for us. No one was there period. 

We say around, set up. I read. I also fell asleep and it was a bit cold today so I say in the car where I proceeded to falls asleep with my book in my hand. 

I then came back to office. Ate and prepared for my meeting with Louis. Just as I'm to be dropped off Louis calls and pushes the meeting back an hour. 

Our AIC driver then drops something back off at the outreach site where I now have to stay because he need to run an errand. I tell him what time the meeting was pushed to. Yeah yeah. He'll be back he says. No time. Ok. Fine because I feel worthless here. 

Was attempted to be fed again, but thankfully I was able to advert such stuffing. 

I was instead enlisted to help with testing. Not the actual testing itself, but logistics, which I was not unhappy about. I felt like I was going something which made me happy. 

As a side note, I have decided it is my two year mission to return to America with a police fatigue and a pair of their combat boots. So on. 

Back to testing. I was able to talk with the officers. See the need. Use a little Ruyankore, things were good. Then I started helping with the tests. 

Here's your cotton swab, here's your cotton swab. 

Then the wind. Not only is everyone's test out for everyone to see, but the wind is also blowing to blow everyone's test about for all sorts of cross contamination. 

Ew. 

One blew my way that was a positive. Can we scream biohazard? Just saying. And we have some confidentiality issues. 

I want to set them up with voting screens. Yeah. That would work. Somehow. 

It was crazy scary and sad because I had never seen so many positives at once. There were three in my face on one card that holds maybe ten to fifteen samples. Three out of ten?

And everyone's face looked the same. No one fell out. Unless you were the tester or giving results or close enough to hear the session you would have no idea that this person was just told that yet had HIV.

That scared me. That kind of numbness to emotions. 

Things are different here. Everyday  learning. And even though I may not always like what I find or what is brought to me, I am grateful for the experience. 

Day 99

No electricity. 

Sometimes my electricty just goes out. Mostly when or after its raining, but sometimes it just goes. Its quite annoying and I never realized just how much of a luxury electricity was. 

No meeting. 

What else am I going to be without? 

I'm finding it difficult to orchestrate myself. I'm trying, but I suck and so I find myself more often than not reading my book or looking at language. I lied. I read my book. Nearly done too. 

Not having structure has lent itself to my imagination. 

Day 98

There is to be a marathon in Mbarara!!

I met with the sister organization of AIC and this is where I think I want to do my secondary project. Except they are already doing such amazing things. A marathon? I wanted to do something like that for World Aids Day. Ugh. I feel that four months isn't enough time to plan that though.

Day 97

Decided not to go to work today. Didn't sleep well. Too many people in the bed and there were weird sounds last night slash early this morning. Been awake since three.

I swear. I'm not sure when sleep and I became unfriendly, but I'm something like over it. True story.