Thursday, August 28, 2014

Welcome to Jinja Town


It’s always difficult to put a place into words. Places are meant to be seen, you know? To be felt, to be listened to. To be interpreted with your own senses and mind. I can’t really describe the layers of bird songs that are the soundtrack to my days. And if I can’t depict this unpredictable chorus of wild things, how can I describe the light? The vibrancy of the colors? The thoughts I’m filled with as I ride down Main Street on the back of a motorbike? These are the ineffable things that surround me and swallow me whole. Pictures sure as hell don’t do real life any justice. If anything, they make us feel as though we know a place when we don’t know a damn thing about it. And a false sense of knowledge is a dangerous thing. So keep these ideas in mind when reading anything I write about Uganda or the places I venture off to while I’m here. Know that this is just my flawed, human attempt at putting an entire unique and irreplaceable world into the limited words of a single language.

I guess I should start from the beginning of my three weeks here. This will be a cliff notes version if there ever was one, but it’s better than nothing when attempting to keep hearts and minds back home at ease. 

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As most people who have traveled around any developing country will tell you, the real fun begins the moment you get into your chosen mode of transportation. While my shuttle was more predictable than other options, the journey was surely a proper welcome to my new life. The roads here are a rich coppery red and their dust seems to permanently hover in the air, kicked up from the parades of motorbikes, bicycles, running children, women with baskets and bushels balanced on their heads and pickup trucks with beds stuffed full of sweat drenched men. After a bit of driving, we could feel Kampala approaching; once unpaved and one laned, the roads now widened to reveal an epicenter of movement. A mess of sound and color under a hazy sky that makes Los Angeles look fresh. To avoid the tangle of trucks and vans, we ducked into the winding roads of the nearest slum weaving in and out of wooden shacks teeming with the disarray of daily life. Chickens and goats roamed freely between big mamas in radiant dresses cooking local dishes over black smoke barbecues with naked babies wrapped tightly on their backs. Packs of children entertained themselves with bike tires and sticks, rocks and ropes and whatever else they could find; after spending a year in Orange County where I often saw brats on the beach, backs turned to the tide with iPads in hand, the simplicity was refreshing. 

I didn't take the following photos of Kampala due to major exhaustion and a certain timidness and respect that I wish more people had when whipping out cameras on this continent, but I thought for the sake of breaking up some words and showing you what the city looks like, I'd include them anyway.







After a while of this sensory overload, we made our way into the rural area between Kampala and Jinja. Long grass and banana trees lined many of the miles we drove, but we passed a few villages, too. I sat in the front seat of the shuttle, and my pale skin sparked some interest in the kids who played in front of their homes that evening. Eyes  grew wide and hands waved as they shouted “Muzungu!” which means foreigner. I have mixed feelings about this, because as cute as they are, and as much as it’s a sick sign that I’m out of my own world, out of the majority, out of America, I never really know the motive. Is my appearance simply a novelty? The way kids here in Jinja grab fistfuls of my hair and closely investigate my freckles would lead me to believe that. But there’s also their idea of what white skin means. Candy, money, fancy cameras they can see themselves in instantly. And it bums me out to think that may be why they’re cheering. Because they think I’m another tourist who doesn’t understand my place. But if they’re getting rowdy because some white skinned weirdo is passing by in a big van, that’s another thing. I’ll gladly be a sideshow if it’s something funny in their day. Either way, I didn’t quite feel deserving of the welcome.

Life since my arrival has been more mellow than most of you would imagine, I’m sure. The primary schools are still out for summer, so my work days are relaxed and I spend a lot of time getting to know the town. Some days are spent lounging at resort pools, and some are full of wandering around the local market which consists of endless rows of cramped wooden stalls stacked high with everything from four cent mangos to soccer jerseys to machetes. Nights are dollar beers at bars on the banks of the Nile and family style dinners or movies with my hilarious roommates. I live in a tiny room tucked back into the garden of the main house, surrounded by exotic flowers, palm fronds and creatures of every kind. Electricity and hot water aren’t ever guaranteed, clothes are hand washed and hung to dry, and the internet is used only when necessary. Life is simple and I couldn’t be happier. 

Jinja itself is a busy little town, streets filled with motorcycles and missionaries. Like many other African countries, Uganda is a place where time is a figment of the imagination, and no two minds imagine things exactly the same way. While frustrating at first, the change of pace reminds me that all the organization and stress of our Western ways sucks the life out of us. We lack the ability to relax and roll with the punches of hour late busses and receiving a meal completely different from what we ordered. At home, these things are the cause of tantrums, but in Jinja we just laugh and say, “Uganda always wins”.