Last of the Bugandans

And as all things, this blag too must come to an end.

It's been a wild ride, and you've all been a part of it. Some would compare it to the silently applauding audience at a professional golf game, mere bystanders, standing in the way of the game itself. But to me, it's different. You, faithful readers of this blag, did your part in shaping my time in Uganda.

Many left comments, thus managing to be right there beside me, sharing in my moments there. Others read each entry in silence; whether it was an awe-inspired silence or a quiet admiration behind it all - don't worry, your secret's safe with me. Each in your own way, you were there.

It was my connection to the outside world, the blag. Much like having friends and family in helium balloons attached to my wrist wherever I went.

But it didn't stop there. Even the act of writing had its impact. It added a point of routine in an otherwise changing day-to-day life. Not to mention the processing. An experience like this one doesn't end the moment I land on Norwegian soil again. It grows in meaning with time; with the processing that is done. And for that, rereading my own blag will likely be a wonderful tool along the way.

It's been a perfect trip for me. There's not a moment of it that I regret.

I've seen the heart of Uganda.

Can't always get what you want

Okay, I'll be honest here. I was secretly hoping for the doctor to give me a very specific diagnosis. "It was malaria after all," she was supposed to say. "Your immune system just crushed it far too early for our tests to pick up on it."

No such luck. The current diagnosis is "unspecified gastroenteritis" as suspected earlier. Chances are it won't get much more specified, either.

So there it is, then. Don't mind me, I'm all better now. I'm just fond of complaining about stuff.

The hands of time

At this point, my body clock is thinking, "Oh, shut up."

I originally travelled from Norway via London. That's one time zone to the west, or -1 hour. Not much of an adjustment, sure. After London, I flew to Uganda, three hours ahead of London. Now we're at +2. Seven weeks of that, then it was back to London, for one day of -1. Then good old Norway, back to 0.

And now, it's +1 again. Daylight saving time.

Drumroll

I'm a hypochondriac!

Well, no, not exactly. It turned out not to be malaria after all, but the symptoms did fit, so it wasn't exactly far-fetched. Most likely, it was just some gastroenteritis of some form or other. I'll only have the final diagnosis on Monday.

I'm back home now, after having spent the night at the hospital, taking various blood tests and workups. It's interesting being on this side of the needles for once.

Be careful what you wish for

The abdominal pain has arrived! I've been admitted to the hospital now, where they've just taken some tests. We'll see what they say...

The adventure continues.

Toto, we're back in Kansas

After a trip like this, most people bring back souvenirs. Some bring sculptures, some bring postcards, some bring photo albums. I've probably brought malaria with me.

At least, I think it might be malaria. Headache, fevers, joint pains; sounds about right. The symptoms aren't entirely typical; I have no abdominal pain, would have expected that perhaps. If I haven't gotten better by tomorrow, I'll go and get myself tested. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I'll tell you one thing though. Of all the times when this could have happened, I am incredibly happy that this happened now, back at home. Mommy's here.

It's good to be back.

Back to the horse and cart

It seems strange to me that we take world travel in stride the way we do. Among the passengers on my flight, an ominous indifference marked the crossing of the Ugandan border, as witnessed on the flight map.

Think about it. You're in a country filled with this blend of peoples, all with their various cultures, personality traits and appearances. Music, dance, language, life. The very idea of it is too vast to fathom. The millennia of intricate histories that have shaped these to become the way they are today; the struggles they've faced, the changes they've had to go through. Blistering climates, adding their own touch to everyday activities. Not to mention nature in all its splendor, carrying its own variety of colors and roars.

Hours later, you're in a whole new country, with its own mixture of peoples, cultures and whatnot.

Where do you get the time to appreciate all this when it's just a matter of hopping onto a plane and waking up in a whole new place?

Robert Louis Stevenson

The original plan was to relax at home for my last few hours in Kampala. But, as a friend of mine pointed out, today has a whole other atmosphere to it than other days. This day would be so much better put to use by experiencing the full last-day-here feel of the country.

So I made myself a treasure hunt. I jotted up a quick list of things to find, and then went out looking for them. A bottle containing a red fluid, a wrapper with exactly two triangles on it, a person with one ear-ring. A rock shaped like a face, a 50% bargain, a person who knew three languages. A spelling mistake, a button and a pool table.

I found some things, I didn't find others. Didn't matter. It was the experience of it that was the point.

My friend was right. A last day is different. And with that, I bid farewell to Uganda.

Jack Bauer

My time's up. Within 24 hours, I'll be sitting on a plane home. The mood may be more somber than the analogous one from Last King of Scotland though.

I've thrown all my stuff onto the bed now, thinking that it'll force me to get packing. After all, this way, I can't go to sleep before I've moved all my stuff into their respective suitcases. One piece at a time, that's all it takes. Put like that, it sounds so simple, doesn't it? Nonetheless, I've got my suspicions that I'm going to hate myself for this much later tonight, when I still haven't gotten off Facebook.

I've got even stronger suspicions that I'll end up sleeping on the couch today.

Angels & Demons

It was so dark in my room last night that my brain went haywire. No kidding. Pitch black outside, the power gone. No amount of waiting would allow my eyes to adjust. It was all just... black.

It started with a dream that I had of someone walking into our room in the middle of the night. I startled awake. But, the dream didn't end - I saw this person, moving towards my bags. I heard this person, opening my camera bag's zipper. Could a mental image of a dream be so strong for it to continue even while awake? There was no question about it. He was right there.

Figuring I'd startle the intruder, I got up quickly and put on the best semblance of a military voice that I could muster up. "Looking for something?" I called out and flashed my torch in his general direction, with my heart racing.

I blinked in confusion. There were my bags, unopened. My camera, untouched. And no person there. I looked under the beds, I looked at the door. Nothing.

There had been no intruder. I had imagined it all.

Eddy lines suck

My shoulders are going to get their revenge for this tomorrow.

It was an adrenalin kick beyond compare. Rafting on the Nile a couple of weeks ago was fun, I'll grant you that. This, though. This was me and my instructor in individual vessels. This was me aided only by my own paddling, and hip movements reminiscent of a Shakira music video. Me staying afloat on rapids hellbent on flipping me over. Me vs. the laws of nature.

Which is what bugs me, see. With decidedly amusing facial expressions (as my instructor told me afterwards), I did manage to beat the rapids. Once I got onto flat water though, I suddenly flipped.

All thanks to treacherously hidden whirlpools.

Tick tock

What errands to do! Getting materials, dropping by stores, saying goodbyes... I am but one man!

 

With only five days to go of my time here, there's a lot to get done. Add to that that I'm planning on heading back to Jinja for a day, and it's clear that I'm really running out of time.

 

Wish me luck.

And justice for all

It's better that ten innocents get beaten up within an inch of their lives than that one guilty person walks free.

Or at least, that seems to be the general sentiment among the locals here. Mob justice is big here. We've seen a lot of that at the surgical casualty. As I've heard a friend of mine describe it, the police coming to the scene of a crime are more often than not the ones who save the life of the "suspect".

That is, if someone were to yell out "Thief!" and point at a person, then that person had better run. There's no waiting to find out whether the person did steal something, or even if it was that person who stole it in the first place. The pointing determines who gets pummelled.

Makes you feel safe, no?

Billy Elliot

Drumming on stage was on today's agenda, as I wrote in an earlier post. I went with the intention of trying it out, but the event got cancelled at the last minute. The reason: a nearby contemporary dance display, where the dance group apparently had said that their performance would be disturbed if we played loud music.

 

I went to watch a part of the dance practice though. Very beautiful stuff. Graceful movements, epic music, pretty girls - great show.

 

It was just a pity that the drumming had to be cancelled for this. Or - perhaps my drumming was just so downright obnoxious that they created an elaborate story with hired actors to avoid hearing me play on stage. Hm.

The unrest continues

The drama level seems to be going up here. The Kasubi Tombs, a world heritage site here in Kampala, were set ablaze today.

One thing is that this is an absolute tragedy from a cultural perspective, perhaps comparable to someone knocking down the Taj Mahal (another world heritage site). Another is that this can potentially turn quite ugly, if there were political motivations behind this as is speculated.

We've also started noticing more of it, at least indirectly. People walking around carrying branches here on campus, taxi drivers refusing to drive into campus, increased security controls upon entering the area, the embassy asking us to come and register...

We'll keep clear of the conflicts themselves to the extent possible of course. I cannot really say that I feel threatened in any way. We're safe, and feel perfectly safe as well. It's merely the tension in the air that is so palpable for the time being.

Baby's Day Out

I delivered a baby for the first time today!

It all went so quickly once it started. By the time I had put on my gloves, the woman was having her contractions and the head was on its way out. A little help along the way, and this baby girl cried her first cry to the world. A strong, healthy cry, before she settled down to sucking her tiny little thumb.

I'm well aware that if I hadn't been there, somebody else would have stepped in and delivered the baby instead. I did nothing remarkable there. Try telling that to my feeling of bounding pride though.

Did Cæsar live here? I didn't think so.

You know, I always thought that I had crossed surgery off my "list". I could never picture myself dicing, slicing and suturing for hours on end. But, I'm beginning to realize, the more I get to participate in the operation while assisting, and the more the procedure makes sense to me, the more interested I get.

I observed two emergency caesarian sections yesterday back-to-back, and then immediately afterwards assisted in a third one. These three, in the course of about two hours - and there were several more planned. But I was getting hungry, and needed food.

Even thinking of getting so many in one go in Norway would be remarkable. They simply don't happen that frequently.

If I spent a couple of more days doing this, I could go solo with this. Well, no, maybe not. But it's fun to think that I could.

School shooting

A bit of everyday drama: there's been a shooting at the university here, with subsequent riots, deaths and lockdowns.

So far I've only heard rumors of the event and gotten strict instructions to not walk back to campus at this time. For all intents and purposes, we are safe and unharmed.

We're even hoping that the volleyball tournament that we're organizing today will continue as planned. Life goes on, right?

Sandman

Missed me? I've been to Murchison Falls this weekend, getting as close to roughing it as I've gotten here in Uganda. A pit in the ground for a toilet? I call that roughing it.

And it's been great. I can't describe the weekend as anything but a photographer's dream really. Witnessing the sheer force of the waterfall as it bellowed out into the valleys below, against a tropical forest backdrop. Crossing the Nile and realizing that the clear skies and calm waters were about to give us the most perfect sunset, with the occasional yawning hippopotamus off in the horizon.

Seeing everything from baboons to antelopes to warthogs during game drive. Baby elephants ambling around without a care in the world, while their massive parents watched closely. Tall giraffes refusing to stand up straight for a photograph. Catching a glimpse of a lion – so rarely seen in these areas that it magnified the pure satisfaction of it all tenfold.

As if that hadn't been enough, the next day's boat ride had even more to offer. Kingfishers diving for fish and crocodiles cooling themselves off in the water. Buffalo grazing and fish eagles perching on trees. Monkeys leaping acrobatically from tree to tree, latching onto distant branches with nimble fingers.

It was beautiful; deeply, movingly beautiful. Nature, the way God intended it.

Knowledge, power, and all that

Some people know too much. I say this in light of just having had my team come in second-last place in a pub trivia quiz.

I mean, how do people remember the year in which the ANC was taken off the terrorist watchlist? Or stuff like who won silver in some Olympic sport from many years back?

I am a big fan of trivial knowledge, I'll grant you that. It just seems like such a conspiracy that nobody ever asks me the stuff that I do know.