Frikadellen

Café Frikadellen is like an oasis in Masaka. They have the best food, you can order hamburgers, pizza, banana splits, lasagna.  Another fabulous feature of Frikadellen is their wi-fi.  We don’t eat there too often, because it is pricey, but dang, it is delicious.  Every Friday night, Café Frikadellen hosts a barbeque buffet.  There is tomato soup with delicious garlic bread, potato salad, sweet potato fries, cabbage salad, scalloped potatoes, chicken wings, steak, tomato/feta salad, tzatziki, guacamole, carrot salad, broccoli salad, hot dogs, with fruit and cake for dessert.  All of this deliciousness can be yours for 25,000 shillings, about $10. 

We like to go to the barbeque with the Rowe’s, and they go whenever they have a team in town getting ready to leave.  It’s strange seeing people come and go…I haven’t really interacted with the teams aside from dinner at Frikadellen, but it’s still strange that we arrived here before them, and they’re leaving before us.  Three months isn’t that long, but the two weeks that many people stay seems like a nice length for a visit…

Anyways, whenever you go to Frikadellen, you’ll always meet another mzungu (white person.)  On Friday nights, you can meet everyone visiting Masaka.  Tonight, there were about 100 people at the barbeque, including us (Utah), the Rowe’s (California), some people from the south, a team from Texas, there are a lot of Danish people, there were some people from Ireland.  At barbeque, you just meet people from all over the world.  

Clothes!

For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to bring no cute clothes with me to Uganda.  I thought, it’s going to be hot, it’s going to be dirty, and most importantly, no one is going to care what I look like or what I am wearing. 

After being here for two weeks, I was already very sick of basically every article of clothing I brought.  By week three, I absolutely hated my clothes, and by week four, I didn’t even want to get out of bed in the morning because I hated how I looked and felt in my hideous clothing.  It’s not something I expected to be a problem, but day after day of wearing clothes that didn’t look okay really put me into somewhat of a depression.  I know, it’s kind of pathetic, but it happened.   

So, we decided to go shopping.  Nyendo the dirtiest part of Masaka town, but every Tuesday, they get new clothing.  The vendors buy large bales of donated clothes, and then put them in piles.  If the clothes are laid out nicely, they are more expensive, but if they are just in a massive heap and you have to dig, they are much cheaper.  At the tarp we were at, there was one pile priced at 2,000 shillings per piece, and one priced at 1,500 shillings per piece.  Converted into dollars, that is about $0.83 and $0.62.

Next we looked for jeans.  I hate shopping for jeans, but somehow at this place I ended up finding two pairs that I love without even trying them on!  For less than $20, I have a whole new wardrobe, and somehow, a whole new attitude.

Thank goodness for donated clothing, I have never been more grateful for charity.  

Everest

The first time Kennie and I talked with Everest, he asked me if I knew IT, information technology.  He said that he works for Orange (an internet company) and they needed someone who knew information technology.  I said that I didn’t, but he kept walking with us.  As we walked, he kept waving at everyone and telling us that all of the boda boda guys were his friends.  We told him we were going to the church to hand out flyers for the immunization drive.  At this point, he told us that he was a medical professional of the highest order.  Throughout all of this, he kept offering both of us handshakes and hugs.  We began to really question his sanity.  He speaks very good English, but there is definitely something a little off. 

Our second encounter with Everest was at Smart Shopper, one of our favorite supermarkets in Masaka.  He saw us shopping, and came in to greet us.  People here generally offer lingering handshakes that can last uncomfortably for the length of the conversation.  Due to his friendliness at our last encounter, Amy and I tried to leave him to talk with Kennie only.  He followed us around the store, until he finally got to give Amy a hug.  We told him that we study accounting, at which point he got very excited and told us that he also studied accounting.

We’ll often see Everest at our favorite restaurant in town, Chris’s Guest House.  One time in particular, he came in handing out flyers for MTN (another internet and phone company.)  Everest is always handing out flyers.  He gave us all flyers, and then started asking us questions.  He told Amy to order him a water, but then he just went and got one for himself, then left.  About five minutes later, he burst back in, and was really worked up about something.  He began freaking out about MTN, and tell us to never buy things from MTN, because they do not give him water.  He was very upset, and at this point told us he was going to go to Canada to study criminal justice.  Then he asked Kennie about his iPhone, and asked who gave him service.  Kennie wrote down T-Mobile, then Everest went on his way. 

The best Everest encounter to date involved only Amy and I, when we decided to go eat breakfast at Chris’s.  There we are, just enjoying our French toasted, when Everest comes and joins us at our table.  He tells us some good news!  He is going to be wed on August 22, and then he is going to Canada to study medicine.  Everest loves Canada.  He orders a boiled egg and some water, and continues talking to us while we are trying to eat.  He asked me to take him to the Swiss Alps and told Amy that he wants take her on a picnic with her to Lake Nabugabu.  Amy politely declines and tells him that she has to work.  He wants the information of who we work for, so I write down the name and Amy makes up an email address.  When he finishes his egg, he tells us he has to go to the hospital, he works there as a nurse. 

So we’re not exactly sure what this little man’s story is, but we always get a kick out of talking to him!

80 Hours

You know how in America if the power goes out for a few hours, it’s kind of a big deal?  Usually it is taken care of in a pretty timely manner, because everyone needs electricity.  It really wouldn’t fly if people were hanging out without the lights on for a day or two. 

However, it is a different story here.  We’ve had issues with the power since arriving, but we never expected to go 80 hours without power.  The power went out sometime Monday morning, and we didn’t think much of it.  We went about life normally, we watched a TV show on Amy’s computer, we worked on our spreadsheet of loan recipients, and we listened to music on Amy’s computer while we got ready.  We didn’t think that we might need to conserve our battery power. 

Every time we came home we kept hoping that the lights would turn on, but they didn’t.  On day two we found out that something had broken, and they said it would be fixed on Wednesday, which, figuring using African time meant probably at least Thursday.  After it wasn’t fixed on Wednesday night, Kennie came home and told us how sometimes Ugandans will climb the power lines and steal the oil, because it is very expensive.  Apparently it has happened a lot in the Katwe area, and the government said if it happened again, they wouldn’t fix it.  Our hopes of the power being restored were dashed, and we began imagining how spending the rest of our time here without power would be. 

But Thursday afternoon, our lights flickered back on and we all rejoiced. 

Also, this post is a little dramatic, because every night from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., the Rowe’s would turn the generator on, and we’d have light in our house, and we could charge all of our things.  It really wasn’t that bad, but we can say that we survived for 80 hours without power.  

The Database

My mom keeps asking me to tell her more about what we are doing here.

In the past, interns have gathered groups of people, taught them classes, collected business proposals from the students, qualified them for loans, formed loan pods, and issued loans.  This has been going on for about two years now.  As much of this program is run out of Utah, and interns are only here for three month periods, about nine months out of the year, it is easy to imagine that there are a lot of gaps and inconsistencies.

The collection rate is pretty low, and we have been assigned to figure out why, and do what we can to help improve it.  Over our first month here, we have visited around 70 different loan recipients, and gathered varying information from all of them.  These visits have helped us form a better idea of what things have been going on here.  We also have the database which contains the payment history of groups and individuals—the only information on the past we have.

Kennie manages the database.  He has been working very hard on getting it more organized.  He’s recently been searching out the most delinquent of loan recipients, so we can visit them and figure out what has been going on. 

Dallin has been working on amortization schedules and other documents for the groups of second time loan recipients who we will be giving loans to soon. 

Every day in the field, Amy asks questions and takes notes and I take pictures.  We’re currently working together to make our own little database of all loan recipients and things we learned from our visits to them. 

That’s pretty much what we have going on here.  

Food Photos

Here are some really attractive pictures of us eating all sorts of fun and delicious food.

Kabalagala.  One of the lady's with a loan makes these delicious banana pancakes.
We pick a few up whenever we drive by.

Me, Amy, and some freshly picked guava.  Yum!

Lunch at Chris's Guest House, one of our favorites in Masaka.

TACOS.  We love the senior missionary couple, the cooked us Mexican food and brownies.

This is Amy's favorite:  Jackfruit.  

Pineapple Maffin from the bakery.

My first rolex.  Picture taken in front of the meat shop.  

I eat on average one avocado per day.

Me and Kent and our supersized rolexes.

Sometimes, you just need fried bananas and ice cream at Cafe Frikadellen.

Ensenene!  Kennie and I tried Masaka's finest:  grasshoppers.

Pork BBQ and a Stoney (ginger soda) after Rotary Club meeting.

These are some form of Portuguese grapes.  They are so delicious!

Pasta Night!  We just whipped up some alfredo.  The water was almost boiling.

Deo said because I ate this, I will have twins.

The Team

I figure it’s about time that I tell you a little bit more about these people that are pretty much my whole life here. (From left to right, Dallin, Amy, me, and Kennie.)

Kennie

Nickname:  Kent

Likes:  Maria Flo hotel, internet, Chris’s Guest House, driving boda bodas, America, water, church, missionary work, Canada, solitude, Cairo traffic, the Maria Flo staff, Maria Flo breakfast, chips and beef, Chinese food, Café Frikadellen, Facetime, and sugarcane.

Dislikes:  jungle food, Divine Mercy’s, poisoned Rolexes from Katwe, being sick in Africa, riding boda bodas, the small room in the house, being in debt, and matooke. 

Amy

Nickname:  Princess

Likes:  hot showers, getting her nails done by African men, pink, Angela, envubus (en-voo-boos, the word that we learned to be hippo but is actually buffalo), Luganda, Gossip Girl, being clean, Ronald, watching animals attack people, resting time, good hair days, and looking at pictures of good hair days to remember what it was like to have good hair days in America.

Dislikes:  being tickled, lizards, weird smells, approaching insects, DIRTY CHILDREN, Dallin driving the boda boda, drama, bug bites, her mosquito net, when Chacos smell, kalo, posho, cassava, jackfruit, unripe guava, having surgery, and eating pork bones.

Dallin

Nickname:  Gleen

Likes:  fire, making people uncomfortable, carrying stuff, zombies, Club Ambiance, tickling Amy, getting points, getting camel awards, Bank of Amy, sparring with children,  performing surgery, his 32 GB memory card, Microsoft Excel, Amy getting bug bites, Grandfather Glen, shoes, and the exchange rate.

Dislikes:  Gossip Girl, internet time, his bank, being confused, staying at the house alone, being asked his dislikes, when Amy and Summer talk the same, when Amy and Summer laugh, when Amy and Summer are right, Crunchies (Chicken Time restaurant serves chicken-less cornflake sandwiches), Amy being dramatic, debt, and people talking about boyfriends.

They're pretty great, and we are having a lot of fun out here together!

Dishes

Somehow, sinks everywhere are suddenly completely full of dishes still covered in food.  Dishes are a  big pain, and are definitely not a lot of fun to do, but after doing my first load of dishes in Uganda, I feel like I probably shouldn’t be so dramatic about the chore of doing dishes. 

We don’t use that many dishes here, mainly because we mostly eat out.  Breakfast is the only meal we really eat at home so far.  But as dishes always do, they manage to build up to a point where the kitchen is unusable.  So because dish doing is my favorite, I decided to take on the task. 

When the sink is real full of dishes, at home, if you have a poor-college-student-apartment dishwasher, the process consists of scraping the food off the dish and finding a spot for it in the dishwasher.  There will probably be a few pieces of cookware that do not fit in the dishwasher that you may actually have to wash by hand.  If there are lots of dishes that have been there for a long time, it will probably be a relatively gross task, but it shouldn’t take too long.

Here, the task is a bit more of a pain, literally because the people here are kind of small, so the sink is short and not so fun to lean over.  The first part of the task is the same.  You scrape the food off of all of the dishes.  After you have cleared the sink of all dishes, you must fish out everything that is now blocking the drain because you do not have a disposal. 

Next, you fill the sink with dish soap and water.  You cannot use hot water, because you do not have hot water expect sometimes in the shower when it does not shut off the power.  Then you scrub all of the dishes, and stack them precariously on your small counter.

Once this part is finished, you can drain the sink.  Then refill it and add on capful of Jik.  Jik (we pronounce it Jix) is bleach.  When we need to rid things of disease such as fruit or other things that may have come into contact with contaminated water such as dishes, we refer to this is jixing.  Basically, all things need to be jixed.  Each dish must be dipped in the jik solution, preferable for a few seconds or more.  Because I feel like all of the surfaces in our kitchen are probably not that sanitary, you must find a clean rag (also a hard task) to try off each dish as you finish jixng it, so it can remain clean. 

I suppose that dish washing here is teaching me to be grateful for what I have.  It is quite the task here.  Next time I have a bad attitude about doing the dishes at home, I will think back to my time here when it took almost an hour to clean and sanitize the equivalent of about a normal day’s dishes.  

Shower Power

I love our new place.  The Rowes, who are in charge of the compound we’re staying in, did an excellent job of decorating and furnishing our little home.  The living room features some Ugandan-made wicker furniture, a few pieces of African artwork, a large map of Uganda, and some non-threatening looking tribal masks.  Mine and Amy’s room is pretty spacious, with two twin beds with accompanying mosquito nets and nightstands, as well as a large wardrobe.  The boys complain a little about their room, as it is significantly smaller, with two twin beds squeezed in leaving them with a walkway of about a yard by half a yard.  They’ll be fine though.  The kitchen is small, but is equipped with a few pots and pans, dishes, and a great assortment of cooking utensils.  The last room in our small house is the bathroom which possesses the greatest feature of all:  the shower with a water heater. 

Our first few weeks at the Maria Flo, showers were kept very short, because the water temperature was never high enough to convince me to stand under the water for any extended period of time.  Showering is a great part of the day because I get so grimy my Chaco tan lines look five times darker than they are, and the combination of sweat and dirt on my face is clearly visible.  Even in the heat, a freezing cold shower is not the most pleasant experience. 

We were all very excited to find out that our new home had a water heater, because hot showers were something we all missed greatly.  During the grand tour of the house, the Rowes told us the water heater and kitchen appliances wouldn’t work when the power was out, but the generator would pick up on everything else (the power here goes out all the time, temporary loss of power from ten seconds to an hour occurs daily).  We quickly learned that hot showers come at a price. 

Whenever anyone flipped the switch to turn on the water heater and got in the shower, we would lose power.  So with these circumstances, you must choose between heat and light.  We’ve found some strategies to provide us with the best chances for a pleasant shower, because there are some tradeoffs involved. 

Option 1:  Flip on the hot water switch, and turn on the shower, nice and hot.  Don’t go crazy with it, leaving the water at a slight drizzle gives you a better chance of keeping the power running.  The obvious benefit of this option is that if all goes well, you get a nice and hot shower in the light.  This goes particularly well if it is daytime and you are able to turn off all other lights in the house, because there is a window that lights up the bathroom well enough to see.  However, if this option is taken at night, you could plunge the entire house into darkness, and you are left to finish your now freezing cold shower in the dark. 

Option 2:  Turn the bathroom light on and take a cold shower.  The benefit of this option is that most likely the power will not go out, you will be able to see through the duration of your shower and everyone else in the house will be able to go about life normally.  The downside of this option is that your shower will, without a doubt, be freezing cold. 

The good news from all of this is that it is not how things are supposed to be.  Brian and Angela (our landlords) are going to look into this issue, so maybe one day soon we will always be able to take showers that are both hot and lit. 

The good news from all of this is that it is not how things are supposed to be.  Brian and Angela (our landlords) are going to look into this issue, so maybe one day soon we will always be able to take showers that are both hot and lit. 

I will certainly be grateful for every hot shower I take here, but what I’m discovering is that cold showers really aren’t that terrible. When I’m at home and the water doesn’t get as hot as I would like, it’s like the worst day ever.  Here, I’m not enjoying them by any means, but at the end of each day, I am just so grateful to finally be clean that it doesn’t really matter if the water is hot enough to scald me or if it’s so cold that I only touch it when I need to rinse off.  Heated water is a luxury, being able to shower is what is most important.