Actually, that trip was so  defined by storms and incredible winds, it took years for me to stop getting nauseated when the wind blew.  I was the one who did all the foredeck work and on a sailboat without fancy rigging, that’s the “gorilla work.’  i.e it takes the strength of one to haul anchors, reef sails, hoist the mainsail sometimes…   When we would peek out of a protected anchorage, Bob – having wanted to throw on as much sail area as we had – would deftly guide us out of the harbour, and immediately we’d get knocked down when we ventured out of the lee of the land into  real water. Since I did the sail changes, almost always getting sea sick, that soon wired a Pavlovian circuit: wind = nausea.  

Years after we’d settled onto dry land, I got nauseated every time the wind blew – lasted about two years.   Old neural networks die hard.   Long after that stopped happening, if the wind changed at night I would sense it and stagger out of bed to  do “take compass bearings” to see if we’d pulled anchor in the night, only to realize I was safe and secure on the second floor of a house in the hills.   I was probably an Oregonian in another life.  As Brett’s girl-friend Molly mentioned, a true Oregonian runs outside when it starts to rain.  The rest of the world runs inside.   My heart sings when it rains.

In Gulu, with the start of the rains, non-Oregonian creatures  head inside.  A few nights ago, when I work up at 4:30AM AGAIN, I saw a wide-ish undulating snake like pattern moving from the closed window down the wall next to my bed.  Scrambled to find my glasses to see what this moving mass might be and it was ANTS – fortunately not a Black Mamba though.  Giant ants, not little sugar ants and they were traveling in a colony.   Eeeeuuuuwww.

These ants were easily ½ inch long.  And – as prone to exaggeration as I can be, that particular fact is actual fact. You can look it up. There is no insect repellent – we’ve used it all on the white-ant-zap-fest a week ago.  Still, BOP just blows things out of the way, instead of killing them.  So I spent the next 10 minutes whacking ants with my shoes.   

All I could think of as I am frantically slaughtering ants, was the river-of-ants scene in the Poisonwood Bible, where a literal river of ants would creep in a descimmate every living creature in their path: as in whole cows,  goats, people….   Pulled my bed away from the wall and tried to get back to sleep, but spent the next hour ruminating on a list of things I could set the legs of my bed in to keep ants from winding their way up the legs and into my bed…  There has not been a return, but I spent the next day further terrorizing myself researching Soldier Ants, giant ants in Uganda, etc.  When I got to the part about the mandible being so big they can’t actually feed themselves, so have to depend on the colony shredding the victim, I stopped.  This is too much to think about…  Got a can of KILLZ the next days – hoping it does what it says and sprayed the window, the wall – you name it.  I’m happy to report that I am still alive and able to tell the tale. 

Last week held a small victory.  I have finally, after two months, been able to extract a report of sorts from the Gulu Town Police.  I can now submit this to my travel insurance. Now this would seem a straight forward matter, but even the Ugandans were horrified at the process.  It took a total of nine trips and talking to/pleading with to six different people to get this done.

“Hello, my name is…. And I was burglarized….. and I’d like a copy of the report….”  

“Oh no madam, we must first investigate. (It’s been 6 weeks – the trail is cold). And then we must type the report, and then we must…… and it must be stamped. It is not valid until it is stamped.”

“You first wait and we will make some diagrams.” (This never happens.)

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