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.)

The post The River of Ants appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

It must be the Louisiana girl in me, but I begin to wither when there is no rain.  And it’s not just my skin and hair – I was warned of this by a Ugandan woman.  My soul withers in the kind of heat and unending dust combined with lack of water and electricity, all of which typify dry-season here.  As I’ve said before: it’s the perfect storm for the demise of spirit.  So the rain thus far is soul-mending.  I may feel differently when all my clothes begin to smell of mildew, but right now I feel like dancing in the rain. I’d better hurry tho, because the sun is beginning to share the sky.

This is also beginning to be Mango season here in the north and  I’m noticing that the green ovals on the tree in the front yard are getting fatter. No pink showing yet, so I don’t know when they will be ready to harvest, but I’m keeping my eye on them.  I’ve been told they disappear pretty fast courtesy of the kids who scale the fence with long poles for knocking the fruit off.  There are those long poles again.  They’re pretty handy here.

And speaking of long poles, I visited the Police Station yesterday in the renewed  hope of getting a copy of the Police Report on my burglary (which was conducted with those long poles).  My case was referred to a young woman named Pomela about three weeks ago, so this is our second conversation.  She’s lovely, but has done nothing on the “investigation.”  When I saw her newly decked out this time in full police garb complete with rifle I said, “Pomela!  You have been missing!”  “Yes, I have been down and this is my first day back.”  We continue this polite conversation as a prelude to more serious business and there are wary looks from older, male police officers who clearly wonder what this Mzungu is doing taking up this woman’s time.  

I’m still not much closer to being able to get a report, but I have a new friend. It reminds me of a saying shared with me yesterday by Cheesburger Man, who has lived in Africa all his life.  The saying is” “Westerners have watches. Africans have time.”   ( I like this image of thrown-away watches, because it’s representative of how useless a watch is here.) It’s a good thing I’m adapting to this, because when I arrived at Coffee Hut yesterday, I found I was without my phone which I’d left at the Police Station.  Another two mile hike to retrieve it and I’m glad I have time, if not energy.  And time is commodity of which there is much in Africa. 

The post “Westerners have watches… Africans have time.” appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

My LABE ride to Gulu was to pick me (we’re speaking Uganglish now)  at 9:30, so I had plenty of time.  I packed – a little heavier load on the way back.  Remember  I am carrying a small wart-hog and a few other assorted treasures.  I have the general feeling of dis-ease, attributing it to the fact that I may arrive at a time when my soon-to-be-former-housemate  is moving out.  Time passes – I have a tiny cup of coffee, thinking ahead to the fact that there are woefully few bathrooms on the way home.  (One you have to pay 200 shillings for the privilege  of fighting your way through a throng of road-side vendors selling animal parts, soft drinks, fabulous pineapple and chiapati to head down a dirt slope and use the fly infested, wreaking latrines.)  At least the LABE vehicle chooses its stops with greater discernment, but that means waiting until past halfway to get to the service station.  Also, I will be riding with three people instead of 103 and I like them.

Enough of that.  9:30 passes, now they will pick me at 11:00.  I’ve had to check out of the room and have various and sundry assorted parcels.  I wait for a bootlegged copy of The Iron Lady to be burned at the hotel video store.  It’s not happening – because it had started pouring rain and the one man who can do it is delayed.

While I wait, the phone rings and I assume it’s my ride out front, but it is Caroline, my landlady.  I assume she’s calling about the rent, but she tells me my house has been broken into.  My heart is pounding.  My housemate just moved out and someone has watched, seeing that I also am not there.   The connection is bad, I can’t hear because of the maelstrom of rain on the plastic roof, but I hear, “window broken, master bedroom, didn’t get into the house, pulled things through the window, clothes scattered in the front yard, police.”  That’s plenty.

Lost connection.    Well – that about sums it up.

The LABE vehicle finally leaves at 2:30.  Yes – 5 hours later.    But wait, it gets better.  Two and some-odd hours after leaving Kampala, an alert sound screams in the truck (a toyota affectionately called “The Daughter of Japan,” except she is behaving like The Shrew of Japan at the moment).  She is having a breakdown and we are in the middle of nowhere and I am beginning to wonder if I will be spending the night in the cab of the truck.  But ultimately gather my resources, shift gears and mentally suggest to the heavens that the next vehicle down the road a nice white (they’re all white…) NGO vehicle I can flag down and hitch a ride into Gulu.

I turn to my right to check and there it appears over the “hill.”  A nice, white ActionAid vehicle.   It pulls over and stops.  Really?  Why didn’t I think of this sooner….

There’s white smoke coming from the Shrew and they are giving her a drink.  I’m thinking don’t they know if you pour cold water down the throat of a hot radiator the engine block can crack????  I mention this to no avail.  I’m just a woman.  STILL – I KNOW  SOME THINGS.    Well – the Shrew finally starts with water pouring from underneath and is able to slog to a service station and I wave goodbye from the back seat of ActionAid while I have a fine conversation with the Charles and James, stellar men who work on Women’s Rights.

I arrive “home” at 8:30 and Jenna and her mom are there having used the extra key and responded to my plea.  They have white wine and broccoli cheese soup and hugs waiting.  Thanks god the electricity “is there.”  Nothing worse than trying the ferret out what was stolen in the dark.

The good news is the thieves have NOT been able to break into the house!!!  But, they have artfully cut the glass in a bedroom window and used a series of long sticks with hooks on the end to drag and pull things out the window through the burglar bars – still in tact.  The clothes that were strewn over the front yard have been thrown back in the room courtesy of the police and the wonderful compound mates who live here and thought to report the crime.  Seems the thief has no use for my underwear (that’s a relief).  But they have managed to take my iPhone that Brett spent DAYS loading music, movies, books and even a Luganda language program on. Also took off with my MacPack of Apple adapters and chargers, the chargers for the camera and the Kindle, AND a bag full of CD’s consisting of family videos, pictures and movies.  Still I can ultimately replace most of it and the kids have a copy of the pictures.

This morning was spent at the Police Station, another Gulu experience, but they were extremely courteous, took a detailed report and I’m pretty curious about what they did with the finger prints they took, since there was no report filed there (?????????).  Hmmmm

Well – we shall see.  In the meantime, I am somewhat philosophical and considering this a lesson in non-attachment to either things or outcome.     Had they stolen my computer or clothes I can’t replace here, I might be less philosophical – murderous in fact.  It’s pretty creepy knowing that all my comings and goings are watched (obvious because Jaron had just moved out and they clearly knew WHICH room to target and when to do it).    Probably neighborhood kids and I am safe when I am here – it’s just stuff they want. I’m headed out to buy a steel locker, masonry nails to nail the damn thing to the cement floor and a good padlock.

In answer to a question from a friend, “Is there every a day with out some adventure – good, bad or otherwise?  I would say very few.   In the Mandarin language the symbol for Crisis and Opportunity are the same.    Plenty of crises – plenty of opportunity here.

The post What Fresh Hell Is This? appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.