Day 3 - Transportation = most expensive part of the trip!!

Day 3 – July 8

It’s a little strange to not be constantly doing work. On the past two trips, we tried to start at Mulago hospital as soon as we arrived and then continued to work on projects as soon as we could. This time, we are taking it a little slower because we are making sure to get my mom slightly accustomed to the culture and our projects always start out slightly slow because we have to wait for people we contact to show up or to contact us back.

In the morning, we woke around 6 to the sound of people starting to work, the neighbor’s baby crying, roosters crowing, and dogs barking. My mom sat up in bed and stared outside through the space in the curtains for about a half hour before I told her it’s not nice to spy on the neighbors! It’s funny to see how fascinated she was with the man watering the plants, the kids going to school, and children running outside of their house. They were just doing every day activities but somehow they became very interesting because they are here instead of back home.

Once Angella came over in the morning, her and I sat down to discuss a plan for the medicine cabinet project. We went through the lists of medications and decided where we could buy them. We also had to figure how to get back to the places we visited before. There is one place in Katanga which is an extremely poor slum where people live in one room huts with no running water and cook in the same place where they sleep. The woman we helped last year had nearly 20 children that she cared for all sleeping on 4 beds lined up next to each other in a dirty, smelly room filled with boxes and bags of clothes for the children. It was like a giant maze trying to find her last year and she didn’t have a real phone number. Angella and I are hoping that we can find her again and that the kids are still around.

We got a special taxi into town which costs $10 each way. It’s gets pretty pricey if you do that every day and sometimes more than once. There are 4 major types of transportation here:
1) Special Hire Taxi – what you would think of as a taxi bringing you to a single destination but it is usually a person in an unmarked car so you need to make sure you are asking a taxi driver for a ride rather than a person who owns a car for a ride.
2) Mtatu (taxi) – Basically a 15 passenger van that you generally cram at least 20 people into. They go back and forth on the same streets and you can just get off wherever you want. There is a guy in the back who opens and closes the door, takes the money, and yells out the window where the Mtatu is going
3) Boda-Boda – Motorcycles (or bicycles) that you can ride on the back of to get from one destination to another. Definitely the least safe form of travel, but very efficient, fast, and cheap
4) Walking – obviously you don’t have to pay anything but you have to put in a lot of steps before you get anywhere. Not to mention, you have to avoid the Mtatus, Specials, and especially Boda-bodas along the way.
Most Ugandans walk places, but they’ll take a Mtatu if they have to travel really far distances. Very rarely do you see local people using the special hires unless they are well off and need to carry a heavy load. We used to always use special hires because Ross HATES being crammed in a Mtatu. Last year, Rachel and I started using Boda-Bodas and we rode in a Mtatu and like it better (mostly because it saves a lot of money) Today, we took a Mtatu back to the area we live and then a special hire to get to the outskirts of town where we are staying. The totally cost round trip ended up being $6.50 instead of $20-25. Clearly a better choice! I think we’ll do that more often since my mom had no problems hopping in the Mtatu. She constantly surprises me that she can just go with the flow.

We didn’t get much done today because our contacts are difficult to reach! We tried to go to the Watoto head office to talk with a social worker and get a pass to see the Woolies. They were all out of the office so we walked to one of the local markets and bought some random souvenirs and then returned to find they were STILL out. Clearly it’s not as easy to see the kids now that they are in such a big organization and not at their little home where they always welcomed visitors! I’m happy that they are there, but a little sad that we have so little control! Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to contact a social worker and get a pass for the weekend to see them.

We didn’t get home until nearly 5:00 by the time we stopped for lunch, used internet at a café, and got some groceries that we can eat for breakfast and snacks. There are some kids that live next door to us and as I sat outside to read a book, two of them started to come close to me. They were quite shy at first, but eventually came and sat down next to me and started to play some games. My mom came outside and read them a couple of books, which they really enjoyed. They are two year old twins named Michelle and Noah. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of them while we are here.

Before bed, we decided to reheat our leftover Indian food from last night. We used a pan on the stove, which is gas and each burner has to be lit with a match so it’s already a challenge. As we were moving pans, we saw big cockroach crawl out from under a bowl. We tried to figure out how to kill it but neither of us wanted to touch it. We decided to try to burn it. It was just out of reach of any of the burners, so we eventually took a knife and swept it closer to the flame. I’m pretty sure we fried it, but I’m also sure he wasn’t the only one. I just love the thought of cockroaches hanging out in the kitchen! Just kidding! That’s so gross, but really that’s not that bad compared to what is crawling around in a lot of peoples homes around here. We are lucky to have this place to stay and I’m sure we will be okay sharing with the cockroaches!