Still Alive

Hi, I'm not dead yet. I thought I should let people know that.

I have actually been having a great time in Kampala. I'm frustrated this morning because my Editor is incompetent. But I honestly can't complain about that too much as everyone in government is incompetent too, which is why my job is extremely amusing. I have finished two detailed articles profiling a member of parliament and a crippled homeless guy. I have a lot of sources for these articles and so I spend my time wandering around the city and bothering important people. I can't do that today on account that there is literally a damn monsoon outside so I'm stuck in a very large and very empty hotel, where I get internet for free because they assume I'm a guest. It is just great being white in Africa. Every morning I pass a school on my way to work and its like a parade. Much waving. Kids yell mzungu (white person) happily. Still I don't get as much attention as Maura, who is a perennial star with Ugandans who find her quite foreign looking.

I am living with Jeff Love, Melina Platas, and Maura, but also to a degree Nate Falck and Dave Herbert. Dave is, of course, always fun. Our best adventure so far was being the only mzungu at a born-again christian fundraiser thrown by a USAID worker who admitted that, though she found Jesus, she still needed to be heavily medicated to get through the day. GOOD STUFF! I've also gone through the African rituals of playing three card poker in a seedy casino while drinking gin and tonic and the always wonderful being harassed by hookers wanting green cards. Uganda is a fine country and reasonably safe but people still want out. THe other day a grown man in a suit offered me his resume on the street. It is difficult to react to these things.

I should be leaving soon to head up to Murchison Falls to shadow park rangers. I'm excited about this because I will get to see Giraffe and because it is, probably better than the original plan, which was to go on an anti-poaching patrol, which would have probably required a flak jacket.

All in all, I've been very happy here. Though I spent an odd amount of the first week and a half drunk on beer processed from Nile water, things have calmed down now, which is fine. Jeff is a lovely house mate and Maura and Melina live in another little house next to us. There are flowers and its normally sunny. My days are tiring because you have to pay attention at all times because when you are as conspicuous as I am people pay attention to you.

I have a great deal more to say because I have been having adventures and living in a very surreal way but there is more time. I have to go over to the Wildlife Association. I have to get in touch with a disgraced member of parliament and I probably have to apologize to the British High Commission for hanging up on their PR representative. All in a days work.

Oh, and the book is going well. Though it gets put on hold, like email, because power comes and goes. I do read the blog though and it really makes me smile. It makes me happier when I pass a sign next to the Ugandan Golf Club which says, "Golf Balls Kill." And I smile at the many possibilities for Ani and Ashwin everytime I step over a leper. Truly, the world is your oyster. Oh, and Anthony, the coffee is terrific.