A much needed Easter

I went on a lovely holiday for Easter to the Ssesse Islands with my friends who are living in Kampala. A lake really can’t compare to the ocean, but it was nice to be near a large body of water and be able to relax without feeling guilty.

Small flashbacks…

Arriving in Kampala. Seeing my friend I haven’t seen for almost two years. Going to a restaurant with great ambiance and amazing spinach and ricotta cheese ravioli. All for about $10 CAD. How can I not love this place?

Going out to Steak Out for the first time since I’ve been back. Rock night means great music and lots of people. It started to rain hard. Everyone was cramming their bodies under the roofs. We kept dancing. No crowds, no groping. Cool rain and wet hair. Best Steak Out night in such a long time.

New York Kitchen brownies and cupcakes on the taxi (they call matatus, small buses, taxis in Uganda; a normal taxi is called a special hire) en route to Kasenyi to catch the boat. Decadent.

Being carried onto the boat, princess style. The boats can’t get close enough to shore for people to jump on. So everyone is carried on through the water. Nobody has ever carried me princess style before (or I was too young to remember). It was strange. And I didn’t like it.

Strange man taking photos of the three of us with his cellphone. And then everyone around him laughs.

Arrival at Banda Island.  Strange group of people, with even stranger management. Every five minutes there would be a mention about the free weed (true, as much as you can smoke on the table) and the free banana schnapps that the owner brews at a plantation he owns. 65% alcohol. The place is run down with no proper maintenance. Only saving grace? The five dogs rescued off the streets. The bonfires. The beautiful birds and the beachfront. Not sure I will go back, but it was nice to spend one full day doing nothing. Reading, sleeping in the sun, kayaking, swimming and eating. Life is nice when it’s so simple.

A row of bright light on the lake every night. Curious. Turns out to be night time fishing on Lake Victoria. Unskilled fishermen pouring in from all over the country and neighbouring countries. Pressurized paraffin lights sizzle the thousands of lake flies that swarm towards any light. Dead lake flies fall into the water and become bait for the fish. They scatter their World Bank sponsored mosquito nets and drag in tiny fish that are dried and salted, called daga in Swahili (and something else in Luganda). Boom towns/villages filled with young men who work three hours a day in the night. Alcohol, prostitutes, and lawlessness. HIV infection rates as high as 90%. Over fishing means that the lake is virtually devoid of bigger fish. Just when the World Bank had finished financing a state-of-the-art fish processing facility. And the African Development Bank, without doing more research, builds another state-of-the-art fish processing facility on a nearby island. Such is an over-abundance of money.

Talking about anything and everything.

6 am small wooden boat ride back to the large island, Kalangala. Sunrise on the water surrounded by green rain forests. Boarded the 8 am boat (just about the only thing that is on time in East Africa) to mainland Entebbe. By coincidence, sat next to a woman who looked like she would go into labour any second. She had painful contractions the whole way. She held onto my hand, squeezed it like she wanted all the juice to come out from time to time, and lay her head on my shoulder. She was doing the same to another woman on her left side. Quite an experience. So hard to watch. My friend and I vowed to never have children. Turns out the other woman wasn’t her relative either. I wonder if the same would happen if a woman in Canada was in the same situation? Would she feel too weird to hold a stranger’s hand for support?

Day in Entebbe. Botanical garden full for an Indian celebration (probably?). We went for lunch at a small restaurant. Waited for 2 hours for our huge plates of food. Slept all the way back to Kampala on the taxi. Had a small fight with another taxi conductor at the gas station. Ended with the gas station attendant giving the conductor 1000 shillings more to stop the fight. As much as I hate it that people give mzungu prices, sometimes I think we can’t really differentiate if it is really a mzungu price. At the same time, sometimes I think we (at least those of us earning a salary) deserve a mzungu price. Just the fact that I consider fancy restaurants a steal, means that my income is very high by local standards. I guess my problem with being given mzungu prices is that it’s unfair and involuntary. It’s discrimination based on how I look. I can choose to go to an expensive restaurant or not. But I can’t choose that the vendor sells me vegetables at twice the price. It feels like I’m cheated, somehow.

Humongous ice cream cookie sandwich and fudge sundae. Perfect end to a vacation.

To dog sit, my friend was moving into a really nice house of her colleague’s. I tagged along. Had a simple, but delicious, homemade dinner. Enjoyed the hot and high pressure shower. Enjoyed real cheese for breakfast. Enjoyed sitting in the tranquil garden and chatting.

Owino market. One my favourites in Kampala. A claustrophobic maze of narrow paths on muddy ground engulfed with vendors selling everything you can imagine. Bargaining for second hand clothes is especially fun: “These shoes are second hand, so they’re more expensive.” (That’s because the second hand stuff is actually higher quality sometimes. Second hand brand name sandals compared to generic Chinese made, break-apart-in-two-days flip flops.) Bought a bit too much. Oh well, my hand washing ruined half of my clothes anyways…

New York Kitchen. Everything bagel with cream cheese, avocado, and tomato. Heaven. Too full to have the banana and chocolate milkshake.

Homeward bound on the taxi. Sweet night at home also.

Maybe not the best vacation, but definitely needed. Now back to work.