Hordes of Pictures
Another update with photos. This past weekend I stayed in Kampala while Shereen went to Kabale and Kanungu (8-10 hrs south and west of Kampala, in the corner of Uganda). There were good and bad sides to this decision- on the good side, I got treated to a lot of good food while Art was here, and also got a good bit of advice and talking done re: my future PhD career. Shereen (a vegetarian) was stuck eating a lot of starch, and the occasional fish, which probably couldn't quite match up to the fancy dinners that I had.
However, she did get to see an extremely beautiful part of Uganda, probably THE most beautiful part of the country, and she also got a lot of good work done, met people, took pictures, got to know the flow of patients and any number of important things that you can only do first hand. On the other hand, I hunched over my laptop for 8 hrs a day entering data from log books and coding analysis and graphs in Stata...
I think we just about broke even.
Saturday we (Sam, me, and Aliza) decided against going to some islands in Lake Victoria, mainly because by the time Aliza was done writing her protocols (due to Edwin by the time he landed in the States) and I was done jogging around the neighborhood and getting lost multiple times, it was kinda late in the day, and Sam was feeling a bit under the weather from the previous week, some sort of cold.
Instead we took Art to Mabira National Park, which is between Kampala and Jinja, and was rumored to have great hikes and even rent mountain bikes. We hopped on a matatu and took it down to the old taxi park. On the way, I sat next to a guy named Robert, a really funny and interesting native Ugandan, who after hearing that I was going to Mabira NP, he proceeded to get somewhat agitated and say that every time he drove past Mabira, he covered his eyes... when I asked him why, he started telling a somewhat incomprehensible story about him hoping that matatus never had to stop around Mabira because there were scary animals there. This was kinda strange, since I had read that the NP was ideal for... bird watching (and big game didn't exist there- only monkeys). He then proceeded to say that sometimes people would be abducted by these animals... and after about 5 minutes of that, suddenly he started pointing his hand to me like a gun, and implied that armed individuals might also abduct me. He never made it clear whether or not it was animals, armed men, or armed animals that would abduct me, but he did tell me to be careful.
We took another matatu to Mabira without any troubles, and when we got there, we had a nice uneventful hike around the "red" route (longest trail) that took us around the NP on a 2-3 hour hike. We saw a few small monkeys, heard a lot of birds (didn't see many) and saw a lot of neat flora. Pictures ensue:
Sam:
Art:
Tree:
The tree's toes:
Lantana flowers:
Armies of ants:
(NB: when I was a grade school kid, there was a song about "ants in your pants that make you do the boogie dance" and it involved women in france and holes in walls and was generally a strange and some rather provocative imagery somewhat unsuitable for little kids. Anyways, I was reminded of this song by Aliza, who got one of the big ants in her pants, and promptly got bitten a few times- very unpleasant. Sam confirmed this by noting that his flip flop had an ant mandible embedded in the foam- biting ants for sure).
Not sure:
Aliza bribing the local officials: (she actually got her legs hugged by this one girl, then started attracting a swarm of little kids, and finally stopped and fed them all with some snacks that she had bought at the convenience store across the street from where we stay).
Sunday was pretty slow- went running, played music and hung out, coded a bit. Ate a good breakfast at a local cafe with Art, Grant, Aliza, and Sam. Bought more dark chocolate... mmm good. Shereen got back on Sunday, and after seeing the picture of herself that I had posted earlier, she immediately demanded that I remove it and put a different picture of her up. Aliza protested, saying that she wanted her mom to have a chance to read my blog and see a picture of her before I removed it (it's a picture with both of them, at the Malaria Symposium).
So here is a better picture of Shereen, but I personally think the other is fine.
Before I go...
Scandalous story of the week:
There is a guy named Meyers who works for the Ugandan Ministry of Health, and is the go between man between the surveillance project that I'm on and the Ministry. The first time he met Shereen, he shook her hand and used his middle finger to stroke her wrist at the same time... weird, but maybe it was a local custom?
Meyers happened to be in Kabale at the same time that Shereen was- after talking about the surveillance project and saving little children from malaria, they shook hands again, and instead of the finger stroke, Shereen got the "kiss your hand" Prince Charming style move... with a Meyers twist. The Meyers touch substitutes the kiss with a full on hand licking move, accompanied by a wink. No Joke.
But we did joke that every time Meyers licks Shereen, a child's life is saved from the clutches of malarial infection. Go Shereen.
However, she did get to see an extremely beautiful part of Uganda, probably THE most beautiful part of the country, and she also got a lot of good work done, met people, took pictures, got to know the flow of patients and any number of important things that you can only do first hand. On the other hand, I hunched over my laptop for 8 hrs a day entering data from log books and coding analysis and graphs in Stata...
I think we just about broke even.
Saturday we (Sam, me, and Aliza) decided against going to some islands in Lake Victoria, mainly because by the time Aliza was done writing her protocols (due to Edwin by the time he landed in the States) and I was done jogging around the neighborhood and getting lost multiple times, it was kinda late in the day, and Sam was feeling a bit under the weather from the previous week, some sort of cold.
Instead we took Art to Mabira National Park, which is between Kampala and Jinja, and was rumored to have great hikes and even rent mountain bikes. We hopped on a matatu and took it down to the old taxi park. On the way, I sat next to a guy named Robert, a really funny and interesting native Ugandan, who after hearing that I was going to Mabira NP, he proceeded to get somewhat agitated and say that every time he drove past Mabira, he covered his eyes... when I asked him why, he started telling a somewhat incomprehensible story about him hoping that matatus never had to stop around Mabira because there were scary animals there. This was kinda strange, since I had read that the NP was ideal for... bird watching (and big game didn't exist there- only monkeys). He then proceeded to say that sometimes people would be abducted by these animals... and after about 5 minutes of that, suddenly he started pointing his hand to me like a gun, and implied that armed individuals might also abduct me. He never made it clear whether or not it was animals, armed men, or armed animals that would abduct me, but he did tell me to be careful.
We took another matatu to Mabira without any troubles, and when we got there, we had a nice uneventful hike around the "red" route (longest trail) that took us around the NP on a 2-3 hour hike. We saw a few small monkeys, heard a lot of birds (didn't see many) and saw a lot of neat flora. Pictures ensue:
Sam:
Art:
Tree:
The tree's toes:
Lantana flowers:
Armies of ants:
(NB: when I was a grade school kid, there was a song about "ants in your pants that make you do the boogie dance" and it involved women in france and holes in walls and was generally a strange and some rather provocative imagery somewhat unsuitable for little kids. Anyways, I was reminded of this song by Aliza, who got one of the big ants in her pants, and promptly got bitten a few times- very unpleasant. Sam confirmed this by noting that his flip flop had an ant mandible embedded in the foam- biting ants for sure).
Not sure:
Aliza bribing the local officials: (she actually got her legs hugged by this one girl, then started attracting a swarm of little kids, and finally stopped and fed them all with some snacks that she had bought at the convenience store across the street from where we stay).
Sunday was pretty slow- went running, played music and hung out, coded a bit. Ate a good breakfast at a local cafe with Art, Grant, Aliza, and Sam. Bought more dark chocolate... mmm good. Shereen got back on Sunday, and after seeing the picture of herself that I had posted earlier, she immediately demanded that I remove it and put a different picture of her up. Aliza protested, saying that she wanted her mom to have a chance to read my blog and see a picture of her before I removed it (it's a picture with both of them, at the Malaria Symposium).
So here is a better picture of Shereen, but I personally think the other is fine.
Before I go...
Scandalous story of the week:
There is a guy named Meyers who works for the Ugandan Ministry of Health, and is the go between man between the surveillance project that I'm on and the Ministry. The first time he met Shereen, he shook her hand and used his middle finger to stroke her wrist at the same time... weird, but maybe it was a local custom?
Meyers happened to be in Kabale at the same time that Shereen was- after talking about the surveillance project and saving little children from malaria, they shook hands again, and instead of the finger stroke, Shereen got the "kiss your hand" Prince Charming style move... with a Meyers twist. The Meyers touch substitutes the kiss with a full on hand licking move, accompanied by a wink. No Joke.
But we did joke that every time Meyers licks Shereen, a child's life is saved from the clutches of malarial infection. Go Shereen.
posted by Vince at 5:26 AM
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