#firstworldproblems
sarah and i decided to bite the bullet and buy a mobile internet usb stick for 99,000 ugandan shillings (roughly around $35 canadian dollars). the internet around town has been spotty and apparently this is the best way to keep connected regardless of temperamental technology. this also explains why there aren’t that many pictures being uploaded. we have 1 GB of internet on the mobile stick which we don’t want to use liberally just yet and when the free wi-fi is up at the cafe, its upload speeds are always slow since i’m sure the other ex-pats using the internet want to contact home, too.
it’s been roughly 4 days without running water, which surprisingly, sarah and i have gotten used to. we’re now showering with rain water that’s collected in barrels. hopefully the Ugandan Water and Works Corporation will get their act together soon. also, the power’s been a bit spotty so i’m a bit concerned about the decreasing health of my Macbook’s battery #whitewhine
so in some happier news, sarah and i met up with Jacob last night and we went out for a few more beers and a crazy amount of ethiopian food. sarah had Tibs and Rice and i had some Mesir Wat (use your resourceful google skills, everyone). Jacob wants to head to either Concordia or McGill for his post-graduate work in Computer Science so he’s done his homework about canada. discussing the finer points of the federal/provincial divide was something i didn’t expect to do here, but hey, i was happy to talk to someone about home, regardless of how depressing our political situation over the next four to five years is. what really surprised me in our conversation was how nonchalant Jacob was in saying that a coup d’etat might happen after the next presidential elections if inflation, the price of food and other domestic matters aren’t kept in check. i suppose it’s just a product of my life in a benign (or stagnant) democracy.
our TASO work starts on Monday at 8:30am. we handed over 1.6 million shillings yesterday so our observerships are locked up. we just need to report and hope that what we see, encounter and converse about with the local population are worth the (arbitrary) money we gave TASO.
oh! there’s a baby in the complex that sarah and i live in that is absolutely frightened of us. it’s understandable since she’s never seen a muzungu in her life (she’s a 1 year old) but the wailing has gotten a bit tiresome. that’s why whenever i exit our room and she’s outside, i walk up to her, say hi in ridiculous voices and make faces. her mother thinks it’s absolutely hilarious but the baby is probably scared shitless (literally). oh well; desensitization never hurt anyone. plus, we’re giving the mom an embarrassing story to tell when the baby’s a teenager.
-casey
