Turning it around in Thailand

Temples like this are everywhere here

Khao Sok National Park hotel

During the time which I had no money I checked out the protests happening in Bangkok which appeared, and were in fact, mostly peaceful. After getting pushed into the crowd and offered a free dinner and a bottle of water, a crucial moment I'd say in my recent turnaround, it was very difficult to leave. The crowd was truly massive. It's very difficult to understand any Thai but it seemed like people were pretty happy to have a White guy on their "side." I guess I now joined a side, but I won't go into the politics (or pretend to know anything about them) here.

I also had a night out with 8 Chinese girls that me and another travelor met in Chinatown Bangkok where we ironically shared a Thai dinner. Super friendly and constantly giggling as you would picture a group like this to be, we had a fun time. We tried Bird's Nest for desert -is that actually a bird's nest?

After doing quite a bit of what I like to call "urban hiking" I met some cool people to travel with from a hostel and got to know Bangkok a little. The way locals use the water taxi system is unique. The city is huge and there's a lot happening. There are so many Buddhist temples (and it just seems to be part of their culture) that your shoes constantly come on and off. They also have toilet paper at all of their restaurants here instead of napkins in the holder, this is a bit strange but apparently not embaressing.

Coming from Africa I have a bit of a unique perspective on relative poverty and 3rd World cities. The bad traffic here seemed normal, the dirtiness seemed relatively clean, the air pollution chokingly similar, the roads good, and the prices only kind of cheap. Relactively speaking with the infrastructure and style of life here it feels less poor than where I'm coming from.

A Hedon's Paradise

It seems you can find anything you want in Thailand. The place is really set up for tourism and endulging in vices is no problem if that's what you are looking for. Your morality is questioned here and because you are in such an "exotic" location there's a bit of an anything goes attitude it seems.

There's also this phenomenon of of always looking for something better. That white sand beach that's just a little bit whiter (or the "whitest"), the best Thai food, the best massage, the best "full moon party." Speaking of which, why are full moon parties such a big thing here? Who cares if the moon is full? Obviously it's an excuse to party but has it become such a big thing here? I doubt it has anything to do with traditional Thai culture, probably one country just doing a really good job of marketing and extracting people from very far away places like the U.S.

The massages here are ridiculously cheap (usually between $5-$10 for an hour) and good; afterall this is where Thai massage comes from. It's cool that local people are all about it too - it's part of their living for "pleasure" philosophy I think. A 50 something woman told me she'd been practicing for about 30 years and her small hands did some serious damage to my poor back. I wondered actually if the pain is supposed to be good for you or if I should say something? It's kind of embaressing to say something and it's potential insulting to the masseuse so I just sat there and took it like a man. This stands in real contrast to the Rwandan massages where it felt like I was a dog being pet. Even the oil massage (Swedish massage done Thai style) involves a fair amount of pressure here.

Besides the crazy amount of tourists (there's more than your fair share of super obnoxious young white people only here to party - don't go to Phuket), "ping pong" shows and happy endings being offered to you constantly, there is the food that stands out.

Thai Food

It's everything you heard and better. I knew it would be good but not this good and perhaps not this cheap ($1.5-$4/dish). I usually have no idea what I'm eating and I just have to point at what someone else has since the English is not very good here. It doesn't matter. It's all amazing, even if there are occassionally baby octopus or things you don't recognize in the soup.

Unlike the food in Africa which constantly makes you wonder how long it's been sitting, most of the food in Thailand is cooked fresh. They use fresh ingredients (I think), a whole lot more vegetables, and combinations of spices that give you the "there's a party in my mouth and everyone's invited" type vibe. Sweet and sour, salty and savoury, the right bitter and spicy, it's so much more interesting and delicious than African food. Unlike in Africa where people laugh at the white guy who eats the local food, everybody eats the local food in Thailand. There's crazy seafood, real nicec soups and curries, and the varieties of what they eat are surpringsly wide. Unlike in Africa where most items on the menu are not actually available, here there are items not on the menu available that you didn't even know existed. There's also a unique quality to the food - a lot of places I go I see something new and the food is just so different from the food in the West. It's all quite refreshing, exciting, and fulfillling one of the reasons why I came here. It may be my favorite part of Thailand so far.

You know your food is good when even the free food being handed out at the protest or the food on the normal trains is still decent.

I'd like to say I played some part in my own turnaround and return to glory but the reality is that I think it's hard to go wrong in Thailand. The North, which I will miss this trip, is supposed to be beautiful with a lot of cool outdoor activities. The South has some legendary beaches party's, diving, or whatever you're in to. My true accomplishment here is that I was born into a good family, a life of white (and male) privilege where even someone unemployed with no future job plan or real savings from past jobs, is able to travel to sweet places like this.

My new Moroccan friend Nabil and me heading to the beach 

I'm gonna take that $2.50 and....

Alternative blog post names considered:
1. Fundamentally positive , always landing on my feet
2. Trainwreck 2 or Trainwreck continued

Go straight to the stop! That's how much money I recently had on me after trading the two pound coin I had with me for Thai Baht from a British travelor in Bangkok. The plan was to start with almost nothing and turn it in to millions! Actually not really, after a confluence of events I ended up temporarily broke. And yes I am in Bangkok, but perhaps I should rewind and reflect a bit on how I got here. There were more disasters on the way since my last post...

In my last post I reflected on a series of misfortune (or mistakes depending on how you look at it). I made it to the airport with just enough time on my second attempt at leaving Africa. British Airways charged me $95 (58 pounds or so) for my second bag, it was ridiculous considering the price and that I was flying across continents but I didn't say anything. But they wanted another $95 for my travel back pack which they said was too big for the overhead space. I got in a big fight with the ticket counter guy, which brought out the manager, who faced a showdown he hadn't reckoned for - I pushed and pulled to get my bag to fit in the stupid box that is supposed to be the "test" for whether a bag is too big. I don't remember the last time someone made me actually do this. One of my rules in life is to follow the spirit of a law, not the letter. Oh wait, or is it actually to just break it? No, as my blog is named, I turn right on red, that's not usually breaking the rule...this manager just wasn't having it.

My bag was missing the box by inches and after taking the manager's name down, he reacted badly and claimed I had "threatened" him. He started taking pictures with his camera and the whole thing erupted into a scene and me probably delaying the whole plane as dozens of passengers watched me throw clothing, sunscreen, and whatever else out of my bag asking the guy "is this enough for you? Is this good?" And after a few articles of clothing it really did fit in the box. My simple rational for what I did is that the clothing was obviously not worth $100, so I actually just threw it in the overfilled tiny trash recepticle at the airport. Keep in mind all of this was after a lengthy shifting of items upon arrival when I was told I was "overweight" (not the first time someone has insulted me so rudely). Thankfully the second bag had room and weight to spare so I avoided that fee. So on to London!

I arrived to the ol' friend Higgsy's in Southwest London and dropped all of my luggage from Africa at about 11:00 the next morning. Higgs asked if I wanted to grab some breakfast. I commented that I should probably check to see what time the Chinese Embassy was open since I still didn't have a Visa for China where I was flying the next day. Turns out the Embassy closes early on a Friday, in fact at noon, one hour later - Great! So we skipped breakfast, dove head first into the chilly although surprising pleasantly crisp London weather, and biked as fast as we could the 30 or so minutes across the river to Central London.

I think the Chinese at the embassy may have actually laughed at me when I broke in sweating and delirious shouting about needing a tourist visa same day. This was one rule and one nationality that don't bend. But when I learned about the 72 hour transit free time you can now do if you don't leave the city of Beijing and are from one of a few dozen countries (USA included!) I decided to not waste my non-refundable non-changeable $900 round-trip ticket to China. I basically pointed at a map and found Thailand. Well not really, but it seems like it's on the list "Stuff White People Like," I knew it was cheap, you didn't need a visa, and it was a nice return to warm weather. So when Swiss Air's first flight from London to Zurich was late and caused me to miss the connection to Beijing, I was pretty pumped to be directly re-routed to Bangkok. Plus I got a bonus day in Zurich, Switzerland, a 5 Euro calling card and meal couchers. Very pretty and clean city, classic Europe, and super expensive ($32 hamburger at the airport for example exceeded my 20 Swiss Franc meal voucher).

Zurich by chilly winter night 

With all of the craziness happening including the theft, missing my Uganda flight and paying several hundred dollars, adding Thailand to an already jam packed itenerary and trying to learn the first thing about the place/decide what to do there, spending about $100 also just to get a taxi to London (London is so $$!), and everything else, I didn't notice that my checking account had actually gone negative. When my luggage was of course lost from Zurich, I also didn't have access to my emergency $100 bill from my bag (to my dismay Swiss Air told me the London-Zurich plane was too small to take my travel bag pack on Board despite the fact that like the Uganda -London plane, there was plenty of space). This is how I ended up with $2.50, which surprisingly can get you three small local type meals in one day in Thailand. But the funny thing about all of this, and others have noticed this too, is that everything ended up fine for me despite all of these challenges. I know my money is coming soon.

So like I said in the beginning, from here it's straight to the top baby!

Return to Trainwreck

For those of you that may not know, my nickname in college was Trainwreck. Literally everyone called me that, even people I didn't know. Sometimes people didn't even know my real name. It was a loveable and fun nickname and not mean, but I was kind of a trainwreck so it made sense. I remember my father Herb not being so happy about it and trying to correct people when they called out my name when he came to visit for graduation. I thought I had really worked on myself and shed this reputation since College but now I am starting to wonder -once a trainwreck always a trainwreck?

I recently posted on Facebook that on my last day in Africa I was robbed. The true story, although I didn't know it at the time, is that three days before I left Africa I was robbed. Perhaps I shouldn't count my eggs before they hatch but I am now flying Friday after missing my flight today. Americans assume 1:30 is during the day but most of the rest of the world knows that's the morning (night). Because of this I don't have the required time even for a rush Visa to China as I prepare to visit my brother Saturday. And that is not a country I think you can just show up cracking Jewish jokes to break the ice. So now I find myself in a Shakespearian comedy of error of sorts, or is it Lemony Snicket's series of Unfortunate Events? I can't remember which one it is but I do feel like I am hitting a new low, or regaining my former glory of my college "Trainwreck" days depending on how you look at it.

That moment where you feel like you really need to get it together, and nothing can go right is actually right now. It's actually getting comical. Today at the internet cafe my tablet charger was stolen from right in front of me. This, just a few weeks ago I got water on my tablet and nearly broke it. Besides all of this, I've previously had a Universal adaptor, sweet hoodie, sunglasses, and two external hard drives stolen as well as lost a nice portable speaker, cool water bottle, and about a dozen other items that at this point I've lost track of. I also spilled water and broke an expensive wireless keyboard and got caught in a tropical downpour which ruined my passport and cost me $150 to get a new emergency passport. Yes, I am once again "Trainwreck." Is any of this interesting to anyone? Probably not, but it makes me feel better listing it all out for some reason and continuing to put myself down.

But I've had some crazy African adventures once again and much to be thankful for really. If you can call it Africa,  Capetown was one of my favorite cities I've ever been to - really beautiful with mountains, oceans, and lots of great outdoor activities. Besides trying paragliding for my first time (something I'll never forget), I saw penguins, and went to a great superhero party. After a quick stop over in Kigali, Rwanda, I came back to Uganda to complete what's coming up to a year in Africa.

But back to the series of errors and return to Trainwreck. The story of how I was robbed earlier this week is kind of interesting. I was sitting on a matatu (taxi-bus) sharing the front seat with a "passenger," the driver, and the conductor behind me. These three were all working in cahoots. I first thought it took them three attempts to pickpocket me and I had put up some defense. I later realized each time they asked me to get out, help close the stubborn broken door, lift up the seat cushion (?), and move for the other passenger (they guy sitting between me and the driver) to get out (and then mysteriously get right back on), were all distractions to open and steal the contents from my backpack and pockets. Despite the fact that I figured out something was wrong as I felt my empty pockets and they dropped me off and told me not to worry about paying, I couldn't catch them as they kicked me off and drove away. As I yelled at them they did for some reason they conceded my wallet and lied that my phone was just on the ground below where I dropped it - that split second of looking down is actually what let them get away in the end. The crazy thing with all of this is that it was a full matatu, probably 10 or so people, and none of them said anything or thought it was strange that the vehicle pulled over for no apparent reason three times and then threw the White guy out in a totally random spot.

Kampala is one of these places you can love, hate, or love to hate and at times it's been all three for me. I simultaneously feel very angry about the robbers and admire their cleverness and deceit. Most of us think we are too clever or alert to be robbed, it's just not true. The worst part is that these Ugandans were so friendly, nice, and humorous throughout the robbery. This should not surprise me, Ugandans are a funny bunch.

Looking particularly Jewish and "Jesus" like in this selfie before my beard/hair trimming this week. By the way, did you know "selfie" was the Oxford dictionary's word of the year? Beating out Twerking by just a few votes. Who decides these things anyways?

Going way party

"Hey Jesus! Send my greetings to God," someone said to me in Luganda (later translated to English) for actually the second time this week. Ugandans will make you laugh - they are not shy about yelling absurd things at people, especially White people, or especially White people running. I complained to a Boda Boda moto taxi last week who argued he should be paid more because we got lost that it was his fault since I had informed him about the sign where we needed to turn that we missed. He retorted: "don't you know most Boda Boda don't know how to read?" Touche Mr. Boda Boda man, I conceeded to the higher price. Oh Uganda I will miss you and your clever deceit. I won't miss being a Trainwreck.

Top 25 East Africa Assumptions

(Originally this post was "Third World Problems for a 1st world person" but that seemed even more stupid)

I constantly find myself assuming in Africa. I know it's wrong but it really is hard not to assume. Unfortunately my assumptions are often for the worse and I have to remind myself constantly to give everyone a chance and not immediately assume.

I assume....

1. It will take longer to get there than they tell my and there will be numerous problems along the way including inexplicable one hour stops and malfunctioning equipment.
2. I can't pay with a credit card and locals will never have credit cards.
3. 90% of my eating choices will include 90% of the same starchy items present in any East African buffet. 
4. Someone will nod yes when they don't understand or otherwise provide me with wrong information. They will not admit when they don't know.
5. I will be annoyed by the music on a mutatu (bus/Dala Dala) because it is A) too loud B) religious C) bad D) same five songs over and over or E) all of the above.
6. Everyone in the streets will remind me I'm white ("muzungu" in case I forget) and children will stare. 
7. There is no schedule or way to call ahead and nothing is posted online. You have to go in-person
8. If it rains all transport and work will either slow down or stop completely and the electricity is likely to go out 
9. Someone will reach over my shoulder (because they are cold or don't like the wind to close my window on the bus despite the fact that it's usually blazing hot. 
10. The bus will have a crazy horn that it will use without rhyme or reason.
11. If I'm in a Muslim area the mosque will wake me up with exceedingly loud call-to-prayers.
12. You don't have an email address but somehow you have facebook.
13. You don't have airtime so you somehow think it's ok to "beep" me.
14. Crossing the street in Kampala will be terrifying and life threatening. 
15. The menu at the restaurant is not the "menu." Additionally, you'll be asked what you want when there is no choice. For example, I one time got ice cream and was asked if I wanted strawberry, chocolate, or vanilla and was told the first two I asked for "weren't there" and only then was offered the last one. 
16. I will get cut in a line and no one will think anything of it. 
17. The birds will be annoyingly loud (especially in Kampala).
18. My motorcycle taxi driver will smell like alcohol (and possibly be drunk or high).
19. It will often smell vaguely like fish and more often like burning trash.
20. Someone is trying to cheat me. 
21. You are exceedingly friendly because you want something. 
22. A single woman at a club wearing a tight dress is a prostitute.
23. The man standing up in the front of the bus is preaching.
24. The hotel I'm staying at will have someone sweeping the floors at 7 am and it will be surprisingly loud and annoying
25. Despite the fact it's an English colony we won't understand each other

I'm sure I'm forgetting many but this is a pretty good list. It will bring me many years of good nostalgia.

My South African Family

When people heard I was going to Johannesburg, or "Jozie" or "Joburg" as I'll refer to it from here on out, reactions were decidedly mixed. In some cases it felt like people were even mad at me, like "why would you waste your time there?" and "Joburg sucks!" Like somehow I was offending them with my travel choice. But I wasn't going to Joburg just to visit Joburg (and all transit in South Africa seems to stem through the place anyways), I was looking up long lost cousins that I'd always heard about growing up. The truth about the place is that without a car and idea of where to go, it isn't great. And if you compare it to Capetown, the place everybody kept screaming at me to go, I understand the bad rep. But Joburg, the business center of South Africa, is also not a bad place.

There are jacaranda trees everywhere and the flower pedals are everywhere. Along with the artificial hills made with the dirt from the old gold mines, the place is distinct. Johannesburg is very spread out and a lot of the city is pretty boring, just a lot of shopping malls and traffic jams really. The reputation for being dangerous also doesn't help Joburg's cause.

My second cousins, the Zars, are very wealthy and as strange as it is to stay with family you've never met, they made me feel at home. I was interested to meet them, in part, because I am curious about where I come from. I could just as easily have been South African (the majority of the Jews there come frorm Lithuania).

The father of the Zar family started a box and foam materials producing factory which employees like 70 workers, so apparently business is in my blood! Almost all groundworkers were Black and the management White and getting a tour of the place was a bit eerie. On the other hand it was admirable how the business was built from the ground up. When thinking about race and South Africa, knowing it's my own family changed my ability to judge. These people I stayed with are very generous and good people and yet I had a hard time hearing their analysis of Apartheid. It turns out, as most things do, that despite worldwide opposition to Apartheid, the issue was literally and figuratively not Black and White.

In previous times, Communism was a serious threat and my cousin told me if they gave Blacks the vote before Communism had ended they might have lost everything they owned. The Zars came from Lithuania just like my ancestors and worked hard to get businesses and earn money and start new lives. Of course they were part of a system that even as immigrant Jews you had higher status than blacks and enjoyed many advantages; However, even though they had advantages doesn't mean they didn't earn something. Of course, this all came at a great cost and the sacrifice, or oppression, in my opinion was intolerable. My cousin's main point, which I think is very legitimate (especially coming from places of deep conflict historyy like Rwanda and Israel), is if you weren't there you can't know about it. The whole thing makes me question what I would have done in my cousin's shoes faced with the same questions.

I've also grown up in a different time. I definitely recognize privilege and institutional racism in a way that this family here might not identify. Being Jewish meant integration was even harder. The Zars themselves would admit that they live in a Jewish bubble in a majority black population. I mean it's not like I have that many black friends back home but life just doesn't feel so segregated in the US. The Zars looked at me kind of like an anomoly I think. Maybe I shouldn't have told them I was really into the traditional music of Soweto and how I lived in the "bush" in East Africa. It was totally foreign for them.

This visit really got me thinking and wondering about roots, privilege, how we get to be who we are, and parallel universes in which your ancestors made some different decisions and you ended up in a different place as a different person. There's also the possibility that you never come in to existence in the first place.

Apartheid Museum: Take a look in the mirror

Mandela's first house (Soweto)

Soweto old coal plant, now one of the world's highest bunji locations

Daniel Zar, 2nd cousin, with Anna and her grandaughter Cocoa (Anna works at the Zar's house)

I'll order it from Zanzibars!

(Bonus if you get where the title of this post comes from)
My path of travel over the last 4 or 5 weeks looks like this. It's been a crazy fun few weeks.

I'll be heading to South Africa next. It's been a good experience and couch surfing is surprisingly awesome really. I'm now in Zanzibar enjoying the amazing beaches and interesting blend of Swahili, Indian, and Arab cultures. It's incredible but even my couch surfing host Gabriel gets lost walking in Stone town with me, the main part of the Island and where the boats from Dar bring you. It's a bit strange considering Gabriel grew up here and knows the place so well but that's how confusing Stone town is, there's so many alleyways and alternative routes that even after years you can't know them all!

Besides getting lost in Stone town I've seen beaches that you'd think you'd only find in movies and I've eaten some nice Swahili food. In fact, at Forodhani Gardens vendors set up "pop up" restaurants every night with an amazing variety of goods. The different vendors share grills and it's very unclear who actually owns any of the businesses as different workers seem to appear every few minutes behind different counters. This is on top of the fact there's at least 3 sugarcane water people, 7 Swahili Pizza makers, 7 kebab BBQ places, and many other of the same type of thing over and over (see first pic. below).

The only down moment came on day 1 when my couch surfing host Gabriel and I saw a guy getting kicked pretty hard on the ground by someone authoritative in uniform along with two guys who just looked like civilians. It's unclear exactly what happened but I later found out the guy had been trying to sell something in a spot where that wasn't allowed (hasn't that not usually stopped other Africans also)? Gabriel caught the whole thing on camera but they caught him and took his phone away. He had to fight to get it back and delete the pictures. It was scary seeing police brutality in a place like Zanzibar.

Forodhani Gardens Night Market

Beautiful beaches of Zanzibar

Dar Es Salaam, biggest city in Tanzania as seen from my ferry

Giant turtles shipped to Zanzibar from the Seychelles as a gift long ago

Couch surfing host Gabriel in Zanzibar. Zanzibar, like Dar Es Salaam are predominantly Muslim

Paying for Sex

Trying couch surfing with Bramuel (the non-white guy), out in Mombasa

Mombasa 

No I did not pay for sex but now that I have your attention I want to talk about the Kenyan coast and prostitutes. Its actually something that stands out in my mind about the place. Ok yes of course there's prostitutes in other places in East Africa, everywhere for that matter, but they were unusually aggressive in Mombasa this last week. But lets rewind a bit first to talk basics.

What is a prostitute?
Someone who gets paid to have sex right? Well yes usually but in what way? Being on the Kenya coast actually has made me rethink this seemingly simple question. Woman at clubs around East Africa have asked me to "buy them a Guinness" as they usually put it. That certainly doesn't make a woman a prostitute but it may ring an alarm here. Furthermore, woman may be dressed as business professionals, casual club type people, or in a very promiscuous outfit. As Dave Chappell's famous skit about skimpy looking woman says, you just can't tell who's who and that's especially true here. But there's a deep belief in many places here that basically any single woman at a club is a prostitute...and by some definitions they could be right. In some cases a man is expected to take care of a woman and buy her some food, drinks, maybe even some gifts. In other cases just the taxi ride home the next day suffices, except as my friend told me you might add like $20 to the normal cab fee. "Wait what?!" I said to him, "how is that different than paying for sex" to which he tells me that it difference because it's not like they demand money first before they'll have sex with you. But to me what difference does it really make to pay before or after after sex? Some restaurants in certain places you pay first and others you pay after. In general, sex is casual and people are more open seeming here about it and the same Western stigma might not apply here.

But back to the present, all of this all makes dancing with girls at clubs particularly tricky and sometimes very awkward. Many of the woman without men are beautiful. But being a white man it's more complicated. You may be approached by many girls in one night, knowing that many (most?) woman without man are prostitutes, and unless (or even if) you're Brad Pit, you should be suspicious. Why am I being approached? So even if they don't ask for anything they might be prostitutes. "Don't be fooled," my friend tells me. They might even buy you a beer sometimes!"

Making a long term investment

...is how my friend put it. When woman see a mazungu (white) man they think about the long-term so they might not ask anything of you, according to my friend. But I told him even in the Western world there's some expectation that a man takes care of his woman. Apparently it's different though when a woman expects a visa out of a relationship. But then going back to the original question, does that make her a prostitute? Well certainly not by traditional definitions. But it may come down to what these woman do normally to earn some income and do they otherwise sleep with men for money?

Tricky questions, tricky answers but in the end the experience here is, while at times awkward, good because it humanizes prostitutes and blurs the lines around traditional thinking. So do I dance with someone that I think doesn't look like the type of lady that would dance with me normally? Just because a prostitute may want money doesn't mean they might not enjoy dancing just like anyone else.

Gotta get outta here

After losing my job in Uganda I felt like it was time to move on. But I also was looking to escape so I chose nearby Kenya, as a place I've yet to really explore.

I was escaping from the mosquitos of the living room of my old Kampala house where I no longer had a room and tried sleeping on the couch...From the racist lady who charged me the same price for a fish as the local customer next to me who also got unsolicited sweet potato when I got nothing despite having asked for some sides...From the thief who took my favourite Equal Exchange hoodie...From the feeling of being stuck after 4 days in Gulu trying to sell my furniture to the same interested and broke potential customers (this describes 90% of the people there)...and from the peanut guy.

So I am a bit embarrassed about this but here goes: I've developed a pet peeve here of people sitting behind or in front of me on a bus reaching over my shoulder without asking to control my window. Almost always it's someone closing my window when I want it open. I think also when the temperature reaches 60 or below here people start feeling freezing, especially with the nice cool breeze that comes through while baking in the sun. Coming back from Gulu when this happened this week I just decided I had enough. So I turned to the huge Ugandan guy sitting behind me and asked him why he couldn't just ask me before invading my personal space and closing my window which I was busy throwing peanut shells through. But there was no conversation to be had, he just laughed at me, which of course just further infuriated me. So I took the peanut shells and threw them at him and asked him how he liked it. Well apparently not very much as things escalated quickly me and a scene developed with half the bus' attention now on us. He threatened to hit me and I yelled back that he should and it would be great to get him kicked off the bus. Eventually things settled down but we were both on edge for the rest of the 4-5 hour bus ride remaining.  

So hopefully I won't see peanut man again, the bosses of my company, or really any other undesirables while in Kenya. First stop the hustling, bustling city of Nairobi, a meer 14 hour bus ride. I'm not that interested in Nairobi, or "Nairobberie" as many refer to it so I'll probably just pass through after getting some rest. Then the plan is to do another 8-10 hours on a bus to reach Mombasa on the coast, stay tuned.

Teaching frisbee to 3 year old Bradley, son of couch surfing host Eric in Nairobi Kenyans

My Gulu friend James and me testing out my new Assus tablet‘s backwards facing camera

Back to UG

I'm back in Uganda now after a trying but interesting five days stuck in Rome. With my work just finished I took off to explore the beautiful and mountainous Western Uganda. I'll be posting hopefully somewhat regularly about my journey's as I plan to make my way around East Africa.

I started with Western Uganda because I had't been there and had been meaning to check it out when a nice opportunity came along to join two Canadian friends I had met from frisbee. People seem surprised sometimes to see these two nationalities traveling together which kind of surprised me. It's not like Canada and the U.S. don't like each other, it's just that everyone likes Canadians more.

I know there is something to traveling alone but I really prefer to enjoy experiences with others and I often push myself more when traveling with others...Such to the point that one day last week I found myself with these two Canucks in the middle of a jungle stranded in the rain. We had purposefully stranded ourselves in the naive hope that we would find chimps and avoid paying the $150 (tourism in Africa is really $$) chimp treccking fee. We had't planned for rain, especially only 5 minutes in, and after hiding under a tree for 10-15 min. and realizing it did very little to protect us as the rain only got harder and harder we started hitchhiking. By the time we got picked up we were soaked and shivering

Chimps - 1
Humans - 0

This is where we smartly decided to get off the matatu

One of the dozens of amazingly beautiful crater lakes of Western Uganda 

Duncan the Canadian with a Warthog at our campsite that we were told was "habituated to humans"

Queen Elizabeth national park boat cruise with the buffalo

Euro Trip: Yesterday in Lisbon, today in Rome, and tomorrow in…

Stuck. I won’t go into the boring details of why but I was supposed to be back in Uganda already and instead have spent hours in hell arguing with Priceline (NEVER USE THESE PEOPLE) in Rome (and don’t joke with this “when in Rome” with me right now!). Now normally being in Rome might be interesting as it’s a world famous city but I unfortunately just lost my job (which I also will not going into here) and the timing is not great. I suppose it’s better than being stuck in the poorly timed city of Cairo, which is where I was supposed to be stuck, if I had stayed with the original horrible change of flight plan.

I never meant for this blog to be a pure travel blog although it seems it has sort of turned into that (Travel blogs are the worse, so annoying and assumingly self-important!) and now it’s too late to turn back. Before Rome I was on vacation with Maya in Portugal which was amazing. It’s a beautiful country with great Mediterranean beaches, mountains, city night life in Lisbon and Porto, and a good amount of culture. Canyoning might be the thing I need to get into after trying it there (amazing). We toured the whole country almost in one week, although didn’t see anything obviously with too much depth. Unlike Rome, people are friendlier to foreigners and don’t mind that you don’t speak their language. Plus it’s cheap compared to the rest of Europe.

Rome, in contrast, is incredibly expensive. Today I bought a milk shake that was 7 euros ($9.50). But it makes sense, like Paris, it’s a top global travel destination. Literally people are here from everywhere and it’s crazy how many languages are being spoken all around you constantly. Additionally, roses are sold all around you constantly (although it’s only the guys who buy for their ladies and sadly I’ve been alone when I’ve been in both Rome and Paris).  

“It was some castle, or was it a palace?”

A guy at a hostel told me this when describing an amazing site he say today. Also like Paris, you can’t walk in Rome without tripping over a statue or monument almost every block. I’ve lost track of the fountains, monuments, statues, castles, palaces, forts, walls, churches, and other famous and ancient things I’m supposed to be in awe of but none of which I know anything about. Most Americans who visit Europe remark how old everything is but Rome takes that to a new level. Certain attractions have blown my mind with their immense scale. So much of the city draws people interested in Ancient Rome (or the Vatican) and its crazy how integrated that side of things is with modern Rome. The coliseum, over 2000 years old, is also a subway stop that hundreds of thousands of the 3.5 million + citizens pass every day, probably with very little notice.

In Portugal we went to Sintra, just outside of Lisbon, which is sort of like a Disneyworld of attractions and museums, much like Balboa park in San Diego. They put it all in one place and it’s overwhelming. Similar to how I’m feeling with Rome, Sintra or this sort of thing is sensory overload. It’s too much information, and lot of the information you do get is about things and people you probably don’t care that much about or maybe have never heard of.  Palaces and churches can be nice, or we think they can be nice, but actually we think that because that’s what we are supposed to think and we can check it off some list of things to see. But it all sounds better in theory than practice actually.

All of this is to say that travel is exhausting and as I embark on a potential few months of unemployed travel I’ll need to get a strategy to make sure it stays fun and meaningful. Any tips?

Up North

On a recent business trip up North, two things happened in one time that made my day particulary memorable. The first going through a small village seeing a completely naked man hand and foot cuffed waddling around in no particular direction. The more surprising thing perhaps was the fact that no one even turned their heads as he walked around (like the same nonchalance I saw in Rwanda when no one really reacted to the vomit in the bus scene going to Bujumbura). I actually later realized that he was probably mentally ill and the town people had done that to him, which really isn't so funny and it reflects how poor services are for people with mental disabilities.

Later in the day I was on a bus that broke down several times. We would start-up and go some short distant and then the engine would fail. We were stopped for about an hour trying to fix it when a passenger lost patience. He somehow got a boda boda taxi to come find him (we were in the middle of nowhere so I’m not sure how he managed this) but as soon as he left the bus and jumped on the boda the engine failed. He started rolling backwards down the hill on the moto and it was just too hilarious to not burst out laughing.

Acholiland, as some people call it up here, is the home of the Acholi people. It’s not a place most or really any tourists go but it has its own particular charms. Like for example, the abundance of pork roasting joints or the way it can almost sound like singing when people greet each other with their common call and response. Or how for some reason people think when I say my name that it’s “Henry.”

The North has a distinctly different feel from the rest of Uganda. People don’t really eat the normal ever-so-popular banana based dish matoke. The roads are even worse and dustier. The Acholi’s don’t seem to be huge fans of the Buganda, the Kampala based dominant people. Sometimes I see something that I don’t see anywhere else in Uganda: NEW cars, even wrapped in the plastic still. I recently had the chance to ride in one and can elaborate a bit more.

I was actually in a very uncomfortable matato (bus taxi) on my way back up North recently on what should have been leg 1 of 3 with transfers and 8 hours of no leg room and three babies, chickens, and whatever else usually gets thrown onto your lap in a matato. We were several hours from any border but these new cars are so recognizable and really are only going to a few places; mostly South Sudan for government officials there. 1 hour into my trip, somehow our matato driver knowing my final destination, he was able to flag a driver down of one of these new cars and get him to agree to take me up North. There’s really only a few roads which go that way and again no cars that look like this so it makes some sense but is still pretty amazing. Mike, the driver, is a transporter, driving the +20 hours every week from Mombasa, a port city in Kenya, to Juba in landlocked South Sudan. Besides the interesting conversations with such a person, air conditioning, and ridiculous leg room comfort, one other bonus from the trip was a funny story. Mike pulled up beside another nice car blasting African music with a dancing--alone-driver and got him to pull over and literally trade the CD’s from each other’s stereos on the spot. The exchange made me smile.

I’ve also included some recent pics. from Acholiland here

The little girl who cries when I came close to her. This is where we keep the chickens

Fort Baker (also sometimes referred to as Fort Patiko) -a very old Arab slave fort

Arua falls, about an hour from Gulu

On the road with co-worker Dennis at the landing site in Panyimur

Going Native

This expression is used for white people going to 3^rd world (or sorry “Global South” for those politically correct readers) who live without 1^st World (“Global North”) amenities, eat the local food, adopt local customs, and live generally simpler lives. It’s offensive for a number of reasons but also, as it can be the case with offensive things, is somewhat hilarious. Think about your best friend, your father, really anyone, deciding to give up wireless internet, wearing some feathers or local dress, subsisting on a regular diet of cassava and strange local plants, and learning a language that may have clicks and other sounds that are so incredibly foreign you wouldn’t even be able to guess which side of the planet it’s coming from.

People talk about Peace Corps volunteers “going native” and moving to the bush. I am not in the Peace Corps but in my latest East Africa adventure, I find myself “going native.” Of course I’m being facetious but my new situation is quite different than what I’ve experienced up to this point. I am only a 7-8 min. walk from the main road and about 30 minutes of walking from the main city of Gulu population 150,000; however, I’m surrounded by huts (I myself am in a non-self-contained house), have no running (or hot) water, often have no electricity due to frequent outages, no Western bathroom, no gas stove (I’m going to buy one though), and there’s plenty of goats, animals, and small African children in my backyard.

As if I was in a movie, Mama Basil is my elderly lady roommate, one of my co-worker’s moms who speaks very little English and probably finds me very strange. We don’t interact too much (or haven’t yet I should say). For example, last night I went off to go see some live music in town as she sit in the dark with just a small candle listening to the radio. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about her later.

Mama Basil’s sister’s child also either lives there or is just always around (not sure which yet) and is terrified of me. It’s funny how small children here are either fascinated by white skin and want to touch you or can be terrified and run away in fright when you get within a few feet.

Layibi is actually a very peaceful and pretty place to live and I am happy to be living simpler, if only for a few months while I get into some more sales and field based work from Fenix.

Better grab an umbrella

I am back in the North of Uganda for work and enjoying myself. But it’s always music that triggers the strangeness of the situations I sometimes find myself in; whether it be an old forgotten Salt & Pepper hit, classic French hits in Rwanda, or something else. This time it was riding in the back of a cargo vehicle with local staff from several different NGO’s on our way to visit a very large SACCO (Savings and Credit Cooperative Organizations) when "Make it Rain" by Lil. Wayne came booming into my life. It’s been days since I've heard that one and I think my fellow passengers just enjoyed the beat and didn't try too hard to interpret the lyrics. I may have continued eating the raw cassava and sugar cane, chewing and spitting everywhere and making a mess in the car with this foreign group (as that’s how it is with those items), and not thinking anything odd about the moment, if it hadn't been for that song. It’s as if the out-of-place American gangster rap brings me back to the fact that me, as a White (Mazungu), am also totally out-of-place. 

When life gives you lemons

Make Kenya! Wait, that doesn't make any sense. Go to Kenya?

Just one day after returning from Rwanda, I’m on a bus on my way to Kenya now because I screwed up and forgot that my Uganda Visa was expiring. Apparently it’s like $100/day fine for each day you are here after your Visa has expired, so with almost no notice I had to take off and leave for Kenya – the closest border (a mere “6” but actually 8 plus hour bus ride) from Kampala.

So I decided to make the best of it. I chose Eldoret, a town known for producing some of the world’s best runners as these Kenyans continually train at high altitude (above 6,000 ft.) and it’s also a popular hang gliding destination as it overlooks the Great African Rift valley. Furthermore, Wikipedia tells me there is a good cheese factory there.

Sitting next to me on the bus is Maku Anderson, a Ugandan man that appears to be around my age. He’s very chatty and friendly and he’s looking me up on facebook just minutes into our trip. We spent at least 15 minutes alone talking about the Rolex, a Ugandan classic –simply an egg and chapatti (the Ugandan equivalent of Nan bread) that’s pretty bomb. It also reminds that everywhere you go in the world, people love the egg/bread combination, just like my birdy-in-the-nest back home. You can normally find Rolex on the street in Uganda (in contrast to Rwanda where street food is sadly forbidden) for $.50 and it makes an excellent snack. But I also learned from Makuy about variations of the Rolex that I hadn’t previously known existed – such as the commando (with veggies), the Titantic (4 eggs with 4 chapati’s wrapped on one side and 4 on the other –it’s hard to imagine just how massive this is), and “for thugs” Maku say’s, the Sugar Rey – which is a Rolex made with spirits (usually whisky). This sounds disgusting to me.

We also got to the topic of woman where Maku teaches me: “Rwandaise woman are like tortoises – they are shier than Ugandans, and even if they hide their heads, watch out, they can still come out and bite.”  This is contrast of course to Ugandan woman, who, Maku informs me, “are more like ostriches. When the leopard comes to hunt them they may hide their necks in the bushes but they forget about the biggest part, their behinds, the meat, just sticking out there for the leopard.”

Update from Eldoret:

I didn’t find the cheese factory, but I did find some amazing hiking. Despite being described as somewhat of a tourist town, very few African towns are actually set up for tourism and Eldoret was no different. I left after just one day since the only buses back to Kampala were hellish night buses and I have work Monday. Considering the ride was 90% of the point, it was not such a horrible trip after all.

Friendly Africa

In a few days I will hit my six month mark here in Africa. Although I thought I was taking a job in Uganda, I’m still in Rwanda currently, and I've spent just over half of my time here. One stereotype of Africa that continues to amaze me in its correctness is the incredibly friendliness of Africans. I don’t think I am generalizing too much at this 

The road to Bumbogo is paved with dirt

Church building ceremony

point having been to Senegal, Uganda, Cameroon, Tanzania, Burundi, and Rwanda. There are points along this spectrum though – in Cameroon, perhaps the friendliest place I've ever been to on earth, if you even make eye contact with someone on more than two separate occasions, you have a significant chance of being invited over for dinner. In Rwanda people can be more reserved but I still meet random people all the time who want my phone number after barely meeting me. They actually do call sometimes (just to say “hi,” it’s very strange) so assuming you aren't giving them a fake number (I don’t judge people who do, it can get tiring here), you actually have to save their number. I have so many “random Jon,” “random Alex,” and “random George’s” in my phone I can’t even count; which all leads me to a story from last weekend.

Random Bosco had been calling me for months. I had met him several months back deep in the village on a work trip and he was persistent in his follow up.  Specifically, he wanted me to come to some ceremony in the village and each time I told him I couldn't come he would tell me how disappointed the whole village was…so I said to myself, “what the hell? I've got nothing going on this Saturday, might be interesting and different, why not?” Well it certainly was different…

Two buses, a one long moto ride, and about two hours later, I arrived in the thriving metropolis of Bumgogo. When Bosco said ceremony he wasn't joking, there were hundreds and hundreds of people, including local politicians and well-known public leaders. What Bosco didn't tell me was that the ceremony was for building a new huge church in town and they were undergoing a huge fundraising effort. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the singing, dancing, and not understanding 4 hours (that was all that I could take, the ceremony was not over) of Kinyarwanda speeches, but I also got put in a very uncomfortable position. First, I was expected to give a speech in French in front of this huge crowd of people (about what, I have no idea). Why; because I’m a small white Jewish kid with a shitty beard? Next, I was declared by the project leader to be the white ambassador to the village and this project (wait what, I agreed to that?). And Finally, I was expected to announce my financial commitment in front of everyone, after hearing two politicians who committed $770 and $384 (I had been contemplating whether I could get away with $10 before hearing that). I’m not even a Christian for CHRIST’S SAKE!!!

I extracted myself from the situation by saying I would talk to friends in Kigali see, what we could come up with, and that I’d get back them (figuring in the back of my head that maybe I could pawn this off on some Christian NGO who helps people in Africa build churches).

I felt pretty stupid for not having clarified about what this ceremony was or not questioning why Bosco was so zealous about recruiting me. People assume because you are white here you have money. To some extent that may be true given the standard-of-living differences, but being a student, volunteer, or low-wage worker doesn’t seem to factor into the equation ever. And I’m obviously too trustworthy. Africans may be friendlier than other people, but sometimes there’s something behind it.

Gettin' Around

Traveling in East Africa is remarkably fairly easy. While inter-African flights in most places are still expensive, buses get you most places if you have the time. Rwanda and Burundi are so small that getting around within and between the countries usually involves less than 6 hours going most places. The prices are super cheap generally speaking and the list of cool places is relatively known (at least among the Ex-Pat community). Visas are usually not too bad (except Tanzania where they gouge you for $100) and I've heard as a Resident you can get a multi-country pass for cheap. The East African Community is smart in forming a union and increasing economic inter-activity in a way I didn't see in West Africa.

I love "other important town" of which there are like 8 in Rwanda

Getting on a plane here is often like this where you are randomly in front of a bunch of planes with no direction and could easily end up in the completely wrong place

For travel here, you just have to put up with very tight spaces on buses, blaringly loud radio in a language you don’t understand (or if you are less lucky terribly dubbed movies), and usually uncomfortably hot temperatures with incredibly frustrating people reaching over your shoulder every time you try to open a window. Seriously, this happens every trip, it’s like Africans are immune to cold (and when I say cold I mean 65 F and above with a nice cool breeze). Roads are not surprisingly horrible and bumpy, unless you are in Rwanda, which is an exceptional East African country for a variety of reasons.

Two weeks ago I traveled to Bujumbura, one of my top 5 favorite sounding African capital names (slightly behind Ouagadougou, pronounced “wagudugu,” Antananarivo and Yamoussoukro, but slightly ahead of Tripoli, Windhoek, and Djibouti –the Capital of none other than Djibouti), in Burundi, to visit the famous beaches of Lake Tanganyika. They do not let down, the lake seems like an ocean it’s so big, the beaches are sandy and the water is warm. It’s amazing to see the beach culture also transported there with pick-up volleyball games happening and I even saw someone kite boarding.

Mount Meru in the foreground, Kilimanjaro in the background

Lucy the crazy female chimp at our hotel in Bujumbura

My Kiwi friend and roommate Johanna plays with Lucy

Some Burundian friends and Rwandans that went down as well for the weekend

Nightfalls on Bujumbura (downtown in the background)

It was also amazing getting a hug from Lucy the enormous and aggressive female chimpanzee the owner keeps at Pinnacle 19, the hotel I stayed at. But the highlight of the trip might have been on the way there on the bus. Next to me sat an African man continuously chowing down samosa’s (later we reportedly heard people were keeping tabs and it was more than 10)! When you enter Burundi from Rwanda the road gets super windy and mountain-e. It didn't help that the bus driver was driving like a mad man (you can guess where this is going by now). I feel so fortunate that this passenger turned to his right (and not me on his left) to projectile vomit everywhere hitting no fewer than three people. The reaction was my favorite part: the bus did not stop, no one yelled (as they would for sure in the States), and besides a few sighs, the people covered in this man’s vomit mostly just laughed; as in: “look how many samosa’s you ate, you idiot, you vomited, hahahahaha.” They wiped themselves down the best they could as the man continued to vomit and went on with life. It wasn't just that these passengers were all remarkably calm, I would go as far as saying this incident was an ice breaker and stimulated good conversation. TIA – This Is Africa, as they say…

Insect with crazy natural wholes in it's wings at Mt. Kabuye, the tallest mountain (doesn't include volcanoes which are much higher) in rwanda, about 2700 meters

Our unofficial African child soldier entourage that came to meet us at the top of the mountain 

Walking right through your village to get down, "excuse us, don't mind us, coming through"

Finally last week, a trip to Lake Kivu to Gisenyi (bordering Goma of the DRC but much more peaceful)