ngende kati

So this is my last email from Uganda... it comes on a strange day, after a night of weird social-psychological nightmares when I awoke to discover one of our farm hands had died during the night and I had simultaneously been attacked by bed bugs. So I'm in a bizarro mood. But -- I have many things to say.

Part of me would like to reflect upon my entire experience and wrap it up, but I have also had some adventures during the past few weeks. So we'll just start with them.

1. WYCLEF JEAN. Was amazing. Ahhh! The concert... was such a spectacle... in such a Ugandan way. First of all, most of the night was dedicated to a cell phone company merger. We got to see videos about Celtel and Zain. There were fireworks. I got a free T-shirt and wore it on my head like a turban. The first headliner didn't come out until well after midnight (the concert started at 6)... and he had a mohawk. And was wearing a kilt. DJ BENNY D! He was sweet, actually. And then Wyclef came out, but honestly, me and my friends didn't know it was him until he'd gone through a few songs and got to one we recognized. He carried a blowtorch around the stage and kept yelling things. Then he got on a forklift and rode around through the crowd until he got tired and started yelling, "PUT ME DOWN! PUT ME DOWN! Stop the DAMN TRUCK! Wyclef
WANTS TO GET OFF THE DAMN TRUCK!" I was entertained.

2. I get home from Kampala and find Uncle Pi is mysteriously missing. In the morning, I am told that Uncle Pi. Is. In. JAIL. Yes. My soft-spoken, Bible-toting, intellectual engineer Uncle Pi has been locked up. Over the course of the week, I slowly found out it was for a bounced check. Then I found out that actually... Uncle Pi had run away from his family 9 months ago,UNBEKNOWNST TO ALL (Hajat included), and had been HIDING IN OUR HOUSE as a MISSING PERSON/FUGITIVE the whole time. WHaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!!!!!!!! His wife showed up to the police station after a few days, and she had it out with Hajat until they both realized they had both been deceived by the wily Uncle Pi. So she whisked away old Uncle Pi, who was never to be seen by Lisa again. So that was random.

3. Oh yes, and last Saturday was the day I was wasted by the River Nile. Yes. I went rafting. On the rapids. And it destroyed me. I went with a few interns and we had 3 hungover British students in our raft who kept saying "let's go bloody crazy!" and "let's bloody flip the boat!". Now, my thinking was, either we don't flip the boat and look awesome -- or we do flip the boat and it's awesome: we win either way. But then we flipped the boat... and for 40 seconds, we were all tossed through the longest rapid in Uganda, occasionally being teased with the appearance of air until -- no! Just another mouthful of water! And that was when I realized yes, death by drowning might be the worst way to die. After the first fall, our boat was completely silent. It shut the British dudes up reeeal fast. We did well for most of the course, but we still flipped on the last one as well. I thought I was going to die there too. I guess I didn't. End results of the rafting experience were a massive sun burn and a sinus infection. But I'm still glad I did it.

In other news, this morning I was given a silver bracelet with a bow-struck heart and the words I LOVE YOU by a 12 year old boy I once said hi to on the street.

I also met the Jinja bishop while walking down the road one day (he drives a Hummer...).

Hajat bought me a Muslim-Swahili skirt that I've been wearing to work. One day I was trying to buy a geography book for my brothers (they thought America was next to France) and the man refused to accept my haggling. But then his boss walked over, pointed at my Muslim skirt and said, "She is a Ugandan. Give her Ugandan price!" So I've been wearing it EVERYWHERE in hopes that lightning will strike twice.

People also keep asking me if I'm Indian. I still don't understand this. Even one of my co-workers said, "But surely you are at least mixed-blood! Your mother must be from India!" Most kids have started calling me sister or teacher. I thought the sister thing was a cool African thing, because African guys used to say it to Gloria all the time in France. I felt like I really must be fitting in. But then I found out that all the kids just think I'm a nun.

So I leave tomorrow... I hate saying goodbye, it's always an awkward time for me, and
each time I have to leave somewhere, I became even more aware of this in myself. I think my emotions in leaving Uganda have been manifesting themselves in other things... mainly, the Olympics. I mean, I love the Olympics. SO MUCH. But watching CNN in the morning... seeing how America went 1-2 in the women's gymnastics all-around... I got teary-eyed. I read an article about a Ugandan Olympic runner... and got teary-eyed. I thought about the Chinese people and all the pride they have in hosting the Olympics... and I am overwhelmed with emotion. I made Hajat a photo album with captions in Luganda so she could understand them. That made me emotional too. I don't know, I just know I'm really going to miss it here, mostly because I really have made some good friends. But I'll cut the mush. Tonight we're having chapati (what else?) for my last meal, then I start my journey back to Valpo tomorrow. It will be a fun little endeavor: Entebbe to Nairobi, Nairobi to London, train from London to Paris, Paris to Boston, Boston to Chicago, bus from Chicago to Valpo. Woo! I do not have confidence in my luggage's ability to complete the journey in a timely fashion, but we'll see. Hopefully I make it in a timely fashion...

Thank you all for being spectators and accomplices during my summer in Uganda.

Sincerely,
Lisa Renee Floran

ugandan novel #356198561

So I feel quite settled into Uganda now -- almost in the bad way, the way where I don't notice as many exciting things as I used to. And I'm getting a little worn down on fighting off marriage proposals, fighting the taxi driver every morning, being constantly threatened by fatal computer viruses that I contract at the local internet cafe (one of which... succeeded in destroying a lot. Though I did manage to save my documents and a handful of pictures. I'm glad I'm such a psycho facebook picture poster, or else, my life would be over. My music may or may not be gone forever. Oh Uganda. Anyway), and eating rice/potatoes/tomatoes for almost every meal. So last week was hard. And then I had... CRAZY UGANDAN SATURDAY.

Crazy Ugandan Saturday started like any other Saturday, I wake up to my crazyish host brother singing Phillip Bungalotyre (sp.? the first Ugandan singer to announce he was HIV positive?) songs as soon as the sun rises. I eat my oatmeal. Hajat prepares to take me into town for a dress fitting. I had my dress all planned out, it was going to be a classy little number in tie dye. Hajat had other plans. And since she doesn't really speak English, arguing was futile. So... now I have a long African skirt/top combination, with a kind of country-junglish pattern, in green and gold. Maybe I can wear it to football games? I don't even know what the shirt looks like this year.

So what I thought would take about 4 hours took 20 minutes,thanks to Hajat's wonderful efficiency in choosing my dress. Then, since I had told her I was meeting friends in Jinja, she left me. I wasn't meeting friends for 5 more hours though. What followed was a day where I walked around town as slowly as I could and read a Ugandan paper, as slowly as I could. I learned about the massive fires in Ugandan schools (it's a copycat epidemic... 43 schools set on fire, mostly by students this year), how fishermen don't report dead bodies to police so they can use them as bait, and what happens when you challenge the President on the radio (jail). I was also invited to "surf the net" by 3 different Ugandan men, and then one followed me to a restaurant and bought me rice. I didn't really want to eat his blood rice, but I was hungry. Then I went to the AG SHOW.

The Ag Show is basically the county fair of Jinja, and it made me quite nostalgic. They had a lot of beer tents, alternated with tents where you could learn how chickens are slaughtered/how to make sunflower seed oil. My favorite tent was the Ugandan Prisoner's Tent. There, they had fine wood furniture, Ugandan flags, and dining room sets made exclusively by the inmates of Uganda -- and it was all for sale! Woo! There were concerts and dancing too, though it's always kind of awkward to be the one white girl dancing, especially when you have hips like mine, so I had to hold back. The concert ended up being kind of awkward when an Indian Michael Jackson interpretative dancer took the stage as a video of porn played behind him? And he didn't even do Thriller or anything. He lip-synched Speechless.

SPEECHLESS.

So all that improved my bad week.

I've been working a lot. I helped WORI get their first grant (though it was only a partial grant), and we've been working on a brochure and blog. You can see our blog! Leave comments, they'd love that:

http://wori-uganda.blogspot.com

We went to visit one of the communities last week, and the women gave me a huge tour of their entire village. Then, they showered me with gifts: they gave me eggs. Corn. Sugar cane. Bananas. Fresh matooke. Grain (what am I supposed to do with grain?!). And FRESH FISH.

Last night, I participated in a radio program on domestic violence. I reread my old psych papers and stuff from my time in California... but then I showed up, and none of it was in English. They asked me like one question and immediately labled me the "angry dramatic one"? I felt like Hillary Clinton. You know, the strong hated female thing.

At home, the weirdest thing that happened last week was that I realized one of my host brothers was missing? I mentioned it one night and everyone just started laughing. Like hysterically laughing. Uncle Pi was like, "Heli -- heli--- hee hee! Helicopter! Hee!" and no one could manage to articulate anything. Finally Pi goes, "I believe a helicopter landed in the field and took him to America." Now, I obviously knew that couldn't possibly be true -- but I mean, I'm not from this country, I started doubting myself, and it was the only explanation I was given. The next day I was told that my host brother had took to the Nile in search of his parents (although I thought he was an orphan)? The next day I was told he had run away. No one seemed to really think this was a big deal. The kid is 12. Then, the next day, I get home, and he's just chillin' on the porch. "Kofi Annan!" I said (because we call him Kofi Annan, another thing I don't understand). "Welcome back!" And he just smiled. I guess the police brought him home. No one ever explained any thing to me.

Other tidbits:
- I've had some good talks with Uncle Pi. He always talks to me, intellectually and abstractly, about love, his wife, the girl he dated for 2 weeks in Scotland, how he used to be quite the stud ice skater and he'd get "12-14 girls desperate to skate with me a night," how his first secondary school girlfriend broke his heart, etc. I've always enjoyed these conversations. Last night he told me he is currently gathering research for his two books: one about engineering. The other... is about love. Haha. I think I'm a research subject.

- I caved and bought nutella. Nutella + chapati = the answer to life's problems

- It is a cultural taboo to wash someone else's underwear. I was washing my own underwear the other day, and Hajat comes outside and just took over. I tried to stop her, but I guess she was frustrated by my (lack of) speed. She then proceeded to make catcall noises and laugh hysterically at my underwear. Oh, Haj.

- I was attacked by a flying bug the size of my fist the other day. My crazyish host brother threw my shoe at it and it went away. When trying to discern what the damn thing was, I received four different answers:
Crazyish host bro Mbala -- "a mimbadisa!" (no one else has ever heard of this word
Cool host bro Ambrose -- "a grasshopper!"
Uncle Pi -- "I believe it must have been a very large locust."
Little host bro Sam -- "frog!"

SO I was attacked by a flying grasshopper frog locust mimbadisa. And thus, I must leave you. Tomorrow I'm returning to Kampala to see Wyclef! I don't know any of his songs. EXCEPT HIPS DON'T LIE. The time is going quickly! I only have one more true weekend in Jinja, and I know it's going to go really fast, with dinners and end reports and the like! I hope August treats you all well, and I'll see many of you soon :)

love, love, love,

Lisa

nuns, Kampala, and educating the youth of Uganda

Hello my American and some French/Japanese friends...

So I last left you at the fourth of July. I hope you all celebrated in style... here, a whole bunch of ND kids went to the Holy Cross house, where 4 guys are currently living for 16 months and teaching primary school. They treated us to a fabulous time: they had painted an American flag on the wall of their house (partly celebratory, partly because they hate their landlord), created homemade fireworks using hundreds of match heads bought at a local Chinese explosives factory, and even brought in beef from the capital, since foot and mouth disease was running rampantin my district. So I had a hamburger! There were 5 kids from Indiana at the party, so I spent most of the night shouting along to John Mellencamp songs and reminscing about the beauty of the Hoosier state. AND AMERICA. The next day I returned to the real Ugandan world.

So I've had some more exciting encounters. Like the time Hajat dragged me to this convent across the street at 9pm and just left me there... there were about 30 Ugandan girls around my age running around, eating, and just being girls. But she just left me there. I didn't know who these people were or anything. I eventually found out they all want to be nuns? They were really nice. They were visiting from a district in the northwest... and they wanted to take me home with them. They said the boys would marry me so fast, and give me 80,000-100,000 shillings (please note: that is like less than $100. And apparently what I'm worth). They also kept saying randomly awesome things like "LISA! (long pause) Did you know... you resemble my mother?" Later I found out they are actually from a tribe that does not wear clothes. That does not change the friendship I formed with them but it was SO RANDOM. Also, their tribe believes all the cattle in the world belong to them... and they steal random cattle and shoot people who threaten the cows. And when you want to marry one of their women, the man must fight the women. Like viciously and
physically. If he loses, he cannot marry her. Consequently, these women are some of the tallest and strongest in Uganda. All of these things... just made these seemingly simple, nice nun girls SO COOL. So that was random.

Then I went to Kampala to stay with Hajat's youngest daughter, Joan. IT WAS A DIFFERENT WORLD. Actually it kind of freaked me out. She rolled up in a Hummer, took me to her house, and I immediately felt underdressed, because everyone had cute neon colored matching outfits, and I was covered in village mud and hadn't washed my feet in about 3 weeks. She spent a lot of the weekend watching E! and Extreme Home Makeover on her satellite TV. I just couldn't figure out how she was a product of the family I am currently living with...the modest one, with chickens and a toilet in the back. It was bizarre. They took me out though. I karaoked Toto's Africa. In Africa. Ha! I realize that just about every tourist has probably had that same brilliant idea, but on that night, I was the only white person there, and I brought down the house.

I've been doing a lot of work lately, and finished my first grant proposal. That's not a good story so I'll just move on. I've gotten to visit more of the communities WORI works with, which is always fun. We went to a school and I was forced to teach them about sex. If you've never said words like "vagina" and "anal sex" in front of 200 15-16 year olds, you have not lived. I didn't think I'd be one to get embarrassed... but yeah. It was especially great because it was a Catholic school and we'd been told to teach abstinence only. So the kids kept fishing for ways to get us to say condoms. Ahhh children! And I rowed out to the island community too. We had to row there. Like on a canoe. It took an hour. Everyone thought it was hilarious that I knew how to paddle a boat? The island was actually kind of depressing though. Since it is so hard to get to, I guess the teachers never even show up, and there is no secondary school. So after primary school, girls basically get married, and boys become fishermen. It was crazy. I ate fish there and got sick. That sucked. But it happens.

I just got back from our FSD retreat at Sipi Falls... they're these gorgeous waterfalls up in the mountains. We went on a hike, and I just kept having flashes of Predator, Jurassic Park, and Congo (the movie)... and then being like ahhhh I'm on an African safari! Except it was just a hike. The only wild animals I see are chickens, pigs, cattle, and random goats. Uganda is one large free range farm. I spent a lot of the retreat being amused by Joel, our Ugandan program coordinator who looks like a big scary man but speaks like a little boy. I wish I had a little dwarf that could just follow him around and stenograph the things he said. Kind of like that old lady on Chapelle's show, maybe. He always ends up saying things that are perfectly normal in Ugandan english but entirely creepy to Americans, but he's harmless, so it's hilarious. Like, when he found out he was assigned on the bed next to me, he said, "Oh, Lisa. I will watch you sleep all through the night!" All I do is laugh in this country.

And home is still just as crazy, with my crazy, rambling-ish brother currently on the kick that one of my adopted brothers is the devil and he does not trust his "plastic smile", Margreta the one who calls me "maaja" occasionally just opening the shutters of my window to deliver a lengthy morning greeting, and Hajat has tried to elevate my cooking skills to skinning chickens with her in the mornings. I watch the best show every made, The Gardener's Daughter -- an English dubbed Mexican soap opera -- every Monday and Tuesday with the fam, I read War and Peace, and I keep company with the 2 pet lizards who have been chilling in my room. I'm excited because over the next few weeks, I'm planning to go rafting on the Nile, attend a session on Ugandan witchcraft, be on Ugandan radio for a panel discussion of domestic violence, and see Wyclef Jean in Kampala! Woo! I still have a lot of work to do too. I can't believe I'm over halfway done... in one month, I'll be home! Ahh!

Peace, love, and Ugandan handshakes,

Lisa!

i'm still in uganda.

So everything I post now is drawn from mass emails. I hope if you are reading this and do not receive the mass emails, you are not offended. Don't be offended.



UGANDA: the latest developments

1. My job! I'll go more into detail. I was going to help with the poultry farm
thing... but it turns out that FSD's founder refuses to fund anything with
animals. Because she's a vegetarian. I mean, I guess I respect that... but
does vegetarianism really have to get in the way of helping poor African women
make a living? Honestly vegetarians. Honestly. So my project has shifted.
I'm going to be helping the organization organize their projects to try and get
more funding. I had thought it seemed like an okay idea, but as I've gotten
started... it's turned into a really good idea. They have no documentation
about anything they've already done. So I'll be running around, interviewing
people and taking pictures about past projects, helping them make
brochures,contact donors and grants, maybe make a blog. I also have been
helping teach some of their lessons, and I made a lesson plan for high
schoolers. I really like the people I work with though... it's a really small
organization, one room, but we take music breaks throughout the day. This
country is obsessed with Westlife. I don't understand it. I thought that band
broke up like 7 years ago. I do feel really fortunate with my work because some
other organizations have had really high expectations of the interns. Like my
friend Jon... on his first day, he was given a paper that addressed him as
"YOUR HONOR JONATHAN" and asked for his help in "addressing the problem of
poverty in Uganda, alleviating homelessess, and tapping into some American
celebrities to come visit the organization" among other things.

2. The other day I had the opportunity to go to a wedding. Just when I started
to feel like I was being given special treatment... which was awesome, because
I'm often awkwardly given way too many privelages here... I was invited to come
eat with the bride and groom. Then the tribal dancers came out. And had me
come dance with them. And then they put they native costume of the Buganda
kingdom, which is basically a tailfeather, on me. This was how I earned
respect in Uganda. I ended the night by being invited to the stage, as the
girl from the USA! and asked to give a speech. I was careful to mention my
love for Uganda and Obama. They love him here.

3. Some quotes from my host family:
"I would like to get into a rap battle with Fat Joe." -- Sam, my 12 year old
host brother

"You must pick out your clothing carefully, yes. You see, some color
combinations can be quite repulsive to the viewer." -- my host uncle

"I have watched the beauty pageants for many years, and I have concluded that
yes, a fat woman will never win the Miss America." -- my host uncle

"I took into account the high cost of living in America -- washing machines,
vehicles, groceries -- and I decided that no, $20,000 a month was not a
sufficient salary. So I have stayed in Uganda, unless they offer me more." --
my host uncle

"Is that Michael Jackson?" -- my host brother, watching a music video of Michael
Bolton

"I worked for a car company, back in 1984, that was when computers were
invented, I do research each day, about authors, and books, and Shakespeare is
often called England's greatest author." -- my crazy housemate Geoffry David
who I think is partially a genius

"Your face... very smart!" -- Hajat Sarah

"But I thought every American family had 3 guns? One they keep in the drawer in
the kitchen, one they keep under their pillow, and one in the closet in the
hall? That is how it always is in movies!" -- my supervisor at work

"These Amish cannot possibly exist!" -- my supervisor after I told her about
Amish people

4. So I've had some bad days, where I've desperately been missing French cheese
especially... for some reason. And there are days when I drop my entire fresh
roll of toilet paper down the latrine, days when we have matooke for dinner...
again, days when it takes someone 10 minutes to read one sentence because they
have so many dramatic pauses (example: a ugandan would read that phrase as "it
takes. someone. 10 minutes. to read... the what? (long pause) the... one
sentence. because they have so many... of... the what? (long dramatic
pause)... the dramatic pauses). But then there are days when I take my bucket
bath and the sun is rising right in front of me, and nights where I play soccer
outside with the kids, and days when I get home and my family treats me like
I've been gone for 8 years and not 8 hours. I hope all of you are having
wonderful summers, and I love you all :) Let me know how things are. My
nomadic ways have caused me to miss people a lot!

ciao
sula bulungi!
-- lisa

And the next frontier became Uganda...

#2
Ahhhhhhh I'm in Uganda!



Oh and my mom is sending this because it is honestly ridiculous trying
to email things here. I couldn't get the page to reload after I'd type
out all the names. Ohhhh Uganda.

So I sent an email last week... apparently, I think it only went to Ally and
Courtney. I mean, I love you guys a lot, but that email was actually supposed
to be a mass email. Maybe everyone got it. It wasn't that good though... it
was mostly me talking about how the internet is slow. It's taken me a good 30
minutes to get to this point at hotmail. But life has picked up since last
time I was at a computer!


Why you ask?

Two words, my children: HAJITI. SARAH.

Last Thursday, the four interns had a dinner to meet our host families. I was
told I'd be living with a woman politician, so when this smartly dressed woman
in a business suit entered, I assumed that was my new mother. After her was a
cute lady in a flowery, Western dress, then a little man in a suit. They were
all reserved, polite, shy, and quiet.

Then this lady comes in, wearing a huge, African shiny dress with pointy
shoulders, she is humoungous, she is laughing hysterically, eating all of the
food with her hands, and occasionally making high pitched yelps and screams.

I think we all know which one was my mother.... HAJITI SARAH!!!

But she is awesome. Even though... she speaks like no English. At that first
dinner, I asked her how many children she had. She responded, "Farmer!
Vegetables! Spinach! Matooke!" One of her favorite phrases is, "Lise!! COME!"
Though she is also fond of "LISE! Sit here" and then frantically motions next
to her. She's a big fan of the Marcus and Kristen host mom trick... but
instead of throwing a dictionary at me, she calls in her 17 year old adopted
son, Ambrose, who is pretty good at English. I try to talk to her in Luganda,
because I've learned a little (she finds it hilarious), and she always goes
"Yes! Yes!" and then "AMBROSE!!!!!" to make him come translate. Poor kid.
Actually I think it makes him feel cool.

All this makes it sound like the barrier is annoying. I actually find it pretty
hilarious.

So my family here... is a motley crew. Sarah has a whole bunch of kids who are
older, and she's adopted a whole bunch more, and then there are random adults
floating around. There are 5 kids, Jacqueline ("JACKIEEEEE!"), Sam
(SAMUUUUUel!!), Baaku (BaaaKUUUUU!), Hassad (HAS-had!), and Ambrose. Then
there is her 72 year old aunt, who is adorable, and the two... well, I mean, I
guess resident crazies. One woman, whose name I have yet to deduce, but she
always addresses me as "Motherfathersisterbrother" and names off random foods,
and then this guy named Jeffrey David Mbasa. Right now Hajiti's brother is
visiting, and he went to Edinburgh college, so he's been my conversational
company, for the most part. He really enjoys reading the Bible. And talking
to me about it.

One of the best parts of Uganda is the children. Because children are the
future!!! No not really. Because they chase me through the streets yelling,
"Mzungu mzungu!" which is their (non-racist) word for white person. It's,
also, hilarious and simultaneously adorable. I usually respond in Luganda,
which freaks them out. I've also taken to responding by saying, in Luganda, "I
am not mzungu... you are all mzungu!" This freaks them out even more, but they
think it's funny. A lot of really little kids cry when they see me. They are
so confused by white people.

I went to a wedding welcoming ceremony the other night... which is wear the
fiancee meets the family. People kept taking my picture and videotaping me,
which was a little bizarre. To be a white person in a small village outside of
Jinja... this is what it is like to be Amy Winehouse in London. They are always
watching me. Especially when I started dancing. But it's cool. So far. I've
also started teaching the kids some of the Soulja Boy dance.

Did I mention I live on a farm?

Hahahhahah

Because I do. Complete with the hole-in-the ground bathroom, live chickens
running around (I helped catch one the other day... and in my naive mind didn't
realize why until we had chicken for dinner...), goats, cows. I helped the
family make food the other day too, which was sweet. I also take baths in the
backyard by pouring water over myself out of a bucket. BUCKET BATH WHAT! I
can't necessarily say Ugandan food is completely agreeing with me, but there's
always chapati (aka cha-PARTY in my mouth!)... delicious naan-like bread. My
host mom keeps giving me peanut butter. She thinks Americans are obsessed with
it. But it's comforting and digestable, so I've been having it at basically
every meal. She feeds me so much I'm going to be fat when I leave. I'm not
joking. My fears of losing weight... completely unwarranted.

It's fun though. Seriously.

Ummm what else! Oh I started my job today. Luckily my work lady speaks
impeccable English, so I have the best of both worlds. I think I'll be helping
with some sexual health lesson plans for kids and helping a community of woman
start their own poultry farm.



THE LOST EMAIL #1

So here I am, in the fastest internet cafe in all of Jinja, Uganda. This email
will not be clever, it won't be proofread, and it will probably be short,
because this keyboard is hard to use. But you are all worthy of an email. And
since it's summer, everyone's email boxes are probably sadly empty, so I'll try
to brighten up your summer jobs with LISA'S INITIAL IMPRESSIONS OF UGANDA.

I was wrong about a lot of things. This country is so surprising! Right now
I'm staying in this, from what I can see, cushy Ugandan hotel... I mean, we've
got a shower, a toilet, a nice bed, a sweet mosquito bed that makes me feel
like I have an African princess bed... it's pretty sweet. Mostly we've been
touring the town and learning the local language, things like that. I move in
with my host family on Friday... I'm actually living with a Muslim woman, a
little outside the city, and she's a politician, so that should be pretty
interesting. They told me she has 5 orphan kids that live with her, which is
awesome... but then someone else told me that a lot of times the orphan kids
are just kind of servants? So I'll have to wait and see what happens with
that. It's bizarre because my initial impression was that women are pretty
well-off here. I mean, Muslim woman politician, in a Christian country? I
feel like that's pretty good. But then another intern told me that he and his
host dad eat at the table every night, and the mom and daughters eat on the
floor. Soo I'll have to wait and figure out for myself what the deal is. I'm
working with a woman's rights organization, and my boss seems super feisty. It
should be good.

When I flew into Entebbe, my bags didn't make it, but I wasn't really surprised,
because I'd had really good luck throughout my entire life with that kind of
stuff. I was due. And I have them now, so no big. I was just the dirty girl
for a couple of days, wearing the same clothes, not showering... it happens.
We went to a zoo and there were monkeys running around like squirrels. I guess
not all of Uganda is actually like that... I was pretty excited when I thought I
would wake up to monkeys on my windowsill. But no. And then I apparently
"harassed" a monkey... I thought we were just playing, but he got a little
angry and started chasing me. It's important to remember what the signs say:
If you tease the monkeys, they'll fight back and react just as you would!

Driving through Uganda was nuts mainly because I had no idea it was so... I
don't know, CARS EVERYWHERE! It was polluted! Just lots and lots of smog,
which blew my mind, in Kampala. And then we hit the rainforest. So COMPLETE
OPPOSITE. Such is the way of the world. DICHOTIMIZED.

Each day I will ride to work on a boda-boda... aka the back of a bicycle. It's
basically what we did in Angers all the time, only the seat has a cushion, and
there is a footrest to set your legs on. No pain in the IT band. HOLLA. We
took a boat ride down the Nile the other day. This mainly involved me making
lots of jokes about how we were all in "De-Nile" and everyone else asking what
we were in denial about. We're going to go rafting sometime. Jinja is the
source of the Nile river and has mad rapids. People die and break their legs.
But I'll wear a helmet.

They have a ridiculous amount of food here. Remember how I worried about losing
weight? HA! Not going to happen. I'm going to gain it, if anything. They
have these things called Chapati... more like... CHA-PARTY for my mouth! Ha...
but seriously. It's like naan. And I love naan. Sometimes I feel like it's
Indiana, because there is a ton of corn, cows roaming the streets, and
chickens. But it's not. This is Africa.

Hmm what else? The people are all just really nice. I've been trying to speak
Luganda, the local language, with them. Mostly it just ends up coming out with
a French accent. And lots of French words to fill in what I don't know. They
think it's really hilarious though, when white people try to speak the
language. They're all just very good natured and supportive of having people
from the West come in. And they are soo sharp yo! Like sharply dressed. I'm a
bum. I don't really own any shirts with collars which has immediately put me at
a disadvantage.

The people I'm here with are pretty cool... one girl was in the peace corps, and
one studied in Angers last year. Which was super random. And I'm pretty sure
she stayed with Brian's host dad... hahahhaha more on that later.

Okay so I promise to make these more exciting, but I figured I should just tell
you guys I'm alive/give you some basic background.


love love love!
-- Lisa

Cannes you dig it? ... ohhh man

This past weekend I went to the Cannes Film Festival. I don’t know if anyone could ever possibly comprehend everything that happened to me.


So I’m not even going to try.








Nooooo joking! I will try. But it was seriously the most ridiculously random, spontaneous, and at times terrifying vacation of my life. In some good ways and some bad ways, in some just in between ways. To begin with, there was a train strike in France... and when I found out it was going to affect my train to Cannes, I had to decide whether to leave in the next two hours or wait two days. At about the same time, I found out that my original place to say had fallen through... and obviously, since it’s the freaking Cannes Film Festival, finding an alternative and reasonable (i.e. I ain’t no Brangelina, I can’t pay 300 euro a night for a bed yo) finding new lodging was going to be... difficult. In addition, I had found out a week before that my travel buddy could no longer accompany me, so I would be all by myself. With these thoughts in mind, I decided to be adventurous. I took the first train to Cannes that I could manage, even though I had no where to go. I figured it would work itself out. Yeah spontaneity!!!

It didn’t.

I called and texted everyone that could possibly know someone who’d know someone in the Cannes/Nice area... to no avail. I looked for new friends on my train... but I ended up sitting by a dude who read porn and a cat lady (long hair, nervous look about her, 4 cats in one cage with her)... so no luck there. I decided I’d just lock up my bag in Cannes for the first night and roam the streets... but the locker station was closed when I got in. So basically, I got to Cannes and was scared shitless. I sat outside the train station for like an hour, looking for someone who might be able to help me or be my friend. I kept getting swarmed by scary drunk/high French middle schoolers necking and loitering in the area. It was terrifying. It was cold. I just kept thinking to myself, “And then no one ever saw Lisa... ever again.” I saw Tom Arnold and wanted to ask him for help, but he seemed like he was in a hurry. I hate Tom Arnold.

Luckily, with the help of one of my friends in Angers, I booked a hostel in Nice and managed to catch the last bus leaving the train station. On the bus I met a whole bunch of disillusioned kids from Georgia, who turned out to be doing the same thing as me in Cannes. So they gave me a little run down on what I could expect the next day, which, as they said, was “This badge gets you NOTHING... make fake business cards and prepare to beg, lie, cheat, and steal to get what you want.” They were very inspiring. I also met this 50 year old Irish man named Michael. We talked about politics and his half-blind ex-girlfriend, who had thought “The Last King of Scotland” was a nice happy movie since she couldn’t see anyone dying a brutal death on the screen. Michael was cool and took pity on me and gave me money. But he also kept getting this vacant look in his eyes while we were talking, which creeped me out. So when the bus stopped, I ran away from him.

A lot of my trip was very shaped by the people I met. I made a lot of 30 minute friends... pick people up as I meet them, talk for 30 minutes, then go our separate ways. The next day on my way to Cannes, I hung out with these stoner kids from Vermont. I tried to convince them that I too was a hardcore stoner, and we talked about the pros and cons of hash versus marijuana. I made up some conversation about how hash makes me feel exotic but pot makes me feel closer to nature... they seemed to agree? They had pictures of them getting high at every landmark in Europe, which was impressive, I had to admit.



At Cannes, I went and picked up my “official” badge, then I just roamed away. All I had gotten was the badge, so I had no idea where to go, where anything was, or basically, what was going on at all. I just wandered. I found a big crowd of people in a line, so I decided to wait in it. I didn’t know what it was for. Then some dude came up and was like, “Toute seule?” Which means “You’re by yourself?” And I was like oui, and he handed me a ticket and walked away. And that’s how I got into the Director’s Master Class with Quentin Tarantino, which wasn’t open to the public and you had to have a ticket. He’s a funny man. He never even finished middle school. I ended up finding more disillusioned kids from Georgia and sitting with them... they were very disillusioned with Quentin, and the guy next to me just kept muttering, “Pompous bastard...” throughout the lecture. Personally, I don’t really care if Quentin Tarantino is a pompous bastard, I thought it was cool to see how he put his movies together. One thing he said about Pulp Fiction was pretty interesting... apparently he wrote it while he was living in Amsterdam, the first time he’d ever left America... and that’s why it has so many random references to American pop culture in it, because he was very aware of the eccentricities while he was somewhere else. I don’t know, I thought that was cool since I’m studying abroad and noticing stuff like that too. In other words, I should have been using this time to write my own Pulp Fiction.




So after that lecture, I went back outside and found another line, and again, had no idea what it was for. I ended up being the last person in the line to make it into this movie, “Ocean Flame.” It was the premiere and the director and the cast were there... it was pretty cool. The movie was basically about this Asian gangster guy and this sweet, virginal girl and their destructive, sexually violent relationship. Everyone dies in the end. Sorry if you were going to see it. You can still enjoy the process of getting to that point.

I made another friend during that movie, this French film student named Rosalie. We decided to go watch Dirty Harry on the beach, and Clint Eastwood came! Dirty Harry himself was there! Dirty Harry is a really funny movie. But at the end of it, I was getting tired of movies where people get shot and beat up all the time, after all the Quentin Tarantino stuff and the Asian movie and now this creepy Scorpio guy was running around San Francisco with a sketchmo look on his face murdering people.




The next day, I got to Cannes as early as I could, and immediately tried to find a movie to see. I had dressed up that day, so I looked slightly professional, with my dress and my badge around my neck. For this reason, I was allowed into another premiere screening... I just showed up, late, breathless, and asked if I was too late. The security guard looked at my badge, hesitated, and then just let me in with all the journalists and industry people. Yeahhh! And they were lighter, comedy movies, so that was good. One was about this guy working at a gas station, and I really liked it. Later, I went to the second half of the short film competition. That was probably my favorite event... I really liked all of them. Especially the last one, which was a claymation movie called “Den Derhchaoigha paugaogheia.” Actually it was something Dutch or German that I didn’t understand, but it translated into “The Little Puppet Boy.” It was sweeeeeeeet!

So Cannes was going great. I had actually done most of what I’d dreamed to do, save one thing: make it into a screening at the Grand Palais, with the red carpet. I’d imagined this would be nearly impossible, but the disillusioned kids from Georgia told me it was actually easier than I thought. All you had to do, they said, was get dressed up... girls have to have heels... and make a sign, then stand outside the theater and beg for a ticket. So... I decided what the hell, I’ll try. It was for Synecdoche, New York, this Charlie Kaufmann movie... and I love Charlie Kaufmann, so if it worked out, it’d be pretty awesome.

This ended up being the worst experience of my life.





I made my freaking sign, then I started walking. The Georgia kids were right, there were a ton of people doing this. I had been told to look for random old men dressed up, because they usually had a lot of extra tickets. So I did. I did and I did. I felt like a freaking beggar prostitute or something. I wasn’t as bad as most people, who would get all up in every dressed up person’s face yelling, “TICKET! TICKET!” No. I tried to be polite and semi-classy, I said a lot of “Bonsoirs” and made small talk with other people. I did this for two hours. A lot of the Georgia kids ended up scoring tickets, but I was not having any luck. I held out hope.

And then, a light. This hipster tattooed woman, dressed all in black, comes up to me. “Ticket?” she asks and I was so excited!! “Oui oui!” I responded, and she took my arm and took me to the line for the red carpet. She worked for the production company that made Amelie and Paris, Je T’aime. How it works is, if your company doesn’t use all of its tickets, you get penalized (aka less tickets) next year. So they had to get rid of this ticket, and they chose me! While we were in line, her boss called, frantic, to see if she had found someone for the ticket. I heard her say, “Oui, la fille en rose.” Which is “Yeah, the girl in pink.” Which means I had the lovely distinction of being known as the pink beggar girl by everyone in Cannes. But whatever, I had done it!

We got to the red carpet, I hand them my ticket. Just as we are about to fulfill every dream of my childhood and adult life, the security guard grabs me and says no. Your ticket and badge do not match. You need a blue ticket to get in and this one is yellow. No. Tattooed woman freaks out, because she really needs me to get in. And I’m like “No! No! S’il vous plait! Pourquoi pas! No ! » But it is no use. So they don’t let me in, and even though tattooed lady tries to fight for me for a minute, she really has to find someone else. So I stand at the edge of the red carpet, on the verge of tears, in my heels, and my dress, and take my stupid beggar sign back out. And this is how every celebrity got to see me, but I did not notice any of them. And this is how I got to be in random tabloid pictures as the desperate pathetic sad girl all dressed up in the background. I got another stupid yellow ticket during this process, but they still wouldn’t let me in. The security guards started feeling really bad for me, and trying to help me find a ticket. No avail. I stayed outside for 15 minutes after the movie, after everyone had left.

I felt so ridiculous and pathetic and that was when I decided I really, really hated this dumb stupid part of Cannes, and even though I was going to be there for a few more days, there was no way in hell I was ever putting myself through this demeaning and humiliating process every again. It was kind of ironic, since I’d gotten to do all sorts of other stuff there on pure luck, but this one time I actually sought out an opportunity, I failed miserably. It was a lot more fun just stumbling across things and people like Clint Eastwood spontaneously. So I took off my heels, bought a kebab, and went to go watch “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” on the beach.

To save money, I’d previously decided I wouldn’t get a room that night because they were showing free movies all night at a theater in Cannes. So I trekked over to this random theater and did that, watching the first movie then sleeping through the last two. When they finished, it was 7 in the morning. I made one more trek along the sea shore and watched all the people packing up and catching their early buses out of Cannes. Then I decided to do the same. I’d seen about 8 movies in two days and the festival was just about wrapped up, so I’d just go to Nice and take it easy for the day.

On the train to Nice, more and more people kept getting on all decked out in racing gear. That was when I remembered it was Grand Prix weekend in Monaco. I decided to be dangerous and illegally stay on the train through Monaco instead of getting off at Nice. When I got off, I saw a group of girls about my age, but all dressed up in official clothing. So I followed them for awhile, which, once again was hard given my bright pink dress, but I was very clandestine. It was fun, they helped me find a cheap coffee shop and I saw a lot of the town. Then they turned down a sketchy ally so I ditched them for the ocean.

I love the ocean. I love the beach. It was just what I needed.

Monaco is also cool because it has free public bathrooms and showers... and maybe it was just for the Grand Prix, but there were free buses everywhere! I got on one and asked where it went, and the guy said “N’importe quel edroit... tu chois!”... which means... wherever you want! That’s enough to make any place great for me.

This is super long, I should wrap it up.

So yeah, I toured Monaco, chatted with some more security officers, listened to the sounds of the Grand Prix, then went back to Nice and wandered some more. It started raining and there was no where to go... so I went to a Church. I felt horrible because I was so tired at this point that I kept nodding off and I think it looked like I needed an exorcism, the way I’d slump over then jerk back awake. I stumbled across a techtonik dance off for middle schoolers too, which was freaking awesome. The guys who won were really good. They had it all... euro vests, mullets, cheeky personalities.... I think they have a very bright future. Almost as bright as techtonik neon clothes!!!




So at the end of the day, I just got on the train and booked it back to Angers. And I survived. I survived, damnit! I made friends, I saw movies, and I didn't die! So it was good.

wooooooooooo

So coming back from Spain was a little rough. My first day back I had an intimidating presentation to give, a whole bunch of packages to pick up from the post office and lug around town, and it was pouring freezing rain. I was no longer in Spain. I was back in France. And suddenly, my entire plan of going to Uganda started to unravel, because I realized I had no money and no vaccinations and not a lot of time to fix everything.

Luckily a lot of good things happened to turn the tide. I went out to dinner with some visiting officials from Notre Dame... they treated us to spectacular French cuisine and it was a really fun night. Some of my friends bought a frisbee, so that helped. Facebook chat happened, and I don’t even care what people think, I think it’s great since I have no skype. And then, the weather became marvelous. So after, France and I were on good terms again.

I’ve spent a lot of the last couple days outside since il faisait beau. Angers has a lot of parks, but I hadn’t explored many of them. One night, I went with some friends to a park between the chateau and the river, and one guy brought his guitar, and it was lovely. The next day, Gloria organized a trip to the Cointreau factory for us... I didn’t know what Cointreau was, but apparently it’s pretty famous. Annnd it’s made in Angers, so we trekked over to watch a film about it and then have free cocktails. When I first tried it, it burned my throat and almost made me cry. It’s this 40% alcohol, so I mean, maybe that was why. But then we made “cointreaupolitans,” which I just think is a really funny word, and it was better. All of the alcohol factories in France love to make movies about themselves. When we visited a winery earlier this year, we watched a movie there too – and both it and the Cointreau movie ended with shots of smiling, happy people enjoying the beverage of choice. The wine one was funny because it just basically showed teenagers being belligerent after trying the wine. The Cointreau one tried to show sexy yuppies enjoying Cointreau. I’ve enjoyed imitating both movies:

We had a picnic later that afternoon, a French-American affair complete with fromage, wine, and hot dogs. There were people playing gypsy music at a neighboring picnic, and I played some frisbee and basketball, complete with franglais trash talking. Good times. We also randomly saw a yak in the park. I don’t know if that’s like a special zoo-like attraction, or if yaks roam wildly in France. But whatever, I saw a yak!

The beginning of May is full of little French holidays... marked mostly by the fact that everything shuts down. I’ve noticed more strikes lately, namely the newspaper strike. Luckily it was only two days long, but I still managed to miss the fact that a cyclone hit Burma. I’ve found that the best way to deal with these holidays where everything shuts down is to stay out really late the night before and sleep through half of the next lazy day.

I’ve been trying to visit some more “local” things...well, actually, I’m also poor, so staying in the area is a good idea. But I visited Nantes, the biggest city near Angers, last Saturday. Like Angers, Nantes has a castle... but unlike Angers, Nantes has a tram. Angers is getting a tram right now... it’s kind of a big deal here, and all of the bus lines have been disrupted so tram construction can begin. In the midst of the tram digging, they keep finding random human skeletons in the ground. Full grown and preserved people. Little babies. It’s creepy as shit. But anyway, the Nantes tram was cool, and there are no dead people by it. Nantes was cool too. There was a random Japanese island in the middle of the city, a giant robotic elephant, and a castle. There are always castles.


But anyway, the next day I went to Brussels for a school trip. I honestly didn’t see much of the city, because we were in the European Union the whole day, but that was pretty cool so it was okay. It was my birthday!! My 21st birthday. Never in my wildest, craziest, minor dreams had I imagined that was how I would spend the big 2-1. At the European Parliament, baby! Gloria bought me a Belgian beer and I drank it once we got back to Angers. I also had a Belgian waffle... in BELGIUM!

One of my favorite memories of the European Union came right at the beginning of our tour. Luckily, our tour guide was British... I mean, I’m all for speaking French and learning, but I know I miss a lot when we go to tours in French. But this one was in English, yay! Anyway, our distinguished and sassy British tour guide told us we could take pictures on the tour, but not in the meetings we attended. So we start walking and he stops to talk to someone in front of some mailboxes. These mailboxes were divided among all the different countries. I guess they were kind of cool. But my friend Scott got really excited and ran up to take pictures of the mailboxes. Our tour guide kind of looked at him but then was like whatever kid, take pictures of the mailboxes and kept talking. But then! Some dude comes out of nowhere and accosts Scott and makes him erase the pictures of the mailboxes. A picture of a mailbox is not just a picture of a mailbox is not just a picture of a mailbox... in the European Union. Security breach!!!! We almost got kicked out of Belgium. Not really. Almost.