On Friday we (Jeff, Ceaser, Grace, Concey, Oyet Pato, Janet and I) hit Gulu’s various night spots to celebrate Jeff’s 24th birthday. It was a pretty heavy night that kept us all out until 4am (and in bed until 4pm the next day – Worst Hangover Ever!). I have been amazed by Gulu’s nightlife; it is possible to find a bar/club playing music, full of people drinking and dancing until 3am, every night of the week. Part of me thinks it may be something to do with the fact that being able to move freely at night is still a relative novelty, after years of LRA raids rendered periods of darkness as times of fear and necessitated hiding until daylight came again. Either that or people in Gulu just loved to get fucked up and part-ay!
On Sunday I went (with Jeff) to visit the family in For God for dinner. They had a lot of family friends there, including the mother of the family’s brother and his two children. One of his girls was incredibly sick with malaria and could barely be woken from her sleep. She was absolutely boiling hot from the fever and was dripping with sweat. You could even feel her freakishly high temperature in her feet. I had a couple of strips of anti-malarials with me so I gave them to the father. I’m not sure what good the limited dose I gave them would do, but hopefully it will help, as she was so sick that doing nothing didn’t really seem an option.
For dinner we had spaghetti, a bitter green vegetable (I forget the name), rice and some beef stew. It was all very good, and they bought me an endless supply of sodas as well. They wheeled in the TV that usually sits in the communal area of the village and put on a copied Jackie Chan DVD they had for me. It was badly dubbed as it was, but then there were further subtitles too, which bore absolutely no relation to what the bad dubbing was saying! I have no idea what the film was called, but it also starred Lee Evans, to which everybody in the room took great delight in pointing out how I looked just like him. I pointed out that they only said that because he was a Mzungu (a white person) like me, hoping to induce some sort of culturally sensitive; “yes you are right, what a terrible racial slur we have just made. Terribly sorry my good man”, but instead being greeted with a broad grin and the statement, “yes, all you Mzungu look the same to us”.
On Monday I fell sick all of a sudden with a temperature, blinding headache and dizziness. The guy I was with at the time was suffering from a bout of malaria, and so to were other people I had spent time with recently, so I was a little concerned I had the same. I tried to go to sleep at 8pm, but I couldn’t sleep until about 4am because every time I closed my eyes the headache intensified. The people at the hotel I am staying took me to the hospital in the morning, where I was tested for Malaria. Fortunately it came back negative, but they said “I have a bacterial infection, most likely flu”. I always thought Flu was a virus, not a bacteria, but I know shit all about medical issues so I’m probably wrong!
The hospital gave me a bag of tablets, with no markings on them, no indication of what they were, when they went out of date or even how I should take them. I took them and spent the next two days asleep basically; only awoken by Jeff’s frequent visits to check I was ok. If I hadn’t have insisted otherwise I’m pretty sure he would have kept a permanent beside vigil for me! He even cancelled his return back to Jinja where he had meetings scheduled as he was so concerned for me! It all felt rather unnecessary but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
I woke up this morning however feeling perfectly fine, and have thus far spent the day trying to catch up with all the work I haven’t been doing this week! I had two meetings today with the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative who have been fairly instrumental in the peace process between the LRA & the Government. Tomorrow I have a further meeting with an organisation called Terra Renaissance at 8am (who schedules meetings for 8am, honestly!), and I also have two meetings on Monday, one with a Captain in the Ugandan Army. I feel I may have to alter my questions and tread somewhat carefully for this one!
In a further incidence of multicultural mishap (Greg Smith, 2009: Center Parcs!), I was playing pool earlier today in a small town about 7km out of Gulu called Lacor (pronounced La-Chow), when three people came in and started watching us. They were speaking animatedly in Acholi and laughing a lot, so I asked Jeff what they were saying. He smiled a mischievous grin and informed me that “they are trying to decide if you are Chinese or not”. I looked puzzled. He then added “they say you are very white, but you have small squint eyes like China people. They are confused”. He then joined in their conversation briefly. I asked what he had said to them to which he replied “I told them you are Chinese like Jackie Chan”. Brilliant…! Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Gulu: A haven of racial tolerance!
Finally, today I went to use the internet and the guy who runs the place said the power had gone. I asked how long he thought it would be gone for, to which he raised his hands to the sky, shrugged and said “T.I.A. This is Africa”. I was rather excited by this, as previously I had heard no one other than Danny Archer (played by the mighty Leonardo Di Retardo) from Blood Diamond say this; except of course for Antony (Danny #2), Jon (Danny #3) and I (Danny #1), who said it constantly throughout our time together in our amazing (read also as: shitty!) South African/Rhodesian accents! I realise this is of no great consequence to anyone other than me, and perhaps Antony and Jon, but I enjoyed it greatly, and thought I should share!
Oh, I have also been offered a piece of land in Gulu by a friend. It will be interesting to see what materialises of this offer! I’m told its prime real estate though, right next to the university. Needless to say, I’m fairly sceptical!
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