nobody loves me

why doesn't anybody call me anymore?

:(

Nnina Ocwee

"Nnina Ocwee" means “I am Ocwee” in Acholi. In other words, not only did I see tons of cool animals this weekend, but I also finally got an Acholi name. and it’s AWESOME. “ocwee” means “you make it.” when we were driving to Murchison falls, we were driving with a ugandan woman who works at a hotel in the park. She asked us what our names were; Courtney and the Italians already had acholi names, but I didn’t have one yet. So the woman asked me about myself, and when I told her that I had 3 sisters and no brothers, she named me ocwee. Basically, when a couple has children of all one sex and people ask them why they don’t have any children of the other sex, they say “ocwee” to mean, if you want children of that sex so badly, then “you go make it.” great, right???

We saw SO MANY ANIMALS this weekend. We saw TONS of elephants and giraffes and antelope and buffalo and hippos and 3 lions. Considering the number of lions in the park has dwindled to less than 100, 3 is pretty good. unfortunately I left my thingy for transferring my pictures to my computer in kampala, but I got some of courtney’s pictures and I’ll put those on here for now. I took a bunch of videos of elephants and giraffes, so hopefully I can get those to upload next week when I’m back in kampala.

So we left at 5 a.m. on Saturday morning. It took about 3 hours to drive there. Once we arrived, we checked into our hotel (called “the red chili”, a.k.a. muzungu central) and proceeded to try making reservations for the 2 pm nile river cruise. We were soon informed that it was all booked, and our only option was to hire a private boat which would cost $200. we were pretty peeved and really didn’t want to spend that much money. Then we learned that there is a small boat that only costs $125. at first they told us it was too dangerous to take the small boat because of the hippos, but then we decided they were liars and told them we wanted the small boat. So we’re getting ready to go and they inform us that, in fact, we’re going to take the medium boat and we’re going to pick up 5 other muzungus on the other side of the river who will join us on the cruise. Peeved again, but oh well. So the 4 of us get into the medium boat, head out, and soon realize that we are NOT picking up the other muzungus and we have the medium boat all to ourselves. YES.

It was a 3 hour cruise and it was really beautiful and peaceful and we saw basically everything except lions SUPER close up. We probs saw like 50 elephants, cause they were all traveling in huge herds, complete with tons of little babies! At one point a group of 10 elephants came right up to the edge of the river and stood there drinking for like 5 minutes while we floated about 10 feet away and watched. It was INCREDIBLE. I got a video of that, so I’ll upload it next week. Then we saw the falls, which were beautiful. There was this disgusting, dirty foam floating in the water from the falls and it really made me mad. I don’t know why.

When we finished the cruise, we went back to the hotel and ate lunch and I got a SUPER YUMMY carrot burger. Then we went and hiked to the top of the falls. It was beautiful and SCARY. I’m discovering that my little ledge incident has given me quite the fear of heights. Driving back to the hotel, it was just about dusk, and all the tsetse flies came out and they SUCKED. They were huge and disgusting and their bites hurt like hell. And they transmit sleeping sickness. :)

Now we come to the night. Saturday night was the most T.I.A. night I’ve had so far. It was HORRIBLE and it lasted an ETERNITY. There were 3 rooms; 2 with single beds and 1 with a huge bed called the muzunguton. We flipped a coin and Courtney and I ended up in the muzunguton bed. I was fine with everything until I was getting ready to go to bed and realized the bed was crawling with bed bugs. I really, really didn’t want to deal with that, so we considered sleeping on the dinky little wicker chairs in the sitting room area. Then we remember, if we don’t sleep in the bed, we don’t have a mosquito net. We check the mosquito net and it’s crawling with bed bugs too. So we have to choose our poison: bed bugs or mosquitos and tsetse flies. Here’s the rationale that leads us to choose the mosquitos and tsetse flies:
(1) if you get bitten by mosquitos and tsetse flies, there’s medicine to deal with sickness. If you get bed bugs, they follow you around wherever you go and continue to bite you.
(2) If I slather myself in bug lotion and wear clothes that cover my body completely, maybe I won’t get bitten….? (or die of a heatstroke?)
(3) If I do get bitten and do get malaria, the malaria symptoms won’t show up for at least a week. So, if I work really hard on my research and my report this coming week and get malaria the next week, it’s not going to pwn me too much, right? (sad thought process, I know…)
(4) Even if I decided to sleep in the bed, I don’t think I’d be able to fall asleep knowing that the little shits are crawling all over me.

So we sleep on the chairs. I wake up pretty much every half hour in total misery and discomfort. Then at about midnight, I wake up to the sound of rustling outside the cabin. I lay there in terror for about a half hour, not wanting to move and not wanting to wake up Courtney for fear that she’ll freak out in her half-asleep state. (she had already woken up screaming once from a dream that the ceiling was crawling with bugs. I didn’t have much hope of falling asleep after that little incident.) of course I’m laying there imagining all of the horrible things that could be about to happen (LRA rebels, bandits knowing there’s a bunch of muzungus with money sleeping inside, etc., etc.), so finally I wake up Courtney and we realize it’s WARTHOGS. Goddammit I hate those warthogs. They’re so ugly and annoying and they roam the hotel premises freely because technically it’s park land. (Disney definitely did a good job of cute-fying pumba but they also did a really impressive job of capturing exactly how warthogs move and run. Fyi.) Finally I fall asleep for about 2 hours, and then up at 6 for the game drive. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper.

But the game drive was totally awesome and we got to stand up in the bed of the truck with the wind in our faces and giraffes running like 10 feet away. (my body is so sore today from being jerked around in the back of the truck, but it’s okay, it was worth it) Oh my god it’s SO AWESOME to watch giraffes run…they look like they’re going in slow motion but actually they’re covering a ton of ground cause they’re so big. I have a video of that, too.

Then we drove home. While we were driving a stupid car passed us really fast and splashed through a puddle of mud and it flew into our truck and all over my face. That was cool.

I feel like this post has been boring and full of insignificant details. Hopefully the pictures will suffice to make it worth reading.

Also p.s. the guy at the internet café where I always come just told me that his friend has a new baby and his friend asked him to name the baby and guess what he named it? yep….Ashley. oh, Uganda.


this tree has these tube-shaped goo-filled things hanging from it and when elephants eat them they get drunk.


these are buffalo, but i think they look like old men with combovers. right?










this is the view from the top of murchison falls.


me and courtney in the middle, the italian girls on either end.

murchison falls

hey friends.

jas i SUCK happy belated birthday!!! i love you!!

and since i won't be posting for a few days, happy birthday grandpa!!! (the 14th and the 16th...)

so first i have some bad news, and then i have some good news.

the bad news is a little outdated, but i'm out of the loop and i just found out yesterday (i don't know whether to say thanks, j). this is terrifying and shocking, but i'll tell you from the outset that all is fine now, so try not to freak out too much. apparently on september 21st, while performing in spain, leonard cohen collapsed onstage. they say he had bad food poisoning (i'm so afraid they're lying) and he passed out while singing "bird on a wire.". considering he's 75 and touring all over the world, one fainting spell actually seems pretty impressive. supposedly there's video footage of him fainting, but i think i would die if i watched it.

we love you, leonard. REMEMBER WHEN I SAW HIM IN NEW YORK OMG SO GOOD.

and now for the good news. last week when i was dying all my roommates went to murchison falls, a national park that has beautiful waterfalls and ALL THE BIG ONES -- lions, elephants, giraffes, hippos, etc. etc. obvs i couldn't go cause i was sicky, but i'm going this weekend!!

at the orphanage where my 2 friends live/volunteer (and have the wireless internet), the orphanage people always take the volunteers to murchison falls. there are 3 italians who volunteer there, too, and they're going this weekend, and my friend courtney and i persuaded them to let us tag along. so we're leaving at 5 am tomorrow morning and coming back sunday night. you should SEE the pictures they got last time...they sat in the bed of a pickup truck and drove around and these animals were literally like 10 feet away. i'm going to have SUCH juicy pictures for you, because i don't have any moral qualms about taking pictures of animals.

oh and sarah b., giving them wrong numbers sounds like a good idea in theory, except for that they always want your number first and then they "flash you" (i.e., call you -- it took awhile to get used to that term) so you'll have their number, so if you give them the wrong number and they try to flash you and it doesn't go through....pwned.

til monday!

creepers

okay, THIS IS IT. i hope i didn't hype it up too much. if you're disappointed, find another blog to read. JK KEEP READING MINE IT'S THE BEST!!! i tried to do as much research as possible but people were hard to get ahold of and i didn't want to leave ya'll suffering with anticipation.

so this post is a small compilation of some of the CREEPER texts and emails people on my program have gotten. i'm only including a handful of examples here, but considering there's 29 girls on the program and we all get proposed to on average 4 times a day, there are a LOT of juicy examples. also i just want to show you that i'm not the only one who attracts the creepers with a special flair for bringing out the romance of english language. i tried to keep the grammatical beauty of these texts as intact as possible. here goes....

(1) i debated saving this one for last, because it's one of the best, but i might as well start off with a bang. so this was sent to courtney, who is one of my favorite people on this program. she was on a 2 hour taxi ride and the conductor kept pestering her to give him her number. she kept saying she didn't have a phone. finally, about 1/2 hour into the ride, she moves to another seat and her phone falls out of her pocket. OOPS. so then she had to give him her number. later that night, this is what she receives: "Flying kiss honey it’s me Ali a’m missing u. at my fast time when I sow u, u breaked my heat .honey, try to show me that u love me. honey let me tell u that u are beautiful lady. honey, i have many wards but let me stop there. but have a sweet good nite."

(2) now julie, who is one of the girls i'm living with in gulu, seems to attract the MOST creepers. she's very blond and very sweet and looks very all-american, so i think that's what does it. one night she was at a club and she met this guy named frank from congo. he entered his number into her phone as "frank from congo." since then he's been calling and texting her multiple times a day. here's the first text she received: "Hi baby, hop urefine. this frank 4yestertay night enge noir club.may gv me,in apoitment.imissu." then, a few nights later, he sends this: "This may not be an easy thing to do, I can handle it. “Even if this was true in the beginning, it is not so now. The drugs handled us, We lived to use and used to live. Very simply, an addict is a person whose life is controlled by drugs."

WTF?

then frank from congo apparently gives julie's number to his friend richard from tanzania, who texts this to julie: "Hi J.!U make feel good since u’ve a chocolate smile.Richard from Tanzania."

(3) here's another one courtney received, this time from a guy named ibra. i haven't heard the story behind this one, but i'm sure it's beautiful: "hi iam sorry but I need to see u in my life ur my hero please sms me good night from ibra"

(4) here's a little gem that laura got. i don't even know how to begin to decipher what this guy's saying: "j am rovinz lauli, and i just wanted 2 say hei to you, and how is the stardies but i would like to run your language miss laulia i badge you, be afriend of main , just afreind . But let me say good buy , yours faithfully juall bless you !!”

(5) and finally, i'll end with my own. the other night i went to get some dinner. i was by myself and it was my first time venturing out into the world after malaria had smacked me down. i just wanted to eat and get back to bed. of course that wasn't in the cards. i sit down, and after a few minutes pass by i look up and see this guy just standing there STARING at me. i look at him, he doesn't look away. i look away for awhile, look back, he's still standing there. finally he motions to ask if he can sit with me. i don't have the energy to argue so i say okay. we have a fine conversation, nothing too creepy. he's seems totally nice and normal. i make a move to leave, and of course the inevitable "can i have your number." again, no energy to argue (that and i'm a wuss), so i just give it to him. the next day i receive this: "HOW.WAS UR DAY HOPE WAS GOOD AM SORRY I DID CALL U CAN U 4 GIVE ME, AVE GOOD NIGTH". many hours later i respond and say something along the lines of, "i'm still sick, resting, how are you", and he responds: "AM NOT FINE BECAUSE I AM MISSING U"

I DON'T GET IT. they're normal in real life, but when they start texting, a whole other side comes out.

Okay I’m going to eat Ethiopian food tonight. SO EXCITED.

p.s. annie I knew you were gonna get me on that one. I knew it even as I was typing it.

p.p.s. BOBBY I LOVE YOU.

anonymous

i don't like you "anonymous" commenters. you need to sign your name like a man. or i'll kick you off my blog.

malaria II

so now that the cat’s out of the bag (you should work for the c.i.a., mom), i might as well post about it, because i have nothing else to report considering i’ve literally been in bed all week. i have malaria again. this time it was HELL. last time it was just tickling me, and this time it punched me full on in the face. my body hurt so much i could barely move, and i was so fatigued it took all my energy just to moan in agony. needless to say, i wasn’t able to make it to an internet café all week – i was barely able to make it down the hall to the pit latrine (i didn’t think squatting over pit latrines could get any more fun, and then i did it with malaria and a whole new world of excitement opened up to me!). the doctor i went to at the beginning of the week said that the malaria i had last time probably just didn’t entirely go away, so i relapsed. he said the meds i took last time were pretty weak, and boy did the meds he gave me this time make up for it. they knocked me flat. i don’t know how much of my agony was malaria-induced and how much of it was the meds. anyway, i’m FINALLY starting to feel better, thank GOD. i’m trying not to stress about the fact that i missed an entire week of research or about the really passive aggressive text message my advisor sent me for cancelling our appointments last week…. (“trying” being the operative word here).

so since i have nothing else interesting to write about, i’ll tell you what i did to make it through the week (other than sleep 20 hours a day). i watched titanic twice, little miss sunshine twice, v for vendetta twice, ocean’s 11 three times (I could rob a casino blindfolded by now), amelie twice, and Leonard cohen’s live in london dvd twice. i even resorted to watching ocean’s 11 and little miss sunshine with the director’s commentary on. god help me. and all of this from within my cave of a hotel room that only has a window out to the hallway, meaning no fresh air and no natural light. and my really weird alarm clock, which likes to announce the temperature at random intervals, reminded me throughout the week that the temperature in my room was usually between 85 and 90 degrees, so s don’t know how much of my fever was a legit fever and how much was due to the fact that i was in a SAUNA.

the moral of the story? – (1) don’t get malaria; and (2) bring more than 3 movies with you to Africa (titanic and ocean’s 11 were courtesy of my roommates).

i have a post in the works that’s going to knock your socks off. hopefully it will make up for the fact that this post was a major complain-a-thon. so give me a few days to do some research and then GET READY TO LAUGH.

message from the barber

i really need to learn to say no to giving everyone and their brother my email address.

here's a message from the barber who cut my hair the other day...

Hi Ashley, how are you doing? This is Simon, the barber man who trimmed your hair of recent. Hope all is well in Gulu. I am really looking so much to see you so soon if it is really possible because that would really be my joy. I so much liked you from the other time and it was really my honor to chart with you and realizing how interesting it is to chart with you, it would be my pleasure to share this moment with you again. Have a nice time, God bless you. Looking forward to seeing you soon.

this moment....? ALL HE DID WAS CUT MY HAIR!?!?!?