First, I have to give credit to Phil
Arnheim, my first Peace Corps site mate, for the title. During our winter break in Nanchong, we
developed a pattern of going out to the clubs several nights a week. One day he joked that our new routine was
“Wash. Rinse. Repeat.” I’ve never
forgotten that week or that phrase. So,
it naturally came to mind considering I had almost the exact same travel
schedule to Kampala two weeks in a row.
Except this time, we actually had our scheduled training.
Considering that I spent twenty-four hours
in the truck within a nine- day period, it began to felt like my office. So here’s a sample of conversations and events
from “around the water cooler” en route to/from Kampala.
As soon as we left Soroti, our driver
played a mixed country music CD. Imagine
my surprise when I hear Randy Travis singing “Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County”. For those of you not from Kentucky, this is
only two counties away from Grayson County, where I grew up. Never thought I’d be listening to a song
about coal mines and the Green River while driving around Uganda. What a small, globalized world.
Several hours later, as we approached
Lugazi, about an hour outside of Kampala, a traffic cop in a while uniform
gestured for us to pull over. I
immediately felt like I was in trouble.
All I could think was “I don’t have my physical passport, only the
copy!” After I rolled down my window,
and we exchanged niceties, he said “my job is stop speed. Your job is stop
malaria.” We all chuckled. He held up
his radar and it read 61. The sign in
front of us said 50. He also said that a
previous sign said 50. Our driver (who I
won’t name here), got out of the car and looked for a copy of his permit. Eventually he found it and then asked one of
us for 5,000 shillings (about $2). I
fished a bill out of my wallet.
Basically, he bribed the cops with 5,000 to avoid getting a 100,000
fine. Yep, yours truly indirectly
supplied a bribe. Honestly, I’m ok with
it. TIA.
Towards the end of the training, one of the
facilitators was giving a session about finance and accountability. She explained that if you can’t get a receipt
for something, you need to at least write a note with the amount on it to
“cover your back”. Then, Badru, leaned
over to me and said, “or your ass.” I
had to lay my head down on the table to stifle my laughter. So much for the pious image of him I had in
my head! But it just made me like him
even more.
Earlier that week in the actual office, one
of my male coworkers asked me “what does douche
bag mean? I always hear that in American movies.” I couldn’t help laugh. So, I put on my English teacher hat and tried
to explain both meanings with as much dignity as possible. Another conversation I never imagined having
at Stop Malaria. Definitely not in my
job description!
This weekend I saw some real wash, rinse, repeat action as I visited
a salon with my friend Angela. She’s the
manager of the Holiday Inn in Soroti.
And no, it’s not the Holiday
Inn. First, we had lunch at the Akello
hotel. It was really just an excuse to
spy on the competition. To convince the
staff to give us a tour of the rooms, she told them that we worked for an “organization”
and might need to use their hotel in their future. I almost started laughing at
the front desk. A few times Angela would
ask questions like “Oh, it’s so clean, do you clean everyday?” or “How many
staff do you have here?” and then turn around and wink at me.
We tried to go to the Dubai Complex to scope out cheap house wares for my new
place. But they wanted to make me not
only check my backpack, but also my purse.
No way. So, I decided if I
couldn’t shop, I might as well join her at the salon. Upon entering Sammy J’s Unisex Salon, we had
to take off our shoes. I didn’t
understand this because the floor was covered in a thin red carpet you would
see in a skeezy bar with combs and parts of weaves scattered all around. There
were at least 10 women in the small front room gettin’ their hair did.
When I told them I wanted a pedicure, I was
led into the back room. I waited on a
couch while one man filled an electric foot bath with hot water and shampoo. In
the background, a bad 80’s American action movie was playing on a Kenyan TV
channel. The plug for the footbath had
only two prongs. Ugandan electric
sockets have three. To compensate, he
simultaneously plugged in the two pronged one in the bottom and a comb in the
top one. I started to visualize my death
via electrocution as the footbath made some pathetic sounds. So, after dumping it out in the shampoo bowl
and retrying it a few times, he eventually settled a regular basin. After soaking my feet for about 5 minutes in
the basin, a woman came over and got the electric footbath working. My feet have never been so thoroughly
scrubbed in my life. I’m pretty sure I won’t need another pedicure until I
leave Africa next year. She not only
used an apricot exfoliating cream, but also a pumice and a file. I’m pretty sure
she spent a good 10 minutes on each foot while alternating my feet back in the
regular basin in between scrubbings.
I chose an electric blue nail polish in an
OPY bottle. Not OPI, but OPY. I didn’t ask for sparkles, but she applied a
small band of them to the top of each nail.
I mean, you can’t say no to sparkles.
Because let’s face it, life definitely needs sparkles here. Then, she washed and dried my Chacos with an
apron. Although the polish wasn’t dry
and I pointed that out to her, she helped me ease into them. A small patch came off, but I didn’t
care. After sitting through what felt
like the world’s longest pedicure, I was ready to leave. Speaking of aprons, one of the women who
worked there was sporting a green Starbucks apron. I really wished she could have handed me an
iced latte. Another man was wearing
socks fit for Halloween: orange, black, and green striped. When I explained what Halloween was to him,
he just laughed at me like I was making it all up.
Now what you all really want to hear about:
underwear. It’s not appropriate to have
someone else wash your underwear in Africa, even if you pay them. I also can’t even let them dry outside. So, every weekend I have to soak, scrub,
rinse and hang them to dry. Two weeks
ago, I made the mistake of doing three weeks worth of underwear at once. I learned my lesson. The sores on my knuckles have just healed. The
whole process took me at least an hour.
I had to jerry-rig fishing line up in one of the unused bedrooms to have
additional drying space. This was never
a problem while I travelled through South and Southeast Asia for several
months. Can we get Hillary Clinton to
come back to Uganda and address this problem?
