how does it feel … to be without a home … a complete unknown … like a rolling stone ???

Looking for the key to set me free
Oh the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling
And it undoes all the joy that could be
I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun
I want to be the one that you want to see
I want to knit you a sweater
Want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel better
I want to make you feel free

so i basically travelled 2 days out of my way for nothing … though i refuse to accept such non-sense … let’s turn this into a coherent thought shall we ???

i traveled about 6 hours over bumpy roads from Mbale to Lira … Lira is in the North, where many of the street kids i met had fled from, and you could still see a lot of the ghosts of war along the roadside …

uganda is impossibly beautiful, with lush greenery of a million shades stretching off into infinity … the green is punctuated along the roads by the dust, which is a vibrant red … it coats everything, especially those plants unlucky enough to be born at the side of the road … i think there must be a brilliant metaphor there … with the bloody red stoplight of progress chocking and obscuring the vibrant re-birth of self-sustaining life … but i am not poetic enough to capture it … c’est la vie …

i was unable to find a reasonably priced hotel with any vacancies … but i did find one of those ’special’ places frequented by long hall truckers for about $6.00/night … as far as i could tell, the distinction between ‘toilet’ and ’shower’ did not exist, and there was a big sign on the wall in my room instructing people not to use the sheets to clean their boots and to throw used condoms in the garbage and not on the floor … needless to say, i spent many hours just touching as many surfaces as i possibly could …

i peetered around lira for the the morning, trying desperately to find an ATM … they are generally a) out of network contact, b) out of money c) don’t accept my card or d) say i have canceled the transaction for no apparent reason … but did … and was soon on a nice short 4-hour bus ride to Masinidi … this bus ride was also much less crowded … the busses all say on the side how many passengers they carry … the bus from Mbale to Lira held 14 … i counted 26 people in the bus at one point … the bus from Lira to Masinidi held 29 … i am quite sure we broke 40, but due to the pile of people on top of me, i was unable to make an accurate count …

i was hoping to get to murchison falls … masinidi is the closest major center … and once inside the park, you can take a riverboat past hippos and crocs and elephants to the base of the falls … and then climb up them (the falls, not the elephants, though that would also be fun) … the falls themselves cram the entire nile through a 6m wide gap, which is apparently something spectacular … but then … i have no idea … b/c i have only seen the sign that says “Murchison Falls 84km” …

it would seem no public transport runs to the park … and all my attempts to hitch/scam/sell my body for a free ride have failed miserably … so it would cost me 150,000/ to get there ($90) and then even if i got there … the going rate for a night is between $75-150 US … which is just a touch over my $20 limit … so alas … i am left looking at a postcard, which shows the water smashing with great ferocity through the gorge … if i stare at the postcard and concentrate really hard … i imagine i can even hear them … but then somebody yells “hey … muzungu … how are you” .. and the magic is broken …

so i traveled 2 days to get here to take a riverboat up the nile and climb up a waterfall … and i can’t … which might disappoint me … except i am me … and i refuse to be disappointed … b/c really … what is the point  of that ??? … i am in AFRICA!!! …

so i made the best of my day … i took a 3 hour walk in the morning (after my first hot shower in what felt like weeks and my longest sleep-in in months (8:30)) … its really funny the looks you get when you are a white person walking down back-roads where, quite obviously, a white person has no business whatsoever … then i just started hunting for NGO’s to visit, and managed to get meetings with TASO (HIV), Noref (Education), ActionAid (Poverty Reduction) and Build Africa (Farming) … all of which taught me things that i did not know before …

AND … i went through most of the VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing for HIV) process, just to understand it, and i am sure you will all be greatly relieved to learn that i do not, in fact, have HIV …

yet …

tomorrow i have one more NGO to meet, and then i should be on a 10:00 bus back to Kampala … where i plan to take full advantage of the weekend by drinking more than i should … and, if at all possible, visiting a community education newspaper … and maybe an art gallery …

peace and love …

p.s. everywhere i have been so far … they LOVE Celine Dion and Shania Twain … last night i was kept awake by a room full of middle aged Ugandan men singing “From This Moment” and then “My Heart Will Go On” … confirming my belief that Canadian women are, in fact, the greatest in the world … too bad about the men …

b.