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

One Heart!
Let’s get together and feel all right

you should visit kampala, uganda someday …

really … it’s safe, the people are kind and embarrassingly beautiful inside and out … it’s clean and nice and zips along with an energy all its own … and the pace of that energy is utter freaking madness when it really gets going … safe, orderly … madness …

seriously … it’s a really cool place … the thing you will see most often is ‘the smile’ … seriously … next vacation … kampala … you will love it …

talking among westerners, one fairly common topic is how completely unlike expectations africa really is … and its true in a way that is impossible to appreciate … in the west we get SUCH a distorted view of this world … war and famine and disease and corruption and dictators … the kind of view that leads people to call me ‘brave’ and ‘adventurous’ … just for coming here …

really, nothing could be further from the truth … you learn this about 30 seconds after arriving and the more ‘real’ everything about this place becomes, the more utterly absurd the preconceptions seem …

through ethiopia, kenya, uganda, rwanda and even sudan … the number one most universal feature is the smile (and the kalishnikov, though they had M16’s in Kenya) … not pain or poverty or disease or suffering … but smiles … from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor …

it is not what you expect … it not what we are shown … and its tragic, because this world … from which we all came … is beautiful … simply … universally …

so seriously … next vacation … kampala …

utterly unrelated …

i believe, quite sincerely, that the irish are the greatest of all people … i got a handful of comments re: kampala brothel at 7am … and it must be known that i hold the irish 100% accountable … i was totally ready to leave “Bubbles O’Leary’s,” a strange little irish pub in kampala , at about 4am, but they would have none of that … and lets be honest … after riverdancing with 6 drunk irishmen … who was i to say no … and the ‘brothel’ was not really a brothel … it’s the all night bar that just happens to be 75% hot young women and 25% creepy old men … it should also be noted that uganda has a very unique ‘arrangement’ when it comes to such things … most of the girls are university students who offer their ’services’ in exchange for being taken out to nice dinners and bought occasional expensive gifts … it’s really not all that different than north american society except that the men tend to be a LOT older than the girls (***they have these billboards all over the place that say “Cross Generational Sex Stops WIth You – Say No To Sugar Daddies”***) … regardless … i did not partake … i did tell every girl who gave me the ‘eye’ that they were beautiful and that i loved them unconditionally … but i am strange like that  …

i barely caught a 6:30am bus (the only bus to ever leave on time), a day late, out of kampala a couple days ago, and rode all day to the extreme south western edge of the county … the drive for the last 2 hours was hands down the most spectacular thing i have ever seen in my life … times 10 … i was, quite literally, hopping from one side of the bus to the other gawking like a stupid tourist … there are these hills … beautiful lush rolling hills with pristine lakes in their valleys … think ‘the hobbit’ … the ridges have small groupings of buildings, and all down the sides they are terraced in a vertical patchwork of agriculture that is breathtaking far beyond the powers of imagination or words or even pictures …

i arrived in kisoro and spent a few hours trying to shake off the tour guides who seemed to think that saving me $25 on a $625 gorilla trek made it ‘affordable’ … managed to, finally, and walking the streets after dark, wandered into the only store i saw with a light on inside … there i met eric … a local rasta who runs his own arts shop (while i, unlike the rasta, do not think the emperor of ethiopia was the reincarnation of JC, if there was one religion that i would say is doing it ‘right’ … rasta would be the one … peace and love … peace and love … peace and love .. and uganda is swimming with the love of the rasta man)

… within minutes we were talking like old friends … he has a unique combination of brilliance and boundless kindness that i have never before encountered … if you had asked me a couple days ago what my favorite possession was, i would likely have said my mp3 player … eric now owns my mp3 player … i am not sure why i felt compelled to give it to him … somehow i think it may serve him in a way it never could serve me … someday i hope i can offer him a job … in the meantime … i bought a sweet portable cassette player for $10 and am pumped, as they have cheap tapes everywhere here and now i can really start digging into the local beats … (part 1 = Lucky Dube … south african political reggae)

i camped out the night in kisoro (i have bought a tent and plan to now camp as often as possible, it being cheaper and more fun … though the cheap, light ‘kiddie’ tent i found is not what you would call ‘waterproof’ … and i barely fit … but who cares really) … and spent the next day wandering around that wonderland … kisoro was dian fossey’s jump off point for studying gorillas (gorillas in the mist) … and it lived up to its reputation … much to my dismay … the town is ringed by inactive volcanos … and is said to be one of the most beautiful in uganda … i don’t really know … i saw only mist … it still had its beauty though … as everything was damp and lush and alive … even the clothing worn by the people is like another world … vibrant and subdued all at once …

from kisoro to the rwanda border was about 15 minutes on the back of a motorbike … by far the most thrilling ride of my life as the road is not so much a road as a rocky dirt path with many hairpin turns and sharp descents … i spent about 1/2 the journey marveling at the beauty around me and the other half completely convinced that i was about to perish … something, i should note, i have totally come to terms with … its strange how when you are not afraid of death, everything superficial matters that much less …

i got to the border crossing … which was more of a series of small buildings in the middle of the bush … had a lovely farewell to uganda … and realized quite abruptly that …