And here's the text of the press release itself:

Refugee Law Project Press Release on World AIDS Day 2009

Giving With One Hand and Taking with the Other: How Forced Migrants living
with HIV/AIDS are affected by Legislation

As we pursue our mission to empower asylum seekers, refugees, deportees, IDPs and
host communities in Uganda to enjoy their human rights and lead dignified lives, and as
we explore what doing this means for our clients who are either infected or affected by
HIV/AIDS, we at the RLP are repeatedly struck by the need for legal and policy
frameworks to be considerably broadened and improved in the pursuit of these
objectives, particularly through the explicit inclusion of refugees and other forced
migrants.

World AIDS Day offers us an opportunity to reflect on the ravages of a disease which for
the wealthy has become a manageable though troubling life-long condition, but which for
the poor and the disenfranchised remains a death sentence. Many among our clients at the
RLP are poor and all are disenfranchised. Many have fled from high levels of conflictrelated
sexual violence, particularly against women, but also against men, in their places
of origin. Notwithstanding the protection offered by Uganda’s refugee regime many
women and men go on to suffer high levels of sexual violence in this, their first country
of asylum. As such HIV/AIDS is of central concern to us, and on this day we wish to
reflect on our vision at Refugee Law Project of a Uganda in which all people enjoy their
human rights, irrespective of their legal status, and to remember that this vision is
informed by relevant international laws as well as the Constitution of Uganda.

While Uganda is widely celebrated as a country with model refugee legislation, and was
once also regarded as a model for combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic, we note with
deepening concern that when it comes to forced migrants and HIV/AIDS, there are some
serious obstacles to effective support which would enable our clients to enjoy their
human rights and lead dignified lives. What we are left with is a context in which forced
migrants are given protection with one hand… only to find that what it has been taken
away with the other!

A number of factors are likely to accelerate HIV/AIDS rates amongst forced migrant
populations and are directly related to legislative and policy frameworks which
undermine rather than reinforce the protection regime:

1. Government preference for rural refugee settlements in which health services are
at best mediocre results in poor treatment of HIV and opportunistic infections in
those settings. Furthermore, urban refugees are left with virtually no access to free
medical treatment as they are told that if they want free medications they should
go to the refugee camps. This insistence of pegging assistance to being in a
refugee settlement results in high levels of self-medication, with all the dangers
this has of mis-diagnosis as well as increasing drug resistance.

2. Even where HIV+ refugees are able to access free Anti-Retroviral treatment, the
failure to combine this with nutritional support makes adherence difficult and at
times impossible for them, as many struggle to find even Ush 1,000/= per day to
eat with. Free ARVs without nutritional support are worse than useless for highly
vulnerable individuals, as they hold out a false promise of relief to those without
hope.

3. Refugees who have experienced violence, including sexual violence, are required
to pay a fee to police surgeons to get a written report confirming that they were
assaulted. This serves as a major obstacle to full reporting of such incidents.
While we note with approval the recent establishment of a clinic at Mulago
hospital specialising in Sexual and Gender Based Violence, we also note that
Post-exposure prophylaxis is not currently available in most police stations.

4. The current wave of anti-homosexual legislation being promoted in Burundi,
Uganda and Rwanda has implications for asylum and protection of refugee rights
for LGBTI refugees from anywhere within the Great Lakes.

5. Outdated and retrograde laws on sex and sexual violence, which are currently
being reinforced through the tabling of new legislation, most notably Hon.
Bahati’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, are damaging the prospects of pro-active
interventions in support of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. The most
significant and damaging weakness of existing and proposed legislation is the
failure to distinguish consensual sex between adults from abusive, coercive and
non-consensual sex, which generally amounts to rape and frequently includes
gang-rape. As a result, survivors of sexual violence, in particular those who are
already marginalised and disenfranchised, are themselves likely to be charged
rather than being able to lay charges against their abusers.

6. We note with profound concern that those promoting the Bill seem indifferent to
the international outrage this is provoking, and the impact it will have on all HIV+
people in Uganda who require support if they are to enjoy dignified lives.
HIV/AIDS knows no borders, and dealing with it requires concerted transnational
efforts. People Living with HIV/AIDS should not be further victimised
by a clash between populist political rhetoric and scientifically based public
health policies.

7. Equally, those countries that appear to offer further solace to refugees in need of
resettlement should walk the talk. We decry the policy of some resettlement
countries, notably Australia, of refusing to resettle anyone who has tested positive
for HIV. What sense does this make in an era when, well treated, HIV can be
managed and the infected person can lead a full and productive life for many
decades?

8. And finally, it is common knowledge that many poor and vulnerable people (both
men and women), including forced migrants, find themselves coerced into sex
work. Without protective legislative frameworks they are generally unable to
complain when the client abuses them physically or refuses to pay for services
provided.

In light of the above, Refugee Law Project sees World AIDS Day as an opportunity for
Uganda, as well as all national and international organisations and governments working
with forced migrants, to reflect on existing and proposed legislation and policies related
to forced migrants and HIV/AIDS, and the ways in which these can be improved to the
benefit of all those living in Uganda, whether citizens or refugees.

With regard to the particular vulnerabilities of refugees, we call for a waiver on the fees
required for examination by a police surgeon following a complaint of any form of
violence against the person. This waiver will help in the identification of perpetrators and
early response to risks of HIV infection. Indeed, we call for procedures to be put in place
which enable anyone who is found by the police surgeon to have suffered sexual
violence, whether female or male, to be offered immediate and free access to postexposure
prophylaxis.

We further call for ARVs to refugees to be given together with nutritional support
wherever necessary to ensure maximal adherence to the treatment regime.

We also call for those resettlement countries that currently exclude HIV positive refugees
to revise their policy and remove this exclusionary criterion.

We further call on UNHCR and IOM, as the international bodies most closely concerned
with the movements of forced migrants, to speed up the process of recognising the
specific vulnerabilities of sexual minorities, those forced into sex work, and those who
are victims and survivors of sexual violence, and to introduce procedures which
accommodate these vulnerabilities instead of reinforcing them.

To all those engaged in the response to HIV/AIDS in Uganda, whether Government,
Civil Society, Churches or Donors, we urge you to honour the legacy of Uganda’s
leadership in the early days of the epidemic, by now turning far greater attention to
addressing the centrality of human rights in the current epidemic which continues to
confront the country. Bold leadership is required if the linkages between human rights
abuse, disenfranchisement, and the spread of HIV are to be broken once and for all.

I have been meaning to post for some time and haven't because I've been busy and over time the things I would want to post about have been multiplying - my existential deliberations, my quite succesful launch of the briefing paper, Ugandan politics, the awesome weekend I had on a semi-deserted island eating fish from lake Victoria and fending off imaginery pirates with crowbars. But this I feel angry enough about to post without delay:

A Private Member's Bill is currenlty in front of the Ugandan Parliament seeking broad legal amendments that would further criminalize (already illegal) homosexuality in Uganda. The Bill is rabid, and proposes measures that put it on par with some of the most repressive totalitarian legislation out there. I feel strongly enough about this to include our entire press release on the subject below, and I urge you to read it, even those of you not normally into law or politics:

Anti-Homosexuality or Anti-Human Rights Bill?

Statement from the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law

Hon. Bahati’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill which was tabled in Parliament on October 14, 2009,
and is currently before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament covers
much more than the title alone proclaims. A much better title for this bill would have been the‘Anti Civil Society Bill, the ‘Anti Public Health Bill,’ or the ‘Anti-Constitution Bill.’

Perhaps more simply it should be called the Anti Human Rights Bill. As a matter of fact, this bill represents one of the most serious attacks to date on the 1995 Constitution and on the key human rights protections enshrined in the Constitution including:
• Article 20: Fundamental rights and freedoms are inherent and not granted by the State
• Article 21: Right to Equality and Freedom from discrimination
• Article 22: The Right to Life (the death penalty provisions)
• Article 27: The Right to Privacy
• Article 29: Right to freedom of conscience, expression, movement, religion, assembly
and association (this includes freedom of speech, Academic freedom and media
freedom)
• Article 30: Right to Education
• Article 32: Affirmative Action in favour of marginalised groups and
• Article 36 on the Rights of Minorities

Let us think for a moment of who—quite apart from the homosexuals it claims as its target—
this bill puts at risk:

- any parent who does not denounce their lesbian daughter or gay son to the
authorities: Failure to do so s/he will be fined Ush 5,000,000/= or put away for
three years;

- any teacher who does not report a lesbian or gay pupil to the authorities within
24 hours: Failure to do so s/he will be fined Ush 5,000,000/= or put away for
three years in prison;

- any landlord or landlady who happens to give housing to a suspected
homosexual risks seven years of imprisonment;

- any Local Council I – V Chairperson or Executive member who does not
denounce somebody accused of same-sex attraction or activity risks
imprisonment or a heavy fine;

- any medical doctor who seeks to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS through
working with what are known as most at risk populations, risks her or his career;

- all civil society leaders, whether in a Community Based Organisation, NGO, or
academic institution; if their organisations seek to have a comprehensive position
on sexual and reproductive health, they risk seeing their organisations closed
down;

- any human rights activist who seeks to promote an understanding of the
indivisibility and inalienability of human rights would be judged to be promoting
homosexuals and homosexuality, and be punished accordingly;

- any religious leader who seeks to provide guidance and counselling to people
who are unsure of their sexuality, would be regarded as promoting homosexuality
and punished accordingly;

- any Member of Parliament or other public figure who is sent a pornographic
article, picture or video will become vulnerable to blackmail and witch-hunts;

- any media house that publishes ‘pornographic’ materials risks losing its
certificate of registration and the editor will be liable to seven years in jail;

- any internet café operator who fails to prevent a customer from accessing a
pornographic website, or a dating site, could be accused of ‘participating in the
production, procuring, marketing, broadcasting, disseminating and publishing of
pornographic materials for purposes of promoting homosexuality’; their business
licence could be revoked and they themselves could land in prison.

- any Person alleged to be a homosexual is at risk of LIFE IMPRISONMENT
and, in some circumstances, the DEATH PENALTY

In short, this bill targets everybody, and involves everybody: it cannot be implemented without making every citizen spy on his or her neighbours. The last time this was done was in the Amin era, where everyone very quickly became an ‘enemy of the state’. It amounts to a direct invasion of our homes, and will promote blackmail, false accusations and outright intimidation of certain members of the population. Do Ugandans really want to mimic the practices of the Khartoum regime? Have we already forgotten the sex police of Apartheid South Africa, who smashed their way into people’s bedrooms in an attempt to prevent inter-racial sex?

As Civil Society organisations we condemn all predatory sexual acts (hetero or homosexual)
that violate the rights of vulnerable sections of our society such as minors and people with
disabilities. However, the Bill lumps “aggravated homosexuality” together with sexual acts
between consenting adults in order to whip up sentiments of fear and hatred aimed at isolating
sexual minorities. By so doing, the state fails in its duty to protect all its citizens without discrimination.

The bill also asserts Extra Territorial jurisdiction. In other words, all of the offences covered by the bill can be applied to a Ugandan citizen or permanent resident who allegedly commits them outside the country. Thus homosexuality and/or its ‘promotion’ are added to the very short list of offences which fall in the ‘political offences’ category. It joins treason, misprision of treason, and terrorism as offences subject to extra-territorial jurisdiction. Clearly, this is out of all proportion in relation to the gravity of the act.

On top of these day-to-day considerations about everybody’s safety and security, let us consider what this bill will do for civil society organisations in Uganda which seek to have a critical voice and to engage in issues of global concern. One of the objectives of the bill is to prohibit the licensing of organizations which allegedly ‘promote homosexuality.’ Thus, for example, any organisation which talked about anal sex as part of a campaign of HIV prevention can be affected. Had this bill been in place earlier this year, no Ugandan could have participated in the World AIDS meeting held in Mexico to discuss HIV prevention.

And what about our standing in the eyes of the world? The Bill calls for Uganda to nullify any
international treaties, protocols, declarations and conventions which are believed to be
‘contradictory to the spirit and provisions’ of the bill. In reality, this would involve Uganda
withdrawing from:
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
• The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its protocols;
• The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;
• The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women;
• The Convention on the Rights of the Child, and
• The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights

We note that Uganda is current Chair of the UN Security Council which operates with the UN
Charter and UDHR as guiding principles. It is also current Chair of the Commonwealth and a
signatory to the African Union’s Constitutive Act which has as its premise the promotion and
respect of human rights. In 2009 and 2010 it is hosting AU Summits. What will happen to
Uganda’s hard-won role on the global stage if it nullifies its international and regional human rights commitments? Uganda cannot wish away core human rights principles of dignity,
equality and non-discrimination, and all Ugandans will pay a heavy price if this bill is enacted.

We will have bargained away our hard-earned rights and freedoms as well as our right to
challenge the State and hold it accountable for the protection of these rights.
In sum, the Bahati Bill is profoundly unconstitutional. It is a major stumbling block to the
development of a vibrant human rights movement in Uganda, and a serious threat to Uganda’s
developing democratic status. If passed, this law would not only prove difficult to implement, it would also consume resources and attention which would be better directed at more pressing issues of human rights abuse, corruption, electoral reform, domestic relations and freedom of the press.

Regardless of our personal moral beliefs and values, we the undersigned organisations are
standing up in defence of Democracy, our Constitution and its enshrined principles of human
dignity, equality, freedom and justice for all.
Kampala, 23 October 2009

• African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF)
• Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA)
• Advocates for Public International Law in Uganda (APILU)
• Center for Land Economy and Rights of Women (CLEAR-Uganda)
• Centre for Women in Governance (CEWIGO)
• Development Network of Indigenous Voluntary Associations (DENIVA)
• East & Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project
• Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA-U)
• Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE)
• Human Rights Awareness & Promotion Forum
• Human Rights & Peace Centre (HURIPEC), Faculty of Law, Makerere University
• Integrity Uganda
• International Refugee Rights Initiative
• Mentoring and Empowerment Programme for Young Women (MEMPROW)
• MIFUMI Project
• National Association of Women’s Organisations in Uganda (NAWOU)
• National Coalition of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (NACWOLA)
• Refugee Law Project (RLP), Faculty of Law, Makerere University
• National Guidance & Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (NGEN+)
• Spectrum Uganda
• Uganda Feminist Forum
• Women’s Organisation & Network for Human Rights Advocacy (WONETHA)

For further information please contact the coalition at kalendenator@gmail.com

We´re having a bit of excitement at the moment, I´m at my friend´s apartment and can´t go home ´cause of the riots. Our neighborhood seems to be right at the centre of the action, though it seems fine once you´re indoors - to get indoors I had to walk down a road with burning tires, barricades and very scary looking armored vehicles. There´s been shooting since about three, all around the office. It´s still going on. I´m fine now, will blog later when I have better internet access, but you can read all about it here:
http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/news/DEVELOPING_STORY_Violence_breaks_out_in_Kampala_city_centre_91102.shtml

My briefing note on the impact of violence on people’s perceptions of transitional justice processes has just come out, and I’m damn proud of it, so check it out:

http://www.beyondjuba.org/briefing_papers/Psychosocial_Briefing_Note.pdf

Link correction to the photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=140493&id=665795308&l=37399b95c7

New photos from Karamoja:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3590920&l=5e97a6c782&id=665795308

I discovered marginally faster internet, though you have to invest in obscenely expensive food to use it.

I'm heading up to Adjumani this Tuesday for a week for an access to justice study, so no internet.

I will be trying to post Karamoja photos over the next few weeks, but in the meantime, check out my colleagues album "Still Unexploited" (I tagged one photo) on facebook, and also this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8133870.stm

It's been pointed out to me (Thanks), that the link for the website doesn't work. I typed the address wrong. It should be:
http://www.theyearofnumbers.com/

Oh, I forgot. My book now has a website: www.yearofnumbers.com

and I have a whole bunch of new photos on at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=122405&id=665795308&l=821872eea7

I've been hanging out and doing research with urban internally displaced persons in Kampala slums for the last while, hence my silence - not around internet much. I keep wanting to write about what I'm doing, I'm super excited about it, also going a little crazy at times, but too tired now to find the words. As usual, I feel most comfortable around people whom history has screwed over.

In the meantime, this interview with me re. my book just came up in Ug Pulse, - I will be having a book launch here later this month:

http://www.ugpulse.com/articles/daily/Literature.asp?about=Beatrice+Speaks+to+Paulina+Wyrzykowski%2C+Author+of+The+Year+of+Numbers+Writer&id=1074

A review of my book, The Year of Numbers, just came out in a Montreal-based arts magazine, Rover Arts: http://roverarts.com/2009/03/things-that-count/

I appear to have been colonized by a cat. I’ve been considering getting one for a while, but then decided against it because I travel often and wasn’t sure what to do with it while I was away. In the meantime, I noticed someone ate my garbage at night, sometimes leaving the bones strewn across the kitchen floor. Then I found a half-eaten cracker on the couch. Then a half-eaten roach. I was considering how to bring the subject up with H (“You’re a great roommate, really, only about that garbage habit of yours….”). Then yesterday we both came home to find a cat sitting at our front door and meowing to be let in. We did, and he made himself at home. I mean really at home – he knows no fear, follows us around the house, lounges on the furniture, is incredibly affectionate, and won’t leave. He disappeared at some point late last night through the kitchen window (after H refused to let him get in bed with her), but was waiting by the door this morning and again when we came back from work. Right now he is lying asleep on the chair next to mine. H decided his name is Thomas, because he’s skinny and has an air of dignity about him (????). Thomas is also dirty, slightly mangy, very malnourished, and has clearly been in a scrap or two. He eats incessantly, and, H thinks, has worms. Despite all that, he’s also kind of cute – a lot like my cat Mysza was when I first took her in, very different from any Ugandan cats I’ve seen – long-haired, gray and white, with an unbelievably long tail and huge golden eyes. He can come and go as he pleases, since the kitchen window is always open, but seems to spend most of his time around our place as long as someone is in the house. I think he craves company.

Hi Everyone. I'm in the middle of a workshop on traditional justice practices and the Canadian experience (not as horrible as I thought it would be, actually, I'll blog about it soon), but this is a bit of an emergency post: UgPulse, which is a local website, did an interview with me re. "The Year of Numbers", and now they want pictures of me at my Canadian booklaunch. Thing is, I haven't got any, but I know some of you do. Can you resend ASAP to my hotmail address?

Thanks soo much.

So I've just found out about the power outage that has been affecting West Toronto for the past nine hours. I've checked the CBC, and as it happens, most of you live within the affected area. I also understand it's pretty cold out (as in, -18). My feeling is most of you are probably happily taking shelter with friends/family in other parts of the city, but I'd still like to know you're okay. So if you read this, drop me a note.

P.S. Not to rub it in or anything, but the weather here is splendid and sunny, as usual.

Looks like the war's on again, folks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7782649.stm

It's gonna be a depressing Christmas...

Have had no internet for the past four days. Composed the post below at home. Back in TO next week people, I hope there’s a hot pot and lots of Japanese food in our future! Will be flying in on the 19’th. All calls to my parents’ place are appreciated, you know the number.

People sometimes assume that just because you’re a decent cook, you should be able to bake as well. In fact, the two tap into completely different skill sets as far as I’m concerned. Cooking is all about intuition and creativity. Baking is an exercise in chemistry, proportion, and patience. You can’t add a dash of salt to a cake mid-way through baking because it seems like the right thing to do, or fix dough that hadn’t been mixed right to begin with.

I think the way a person prepares food says a lot about who they are. Not to belabour the metaphor, but I tend to go for intensity, complexity and flavour, using lots of spice, salt, meat, wine, and unhealthy but oh-so-yummy fats such as butter and cream. I have an instinctive dislike towards people who steam 95% of their food and use pre-prepared anything, no salt, and only a single squirt of cooking oil in a can to minimize cholesterol. That said, some of them are okay once you get to know them (so long as you don’t have to eat with them), and they will probably live much longer than I will.

When I first began to cook I used to burn everything because I lacked patience and wanted it to be done quickly. I’ve gotten a lot better over the years, and now favour slow-cooked roasts and long-simmered soups. In fact, I seem to be reverting to my roots a bit – I’ve noticed that most stuff I’ve cooked in Uganda to date has leaned towards the Polish. It may also be that those are the kind of flavours people here appreciate, heavy on the meat, heavy on the starch and fat.

As of two weeks ago, I’ve ventured into the dangerous world of baking/desserts. It started with my mom’s recipe for no-bake cheesecake (I don’t have an oven). It’s not possible to find cheesecake anywhere in Kampala, and even if it were possible, I’m not sure I would chance it. I don’t think sweets are well-established here, and most of them are vile. So I availed myself of imported Philadelphia cream cheese at the expat supermarket and proceeded to make the most expensive cheesecake in the history of mankind – the Philadelphia cheese cost 40, 000 shillings which translates to about $28 dollars, which is the same as two professional full-body massages or eight kilograms of beef. The cheesecake turned out okay, although liquid and too sweet. The sugar here is different, and it fucked up the consistency. Last week I discovered a local cream cheese, which, by comparison, costs only 2, 500 shillings (about a buck fifty). The consistency is weird, more like sour cream than cream cheese, but the taste is fine, so I just figured I would cut the sugar and put in more starch. The end outcome is not bad, but a bit, er…solid. I figure next time, it will be perfect.

I also spent the earlier part of the day today frying faworki, which is a deep-fried Polish cookie(?) I’ve never made before. I’m glad to report they turned out perfect, despite my serious doubts throughout – the flour here is way different, heavier and darker, and I had to substitute yoghurt for sour cream in the recipe. Never mind, though, they are brilliant, exactly the way my mom makes them. Maybe the Gods figured I deserved a lucky break or something….

Also on the menu for tonight: pork roast stuffed with prunes and apricots in spicy chilli sauce, vegetable curry (I keep forgetting not to make friends with vegetarians), salad, and beef pilau, which my friend L is coming to help me make. Last week I had a Nigerian lunch at K’s house (awesome geri and even more awesome jollof rice) and I’m determined to outdo him.

Have had no internet for the past four days. Composed the post below at home. Back in TO next week people, I hope there’s a hot pot and lots of Japanese food in our future! Will be flying in on the 19’th. All calls to my parents’ place are appreciated, you know the number.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
People sometimes assume that just because you’re a decent cook, you should be able to bake as well. In fact, the two tap into completely different skill sets as far as I’m concerned. Cooking is all about intuition and creativity. Baking is an exercise in chemistry, proportion, and patience. You can’t add a dash of salt to a cake mid-way through baking because it seems like the right thing to do, or fix dough that hadn’t been mixed right to begin with.

I think the way a person prepares food says a lot about who they are. Not to belabour the metaphor, but I tend to go for intensity, complexity and flavour, using lots of spice, salt, meat, wine, and unhealthy but oh-so-yummy fats such as butter and cream. I have an instinctive dislike towards people who steam 95% of their food and use pre-prepared anything, no salt, and only a single squirt of cooking oil in a can to minimize cholesterol. That said, some of them are okay once you get to know them (so long as you don’t have to eat with them), and they will probably live much longer than I will.

When I first began to cook I used to burn everything because I lacked patience and wanted it to be done quickly. I’ve gotten a lot better over the years, and now favour slow-cooked roasts and long-simmered soups. In fact, I seem to be reverting to my roots a bit – I’ve noticed that most stuff I’ve cooked in Uganda to date has leaned towards the Polish. It may also be that those are the kind of flavours people here appreciate, heavy on the meat, heavy on the starch and fat.

As of two weeks ago, I’ve ventured into the dangerous world of baking/desserts. It started with my mom’s recipe for no-bake cheesecake (I don’t have an oven). It’s not possible to find cheesecake anywhere in Kampala, and even if it were possible, I’m not sure I would chance it. I don’t think sweets are well-established here, and most of them are vile. So I availed myself of imported Philadelphia cream cheese at the expat supermarket and proceeded to make the most expensive cheesecake in the history of mankind – the Philadelphia cheese cost 40, 000 shillings which translates to about $28 dollars, which is the same as two professional full-body massages or eight kilograms of beef. The cheesecake turned out okay, although liquid and too sweet. The sugar here is different, and it fucked up the consistency. Last week I discovered a local cream cheese, which, by comparison, costs only 2, 500 shillings (about a buck fifty). The consistency is weird, more like sour cream than cream cheese, but the taste is fine, so I just figured I would cut the sugar and put in more starch. The end outcome is not bad, but a bit, er…solid. I figure next time, it will be perfect.

I also spent the earlier part of the day today frying faworki, which is a deep-fried Polish cookie(?) I’ve never made before. I’m glad to report they turned out perfect, despite my serious doubts throughout – the flour here is way different, heavier and darker, and I had to substitute yoghurt for sour cream in the recipe. Never mind, though, they are brilliant, exactly the way my mom makes them. Maybe the Gods figured I deserved a lucky break or something….

Also on the menu for tonight: pork roast stuffed with prunes and apricots in spicy chilli sauce, vegetable curry (I keep forgetting not to make friends with vegetarians), salad, and beef pilau, which my friend L is coming to help me make. Last week I had a Nigerian lunch at K’s house (awesome geri and even more awesome … rice) and I’m determined to outdo him.

This was forwarded to me and I loved it, so couldn't resist posting:

Riding a dead horse:

Tribal wisdoms of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that 'when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount'. However, in the UN and NGO community a range of far more advanced strategies are often employed,
such as:

Changing riders;

Appointing a committee to study the horse;
Arranging to visit other countries to see how others ride dead horses;
Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included;
Reclassifying the dead horse as 'living impaired';
Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse;
Harnessing several dead horses together to increase the speed;
Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance;
Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance;
Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead, and therefore contributes substantially more to the mission of the organisation than do some other horses;
Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses...;
Preparing a workshop with paid attendants on the subject of Experience gaining in riding dead horses in post war setting;
Preparing a second workshop on environmental hazards caused by horse shit, and the advantage on using dead horses since they do not shit therefore are of no hazard to the environment.

Yes, it's official. The Year of Numbers will be launched at the following time and location:

Seraphim Editions
cordially invites you
to attend the launch of
The Year of Numbers
by
Paulina Wyrzykowski
on

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

at

The Women’s Art Association Gallery
(23 Prince Arthur Ave., Toronto)
starting at 6:30 p.m.

Everyone is Welcome!
Free.
Refreshments will be served.

If you are reading this, then you are invited to come.

This past weekend was cockroach apocalypse. I removed everything from my kitchen first (people here just spray, but I can’t help thinking that a neurotoxin is a neurotoxin, and likely not much better for me than it is for the roaches), then sprayed Farco “double killing power” everywhere and went out for dinner. By the time I got back, the floor was covered with dozens of writhing roaches between 1 and 2 inches long. It was vile. They were still twitching by the time I swept them up the next morning, and then I had the pleasure of dislodging their eggs and cleaning my cabinets of cockroach feces the size of mouse droppings. Then I made cheesecake. Which turned out ok, except I think the proportions have to be different with local cheese and starch, ‘cause it ended up rather more fluid than it ought to have been.

Oh, and I wrote the cockroach death scene into my new book. Partly just ‘cause I needed to get it out of my system, I think, but it works surprisingly well. I’ve been doing a bit more writing recently, though still not as much as I’d like – I find that when my life is emotionally intense, I can either write very well, or not at all. I figure I’m about half-way through the book, probably will take me another ten months to a year to finish it. I keep hoping it’ll be better than the first one.

Yes, I know. It’s been a very long time. No, I’m not dead. It’s just that a lot of the really significant things that have happened in my life since I came back from Poland were not ones I really wanted to discuss in this forum.

I did receive this e-mail from my contact up north in Gulu, though, and I thought that at the very least those of you who donated money for the sewing machines deserved to know something came of it:

"Dear Paulina

This is to inform you that the sewing machines have been handed over and a page handover report with the photo will be shared with you shortly.

The child mothers appreciation to you and that their prayers are with for God to guide in whatever you are doing. They would have loved to see you but next time you are in Gulu, you can pay them a courtesy visit.

We are always grateful for your cooperation

Thanks"

When I get a report and a photo, I’ll try to somehow get that up as well. Thank you all again, I know the sewing machines will make a difference to the women, and I also know it makes a difference to me that I have friends I can count on.

Haven’t written in a long while, haven’t felt like it. Still don’t quite feel like it, but don’t want to abandon the journal altogether. I’m exhausted these days from too much work and too much life.

First: The sewing machines for the child mothers finally travelled up to Gulu today, and should be up in the camp shortly. I have this ambitious plan to send a thank-you e-mail to everyone who contributed, will see if my internet is feeling cooperative over the next little while, but in the meantime, thanks so much to everyone who donated money. I will try to keep you up to date on any developments.

Second: There is now a short video about the Refugee Law Project on You Tube. It was created over the past several months, and is basically an advocacy tool designed to summarize for funders and others what we do. You can find it here:

Part one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpqGwaULj9M
Part two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjWQOOIKy2w

The video appears in two parts, the total length being about ten minutes. If nothing else, it will give you glimpses of Kampala, the camps and our office, as well as the back of my head once or twice. There is one graphic image of hanging bodies in there (suicides one of our teams came upon in a camp). It’s not long, but for various reasons I thought it might be best to give people a heads up. Since this is intended for advocacy purposes, please feel free to post links to the videos on your own blogs, journals, etc.

So, just in case my life wasn’t exciting enough at the moment, it looks like I’ll be going to Poland at the end of the week.

As I mentioned some time back, my grandfather is very ill with cancer, and I want to see him before he dies. The timeline has been shrinking though, because his cancer is advancing faster than anticipated. Originally I was thinking of maybe going to Poland for Christmas, then realized I should probably make it there by the end of the summer, before going to Canada. Friday last week I got an e-mail from my aunt indicating that if I do want to say goodbye, I had better hurry. I don’t know how much of it is her own panic talking, but I’d rather not take chances (I keep having these dreams in which my grandfather is dead and I get there too late). Also, when I called my grandfather on Thursday all he kept saying over and over is that I should come.

…sigh. It’s a bad time for me leave work, but they’ll just have to manage. They’ve been very understanding about the whole thing, actually, giving me leave on short notice and working out ways we can shift some stuff around so it either gets done before I leave or after I come back.

I will be in Poland for two weeks and should have internet access.

Hey, there will be more updates to follow, since my life seems to be moving along at breakneck pace, but for the time being, check out this photo:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51496&l=80c68&id=665795308

It's another one I'm considering for the back page, obviously cropped (I think I would want full body + some background, but not too much).

Let me know what you think.

Ah, the miracle that is the internet...how shall I salute thee?

Okay, this is officially my first poll ever. I really need all of your opinions. My publisher has asked me to submit a photo of myself for the back cover. I was fully intending to send the one I use on facebook (to be found here: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=665795308). I rather like that one, and have gotten some compliments on it in Canada. On the other hand, I went drinking with my boss the other night and he confessed he'd looked me up on facebook, then went on a rant about how I should get rid of that "awful photo." The thing is, I'm not sure whether it's a cultural thing, or simply a "you look like shit" thing.

I asked another Ugandan workmate for an opinion and she wasn't too impressed, stating that I looked like a "wild girl." I think it was the spiky hair that was the issue. On the other hand, I like the spiky maroon hair, and the book does have a definitely young feel to it, so I don't wan to come across as all professional. Also, notions of "wildness" are definitely different in Canada. So what do you all think? Keep this photo, or take another? Honesty is appreciated.

As I’m sure we’re all aware, food prices have risen quite a bit over the past few years. The usual culprits cited include the price of oil, bio-fuels, and increased demand from China and India. I admit I haven’t paid that much attention to it myself – I was sufficiently well off in Canada that I didn’t need to get distressed over a slightly more expensive carrot. There’s been some talk about how the price hikes have disproportionately affected poor countries, and I have to admit that looking at Uganda this is certainly true. The Vision ran a price comparison this morning between now and November 2007, (one month after I first arrived) – staples like beans, onions, matoke, rice and flour have more than doubled in price over the past six months. Today schools across the country announced that they will be increasing tuition to cover the cost of food (the majority of schools in Uganda are boarding schools). Everybody’s edgy. There have been no food riots yet, but I don’t think they’re inconceivable. We've had two other sets of riots recently (both of which I missed, once because I was in the North, and once because I was in the camp). In a country where most of the population lives below the poverty line, an increase in the price of food means the difference between eating and not eating.

My office too has been affected. Our salaries (like those of most NGO employees) are calculated in dollars, then transferred into our accounts in shillings. Things were arranged this way back when the dollar was the more stable currency – it was done to prevent salaries from fluctuating wildly as the Ugandan shilling rose and fell. Now that the dollar has taken a dive, so have our salaries. It’s not a happy combination with the rising food prices. I’m not quite strapped for cash yet, but it may happen in the not too distant future.

…I really shouldn’t complain. Unlike most of my colleagues, I can just leave if things get bad. Plus I don’t have to worry about feeding an extended family (or any family, for that matter). On the other hand, my bargaining skills notwithstanding, everything is still at least 30% more expensive for me by virtue of the fact that no one can believe a muzungu could be short of money.

At least, unlike in Canada, I don’t get penalized for living alone. The habit of buying bulk really hasn’t caught on here. A lot of it is poverty, I think – people live day to day, and they can’t afford to buy a huge quantity of meat just because it’s cheaper that way – they’ll buy the little piece they can afford today, and hope they’ll somehow come up with more money to buy more tomorrow. Sellers don’t think in terms of selling bulk, either, so that twenty kilograms of rice will normally cost exactly twenty times what one kilogram costs. In Canada, I always felt like I had to choose between buying more food than I could use, or feeling penalized for getting small quantities.

I had a really unpleasant, if predictable, experience today. I went with B to the Canadian consulate – I wanted to find out about getting Police checks from Canada ( a new requirement for foreigners applying for a work permit in Uganda) and also ask about when B should apply for a visa for Canada (as most of you know, we were hoping she could come visit me for the book launch). I don’t think I’m naïve as far as Canadian immigration goes, having been an immigration lawyer and all, but I was still taken aback by the …directness, I suppose, with which the visa officer told B she might as well not bother applying. I think he thought he was being kind, saving her the application fee, but I was appalled by the complete unselfconsciousness of his prejudices. B is a “bad risk” for a tourist visa because she’s young and female, and that means there’s a good chance she would arrive in Canada only to “make up a refugee claim” (his words) or “disappear into the underground economy”. There is such utter arrogance behind the supposition that a lawyer with a job and good career prospects in Uganda would ditch her job, family, and friends to scrub floors illegally in Canada. I tried to keep my temper because I didn’t think I would be doing B any favors by losing it, but I did ask the guy how many Ugandans were typically deported back from Canada per year – seeing as he seemed to think overstaying was such a huge problem. His answer – two or three. I think B was humiliated by the whole exchange, and I was deeply, deeply ashamed to be Canadian. I don’t know if she’ll still apply or not, but the whole experience left me feeling dirty. I just felt so trapped on her behalf – because I know perfectly well that the conversation would have been the same if she’d been going for a work related conference, or a course at a Western university. It’s the curse of the non-Western passport, which my family gleefully escaped when we acquired Canadian citizenship .

Thought you guys might want to check out this link - it's where most of my non-Ugandan clients are from: http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=545&catID=2

I’m alive, I’m alive! I have the worst case of diarrhoea ever though, and what’s worse, nobody but myself to blame for it. I’ve been craving blood recently (must be iron deficient or something) and decided the way to alleviate the hunger was to eat half a kilo of raw meat for dinner last night. I wasn’t completely insane about it, I went to a gourmet butcher who caters to the expats, got them to grind up a really nice piece of beef, then washed the egg before I mixed it in (a food security expert working with Save the Children told me I can decrease my chances of getting salmonella from eating raw eggs by something like 80% by washing them first, to get the chicken shit off). Together with some chopped onion and pickles it made for a lovely Polish steak tartar. But man, am I paying for it now. Guess I should be grateful it’s just diarrhoea.

In other news, my Polish-style pork ribs are a big hit with absolutely everyone I’ve served them to. Which reminds me; never having spent much time around pigs before I came to Uganda, I didn’t previously realize that living pigs (and sometimes their meat, too) smell exactly like stale human piss. The taste is great, but I think I’m slowly coming to a deeper understanding of the Muslim aversion to swine flesh.

Turning to serious matters, I want to thank everyone who helped collect money for the sewing machines for women in the IDP camp I blogged about some time back (individual thanks will be sent when my internet decides to stop crashing every five minutes – it’s been such a hassle over the past while). We have managed to collect enough money to purchase 6 sewing machines (would have been more, but for the sucky exchange rate), and E and I will pick them up this coming Friday. I talked my Exec. Dir. into letting us use the company pick-up to take them up to Gulu next time it’s heading that way. From there, a woman I know who works in the camp has volunteered to coordinate matters, make sure her organization distributes the machines and that the women put them to good use. Thank you again so much everyone – I realize it must suck to have a friend who hits you up for money all the time.

Immediately prior to departing on my trip to the camp I embarked on a fairly futile humanitarian (felinoferian?) operation. I’ve been hearing a cat meowing under my window for days, and on Sunday when I went to look, there it was, getting kicked around by my neighbor’s kids. Funny what comes out of people’s mouths when they don’t have time to think; what came out of mine, roughly, was “stop that right now or I’m going to have a chat with your mother.”, followed by a “Do unto others” lecture. The kid just stood there with his mouth hanging open, staring at the Muzungu who appeared out of nowhere to yell at him from her second story window. I was so mad I would have thrown something at him if I’d thought of it. Man, I hate kids. Sadistic little bastards. No wonder all the rebels in the world love recruiting child soldiers. He was swinging that cat around upside down, kicking it, and trying to crush it with a piece of wood, all for the sheer pleasure of hearing it squeal. I tried to talk to the kid’s mother afterwards, mostly to find out if the cat was theirs and if they wanted to get rid of it, but she absolutely would not engage with me, other than to say the cat was theirs. It’s not tied up and hangs around outdoors. I guess in its tiny cat brain a plate of food once in a while is worth a couple of kicks a day, otherwise presumably it would run away.

This'll be my last post for a while. I am off to a pretty remote refugee camp up by the Congolese border on Monday, and shall be back on April 18, 2008. No e-mail access in the camp.

In other news, I booked a flight back to Toronto for September. I'll be arriving on September 19, 2008, and staying for a little under a month. My book launch will be in the two weeks following September 19'th, and I dearly hope you will all come. I miss you all terribly.

Okay, for those of you who were craving animals, here is my latest photo album. Please note there are two pages worth of goodness - don't miss the last five photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=44433&l=c7f8f&id=665795308

Sigh. I’ve been trying to post pictures from my Easter outing with the hippos on facebook, and of course it’s going…oh…so…slowly. In fact, at a rate of five pictures per forty five minutes, when I’m lucky. So if you happen to be on facebook and see me adding five photos at a time to the same album, that’s why. I will post the link when I’m finally done.

Okay, I’m officially done with the field notes that were sucking the life out of me for the past two weeks. At least the National Reconciliation Act required thought – transcribing my notes was just bloody tedious. And it didn’t help that my handwriting sucks under the best of circumstances, never mind when I’m squatting in the dirt and trying to balance a notepad on my knee. The end result is 170 single-spaced typed pages. I think I shall have a celebratory drink tonight (as opposed to the regular drink I have most other nights).

In the interest of responsible reporting I am forced to acknowledge that all the Ugandan cheese I have sampled to date tastes like ass. Or, more accurately, like goat’s cheese several months past its “best before” date. Not sure why. They have locally made cheddar, gouda, and mozzarella, and it’s all equally awful. The fancy expat supermarkets stock imported cheeses which are presumable less asslike, but also too pricy for my budget.
In other news, I realized I had run out of dish soap when I got home today. I’ve been feeling crappy all day (stomach issues and lack of sleep), and didn’t really feel like heading back out, so I decided to use my shampoo instead. Soap is soap, right? Anyway, it foamed up really nicely, my garlic press smells like passion fruit, and since the shampoo contains conditioner as well, my dishes are now fluffy, smooth and manageable. With lots of body.
Other than that, it’s been work, work, work, stimulating conversation, work, work, work lounging by the pool, work, work, booze up, work etc. I was even reduced to working while lounging by the pool this past Saturday. Pathetic. My field notes add up to about 160 single spaced typed pages.

People have been complaining to me about the Toronto winter and endless snow. So, following my sadistic urges, I managed to post a couple more photos, this time from my glorious Sunday on a lake Victoria beach.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=41750&l=f8565&id=665795308

I saw the coolest traffic sign today: big white letters against a red background reading “changed priorities ahead.” For a second I was weirded out, then realized it actually referred to construction up ahead causing the direction of traffic to be reversed. Still, I thought it was awesome. If I have time, I might go back there to take a picture.

Finally, after three days of trying, I managed to stick thirteen photos of Northern Uganda up on facebook. Follow the link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40736&l=ca1bd&id=665795308

So here’s the thing. I need all your help. At the risk of inducing donor fatigue (I remember most of you showed up for my fundraiser, and it was deeply appreciated), I’m going to be asking you for money again.
As you might recall from my earlier post, there is an IDP camp in Gulu where I met with a number of “child mothers”. These are women now in their late teens/early twenties, who were abducted by the rebels as children and came back from the bush with children of their own, after having spent years as sex slaves. Most of them have been away for 7-9 years, some longer.
These women are really badly off. Their communities for the most part want nothing to do with them because of the stigma associated with having been with the rebels, the men see them as easy prey, and many of them are HIV+, further complicating everyday life.
I spoke to them for hours, and they told me that realistically, what they need right now to make life a bit more bearable is a sewing machine. They know how to sew already, having been taught by an NGO, but the NGO also took back the sewing machine they practiced on, and now there is nothing. If they were able to sew and sell the clothes they make, they might be able to pay for their children’s school fees, which right now is a major concern.
I later went and tracked down an organization that has worked with the child mothers in that camp before. I spoke at length to the woman in charge about what might be a good approach to take if someone wished to help. She said that there are 200 child mothers in that camp, and that they are organized into six groups. If I were able to get a sewing machine for each group, that would be enough to get them started, they could buy more on their own once they started to make money.
I’ve thought about sustainability- there is someone I know in Gulu who is running a fair trade business, selling local wares to tourists. She might be willing to sell some of the stuff the women make, if it’s good. I was also told that schools are often willing to order their uniforms from such local projects, allowing the women to make a really decent living. So it wouldn’t just be a matter of selling stuff in the camp, there are some prospects of reaching a broader market. And, as I’ve said, this has been done successfully before in other IDP camps.
I spoke to a colleague at my office who has been involved in organizing projects like this before. She is willing to help. She says that a foot-pedal sewing machine (no power in the camps) + thread and needles, would together cost 150 000 Ugandan Shillings per person. That comes out to about $90 Canadian. Multiply by six, and you get $540. I can contribute a good chunk of that, and I’ve found one other person willing to chip in. But, seeing as I have no salary right now and am living off my savings, any contribution you or anyone you know could make would help a lot. Just let me know and we’ll work out how to do it. I know. I’m asking for money again. But I’m pretty sure this can work, and I promised the women I would do what I can.

So I forgot to mention that we travelled back in the company van with six live chickens. One of them was intended for B, who, however, was too sick to pick it up for the first two days. So the chicken stayed in my bathroom, crapping all over the floor and puffing up her feathers whenever I took a shower (she must have thought it was raining). H, a Norwegian woman who is staying with me at the moment, named the chicken Henrietta, and it was all downhill from there….we started bonding. I would sit on the can in the morning and she would stare at me from the corner with her beady little unblinking eyes. I would touch her feathers, and she would cluck. I told B she had to get Henrietta out of my house or I wouldn’t be able to surrender her to her cruel fate.
The funny thing is, once we gave the chicken a name, B too said she had qualms about killing her. She said she’d never eaten anything with a name before. Anyway, it’s all over now, and I was told Henrietta had a good clean death. B said she froze the carcass afterwards because she needs some time to break the association between the meat in her freezer and Henrietta.
My current roommate, H, is someone who is doing her Masters and working at the RLP. She was supposed to stay with me for about three months, but then got a job with the Norwegian Refugee Council and so now has to go back in a week. Which is too bad, because we get along really well. We have very similar politics and similar ideas about sharing food, housework, etc. She has spent a year in the Norwegian army and can drink like a sailor, still going in to work the following morning. She also knows how to hypnotize chickens, though I didn’t believe her until she showed me on Henrietta – you flip them on their backs and kind of draw circles with your finger around their heads. After about a minute, their eyes glaze over, the eyelids close, and they nod off. Freaky.

So I’m back from Ugandan backwaters as of 10pm last night, and Kampala looks like a metropolis by comparison, what with all the international cuisine and such. I’ll be glad not to see a peanut again for a good long while. At one point we were having roast peanuts for breakfast, leaves of some sort in peanut sauce for lunch and beef in peanut sauce for dinner. On the upside, I did get to try all sorts of funky local foods, as per the list below:
Bo – slimy leaves (probably molokheia) in sesame and peanut sauce.
Maloquan – spinach in peanut sauce
Millet porridge – prepared with peanut paste, sesame paste and tamarind, good for breakfast.
Sour milk – much like Polish sour milk, except heavily sweetened.
Cow hoof – tasty, though messy and gelatinous.
Local brew – drunk out of a collective bucket through long straws, has a thick layer of some sort of debris on the top and tastes like a mix of beer, coffee and yeast. Apparently made out of millet.
Rat intestine with ground termites – the intestine tastes much like Polish tripe, though more delicate, the termites are…well…protein. Kind of crunchy even when ground and somewhat bitter.
As for the substantive part of my trip, the IDP camps are what you’d expect of IDP camps. Severely overcrowded, disease ridden and hopeless. Out of 200 persons tested at random in one of the camps recently, nine tested negative for HIV. It was difficult to interview in the camps, because most of the men are too drunk to talk – while the women are scrambling like mad to try and feed their numerous children. There is little opportunity to grow one’s own food since the land around the camp is owned by the local population (and until recently it wasn’t safe to leave the camp for fear of rebel attacks) and the first camp we went to hasn’t had a shipment of food in four months. The only people around with an income are the soldiers who are supposed to be providing “security” for the camp, so pretty much the only way for women to support their families is to sell themselves to the soldiers for food. This does not make their husbands happy and domestic violence rates are skyrocketing. With 35 thousand people or so crowded onto a small plot of land everyone lives on top of each other, and combined with enforced idleness and war trauma this has resulted in insanely high rates of sexual abuse and rape, which for the most part goes unreported.
I talked with several “child mothers” (girls or young women who were abducted by the rebels as children and came back from the bush with kids). Their main concerns are finding food and clean water and coming up with some way to pay their children’s school fees. For the most part, they do not have a high opinion of men; they were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery for years, and now in the camp men see them as easy pray, since they have no families to protect them and are stigmatized by the community as former rebels. They have no way to access the traditional healing mechanisms (cleansing ceremonies, etc.) since those depend largely on belonging to a particular clan, and these women’s clan affiliations were severed when they were kidnapped; in many cases, their parents were killed at the same time, or rejected them when they returned as teenagers. I remember one woman in particular (twenty years old, HIV +, with one twelve year old child and another eight years old), asking me if there was some way to get her and some of the other women a sewing machine, because they were taught how to sew by an NGO, but then the machine was taken away, which leaves them with a useless skill.

And, yet another boda accident - after I finished my previous post another coworker made it into the office with a cast. That's three in the space of two weeks, all seeming to involve broken limbs.

Groan. Still cooling my heels in Kampala. The trip that was to leave yesterday has been stalled by banking delays, so we're leaving either tomorrow or Friday, depending on who you ask.

Another of my coworkers was hit by a car two days ago, is in the hospital with a fractured pelvis. I'm beginning to think I should really get on top of my health insurance - I have it, but haven't really read through the procedures for accessing it in an emergency,and it occurs to me that I don't want to wait until I'm being wheeled into the operating room in order to do so.

Haven't really felt like posting much for the past two days - not sure why. Maybe I'm all written out, having just completed that monster memo I've been trying to work on since Christmas. Now trying to motivate myself to look for jobs, but it's anxiety inducing, and anxiety inducing activities make me (and everyone else in the world) prone to procrastination: hence this post, written while I should be working on job apps.

Meeting with the seamstress was really cool. She kept complimenting me on my figure,going on and on about how beautiful it was, and at first I thought that she was being nice because, well, I was paying her. Then she whipped out her fashion magazine to show me some patterns I could choose from, and lo and behold, all the Ugandan models were built just like me, only taller. It's kind of neat to see clothes designed for, and photographed on, women with flesh.

So much for now. Will now go and attempt to inquire after jobs. Bleh.

I hosted another dinner party last night. B’s (Toronto B’s, not Uganda B’s) lentils were a big hit. I had to perform miracles to multiply the food last minute, because about a third more people showed up than I anticipated – which is something that usually happens with Ugandan parties, so my bad for not anticipating it.
My neighbours from the other side of the balcony came too. They’ve been coming around to my place with the baby and promised to teach me how to cook – acted aghast that I could live to be 32 without knowing how to prepare matoke or posho. The baby is cute and very, very large for eight months. He’s being looked after by his mom and two aunties, and they all seem just so, well… happy to have him. The mom is studying Business Administration at Makarere, so whenever she’s in class her two younger sisters take over. I almost never hear him crying, and yesterday when I asked one of his aunts “how was your day,” she gave me this big grin and said, “happy. Babies bring happiness.” She seemed to really believe it. And he’s sufficiently used to me now that he’s stopped bawling whenever I come near.
Just as importantly, I also figured out how to keep the neighbors out of my house when I’m busy – there seems to be an unspoken rule that when your front door is open (I leave it open to air the apartment out), you’re “in” to visitors. When it’s closed, nobody bothers you.
Spent all of Sunday working on my never ending legal memo and washing my underwear. Very productive, not very inspiring. I noticed that I typically get more done when I work at home, but also end up feeling really isolated and blue. Then again, I read about a study recently that showed people work best when they’re slightly depressed – being happy is distracting, apparently. Which just confirms my long held belief that it’s in the best interest of Capitalism to keep us all miserable and productive.
On a different note, B’s brother brought some wax prints from Western Uganda – I picked one I really like and am looking forward to having an outfit made for…well, for less than I’d have to pay a seamstress in Toronto to do it.

I’m basking in Africa at the moment. Sitting on my balcony, listening to the rain that has just started and watching the lightening. Having a beer and enjoying the night air. It’s an ideal set-up, and one I’ve been dreaming of since I got here – as of today, I have a little round coffee-shop style table that’s just made for a laptop and a beer, and my power cord is long enough that I can thread it through the open window into my living room. The balcony is wide and I don’t have to worry about being splashed by the rain unless the wind picks up. I can just sit here listening to the downpour and smelling the air.
The rain has now become a thunderstorm and there are rivulets of water running off my roof, a bead curtain between my balcony and the world. It twinkles in the electric light. In the distance, I can see lightening and the lights of houses on neighboring hills. This is what life should be like.
I needed this. I’ve been feeling morose on and off for the past week, not really sure why. At first I thought it might be culture shock setting in (it’s about time), but to be honest, it doesn’t feel like culture shock. When I’m culture shocked, I find everything about the place where I’m living irritating. I go to ridiculous lengths to find familiar ingredients at the supermarkets, seek out restaurants that serve food which reminds me of Toronto, send many, many e-mails to my friends back home and feel hurt when they don’t respond right away. I start craving particular streets or TV shows, want to hide in my apartment, and become outraged by local customs that I found interesting a week earlier. That hasn’t really happened. In fact, if anything, I crave engagement with this country – I feel like I want to know every part of Kampala, discover new things to eat, meet people. I have a hard time dragging myself out of bed in the morning, but then get happy again when I’m on the boda on my way to work; it makes me happy to see the big mosque over the hill, and feel the wind on my face. I think part of it is the weather; it’s hard to be depressed when you live in a place that is basically June in Toronto, all year round. It can get kind of hot around 3-4pm, but no hotter than Canada – maybe 30-32 degrees, and in the mornings and evenings the temperature hovers around 21-23 degrees. When it rains the air cools down further, but the rain rarely lasts more than half an hour (when I began to type this, the rain was just beginning – by now, it’s stopped entirely).
So I don’t think I can blame my blues on culture shock, unless it’s some new manifestation of it that I haven’t encountered previously. At the same time, I have been feeling a bit….adrift in the world. I’m anxious over finding a job, for one thing, because I know I want to stay here but also know I need money to do so. Also somewhat lonely, though the fact that I’ve made really good friends quickly does help. Still, there are times when the risks I’ve taken in the past few months scare me, when I feel like I’m shooting my career in the foot because of some unquantifiable and positively flaky inner conviction that this is where I ought to be.
I rescued the cutest baby gecko in the world today. It was less than two inches long (including the tail), and looked exactly like a miniature of an adult gecko, complete with the little suction-cup toes and darting eyes. It had somehow crawled inside my mosquito netting yesterday. I left it there for the night, but then it occurred to me that the silly thing would starve eventually – there was no way for it to get out, and no insects to hunt inside the mosquito net tent. So I caught it and put it on my wall instead, from where it promptly scampered out the open window. I hope it comes back. It would be neat to have a pet that feeds itself.
My grandmother’s Polish stewed ribs are a big hit (well, okay, they’re pig ribs – my grandmother’s recipe). I’ve served them twice now, and people keep literally begging me to invite them back. B wants the recipe, and even K, who is intensely fussy about his food, really, really liked them. For some inexplicable reason marjoram, fairly rare in Canada, is easy to find in Kampala, so there are no restrictions on my ability to make the dish other than price- pork ribs are disproportionately expensive by local standards.

Lest anyone think I exaggerate the dangers of Kampala traffic, one of my colleagues ended up in critical care last night after being hit by a car, and I was very, very, very lightly tapped on the back by the fender of an SUV while I was riding a boda today.
I had a Not Tabouleh Salad for lunch. It started out with every intention of being Tabbouleh. I soaked the bulgur I brought from Canada and everything, then spent a half hour trying to separate the parsley from the rest of the parsley/coriander/dill bundles I bought. It was pretty hopeless – their roots were intertwined. I think they’re just grown together here and, like so many local ingredients, are intended solely for tossing into stew. So in the end I resigned myself to having coriander and dill in my Tabbouleh salad. There were no green onions so I had to use regular onion instead. It was at the point when I discovered I had no lemons left that I kind of gave up on the Tabbouleh and threw in a cucumber for good measure. It was good. Just not Tabbouleh.
It amuses me how much interest I generate while performing the most mundane actions. I don’t think Uganda’s unique for this; it’s pretty similar everywhere I’ve been where people aren’t used to seeing a lot of foreigners. Still funny though, to see other customers at the supermarket craning their necks to catch a glimpse inside my shopping basket. Yes, the muzungu does buy yoghurt occasionally. It does not feed exclusively off the flesh of the unwary.

There are thousands of bats circling my house as I write this (or more properly, circling a tree about a hundred metres from my house). They make the coolest kind of chirping sound, and I’ve never noticed them before – I guess I just never looked out my window at dusk, and always assumed the screeching was birds.
It is pineapple season, and they are glorious, big, juicy, and sweet, and not at all like the pitiful, plasticky tasting things we have in Canada.
Before going home for Christmas I had my first opportunity to taste Ugandan milk – I was super excited, seeing as I have fond memories of the milk I used to drink in Poland when I was a kid spending the summer in countryside. I expected to taste cow. My coworkers talked me out of drinking the thing raw and I agreed to let one of them boil it for me – much to my disappointment, the liquid I got was thin-tasting and nothing like what I remembered from my childhood.
Today the cow man came around again, and I told B about how disappointing the experience was last time – to which she replied that they had put water in my milk, because otherwise people here find it too rich. So I decided to have another go at it. Except that this time, the milk wasn’t even skimmed, so that what I got was a steaming cup of clotted cream – or, more specifically, clots of cream suspended in a little bit of milk. The taste was delicious, the texture vile, and the whole thing so rich I felt queasy after just a couple of gulps.

Highly recommended, especially for those of you who, like myself, are beginning to despise facebook with a deep and heartfelt loathing (and those of you who don't should read it as well):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook