i'm here!

finally! i'm so excited, and also pretty overwhelmed. kampala is such a crowded, busy place--the streets are crammed with honking buses, cars, bicycles, boda-bodas (motorcycle taxis), and pedestrians picking their way precariously through the jumble. it is hot and dusty and colorful. little shops and street vendors line every road, selling all manner of things: brightly printed traditional outfits, used books, flip flops, hot chapatis, watches, toys, little bags of groundnuts... squeezed in between are internet cafes, little stalls offering hair braiding, appliance repair shops, and the ubiquitous yellow stands selling calling cards and cell phones.

the roads are mainly dirt, and incredibly bumpy. there is a joke here that when you see someone swerving and weaving crazily back and forth along the road, it is a sure sign that they are sober--only the drunk ones drive straight! (as they can't think straight enough to avoid all the crevices and potholes.)

we passed by a market on the way into town--baskets and mats filled with fresh produce: avocados, onions, sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkins, plantains, tomatoes... a truck was parked nearby piled some eight feet high with pineapples, and another stood equally stuffed with giant bunches of bananas. i even saw a vendor on a bicycle driving by with hundreds of eggs in little cartons precariously strapped to the back of his seat.

for my study abroad program, we've mostly been doing orientation-type stuff--classes don't start until monday. i wish katie, courtney and i hadn't missed the first two days of the program due to that bloody blizzard in london! we've a lot to catch up on--particularly on basic phrases in the local language, luganda, and just generally getting our bearings in the country. but everyone has been super friendly and helpful in catching us up. it seems like a good group--full of a variety of interesting people. i'm excited to get started.

the two most vivid elements of kampala, for me, are the boda-bodas and the marabou storks:

the marabou storks are terrifying creatures. muna, one of the program's administrators, calls them the "friends of kampala," but they seem very unfriendly indeed. they stand about three feet tall and have coats of mangy grey feathers. their sole vocation in life is to eat trash, so they flock around trashcans and heaps of rubbish along the street like giant filthy flies. they creep about on long, spindly black legs and will suddenly swoop up on their enormous dark wings, reminding me of vultures or giant bats. they lurk ominously in flocks on trees, weighing down the branches. apparently, when they die they do not even start to decompose for a year, they are so full of filth and trash. not even the bugs will dare to touch them.

the boda-bodas are motorcyclists who taxi people through the streets, weaving recklessly through traffic, squeezing in between buses and cars, even careening through gutters and up onto the sidewalk to get to their destination. one of the first things our program directors said was "you are strictly forbidden from riding a boda-boda" as they are incredibly dangerous. in fact, the two warnings on the state department website for uganda are 1) the civil war in the north, and 2) riding boda-bodas. apparently there is an entire ward in the kampala hospital for victims of boda-boda accidents. whenever i cross the streets (which are all completely devoid of crosswalks or, it seems, much respect for rules of the road) i jump whenever i see one. i hope i will soon figure out how to manage basic things like crossing the street!