Muzungu In Uganda

Ever just have those moments where you are overcome with peace? For me, it's a different feeling than happiness. Happiness comes in the form of ice cream, fact. Peace is the feeling I get when I recognize that at this exact moment, there's no where else I'd rather be than right where I am that very second. Sometimes the feeling comes when I'm by the ocean, on a run, swinging in my parent's backyard, laughing with my favorite people, or, as was the case this week, riding on the back of a stranger's motorbike through remote Ugandan villages.

Let me rewind. Before I left for my trip to Entebbe,Uganda, I received an email from a fellow crew member informing me that through a website she had located a tour guide that would be willing to show us around Entebbe. Always up for an adventure, and in need of redeeming myself after being a lame-o in India, I eagerly signed up!

Just an hour after our arrival, we met our tour guide, Walter, outside the gates of our hotel. Walter also brought along three other drivers, so that all four of us crew members could have our own limousines. And by limousines, I do mean motorbikes, or as the locals call them, boda bodas. My driver, a very sweet Ugandan man who introduced himself as Johny, and after a five minute discussion over the pronunciation of my name, settled on calling me Kels for the remainder of the day.


My driver, Johny.

 

We quickly signed waivers promising not to sue Walter's Boda Boda Tours in the unlikely event that we were injured and or killed that day. We were fitted with our very own bike helmets (safety first), and away we went!

 



 

The first stop along the tour was to a large mosque. Following with Muslim practices, women must wear skirts and cover their hair in order to enter the mosque. Although skirts and a scarf wrapped around my head is not my usual look, I obliged.

 

 

After I was all suited up, we entered into the mosque, and climbed a tower connected to it that led to an awesome view of the city. It was neat to have different areas pointed out to us, so that we would somewhat know where we were during the rest of the tour.

Before we left the mosque, Walter took a moment to explain the next point of interest along our tour. We would be driving through the slums, but because of safety reasons we would not be stopping. Houses, many made of leftover plywood scraps, lined the dirt roads. Children, no older than ten, with dirty faces and no shoes, carried babies on their backs. And every few feet blankets were spread out on the ground that were covered with clothing items that were for sale. They all appeared to be used clothing, and many of the tee shirts I saw had logos such as Miami Heat and Iowa State University printed on them. Many people shouted, "Muzungu, muzungu," (white person), as we drove past, and we definitely were among the minority in this neck of the woods.

After driving through the slums we reached an area that served as a torture camp during the 1970's. Over 300 people were tortured and died inside of the champers. The victim's hand prints, created from a mixture of the mud and feces they were forced to stand in, remain on the walls. Being inside of the chamber was eery, and I was more than happy to get the heck out of dodge, so to speak.

After our stop at the ol Disney World of Uganda, I was beyond exhausted and ready to head back to our hotel. Nightfall had set in, as had crazy amounts of traffic. Although all four of us left at the same time, we all were soon separated due to the every man for themselves style of traffic. After about eight minutes into our thirty minute drive, Johny and I came to a street that was blocked as far as the eye could see with vans, taxi's, and bota bota's. There was no other choice for movement, even the sidewalks were blocked with vehicles, so we turned off our motorbike, and sat. And sat. And sat. I took my camera out from it's hiding spot in the front of my shirt in order to capture this craziness on film, but Johny was quick to tell me, "Kels, not safe. Camera away." Noted.

With that, I did become slightly frightened. Girl, check. Only white in sight, check check. No cell phone, check check and check! All while humming the tune of "Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh dooooo remember me," I slowly started to pull down the sleeves on my rolled up shirt so that I could tuck my white hands inside, and ever so slightly shoved my long braid inside of my helmet. Anything to minimize the whole extreme tourist look I had going on! Within minutes we were rolling again. I was literally squeezing my knees together so that my long legs would not scrape the other vehicles as we zipped past them. The traffic was insane!

 Eventually we reached an open rode, and picked up speed. The wind was blowing, the moon was shinning, and I was smiling and holding on tight to Johny (my knight and shining armor), in a brand new place I had never been before. I'm not exactly sure where we were or how we got there, but I do know that for those few seconds... there was no where else in the entire world I would have rather been.

And that my friends, is peace!

My Non Adventures in Kolkata

Last week I had this post all planned out in my mind. It was going to about my trip to Kolkata, India, and include the extremely touching and inspirational account of my visit to the Mother Theresa Orphanage. It was supposed to be a life changing event, and the retelling of my visit was almost guaranteed to produce a few tears out of you, my faithful blog readers. Unfortunately, I have no such story to tell. My adventures in Kolkata are about as anti climatic as the retelling of the paint drying process. I reached my hotel, closed my eyes for a quick 15 minute power nap, and slept for seven hours straight. I woke up just long enough to realize I had missed out on an entire days worth of activities, ordered and ate some questionable chicken curry via room service, and fell back asleep for another seven hours. Then I left.

I should have known better than to even formulate afternoon plans with my fellow crew members, all the classic signs of exhaustion were there. I fell sound asleep on the twenty minute bus ride from the airport to the hotel, and after being woken up by the captain, I threw my red hat on and haphazardly tossed the white scarf around my head, completely wishing that it was my blanket instead, and stumbled into the hotel lobby. Before I could fully even open my eyes, a bright flash went off and a man with a name tag, indicating he worked for the hotel, was muttering with a thick Indian accent something about capturing memories of a lifetime. It wasn't even until the next day when I received an email from the hotel, and opened up this gem of a photo that I realized not only had I been had walking around with a bright red lipstick stain on the shoulder of my blazer (visual proof of my bus ride snooze), but those little sneaky sneak members of the hotel welcoming staff had managed to place a bright red bindi on my forehead! I legit thought she was adjusting my hat. Sleep deprivation, you won this round!

Half Asleep Kelsey and The Rest Of The Cabin Crew. Photo Courtesy of The Hotel Staff .

This month I was given a schedule that was nearly full of turn around flights (trips that have no layover). I actually haven't minded the large amounts of turn arounds, as it's allowed me to spend more time than usual at home in Dubai.

Last week I flew to Baghdad, Iraq twice. It was actually a nice flight, and all of the passengers were very kind. Many of them were US citizens, doing civilian work in the region. I couldn't help but to have Outkast's song, Bombs Over Baghdad stuck in my mind as we were flying over the tiny country. Luckily, that good ol common sense kicked in, and I decided it would be best for the blond American to refrain from humming this catchy little tune during the flight to the not so land of the free!

So in between my turn around flights, I've been on a mission to accomplish two goals during the month of December. Goal number one: begin training for a half marathon. I have officially signed up to run my first ever half marathon (I've actually signed up for a half before....just didn't run it. Oops). The race is in the U.A.E. in February. I've been training for just about three weeks, and as of today, I've ran 30 miles total, 14 of those this week. So far, training has been injury free, sans the slight shoulder sprain I just encountered from patting myself on the back...

My second December goal has been to get into the holiday spirit. Holidays without my mom are just so stinking hard! Through this really fun grieving process, I've learned that trying to mentally skip out on things like birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays is ineffective, so it is better to just embrace them. Despite living in a Muslim country located in the desert, I've been trying my hardest to celebrate the Christmas season. So far, I've gone ice skating, watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, decorated Christmas cupcakes, painted ornaments, hung up my advent calendar, and forced my friends to pose with me for pictures next to anything even remotely Christmasy! I must say, it's beginning to look a lot like....

Paula, Me, Santa, and Sarah at A Resort Lobby In Dubai.

Adventures in Accra

The great Forest Gump said it best, "Life is like a box of chocolates, ya never know what you're gonna get."

Following suit with this philosophy, I think it's safe to say that Friday was like biting into a chocolate covered pepperoni. It wasn't necessarily horrible, but completely unexpected!

Every six months I'm required to be on reserve, meaning that instead of getting a schedule for the full month, I act as a substitute in case another cabin crew member calls in sick or fails to report for their flight. On Friday morning I was assigned to be on standby duty at our headquarters. As soon as I checked in, I was informed that I would be going on a four day trip to Accra. Accawhat?!

I quickly googled Accra, to figure out what part of the world I was actually headed to, and boarded the flight. Off to Ghana I flew!

Mural Painted Inside The Accra Airport

After an eight hour flight, we landed on the coast of Western Africa. Despite being exhausted, I decided to head out with two other crew members and the captain to check out the local beach and possibly go horse back riding. The ride to the ocean was very interesting! At stop signs, men and women, who were peddling various items such as bottles of juice, fresh fruit, and AA batteries, knocked on our taxi cab windows, and begged us to make purchases. I'm all stocked up on AA batteries, so I passed. However, I am still in complete amazement at the amount of weight people are able to balance on their heads!

Notice The Tray of Fruit...Impressive
 

After hearing several bad reviews about the quality of the local beach, I had my expectations set quite low, however, I was pleasantly surprised! The ocean is actually part of the Atlantic, so it was kind of cool to see the other side of the ocean that I grew up peeing in visiting! After the full day of flying, our energy levels were relatively low. We all decided that drinking the local beer and looking at the horses would be much more relaxing than actually riding them!

Insert Horse's Ass Joke Here

The next day we did a quick shuttle flight to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and ended up back in Accra for another night. The entire crew then ventured out to an awesome local seafood restaurant for dinner. It was definitely one of the top five best seafood meals I've ever eaten in my life! Calamari, tuna steak, and lobster...check, check, and check!

 

 

Thankfully, I managed to squeeze back into the ol beige uniform, and landed safely into Dubai yesterday! Now, off to enjoy the next three days, no work style!