Football Hooligans

Ok, so as I promised, here is the start of my belated blogposts about Uganda! I can't promise how good these posts will be since I'm kind of overwhelmed by the sheer number of stories I need to tell. Its important for me to get them down before I forget them. And since this blog is mostly just for myself / my closes friends anyway, I hope you will forgive me.  This post will draw heavily from my journal entry written at 3 in the morning on Satuday June 9th aka the first full day I had in Uganda!

So around 11 me, Matt and Wayne headed out to get breakfast/a ticket to the game for Alfred our driver. We walked up the road and then started crossing this little bit of jungle-y part towards this area that looks like a slum but is really a thriving market. 

One of the entrances to the market as seen by my balcony

Outside the market is a stall where women will make you a “rolex”. This is a scrambled egg inside a sort of ciabatta rool type thing that they fry. It was so cool. Just like in a shaky outdoor hut with flies everywhere and minimal hygiene. We sat on a bench to wait while they cooked. It was pretty cool. They put the food in bags for us and we walked through the market to the other side to catch a taxi.

I just found this on the internet, but rolex stands are really common throughout the country. They are the go to (and perhaps only) fast food around besides samosas. Unlike McDonald's though, you have no one to blame but yourself when you get food poisoning--more on that later!

Did I say taxi? I meant one of the old white vans crawling throughout the city. They pick people up on the street and cram like 13 people in. When you want to get off you say “stage.” I’m so glad Peter and Wayne were around to lead everything because I had no idea what was going on. But the rolex was good! It was funny because as we were biting into it, Peter was like “well…it’s not an exact science but…let’s eat this and see if anyone gets sick. If not we are coming here everyday.” So I was a little nervous but it was way good. 

Another internet picture just for kicks.
It's pretty appropriate though complete with plastic bag and  tentative white hand.

After riding the taxi for a bit, we got to the nicer area where we bought the ticket for Alfred. I tried to get my money exchanged but my bills weren't big enough. Lame. We then walked into a nice store, bought ourselves soda in glass bottles, were given straws and drank them while riding the taxi home.  On the way back, traffic was getting pretty bad and a man passed on the street selling Uganda jerseys for the football match we were about to go to. So Peter yelled out the window for him to come over and we bought jerseys. (Peter was spotting me since I still don’t have any money). So I had a black jersey and immediately the conductor next to me (not the driver but the man who manages money) turned to me and was like “put on! Put on!” so I did he was like "yeaaaahhh!!" And then as we were walking back people kept giving us the peace signn and we were like ok? This is really odd. But then we realized it was because we were all in our jerseys and people were getting so psyched about the game.  So. Then Alfred picked everyone up from the apartments and we went to the match!

                                                                    

                                                               It. Was. Crazy. 

I think my pictures can do most of the talking. It was so crowded and everyone was going crazy. There were vuvuzelas everywhere and people were selling all sorts of stuff on the streets and guys had paint out to paint people’s faces.  So we did that (we got a Uganda flag painted on our cheeks) and we seriously think it was probably house paint. It smelled so bad. We made out way up into the stadium, getting totally squeezed by the crowd. I got so swept away by the human traffic that I was pretty much impaled by the cattle gate thing everyone went through.

The road leading up to the stadium

You see armed guards everywhere. 

Absolute chaos. It was right around here that I practically got impaled.
It was alarming.

Everyone w as dressed up in the Ugandan colors (red, yellow and black).
 I think this man's expression is cute.

Also, as we were walking up and the crowd was going crazy I GOT PICK POCKETED!!! Everyone was dancing and was super excited to see us muzungus (white people) so they were dancing up to us and this one guy in a memorable white shirt kept dancing next to me. And he was keeping really close. I started to get freaked out like, is this guy hitting on me or …what is he doing? So basically I noticed that he had targeted me. And it was so easy to get swallowed by the crowd so I jogged up to catch up with everyone and he would be jogging right behind me. Eventually I felt him slip his hand into my pocket and take my ticket. I was like “hey!” and reached out trying to get it from his hands but he wasn't giving it back. Then I stopped trying to fight him because I was like … is this a good idea? Confronting  a full grown African man? So I turned to my group and was like “he just took my ticket!” and immediately Brady ran after him into the crowd. 

I wasn't hopeful. But low and behold, Brady came back with the ticket in his hand! I was like “how did you get it????” and he was like “… I just got it.” All mysteriously. It turns out that he chased the guy long enough that eventually the thief turned and handed it back to Brady. I guess a bunch of Ugandan’s were running after Brady too. When I asked why the other spectator Ugandans were following the chase Brady figured that they were trying to get my ticket back too.  Isn't that awesome? 

The infamous ticket.
By the way a lot of these pictures are actually Wayne's so this is in fact his ticket.
 But you get the idea.

Read number Two. Just read it.
T.I.A.

Finally out of the thick of it and climbing the stairs to the actual stadium.

Ok so we got into the stadium about 2 hours before the match actually started. We sat around for awhile. Wayne read his lugana grammar book  (trying to learn the native language) and we all just screamed and were bombarded by a crazy amount of noise and vuvuzelas etc. 

Armed guards who didn't really seem to do anything

the gang...and this was before the match even started

Cheerleaders

check out the crowd!

his sign says "ask Nigeria, Ghana or Angola" which I guess means that Uganda beat them recently.

The hats! The hats! 

The Uganda Craines (the football team) has the motto "we go, we go."
The motto for Uganda is "For God and my country."
It's not uncommon to see things spelled wrong. So I really fit in in that country.

The girl I am hugging is the wonderful Corrine

see that crazy face in the middle there?
Truly alarming (its a mask)

Wayne being a  nerd / really smart person and studying his language book

I know this sounds really weird but I don't think I had ever seen this many black people in one place.
Just all black  people with hardly any whites. Africa was good to me that way. No shortage of black people.

It had a sort of Mardi Gras feel

She told me to look sad during halftime when we at 0:1

The match was cool. People got so into it but I didn't really know what was going on. At one point people started throwing their water bottles down to the field because they were so excited. Which explains why they weren't supposed to bring bottles in-they turn into missiles! There is so much more to tell but I just don’t even know how to put it into words. We ended up tying 1 - 1.  You would have thought we won the world cup or something the way everyone was freaking out. Afterwards we were dancing around and a bunch of Ugandans kept coming up wanting our picture. We were like celebrities. EVERYONE wanted a picture with the muzungos in their Uganda get-up at the game. It was really fun. 

Let the crazy dancing with total strangers begin!

Peter and this kid got into a vuvuzela-off

truly giddy now

and here is an example of how people just kept jumping in

Leaving the stadium the Senegal team was waiting in their bus. Everyone was booing at them and they had a police barrior and the team was just like “…” as they looked out all posh at everyone. I mean, we were celebrating a tie for heaven's sake. They also had police buses to keep people they arrested in. 

Just a random girl. Such was the spirit in the air that you just run up to people and take pictures with them and no one thinks anything of it!

police were really straining themselves

Later that night after Alfred drove us back home and after we had eaten dinner with some friends from the ward, we looked at people's pictures from the day. It was so funny because peter plugged his thumbdrive into the tv and it just started playing his Christmas playlist. We didn’t know how to turn it off so we just ended up looking at all these pictures of football hooligans with "Oh come Oh come Emmanual" in the background. Excellent.

Anyway, as I said that was my first full day in Africa! I'd like to say oh, you know that kind of shinanigans never happened again, but actually...we wen't to another football match the next week! I don't have as many pictures from that game and it was mostly more of the same except that

1. My professor and his 12 year old daughter were there totally jet lagged

2. We won that match (against Congo) 4-0 and people were out. of. control.

3. The atmosphere in the stadium was such that men were climbing on the poles holding up the speakers throughout the game (so about 30 feet up).

4. After the match an announcement came on saying that people weren't allowed to get on the field. I thought this was a silly superfluous announcement. 

5. Within 10 minutes the field was flooded with fans running around, screaming, blowing their horns. To get them off, the authorities turned the super high power sprinklers on. This just provided a new outlet for play.

6. On the way home we say a boda with no less than 5 guys on it. That's one motorcycle with 5 people crammed onto it going down the highway. 

That kid wanted to blow the horn I had bought. So I let him. And I was being a bit of a germaphobe so I wasn't sure what to do after that. So I let him hang onto it. He proceeded to blow the horn into my ear for the next hour. I ended up just telling him he could keep it. Giddy, he ran off into the crowd. 

My "I can't believe this is happening but this is really fun and I love it and I'm not sure if a mob is going to  break out in
 the next 5 minutes and also this is really loud" face.

Ok friends! Thats it! My experience as a football hooligan! Props if you made it to here in this lengthy post! Next stop...Prince of Egypt TWO. Get excited.

p.s. sorry about the weird white highlight on the text. It happens whenever I copy and paste text and I don't know how to get rid of it.

Princess Jenny

I'M BACK!!! IN AMERICA!!!

And let me just say: I feel like a princess.

Life is so easy here. Well, maybe not easy. We all have problems wherever we are in the world, however rich we are. But convenient. It's so convenient here. I got off the plane, met up with my beautiful mom and waited for my dad to circle around and pick us up and take us home. No public transportation at all!

Then when I got home, I had all sorts of welcome's waiting for me: my favorite Schnucks cookie cake (usually consumed at children's birthday parties), a 'welcome home' balloon, even a bouquet of flowers next to my bed. My tabby cat, Bonnie, seemed to think that my homecoming was too good to be true. And then my older sister Emily showed up and I was reunited with one of my best friends! We sat at the kitchen table just talking and talking and talking about me, Me, ME!

Thus, I have come to the conclusion that I am a princess.

And then --I have to admit it-- one of the most magical moments was when I opened the closet door in my room and was reunited with all my clothes! Clean, cute, clothes. Expensive clothes. Colorful clothes. Coats from England and vintage dresses from Carolina, belts, headbands- all sorts of nonsensical clothes that you would only wear if you aren't planning on getting your hands dirty.

Ok, I know what you are thinking. You're thinking is in one of two camps. Either you are bracing yourself for a lengthy soapbox about poverty and white guilt or you are thinking that I'm playing up my economic position a little bit. Well, this ain't no guilt trip. Yes,  I just came from a place where many people live in poverty. And yes, there is totally unfair inequality in the world. And anyone reading this is on the lucky side of that inequality. But that doesn't mean  we have to feel guilty all the time. I just think we need to be aware of our riches.

Growing up I thought oh, I'm normal, I'm middle class, everyone has as much as I do. Not so. Even by American standards I would say that I am disgustingly spoiled. I just went to Uganda! I have way more of everything than I need.

And yet, we live in this entitlement culture. With everything available at the press of a button we sometimes forget how wonderful our lives are. We get bored. In the words of that famous comedian talking to Connan "Everything's Amazing and No one's happy." It's sad. Because even with all the money and luxury and technology that we have, we generally don't have a life style of happiness. Ugandan's are fond of putting religious mantra's on the back of their taxi vans. Things like "God is Good," or "God is with us all the time" or even "God's Plan 3" (what?). But one of the best mantras I ever saw on the back of a taxi was "The rich cry too."

So there they are in Uganda, totally poor, but with a gross national happiness value that I would hazard to guess is higher than ours, reminding themselves that even wealth cannot cure pain and sadness. We shouldn't be happy because we are wealthy. We should be happy because we are alive. And we should be grateful for everything.

I don't know, I just think its kind of amazing. I don't need to feel guilty about the inequality of the world- I didn't create the system- but I do need to do something about it. Even if its small. And I do need to be mindful of my blessings and my opportunities.

My sister directed my to a quote that I really like:

"If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty." -Rilke


No poverty. No quota on happiness. No limited stockpile of joy. Its there for the taking. And in my world of bounty with food and clothes and technology, but most especially family and friends and love, I am a princess.

And I am a poet.