What's for dinner?

It's like camping.

I'm usually covered in dirt five minutes after leaving my house.

I cook by gas stove and headlamp.

I have to eat perishable foods quickly since the refrigeration system operates for just a few hours at a time before losing power.

Anything in the kitchen has to be secured by ziplock so the ants don't go nuts.

I sleep under a tent. (made of mosquito netting)

I can't sit around in the evening without being eaten alive by mosquitos. (otherwise somewhat shielded from by said netting)

Strange, unfamiliar noises often keep me awake at night.

I’m having to learn to sit for hours at a time alone, and entertain myself somehow.

My living situation is un-ideal—and I have yet to decide if I will tough it out or find a new place.  I am looking around to see if something better presents itself, and if so, I will definitely opt for a change. The main problem is that I don't like my roommate, and it's not a comforting place to head home.  She is pretty cold most of the time, and the apartment itself is lacking. My bed is a 4-inch piece of foam on a tiny wood frame... I don't even think it is fully twin-size.  That, and a bedside table the look and size of a stool are the only things in my room.  The city of Kampala is so hectic—traffic is crazy.  In fact, I narrowly missed getting hit by a van on the way to work yesterday morning, inches separated my body from its front bumper…I entered the office with my hands still shaking.  The city and its inhabitants are in-your-face-at-all-times.  Some would call it vibrant and lively.  I call it mostly terrifying and stressful.  I'm sure speaking Luganda would help, then I wouldn't be so alarmed at the things people shout to each other. It does get old having people yell "Muzungu!" (white-person) or "Muzungu, we go?" (if calling from a boda-boda) at me all the time.  I'm not sure it would be appropriate to shout "African!" back.... It’s cuter when kids shout it, laughing and waving.

The concept of prepaid phone minutes and Internet is driving me crazy. The time difference between here and Portland makes it hard to connect with people, so I have to either plan my morning or nights getting to the office or an internet cafe at weird times to even make it work… and I discovered that during the rainy season you have plan even more, because you might get trapped. 

I was trapped for four hours at an Internet café about 15 minutes up the road from my apartment, as the monsoon tropical rains have started to come in intervals, and boda-bodas don’t run in that kind of weather. There was also no way I could carry my laptop or make it back without a jacket, umbrella, or boat.

An Internet café with decent food sounds like the perfect place to be trapped in this sort of scenario; however, I realized in 10 minutes that their open WiFi connection wouldn’t support Skype, the whole original purpose of my visit.  I used the remaining 400MB of my prepaid stick (which I had fortunately carried there with me) in about an hour, thanks to Skype’s overzealous bandwidth usage.  The rain began as I was finishing my breakfast (and honestly, rain seems to docile of a word to describe what this weather looks like—and I am from Oregon.)  Will upload a shoddy video shortly, hopefully it will give an idea of what it looks like.  I soon realized their WiFi would no longer work at all, not even slowly, to support checking email or anything else. I was lucky enough to have a book with me, but it was pretty ironic to be stuck without Internet with a laptop in the middle of an Internet café.

…

Last night I hurried to an open café within the middle of a city mall to try and catch a couple people on Skype, and purchase more credit for my Internet stick.  The bank was already closed, so I couldn’t pick up my debit card, so I couldn’t withdraw more $, so I couldn’t buy the credit.

Everything here still feels like a lot of work, and even extended efforts at planning don’t always make it work. I was feeling frustrated, and tired from trying to get everything in order and not have it pan out.  I looked through the menu to pick something out for dinner, feeling somewhat sorry for myself.

And that's why I ordered steak.