Running around a field, then running away

I started to write a post last week that went like this:

I’m bored.

I can’t stand sitting in front of a computer all day. I kind of hate that I’m doing it right now, but I’m overdue for a post. Entertaining myself with YouTube music videos can only go so far. 

I try to be productive during my day, because I still have that tugging feeling that I haven’t figured it out yet. Sometimes I Google vague queries like “Brazil jobs” and poke around. 

Sometimes I try to translate cryptic Lugandan Facebook posts.

I still haven't decided if I mostly dislike living here, or kind of like it. 

I dislike a lot of things about living here. 

It definitely doesn’t help that I’m bored all day at work—6 days a week. Leaving me all of Sunday to experience a momentary bout of freedom.

I miss the shit out of my friends. I miss my little soccer crew. I miss having meaningful heart-to-heart talks with my girlfriends. I miss hugs. I miss my Benny Boy.

On the "bright" side, the weather here is mostly awesome. I love being warm in the evenings when a cool breeze is blowing and the fact that the sun shines daily. I love that all the bars and clubs play hip-hop or reggae, or local music that involves some sort of danceable beat, and then they pull out the old 90's slow-jam gems that I forgot I once loved. 

I think it’s pretty cool that Ugandans really know how to socialize, and don’t stay hidden away inside their homes. (Albeit that's exactly what I end up doing at least a couple times a week.) The streets are always lively, full of music, people, machines, chickens. It's both a blessing and a curse because sometimes it’s overwhelming, and noisy and dirty and feels like mental harassment.

But I am still asking myself what I'm doing here half (or more than half) of the time...

So I guess it's back to the drawing board...

Then I got depressed. I realized I needed to get out of the city. And so I finalized plans to join my coworker, Richard, roommate Jen and new friend Anna, on a trip to Mgahinga National Park, an area in far Western Uganda, on the border of Rwanda and The Democratic Republic of the Congo. The aim was to climb a dormant volcano called Sabyinyo on Sunday, then take a bus back to Kampala in time for me to get to work on Monday. Richard agreed to do the budget thing with Jen, so they made plans to stay at the hostel in Kisoro Town.  I, however, decided it was due time to pull out the "travel perk" card, and made plans to stay in the Volcanoes Lodge right at the base of Mgahinga with Anna.  I even got so brave as to decide to take a night bus, alone, departing Thursday night, so that I could spend an extra day there. Work on Thursday was crazy busy, since half of our sales team was already gone for the Easter weekend and/or holiday leave, so I left over an hour late. Long story short, I wasn't able to get to the bus station in old town Kampala, weaving through bumper-to-bumper traffic with my heavy backpack attached to me attached to the back of a boda boda-- in time to reserve my place.

So I went out to have a couple drinks with a new soccer friend, Jesse, who informed me later in the evening that despite the fact that we were still out dancing at 2 a.m., I would be playing in the Makerere University Business School women's soccer tournament the following day, as a fake student.

My travel plans thus postponed to a Friday evening bus departure with the others, I agreed, reluctantly, both because I didn't want to wake up at 8:00am on a day off, and also because these girls were beginners.  I'd seen how ugly their game was, hence the reason I'd been playing with boys for the past two months.

The tourney was pretty funny. I created ripples of shock as the only muzungu on the pitch/surrounding area, and then of course everyone wanted to see if I could play, make some comments toward me, and gawk some more.

I ran all over the field in the first game, mentally willing the girls to gain some sort of understanding of the rules, learn to pass in the general direction of anyone on their own team, and actually hit the ball with their feet when they swung at it. (I was unsuccessful in my attempts for the most part, and we finished the game with a loss.) In the second game, I had a nice goal off a penalty kick, and another girl finished a pass from me into the net.  We miraculously won 2-0.  In the third game, we played the girls that most resembled a soccer team, Makerere University. I  ran around like a enraged bumblebee, practically throwing in the ball to myself, to then carry down the field, protect from spastically kicking legs, and shoot at the goal. This game was painful, but we somehow managed to prevent them from scoring (not without me sacrificing my body to a few errant elbows and feet.)  Needless to say, I left the three games with more bruises than normal, hurrying home to shower, change, eat, and not miss my second attempt at running away for the weekend.

To be continued... the running away to climb a volcano part.

Here's some photos to hold you over until then.