Ki kati!

Well, university strikes aside, I am one week down in data collection here in Uganda!

Tuesday morning I hiked back over to Mulago Hospital to meet with the lecturer with whom I had been corresponding and then with the head of the anatomy department; we had a good chat about my work and the university strike. The department head seemed a little hesitant to let me start, but all of the technicians were in the building despite the strike, so he introduced me to the staff and had the chief technician help me get started. The chief technician (mainly an embalmer, I believe) is the one who pulls specimens out of storage for me. He is a lovely mild-mannered middle-aged gent with five kids, and he is very patiently teaching me phrases in Luganda (the language of the Baganda people, one of the biggest ethnic groups in Uganda), which is spoken much more widely than Swahili here.The Galloway Osteological Collection, as it is officially known, is in fairly good shape overall, although some of the individuals are missing random elements (rather typical, for a dissection cadaver-based collection). What bones are there are generally complete with little breakage, which is a welcome change after the state of most of the archaeological collections I dealt with in Peru. My workspace is a room tucked between the cold lab where the donated bodies go for embalming before dissection and the storage area for all the skeletons. The technicians and lecturers tend to wander in throughout the day to see how I'm getting along; everyone is super friendly and asks me questions like "How are the States?" I admit I was initially stumped on how to succinctly describe what it's like to live in America. I finally settled on "expensive."  They also all tend to be very concerned that I'm not eating enough for lunch - I generally pick up a samosa and piece of fruit or such from the cantina to have along with my Clif bar, while they are all eating huge plates of rice and meat and matoke. I promise them I'm eating big dinners in the evening and am just having a small lunch to maximize my time for data collection, but thus far they remain unconvinced.

I am able to work fairly long hours throughout the week with the collection (around 8a-6p), so I haven't been more ambitious than showering and having dinner in the evenings. Either at breakfast or dinner, though, I've met several people staying at the guest house, including William (a young Irish law student at Cambridge) and Espern and Mette (two Danish colleagues, a social scientist and political scientist, respectively). Espern and Mette have both been traveling to and working in Uganda for the past decade and so have provided a great introduction to some local places.

Friday night, Espern convinced us to accompany him to Club Obbligato to hear Afrigo Band play; they are a large group of musicians with a few dancers who play shows there every Friday and Saturday around midnight. Given Espern’s description that the place could get “a bit rough” I wasn’t quite sure what to expect – there was a guard with an AK47 out front, we paid the entrance fee and then entered a covered outdoor patio with a large stage, central area for dancing, and tiered levels of tables and chairs. Contrary to my expectations of a crazy, riotous packed dance club, however, the place held a crowd of mostly 30- and 40-somethings calmly seated, enjoying beers, and waiting for the show to start.  The music was mostly traditional Swahili, which is very fun and upbeat, with some great complicated rhythms. Before long, Espern was jamming in his seat and soon pulled all of us up to join the others already on the dance floor. All in all, a great time.

Oldest stone tool (2 mya) in Uganda

On Saturday I decided to head out and finally explore the city of Kampala a bit. I went to the café around the corner on Wandegeya that is supposed to have internet but again did not, so had just a snack instead and then continued on to the National Museum, which is just about half a mile down the road past where I work at Mulago Hospital. The museum has an interesting collection of musical instruments fro^th century. There were even a few small cases about human evolution in East Africa, complete with hominin fossil casts.
m all over East Africa, as well as some displays of the ethnographic and colonial history of Uganda itself. One of the parts I really liked was the display of official Olympics posters stretching back to the early 20

Made some Nepalese friends at the Independence Monument

I then walked the entire stretch of Kampala Road, starting from Bombo Road, all the way down to the City Center where it turns into Jinja road and then around to the Garden City area. I had lunch at what my guide book calls one of the best Indian restaurants in Kampala. It was definitely several levels up from the fare at the guest house! I did a little souvenir shopping at a store in the Garden City mall that has Ugandan handicrafts – a lot of touristy places focus on selling more generic Kenyan carvings, etc, and it can be a little harder to find cool stuff made in Uganda. This particular store is known for selling fairtrade goods, which is always nice to support. I then walked around a bit more to find the Independence Monument, where I met a couple of guys from Nepal. After walking all afternoon I decided to take my first ever boda boda ride (basically a moped taxi) back to Makerere. Boda bodas are a ubiquitous feature of East Africa, and I would be lying if I said they had a great safety record, but if you tell the driver to go slow and to not drive crazily, it's pretty reasonable.

Saturday night the guest house crew and I decided to go back to the club for some more music and dancing, and so we had another fun evening. The place was definitely more packed last night, but it still had a great relaxed atmosphere. As one of the workers at the guest house told us, it's a place you could take your mother without shocking her. Heh.

Today Espern introduced us all to yet another great feature of Kampala: the Kabira Country Club. For a small fee, you can pay for a day pass that allows you access to the pool, gym, sauna, etc. There is free wifi (hence this blog update!), a tasty restaurant, and plenty of comfy chairs for lounging. It rained all morning so I started with a workout, but after lunch the sun came out and it was absolutely lovely to relax by the pool for a bit. The country club is definitely quite different from the rest of the city and it honestly feels a bit colonial to hang out here - the place is full of expats, diplomats and their families, wealthy Ugandans, etc - but it is a good place to recharge.

Lovely pool @ Kabira

And with that, I'm off to finish my large piece of chocolate cake and do a bit of data formatting before returning to my regular non-country club lifestyle. I haven't had a chance to download pictures yet, so I will add those whenever I'm able. The entire university network has been down since Tuesday, and with the ongoing strike no one is fixing it, so I am sadly without wifi at the guest house and the medical school for the foreseeable future.

More Ugandan adventures to follow - hopefully next weekend I will visit the source of the Nile!  Cheers!

Crisis...averted?

You know, after Peru and the day I had yesterday, I was almost convinced that the first week of any data collection trip is meant to be cursed. I arrived in Uganda yesterday via London - Addis - Entebbe (aside - in the airport in Addis Ababa there is a small 4x4 booth where you can smoke INSIDE the airport. crazy), waited in line for my Ugandan visa ($50! sheesh), and then met my pre-arranged taxi to take me to Kampala (about a 45 minute drive). Once I arrived at the university guest house, I was in for two bits of "excitement:" 1) seems my online reservation didn't go through, so they had no idea I was coming and 2) seems Makerere University shut down the other day due to a strike over pay and the only thing currently open on the entire campus is the guest house. Gah!! Problem no. 1 was easily resolved because luckily there were a few open rooms in the guest house (basically a glorified dorm, but it's clean and has hot water, so I'm not complaining), but problem no.2 obviously threatened to derail my entire data collection plan for the next three weeks.

After an evening spent fretting and contemplating contacting the Kenya National Museum in Nairobi to see about getting a research permit there (generally NOT something that can be accomplished quickly), I eventually decided to send my sleep-deprived self to bed (I just can't sleep on redeye flights. sigh) and check on the status of the strike in the morning. In said morning (after a glorious 12 hours of sleep under the mosquito net), I remembered that the osteological collection is not, in fact, stored at the university but rather lives in the anatomy department of the medical school, which is located in nearby Mulago Hospital. So, I had breakfast (note to self: tomorrow hit the breakfast buffet earlier because the pickings are slim 20 minutes before it closes) and then decided to trek over to the hospital to see if the medical school was affected by the strike.

I had read online that the strike had led to an increased police presence on the university in case of riots, which was, shall we say, mildly disconcerting, but after seeing the police guards at the gate reading the newspaper and the others lolling about on the grass taking naps, I became much less concerned (this is another, sorry mom! moment). Everyone else seems to be going about their business as usual; people were playing tennis on the courts in front of the guest house, and I passed a huge line in front of the university registrar's office, which probably had something to do with the fact that classes were supposed to start today.

Great advice as always, Sus.

Anyway, I consulted the map in my travel guide and headed out, thinking the hospital shouldn't be *too* difficult to find. And it probably wouldn't be, if Kampala believed in street signs. Which, as far as I can tell, they don't. After wandering around for a bit and asking a city worker for directions (which helped a bit but not really), I eventually met a nice young physiology student from the university who drew me a map. In the heat of the late morning sub-equatorial sun, I continued my journey and eventually found the right building. Inside, one of the students called the person with whom I've been coordinating my visit, who very cheerfully welcomed me to Uganda and set up a meeting for tomorrow morning! So, fingers crossed I will get to start working with the collection tomorrow!!

After the expedition to the anatomy dept, I came back and had lunch at the guest house restaurant and then decided to take my advisor's advice: have a beer, relax, and work on data formatting.

And she's off! Again. :)

I know, I know - I promised we'd never be separated for so long again. But traveling just gets so hectic!

I started this post yesterday while installing and updating several programs on the laptop I will be using for data collection on the next leg of my journey. Yup. One of the exciting occurrences of the last couple of weeks is that my new cute little HP sleekbook refurb decided to start going wonky the day after I got back from Peru. Yes, yes - of course it is good that a) this didn't happen IN Peru and b) I had all of my lovely Peruvian data backed up. But still.

Puma fountain in Cusco.

View of the plaza from Compania de Jesus balcony

So, in terms of travel updates, I haven't even wrapped up my adventures in Peru yet! Last time I checked in, I had just finished my work in the gabinete, attended the symphony with Eliza, and had an abundance of pisco sours with my airbnb host Carlos and Tony the Scottish Psychologist. For my last weekend in Cusco I decided to stay in the city and visit some places there, including the two huge churches on the Plaza de Armas - El Catedral and Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus (the Jesuits decided to build their elaborate church just catty corner to the grand cathedral, apparently much to the consternation of the church officials there. The story goes that the guys at the Cathedral complained to the papacy while the Jesuits were building, but by the time they received a reply the Jesuit church was already finished - boat mail in the 16th century being reeeaaaalllly slow. So it goes.). There are some nice Escuela Cusquena paintings and woodwork in El Catedral, but I must say that overall I felt the admission price (which is double most other churches/museums in the city) to not really be worth it. I found La Compania to be more interesting because it has about a dozen elaborate altars, including an enormous gilt one at the front, and you can climb up a tiny staircase behind one of the altars to reach the balcony for amazing views of the Plaza and of the interior of the church.

El Catedral and the Plaza de Armas in Cusco, all decked out for Peruvian independence.

And the ornate nearby Compania de Jesus

View of El Catedral from la Compania de Jesus. Think the Jesuits sat there and privately but piously thought their bell towers were better? Cathedral wins for nice, raised platform, though.

I also toured this convent, the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, which had displays about the purposes of the different rooms for the cloistered nuns. The monastery was built on top of the Inca palace where the emperor kept the beautiful virgins who made his clothes. It then became a monastery where the nuns specialized in making priestly vestments...

Through Tony I ended up meeting some other great people in Cusco that weekend, including a filmmaker who knows lots of archaeologists and anthropologists all over South America (he even gave me some contact info for a curator of some skeletal material in Chile!) and some Aussie and Brit expats who congregate at Paddy's Pub. And after two months of bread and jam for breakfast, I finally had a free morning and Tony took me to Jack's, where I demolished a huge plate of eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, potatoes, beans, and avocado. Delicious.

Complimentary alfajores upon check-in @ Casa Ortiz

After bidding farewell to Cusco and heading back to Lima, I once again enjoyed the hospitality of Alejandra's family. There was even a box from La Confiteria waiting for me! As Alejandra explained to me at breakfast, "I want to feed you."

That night her parents and I went to the Parque de la Reserva, a huge park in Lima that has around 20 different fountains, just as it was starting to get dark, so all of the fountains were lit up. It was really very beautiful and a lot of fun to walk around and see everything (Alejandra's mom called multiple people later that night to tell them about it). Her parents kept thanking me for being there (which was funny because they paid for everything, so I kept thanking them) because it meant they actually got out and did touristy things. I of course can totally relate because I generally only do touristy things in NYC when people come to visit. So a good time was had by all! The iPhone pics below aren't the best but are still good for an overall feel of the place.

Fuente de la Vida

 Mama y Papa Ortiz: Fuente de la Cupula Visitable

Not quite sure what Ale and I are doing in this one...

Fuente de la Fantasia

Fuente Magica

We even rode the little train around the park!

We ended the evening with a trip to Barranco, a neighborhood that borders the ocean and has lots of fun little restaurants and shops. After visiting the Puente de los Suspiros (the Bridge of Sighs; apparently walking across hand in hand with your loved one is supposed to guarantee you a long and happy romance), we had coffee and snacks at a cafe and then strolled down to see the ocean.

For my last day in Peru, we took a short trip outside the city to the site of Pachacamac, a religious center built by the Huari and later subsumed by the Inca. There's a long path around the site you can either drive or walk to view the ruins of several large building complexes. One of the areas you can tour more closely; the path runs all the way around it for great views of the Pacific Ocean. After touring the site and watching the alpacas and Peruvian hairless dogs who live there, we returned to Lima for an early dinner at a cafe, and then I came home to nap and pack before leaving for the airport at 2am.

View of the Pacific from Pachacamac

Restored temples at Pachacamac

                          Yup. That's a human sacrum and juvenile tibia just sitting by the side of the visitor path.                    Whoever decided not to screen the excavating fill should be fired.

As I geared up to leave Peru, I realized that even though my Spanish is still pretty atrocious, I know enough to be able to understand and respond to questions about where I'm from, what's the composition of my family, what do I like about Peru, and other such conversational queries. I know this because in the 45 minute drive to the airport my taxi driver was apparently intent on learning my life story, and I was able to mas o menos share it with him. (Si, tengo una sobrina, y ella tiene doce anos!)

And so with a 5am flight to Panama City with connection to Newark, my travels in Peru were over! Leg 1 of the dissertation journey: complete! Excellent.

My two week interlude in New York flew by, as all such quick visits do when there are lots of people to see and plans to be made. But it was great to spend some quality time with Jeff and see a bunch of the NYU crowd before heading out again. Some fun highlights with the hubby included a trip to the Prospect Park Zoo, bar trivia night with Crainwater and Eva, a Yankees game with Jason, Susan, and LG, and dinner at a new restaurant in the old nabe with Maryjka and Josh. I spent the rest of the time agonizing over my laptop troubles, finalizing lots of travel deets for Uganda and London, and drinking beer with people at the pub. All in all, a great stopover in NYC. Except, even though in my head I knew it was just a stopover, it still came as a bit of shock when yesterday came around and it sank in I wouldn't be back until Christmas. Yikes. The ride to the airport was a little bittersweet, actually. But now I'm ready for the next stage in this dissertation adventure!

So, last night I took the red-eye to London. The woman on the plane next to me was literally touching up her french manicure as we landed. Seriously? Anyway, thankfully getting through immigration and customs didn't take that long (although I somehow got into a fairly drawn out conversation with the immigration guy about comparison grocery shopping - I'm sure the people in line behind me were NOT impressed, but it was totally not my fault! Jeff accuses me of having conversations with random people but I promise I generally do not initiate them. Although I do participate in them once they've begun. I guess I just look conversational. I dunno.) From the airport I grabbed the Hotel Hoppa bus to my airport hotel, and luckily I was able to check in right away. After, a nap, a run, and a soak in the hot tub I felt like a real person again and headed out to have dinner at the pub across the street - yay for fish and chips!

Which brings us to now! Tomorrow night I catch a plan to Uganda, where for the next three weeks I will be working with the collection at Makerere University. This is my first excursion to Africa (I know, I know - up til now I have been a total failure as a paleoanthropologist!), so I'm excited to see how this goes! Not sure about the internet situation where I'll be, but I'll update when I can. Thanks for the encouragement to keep writing, everybody!

Cheerio!