Things I've discovered in Africa Part I..

So It's officially my second day here in Mukono (I'll be here til Sunday) and in the past 4 days since I left LAX, I've learned quite a few things about myself, traveling, uganda, and my future here as a volunteer. Here's the list...

Things I've discovered in transit:

• you never feel quite as alone as when you travel alone.
• never choose the scrambled eggs as your airline breakfast.
• always order white wine instead of the red on the plane... just in case you spill the entire bottle on your neighbor.
• never read The Time Traveler's wife and listen to Bon Iver or Sigur Ros at the same time on an airplane. Your excessive crying will both scare the fight attendant and disturb your neighbor. For that matter don't listen to or read anything on a plane that is either inherently sad or reminds you of your past lovers... because you never feel quite as alone as when you travel alone.
• trying to sleep in the dubai airport on a 13 hour layover is entirely pointless, although no one will steal your stuff, you will awake every ten minutes thinking one of your bags have gone missing, forgetting you only packed two.
• Budget at least $5 for a cup of tea in the Dubai airport. $15 if you want a pastry with it.
• Carrying on your luggage is the best idea. not only will you not have to wait two hours at LAX to get your boarding pass, but you don't have to worry about losing it, getting stuff stolen, or waiting for it to be offloaded. Plus, customs basically ignores you and the admiration received for packing everything you need for six weeks in africa in a backpack is almost worth it in itself.
• Fannypacks are by far the best invention ever for carrying passports, tissue, deodorant, wallet, plane ticket, chapstick, and brush. just make sure you use a stylish one.

Things I've discovered in the past 24 hours since arriving:

• The roads kill more people than aids
• It takes two hours to travel 18km on the main highway... which gives me a new appreciation for LA traffic.
• For the next six weeks I am going to be greeted as "eh, Obama!"
• Many ugandans thought they would get free US Visas w/ Obama's election since "he's ugandan"
• the female upper body is totally desexualized and i should have packed some tank tops. I will be coming home with an amazing farmers tan...
• fat girls get more positive attention from men than skinny ones since skinny is a reminder of aids and a fat wife earns a man respect since it looks like he has money to care for his woman.
• bodas are the best form of private transport. bodas are two person motorcycles.
• putting one's arms around a boda driver signals you want to marry him and he will parae you around to his friends rather than take you where you need to go.
• Ugandans are very good humored. life is so hard that they make jokes and laugh to pass the time and forget their troubles...
• i should have done some physical training before arriving. my thighs and ass are going to look amazing by the time I leave due to the extreme amount of peeing i have to do over squat toilets. Yoga would have probably helped a little too...
• There are cockroaches all over the middle squat toilet at the mukono guest house. it is a bad idea to shine your flashlight at anything but the door when you go in at night...
• bucket bathing is not so bad. in fact, i've never felt so clean...
• supposedly non-ugandans smell worse than dirty ugandans to ugandans. which is just plain weird, because i think even dirty dirty Americans smell like roses comparatively.
• if you speak to a ugandan in lugandan, you will gain their utmost respect. but expect them to try to carry on the conversation in lugandan and not believe you when you say you don't speak it.
• Esther is the Mukono house manager and cooks an g-nut sauce like a mofo. (g-nuts are peanuts)
• food in uganda is basically, cornmeal, white rice, mutoki (which is a type of banana), gnuts, and beans.
• a good beer is Nile, and it costs only a dollar for a 30 oz bottle... at a bar.
• an hour of internet is only 1800 shillings, which is less than a dollar
• three samosas cost only 50 cents
• a pack of cigarettes is 1.25

That is all I've learned for now...