What to do... what to do...

You know, it’s funny. I keep putting off writing another post because I want to have some great insightful insight or adventurous adventure to report on. But I realized that, well, my life here really is pretty… normal. In an email from my brother, he asked how I was doing with the whole “culture shock” of living in such a different place. But it’s funny how little culture shock there’s been. I live in a comfortable apartment with a couple of Americans (though Hanna just moved out, to be replaced by Courtney on the 16th). On weekdays I go to work like most of you do, and spend most of the day getting frustrated by little things like most of you do, but I feel rewarded when things go well (rare though that may sometimes feel). So I think I’m going to try to change the way I think about this blog away from big themed posts and instead towards rambling stream-of-consciousness of Daniel’s Impressions of Uganda. We’ll see if this motivates me to post more.


First and foremost: my phone. I love this thing. Like, a lot. It’s called the Nokia Ka-torchi. Noooowww I’m not much of a phonephile, but this little sucker totally does it for me. To the point that friends here have suggested I contact Nokia about doing an ad campaign for them. See, in America (and, to be fair, most of the developed world), phone manufacturers’ thinking apparently went something like this:

Stereotypical Corporate Executive #1 “Hmm… so we’ve got this phone, and it works pretty well, but that’s not enough. What ELSE can we make it?”
Stereotypical Corporate Executive #2 “A TV remote!”
#1 “That’s dumb. Try again.”
#2 “A camera!”
#1 “That’s also dumb. Let’s do it. Then Matt Katz can take photos of really dumb license plates and send them to his brother.”
#2 “Done!”

I mean, sure, cameras on phones are great for, uh, taking pictures of inane things and sending them to one’s brother… but really? Couldn’t we find something more, I don’t know, useful?
Like a flashlight?
BRILLIANT.
Seriously, this thing has a built-in flashlight on the top. Which is GREAT when you live somewhere that the power goes out ALL THE DAMN TIME. (Now if someone would only create a phone for a built-in shower for when the water goes out)

Somehow this is the only picture I could find (and I’m too lazy to take one right now):



But it doesn’t end there! This thing is water and pretty much baseball-pitch resistant. It’s got built in converters (weight, volume, length, the works). With a few keystrokes you can get updated currency exchange rates. It’s small and light. And it’s got (in my experience) about 6 days of battery life, with consistent use. And it’s CHEAP.
Sure it’s got a simple monochromatic LCD screen. Sure it ain’t too pretty. But who cares? After all the free-with-contract, pretending-to-be-flashy piece of crap phones I’ve had in the US… this is a welcome, welcome change. Well played, Nokia.




On a totally unrelated note, the other Saturday I decided to venture to Owino Market – one of the largest markets on the continent.

Overload.

First of all, getting there was… an adventure. One of the more terrifying boda-boda (motorbike taxi) rides I’ve had yet:


Oh sure… we can fit through there.
I had to lift my leg over the hood of a parked car squeezing through this bit.


Why the sudden traffic-jam?


OH. Because there’s a pot-hole the size of a freaking LAKE.




Oh good! The first lake was so much fun, let’s ford another!


GOOOOO!

And then I found myself in the middle of stalls jammed so close together, full of people yelling “MZUNGU! MY FRIEND! BUY SHOES!” (or shirts, or cloth, or bananas, or slabs of beef, or chicken feed, or trucks, or truck parts, or coal, or whatever else could be handed to me in exchange for some cash money). It was a wee bit overwhelming. I wound up buying some thread (I planned on doing some patching to my jeans), a pair of shoes (I decided I wanted some pre-owned brown work shoes… the sole has since fallen off) and a plate of fries and avocado (all that the stall I stumbled into had to eat).


This one’s for my construction-engineer brother. That seems safe.


Just kinda thought this was cool.

I managed to get fantastically lost for a good couple hours amidst the stifling smells of the butchery-section and the cacophonous colors of the fabric section. I’m glad I saw it, and now that I know the face of the beast I can (hopefully) tackle it again and just be whelmed, rather than overwhelmed, the next time.