Another month gone, and I'm starting to feel like a local. Except for the moments when I realize we actually have no idea what we're doing. Case in point: last Thursday, a few of us decided to harvest the jackfruit growing on the tree in the backyard. For those who don't know, a jackfruit most closely resembles a Dr. Seuss invention: lumpy, spiny, lime green, and incredibly large. As in, the one we chopped down was over 2 feet long and weighed over 10 kilos. That's 20 pounds of fruit, or rather, a mass of fleshiness and giant seeds with some select pod-lings of fruit inside. A grand addition to dinner, or at least it would have been, had it been at all ripe. 
In the end, though, our arduous efforts were utterly wasted. It's unripe fruit had a sticky, woody texture and tasted like bland frustration. It was a good reminder that white people, in particular young adult males with underdeveloped pre-frontal cortices, are apt to do stupid things in foreign countries, and that good-sounding ideas often end in unfortunate failures. Although they evidently lend themselves to great stories. And if I'm not in Africa to collect some good stories, what am I here for? This certainly won't be the last such instance.
To obtain it, we had to not only climb the tree, chop it down, avoid the rubber cement-esque white excretion gushing from the stem, and carry it to the bathtub, but then also to hack it open with the largest knife available (a machete would have been useful), carefully coating our hands with oil and wearing plastic bags to prevent its sticky sap, which happens to be a skin irritant, from getting all over our hands (and when I say our, I mostly mean Kurt's Aradhana's, and Rob's--I mostly functioned as the camera crew).
 |
| Piglet and Norbert, our two casualties. |
 |
| A tragic way to go. |
 |
| The face of true sorrow. |
All told, however, I'm learning to make my way around. I've loved getting into the everyday rhythm of the city, and I'm becoming quite proficient at navigating the taxi routes and even bargaining at Nakawa market (essentially the Wal-Mart of Uganda, only open-air and completely fabulous). I've even become a bit of a guide for the other students who arrived a week or so ago. We're all crammed into a new complex in Kololo, a ritzy part of Kampala that feels a bit strange without all the dust, street stalls, and taxis on every corner. But, I'm adjusting, and enjoying new opportunities for exploration. One new discovery was Obama Chapati and Take-Away, a restaurant that happens to be right next door to Gaddafi Chapati and Take-Away. The wonderful ironies of this place never cease to amaze me.
 |
| At the lovely Nakawa market. |
