too many thoughts to name one specifically in the title...

it's been a while...sorry bout that.

i'm in mbale now, for week two of my stay here. i'm staying at the guest house at CURE's hospital and i have internet 24/7...which means no sleep for me, :). i've been skyping with people every night, catching up on all the youtube videos i've missed, and generally just been a creeper and stalked people on various networking sites - if you're reading this, you've probably fallen victim to it. at least i'm honest, :).

i love mbale for many more reasons than the internet though. it's a smaller, less dusty, less crowded version of kampala (the city i live in). it's much easier to breathe and much less confusing to navigate my way around here. and the staff at our hospital are sincerely some of the nicest people i've ever met. they are so welcoming and so accepting. i always mess up words when i try to talk to mommas and patients in their language and the staff just laughs and translates for me. i definitely feel most comfortable here in mbale - well, maybe comfortable isn't the word. maybe relaxed? it's comparable to the feeling i have when i'm in morgantown. i love being in philly, but it can get exhausting sometimes and going home is just so nice cuz i can really relax. that's how mbale and kampala are. kampala is more convenient, i feel more active there, and i have more friends in the immediate area. but mbale is just...nice. i'm out of adjectives - my brain is fried from too much internet t.v.

i'm not really updating, but i just had a reallllly funny day and wanted to write about it. i had to go back to kampala for a day to try and get the video camera fixed (which didn't happen...) so i had to take the public bus from and to mbale. the first trip took a little less than 6 hours and i practically sat on the guy's lap next to me cuz we were crammed in there. today's bus ride took less time, but was MUCH more eventful.

picture the dirtiest and most run down coach bus you have ever seen. these are the public buses that i ride in. i actually love it most of the time cuz there is always a funny story and usually i can just sit and read while listening to some good tunes. and the ride is really pretty between kampala and mbale...not too shabby. also, i'm always the only white person, which also makes for interesting dynamics.

i was the last person that squeezed onto the bus this morning around 11:30. this is always a bad sign because you are going to get an aisle seat and there will be no space for your bags except on your lap. but the only seat was next to a 100 (AT LEAST) year old woman who didn't speak a word of english. i was pumped because i knew i wouldn't feel obligated to talk to her, cuz i couldn't. i popped in my headphones and dug my book out of my backpack. she smiled at me and the bus started moving only 10 minutes after i sat down (i sat for over an hour in a sweaty bus on friday before we finally moved). we were having a good ride, or at least i was, and then all of a sudden, the 100 year old woman started removing things from her plastic bag and casually placing them on my lap. i was definitely confused and just accepted the baby doll, the hard candies, the toy car, and even the huge bag of flour. i looked at her daughter across the aisle to get an idea of what was going on and i realized that this woman was about to be sick...either in the plastic bag or all over my feet. so i grabbed the bag from her and literally started throwing the items inside at her daughter across the aisle. i shoved it back into her hands just in time for her to heave into it...loudly.

now, i had been in a great john mayer/jack johnson/gavin degraw groove. very mellow, pretty quiet actually. at this point, i was trying not to puke up my own breakfast so i put some m.j. on my ipod and cranked it as loud as it would go to avoid the noise of this woman throwing up. i still heard every noise she made...thank the good LORD i didn't lose it. so i realized that when she was done, we still had a solid three hours left of this trip. what in the world was she going to do with that bag? oh, you know...HOLD IT. she held that thing the rest of the trip. next to me. i was wearing a skirt and every once in a while i would feel a warmth on my left calf - it was the bag...touching me. every five minutes i would make sure she wasn't gonna fall asleep because i knew she would drop it and the contents would be all over my feet. one time, i heard her start to snore and i kindly (and ever so gently) elbowed her so she would tighten the grip on the pukey-bag.

there is a whole story (right before the puking) about the old woman's daughter leaning out the window and putting her double d breasts inches from my face. but it pales in comparison to the fact that 30 seconds after the removal of her chest from my face, she turned and literally knocked off my hat with her ever larger bum. why was she leaning out the window and lying on top of me? to buy chicken on a stick. details of this story overwhelm me, so this paragraph will have to suffice.

but the story that realllly needs to be told is about the creeper on the bus. on the subway at home, sometimes you have bands that are trying to sell you their cd, people collecting money for a homeless organization, or a man trying to sell you perfume. but you only have to deal with them for a couple minutes - you give them one 'i'm not interested in whatchu got' look and they leave you alone, and most likely move on to the next car. well, today, we had one of these transportation salesmen on the bus. but there was nowhere else to go, so he just stood there yelling trying to sell his products for an hour. lucky me was sitting smack dab in the middle of the bus so he stood right next to me. he was speaking luganda and throwing in a couple english words here and there. i ignored him for the most part but he said the word 'shaving' and then 60 seconds later said the phrase 'private parts' in english. of COURSE, i whipped my head up and started giggling like the fabulously mature adult that i am. he looked at me, winked, and said, 'you think i'm funny?' i stopped laughing and looked down. he leaned down (far too close to my face) and said, 'don't worry - i'll be back to talk to you soon.' i looked up, rolled my eyes, and said, 'can't wait' forgetting that ugandans typically don't understand sarcasm. he proceeded to walk back and forth for the next 20 minutes, brushing himself up against my shoulder with each passage. i gave him a nice shoulder to walk right into the one time and instead of getting the impression that i was pretty mad, he thought i was flirting with him...AWESOME.

so he comes over to me and this is our conversation:
creeper: mzungu, i need your contact information.
me: sorry, i don't give my contact information to anyone.
creeper: but what if i want to see you and move around town when we get to mbale?
me: welp, i'm going back to america this weekend - sorry!
creeper: to your mother and father?
me: no, to my wonderful husband.
creeper: you have a husband? i see no ring.
me: i don't wear one in africa...i'm afraid of losing it.
creeper: you see, in america you may be married. but in africa, you are FREE.
me: (laughing) oh, is that how it works?
creeper: yes...how many children do you have?
me: none, yet.
creeper: when are you going to have them? and how many?
me: as soon as possible, i'm sooo ready to be a mother...and at least four.
creeper: i would like to produce one of them with you.
me: i think this conversation is over. now.

and he laughed and walked away. NOT FUNNY.