Beware the Storks

Contrary to popular belief, storks are NOT cute fluffy white animals that are fit to deliver our little newborns. They are, in some respects, the scariest aspect of living in Kampala. These gigantic vulture-beastmonsters hover like angels of death in the trees around the city, feasting on garbage and all things rotten. And there are seriously as many of them as there are pigeons in New York City.

My flight over here was pretty uneventful. I stopped in Amsterdam for about 5 hours-- has anyone ever been to that airport? I swear, it's just like an Ikea, everything is compartmentalized and painted in bright colors, it's weird. My plane had individual tv screens on the back of each seat with a remote control and a choice of like 100 movies (including a bunch that are still in the theatre), tv shows, etc. i planned on getting all this work done on the plane and instead got caught up in the entertainment vortex. However, I picked some BAD movies-- Marie Antoinette (written and directed by Sofia Coppola), which I had been looking forward to seeing-- big disappointment. Sofia should stick to doing what she does best-- acting. Honestly, it was that bad. And, Night at the Museum (scraping the bottom of the barrel there), which I turned off after about 30 minutes.

My first Ugandan adventure occurred right after I arrived at 9pm Uganda time Tuesday night. Drew has some friends from college, Paige and Phil, who are living in Kampala, and they had offered to pick me up from the airport. Like an idiot, I didn't write down their phone number, and (I found out later) they had accidentally thought my arrival time was 11 instead of 9. So I sat outside the airport for an hour, trying not to have a nervous breakdown, not knowing if they had gotten the wrong date or if they had blown a tire on the way to the airport (which is in Entebbe, the site of the famous hijacked Israeli plane, about 45 minutes out of the city), having no place to stay that night if I didn't reach them. A cab driver took pity on me and waited with me. Then he took me to an internet cafe in Entebbe at about 10:30 at night, which consisted of about 8 ancient computers sitting on cardboard boxes, so I could get Phil's number off my email. I didn't have any Ugandan money changed yet, so the driver even paid for the internet fee. I got a hold of Phil, who had just realized the mistake and was on his way, but still 40 min away. So, my driver and I drove 20 minutes toward the city and stopped at a roadside clapboard bar and had a beer (which I really needed at this point), and Phil and his driver showed up 10 minutes later. I was pretty scared, but it was a testament to how nice and trustworthy the Ugandans really are.

So besides the freaky storks, Kampala is actually a pretty great place. The weather is perfect (about 80 degrees most days) and there are tons of birds and plants that look like they're from another world. Almost everyone carries a cell phone and internet is available most anywhere (although during the day it kicks you offline about every 5 minutes, which is frustrating). The people are about as friendly as can be-- walking home from the clinic today, carrying my white coat, a ton of random people I passed on the street said "Hello Doctor, how are you today?" And every patient we see in clinic says thank you about 12 times. So nice. However, the signs of poverty are everywhere, and the pollution is god awful (the quote from my Lonely Planet guide said you can "chew the air" in the city, and that's pretty accurate. I don't think anyone here gets the concept of an oil change. Or more likely they can't afford it.) Below is a shot of some little guys I met walking to work the other day, they were walking home from school and kept running past me, then slowing down so I'd pass them, and giggling. If you look carefully, they are wearing press-on nails (god only knows why... they seemed pretty amused with themselves, though). Aren't they cute?

The clinic I'm working for sees all HIV+ patients, about 400 a day. It is part of the Mulago Hospital complex (the hospital in the movie "The Last King of Scotland", if anyone has seen it). It's been a pretty amazing experience so far, in the future I will dedicate an entire post to the subject.

Tomorrw I'm going to a town called Jinja, at the mouth of the Nile, to go white water rafting with some residents I met from Yale who are here (don't worry, the water is deep and turbulent there, which keeps the crocs and hippos away and actually makes rafting safer).

I would love to hear from everyone, feel free to reply to this post!