Today so far has been a pretty intense stage 2 day. During orientation to Uganda, they told us about the stages of culture shock. There is the initial euphoria, then there is frustration and anger, and finally there is acceptance and eventual assimilation. We all got to the acceptance step pretty quickly, but have occasional days where we revert back to frustration...
The thing about Uganda is that the concept of time and punctuality are non-existant. There are no schedules for anything, and when somebody tells you a time for a meeting or something, it is common for them to show up up to 2 hours late or call an hour late and cancel. This makes taking a bus when you have to be somewhere by sunset fairly difficult. The buses don't leave at a certain time, they leave when they are full, so it is impossible to plan ahead and I ended up waiting on a bus for 2 hours that I was told by the conductor would leave about 30 minutes after I got there. I woke up at 7am in order to get to a place 4 hours away by 6pm, and we are actually going to be cutting it close. I guess in a country with an unemployment rate this high, efficiency is not a priority.
In addition, there is no organization here of anything. Bus stops aren't marked, most streets do not have names that are actually known, marked, or used, and crosswalks and traffic lights don't exist. This all makes finding a place you have never been extremely difficult. Especially since when you ask someone for directions, instead of telling you that they don't know, they'll just completely guess.
Despite all of this though, I actually am getting much better at going with the flow and assuming things will work out when nothing is concrete. For example, as of this morning I had no idea where the bus left from, how much is cost, and how long it took to drive from kampala to mbale. I still don't know where we are sleeping tonight, exactly where the seder is (somewhere a few miles outside of town), how we are getting to the seder, really anything about the seder, how we are getting from the seder back to the hotel, and how we are getting back to kampala tomorrow. I've talked to this guy who runs a Jewish guest house (that's already all full for tonight) though a few times on the phone and he said if I call when I get there he'll give me the directions I need. So hopefully it'll all work out. I think it will. So far I've managed to literally elbow my way through the city center to find the right bus while shaking off people grabbing at me and keeping my backpack from being stolen.
For now I'll stick to living in the moment by watching rural uganda fly by the bus windows, while fending off vendors pushing sticks of meat at me through the windows whenever we stop and this guy walking up and down the aisle of the bus who just tried to sell me a lotion that I'm pretty sure he thinks will "fix" my freckles:-)
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i want a post-seder update! how was it? tonight we're doing matzoh pizza seder (i think melissa is going to come!) in emma's apartment in village east and i wish you were here!!!
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