The Brown Badge

             A sad, and somewhat disgusting reality of the Peace Corps is that volunteers talk about poop…a lot.  It is acceptable to talk about at the dinner table and we definitely don’t spare any of the dirty details.  When my training class arrived in Uganda, we were told that you were not a real Peace Corps volunteer until you earned your “brown badge.”  I’m sure most of you can guess as to how one earns this badge – you have to poop your pants.  Now don’t get too excited; I have not received this high honor, yet.  Ryan, however, earned his badge this past week and has shamelessly allowed me to write about it in my blog.  Here is how our texting conversation went on Saturday morning:

Ryan: “I know we always joke about poop attacks, but the reality is, it’s not that funny when you poop your pants.”

Me: “OMG YOU POOPED YOUR PANTS?!?!?!  What happened?”

Ryan: “I wanted to wait for my water to finish boiling so I could make my tea.  I unclenched for just a sec and then it was all over”

Me: “Hahahahahaha…gross!  Are you ok?”

Ryan: “Yes. But I need a new pair of shoes”      

            I think that sums it up pretty nicely.  Congratulations Ryan on beating me to the brown badge and thank you for letting me post it on the Internet for my friends and family to read about. 

            Term is almost over and students are finishing up their final exams.  I cannot believe how quickly the time has passed!  Teachers at UPE schools (government primary schools) have gone on strike because of their low salaries.  They are only paid 200,000 shillings a month, which is the equivalent of $74!  As a result, the school where my coordinating center is located is closed, and last week was a little slow in the work department.  I spent time with my neighbors and helped the students at my school study for exams.  I gave my neighbors’ kids paper and colored pencils to draw, and now my walls are covered with drawings – the majority of which are pictures of people shooting each other.  (These kids are between the ages of 4-9).  I asked Dennis if they could draw something that didn’t have guns, and he responded, “You don’t like guns?”  I said no, and told him that they should draw me an elephant or a cow.  I got a drawing of a man holding a machete…but hey, at least he wasn’t chasing anyone.  The other kids just copied pictures out of a children’s English book, so I have drawings with labels like “boy” and “girl”. 

            Last week, the neighbor kids were watching me cook peanut noodles through my kitchen window.  They were completely mesmerized and they couldn’t stop giggling to each other.  When I sat on my couch to eat my dinner, they kept peeking in the window and then would laugh at me (they aren’t used to seeing this type of food).  I opened my door and asked if they wanted to try some.  They went nuts and were so excited to try my food.  They devoured their plate and when I went to dump out the extra sauce, they stopped me and drank it like a soup.  Either they really liked my cooking or it was just nice to eat food that wasn’t rice, beans, or matoke. 

            This past weekend Caroline, Chelsea, Audrey, and I went to Sipi Falls, which is about an hour and a half away from Mbale.  We decided to go on a whim, so there was not much planning involved.  A five-minute Internet research landed us in “Crows Nest,” which was one of the cheaper places to spend the night.  Our room was a mud hut with three bunk beds squished together, and it looked like a fort with all of the mosquito nets.  There were papyrus mats on the walls, which I assume was to hide the mud and make it look more “homey.”  There was also a bit of plastic flooring, which covered some of our mud floor.  We could not stop laughing at the ridiculousness of where we were staying, but we thought it was pretty cool.  After all, we were expecting to have mud huts as our houses at site – so we felt like we were finally getting the real Peace Corps experience.  The lodge arranged for a guide, Malisha, to take us on our hike through Sipi Falls.  (You need a guide because there are no marked trails, and at some points you’re walking through home compounds).  Our hike was a little disastrous, which made it all the more fun and funny: 

            As we were hiking, Malisha warned us that there were safari ants up ahead, and he said to run and hop over them.  (If you read The Poisonwood Bible, then you know what safari ants are.  The Maasai use their pincers as sutures).  We were in a single file line and we all started to run in order to get away from the ants.  I was in the back of the line, and Audrey was in front of me.  In slow motion, I saw Audrey trip and face plant right into a big pile of safari ants.  Of course my first reaction was to laugh because I am mean and it just looked funny (plus she was laughing too).  She got up and started to wipe off the ants, while the rest of us started yelling at her to move.   She started screaming, “OMG they are biting me!!” and continued to frantically wipe off the ants.  We continued to yell at her to move because she was standing in the pile of safari ants – so was not doing any good to wipe them off.  It took her a few seconds, but she finally got the picture and moved. 

            We continued hiking and we had to go up a steep part of the hill with a lot of low hanging branches.  Caroline’s backpack got caught on one of the branches, which caused her to slip and fall straight into a hole on the side of the path.  It sounded and looked pretty painful, but she just cracked up laughing…and so did the rest of us.  A few minutes later, Chelsea slipped and fell while going down a steep part of a hill.  At this point, I am pretty sure Malisha thought we were completely uncoordinated and crazy because we couldn’t stop laughing at each other.  Chelsea turned to me and said I should stop laughing because pretty soon it was going to be me. 

            It started pouring rain during our hike and it got really muddy.  Unfortunately, at this point we were going downhill.  Malisha told us we should take cover until it let up a bit, so we stood under the awning of a random person’s house.  After the rain stopped, he told us that if we continued to go down to the last waterfall, then we would have to climb down ladders that would be slippery from the rain.  We realized he was insinuating that he did not want to take us because he didn’t want to be liable for an injury.  We agreed that it was best to skip going to the bottom of this waterfall, and decided to just see it from a different viewpoint.  We were going downhill and it was really slippery and muddy from all of the rain.  We were sidestepping and trying really hard not to eat it.  Well, of course, Chelsea was right.  I slipped and landed smack on my side – I was caked in mud!! 

            We returned to the lodge, muddy and freezing.  They supposedly had hot showers from 5pm-8pm because they heat the water over a large fire.  Well, since we were the only four at this lodge who wanted to shower, the lodge did not really care to heat the water for the showers.  We were so cold and the water from the tap was freezing – so we convinced them to heat water for us to bucket bathe.  All the other mzungu at the lodge looked at us like we were crazy, but we’re Peace Corps volunteers, so we are experts at this!  Plus, we were disgustingly dirty and we needed to wash off all of the mud.  The rest of the night was great in our mud hut fort.  Since we were up in the mountains, it actually got really cold at night.  It was nice to be able to sleep with a blanket for once!  

And finally, some photos: 

Bujagali Falls in Jinja

Boat Ride: Maggie, Bethany, Me, Willysha

Bethany, Me, Maggie, Willysha, Ryan, and Caroline

Our boat - looks sturdy, right?

Kobe is in Uganda

I could not get this chicken out of my house.

This lizard was waiting for me when I opened my door.  Terrifying!

Dennis eating his noodles

Our fort in Sipi Falls

Our door to the mud hut

Crows Nest Lodge

Sipi Falls - the view from Crows Nest

The biggest pig I have ever seen!!

Audrey, Chelsea, Caroline, and Me

Cabbage Field

Malisha gave us these leaves in case we needed toilet paper

Behind

Audrey was terrified crossing the slippery bridge

We're finished!  And soaking wet.

Bedtime in the fort :)

One of the many drawings I received