1.11.06

Hello-
I just narrowly escaped a marriage proposal by a Rwandese refugee…whose kindest words that he had to say to me were” I want mzungu” and “kwaggala nyo”…which means I love you a lot in Luganda.

Let me tell you a little bit about Rwandese refugees. Rwanda, in case you do not recall, was the small country that erupted into genocide in 1994. Well, where I left off the story then was when the Tutsi and Ugandan military in conjunction with Tutsi exiles/ refugees took over the country every hutu pretty much fled because they thought there was going to be a massacre on Hutus. Well there wasn’t, and the government currently is a combination tutsi and hutu. Most refugees that fled have gone back. The ones that stayed are the ones that fear going home because they face prison time and courts for the genocide period…these are the people I am supposed to help. They come up and whine at me “Madam! You see, I am suffering!” and I think in my head well maybe if you hadn’t murdered your neighbor. Yet these are the people who are getting interviews to go to America..i want to scream at UNHCR WHAT ARE YOU DOING SENDING THESE PEOPLE TO A “BETTER” place??? Send them to prison!!! Ach, pisses me off.

Work is in general the most frusterating place on the face of the planet. I get mad at the refugees because they are constantly whining at me, because my position is at the front desk, they think I am the magical key to all of their problems…they say but cant you help me? Things like that but I cant. Some people show up every twenty minutes and ask if they have been called…before even the UNHCR staff shows up, bah! But the staff at interaid are seriously the slowest most obnoxious people. The refugees sit outside in any kind of whether and are afraid to leave cause if their is name called and they are not there to hear it…well its too bad cause there’s about a bazillion people in line after them. UNHCR works like half days, and I register about 2 pages of people…UNHCR goes through a quarter…I dunno if its worse to turn them away or give them a glimmer of hope that ends up being smashed anyways. I can now say WAIT!! In about 800 languages including Swahili and Somali. I get to yell names like Jean-Paul! Etienne! Ruzabenga Habyarimana!! We deal with SOO MANY Congolese, Rwandese, Sudanese, Somalis, Eritreans, Ethiopians…all of Africa heads to Uganda it seems.

I spend my day kind of hating everyone, except the crazy guy at the desk next to me. Named Atim…or Otim, I really don’t know. He has a gut, and he asked me how he should loose weight…I told him he basically couldn’t eat any Ugandan food, which is all starch, and he should eat lots of fruits and vegetables. He asked me if it was ok to drink a lot of beer. I simply giggled and said not if he wanted to lose weight!

I have found a good restaurant to eat lunch at, it plays Indian music videos. I know absolutely no bit of anything that would even remotely resemble an Indian dialect, but one video today reminded me of Billy Joels “Uptown Girl” including a well dressed girl and some sketchy guys…it made me giggle out loud and the Africans looked at the crazy white girl in wonder.

Here’s a funny update about my name…Sharoni. Its hard for Africans to say stuff that doesn’t end in a vowel; at work I have noticed this a lot as people say skirti for skirt, cardi for id card, listie for list…I am now used to saying “cardi!” to people

I threw a halloween party last night; we carved a pumpkin, a watermelon, and we tried to carve a papaya, but that didn’t work out so well. We went bobbing for apples…but apples are expensive here so it was bobbing for passion fruit…I dressed as a tourist, a green Mzungu t-shirt and Uganda guide book and all. My roommate dressed as a lion, someone else came as a spiritual healer… yea we're crazy that’s all I can say. It felt good to something silly, and really I am so used to being stared at haha!

Well I have to go make dinner before my roommate gets home, so that we can eat before the power goes off…oh yes speaking of power…my apartment has a generator…but it is still difficult because the generator cannot support our fridge or water heater, so when the power goes I have to run around flicking switches so that the gen. Isn’t over loaded haha.
Also, my apartments water pressure…most of the time the sink doesn’t work so I end up using the bathing room shower faucet…its not a bathtub guys…to scrub things like passion fruit and potatoes….WHOO!

Ok, ciao!
Sharon