Polepole in Tanzania

Some more gems

lailazomorodian — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 22:10:46 +0000

So my Ugandan friends make fun of me every time I try to say something in Luganda. So far I’ve got down the following two phrases, cold: “My name is Laila,” and “I’m crazy.” They both go across really well.

So, in retribution, I would like to giggle about some of my favorite Ugandan English pronunciations. First of all, in Luganda, the letters “c” and “k” are pronounced ch- and the letter “g” is hard, like a “j.” “r”s and “l”s of course, get swapped and then, there’s always “the what?”

Here are some of the words to which I’ve taken a partichular fancy:

Currichulum
Lesearch
Lift Valley
Arjument
And, there’s my favorite, Raila

I also tried to expand my Luganda vocabulary to include important things like, “Can you stop the bus so I can urinate?” and “No, I am married.” I also learned the word for water, in a process which might prove to be more trouble than it’s worth. See. in Luganda, mazi means “water,” but amazi means poop. So you’ve gotta be careful. This is what I predict, with a 95% confidence interval, will happen to me:

Laila: “Hi, I’d like some amazi, please.”
Guy: **raises eyebrows**
Laila: “Oh yeah, I’d like that cold, please”
Guy: “We don’t have that.”
Laila: “Oh that’s fine. Just go get one of the warm ones and put it in the refrigerator. I’ll wait.”

An equation

lailazomorodian — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:10:12 +0000

You know, I’m sort of offended. It’s never taken me this long to get a marriage proposal in Africa. Maybe it’s Uganda, or maybe it’s the fact that a year of med school has aged me into a haggard, pale cat lady, or maybe it’s Ava. Nonetheless, it was refreshing to start my proposal tally today.

I also realized that I hate these proposals. But I also love to hate them. So thank you to today’s bodaboda driver. I don’t know his name, but he found out I spoke Swahili and it was hard to stop the snowball after that. I told him that I was married, and that no, thank you, I didn’t not need a second, African, husband. He tried to call my bluff but I insisted that my burly hunk of a man would not take kindly to his wife’s polygamy. So I told him I’d mail him an American girl. When he asked for my email/phone, I declined, a generously said, “but I’ll take yours!” Now he has a flicker of hope.

Also, please enjoy today’s art project:

Africa = Waiting

lailazomorodian — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:23:56 +0000

We just ran through the start of another torrential downpour, and had the pleasure of being made fun of by several taxi drivers as we sprinted (penguined) past them. We’re at Mulago hospital right now, waiting to meet and interview the head of Ob/Gyn here. We decided to grab some samosas and chapatti before heading to our first meeting, because it’s almost 2 and we haven’t eaten in forever. We are sitting in a room that might be a closet, and there is another guy here, who seems to be deeply engrossed in whatever ancient textbooks he’s reading. Annet has her headphones plugged into her phone and is singing along to her South African gospel music, which doesn’t seem to be bothering the really concentrated guy. She just handed me a headphone and had me listen to some of it…and I must look super bored now, because she just asked me, “I’ll sing for you?”

Uganda Society for Health Scientists

lailazomorodian — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 10:13:02 +0000

Our first official activity in Kampala was to attend the 12th annual conference of the Uganda Society of Health Scientists. The focus of this conference was “The third decade of HIV/AIDS” and people representing institutions all over Uganda were here. Almost everyone in the conference was Ugandan, and actually, almost everyone there was also presenting a paper (except for us).

The conference basically consisted of a few keynote addresses and a flurry of abstract presentations. Each abstract presenter was given 10 minutes, and if he or she went over the allotted time, the MC would just start talking into the microphone. At the end of each presentation, the MC would announce exactly how many minutes the presentation took, and would either admonish or praise for roughly 2 minutes, reinforcing just how important brevity is.

At the end of each set of four or five abstracts, the presenters were all called up to the front to form a panel, to answer audience questions. I noticed that most of the questions asked tended to be critical of the methods, results, or interpretation of the work presented, which seemed a little different from how I’m used to seeing papers presented.

By the second round of presentations, I started to get worn out. I noticed that tea had been set up for tea time, but that wasn’t going to be for another hour, so I figured it would be wrong if I were the only person in the room to get up and serve myself tea. But I couldn’t sit still. Usually in this situation (like a Tanzanian college graduation, for example), I play a game called “Find the lady with the most ridiculous hat,” but no one fulfilled the entry requirement. I even tried to play hangman with my esteemed colleagues, but no one else was nearly as enthusiastic about this activity. So I shuffled through all my papers again and came across the brochure for the hotel hosting the conference, the Golf Course Hotel. According to the brochure, some must-see highlights include:

-A Helipad
-Café Pap
-A Skating Rick

The cover of the brochure even boasted a picture of the hotel with a photoshopped helicopter placed threateningly close to the penthouse rooms of the hotel. I think they just wanted to make sure that their guests know about the availability of their roof for crash landings, you know, just in case.

The rest of the conference was good, and we took some time to read the posters that had populated the walls during the break.

Some of the research included a study on HIV vaccines for babies whose mothers are HIV+. Another showed that formula feeding gave better outcomes than breastfeeding of infants with HIV mothers, which was interesting and possibly pivotal, even though WHO guidelines suggest exclusive breastfeeding and NO formula as a method of preventing mother-to-child transmission (I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but it works). Another talked about DOTS therapy (Directly Observed Therapy) for people with HIV and TB, and I’m starting to think I could use DOTS for taking my malaria meds. There was even one Ugandan researcher who worked with (at?) UW, but we never got a chance to talk to him. Maybe next year.

What I learned yesterday

lailazomorodian — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 11:00:46 +0000