Fellows Blog: Day 33
Well, we found the gecko…
Our morning started out on a somber note when we discovered Isaac the gecko had passed away. Upon closer inspection, it was clear that one of us had inflicted his death upon him by unknowingly slamming him in a doorframe. We (Amber) would like to to have a moment of silence for our beloved pet and are heartbroken to have lost one of our companions.
We knew our colleagues wouldn’t understand our despair, so we forced ourselves to go through the five stages of grief in five minutes before heading to Kampala for some shopping. Nothing like some good old fashioned retail therapy to boost our spirits!
The three of us- plus Freya and George- hopped in a van and went to town. We enjoyed looking around and wandering between shops and street vendors. Amber’s bargaining skills still exist; however, she gave up after she could only get a 50,000 UGX item down to 40,000 UGX. Haleigh got one of these too… we’ll have a shopping reveal soon!
The zenith of today was lunch. George took us to a place called Cafe Javas, and unlike Mukono resort, had nearly every item on the nine page menu. There were even some international cuisine choices- notably, they had Tex-Mex, Indian, and Thai food options. The food was incredible and we feasted! We even got fresh passionfruit and mango juice, which we couldn’t seem to get enough of. Interestingly, our colleagues compared the restaurant to McDonalds and said McDonald’s seems better than the Café. That said, we thought it on par with The Cheesecake Factory, but we could imagine the fascination with McDonalds as it’s a very popular chain that does not exist in Uganda. The cafe also had Heinz ketchup (as opposed to the “tomato sauce” brand here), candles, free wifi, and very nice bathrooms, which were all very exciting.
Two other noteworthy things that happened during lunch: Amber dropped two forks on the ground within three minutes of each other, and we learned our colleagues thought the LFR people coming were going to be much older men and were surprised to see us, but said they found us very friendly.
While browsing around for jewelry, Haleigh and Amber found a shop with beads and discovered we could personalize our own designs. We decided to get bracelets for us and Kyrillos with the colors of the Ugandan flag, as a shared memento from our trip (we know, adorable). Kyrillos agreed it was sweet until it took over an hour to coordinate because we needed to line the white beads up in a row and Amber and Haleigh were very particular about this (the word neurotic may also comes to mind…)
We began the trek back home to Mukono, which was stopped a half an hour later when the van battery died. Instead of jump starting the car, the driver went to a gas station to get a battery (apparently they sell car batteries?? we’re not really sure). During this brief interlude, Haleigh and Amber jammed out to “living on a prayer” even though we were not in fact “halfway there” to home, as we were still stuck in Kampala. See here for a video taken while watching traffic through the sunroof as we waited. Three and a half hours later, we arrived at home, and George William helped get the gecko off our wall. We had some Mac and cheese and chia seeds while Kyrillos had some lackluster cold leftovers that he refused to heat up.
*warning: graphic content of dead gecko ahead*
Rest In Peace dear friend. To all: Please send us your favorite memories of Isaac. Funeral will not be open-casket because we were more concerned with disposing of the gecko corpse before it rotted even more :(
A shot from the clothing stores in Kampala
Haleigh has given up on any effort to not look touristy and has fully embraced carrying her backpack like this
One of the many shops we stopped at on the street!
When illustrating our bracelet design, Amber didn’t consider that a black line wouldn’t show up on a black background
The squad at lunch (don’t worry, we triple checked that the juice was made with bottled water)
Throwback to our plane ride here when Haleigh discovered her love for passion fruit juice (she may or may not have thought the juice was too sweet and diluted it with some more water)
We don’t know why Kyrillos decided to get chicken and chips instead of anything else on the menu, but to each their own
There are so many taxis in Kampala and they cause lots of traffic jams. We learned it’s much cheaper to take a taxi from Kampala to Mukono (~50 cents) than a boda boda (~$2.50) although a lot more crowded and takes much longer.
While Haleigh and Kyrillos dealt with negotiating our van prices, Amber chose to ignore the problem after her “failed” negotiation earlier today and instead take pictures with our colleagues #goldenhour
It took us an embarrassing number of tries to get this photo- Amber had to keep adjusting her bracelet and Kyrillos didn’t want his feet in the picture. Also, shoutout to Haleigh’s watch that spontaneously fell apart three weeks ago and has been held together with tape ever since. Note that for once, Haleigh wasn’t prepared as she didn’t have black watch to match the aesthetic. But anyways, here are our Ugandan bracelets :)