Just Another Day in the Life...

So, this past Saturday evening, I’m on my way back from a very pleasant day in Kabale Town – one featuring a delectable Indian lunch, as well as a toaster purchase about which I’m quite excited – and I find myself in one of those surreal moments I occasionally experience here that remind me just how strange my life has become.

The mini-bus taxi carrying me home – built and regulated (rather ineffectively) by the Ugandan authorities to carry 14 passengers but, in this case, carrying 23 (I shit you not) – stops in a village about halfway through the journey to facilitate a collective pee break. My bladder’s in good shape, but I’m anxious to get out and stretch my legs. And to massage the brand new inch-deep dent in my ass inflicted upon me by the randomly protruding metal rod on which I’d been sitting the last two hours.

The place is incredibly rural, but presumably due to our mostly unobstructed position at the top of the high mountain pass, my cell phone is able to establish a connection with an unseen tower and, by extension, the information superhighway. I receive a text message from my pal Cory back in the States. We’re playing against each other this weekend in our fantasy football league and he’s providing his analysis of our match-up and briefing me on the ramifications of this week’s results on our upcoming playoffs.

So with my nose buried in my Nokia, my thumbs working furiously on my reply, up walks this Batwa villager. The Batwa are pygmies and incredibly poor; poor even by Ugandan standards. This particular Batwa is sporting a absurdly tattered 2nd-hand (or 5th-hand?) suit jacket, a dirt-encrusted, ripped-to-the-thigh pair of capri pants, and a bowler hat. He comes in at about 5’3”, and at that loftiness only because of the rock he, with his full-sized, bare feet, is perched on. Of course, he asks me for money.

Being at this point thoroughly engrossed as I am in matters of critical importance back home – there were playoff scenarios to digest and pre-game trash-talking to dispense – I instinctively begin to form a response along the lines of “Hey Dude, hold on a sec, I’ve got this big game this week and gotta finish a text message.”

And it is at this moment when I realize just how bizarre – how surreal – my life often is here. On top of a mountain, close to if not right smack in the heart in the central business district of the capital of the Middle of Nowhere. Surrounded by destitute Pygmies, beautiful misty mountain twilight, and my clown-car colleagues, pissing in plain view on the side of the road. And then there’s me, engaged in conversation with my buddy in South Dakota, literally on the other side of the world, about to issue some witty declaration of my inevitable Week 11 victory and the crushing of his hopes to defend his fantasy football championship this season.

This is my life.

P.S. On a (relatively) quick note. Also communicated in this exchange of text messages was a request by my friend to register shorter but more frequent blog entries. This would be especially helpful, he expressed, in light of my proximity to the troubles in next-door Congo and the dangers to which I’m at least perceived to be exposed as a consequense. Being the devout newspaper man that he is, Cory put it this way: “USA Today Style, man!” While I am as yet undecided as to the colorful charts and graphs, I’ve decided I’ll do my best to comply with his request. However, that same friend has also in the past described me as a “verbose (expletive),” which is entirely accurate, so we’ll see how it goes. I make no promises. Or guarantees. Or pledges. Or oaths. Or vows. Or statements containing assurances….

Oh, and regarding that rebel activity in the Congo, those of you who care for the wellbeing of this hapless do-gooder can rest assured that I am quite safe here. There are lots of nice Ugandan military men with machine guns standing guard at the border. And even if that were to fail, Peace Corps has a contingency plan for my evacuation – a plan featuring a helicopter, complete with code words and everything. Awesome, huh?!