You've been Jiggered!

PHOTO: Jiggers being removed by our brothers Stuart and Ssekulima

From Thursday 6^th September 2007

Char says: First things first, while we’re both annoyed by the lack of progress at the project we’ve been surprised by the way some people have interpreted the last blog! Its not like we’re hating being in Uganda – that couldn’t be further from the truth – but we called the last blog ‘Third week syndrome’ as this come-down period is natural, and something most overseas volunteers experience in their third week. Things get a bit tough sometimes but we didn’t come here for a holiday. Its not made to be a holiday full of beach parties and bars. We’re only a bit annoyed with our project because we want to achieve more. We are healthy, we have really nice friends and family (both fellow volunteers and Ugandans) and we enjoy the Ugandan lifestyle. So stop worrying about us!

Anyway, so this week’s blog…

It’s a funny old place we are living in with a unique story to tell every week! The biggest event of the week came courtesy of Jiggers. Why did no one tell us about these strange and disgusting little creatures?

On Sunday evening our friend and fellow ICYE volunteer Mona (from Germany) stayed at our house for the night. She is living in a village a few kilometres away from us but has a far more basic standard of living than we have. Having been to Kampala for the weekend, she showed us all of the purchases she had made of rat poison and insect repellent for her bedroom and told us about her visit to the clinic to have jiggers removed from her feet. That evening as we went to bed I commented to Jonathan how brave I thought Mona was and thought to myself how luxurious our home actually is!

The next morning I woke to find my little toe was swollen and stinging. Not wanting to be a hypochondriac, I sheepishly asked Mona to look at my foot in case I had also got one of her little friends! Upon further inspection from my brother Stuart, it was found that my feet were riddled with jiggers! Other brother Ssekulima set about checking Jonathan’s feet, and guess what, he was also jiggered (don’t think this is a correct medical term!). It took an hour of being stabbed in the feet with a needle to remove all of these horrendous little creatures from our poor, soft mzungu feet! Having thoroughly swept and mopped our bedroom floor, (although we’re pretty sure it is not from our nice room but from the school where we have Luganda lessons) I am being very careful to avoid having a repeat of this situation but Ssekulima is insisting on regular foot inspections to be sure. It is strangely amusing though!

Yesterday we partook in a weekly ritual which we are developing as a small change from the normal routine. Our closest ‘town’ Kiwangala, is a ten minute and 30p buda buda (a moped taxis) away from home. We have found a nice little bar there where we can buy ice cold bottles of Bell (Ugandan larger) for about 55p per bottle. Right outside the bar is a street food vendor who makes delicious chips. He puts the chips in a plastic bag and adds tomato slices, cabbage and salt and mixes them together. This tasty little treat costs less than 20p and makes a welcomed change to matoke or rice – and for the negative readers, we actually eat very well at home but it is nice to get western food once in a while. Altogether, it is a thoroughly nice evening out!

Elsewhere, we are going to Kampala (the capital city for those who are not in the know) tomorrow and staying at a my lovely UK/Ugandan friend Angela’s sister’s house for two nights. On Saturday we are going to watch the Cranes- Uganda’s national football team – in a match against Niger. The stadium holds 45,000 people and is just a few KMs outside of the city centre. In spite of the 4pm kick-off, the gates open at 9am and we have been advised to get there as early as possible! We are going with three other volunteers and some Ugandan friends and so they should hopefully help us to get there in time! There has been a lot of press coverage in the newspapers and on the radio as the game is a qualifier for next year’s African Nations Cup and Uganda have to win to qualify! Its all building up to what should hopefully be a really good match!

That’s all for now. Hope all in the UK are well. Oh and parents, please stop worrying about us, we’re both fine, fed, watered and not working too hard and no longer doing so much manual labour!

P.S. Ric – as we now have a laptop yes please do send us the new Rilo Kiley CD – that’d be grand! Oh and if there are any other major amazing new CDs coming out that people think we need we’d very much like to receive a copy if your sending us a letter or anything! There isn’t a great variety of music in Uganda (although we still get ‘Umbrella’ by Rhianna on the radio!! As if we were missing it!)

LEGENDS: Sseguya (the other (very very hard) worker at the project) and Samwell (a local teacher who is giving us Luganda lessons!)

Hakim and Rwegaba - two of the kids who live just next to the orphanage. They're great and so cute. Hakim is nicknamed Mzungu (white person0 because his skin is so pale!