Whangamomona...a little country in a little country in the country

Phew!  There is 20 minutes of my life I will never get back.

Along a long dirt back road called the Forgotten Highway which runs down the centre of the North Island of New Zealand is a country within a country.  Strange but true.  I never knew.  As I was driving this annoyingly long road, filled with landslides, stunning country hillsides and beautiful native forestry with my Aunt, who thought it would be fun to take the super-duper long way to Taranaki we came across Whangamomona.  The Republic that is.  Now, there is not a lot there to make up a whole country but you know they have a pub and a post office so what more do you need?  Think about it, you can farm all day, drink all night and post the odd letter to friends in New Zealand or if feeling a bit adventurous...Australia.

Stamped!

So I do not know exactly how there came to be a little country in a little country but according to the barmaid at the pub (name forgotten, all apologies) it goes something like this... Taranaki decided that Whangamomona was not good enough to be a part of the Taranaki District, then Whanganui said, alright lads we can have you as part of ours.  But the good folk of Whangamomona thought they were too good for those lot and decided to become a Republic.  They can stamp your passport and all that jazz, but I do wonder how seriously they take the whole thing of country-dom.  You see they have had a goat, a dog and a turtle as their Presidents, which, makes me think they might be having a bit of a laugh.
According to our lovely barmaid it is all dead serious and not to be laughed at.  I say pah!  I shall laugh at your Presidents!  Lookout, I may have gained myself a lifetime ban from the Republic of Whangamomona!

A little lost...a lot gained

I'm not talking about my weight either!  Although it is Christmas, I am in New Zealand and yet to get to grandma's place where I am envisaging copious amounts of food piled in front of me until I can fit nothing more in and I'm rolling around on the floor in a fit of agony from overeating.  Much different to my very sad and lonely Christmas last year stuck in the Ugandan bush taking care of a malaria ridden Roger, who by the way made the soggiest, most painful patient ever.  Sorry Roger but it's true and I will spongebath you next time.

The massive laksa...in a salad bowl?

So my mission to find good African food in Auckland is failing.  I searched.  I did not find.  There is one place on Albert Street but it's reviews are saying that it's Moroccan food but it's not really Moroccan food.  I did however find possibly the largest bowl of laksa in the world.  Who eats that much?  Really?  I felt like I'd ordered a dish meant to be shared between 2 or 3 people.  Thankfully they let me take the leftovers home and laksa made a great dinner and next day lunch.  The Malaysian place on Khyber Pass Road in Auckland has the yummiest food but next time I'll order a regular person sized meal...for one.

On the gain side of the scale, I gained a new little family.  And no I haven't been adopted again.  I met my big sister Chris for the first time, her lovely husband and their 3 kids.  Being called aunty Laurel felt great and one of the girls has the exact same hair as me and they all chat away so obviously we're all related.  I felt so blessed to be meeting such kind and funny people and the thought that I have more people I can call my kin leaves me feeling all happy and squishy in my tummy.  That and I obviously need to go to the gym, get back my rock hard abs! (HAHAHAAA.....abs...)  This whole being an aunty business now is interesting, I'm just thinking of all the things I can do to be the cool aunt, I'm so gonna rock at this aunt stuff!  I also got to meet allllll of the girls' teddy bears!  Very cute, although I'm not sure about Burlesque bear here...she's a bit of a worry.

Yes, thats right...burlesque bear

Ethiopia in Uganda

One of the huge things I miss about living in Uganda is the cultural variety.  Uganda is a virtual melting pot of African nationalities all living and sharing their various cultures.  As I'm sitting here in Auckland googling like crazy to find somewhere African to eat I found myself drifting back to memories of Kabalagala.
My favourite little dive is on the main road down a little dirty alley, up some rustic colonial-period stairs and through a little Arabic door, one of those places where Muzungu would fear to tread.  Molober in Kabalagala was my favourite haunt, I was there almost every day when I lived in Kampala and when I missed a few days it was noticed.  My return was always heralded as though I had been lost at sea for many months, kissed three times on the cheek by the staff and some of the regular customers.  I long for the afternoons I would spend there with a friend or by myself or with a stranger I had just met.
There I spoke with exiled Ethiopian journalists, Sudanese refugees, Kenyan businessmen, an Egyptian drunkard and many North African men and women who came to Uganda looking to escape their Governments.  We were all there for the same thing, a little bit of peace and quiet tucked away neatly upstairs avoiding the busy roads filled with people and traffic and loud street vendors grilling chicken and matoke.
Not to mention the food Effe used to cook for us all.  Soft injeera, goat tibbs a little salata and boona.  I don't think a day passes where I don't think about eating at Molober or a coffee ceremony at mamma Fozi's house.  I hope my search of Auckland tomorrow provides me with something good to eat, although there are some experiences and feelings that I know will have to wait until I am back in East Africa.

Parental Madness

I've mentioned once before that my mum and her partner are nuts.  Here's one of the latest of many exchanges...this one on buying prawns.

M: We need prawns for Christmas
B: I'll buy raw ones
M: Why don't you buy cooked prawns
B: I'll cook them myself
M: You can't cook prawns
B: Yes I can
M: I've been with you 5 years and I've never seen you cook a prawn, there's been no prawn on the barbie here!
B: I'm a man!  Of course I can cook prawns
M: Just buy the cooked ones

Not so fly...like a white guy

Have you ever noticed that when you were a teenager everything you did and wore seemed totally awesome?  I never thought of myself as popular by mainstream standards but I thought I was pretty damn cool.  As I got older and looked back at myself in photos or memory I've realised that I was just outright ridiculous.  Like when I was 18 and I thought wearing baggy pant with my boxers out the top was the SHIT!  Especially when you put the chain from your front belt loop to your wallet.  Team that up with a wicked hip hop styled visor and pink knee high socks with skateshoes and you have instant vintage AWESOME!  (Don't try this look at home, it's really not awesome!)
Errrr...right.  At least I thought so.  So while I'm cleaning out my mum's garage full of my crap what do I find?  Photos!  I'd scan them in but really...really...no one needs to see that.  Ever.  Period.  I did come across one adorable photo of me and my best friend being gangsta with our Westside pose.  Should I point out we weren't being American just representing our Westside Auckland roots!
We used to fly between Auckland and Brisbane at least once a year to see each other and just hang out with skateboards and listen to punk music.  We were so damn cool.  He was my first real kiss.  Now many, many years have passed and we are still friends.
So anyhooooo, not going to give you the pleasure of seeing us as adorable punk-ass teenagers, him with his nose too big for his body and me with my eyebrow pierced but we did recreate the photo.
It's nice to know that even though we still don't dress like freaks, we both still enjoy our punk music and a good skate.  Here's to never growing up properly!

Westsiiiiiiiide!!!

Uganda wants YOU to stop smoking!

Just like every other country (well pretty much) Uganda is smacking those SMOKING KILLS labels on the front of every pack.  Like in Kenya you'll have your warning over 30% of the pack and in the future the manky pictures we have on ours in Australia.
I tell you one thing, the warning didn't stop me in Kenya it didn't stop me in Europe...but in Australia.  Yeah I stopped.  It's very sad.

Smokers don't need a warning, hell if we wake up feeling like we've swallowed an ashtray and then cough up part of a lung in the shower and still light up a cigarette we can overcome a warning.  Hell we can survive pretty much anything.  Look at it this way.  If we can overcome all the warnings our bodies give us you think that writing it down for us going to do anything?  Ha!

It's the money that made me quit, it's too expensive here.  Like insane costly!  Uganda is onto this and sorry Ug smokers your tax on that shit is going to be raised again!  In January Ug is doing the whole budget thing and the taxes are certain to rise and I think by a fair bit.  So here's some photos of me smoking...ahhh...better times.

With a little help from my friends...

"What would you do if I sang out of tune? 

Would you stand up and walk out on me? 

Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song 

I will try not to sing out of key, yeah"

There's nothing like a day with one of your favourite people to make you feel like the earth is at peace and the problems of the world just fade away.  True friends, the ones for life are those you can go without seeing for years on end and when you do it's like you just picked up from where you left off.  

They are the ones that know way too much about you and will take you to the pub for a counter meal and a game of pokies and it's most fun you've had in ages.  So if you haven't spent a day or even just a few hours doing a whole lot of not much with an old friend recently, take my advice and pick up the phone!

I'll see you later dear friend

Willy Musinguzi & I in 2008

I'm not good with death, it's one of those things I don't do well in life.  I'm not saying that anyone is, I'm just saying I don't know how to behave.  2010 has not been a great year for me, I have never lost a friend before and now I have lost three.

I know Ali has said this better than I could but I felt I should honour the memory of our dear friend as well (it's better to just read her entry because then you can just think about me and say ditto). 

It's hard leaving Uganda all the time because I don't like to say goodbye, I usually just say "I'll see you later".  And I suppose in the grand scheme of things it's really all I can say.  I'll never forget Willy, he really made my months in Kabale in 2008 a lot of fun and he put up with everything that Ali and I did, from making him smell pretty to tickle wars. 

I'll see you later Willy...jah bless. 

Bananas, bananas, bananas...

You couldn't script some of the stuff that goes on between my mum and her fiancee.  They do ridiculous things that they find completely normal...like the other day mamma and Ben come home with something insane like 20-odd bananas.  So the game has begun of trying to finish all the bananas before they go bad.  After 3 days of all of us eating 2 or 3 a day I can consume no more bananas...cue banana smoothies, banana muffins, banana bread... Noone should eat this many bananas, ever.

Yummy gf banana mini-muffins!

Oh here's a little curtain chat that occured during yesterdays project;

B: How does that look?
M: It's crooked
B: It's not crooked from this angle
M: It's like one side is over an inch higher.  Can't you see that?
B: No it's looks fine
M: Why don't you drill another hole and bring one side down?
B: Because then there'll be a hole above the curtain.  If I bring it up on that side then you won't see the hole
M: Fine, whatever just drill the damn hole.

WikiLeaks...I was over it...but now there's surprise sex involved!

Julian Assange has finally been arrested...but not for leaking documents because he hasn't actually broken any laws.  Other than being damn unattractive, he really is unfortunate looking.  I have a really funny ex-boyfriend who would have said something along the line of..."with a face like a dropped meat pie".  So anyway I was saying yes he's being arrested for having surprise sex in Sweden...at least I think it was Sweden.

Let's clarify.  Not rape but surprise sex.  The above picture demonstrates this rather effectively I think.  And yes, I will be sending it to the high court trying this ridiculous charge as evidence.  (Keep in mind they're trying him ASAP and went nuts to arrest him, I wonder if this means the police will afford other rape victims the same courtesy from here on in?)

So this whole Wikileaks thing is out of control crazy, the governments are trying really hard to silence Assange, these trumped up charges are just a bit of proof of this.  Wikileaks does amazing work, they have the guts to publish the stuff that the man doesn't want us to know about.  They give you the real news through leaked documents basically.  But the website is very visually boring, long-winded and takes a lot of searching around to find the good parts...the website in that way probably has a lot in common with Assange's naked body.

But the website is all shut down now so if you didn't read it before the hype, you missed out.  Being a journalist is hard, being an really good journalist with balls, downright dangerous.  Now that Assange's locked up there's a scenario that I can see happening which reminds me of a scene in Casablanca.  The one when Ugarte's departure is described by Renault, "I'm filling out the report now, I haven't decided whether he killed himself or died trying to escape."

Sorry Assange, they've got you surprised sexed big time now!  And in other news Julia Gillard has grey hair!  Girl needs her hair did!  Jules was talking trash about Assange with her manky grey roots all exposed.  Look I know you've got a country to run etc, but surely there's a friend you can call to come over with a packet of Country Life and do your roots at night so noone notices...hell Jules call me and I'll fix that shit up for you.

(picture flogged from somewhere many years ago from some website)

A Kabale tale

In order to break my feelings of discontent I thought I’d share a little flashback story to a better time.  Kabale.  South-Western Uganda.  I had to go down there a few months ago from Kampala for a week to help some Slovenian girl with a project for Edirisa, the information booklet on the Gorillas and Kisoro region.  Little did I know when I told my dear friend Marianne that I was going to go down that it would be one of the best weeks of my life.  And “that” Slovenian girl would turn out to be one very cool chick and dear friend.  Tjasa.

Marianne with the evidence

Marianne the Muganda Superwoman!

I’ll start with Marianne’s super human strength.  There we were in the Edirisa apartment getting ourselves ready to head into Kabale town and meet Tjasa and prepare for the busy trip to Kisoro.  I was in the icy cold shower washing my hair when I heard a squeal from Marianne.  On trying to open the front door (and only exit) to the apartment she over-exerted herself and snapped the key off in the lock.  Leaving us trapped inside.  With meeting already planned and a deadline to keep we did not have the time to spend trying to get out.  And neither of us had airtime to call Nelico at the Home for him to come rescue us with the spare key.  After about a half hour of getting dressed and laughing at Marianne the Super-Muganda-Woman my super powers of escape kicked in.  With the marvellous idea of calling out to the construction workers below us from the balcony, we could get them to put a ladder up to the second floor and we could climb down, go about our day and get the key later for our return.   What we didn’t encounter is that the workers didn’t speak English or Luganda or Swahili or Spanish so between us and them nothing actually happened other than a lot of hand signals.  So while I was standing there signing that we needed a ladder to climb down the next door neighbour came home and let us in through his apartment and out his front door.  Problem solved and the rules from then on in forbade Marianne from using keys ever again in my presence.

The Kabale-Kisoro-Bunagana-Kyanika Road

So they’ve almost finished the damn thing.  It’s only been 3 years.  The first leg of the journey with Marianne, Tsaja , myself, an American girl, one sick lady and ten horny men jammed into a matatu (mini-bus) for the most part was uneventful.  Aside from the men constantly hitting on us and having to stop for the lady to throw up and the extreme overcrowding it was rather pleasant.  That is until you reach the Impenetrable Forest and the Forest before that one but I can’t remember its name, beautiful scenery bumpy arse dirt and murrin road enough to get you panicking about the height you’re at and the steepness of the hills.  The close proximity of the tyre and the edge and the guys telling you stories of buses that go sliding down and no survivors made me slightly uneasy.  So reaching Kisoro was a blessing.  I even didn’t mind having to explain that I didn’t want to give the guy on the mat my number because I didn’t want him to call me.  Standard apology and excuse issued to standard old creepy man pick up line delivered.

The best coffee in Uganda

Is in the most random place ever.  Kisoro!  It’s right down the bottom of Ug and within walking distance to Rwanda and Congo.  Well I suppose that depends on your idea of walking distance.  But it’s a few clicks, not far.  We tried various types of coffee to test the Kampala barista’s skills and I tell you from a long black to a latte this guy has what it takes.  Kisoro is the gateway to a lot of cool things, gorillas, monkey, home to the Batwa organisations which provide non-exploitative trails that I’m hoping aren’t as weird as the ones that I’ve been on.  It seems to me that a lot of people dismiss Kisoro but I know that when I get back to Ug, Marianne and I will spend a week relaxing at the lakes and walking with the Golden Monkeys.  After all of our research we went back to the greatest coffee place in Uganda and had juices and sandwiches, we’d coffee’d ourselves out and had a long ride home.

So many other things happened on that trip, we had fun at the markets, I got drunk at Match & Mix, we made new friends and hung out with old ones.  I really enjoyed my week with Marianne, who I’ll write more about late as she’s an interesting English/Muganda lass and I got to spend time with Tjasa who I absolutely adore.  So below are some photos of our little trip down south so I don’t have to keep writing.

Our favourite fresh vegetable lady

The gorgeous Tjasa

Anyone for goats head?

If only I didn't look so grumpy!  I don't do cold well!

Just awesome...  I suppose use teepee for your bunghole wasn't appropriate!