A New Found Appreciation

It’s amazing how an experience can make you appreciate things that one wouldn’t usually think about. Coming here I didn’t realize all of the things that I would be leaving behind. Sure, I am still living in a place where I get most of the same amenities that I would have back home in Canada that make life so much easier. Even so, there’s so many little things that one wouldn’t even think about when you have it at your disposal on a daily basis.

The biggest thing that I’m missing is many of the conveniences that are available at home. There’s no such thing as ‘fast food’ here, and to make matters worse microwaves are basically non-existent because the ones that they do have are useless. There have been so many nights where the day has left me exhausted, and then I realize that I can’t just order a pizza or even reheat leftovers with ease. Meals are always a stretch, especially to someone like me who has never spent much time in the kitchen. Though my skills have slowly been improving, they still lack and I have now grown to greatly appreciate the dinners that are made for me at home. Even simple meals like a box of Kraft Dinner are also a stretch as most places don’t even carry products like this. Since we have been here, we have found an American version of Kraft Dinner in the grocery store once. And usually products like that tend to be more expensive than other foods. So typically its more or less meals made from scratch, no matter how hectic the day has been.

Another every day convenience that I really miss is my washer, and even more so my dryer. We do have a washing machine here, but it can take up to 3 hours to wash one load and it hardly holds anything. And then once your laundry has slowly gone through the wash, you have to hang your clothes outside on the line, which is a process in itself. Because it’s the rainy season, the days are often so spuratic with its weather; it can be sunny and in a matter of half an hour a major rainstorm can come and go leaving the sun once again in its place. This means that if you have laundry out on the line it doesn’t take much for it all to get soaked and the process of drying it all has to start again. Even if the sun stays out and your clothes dry, you always have to wait a full 24 hours before you can wear them. The reason for this is that the mango flies that live in this type of climate seek moisture and lay their eggs in this moist place, and without a host they die off within the 24 hours. But if you don’t wait and decide to chance it, there’s a good chance that the eggs will bury themselves in your skin and then grow under your skin, then proceed to hatch. And when this happens you have to squish the live worms from under your skin before they decide to come out on their own, both processes which are very painful. So needless to say, doing laundry can be a bit of a process.

Our solution to attempting to dry our clothes during a rain storm.

The biggest thing that I miss about home is the access we have to EVERYTHING at almost all hours of the day. If you need any type of food, you can go to any local Safeway or Superstore. If you need anything else you could image, you go to a local mall and it’s almost inevitable that they will have what you are you looking for. Here, it’s a lot harder to get many things that are so easy to find back home. Lots of the essentials are hard to find in Masaka, and often aren’t even available here. So that means that when people go to Kampala (two and a half hours away) for shopping trips, there are a lot of things to stock up on to ensure that you aren’t stuck without what you need. And there’s no such thing as a simple shopping trip either. Certain stores only carry certain groceries, which means going to a couple stores just to get your list done. And the grocery stores don’t sell produce, which require one to make an extra trip into the market. And doing anything after dark is highly recommended against, so that means you have to fit it into the day time hours which can be hard considering the fact that its pitch black out here by seven each night. Simple shopping trips often turn into something much more complicated.

I’m convinced that there is no such thing as ‘convenience’ in this country. Everything here has to be well planned and meticulously carried out if it’s to go smoothly. And even if this is done, nothing is ever guaranteed. A big part of this is the difference in culture between Uganda and Canada; in Canada we are a culture that’s been built around convenience and everything is available to us at any time. But that is why I think that even the basics have been an adventure. Nothing is ever guaranteed, and everyday turns into the unexpected.