Silly Thngs

Bada bing bada boom. I am presently settled down in the lovely city of Kampal, Uganda's undisputed metropolis. This city has a real intimacy about it. The smells, tastes, and textures like the warm armpit fully coddling my knee in the taxi-van dont permit me to maintain much personal space. Muddy streets soil my shoes after the frequent tropical rains. Municipal power and diesel generators tag team to keep the city lit at night. I had four articles of clothes and my super expensive hand made by white people leather sandals repaired for the price of a beer. I wanted to cry when I was asked for so little to pay for a service that would have been dozens of times more expensive and taken days back home. Playing football is the highlight of my day. It is often muddy and slippery but the competition is good. I haven't played this much in years and I am probably over doing it. My hips have locked up in a way that only hours of patient yoga can remedy.

After some jostling I managed to score a dorm room, unfurnished, for $30 for the two weeks I will be staying. If I were three or four years younger it might be the sort of thing that interests me but now it is more of a place to rest my head than be social. Tasteless hip hop plays loudly on repeat down the hall. The same dated M&M song over and over and over again. Other than poor musical taste the dorm has everything you need; door to door laundry service, a convenience store with bagged vodka and boxed juice, a pool table, 24/7 football TV, and a restaurant with 'food' as an item on the menu. I made the mistake of ordering 'food' with my beans (I was making a burrito) and I was surprised with a heaping plate of three types of tasteless starches - rice, corn flower, and matoke (non sweet banana like starchy stuff in mashed form). "Do you want food?" I was asked. "Yes, I want beans," I ignorantly replied. Uganda has a lot of things going for it but flavorless starch as a staple diet is not one of them.

When I feel like being social I can call upon a harem of young university boys to escort me to football games on the TV, hand in hand (quite literally) or hit the night clubs with a crew of Rasta MCs I met the other night. There are some pretty first class clubs here if you are into Hip Hop. The real treat for an evening out is the ride on the motorcycle taxi. The underpowered two wheelers never go very fast but no one gets a helmet so the rained on asphalt rolling beneath you keeps your heart racing. I have heard there is a lot of good fun to have in Kampala if you know where to look but in my two weeks here I'm not going to fuss and instead try to focus on the international car of the future project. Maybe I will look for an expat bar or two.

I have connected with a very legitimate engineering student, Paul, who is teaching me all about CAN networks (all the computerized stuff in cars). He single handedly developed the network for a prototype vehicle built in Turin this last summer, a feat which defines him as a very capable person in my mind. I am very lucky to have met him and that the Makerere team has been working on the computer control and networking for the project because, for my next stop in Belgium, I have been tasked to work on the same aspect for an electric vehicle being built to showcase a new motor some students at the University of Leuven developed. Hopefully I will get access to the computer lab soon so I can do some research. Dont tell the Belgians but right now my learning curve is very steep. Otherwise, I am very excited about the prospect of doing some hard core vehicle development and using my brain powers. To be honest, I am also looking forward to blending in.