Meeting Monkey and Visiting Emma's Home

Yesterday (Saturday) was quite an interesting day. It started out very low key. I woke up around 8am naturally, which i was annoyed with since I finally got a day to sleep in! I hung out around the guest house for a while and watched Notting Hill and basically just relaxed. It was so so nice to have some relaxation time since last weekend was go go go in Jinja.

Around 2pm our friend Emma (Emmanuel) came and met me and we walked to his parents house to meet his pet monkey named Monkey! It was so awesome to meet a pet monkey and pet him and attempt to get him to sit on my shoulder and attempt to feed him. Monkey, however, had some other ideas about our interactions. He is fine around Emma and his family, but Monkey was a little afraid of me it seemed. He wouldn't take food from me and he definitely didn't want to sit on my shoulder. I eventually got him to hold my hand which was so cute. I am obsessed with little monkey hands and fingernails. It was such a wonderful experience! Emma's parents also have enormous pigs, two of which are pregnant but I think won't give birth until after I leave Tororo, and there were baby chickens running around as well, one of which I got to hold after Emma's brother Job caught it for me. So many animals and so much fun. While at the house I also got to see my first African home. It is so different than homes in the US. There was only one bathroom and three bedrooms for a family of 12 plus two nephews. Granted due to the age differences they never all lived at home at once, but still it is crazy. there is also a boys quarter with a few other beds up on the hill a bit where some of the boys sleep, but it is definitely no frills. It was nice to see though, and their view was fantastic. The property reminded me of Hawaii with the grass and the plumeria trees and the views. It was lovely.

After hanging out at Emma's parents house for a bit we walked to the Rock Classic hotel to meet up with Joan. Emma and Joan went swimming (I didn't have my suit with me) and it was Emma's first time in a pool in his entire life! I find that so crazy. It was so weird to watch all the people in the pool because everyone was a terrible swimmer, and most couldn't even swim. One guy needed someone to get his inhaler after attempting to take one step too many into the deep end. So different than the in the US where almost everyone learns to swim very young. We hung out there for a bit and then walked back towards the guest house, which was about 2 miles. A little more than halfway Emma's friend passed us in a car and gave us a ride the rest of the way home which was nice.

When we got back to the guest house we took showers and got ready to meet up with Emma again to go to his home at the Mile 5 Trading Post (5 miles out of town). We met up with him and drove on the awful and dusty road to his home. When we got there we met his wife and two kids Pricilla who is 7 and Gracious who is 7 months, along with one of his 6 sisters, and a sister-in-law. We hung out mostly in his wife's hairdressing shop and played with our cameras and I showed Pricilla and her friend Praise some photos and videos on my iPhone. We had a great time hanging out and I love his kids and family. We also ate dinner which was delicious. We had pork, pasta, greens, rolex, posho, and an orange Mirinda soda. So much yum. We chatted and ate and Emma kept trying to feed us more and more and more. After we finished eating we saw where they sleep, which is a room with a set of bunk beds and a king size bed. It is amazing what people make do with here. It makes me feel bad for what I have at home, but it's just a different way of living.

On the way home we got pulled over by the traffic police and they made Emma pay them a bribe of sorts because "the seat belts in the car weren't working", most likely because Joan and I were in the car. It was so stupid because there's no way they could have seen that in the dark before waving us to the side of the road. Traffic police don't drive in cars here, they just set up on the side of the road and wave people to the side of the road. When they see muzungos here they assume there is money and they are more likely to extort the driver, which totally sucks. I felt so bad, but there was nothing we could do. We eventually went on our way after what amounted to be $20 and we made it back into town. We went to this outdoor concert think, but didn't want to pay to go in, so we just hung out outside along with a bunch of other people and we chatted and whatnot. I was really tired so they drove me home and then went back out. It was already almost 1am at this point so I was very very happy to go to bed. Overall it was a fun day!

Also, I added three rafting photos to last weekend's post, so check them out!

Monkey!

Baby chicken

Playing in the plumeria tree with Monkey

Huge pig that looked way bigger in person

Pricilla

Emma, Gracious, me, and Pricilla