sheesh

what's a girl gotta do to get a decent internet connection around here?!?!?! Goodness gracious. The connection at the Center where I'm staying was great monday night, and then has been pretty much nonexistent since then, so after several days of attempting unsuccessfully to check email and so forth, I planned to spend all day today camped out in a high end hotel in town using wireless and just generally relaxing...surprise surprise, nothing works the way you think, after checking 2 hotels I've finally ended up in a run of the mill internet cafe and will have to come up with another plan.

I successfully found my way into the taxi park (total madness by the way) via matatu (Uganda's version of public transportation - minibus type things that are cheap and jam packed full of people). Now, here's the thing...you don't so much have any idea where you're going, so you just pretty much get out when you think you need to, or when someone else who looks like they know what they're doing gets out, and then you give the "conductor" guy (aka friend of the driver who earns part of the day's profits for hawking customers while driving by and opening and closing the door for people and taking money/giving change) some change (I have no idea if I gave him the right amount but he didn't shout/chase after me, so I'm guessing it was okay)...then I walked up to Kampala road, with the determination to find some reasonably priced Zyrtec for my allergies (I've been out for three days now and have been sneezing up a storm, and blowing my nose like crazy!)...I'm convinced that as long as you walk like you know where you're going, you'll be okay...I relied on my generally good directional instincts and successfully found Kampala road and headed to Norvic where I bought some drugs...who needs a prescription anyways, this is Africa, you just walk into the drug shop and buy what you think you need :) Love it (the American nurse in me screaming inside "this is not how it's supposed to be done, who's checking doses and drug interactions and discussing side effects?!"). Then headed towards a craft market I hadn't yet been to, bought a few trinkets for people, and then headed to the Serena...can you say WAY out of my league? This is I think the nicest hotel in the country and there I was in my flip flops and jeans (yes, jeans! no skirts for Heidi in the big city!) looking for free wireless :) Not so much to be found (they wanted 30,000 Ush for a day's worth of internet time, sorry charlie). I had lunch, and then wandered to the Sheraton where evidently everyone in town who drove a Benz was getting married...craziness, you would have to look closely to tell that these wedding parties were in fact Ugandan and not American...big white dresses, suits, satin-y bridesmaids dresses, and little flower girls and boys running around...but internet was my goal - again, the hotel was stingy so I headed to the mall, where I now sit in an internet cafe.

I'm gonna attempt to post more about the week...