Saturday: Sick as a dog. Can’t eat, nauseous, no energy. Highlights:

Taking a nap and my phone keeps ringing. One ring, hang up. One ring, hang up. One ring, hang up. It’s called flashing. It means “I’m too broke to call you. Call me back.” However in far too many cases it means “You have more money than me, so even though this call benefits me and me alone, you’re paying for it by calling me back.” Remember, in Uganda we pay to make outbound calls but pay nothing to receive them. That is unless you travel and a predatory telco grabs you then you pay for inbound calls as well, at triple the standard rate. And when you run out of airtime you can’t call or even flash anyone. You’re just done. Anyhow, my “flasher” on Saturday was Richard’s sister. Remember when I was tracking him down I called lots of numbers? One of them was her. She was quite rude to me then but when I crawled out of bed to call her back Saturday she was all politeness. She wanted a job. I told her I wasn’t hiring and went back to bed. She flashes again. I call her back. She handed the phone to someone else who asked for a job. This process repeats three times. So much for resting. As it turns out it wasn’t even Richards sister. She lied about that. It’s always funny to me when people start a relationship win a lie, then ask favors that require your trust.

Anyhow I got out of bed. Rest wasn’t on the agenda. I joined Jen in the workshop. I was there ten minutes and was too nauseous to stay. Back to bed. Fever spikes and breaks later that afternoon. I watched westerns all afternoon. Simpler times. Something cool about that.

Sunday I took it easy and tried to eat normal good and prepare for the week ahead. Worked on a template for a leather messenger bag which I’ll hand stitch while we are in Kenya. Spent some time with the family enjoying the Olympics. Continued downloads for a+ course.

Monday

7:40 at CTC. Early start since it’s the first day of the design course at the CTC. One student didn’t show up (out of twelve) so they lost their seat. CTC is prepped and ready. Class begins.

9:40-11:30 Quick breakfast. Off to find shoes in the market with Jen and Danielle. Mine are worn out. Jen found a pair of used boots that might fit me. His price: 60,000/= or $23.50. It’s outrageous and he won’t budge. This is the Mzungu price. We might have paid $15. He sells it moments later to a Ugandan for half that. I find some purses I want to mangle to use the hardware for messenger bags. (Spend money to make money, especially since I can’t get hardware like buckles and d-rings here). Goodwill throwaway bags, and she’s asking $13 a piece. One is trashed. Mzungu price. She doesn’t make any money because she sees our skin color, refuses to budge and we walk. The biggest problem is tourists. They come here, throw money around (like $20 for a $.50 motorcycle ride) and Ugandans see us as ATM machines. Ironically though, the same tourists that overspend like this won’t tip when they order an expensive lunch. I eventually go back to the bag lady and pay $4 per bag. It’s still double what a Ugandan would pay. I explained that I’m a regular customer and I will continue to be loyal customer as long as she’s fair.

12:00-2:00 Quick meetings. Most significant is with a Canadian Grandma who is just getting hosed by Uganda. She’s given her life to this place and corruption and lies and deceit have really started eating away at her. We are doing what we can to help. It will be a long process.

2:00 Skipped lunch. Again.

2-4: Leather shop. Stain messenger bag pieces.

6:00 To the keep for Olympics.

6:30-7:00 Meeting with guards at keep. Our keep guard showed up after four days in jail. He lied about a bike accident (it was a bar fight) but regardless he was AWOL for four days. So he’s fired. Bumped up our relief guard to full time, hired a temporary reliever until March when a permanent reliever can start.

7:30 Dinner with Jen and Declan at keep.