Uganda

I'm alive. By the end of this you'll realize just how easily that statement could have never existed. By the way, this will be an extremely long post. I also want to apologize if the events in this post seem rushed because I've already written this all down, in detail, in my journal. I'll start with the bus ride to Uganda. Five volunteers and I decided to take a bus to Uganda for the weekend in order to go bungee jumping and white water rafting.It was a twelve hour bus ride from Nairobi, Kenya to Jinja, Uganda. I really thought that it was going to be a demanding journey, but I slept comfortably and we were in Jinja in no time. Once I got off the bus I was greeted by a lot of men on motorbikes who seemed to be our way of transportation to the place where we were staying. If there's one thing that I'll miss most about Uganda, it will be the bodabodas. Bodabodas are what the motorbike taxis are called. They fit three people, including the driver, and the ride is so ill. My friend Mike and I hopped on and we were off. After about ten minutes we arrived at Adrift, a cheap place to stay that also did the bungee jumping and white water rafting. This was about 9:00. We got there and went straight to the bar. We didn't go there to drink, but we had to wait there before we could get a room. Once we got to the bar we noticed the bungee jumping tower to our left. It was 44 meters, which is also about 145 feet. We saw a few people jump which made most of us even more uneasy about actually doing it. After a while of sitting around we spoke to some woman, and got free accommodation for the night since we were bungee jumping and white water rafting. We then signed up and paid for bungee jumping, and we were set to jump at three. I really wish that we would have jumped earlier because the wait made everything worse. We all basically sat around for four hours waiting to jump. I kept psyching myself out and back up. In order to psych myself up I had to revert back to my old ways and be a little cocky. I kept going around in circles saying "I'm Matt Askaripour and I'm the best." It was pretty funny but it worked, until I actually got up there. When it was time to go we all climbed up many flights of stairs and found ourselves 44 meters up. I looked down and started freaking out. Luckily I was last due to the order of cards we pulled earlier, so I had time to get back into it. I knew I was going to do it regardless because if you don't jump on your own, the guy up there with you pushes you. I actually saw a lot of people go that way and it's so funny. Anyway, it was my turn after all of my friends went. I walked down the platform, got the towels and cord tied to my feet, and was given instructions on what to do. The guy told me not to look down, but obviously I did. I don't know how to explain it. When I looked down I thought I was going to faint but I knew I was still going to do it. The guy then said, "One, two, three, bungee!," and I jumped. Most people told me that they kept their eyes closed, but mine were open the whole time. I guess I blanked out when I jumped because you're supposed to dive out and I was going feet down. All I remembered was one of my friends saying someone bursted all of the capillaries in their face that way so I flipped myself over and started to scream "I'm Matt Askaripour!!!!." It was really amazing. Half of my body was even submerged in the Nile. Oh, I can't believe I forgot to mention the Nile. The place we were staying at was situated right near the Nile so I got to see it everyday that I was there. I even got to swim in it, but that will come later. I went back to the bar after the bungee jumping and everyone was telling me how scared they were when they saw me going feet first. Right after that they all started to laugh and told me how hard they were laughing when I realized I was going feet first and supposedly yelled out "Oh no!" Haha. We went into town after all of that and chilled. I really liked the town, but I could tell it was the nice part of Uganda and pretty touristy. I knew I could have only stood being a tourist for a couple of days. Everyone was drinking that night, but my stomach hurt so I only had one Nile beer. It tasted pretty nasty to me that night. Everyone except a couple of us went whitewater rafting the next day. A couple of my friends and I didn't really feel like it, and I was really indifferent about the whole thing from the beginning. We all basically chilled around for the day, explored the town, and waited for the others got back. Everyone got back later that night, but we had nowhere to stay. Despite that seemingly large fact, we had a couple of beers. I got drunk after around four or five Nile beers. The thing with beer in Uganda, and I'm sure other countries, is that it was in ml. Each beer was 500 ml and I couldn't convert it to ounces but it's definitely more than twelve ounces. Maybe sixteen? Anyway, after getting drunk some guy from another place that housed people came and I spoke to him. He said he had room at this other place called Nile River Explorers (NRE), and that we could go there. This same guy, named Henry, saved me later that night. We went to NRE and found out that there was no room there so Henry brought us to some place down the road called Eden's Rock. This place was amazing. There was ten of us and we got a two story "Banda" for 80,000 Ugandan Shillings, which basically equals four dollars each. Once all of us got there some headed out to the bar at NRE and I went along. Henry asked us if we wanted to go swimming in the Nile. I thought he was joking. We went down some path and there it was. We all went in with our underwear on, except for some people who I won't mention, and we sat on some rocks. Henry and some of his Ugandan friends asked us if we wanted to swim and no one answered except me. I said yeah, but I think I mean yeah, right. I began to swim with the current, which was so strong, and before I realized it I was pretty far out. I'm not even a good swimmer. I began to swim against the current and I got no where. Henry asked me if I was okay and I said yeah. After realizing I might die out there, I made a weird sound and got Henry's attention. He swam out and showed me a way to swim against the current and then we climbed onto some rocks and found our way back to the group. Just to let you know, that's not the near death experience I'm talking about. To make this part of the journey shorter, a few friends and I went quading the next day on Sunday. It was amazing. I love doing stuff like that and we quaded alongside the Nile, in the Brush, and past a lot of people's homes. I didn't enjoy driving past people's homes so much because the kids were nice, but the adults had facial expressions that screamed get out. I saw a kid with a big fat belly and protruding ribs one of the time we stopped near the Nile. He was chewing some sugar cane and looked worse than some of those kids on the "Save Africa" type commercials. His stomach was so big, but all of this contrasted with the fact that his upper body was as bony as a skeleton. I had a pretty bad fever during this whole time as well. It came before we went quading and went away for a little while we were doing the actual quading. Anyway, we went to town after the quading, and it was then that I realized I forgot my mom's camera in the quading overalls. Not even my camera, my mother's. I went back and they had it, but it was wet. It went through the wash and it wasn't turning on. I was in shock. I hoped and hoped that everything would be okay because I had so many pictures and videos on it. I got back to Adrift and put the sd card in someone else's camera. The pictures showed up, but the videos didn't. I think that that was because it was a different camera. The camera only turned on later that night to say lens error and hasn't turned on since. I brought it to a guy here in Kenya and he said it's not worth it to fix. At least I still have to pictures and I'm pretty sure I have the videos as well. Anyway, I couldn't get a bus back Sunday night so we had to wait around until 16:30 on Monday. I was fed up with being a tourist by this time. Don't stop reading if you've made it this far. This is where the real stuff goes down. We got on the bus around 17:15 and all was alright. We went to the border and got our passports stamped. While I was online a soldier and another man called me over. It took me a while to realize that they were talking to me until they made fake glasses out of their hands. I asked them why they called me over, which was dumb, and the soldier said, "because we're officers." He realized I was an American and we spoke about Obama, life, and what tribe I was from. They were good guys and they even told others I was their friend. I don't know how I keep making friends with all of these people out of nowhere. Anyway, after the border our bus was stopped and we were all ordered to get out and form two lines. One male and one female. A soldier came around with a drug sniffing dog and then we had to open up all of our bags. I didn't really care about that. Our big, fully packed, coach bus crashed about two hours from the border. Supposedly our driver hit a pothole, swerved, and the whole bus flipped. I don't know where to begin. I'm alive, but I don't know that everyone that was on the bus still is. The bus fell on the side that I wasn't sitting on. I flew across the seat onto the side that it did fall on and I remember screaming "Live!" I'm sort of happy that that was my first and only thought during that situation. I feel on my back and even though I couldn't see anymore, since my glasses flew off, I saw that the whole windshield was gone and I jumped out as quickly as I got and climbed onto a little cliff. I saw a corn field and I was about to start running through it, but then I started to think that the whole crash was a trap and that the people who made it happen were going to be in the corn field and try to kill us all. I decided to stand on the little cliff and I saw that the bus was fully on its side. All of the windows were broken, and blood and glass were everywhere. I had a lot of glass in my hands and mouth. Everything was blurred but I saw my friends and others coming out. I quickly heard screaming and crying. My friends and I all moved away from the bus after we got together. Some of us were hurt but nothing too bad. Thank someone that we were in the first six seats in the front on the side of the bus that it didn't land on. After a lot of crying and hugging we decided to get our luggage before people started to steal them. All of the guys in our group went to the back of the bus and started to wait for people to get all of the luggage out. We wanted to go in but the bus reeked of petrol and I wasn't taking any chances. I saw a guy laying down and I took his hand. I knew he had a compound fracture because a bone was sticking out of his shin. He squeezed my hand. I didn't cry once during the accident or afterwards, but I'll admit that I almost did twice. The first time was when I got out of the bus and realized that I spoke to my mom an hour earlier and didn't tell her that I loved her. The second time was when I was holding that man's hand and he said that he was going to leave me and this world. I left him after a while and went to the front end of the bus in order to find my luggage. One of my friends went in through the windshield and started to pass our bags out. I went in after a while but got out after a couple of minutes because I heard the engine still running. I found my glasses, that weren't broken, my working ipod, and my headphones. I even still had my passport and money in my bag despite that it was open when the bus crashed. We were all so lucky. We called the head person of our volunteer organization and he found someone that was near us to pick us up. We were about six hours from Nairobi. Cops came but then left. No one with the bus company stayed, I think they ran away. Everyone was left there for themselves. The guy who was supposed to pick us up, Joseph, came about an hour and a half later. I can't even begin to describe Joseph. If angels exist Joseph is most definitely one. He brought us to the hospital in his Matatu and the nurses and doctors didn't do anything except charge us 500 KES ($7) for nothing. This was about two or three in the morning and I realized I was cut on my back. We went to the bus station that was in that town and they said we could get a bus for free back to Nairobi in an hour. Joseph brought us to his house and gave us chai and his wife even prepared beds for us despite the fact that we were just going back to the bus station. We went back to the bus station and no bus was there. We waited for hours. They kept saying it was delayed. Joseph said he would bring us to breakfast in the meantime. When we walked into the diner everyone stared at us. I was wearing my black and grey hoody, black jeans, one shoe without a lace on my right foot, and a dirty white sock on my left foot. I only found one shoe after the accident. I felt like a kid from the slums and I looked worse than one. I guess everyone in the diner knew about the accident and everyone kept saying sorry. We got some food and Joseph paid for it. We went back to the bus station afterwards. There was no bus. The guy there said his manager wasn't picking up his phone. After hours of waiting we decided to get a ten seater bus straight to Nairobi. After we got out of the bus station's office, I saw about eight teenagers staring at me. The guys I was with went to talk to Joseph and these kids were staring at me like they wanted to fight. They were a gang of glue huffers. I haven't been mad during this whole month, not even when the bus crashed or anything, but the fact that I thought the kids wanted to fight me made me want to kill them. I kept staring back at them and one approached me. He spoke to my in Swahili and I spoke back. After a while I realized that they were just a bunch of harmless kids getting high off of sniffing glue. After I exhausted my swahili speaking skills I asked them to speak in English. They asked me what happened and why one of the girls I was with was covered in blood. I told them and they told me that god is good. My friends called me over after a while and I told the kids I had to go. They followed me to the Matatu and one spoke to me outside of the window. Before we took off he said, "forgive the bus, and forget." I'm sure he meant forgive the bus driver. I never blamed the bus driver though. Unlike my friends, I didn't care about putting blame onto anyone despite the hearsay. The driver supposedly took a dangerous route with bad roads in order to go through a town where we would stop and buy food from his friends and he was going to make money off of it. I don't care about any of that. I'm alive. After Joseph booked the ten seater for us we gave him some money. He refused it but we basically had to yell at him and he took it. He was basically with us for eight hours and never complained or asked for anything once. I'll always remember him. We got onto the ten seater and drove for hours until we got dropped off at this once place and someone from our volunteer organization picked us up. I don't know if I'm in shock, but the significance of the accident hasn't sunk in yet. I'm alive, I know that, but I don't know how it makes me feel. I can't say "oh man! I love my friends and family so much now, life is great, I'm going to be a good person and make everything count!" I've already realized this all from being in Africa. I do wonder who or what was watching over me though. I'll be home by this time next week and I'm looking forward to it.

Football

I've actually been up to a lot lately. I went to a football game yesterday that was between Brazil all-stars from 94' and a Kenyan team a little lower than the national team named the Harambe Stars. It was okay. I got to see the Prime Minister which was cool, but Brazil was so disappointing. It's so true what people say about Brazilian players getting fat after retiring. I'm glad I experienced it overall though. I went back to the Yaya Masai Market today which was even better than last time because I knew most of the sellers. It was really fun and chill despite the fact that people were grabbing me left and right. At one point, there was literally two guys pulling each of my arms in a different direction in order to go to their shop. Some sellers even gave me free stuff since they liked me. One of the three presents I got is a big stone red heart, I like it a lot. It sort of symbolizes a lot for me. I also got a little bowl and hippo for free haha. It was weird but I went with it. I can't even remember all of the things that I've done. Oh! I'm going to Uganda next weekend. It's actually really expensive but worth it. The orphanage is good as well. School just finished, so now all of the kids who couldn't afford to go to school will be taught in the mornings and after I do some teaching I'll play some games with them. A lot of the kids know more than I thought too. One kid was teaching me a little Swahili and said the word "Mgeni." He pointed at me and said "You're a Mgeni, a visitor." It's sort of sad. All of the volunteers just come and go out of these kids' lives like nothing. At least some know that we aren't permanent. What's the point of volunteering though. We come for a little time, and we leave by the time we find anything truly significant to do. It's not fair to those who we're supposed to help and even to ourselves. I came here with the realization that I couldn't help a lot of people, but that I could help some. I knew and still know that I can improve, even if it's only slightly, a few kids' quality of life. Even if it's just be being a friend and showing them that they matter in the world. I'm both happy and said about going home. I really do miss a lot of people at home, but I know I'm going to miss a lot of people here as well once I leave. I do plan to come back though. Even if it's in ten years. Kenya has done more for me than I have ever done for anyone else. It's really helped me to appreciate those in my life, the things I have, and life itself. It's sort of sad that it took me 9000 miles, a 12 hour flight to the Middle East, 13 hour wait, and 5 hour flight to realize all of that. I'm glad that everything has happened this way though, and I really do plan to not be such an asshole to people when I go home. There's no reason for it. Right? Anyway, one of the things that is most weird is that I only see myself in a mirror once or twice every week and a half so I don't always realize how tan I am or the fact that I have a little moustache. I'll be glad to be around more mirrors when I get home. Aside from leaving Kenya, the only other thing about going home that I'm not looking forward to is the journey back. It's going to be so long and Qatar is always 110 degrees and up. Two kids from England told me that they got visas out of the airport and explored so I might do that which would be cool. I'm happy that I've already become comfortable with Kenya. Some people only begin to get used to it when they're about to leave and I have two more weeks to make some moves. I'm at a cyber down the rode right now and they only charge 65 cents a minute. 100 cents is one shilling and 76 shillings is one US dollar so do the math. I also set up internet at the orphanage and I'll be working on a website there so I'll have a lot more internet access which is good. I'm going to go back to the house and chill. I'm excited to upload all of the pictures and videos I have when I go home. Peace