Eats and Sleeps

 

We’ve had a request for a description of food and living conditions.

The Guest House!

While I am taking the course, we are staying at the hospital’s guest house.  It’s definitely not a great deal…rent is borderline American rate, but it is very convenient: I don’t have to commute to class from town (6km on a very dusty dirt road), it is clean, it is safe (there are guards at the hospital gate), the water is safe to drink, our meals are provided, and they do our laundry.  There are some quirks however.  For example: (1) The first time we send some laundry in, we saw it drying on the line the next day, but then it was in no-man’s land for the following 3 days before it was magically returned to us. (2) Towels are difficult to come by.  When we felt that we had sufficiently used our towels (and they were red from the Gulu dust), we folded them nicely on the toilet seat for housekeeping assuming they would be replaced with fresh ones.  When we came home, that was not the case, so I had to ask for them.  No big deal, but since then, our towels will randomly be taken and again not replaced.  I discovered where they are kept (which is locked in a cabinet in a locked linen closet) and have been stealing (when the door is left opened) and hoarding them ever since. (3)  There are many chickens, a rooster, and a turkey wandering around the grounds.  The first few nights the turkey would wake us up with a distressing call.  We were told he was mourning the recent loss of his mate (turkey dinner?).  The rooster is especially obnoxious.  He does not know when to perform, so he announces morning starting at 3 am and continuing through to 8 am.  I swear he stands right under our window, but some of my classmates make the same claim…maybe he walks back and forth to make sure we all know “it’s morning”.  Honestly, every night when we sit down to dinner, I secretly hope that we are having chicken soup or turkey dinner.  In addition to the livestock disturbing our sleep, the past few mornings, we’ve heard a very load alarm clock from another room in the guesthouse.  It goes off around 2 am and either no one is sleeping in that room anymore and it just got left on, or that person is a VERY deep sleeper.  It just goes on and on and on for at least an hour or two.  Fortunately for me, I’m a good sleeper and can usually tune it out, but it’s been causing Jim a lot of distress…last night he actually closed the window and curtains in hopes that they might muffle the noise; I’m not sure it helped.

Having said all of that, I do realized that we are living very luxuriously as compared to most people in the area who live in huts.  The few that have houses usually don’t have electricity or running water so they must walk at least 1 km for bathing, cooking, and drinking water.  

Booming metropolis of Lacor!

Ugandan taxi: Matata

Entrance to St. Mary's Lacor Hospital

Lacor Hospital's ED and entrance to inpatient wards.

Classrooms (where we spend most of our time).

Mike (course leader) outside the guesthouse...the only spot where there is good internet access.

Road into guesthouse.

swimming pool that is safe to swim in "as long as you can see your fingers on your outsteatched hand"

Guesthouse side view.  Our room is about where the tree is (top floor).

Our bedroom.

Dining room.

Food!

Before we came, we were warned by one of my friends who was here last year that the food was nothing to write home about.  He went on and on about how bland and generally awful it was.  He said there were no spices and the meat was nearly impossible to eat and to bring A LOT of floss with us.  Heeding his advice, we purchased a travel spice kit and another roll of floss.  We were also told by MANY people that there would be a lot of “suspect” meals and to bring “a Costco-sized box” of Pepto-Bismol tablets with us to take prophylactically before one of these said meals.  After being here for over 2 weeks, I feel like I am ready to make a fair assessment of the food.

Breakfast: Ugandans don’t know what breakfast is.  As far as I can tell, they adhere to the traditional “tea and toast” diet introduced by the English.  The first morning we were asked if we wanted toast or fresh bread and we ordered toast, which was probably toasted the previous morning, but no one finished it.  So the next morning we asked for fresh bread, which was actually freshly toasted bread.  There is always “Blue Bon”, which is essentially margarine, but I haven’t tried it yet.  Sometimes we get jam and bananas.  The good thing is that the cook does make some very strong coffee, which she also roasts out front of the Guest House.  For the first time in my life, I’m actually starting to think her coffee is actually too strong, however, and I find myself adding as much sugar to it as Jim normally does at home (which for those of you who don’t know, it is quite a lot)

Tea:  Ugandans LOVE to “take tea”.  Even if class is running an hour behind schedule, we will still take tea, which seems to be getting longer every day and takes at least 45 minutes.  Tea consists of milk tea or coffee and some snack: banana, donut bread (maandazi), samosa (sambusas), or chapatti.

Lunch/Dinner: Lunch and dinner are the major meals here and really only differ in the time of day in which they are served.  Ugandans are very social and this is a very interactive process.  Traditionally the people eat with their right hand, but I’m finding that many people today use western utensils (although napkins are often difficult to find).  There are always multiple carbs/startches (I’d say at least 3/meal) including rice, potato (including yams, sweet potato, cooked potato, and chips), plantain (matoke), posho (maize or cassava flour), chapatti (essentially a thick tortilla or flatbread), and cassava.  There is often another vegetable such as cooked carrots, baked beans, green beans, peas, zucchini, “greens” (which are cooked down much like collard greens), and fresh tomatoes.  Some sort of meat is always included.  We’ve been served beef, chicken, pork, goat, liver, and “wild game” or “smoked meat” (which I think may have been water buffalo) as well as tilapia.  You can also find many different kabobs (pork, goat, beef) which are usually way over cooked, but have great seasoning.  Ugandans love their sauces, too.  I think they have to have a sauce to make all the starches edible.  The sauce I like most is called boo (say, “bo”) which is made from the ground nut or “g-nut”.  It tastes very much like a peanut.  Ugandans are not big on dessert, but there may be pineapple or maandazi served with tea. 

So far, I have only had one “suspect” meal.  The meat was cold and Jim advised against eating.  I did eat the rice and sauce in which it was served and had a bit of an upset stomach the next day, but nothing major.  We’ve actually come to the conclusion that the food here is quite good and flavorful.  We haven’t had to use our spice kit once, but we did buy some chili sauce (spicy catsup).  I think we are actually gaining weight!  This is unfortunate because I was justifying my holiday eating by the fact that I was going to Africa where I would lose a lot of weight from diarrhea.  Even though we do like the food, I can see how we were advised about how bland it is.  All the starches day after day with the same sauces are starting to get a little old.  The main problem is the lack of variety.  Every meal is essentially the same, so while it might be good, it can get old rather quickly.  I think we will try two restaurants in town for some variety this weekend: Ethiopian and Indian. 

Beverages:  You can find sodas everywhere, but the ones unique to Uganda are Stoney (ginger beer, which is my favorite), Krest (bitter lemon…the name says it all), and Mirindia (grape or cherry flavored).  Did you know that Ugandans drink the most alcohol per capita of any other nation in the WORLD?!  This really surprised me especially because you can’t find hard alcohol at most restaurants, they don’t really drink wine, and I haven’t seen very many clubs or bars.  Beer is not hard to find.  Basically if there is a town with a refrigerator, you are bound to find a cold beer!  Ugandans import a few beers, but mostly brew there own (there are 2 breweries: Ugandan Brewery and Nile Brewery).  We’ve tried most of them including Club (a light beer, which is our favorite despite every bottle tasting slightly different) and Nile Special (a bit stronger at 5.6%) are brewed at the source of the Nile, Bell (a light, sweeter beer from the waters of Lake Victoria), Moonberg, South African Castle, Tusker Malt from Kenya, Pilsner, and a few others.  The local alcohol is called waragi, although I have not tried it.  It’s supposed to taste a bit like gin, mess you up, and give you a nasty hangover.

For Darcy James: Susan and Sande

Dear Darcy,

Jim and I were able to meet Sande, Susan, Noel, and Preeti.  Our course leaders, Mike and Amy, are actually quite good friends with them.  Susan and Sande invited the four of us into their home Saturday night for dinner.  They live not too far from Lacor Hospital…I’m not sure if they were there when you were last here (Sande said he had had that land for about 10 years).  They are working on improvements to the house and land: he has planted trees and they recently painted the house.  They are waiting for 3 of their neighbors to get power before the line will reach their house.  They think that it may happen in the next year or so.  Susan is doing well and expressed her deep love for you and how she misses you.  She is working at the Gulu Hospital and as Sande is on his holiday this month, he’s been playing “babysitter” (those were his words).  Noel is about waist-high and is so cute.  He is quiet, but very polite and curious.  He loved the torch and stickers!  We used the torch for lighting as we chatted and sipped ginger tea and Noel was very proud to light the path as he lead us all the way back to the hospital.  Preeti is absolutely beautiful and healthy!  She smiles, kicks, and laughs and is not at all afraid to be passed around by 4 white strangers!  We took some video, but I don’t know if I can get it to go through; I will try (the video is not great, but I think the audio is more important).  Here are some pictures we snapped as well.

Apwoyo!

 Susan showing off Preeti's pinafore!  She had fallen asleep, but woke up for a quick photo.

 Noel opening his gift next to Mommy Susan and Sister Preeti Darcy!

 Sande holding Preeti

 Susan feeding Preeti...she's a good eater!

 Back asleep

 Noel showing off his stickers.

I tried to load a video, but had some problems.  Perhaps I'll try again anther time.

Darcy, thanks for sharing your Ugandan family with us.  They are truly amazing people who we are honored to know.

Emily and Jim

Social Medicine

This course is called, “Social Medicine Beyond the Biological Basis of Disease: The Social and Economic Causation of Illness”.  It is organized by American physician Mike Westerhaus and his wife Amy who is a sociologist.  Mike and Amy have been coming to Uganda for over 10 years to study both medicine and social determinants of health as well as learning about the conflict that has taken place in Northern Uganda.  They have developed relationships with St. Mary’s Lacor (say, “La-chore”) Hospital and Gulu University Medical School in order to organize this course. 

The goals of the course are “(1)to provide a structured global health immersion experience for medical students…, (2)to study issues related to global health in a resource-poor setting with and emphasis on local and global context, (3)to foster critical analysis of global health interventions in resource-poor settings, (4)to facilitate the development of a clinical approach to disease and illness, (5)to build and understanding and skill set associated with physician advocacy, and (6)to promote international solidarity and partnership in generating solutions to global health challenges facing societies throughout the world.”  The course is mainly composed of classroom lecture and discussion time, field visits, and clinical teaching in tropical medicine/application of social context to patient care and health determinants.  There are 12 fourth-year International medical students (11 from the US and 1 from Canada) and 15 third-year Ugandan medical students (medical school in Uganda is 5 years long). 

Each week has a different theme/topic that is addressed and is as follows:

Week 1: Social and economic determinants of health and causation of illness

Week 2: Global health interventions (paradigms of charity, humanitarianism, and structural change) and social justice in health interventions (models of community-based healthcare

Week 3: Health and human rights and the healthcare worker as an advocate

Week 4: Tools for effective application of global health experience: writing, photography, research, and political engagement

We meet from 9am-1pm every morning (except Sundays) and from 3pm-6pm Monday through Friday with some evening films addressing topics we have discussed in class.  We typically have lecture in the morning and student pairs (every international student is paired with a Ugandan student.  My partner is Kepha) take turns “clerking” patients on the wards in the afternoon.  The patients are selected based on their disease presentation and after we have presented the cases to the rest of the class, we visit the bedside for physical exam teaching, then return to the classroom for a lecture on the specific disease including diagnosis and treatment as well as how social factors impact patients with the disease.  For example, a patient with malaria doesn’t just get malaria because there are parasite-infested mosquitoes in Africa.  They get malaria because they don’t have access to a bed net, they may live next to a swamp/marsh or in crowded areas where many other people are also infected, and so on.  We are taught what questions need to be asked of our patients in order to better understand their living situation so that we can not only treat the disease with medications, but prevent reoccurrence and educate them about how disease is transmitted.  We also seek to understand their beliefs and background: do they believe in traditional healers (“witchdoctors”)? What has been their experience in the past with this type of illness (personally, or in  friends or family members)? What are their expectations for treatment?

Additionally, there are several guest speakers that teach us.  We have weekly Acholi language lessons.  We have heard from Ugandan medical students who took the course last year who grew up in the war-torn town of Gulu.  Religious leaders and local human rights activists give us their perspective on the conflict in Northern Uganda and how that impacted the health of many Acholi people.  Speakers from Partners in Health (please learn more about this amazing organization…”Mountains Beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder is a fantastic book about PIH and founder Dr. Paul Farmer) working in Rwanda have flown in to share their experiences and model of healthcare delivery in Uganda’s neighboring and also war-torn country.  We also visit local organizations and regional clinics to see how they provide care to citizens.

So far this has been an extremely intense class.  There is a lot of participation from all the students and at times, quite heated discussion of human rights issues as they pertain to healthcare.  I feel as there is so much for me to learn from everyone here (from students from the States and well as local Ugandans to the lecturers and patients) and at times it is a bit overwhelming.  At this point, I feel a bit paralyzed by the devastating health disparities and social/economic structures that have caused those.   I look forward to the next few weeks as I tools that will help me effectively answer difficult questions, push myself to do more, become more involved, and advocate for the underserved.

Acholiland

 

Jim and I are living in Acholiland.  This is Northern Uganda: Gulu town to be exact.  St. Mary’s Hospital Lacor (say, “la-chore”) is on the road to Southern Sudan.  Below is a summary of both Gulu and Lacor hospital I was given by the course instructors prior to coming here (I can’t take credit for the site description and am too tired to write it out in my own words…)

I'm working on a few more blog entries including uploading some photos and hopefully videos.  Perhaps I'll have those up in the next few days.  Apwoyo!

Gulu, Uganda

Gulu town is located approximately 200 miles north of Kampala, the capital city of the East African country of Uganda. It is the provincial capital and an economic and social hub for the entire sub-region of Acholiland, which is comprised of the northern districts of Gulu, Kitgum, Pader and Amuru.  For over twenty-two years, Acholiland has experienced the scourge of war carried out between the Ugandan military and an insurgency that came to be known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).  The population of Gulu town was approximately 40,000 people until 1996, at which point the war escalated and a policy of forced displacement was enacted, causing thousands more to migrate into town.  In 2002, estimates were that the population in Gulu town was over 120,000.  For nearly twenty years, Gulu town has largely been immune to the physical violence of the war yet it feels its impact through migration and the saturation of international humanitarian agencies.  Today as relative peace pervades the area, Gulu town is home to countless international NGOs operating in the region, the strong presence of religious infrastructure such as the Catholic Archdiocese, the military base of the Ugandan government’s counterinsurgency efforts, and the intellectual and cultural life of Gulu University. 

Lacor Hospital

St. Mary’s Lacor Hospital is a 480-bed non-profit Catholic hospital located just outside of the town of Gulu, Uganda.  Originally started as a small dispensary in 1959, the hospital has grown into a large referral hospital for all of Northern Uganda and a teaching hospital for Ugandan residents and medical students from Gulu University School of Medicine.  The hospital operates medical, OB/Gyn, surgical, pediatric, and malnutrition wards.  In addition to providing tertiary care services, the hospital operates numerous outpatient clinics that aim to provide preventative care for a wide range of conditions.  The hospital averages 600 inpatients at any one time and approximately 500 outpatients are seen each day.  The hospital staff number approximately 1,000.  In addition, the hospital operates three community-health centers in outlying, rural sites.  With the return of relative peace to the region in 2006, increased efforts have gone into expanding community-based healthcare.  Funding for the hospital comes from the Ugandan government, private external donors, and foreign government support.  The hospital aims to provide quality, accessible healthcare to all, with a special focus upon disadvantaged populations.

What the heck am I doing in Uganda?

After traveling to India in 2005 with Genesis World Mission I left feeling disenfranchised about medical “mission” trips.  I felt as though our efforts in India where somewhat futile and I questioned the impact we had on the people to which our care was delivered.  Was it okay to spend thousands of dollars and devote time and resources to simply placing a Band-Aid on the wounds of the people who came to the make-shift medical camp we set up?  Were we doing these people more harm than good?  Did we really try to understand their culture, society, and beliefs to understand how that impacts health, disease, and the delivery and acceptance of Western medicine?  Were our motives in the right place?  Did we really want to help these people or did we just want to feel good about ourselves and that our privileged lives were now somehow justified?  As amazing as an opportunity as it was, I was extremely frustrated and began thinking that I didn’t want anything to do with global health in my future career.  I thought that as a physician, I could do so much more good by staying in my own community and caring for the underserved there than trying to “share” my values with individuals I had no connection with nor understanding of. 

Despite these feelings, for some reason I remained interested in going abroad as a medical student.  Perhaps I thought that delivering medical care outside the US as a soon-to-be doctor would give me a better perspective on how medicine is delivered outside the US and that this would somehow make me a better physician to my American patients.  Or maybe this time I would feel better about my actions if I had a more involved roll as a caregiver. To be honest though, a not insignificant part of my decision to expand my last year of medical school in order to participate in an international elective was to justify my selfish desire to travel before starting residency.

After applying for several different electives abroad, I was chosen to participate in “Social Medicine” in Northern Uganda.  At the time, I didn’t know much about the course.  I was told that this would be a course with several other US medical students as well as Ugandan students and that we would be learning about nonbiological determinants of disease and health.  The more I thought about the aim of the course, the more I realized that this would be an excellent fit for my goals in going abroad.  In addition to seeing patients with tropical diseases and advanced chronic diseases, I would be learning about the implications of diagnosing, treating, and preventing disease in resource-poor settings.  I hoped that this course would allow my to answer some of the questions I walked away from India with and clarify my role as a physician in delivery of healthcare outside the US.

Pictures and video

Jim and I forgot the camera connection cord for the computer, so no photos available as of now.  We will try to find I card reader and upload some still shots at a later date.  Also, we have video and will try to upload from that once we settle in a bit more.

We arrived in Gulu yesterday evening and I started my course today.  It's going to be super informative and I'm very excited to learn more about the social determinants of health (of which I will write more later).

...More later.

UGANDA!

 

Welcome to the Pearl of Africa!!!  I think I am going to LOVE it here.  Jim and I are both very excited about our upcoming adventures.

We arrived in Uganda yesterday afternoon and were met a the airport by Walter, who is the driver for the Green Valley Hostel in Entebbe.  The owner of the hostel, Frank, actually lives in Gulu and owns one of the bars up there.  He also used to be a tour/safari guide and was so pleased to learn that we will be in his town and plan to explore Africa after the course.  His eyes lit up when we told him of our “plans” to travel and he started rattling off various itineraries and cost-effective travel means and places to stay.  I think he’ll end up being a great connection for us.

Uganda is BEAUTIFUL!  It is very green and lush.  It’s a much cleaner and quieter (so far anyways) country than India.  It reminds me a lot of a cross between India and Costa Rica.  The people are genuinely nice.  Everyone greets you with a, “hello, how are you?”  and they are genuinely curious how you are doing.  If you don’t ask the same question of them, they are a little offended, actually.  It feels very safe here as well. 

We had a nap yesterday and then a very restful sleep all through the night.  I think we are finally getting our clocks “reset”.  After all the flying, touring Egypt, and big layover in Ethiopia (which Jim is now referring to as purgatory), we were exhausted.  I think I slept 5 hours in three days and felt WAY worse than I’ve ever felt on a post-call day.

Today we walked around Entebbe with one of my classmates, Sara Jane, from Galvatin, Texas.  We sipped Ugandan beers and had lunch on the shores of Lake Victoria (not good water for swimming), went to the Saturday market, changed money, and bought bananas for 60 shillings (<10 cents each) from cute little boys.  At the market, Sara Jane was looking to purchase sun glasses and I started wondering away looking at what else there was to offer.  Jim came and grabbed my arm, “please stay closer.  I can’t watch out for both of you if you wonder away.”  It was very sweet of him.  I didn’t even think that it might have been stressful for him to watch out for the both of us…he’s so good that way.

A few more of my classmates arrived this afternoon and we chatted with them over fresh tilapia (entire fish) and chips (French fries).  Leslie goes to school at Ross University in the Caribbean, Kirsten is from somewhere in Georgia, and Leslie goes to UC Irvine.  We also met two of the course instructors, Mike the director and internal medicine physician from Brigham and Women’s College in Boston, and Amy…don’t know her title yet. 

Everyone seems very nice and excited.  The rest of the Americans arrive tonight (I think there are 12 American students, 15 Ugandan students, and 3-4 instructors total) and we will pick up some Ugandan students in Kampala tomorrow before driving to Gulu, which will take 5-6 hours from Kampala.

“Egyptians: very tricky, tricky, tricky…be careful!”

We arrived in Cairo on the afternoon of the 5^th and were quickly inundated with taxi drivers asking to take us to town for a mere 80 pounds ($16).  Jim is quite the barterer, or at least he likes to think he is.  I want no part of dickering for the price of things, so it’s good to have him along to negotiate prices (to a certain point, or at least not in Egypt as you will soon see why).  He kept telling them that he was told that a cab from the airport should only cost 40 pounds; they quickly laughed mockingly and he eventually talked them town to 60 pounds ($12).  But that wasn’t good enough for us (Jim).  After talking to several drivers, we decided to take the bus into town, but then learned (from the taxi drivers) that there are is no public transportation and that only poor people ride the bus.  So we were tired at this point, it was getting dark, and we caved: we paid 80 pounds for a cab to the Youth Hostel in downtown Cairo.  When we finally arrived, Ramadan, the Hostel manager, “hooked us up” with a “very good price” for dinner of kabobs (chicken, beef, and an American hotdog with diagonal cuts to make it look very fancy and delicious), tea, and shi-sha (a bit like hookah in the states).  This was 100 pounds ($25).

Ramadan then arranged for us to have a private taxi driver tour us around Cairo the next day to take in all the sites.  This was to cost 400 pounds ($80), which we took as reasonable.  The driver would be at the hostal at 6:30 am to pick us up, which we were too tired to realize was NOT reasonable.  I didn’t sleep a wink all night until 5 am, just in time to be woken by a knock on the door at 6am. 

Touring Cairo (all of it) in one day was a mistake.  First our driver Farris (Beuler) didn’t have the best Egyptian grasp of the English language.  Next, he didn’t know too many answers to our questions (or perhaps he did, but just didn’t know what we were asking about).  Third, there were mandadory picture stops.  The first of which was next to a garbage/human waste laden canal to take a picture of the sun coming up.  It was “so, so beautiful” because there is so much smog in the city that you can stare directly into the big pink ball of fire.  Oh, so, so beautiful.

Farris would tell us in his thick Egyptian accent where we were going each time we got in and out of the car:  “First, I take you to Bedore Pyramid, then….we go to Ramsi’s monument.  After that, we go to Imhotep Museum and Saqqara.  Next,,,ahhhhh…we go to Giza, then Spinx, then to Cairo Museum and Bazaar.  I just want to make you happy: you happy, I happy, okay?”  Wow!  That seemed like so much, but we nodded our heads and he replied, “okay, okay, okay.”

It’s difficult to recap the rest of the day, but it sort of went like this: every stop we made, Farris, would say, “Okay, you go pay teekeek (which took us not to long to realize was acutaly “ticket”) and I stay to watch car.  Go there, get teekeek”.  We would then buy a teekeek, which averaged 60 pounds/person/stop (that’s $12/person/stop), and join the rest of the European, Amerian, and Japanese tourists to see the wonders.  It was a definite site to see and we were so out of our element.  At first we were proud that we didn’t cave in and do the big group tour bus thing, but as the day went on, we realized we would have been much more “protected” from the beggers, street vendors, and scammers had we signed up for a tour.  At one stop, we had two gentlemen dress us in there turban-heads and robes and take our camera from our hands to take a picture and then demand $20 American dollars from us.  We luckily ended up giving them 10 pounds ($2), which we said was all we had.  As we walked away, an Asian family approached and the son was quickly accosted and just as he was about to be dressed in all their smelly garb, his mother grabbed him away, saying to the men, “No, no, no, no, no!”  The father then looked at us asking, “Yor furst day en Egyp?  Egypians vewy, vewy, vewy twicky!  Be careful.”

In addition to the traditional monument stops, Farris wanted us to see some other things such as a carpet “school”, papyrus “museum”, and gold shop.  The carpet school (one of about 10 that we drove by) was actually slave labor.  Authenitc oriental rugs and tapetries made of silk, wool, cotton were being made by Egyptian childrens (which is why we were told they were so special).  The papyrus museum was a shop that educated you on all the benefits of papyrus paper (which you can imagine Jim had a hayday with) afterwhich you were expected to purchase a painting on papyrus (and for just 10 more pounds, you can have your name written in script on).  At least the gold shop wasn’t disqused as a school or museum…they were flat out trying to sell us the finest Egyptian gold and silver and diamonds from the heart of Africa (of course).

Jim and I both had our moments when we hit the wall.  It really didn’t help that we were jet-lagged and sleep deprived, but for the most part we held it together quite well.  We did end up telling Farris that we didn’t want to go to the Cairo Museum or Bazaar because we were too tired.  I think he was a little frazzled that we thought he wasn’t doing a good enough job even though we tried to reassure him.  Jim’s big moment was at the first pyramid.  Just imagine Big Jim crawling down, down, down a 3’x3’ tunnel to the bottom of a pyramid’s tomb with a bunch of Italian and Japanese tourists and getting to the bottom only to find a big empty vault and the thick smell of ammonia, which sickened us and induced a panic attack in Jim.  He was giving the heismann to a bunch of Italian girls and trampling people as he tried to race his way back to the entrance 100 feet above us, letting out a big, “Huuhhh” when getting to the top.  My moment was on the way to the airport.  Farris asked is which airline (after he’d already taken the wrong terminal exit).  “Ethiopian,” I said.

 

“Oh, Sudan?” he asked.  

“No,” a bit louder and slower “Ethiopian!”

“Okay, okay, okay, Sudan”

“NO!!!  Eee-thee-oo-pee-ann”

“Let me see your paper."  I pulled out my teekeek and read “Ethiopian” as I pointed to it. “Yes, yes, yes.  Sudan.”

I didn’t know what else to do and neither did Farris.  We found a random guy in a car (which I referred to as our pilot car) and he lead us to the right terminal through some old closed and torn up roads/dirt patches.

We spent the next few hours in the airport restaurant where we enjoyed the best part of Egypt (the shi-sha!) and Jim sang John Lennon’s “Imagine” on the karaoke machine.