Pimpin Aint Easy

So now that I've been here for a while new and exciting experiences are slowing down. Everything's pretty routine. This means that I'm running out of things to put on this blog so I apologize if I start to bore anyone.

• People around here have a very noticeable accent when they speak. We all sort of slip into that Ugandan accent whenever we talk to locals so that it's easier for them to understand us. But I've started to have trouble slipping out of it. Sometimes I switch from talking to Ugandans to talking to Americans and I forget to go back to my normal accent. Or sometimes in the middle of conversation I'll just slip back into it without noticing. So there's a small chance that after three more weeks it might never go away...
• Ugandans, particularly kids, are obsessed with "mzungu hair." Specifically they think it's funny that we have arm hair and they really like playing with the hair on my head because it's straight. There hair isn't conducive to any sort of playing/styling. This means that every time I interact with little kids (AKA every day) four or five of them get together to give me a head massage. I could really get used to this sort of treatment.
• For the past week the road I take to school has been under construction. It's been a pretty expensive process to smooth and widen this road. I have absolutely no idea why they chose to spend the money to fix this road. It is almost entirely trafficked by pedestrians, isn't used to transport anything of economic significance and essentially drives straight into the bush. I can only assume somebody threw the word stimulus around.
  
• Workers here don't get paid by the hour so they don't have the same incentive to drag out a project that Americans do. In fact they try to go as fast as possible to maximize their free time. This leads to some unsafe construction practices. For example, Tuesday I saw my first ever dump truck drag race. Three people almost died when one truck passed the other but at least the road was finished faster.
• I've started baiting the monkeys to convince them to play with me. I can now confirm that monkeys really do love bananas. Too bad their still scared of me and won't play. The best I've gotten them to do so far is come up and grab the banana from me before running away. Hopefully I can teach them tricks before I leave.
• People around here often come up to Mzungus and ask us for things. Usually they want us to "assist them" with money. With kids it's usually "Bak sweetie," which I'm sure you can all figure out means "give me sweetie." Sometimes they get a little more... Creative. As a background I should mention that Ugandans all think Whitney and I are siblings even though we look nothing alike. So today while Whitney and I were walking home from school a man came up to me talking a mile a minute and pointing to her. We couldn't figure it out at first but after a few times we finally heard "You give me ten minutes for fuck." I would have been shocked and a little pissed but these sorts of things are fairly common. So instead I did what any good brother would do. I haggled for more money. His initial offer was only 10,000 shillings but after a quick back and forth we got up to 20,000 before the two of us burst out laughing and walked away. In my defense when people try to buy Whitney from Terry he usually only asks for a Chapati (kind of like a mix between pita and a crepe. Usually retails for about 10 cents).

Anyways that's all for now. Only three more weeks before I head back. Still not sure how I feel about that.