unloading

I set my alarm for 5:30am, but actually the bat flying around my room woke me up. Bryce had relayed the plan to us the night before; leave at 6, arrive at the focus site by 7, unloading crane arriving at 7:30, etc. I wander down around 6, muble something about a moth in my room cuz a bat just seemed too…exotic. Bryce tell s me it is a bat. He had a good look already since it hit him in the face. I get coffee, blessed coffee, thank God for coffee, and wander back upstairs to find the bat and get my trusty bag. Cant find the bat. Leave window open hoping it will get the hint. We all load the back of the truck with whatever wood we haven’t used and any tools we might need. Then add mattress, then bob, leonard, and opus. Henry, Bryce and I cram into the front. And we are off by 6:30, not bad for Africa. Stop for petrol, no petrol attendant. Drive to other petrol station. We head out from that one going the wrong way (you must forgive henry, he only had 2 hours of sleep cuz he and Bryce had a very long day yesterday). We make record time going to the site, joking about Uganda all the way. Arrive at the site at 7:30 in the middle of a large rainstorm with no Ugandans in sight. They tend to disappear in the rain so we cant get started unloading the containers from the truck. Thankfully we have a canopy over the back otherwise it would suck for the guys in the back. Henry and Bryce decide to sleep till the rain passes. I sit wedged between them writing the above. Good morning Africa. In between rain, I wander over to the dorm and find clumps of ants eating away at anything having to do with food. Find come potato chips to bring back to the guys when the rain finally lets up enough to walk back without getting soaked. I warn them to blow off the chips before eating to free them of ants. Leonard wanders round in his dad’s huge jacket munching away at the chips.

The cranes and the truck drivers arrive around 9 or so. So now 20+ Ugandans stand around arguing in Lugandan about how to unload the containers. Since the road is muddy from all the rain, they want a different truck and crane to do the job. Oi. I trade places with henry so he can go help Bryce deal with the locals and I can watch our truck full of tools. There is a kid hanging on the window sill watching me write. It took almost 5 minutes for him to ask for money. amazing. At 11:30am, most of us go to Entebbe for food since the rain started pouring again. Coming back, we pass one of our containers driving into town….is it supposed to be doing that? Then Rob and Julia showed up so we had an earthwise meeting, the minutes of which remain closed as with all business meetings. The sun came out, they left and we waited for the Ugandans to return. 5pm the Ugandans return ready to work. They unload 3 containers into place before dusk. Now why couldn’t that have happened earlier? Bryce wants me to inform you all that he was bothering me again with his incessant teasing. The first thing out of the containers was henry’s guitar. Bryce finally received his moving boxes…8 months after packing them into the container in Seattle.

For the last container, everyone stops and slowly meander out to the road. There is some labor dispute so they don’t want to work. Thru our interpreter, we find that they don’t want to finish the job till their boss pays them in order to make sure they get paid. Oh, and the boss has to personally drive the money to the site from kampala, over an hour away at this point in the traffic day. Good grief. Nothing anyone says motivates them to keep working while the boss drives. Btw, the last container sits directly in the driveway so our little truck cants get to the road. We are trapped. The boss is on the way, so they set up the cranes to lift as soon as he gets here, but they don’t lift, just get ready. The boss arrives, suddenly everyone disappears with him to discuss the money issue. Its pitch black, us mzungus have nothing to do and no way to do it in the dark. We already put as much paint on the dorms as we can without waiting for it to dry (that paint is easily the worst I have ever worked with or heard of, the dorm has 5+ layers so far…). This is fun. All most of us can do is keep our tempers in check. What are the legal penalties for punching someone? At about 11:30pm, everyone returns to lift the container off the truck and into place. The two crane trucks do not know how to maneuver around, or around each other. I just waited for one of them to hit the other while repositioning. One almost tipped from lifting too far off the center of gravity. The other crane truck tried to drive up and over a dirt hump next to the road to get out. He guns the engine, drives straight up the hump, goes airborn for a moment and lands squarely on the hump. He sheepishly backs back down to wait. The Ugandan picked to come apologize to us for the time delay looked quite stunned at the response. Almost seemed like he expected we would be totally understanding. We aren’t.

Midnight we leave; exhausted, hungry, and frustrated. I head straight to bed, too tired to check for that bat. I think the guys actually ate dinner. Tomorrow is Sunday. Funny how we have one of those just when we need one most. The day of rest, blessed day of rest.