Diss the Cook

A while back I was watching a late-night talk show on which Tom Cruise was a guest. It was one of the episodes where they wheel out a portable kitchen counter and summon a celebrity chef, who bangs together a pre-conceived dish in a minute flat just in time for the credits to roll. As is common, once Wolfgang Puck or whoever got cooking, Tom Cruise naturally joined in to 'lend a hand'. I'm sure he was well-intentioned, but it became evident early on that, from the apprehensive and awkward way he prodded whatever was sauteeing in his assigned fry-pan, Tom Cruise is a guy who does not do much of his own cooking. And me on the couch thought, “If I am ever famous enough to go on Leno, and Wolfgang Puck is a guest the same night as me, I will grasp that spatula like a pro and totally own those aubergines and everyone on their respective couches will say, hey, will you look at that Scott guy, he really knows his way around a kitchen, he doesn't have a personal chef or anything, he's just a normal person!” and my books/albums/fitness videos will consequentially sell like hotcakes.

But in rural Uganda we are not just 'normal people'. We are the bourgeois: we are people who have enough spare time and money to care about things like 'anti-oxidants' and 'the blogosphere' and 'oscar-buzz'. As in,

“Hey, have you heard? The fruit of the baobab tree is absolutely packed with anti-oxidants. It is the next super-food. It is the next goji berry.”
“Really? Huh. That is good to know, because two baobab fruits are all I have eaten in the past twenty-four hours. Also, I live in a building the size of your guest bathroom.”

Anyway, this is all pertinent to when, at Lake Nkuruba Nature Reserve & Community Campsite just outside of Fort Portal, Uganda, Alanna and I decided to save a few bucks (literally, like, two dollars) and cook our own dinner the final night. There wasn't a public kitchen, just the staff one for the camp's restaurant, but we asked if we could use it to cook some pasta and Jane, the timid, smiling young woman in charge kindly agreed. She led us into a small chamber with a rough concrete counter along one wall. The counter had two holes in the top with bars across like prison windows. The walls were covered in probably an inch of soot. There were no 'appliances', per se, just a few metal utensils and a yellow jug, presumably full of cooking oil.

Now I do fancy myself as knowing my way somewhat around a kitchen, and I've done much cooking in less-than-lavish conditions, such as on camping trips and the like, and over our time in Africa Alanna and I have concocted some very good meals in all kinds of ill-equipped and unconventional facilities. But when I stepped into that room, all of a sudden I was Tom Cruise. Except I was worse than Tom Cruise, because I'm sure that, in a pinch, he'd at least know how to turn the stove on.

Jane was kind enough to help. After adding some fresh firewood, she used a small plastic bag and a few splashes of liquid paraffin (not cooking oil in the jug after all) as fire-starter. She then left us alone in order to split more logs outside. As we watched the plastic sputter and smoke over the firewood, it occurred to me that this is the way in which much of the food we'd been eating over the past months has been cooked – beautiful flatbreads, tender fish, intricate curries – all produced over what most westerners would identify as 'an incinerator'.


And there was more. We filled a pot and brought water to a boil (really quickly, I might add) and got our pasta cooked. But then, how to remove it from the flame? This was a problem. There were some oily pieces of cardboard folded into what seemed like potholders, but of course they'd just catch fire. The solution was easy: Jane, intuiting our helplessness, simply reached down bare-fingered and plucked the pot off the stove. I guess if you've been cooking this way since you were six years old, you can do that kind of thing.

For the fifteen minutes it took for our fusili to cook, Alanna and I alternated going into the kitchen to stir the pot with a fork. This solicited chuckles from Jane and the two other camp employees lounging outside – We weren't sure why exactly, but by now we're accustomed to mystery amusement on our behalf. Earlier in the day we walked down the road to a small town, and got some chuckles from a group of girls after we said hello, and I thought, why are you laughing at me? You are the one walking down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere with a big wooden bench balanced on your head! But that's the way it goes when you don't speak the language. Anyway, cooking in the kitchen, it wasn't until we'd gone and drained the pasta together (that was too funny) that the other woman, whose English was a little better than Jane's, informed us that it was of course the fact we were cooking together – that I was participating at all – that was amusing. She then went on a short, lighthearted yet still fairly serious diatribe against the frustrations of gender roles in Uganda, much to the embarrassment of the man present, who had to leave. “You go and iron all the man's shirts, and then he wears one for two minutes and fwit!– he throws it on the floor,” she explained. She told us how much she admired the way we did things. I said something to the effect of, “we cook together, we clean together, we laugh together...” and this garnered whoops of laughter and a high-five between the two women.

So the chuckles we get on the street are possibly just along the lines of, ha ha, look at that man and woman, walking down the street like equals, what a hoot! And if I were offended by that, well, I'd have to be a barbarian, wouldn't I?

----

CRIME!

We haven't wanted to jinx anything by saying so, but since by the time this entry hits the press we'll be in the air on the way home so I think we can put it out there – over all this time in Africa we have not once felt in danger or experienced firsthand any the criminality that is supposed to be so prevalent here. We've certainly been out and about, and I think Alanna and I both expected at least something, whether it be some bills disappearing out of a back pocket or a small border-post bribe. But over the course of the whole trip, we'd been getting by scot-free.

Until Lake Nkuruba Nature Reserve & Community Campsite, that is...

Little did we know.

This is Aldrin. He speaks very little English and is maybe the offspring of one of the camp employees. On our first day at Lake Nkuruba he wandered over to where we were playing cards. Once we were finished, we tried to entertain him for a while – I attempted to teach him the names of the face cards, and then let him balance cards on my head, which he found utterly hilarious. I then handed over the entire pack, and he busied himself moving them in and out of the box and dealing them onto the table. Then he left with the cards and disappeared into the reception office.

And we saw neither him nor the cards...

Ever Again.



Aldrin!!!



Note: his name may not be Aldrin. His name may be some other name that we misheard through a thick Luganda accent as Aldrin when we asked Jane what his name was. Adrian, maybe. We sure hope his name is Aldrin though.

Observatory, observant

Observatory

Our accommodation for most of our time in Cape Town was the suburb of Observatory, fifteen minutes from the city. It's a decidedly bohemian neighborhood and the only place we found in the city where the locals wear shorts. (I feel that most of how I look, being in Africa and all, is pretty much at odds with the locals, so at least in that small regard I was able to fit in.)

Me one hundred percent not fitting in

Backpacking in South Africa is a popular industry, and the network of hostels in the country is astounding – there were at least three in Observatory alone, all within a four-block radius. Yet outside the town's main street we barely saw any young-person travelers like ourselves.

Hostel relaxing

In all our train trips to and from the city and down the peninsula we didn't see a single person who didn't look like they were going to work, and it was strange– I don't know where all the people go (or whether they go anywhere at all).

Observatory train station (the clean end)

The food is splendidly cheap so far. We ate out almost every day in the city, spending (honestly) fast-food prices for high-quality meals. Our most expensive dinner out included an appetizer, two mains, two desserts, bottled water and a bottle of wine for $35 each, including tip. And this was a classy establishment with a clientele twice our age.

Anniversary Dinner...

Bottles of beer are $2.50 max, though there seems to be a bit of monopoly on beer and not much selection from place to place. Many have maize (Africa corn) in them. Eateries and bars, as with most of the neighborhoods we explored, seem to be pretty segregated. Even on Long Street, where things are fairly evenly mixed on the sidewalk, we ended up eating (whether intentional or not) surrounded by all white people most of the time.

One disappointment so far is the juice. The two of us being somewhat of fruit-juice aficionados and considering the tropical climate and all, we were anticipating a high-quality selection– and selection there is, with multiple fridge displays per supermarket displaying various exotic flavours, including papaya, grenadilla and lychee & pear. But most that we've tasted so far are diluted, oversweetened, and mostly grape or apple juice, regardless of the flavour on the label. Even the 'lite' juices are artificially sweetened to the point where they sting one's tongue. Same deal with produce: I'm convinced the people who live here buy their fresh fruits and veggies at some super-secret locals' market and leave the wrinkly stuff for the clueless like ourselves.

Anniversary breakfast (and the only juice photo I have)

So far, Africans are terrific litterers. On our first train-ride home from Cape Town I sat across from a moody guy my age who stuffed a handful of trash out the train window as it sat in the station. I figured him a badass for so boldly neglecting the environment – what with endangered species mere kilometers away – only to observe not two minutes later a clean-cut father essentially teaching his young daughter the same method of disposing of her popsicle wrapper. Not helping the situation are the armies of poor-looking folk hawking soda and mini bags of chips from train-car to train-car. Even since Cape Town, in the mostly-white towns, the attractive whitewashed old Dutch buildings create an illusion of cleanliness while the filthy parks and ditches tell a different story.

Deceiving clean building

Fear and Loathing

Moments ago, I opened up my Internet Explorer browser to see this feature story on the Globe and Mail website: Canadian Couple Attacked in South African Nature Reserve. And then I scrolled down and read a about the 737 that overshot the runway in Jamaica, jostling and bloodying passengers before skidding to a halt, metres from the Carribean Sea. "This does not bode well," I said to my co-worker.

My first thought was something along the lines of "Oh god, more fodder for the fire, I'm going to spend the holidays futilely talking my way out of the 'Africa is dangerous' spiel." But once I'd finished rolling my eyes at what I tend to dismiss as Westernized sensationalism, I decided to see what the South African papers were saying about the story. As it turns out, in the Mail and Guardian – a paper that dedicates an entire section to "Crime" – there was not a single mention of the story. Why? Because stuff like this happens all the time. As it turns out, the helicopter that airlifted the Canadians to hospital was diverted from an area just outside of the reserve, where it was attempting to airlift another body.

And then (because I'm a masochist) I decided to read the comments and reactions of the readers. There was the usual idiocy of people praising Apartheid and people suggesting that the victims could have defended themselves had they been properly armed, but there were also a few that I feel bear repeating. Comments which I don't entirely agree with, but which for one reason or another struck a chord with me as this whole 6 months in Africa thing becomes increasingly tangible.

"Let's face it -- this isn't a "one-off" attack. Caucasians in South Africa have been targeted as part of a "reverse-apartheid" for years, and if you're not obviously African, in my opinion, you should not go -- there are many safer, beautiful places to visit. It's not worth risking your life over."

"This is one of the reasons I left SA to come and live in Canada, and why I will not return with my family until the SA government gets tough on crime and Mugabe-- the risks of traveling there are very real and very high (we had our car broken into the first night that we were in Cape Town several years ago, and on the same trip my wife was accosted on a train)."

"Is there no hope and future for that continent? The birth place of homo sapian seems to be rushing into utter chaos and anarchy. A shiver goes down my spine if Africa is only a preview for the rest of the worlds future."

I am not dissuaded and I'm not afraid, but I am sobered. "The risks of travelling [to Africa] are very real and very high" and that is something that I need to be reminded of. I am going to encounter people there who are well-versed in xenophobia, people who despise me for my skin colour, my gender, my affluence. I am going to encounter people there who have nothing, people who are desperate. Despite what I may have said in the past, this is not the same as travelling to Europe or Australia. This is travelling to a place where women are more likely to be raped than learn how to read. This is a place where you can be killed for your camera, your cell phone, those fake pearl earrings that cost you $8 at Claire's. This is not the same thing.

"Why Africa?" It's still a question I get asked a lot, and while once I fumbled my words - landscapes, people, animals? - now I am constantly improving my answer, responding with a conviction I once lacked. I am going to Africa because I strongly oppose the fear of difference that has seized societies worldwide, from the right-wing evangelicals in North America, who make their life's work the denial of gay rights, to the autocratic regimes of leaders like Mugabe, who systematically rape women to maintain a hegemonic rule that is destroying Zimbabwe.

I think that a lot of the problems in our world stem from fear - fear of change, fear of difference, fear of losing the ability to define one's country, religion, self. When you travel, you become more exposed to the world; and when you are more exposed to the world, you understand it a little better than you did before; and when you understand it better, you fear it less. To realize that, sometimes you have to put yourself in uncomfortable, perhaps even dangerous situations. Certain experiences are worth the risk; I'm inclined to think that this is one of them.

Oreo Cookies and the African Disposition

*Alanna and I have got under a month left here on planet Normal Life, so I figured it was about time I showed my e-face on what has been up to this point a single-user (though lovely) weblog. As Alanna has been doing a great job of writing about things that actually exist (i.e. real information, facts, maps and graphs and numbers etc.) I've figured it's up to me to write about things that don't exist (i.e. half-baked theories, things that may well be very incorrect, etc). So here goes:

Early in our Africa-related internet-perusals Alanna and I came across this video of a man conducting Kiswahili lessons via youtube:

Basically, it's a man standing in the middle of his wife's kitchen, plucking up objects seemingly at random and naming them in Kiswahili – the catch being that the majority of the objects in his kitchen he proclaims as having "no Swahili word." He also complains about his kids leaving globes everywhere ("what are these things doing here, in the cooking place?"), and at the end pulls out a giant yellow sign to plug his travel website, which he calls "Kenya's official website."

Anyways, Alanna and I found the video pretty funny. I've tried describing it to a few people but it doesn't really translate, so to speak. But in doing so I got to thinking about why exactly I found it funny, and got to worrying that the humour I saw in the video comes from a place of condescension or even benign racism. Alanna and I talked about it and I decided that this isn't true, because for the same reasons I find Mr. Mutooni to be funny, I also find him to be awesome. He's awesome in a way that (to generalize and over-simplify) I've noticed many Africans to be, and in a way that as a Canadian I find enviable.

For me, the humour in the video stems from its amateurishness, and Mr. Mutooni's lackadaisical attitude towards presenting himself on video: he is somewhat unprepared, the kitchen is cluttered, and the camera-person (I'm assuming his wife) endlessly fidgets with the camera (and whispers "peanut butter" when Mr. Mutooni can't remember the name of the jar he's holding – hilarious!). And you'd think that, when conducting a Kiswahili language lesson about kitchen objects, one would make sure the objects that one picked up would, y'know, actually have Kiswahili names.

But that's what makes him so great! If it were a typical North American conducting a similar lesson, he would have adopted a phony on-camera persona, maybe cleaned up, rehearsed, and basically tried to make himself seem cooler, and therefore different, from the person he actually is. And through one of the great Paradoxes of Youtube, the video would have been dull, not to mention I wouldn't have remembered a single new word (as I did with Mr. Mutooni's video: kisu! Knife!).

Though Mr. Mutooni is not typical: perusing his other videos we learn he's a smart, opinionated man who is obviously passionate about his culture, language, and the promotion of Africa and Kenya as tourist destinations (though I'm pretty sure he lives in New Jersey, I'm not sure what is up with that). And it is Mr. Mutooni's lack of need to put up any fronts, to depict anything to the world other than his true self, which I find admirable. Lately there has been a focus in North American culture on personal branding, and in the most superficial of meanings, what with Twitter and iPhone and all the requisites. Yet I seem to find such great examples of people of the African Continent being so comfortable and confident in their own identity, regardless of how others may see them. And it is funny, a lot of the time: dudes doing quasi-traditional dance in front of a giant suburban hedge to a Soulja Boy parody, for example. But it is also fantastic, because there's no whispers of 'trying too hard', or being 'ironic' – it's just untainted pride and fun, which I feel is tougher to achieve in this 'western' world of ours.

Not to mention it's strangely comforting, being Kenya-bound myself, knowing that out of an entire kitchen, the Swahili only have words for about six things. If I've got a hankering for broccoli, all I'll need to say is "broccoli," and that is a huge load off my shoulders.