Carol Bontekoe

This blog has been keeping track of my adventures since 2004. The stories and the adventures have come from my college dorm room to Uganda, Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan, learning Dutch in the Netherlands to living in the wilds of Homer, Alaska. I went back to school in Amsterdam to study Theaterwetenschap (Theatre Science) at University of Amsterdam. And now my adventures as a Fruit Fly, a Sexy Unicorn, and creating a movement with Team Sparkle in Chicago.

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Bleeding heart Liberal

Sometimes it gets hard here realizing that there are so many things you want to do, and sometimes there is just essentially nothing you can do about it. PLus if you give to one you have to give to all of them. Orphans are trained to basically attack Muzungus(white people) to guilt trip them to give them money. One kid yesterday was tapping on my window of the Taxi for a half hour. That was really rough to ignore. It gets hard sometimes, but it also reminds me why I'm here. I wanna help kids learn English(Here knowing English means Jobs) and know that they can take care of themselves. There are just so many Children everywhere here. And America's poor and Ugandas poor are no where near the same. Also what they consider middle class, No where near even our lower end middle class people. Right now the compound I'm staying in is in a "Middle Class" Neighborhood. Yet most of the people don't have electricity or can speak English, and children only have 2 outfits...maybe. Even the compound where I'm staying, is like the nicest place in the area and we pretty much never have running water or electricity. Yesterday it was raining pretty hard and we were in the dining area which is away from the house. So Grace wanted a Banana but didn't want to go in the rain so I dashed to the house grabbed a banana and slipped in the mud. So Rain, is more running water then we have had like this whole time. So I took a shower in the rain. Shaved my legs, washed my hair.... The works. It was quite enjoyable. Sometimes you just have to improvise if you ever wanna feel clean here. Other than the little kid knocking on my window forever yesterday I haven't had too many incedents with the homeless. I did have a homeless man push me in the arm(not to hard just enough to shock me) because I wouldn't give him money. I figure it is Karma coming back for me, for last year. Outside of the V&A musuem I thought there were a bunch of garbage bags so I ran up and Kicked them. Needless to say That was like someones home, And they were in. It has been weird we get politcal news in very choppy and from all the new volunteers comign in all the time and some of the Uganda newspapers. Oh, Did Bush Really say the Election should be moved back? That is messed up if he did. Absolutely none of the volunteers from other countries have one nice thing to say about Bush. They are always telling me that he is the worst thing for our country in foriegn relations aspect. Well.... come on. I could have told them that. None of the volunteers here are conservative. Which Suprised me cuz some are pretty big, Stirct Christains and even they think Bush has gone over board. We'll See how this Edwards thing affects Kerry. none of us could act to suprised. There really isn't any other high profile Democrat it could have been. If any other big news is going on in The States make sure to let me know, that way I can bring it up at the dinner table and get everyone going. Here alot of people yell Bush at me instead of AMerican. I mean... I'm more than fine being called Muzungu or Mama but, Bush?!?!?!?! No thank you! heehee ya know I love even the most conservative of ya'll... Even you Betsy!!!!!!!!!

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