Linnea Ashley on September 27th, 2010

Iganga Town, Uganda September 27, 2010 The power flickered. The surge protector, a metal box about three or four times the size of a box of Kleenex clicked off then on then off then on then off. I groaned. The thing is, we’d had a conversation about buying paraffin earlier in the day. Even had […]

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Linnea Ashley on September 25th, 2010

Iganga Town, Uganda September 25, 2010 They smiled at me through my open window, me splayed out in the bed watching a movie on my laptop. I’d just pulled my earplugs out because I…I guess I heard them coming. Our guard grinned down at me as I waved them all in the direction of the […]

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Linnea Ashley on September 25th, 2010

Iganga Town, Uganda September 24, 2010 I love Zimbabwean noses, think John Amos from good times; Liberian bodies, ebony skin pulled taut and shiny over highlighted muscle. In Uganda it is the lips. Full, soft, dark. They defy comparison, only the reality that they are what lips should be. I file these things away and […]

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Linnea Ashley on September 22nd, 2010

by 11am i had been taken advantage of…twice…and was starving and tired. the ride into kampala, which in waiting terms began before 8am, was relatively quick. of course it would have helped if i had printed the conference information. instead i managed a tour of parts of the city i’d never seen, walked through makerere […]

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Linnea Ashley on September 20th, 2010

September 19, 2010 Iganga Town, Uganda The music meandered from marvin gaye’s sexual healing with a techno beat dropped in, it to shakira’s world cup African anthem. Bubbles O’Leary, one of Kampala’s busiest night spots, was equally diverse. I spent most of the evening trying not to stare as people mingled inexplicably. I say inexplicably […]

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Linnea Ashley on September 20th, 2010

The smoke plumes black and acrid, catching in the branches of the banana tree peering leisurely over my glass tipped fence. The plastic and coated paper smolder below, blue and orange flames peak and then disappear into the charred ooze that is this week’s garbage. My compost festers in a hole at the back corner […]

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Linnea Ashley on September 15th, 2010

September 15, 2010 Iganga Town, Uganda (Mum’s resort) The water steamed immediately. On the wood paneled walls, against the rocks and the metal pipe pushing out the wood burned heat. We set our vinyl covered cushions on the slatted bench and chatted quietly, sweat pooling on my upper lip, the center of his chest. Just […]

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Linnea Ashley on September 7th, 2010

September 4, 2010 Iganga Town (en route to Jinja), Ugnada Mutatus are exercises in patience, tolerance, and humor. Every president, general, and potential saint should have to ride in one for at least a three-hour journey. The mutatu, a minivan divided into four rows of seats that could comfortably (if you ignore your knees) seat […]

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Linnea Ashley on September 5th, 2010

September 4, 2010 Iganga Town, Uganda I was fuming. My mind working out possible solutions to a work problem. The sun glaring down on me, perspiration filming salty and shiny on my top lip. The ground, uneven and muddy, passed unnoticed beneath my feet. . “Mzungo goodbye,” somehow penetrated the roar in my head and […]

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Linnea Ashley on September 1st, 2010

Iganga Town, Uganda September 1, 2010 “I’m thinking about Columbia.” My mother’s perfect composure cracked and she whispered fiercely, “why do you always have to go so far away?” I’d just gotten back from South Africa and my mother mistook my interest in Columbia, for graduate school, with an interest in South America. She was […]

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