Sunburns, Sweet Potatoes, and Salad

I spent most of the weekend with Hannah, my high school friend, before she headed back to the States early this morning. We went to a contemporary African dance show on Friday night and then to dinner at a place called Krua Thai where I had perhaps the best Thai food I've ever eaten! On Saturday, I went to a party at Hannah's house with my friend Paul, and went out from there with Paul and his cousins, who are from Kampala. We had a lot of fun going to a place called the "Latino club" where the DJ played 1/3 new rap music, 1/3 rap music from 5-10 years ago, and 1/3 random music that I had never heard before that was generally not very good, haha. I tried a sort of sparkling apple cider drink that is popular here, but it was on the sweet side for me. The price of drinks is great--the most expensive drink was 5,500 UGX which is just under $3.

Sunday was spent lounging at the Kabira pool, finalizing my conclusion that my Lady Diana sunscreen is, in fact, just lotion in a bottle. Thankfully, Aaron, one of our new IPA hires, brought me some Banana Boat sunscreen this morning from the States, so I should be done with these horrific equatorial sunburns! He also bought me SPF 50--a smart move, which isn't surprising as he is a Northwestern grad! Go Cats! He graduated in '04 and just finished his master's at Columbia, and will be leading a 4-country savings program that launches in Uganda. On the sunburn side, I was fortunate enough to befriend a very nice dentist/fertility clinic worker named Carol who lives nearby. She went home and picked some fresh aloe vera from her garden for me, which feels even more amazing than the gel I purchased last week (for 32,000 UGX!) and my skin already looks much better. Carol also has decided to set me up with a young Ugandan guy named Josh, who I am apparently meeting soon. I made it clear that I have a boyfriend, so hopefully this won't be an awkward experience and I will make a nice Ugandan friend my age!

Yesterday, I had my first dinner salad at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Garden City, a nearby mall. I came to Uganda very wary of any raw vegetables because of the water issues, but so far no problem. Talking to people that have lived here, it seems that any place that actually serves salad or raw vegetables takes the proper precautions. My dinner of salad and cake (actual cake, not just dessert as Ugandans will refer to just about anything sweet as "cake") was delicious, and followed by several hours of Kindle reading and Dexter before bed. Today, we all went to eat at Potman, a local restaurant for some Ugandan cuisine. Back to beans and rice! I do miss salads and deli sandwiches, but the food here is fine. I actually love the sweet potatoes here, which are more of a white-yellow color than the orangey American hue.

As Dan, one of my co-workers, likes to say, the "brick" of local food has settled and I am craving a mid-afternoon nap! Luckily, my work is still extremely interesting. Today, I am updating our final survey to incorporate questions on 6001, the SMS system we are evaluating, in a sneaky way. We don't want the enumerators or the people being surveyed to know that the survey is specifically about 6001 (double-blind bias), so we are adding in small questions about the system here and there. Kareem and I are going to pretest some of the new questions tomorrow afternoon, which should be a lot of fun!