y'oodbye uganda! and g'ood riddance

A few weeks ago I moved to a place called Kisoro. Any map will tell you Kisoro lies in southwestern Uganda on the border of the DRC and Rwanda but... I don't really believe in cartography. There's just no proof. Phones, now phones I believe in. On my way here I recieved a message from my phone network, MTN, which read "Y'ello! MTN Uganda wishes you a safe and pleasant stay in Rwanda. Dial *125# for the International Roaming Guide." First of all, y'ello? Secondly, Rwanda?? I knew I couldn't trust maps. Thanks for telling me about my transfer out of Peace Corps Uganda, phone! If only my Peace Corps bosses had that same courtesy.

Kisoro isn't unlike Mbarara...or...no, it's completely different. I was momentarily confused by the double negative. Kisoro is really a step down from Mbarara. I'm not talking about a latitudinal step, not that I believe in latitude. And don't even get me started on longitude! What I mean to say is the change is similar to the one someone would experience moving form Portland to Eugene. Compared to Portland, Eugene has less people, less pavement, more colorful fabrics and nothing's really happening after 7:30 pm. It's really the same story here in Kisoro. Then there's the whole language barrier to worry about; the language here, Rufumbira, is similar enough to my last language to sound warmly familiar but different enough to confuse the hell out of me. Sort of like how in Eugene they'll say "granola" instead of "cheeseburger" and "run" instead of "ride the streetcar." Like I said, confusing as hell.

Since my big move to Rwanda I've been on the lookout for signs of welcome and good luck and just yesterday, a moth landed on my shoulder! If you had been there you might have interpreted the incident as more of a brutal moth attack than a sign of good cheer but I know for a fact a moth-shoulder landing is the African equivalent of a butterfly-nose landing. Don't try to Y'oogle that. It's more of an oral legend. Sure, moths aren't as pretty as butterflies in the western sense, especially the kind that swarm my house at night, and one could argue my house's moth infestation is actually a sign of quite bad luck. But I don't really believe in infestation. My house is simply a densely populated hot-spot for moth nightlife. It's actually quite flattering when you think about it. I try not to.