The wages of Matoke is...

I ate a small piece of Matoke today. It was about 2 inches wide and an inch tall. I hadn't eaten Matoke in several weeks. It is mashed, yellow bananas. Matoke is the staple food of Western Uganda. You look around and all you see is Matoke trees. It grows most of the year and is pretty much all they eat.

I ate it. I enjoy the taste of matoke. It's pretty good.

I don't remember when it hit me hard... I think I was just sitting in class, minding my own business. Suddenly I started feeling super sick. My stomach was burning, shooting pain, and cramping. It was terrible. At one point I had to run out of the class room. I ran outside and broke down crying. I am not a big "weeper" but the pain was soooooo intense!

So apparently I am severely allergic to the staple food of the region in which I live. This is terrible. There is a tiny tiny chance that the 2 small piece of meat I ate hadn't been passed over fire (meaning get all the nasty germs away). But I don't think that was the case. I don't know what I am going to do!

This is bad. Very bad.

In other news, we have been without water in our houses for almost the whole 2 months I have been here. This is annoying generally... but when you are really sick like I have been it is not just annoying... it is downright awful. Tonight we didn't have any water, yet I had to use the facilities. I was far too weak to fetch... now what do you do? Not having water has made me much physically stronger.

But I can't take it anymore. I talked to the man in charge of the water and asked him flat out what the heck is going on. He said that the pumps aren't working. I asked a few exploratory questions and discovered the pumps are about 7 years old and still working. They just need some new parts.

I asked how much it will cost... he said 100,000 UShs... which is 50 USD.

I don't have a lot of my own money, but I think that 50 USD is worth ALL of the students and staff members having water in their facilities. A lot of time and energy is wasted fetching water. Also, it is worth my sanity... so that as I am sick, I don't have to worry about it. I can just be sick and flush it all away!

I told the man that I will only give the money to repair it if we are assured that we will have water whenever there is water in the tank (which means when it isn't the dry season... so now there is water) So. 50 dollars, (mostly) constant water... bring it on. Also, I told him I want the job done well. No botch job... I refuse to give money to things unless they are done to the best way possible.

So hopefully there will be water by next week.

Then I can have them fix my shower and have a REAL (though cold) shower for the first time in 2.5 months.