Holidays are here...

December 23^rd was the last day of work for my field assistants until after the New Year. They’ve been working for over a year with only short breaks, so I decided to give them a nice long break for the holidays. This meant that I needed to get all of their pay organized before the end of the day. In the morning, they requested that they leave early that day. I told them that I had to go to town to get all the money from the bank, but that I would do my best to be back in time. I checked my bank account, and of course, the transfer from my University had not yet arrived (despite having submitted it a month and a half before and begging for it to be ready in time for Christmas pay). Thoroughly frustrated with U of I, I worked out with Jeff to borrow money from his account until I could replace it. Jeff has a mastercard, which means there is only one bank that accepts his ATM card. So we went to town and ran some errands. Then Jeff got in line and waited. The line was out the parking lot of the bank. And this really means there were 3x as many people that were sitting in the grass waiting to cut in line. This is a part of Uganda that Jeff and I cannot stand! People just make a mental note of where they would be in line (aka, if I stood in line, I would be behind the guy in the yellow shirt), but they then go off and sleep on the grass or go shopping at the market and expect to just walk into line when they return hours later. What is worse is that no one else has a problem with this!!!! Okay, that is a very random sidenote. So Jeff stood in line for maybe about 2 hours and realized he wasn’t getting anywhere. We also realized that we wouldn’t get home in time to pay everyone. So we worked out with our friend Alex to borrow money from him. We ran to a new bank in Fort Portal (which means no one has accounts there yet and there wasn’t a line) and got the money out. We got the money out and rushed back to the field station. Once we got back to the field station, all the field assistants were waiting. We hurried and put the money in their little Christmas boxes where I had put sweets and tea and little gifts for Christmas. My happiest field assistant looked in his box, smiled widely, jumped up from his seat and skipped off towards home yelling thanks and Merry Christmas. That was what I was expecting from all 12 of them, but instead, a whole bunch of shenanigans ensued, which I won’t bore you with. It ended, though, with my most problematic field assistant pushing me too far and me telling him he was no longer on the project. Our discussion finally ended when he got down on his knees to “beg” my forgiveness and I walked into the house and shut the door. The amount of games this guys plays is unbelievable and I certainly didn’t need to watch him act like that after everything he has done. I promptly put his pay in an envelope to his mother as a Christmas gift and asked one of the cooks to take it to her. So that was a bit of a Christmas disaster.

We are including a picture of the bank line Jeff stood in. Note the people sitting along the ledge to the right. They are all keeping track of their imaginary spot in line. You can’t see in the picture, but there are also people in the grass to the left doing the same thing.

The next day, Christmas Eve, Jeff and I went for a walk in the village to deliver some presents. We had a cute handmade baby doll that my family had gotten for Alain. We found her at her Mom’s house and gave it to her (see pictures). Then we went to the tailor who makes all my fabulous dresses and gifts and gave her a reusable shopping bag from Target because we noticed she had one of these that she liked a lot, but was falling apart. This was a thank you for the many bags she has made for me. As we were walking, we saw lots of children carrying papyrus on their heads to cover the floors for Christmas day. Papyrus is a plant that grows in the swamp and it provides a nice cover for the floors on special occasions. It gives a soft place to sit and looks really pretty because of its bright green color.

Christmas Eve night, we had the remaining people at the field station over for dinner – Emily (chimp manager), Emily’s sister, Faith, Emily’s niece, Marion, Alex, and Julie (both chimpers). We had Christmas decorations thanks to my Mom and Jeff’s sisters. We had the little tree lit up and the light up snowman and electric candles, plus real candles that were red. Everyone made something to have. Jeff and I made pesto pasta. Emily and Faith made meat (the most special item). Julie brought up some curry and rice that her cook made. Alex brought chocolates for dessert. Jeff and I brought wine, Alex brought gin and tonics, and Emily brought sodas and beers. We ate and chatted and eventually settled down to watch the NEW Harry Potter, which Alex got in Kampala. Half way through, the baby got fussy, so we had to call it a night.

Here are some pictures of the night.