{"id":1290,"date":"2015-02-02T18:54:36","date_gmt":"2015-02-03T00:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/?p=1290"},"modified":"2015-02-02T18:54:36","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T00:54:36","slug":"short-stories-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/?p=1290","title":{"rendered":"Short Stories from Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So we have few short stories from Africa that didn\u2019t feel like enough for their own blog posts but I thought they would be entertaining to share nonetheless:<\/p>\n<h2>Going to see the frogs<\/h2>\n<p>The place we stayed in Yei, South Sudan had a interesting feature in the bathroom; Toilet frogs. These little frogs lived in the back \u201ctank\u201d part of the toilet and if you flushed when they were swimming they would come flying into the bowl with the water and swim frantically until the gripped the side and climbed right back up where the water came from. Liz was the first one to find them and when I went to check it out, I flushed again and nothing. Turns out you kinda had to surprise them and catch them swimming or they would be clinging to the walls of the tank, which is where I found three of them when I looked inside. And so, the term \u201cGoing to see the frogs\u201d was coined.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Going to See the Frogs\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/118541527?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Who told you to become a Rastafarian?<\/h2>\n<p>This was one of the few things the pastor that was driving us around Yei, South Sudan said in English on his cell phone while driving (he said A LOT not in english on his cell phone while driving). It was in the middle of a serious conversation in the local language and then out of nowhere in a loud serious tone \u201cIt\u2019s a very bad thing you\u2019ve brought into your family! Who told you to become a Rastafarian?!?\u201d Liz and I both tried not to laugh out loud but couldn\u2019t resist. We now regularly ask each other \u201cWho told you to become a Rastafarian?\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Meeting the Mayor of Port Bell<\/h2>\n<p>Liz and I had grand plans of taking the fabled ferry from Kampala, Uganda to Mwanza, Tanzania. I say fabled as there is or isn\u2019t one depend on where you look on the internet. Once we got to Port Bell (the port in Kampala) we found out for sure there isn\u2019t one (side note: there used to be a ferry but it was deemed \u201cno longer safe for passenger travel\u201d). We figured it wouldn\u2019t hurt to see if would could find anymore information about possible water crossings at \u201cSailors Bar.\u201d That\u2019s where we meet a thoroughly drunk older man that everyone else kept referring to as \u201cMayor.\u201d We humored his rambling dialog for a little while assuming he was somebody\u2019s uncle or something and none of the staff seemed the slightest bit concerned.<\/p>\n<p>About 10 minutes in The Mayor really took a liking to Liz, and asked me if she was my wife\u2026 then proceeded to try and barter for her. He offered me \u201cAn African\u201d in exchange for Liz which I of course turned down, then he upped his offer to \u201cTwo Africans!\u201d again I declined and insisted again that I wasn\u2019t interested in any trading. They then thought he might sweeten the deal with a case of beer\u2026 In his mind Liz had zero say in the matter so we figured we better leave.<\/p>\n<p>Just for the record I wouldn\u2019t trade Liz for anything\u2026 not even \u201cTwo Africans, and a case of beer\u201d and there is no Ferry from Kampala to Mwanza.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/P1110161.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1292\" src=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/P1110161-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"No Ferry from Kampala to Mwanza\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>A nice, cheap, clean, place to stay<\/h2>\n<p>So <a title=\"Seed Effect: South Sudan\" href=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/south-sudan\/\">after we parted ways with Drew at the airport<\/a> in Uganda we got a ride with 3 other people who were headed into Kampala and already had a driver lined up. We thought we\u2019d go to the center of town and find something cheap so when the driver asked if we had a place to stay in mind we said \u201cNo. Got any ideas for someplace nice and cheap?\u201d He thought for a minute then made a phone call, and responded back with \u201cIt\u2019s not really open to the public, but it\u2019s nice, clean and I know them and it\u2019s cheap.\u201d Sold!<\/p>\n<p>Turns out he signed us up to stay at \u201cHome for the Religious\u201d\u2026 a Convent! Sister Angelica was definitely taken back a bit and thought we were crazy when we told her our plans, but obliged and provided us with a room\u2026 granted they didn\u2019t have any rooms with double beds \u201cfor couples\u201d after all it was a convent, but she did give us a room with two beds (and two very large Bibles)! It was the cheapest thing we found in Kampala, and it was quiet, probably due to the rule \u201cOBSERVE SILENCE IN THE CORRIDORS AND BEDROOMS.\u201d It was a quiet two nights.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/P1110160.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1291\" src=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/P1110160-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Convent Rules\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Why Americans don\u2019t buy anything?<\/h2>\n<p>Anyone who has spent any time in a tourist area has undoubtedly experienced touts trying to sell you all kind of junk. And for some reason I seem to get offered weed a lot, all over the world. Must be a young(ish) white guy thing I guess, lol. Usually the drug offers are fairly subtle \u201chey man, wanna party?\u201d, \u201cyou want smoke?\u201d,\u201dLookin\u2019 for a good time?\u201d and are usually accompanied by some friendly chit-chat \u201cWhere you from?\u201c \u201con holiday?\u201d etc. and maybe a coconut or something else a little more \u201clegitimate\u201d they are \u201cselling.\u201d And then some just come out and say it \u201cNeed some weed?\u201d I usually give them a polite no thanks, or just ignore them completely. Liz is usually completely oblivious to all drug offers.<\/p>\n<p>Well this guy on <a title=\"Zanzibar\" href=\"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/zanzibar\/\">the beach in Zanzibar<\/a> needs to sit in on Liz\u2019s marketing 101 class. Liz and I are walking to dinner on the beach and this guy comes up with some key chains or something in his hand (again totally not uncommon) and says, \u201cHey man, want to buy some cocaine?\u201d<br \/>\nI was a little taken back by his directness but said,<em> \u201cNo thanks.\u201d<br \/>\n<\/em>\u201cMarijuana?\u201d<br \/>\n<em style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5;\">\u201cNope, not into that stuff.\u201d<br \/>\n<\/em>\u201cHashish?\u201d<br \/>\n<em style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5;\">(In my mind&#8230; Are you seriously asking in that order?) \u201cHa, ha. No man, we don\u2019t do drugs.\u201d <\/em>Thinking the conversation is over\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Then he comes back with, \u201cWanna buy a diamond?\u201d<br \/>\n<em>(I can\u2019t not laugh at this point; No I don\u2019t want to buy a blood diamond on the beach in the dark for a guy that just tried to sell me a boatload of drugs.) \u201cNope, don\u2019t need any diamonds either.\u201d<br \/>\n<\/em>We start to walk away thinking surely the conversation is over and he realizes we aren\u2019t his target demographic. But no,\u00a0there is more\u2026<\/p>\n<p>He holds up his handful of key chains, \u201cWant to buy a key chain?\u201d<br \/>\nStill trying not to laugh;<em> \u201cNo man, not buying anything tonight.\u201d<\/em><br \/>\nNow he is clearly offended; \u201cWhy Americans don\u2019t buy my Bull S#!t?\u201d<br \/>\n<em>\u201cThey don\u2019t buy anything?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n\u201cNo, man. They don\u2019t buy anything, they don\u2019t help Africa.\u201d<br \/>\n<em>\u201cNot even the drugs?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n\u201cNO! They don\u2019t care about Africans. They don\u2019t help Africa!\u201d<br \/>\n<em>\u201cCould be you\u2019re approach.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>At this point Liz and I decided we\u2019re at the restaurant we want to go into and I guess he gets the picture at this point or sees someone else, but walks off continuing his rant about how American\u2019s don\u2019t care enough to buy drugs from Africans.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Catholic guilt will work on a lot of things but not on buying drugs and blood diamonds.<\/em>\u00a0&#8211; Liz<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So we have few short stories from Africa that didn\u2019t feel like enough for their own blog posts but I thought they would be entertaining to share nonetheless: Going to see the frogs The place we stayed in Yei, South Sudan had a interesting feature in the bathroom; Toilet frogs. These little frogs lived in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,121,122],"tags":[43,97,116,49,117,118,119,120],"class_list":["post-1290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-south-sudan","category-tanzania","category-uganda","tag-animals","tag-beaches","tag-blood-diamonds","tag-boats","tag-convents","tag-ferry","tag-government-officals","tag-rastafarian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}