Alive and almost well

Yes, we know, it has more than two weeks since our last entry. Although you may be thinking that we’ve been lounging on the beach or on safari seeking out rare animals and birds, nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the last two weeks have been the most hectic of our trip. After spending Easter weekend on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kisumu, Kenya, we had one last day in Kampala. We started the day with a visit to the U.S. Embassy, where the metal plate in Laurel’s arm set off the metal detector (which it has not done in any airport anywhere in the world) putting the U.S. Marines on full alert and requiring supervisor approval before we could enter. After running around doing errands and packing up all of our stuff, we threw ourselves a little going away party at our apartment at the Mosa Courts. Our guest list included many of the attorneys and academics that we have met over the years. We even had a few law students crash the party because they wanted to get some legal writing advice.

Very early the next morning, we left for the Entebbe airport for the last time during this trip. We’d been in Uganda for so long by this point that we were a bit sad to be moving on, but the porters at the hotel seemed pretty pleased to get packing up and moving all of our luggage for the last time. Although our flight to South Africa was just a few hours, when we arrived we felt as if we were a world away. The Joburg airport reminded us of Amsterdam airport; the multitude of multi-lane, pothole-free highways leading to Pretoria reminded us of Los Angeles; and the weather, cool and cloudy, reminded us of home.

This part of our trip is being hosted by the U.S. Embassy in South Africa, and the Public Affairs Section could not have given us two better hosts for our weeklong stay in Joburg and Pretoria. Mary Ellen Koenig, an American, and Rina du Toit, a South African were extremely well organized, but they were also great fun. They did, however, keep us extremely busy: On Friday, we did a day-long workshop for magistrates; on Saturday we visited Wits University, which is where we will be holding our summer school program in June and July; on Sunday, we participated in a conference for women judges and magistrates; and on Monday we did another day-long workshop for magistrates. We had a change of pace on Tuesday, when, instead of talking still one more time about audience and purpose, small-scale organization, and sentences, we had meetings with academics at the University of Pretoria and the post-graduate Law Education and Development program, where we made presentations on effective teaching methods and development of legal writing curricula. Finally, on Wednesday and Thursday we did a session for the Law Society of South Africa, with a lively group of attorneys, some of whom also teach on a part-time. The only downside to the week was that both of us came down with a particularly nasty stomach virus. As a result, our experience with the local food has been primarily limited to ginger ale and dry toast.

On Thursday afternoon, we took what we think is our 18^th flight: a short flight from Joburg to Durban. Although the tourist brochure advertises Durban as having 365 days of sun a year, we arrived during a major rain storm and fell asleep to the sound of rain on the roof. The good news is that, because we have presentation all day everyday for the next six days, the weather doesn’t really matter, and we have been assured that, by the time we get a day off on Thursday, the sun will have returned and we will have the opportunity to see this beautiful coastal city at its best.

Drinking, Dancing, and Teaching

Miss November and Miss December

During last week’s two-day training sessions for the faculty at the Law Development Centre in Kampala (LDC), we couldn’t understand why everyone -- including people who had never met her -- kept asking Mimi whether she wanted a beer. However, we found out why when the Director of the LDC presented us a copy of the 2006 LDC calendar, a wall-sized calendar filled with photos of illustrious members of the Ugandan judiciary, group shots of the LDC faculty, and a page for yours truly. The November/December page featured a 10 x 12 inch glossy photo of us with the Centre’s director and several other members of the LDC faculty taken during the closing reception from our 2005 visit. Although Laurel is hiding in the back row, Mimi is in the front row, beer in hand, enthusiastically toasting the photographer. In her defense, several of the LDC faculty members were also holding their beers, just not quite as prominently. (The calendar will be featured prominently in Mimi’s office upon her return to Seattle.)

This year’s cocktail reception was even more raucous than 2005’s. Complete with a full bar and dinner buffet, the party got underway when one of the faculty members volunteered to be an emcee and started an “open mike” session, which quickly moved from lawyer jokes to singing. The overall favorite seemed to be a call-and-response in Luganda, which we obviously did not understand, but we were told that it translated loosely to “We love alcohol, and we’re sad when there’s no beer.” Unfortunately, we had a very early bus to catch the next day and had to leave just as the dancing was starting.

As we were leaving, we went to the Director’s office to sign the school’s guest book, and as it turns out, the book contains signatures from many famous Ugandans: But the first entry in the book, from 1973, gave us the chills: Right in front of us was the signature of the “King of Scotland,” Idi Amin Dada.

(We seem to have lost the cable that connects the camera to the computer, so no pix for now, but hopefully they’ll be coming soon.)

More teaching and more dancing

Very early the next morning, before the sun had even come up, we headed down to catch the bus to Eldoret, Kenya, to visit with Edwin Abuya, one of our Nairobi conference participants and a faculty member at Moi University Faculty of Law. After a seven hour journey (six on the bus and one to cross the border), we arrived in Eldoret, a medium-sized city in Western Kenya. We had arranged to stay with Edwin’s sister, Pamela, and her family, and it didn’t take us long to settle in and feel like part of the family. After three months sleeping in hotel rooms and eating in restaurants, we enjoyed a great home-cooked dinner, and we were pleased that Cheryl Ivy, Frances and Pamela’s 10-year-old daughter actually wanted to see our pictures.

On Thursday, we presented guest lectures in three classes at the Law Faculty – two in Edwin’s classes and one in Henry Mutai’s (another one of our conference participants). After the classes, we had the opportunity to chat informally with students about their writing projects and about their interest in attending LLM programs in the U.S. (If there was scholarship money available, we could have signed up at least 25 well-qualified students on the spot.)

On Friday, Edwin played tour guide: Although the Lonely Planet recommended the cheese factory as the highlight of a visit to Eldoret, Edwin is not a big fan of cheese, so we went on a far better journey, a series of matutu (minibus) rides, first to Etin, a small town about an hour outside of Eldoret, which featured a viewpoint high over the southern part of the Rift Valley. We also saw several rock hyraxes, an animal that that resembles a large groundhog, but apparently is part of the elephant family. We then crossed down into the valley and back up to the other side to Kabernet, where we drove to see even more spectacular views. Edwin was a great travel partner: it was great to travel with someone who spoke the local language and who would listen to all of our stories. (Sorry Edwin.) And Edwin got a first-hand look at what it’s like traveling with two mzungu ladies – he’d never had so many offers for taxis or boda-bodas in his life.

We were pooped when we finally got back to the house and were tempted to turn down Pamela’s invitation to go listen to a local band and to go dancing. Luckily though, we got a second wind and had a blast dancing until the wee hours. Apparently, the club doesn’t get too many out-of-towners, and Mimi was “it” in a game of “how many people can dance with the white girl?”

It was with much regret that we left Eldoret this morning to go to spend the Easter weekend in Kisumu on Kenyan side of Lake Victoria. Because we don’t have any Easter eggs or chocolate bunnies, we are instituting a new Easter tradition: Sometime during the night, Mimi will get up, cut up the cheese that Pamela and her husband purchased from the cheese factory and sent with us, and hide it so that Laurel can have a “cheese cube hunt” in morning. And yes, it appears that maybe we have been on the road for a wee bit too long.