Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Power surge and a lack of energy and an interesting campfire.

Just got back from Karamoja... and unfortunately carried with me Karamoja's version of Montezuma's revenge. Which, like most of the negative things about Karamoja, is nastier and slightly more deadly than in other places of the world. I did managed to drive myself back but it took several more hours than it should have because I had to keep pulling over, then after vomiting, would lay down in the back until I could manage to drive again for a few minutes before vomiting again. But enough about that. I'm feeling mostly better but seem to have no energy and kind of ache all over.  My other excuse for not posting enough is that about a week ago some parts of Soroti town were effected with a major power surge.  Though saying it that way makes it sound like a brief thing. For more than 6 hours, 300+ volts of power ran through the lines. That pretty much fried anything that was plugged or wired in. I woke to the smell of smoke and burning plastic and flipped on the light next to the bed only to have it explode bits of glass everywhere. I made the mistake of stumbling into the next room and also trying that light and blowing it up also before figuring out what was going on. I lost several (expensive!) power strips, two fans, even my brand new ceiling fan seems to have bit the dust. The worst fatality is by far and away my computer cord. Thankfully, the computer is fine and I have a teammate with the same type of computer so I can go over to their place to charge. But I can tell that my computer time is about to be greatly restricted.

And a camp fire- I just learned that we have camel spiders in Karamoja. If you have a weak stomach DO NOT google this animal. However, if you are into rather large arachnid predators that have a nasty bite and spit that can liquefy their victim's flesh then by all means google it.  I was with a group of friends on Saturday night and we killed one as we sat around a camp fire. This is not something you want sneaking up on you in the dark by the way.

We also killed a scorpion that night. Makes camp fires a bit less fun when you have to be worried about these guys. By the way, neither of these are my pictures. I'm much more concerned with finding something to kill them or at least keeping my feet out of the way of others attempting to kill them than finding my camera and getting a good shot. 


1 comment:

Anthony said...

Jennifer, I am so so sorry for all your electronic equipment. Somehow we were spared from the surge at our place. But I would have been a very upset man had my computer been fried. So sorry you have to deal with that and the sickness. Not fun.