Happy New Year

Well, I have a bunch of pics and stuff to put up - but I cannot get to my picture site here in Africa. Go figure. So that will have to wait since I don't have a good way to put pictures on the net without my picture site - since each shot is about 200k.


BUT!

I have a small surprise for ya.

Mattress Man

Yes, you may not believe your eyes after you view and download the attached movie file. You might think that perhaps I've gone off the deep end. You may think the world is coming to an end. All of these things may be right. But beware! The attached movie file comes with a few warnings:

- It is large. Over 4 megabytes. Mattress Man cannot, as the old mattress saying goes, be compressed.
- It will make you laugh.
- It will make you cry.
- It will make you wish to see more and more and more footage of Mattress Man. Unfortunately, this does not exist.
- It will be something that perhaps you download and forward to your friends and enemies and relatives.
- It will make you ask, "Isn't 'Will be something that perhaps' somewhat contradictory?"
- It will cause you to wonder how it was possible Greg and I left Uganda.
- It will cause you to watch it over and over and over and make you laugh harder each time.
- It will make you say "Huh"

It is at this point that I think I might need to digress. You see, "Huh" is something that has only recently become part of my vocabulary. With the help of Stocco and Sam Tracy, it has become an essential part of how I visualize the world. Perhaps I will first define "huh"

"Huh" (Huuuu-uh). Utterance. def. A sound you make to describe a feeling of disbelief, confusion, or uncertainty.

Its an incredibly versatile utterance, and I must give credit to my good pal in Indiana, Dave Price, for enlightening me on the existance of such an utterance. Actually, I was quite aware of it, but never really gave much thought to using it. Dave used a good example when describing one use of The Utterance, and I'll relate, because perhaps to understand the beginnings, you may better understand how it has evolved.

(Situation: Wife and Husband getting ready to go out for the evening.)
Wife: Honey, how do I look in this dress
(ed comment: This is always a loaded question. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Somehow, "Honey, do you like this tie" isn't the same kind of question...)
Husband: Huh.

So it is a somewhat useful, nonspecific term that can be used to weasel out of any situation. And I have to admit, it didn't work for me in that sense. But something happened to change my life forever and cement (or concrete, as the engineers would say) the use of The Utterance into my life forever.

Egypt. 2001. (Insert music from the 2001 Movie here if you like, because I did, just to make it more dramatic and also because it sounds good, but mostly because it would make it more dramatic). I'm in Aswan, just downriver, but north of, the famous Aswan Damn.

I'm walking through the market, and there are all manner of things being sold. Dogs, cats, rugs, spices, sheeshas, paintings, foam rubber pharonicheads (The egyptian equivalent of a Cheesehead you know), and of course, as you would expect, pigeons in little cages.

Well, that isn't that surprising, although I've been to places where pigeons are everywhere and would land on you and wouldn't be tough to catch, so its weird to see them in cages, until perhaps someone explains that pigeons are a delicacy in Egypt. Me? You couldn't pay me enough money to eat one and pick the meager amount of meat off the bones (ok, you could definately pay me enough to do that, in fact, it wouldn't even cost that much, perhaps just purchasing the scrawny thing and cooking it well, and then giving me about 2 beers. That would probably do it). But here they sit, pigeons in little cages. So that's fine. And I'm looking at one guy holding a pigeon in his hot little hand. Perhaps he's considering buying the guy for dinner. So I'm looking at him, and out of nowhere, he sticks the head of the pigeon in his mouth.

Ok. That's weird. It's a muslim country, and they don't really permit dating, so in leiu of kissing his girlfriend maybe he needs to smooch a pigeon. Or something. I have no idea. No idea. None. You think of one. Think of two. I dare you. Why in the world would anyone want to stick a pigeon's head into their mouth?

But wait, I'm not done. Just as I'm questioning my state of consciousness; because I am taking a mind-altering anti-malarial drug that gives me incredibly strange dreams, such as dancing hippopatamuses in a halloween nativity scene that has a human head inside the mouth; something happened which made me again question my consciousness. He begins to huff at the pigeon's head. And huff and huff. And again, I don't know why. Why? Someone tell me! I didn't want to ask, because, well, I was quite afraid he might huff on my head.

And rather than pain myself trying to figure it out, because its not possible to do so, I just said, "Huh."

Not, "Huh...?" but "Huh." The period is important.

As I've spent time in TWC (Third World Countries) I've learned there are lots of things you see that defy explaination. And I often try and figure out why. And I know that you just need to not wonder, because there is usually no explaination. There's not. Its like the orgin of the universe: What you just saw/happened/heard just IS. Because. End of story. So I learned that when you see an inexplicable event, you just need to disconnect from it, and just say, "Huh." So if you see me saying this, that's why. Its perfect. And as I travelled through Kenya with Stocco and Sam, they also came to understand the profound meaning of Huh. And when we came across Mattress Man, our unanimous, choruslike utterance was, of course, "huh".

Ok, so what is Mattress Man?

Its not a what, its a WHO. Try to picture the scene. We're in Kampala. TWC. The book recommends a bar to watch the chaos over the taxi stand. The previous evening, Sam and I attempted to brave the chaos of the taxi stand to get to a bar with live music. Basically, we walked into a dirt parking lot the size of a WalMart parking lot. FIlled with honking minibuses. And people. You could not take 2 steps without broadsiding a minibus or a group of people waiting for minibuses. The place is somehow well ordered. The minibuses go to a specific area and you wait there and get picked up. Well, we ask a bunch of people how to get to Half London, our desired destination. And they point, over there. So we walk over there a bit and ask again. Oh, over there. Ok, nuff of that, we ask for something more specific, and the guy says, "Overthere by the light that isn't working anymore." Well, its dark out. Huh.

So anyway, we manage to get to where we need to go and there is no bus but tons of people and next to us a minubus pulls in and the doors fly open and I've never seen this before so it was strange and not normal, but people start jumping into the thing like there is a hundred dollar bill on the floor and they get packed in like sardines. Cool. I look at Sam. He looks at me. One of us says, When our minibus pulls in, we need to run like mad and fight to get in the thing, and THEN ask, "Does this go to Half London." Usually you try working this the other way, "Are you going to half london?"

Well, we decide to give up.

So when we read we can watch from a bar with a balcony the chaos of the bus stand, we're all for it.

So there we are. Sam, Stocco, and I. Feasting our eyes on the craziest scene ever. Not only do we get the taxi area, which frankly is pretty tame from up top, but we get the most bizarre interscection on the whole world. Imagine the busiest intersection in your city with no traffic lights. And hundreds of pedestrians. Traffic and chaos to make Cairo traffic look docile. People walking through the middle of the intersection, people selling stuff on all four corners, and its near xmas, so everyone seems to be out for some shopping or party or who knows what.

Many "huh"'s were uttered that afternoon. Lots of "Oh my god how did those people not get killed" or "Did you see those two cars almsot crush that motobike" and on and on and on. It was great. If they ever make a Parkside Inn webcam, and they may because I might put it in, it'd be great entertainment.

And as we're staring, watching the traffic meld through the intersection, people running around selling their wares, cars honking, minibuses picking up passengers, screaming and yelling and the ineffectual cop in the middle of all the lunacy dodging cars and somehow not getting smashed while bikes with passengers on the back weave through trucks and cars and minibuses.

And there, up ahead in the distance, we see something bouncing towards us. As it gets closer, one of us says, "What the hell is that!?"

As it gets closer, its apparent that It isn't an It, but a man. Running down the middle of the street. Aiming for the middle of the intersection that is the busiest most dangerous I've ever seen. And on top of his head are, you guessed it, 15 mattresses.

And as he somehow gets through the intersection, we are all in humble awe to Mattress Man, but all we can say is, "Huh."

Sometime later, guess who comes back? From the other direction, there he goes again, Mattress Man. He's the best. We went back to this place on 3 occassions and saw him each time. Theories abound. Make up your own. Personally, I believe there is a Mattress Factory in Kampala, but the assembly lines are separated by several blocks, and when one step is done, Mattress Man must transport them to the next assembly line.

Anyway, please enjoy watching Mattress Man.

- Ryan