Tales from the Other Side

To get to my site, from Fort Portal you basically hang a left on the road to Kamwenge. This road, a wondrous 70-odd-kilometer murrum journey, takes you through stunning tea estates and notably Kibale Forest National Park, which is renown for its chimpanzees and other primates. This footage was taken from the car on an average day passing through the forest. There were about three times as many baboons as you see in the footage, and usually they just hang out and play on the road. The kids even sell lemonaid on particularly hot days.

Continuing south on the road another 70 or so kilometers of wondrous murrum you will eventually reach Ibanda, a regional centre in the Southern Hemisphere.

Last weekend I crossed over to the Other Side. There was an event in honouring a priest's 25 years of priesthood in Ibanda, and the priests I have been working with invited me to come along. I also got to hang out with Jill for the weekend, another volunteer in Ibanda. Now, Ibanda is in the Southern Hemisphere, and it was my second time to the Other Side. If you have never been, I'm sure you have many questions about what it's like down there, so I've put together a Q and A of sorts about the upside-down hemisphere.

Q: Hemispheres? I thought the world was flat!
A: Not since the UN Security Council passed the resolution that eliminated planar living.

Q: How do you keep from falling off the earth?
A: As you know, the farther you travel toward the South Pole, the more upside down you are, and the higher your risk of falling off the planet. At the equator this isn't so much of a problem, but when you go further south people have to wear a special shoe with glue on them. Similarly 3M has developed a resin for the lakes and rivers so they don't drop into space. Interestingly, people wear more hats there.

Q: What's the driving like?
A: Driving is very similar to the Northern Hemisphere, but as long as you're heading south everything slopes downhill so theoretically you can get to Antarctica in neutral.

Q: Is it true that water spins the other way down drains?
A: This is a trick question - there are no holes in which water can drain. People in the Southern Hemisphere use pit latrines and don't have piped water, so it's impossible to know if this myth is actually true.