Month 2 (August)

Kim’s Blog, Stardate 7 September 2008

So we have been here 2 months now, and it’s a month since I last wrote a blog entry, the reason being that not very much has happened.

Jon says that the way to produce a blog is little and often, and not subject people to great tomes of reading all at once. Oh dear! However, you don’t have to read my entries all in one go, feel free to read several chapters a night and then you will have completed all 37 volumes in no time at all …

We have spent the last month in the house in Kampala, getting life sorted out. We knew that things would take a long time, and they do. For example, it’s 6 weeks since we opened a bank account and we still don’t have our cheque books. For those of you in NZ who’ve seen the TV advert about the man who emigrates from Scotland and has his bank account all sorted out in 20 minutes, well it’s nothing like that over here. I’ve been in maybe 8 times to 3 different branches. One time they needed a photocopy of my ID. When I tried to give them my passport to photocopy, they gave it back to me and pointed to the bank’s photocopier and I had to go over and do it myself.

Trying to get an ‘exchange’ driving license is happening in much the same way. We are up to visit number 4, and still a few more steps to take.

And then there are our 16 boxes of goods we shipped out several decades ago and which should have arrived here at the same time as we did. They have finally arrived in Kampala, though we now have to try and release them. So far we have over a week’s amount of storage to pay, plus they are trying to ding us for about 3million sh

illings (a lot of money) even though we understand we shouldn’t have to pay anything for the release of personal goods. What fun!

We’ve all been existing on a suitcase worth of stuff for 2 months, but at least when the boxes arrive they’ll be eligible to appear on the Antiques Roadshow.

Jordan and Kira have been spending most of the time with the 15 year old twins next door, Gordon and Tanya, which has been great for them. The boys seem to do rather a lot of ‘screens’, while the girls do a range of interesting things like taking the dogs for a walk, drawing and painting, rollerblading, make-up and baking biscuits. The neighbours have 3 dogs Alice, Tigger and Mandy, though Mandy was ill and had to be put down. They had a ceremony to bury her in the garden. Kira was heartbroken as she is very much an animal lover. She says that when we are settled she wants a place where she can have a donkey, 2 horses, some cats, dogs, lizards and geckos, a guinea pig, rabbit, goat, cow, etc etc.

Jon and I have been forming our company, Chamberlain Consulting, and have been applying for contracts. Jon has put a proposal in with a group of others for a 4-6 month contract mainly based in Kampala, though also travelling around Uganda. He wrote the proposal during one of our power cut days. He was sitting there typing into his laptop by the light of a tiny candle, occasionally using a torch to shine onto the screen.

I’ve got a number of possible contracts in the pipeline for several organisations, also in Kampala.

Often at the weekend we’ll go swimming, and have tried out a number of pools. There’s quite a nice one near us, it’s round and deep, but OK and has a nice bar / restaurant we go to a

fterwards.

I have to say that finding a swimming costume to fit has been a major episode. I can’t quite understand what’s going on with costume sizes as the Ugandan women look normal sizes to me, but the size I thought would fit me, ie adult size small, actually fits Kira who’s only 8. I’ve tried several shops to get one to fit, including a small Indian sports shop. They had no changing room, so in order for me to try the costume on, I had to stand in a corner while the female shop owner held up a sheet in front of me. I have now given up trying to find one that completely fits and so have bought an XXL which is only a bit too small.

Talking of sizes, we often see posters around advertising for (presumably) women to get hips and bums. It’s seen as attractive if these parts of your body are quite sizeable. So, if you are large in this area … come to Uganda! You will be regarded as beautiful. I wonder what the women with big hips and bums do to find a swimming costume to fit…

Another new experience is clothes washing. When you hang it on the line to dry, it’s highly possible that a little bug will burrow into your clothes (or sheets, or towels…..) and then when you put your clothes on it will bite you mercilessly. Having had the experience of a bug in my knickers which bit me literally hundreds of times all the way round (the women with big hips and bums must get bitten thousands of times!) it’s not one you would want to repeat. This means I now have to iron everything to kill off possible bugs. I actually like ironing, so it isn’t a big deal for me, but I can honestly say I’ve never ironed things like pop sox, swimming costumes (even XXL ones), flannels or undies before.

I had to go to the doctor’s a while ago as a really common complaint is bronchial problems due to the dust, vehicle fumes and constant smoke from burning rubbish. Jon got it too but braved it out and we are both OK now. I guess you must get used to it after a while. I don’t know how people with asthma would cope.

Recently we went to what has been called ‘East Africa’s premier event’, The Royal Ascot Goat Races (http://www.thegoatraces.com/races.html). It’s like horse racing only with goats! The goats have not the slightest interest in racing, and wander aimlessly round the track stopping to eat grass every few yards. They have the 'goat boys' running after them with 2 single mattresses joined together to form the width of the track, egging them along.
I think the main attraction for people was to get dressed up and get drunk. Oh well, at least we've been.

A few days ago I decided to take Jordan to get a haircut. I was a bit concerned as hairdressers and barbers seem to deal only with African people. The women tend to get amazing things done to their hair, while most African men have their head clean shaven, or have their hair shaved extremely short. I didn’t think they would know how to cut western hair, but as Jordan was looking like the wild man of Borneo I thought we needed to brave it. It took the man 45 minutes to cut his hair, he charged only 5,000 shillings (about NZ$4.50), but my fears were completely justified. Jordan just wanted a bit of a trim, but he cut it very short and in a genuine basin cut style! Poor Jordan looked like a monk from the middle ages. I couldn’t see what it looked like as I was sitting to the side of him, but when he turned to show me I just about fell off the chair. As we walked out of the salon, I ruffled it all up for him and it looked fine, just a bit short. We went to the shop next door, then had to walk back past the salon, so we flattened it all down again till we’d walked past and then ruffled it up again. When we got back I combed it back into the basin cut to show Jon. He creased up laughing.

Anyway, the woman whose house we were staying in came back to Uganda on 3^rd September so we moved out on 2^nd. We had already planned to move to Jinja in early September in time for school term, but still had stuff to sort out in Kampala so stayed on for a few more days. We stayed in a place not far away called Red Chilli Hideaway (http://www.redchillihideaway.com/facilities.htm) We rented one of the cottages for 3 days. It was a house really, with living room, 2 good size bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, toilet, shower and outside courtyard. It was fairly basic but absolutely fine for the amount of time we were there. The place had lots of monkeys around, dogs, goats, cats and what sounded like a huge group of frogs just outside the boundary. Each night as soon as dusk came the frogs would break into song and sing all night long. I would have loved to have seen them. There was also a plunge pool in the grounds which the children loved, plus there was a nice restaurant with a good selection of food at reasonable prices. We enjoyed staying there.

On Friday 5^th we came to Jinja. We stayed in a hotel for a night until we could move into the house. An American family are going home for 4 months so we are staying in their home while they are away. It’s a lovely 4-bedroom house, quite sizeable with a beautiful garden. The garden has a big play structure for children, a covered seated area, BBQ and lovely plants, along with the usual array of East African birds.

The house is in a lovely peaceful area, not far from the Nile. Just around the corner are a range of trees which are home to thousands of bats. During the day they hang upside down in the trees and sound like they are talking to one another. In the evening they fly around, and because there are so many of them, they fly around in almost ‘sheets’ of bats. It’s very impressive.

The American family have employed 4 ‘indoor’ staff, ie people who keep on top of the housework, etc, though there is only one here now, Harriet. I can’t say I’d know how to keep 4 staff busy. Harriet is very nice and lives in a small thatched house in the grounds (it’s called a ‘compound’ here), and all we’ve asked her to do is the clothes washing (the washing machine is broken and the spare part needs to come from the States), some cleaning, the washing up and will also ask her to go to the market for us to get fruit and veg. The food shopping here is even more limited than we are used to in Kampala and they have ‘supermarkets’ which I would call a mini-mart. They tend not to have fruit and veg, and if we go to the market we would get charged muzungu prices. So hopefully Harriet can get us food at a good price.

There are 4 ‘outdoor’ staff, 2 gardeners and 2 askari (guards). One of the guards has a son, Wilson, who is 12 years old and lives with Harriet, so he is always here. He’s a nice kid and the children enjoy playing with him.

School was supposed to start on Monday 8^th. However the ruler of one of the Ugandan kingdoms has died and there will be a state funeral that day so it’s been declared a national holiday.

Kira will be going to the small international school called Kiira Kids http://kiirakids.com/ (the words Kira and Kiira are Uganda words for the Nile, so we see them around a lot), which happens to be on the same street as we are living on.

Jordan is too old to go to this school and there are no other schools catering for muzungus his age in Jinja, so he will be home-schooled by an American family who have 2 boys aged 11 and 14. He’s looking forward to it. They are using an American home schooling programme canned Sonlight, which seems to have a good reputation.

The family have an adopted African daughter called Kiira who is around Kira’s age and goes to Kiira Kids too. I think Kira was meant to be here…

She still finds it hard being here sometimes as she still really misses her friends in NZ. I expect that because we have somewhere to settle and she has a school to go to, things will be better for her.

Overall both children are doing really well, and we hope we are giving them some interesting life experiences.