I finished off the training in Tororo at the beginning of the month. The others came over on the last day and we went away for the weekend to a place called Mbale about an hour from where I was working. We stayed in an older hotel, though it was nicely maintained.
The children liked it as they had their own room, complete with TV. Heaven only knows what time they got to sleep.
The first evening we ordered our evening meal, it took an hour and a quarter to arrive. We decided to be clever the next day and ordered our food an hour before we wanted it, while we stayed in our room. They called us through after an hour and a quarter for our meals, but Jon’s wasn’t ready. Even though he had ordered an ordinary meal from the menu, they thought he might want a variation on it. They hadn’t contacted him to ask, which meant they then had to go away and prepare it. He had to wait 2 hours in total!

On the Saturday we went to a place called Sipi Falls, a well known tourist spot which has three separate waterfalls. We used a guide to take us to one of the Falls. It was very impressive.
We spent the afternoon at a local guest house, having lunch and reading. It’s a new place and is decorated in a trendy yet homely fashion. We loved the living room, which had several book cases. Given the lack of ‘real’ libraries here it was a rare treat to be able to sit and read.

The scenery in the west is different to here and on the way back we drove past a small forest of thin trees.
Builders here use wooden, not metal, scaffolding.
“I didn’t know you could grow scaffolding” remarked Jon.

And so, not only did the shops not have any low fat milk, they had a phase where they hardly had any milk at all. We were reduced to buying the tiny 250ml cartons of milk, the ones that come with a straw!
Anyway a shipment must have arrived in the last week as supermarkets now have the longlife trim milk again. Excitement!

You may have heard in the news that there were riots in Kampala. Uganda has a president. It also has kingdoms with rulers of each kingdom. The ruler (kabaka) of the Buganda kingdom and the president don’t always see eye to eye which ultimately ended in riots flaring up over a proposed visit by the kabaka. Most of the riots took place in Kampala over a period of a few days. The city centre was virtually closed down and a number of people were killed.
Jon had been to Kampala the day before the riots started, and had seen the beginnings of unrest. The Buganda kingdom starts just outside Jinja, and apparently there were some minor riots on the outskirts, though we didn’t see anything. Things are back to normal now.

Jordan has decided that he is never going to cut his hair and has developed a mane of hair now. I said I’ll need to get the door widened so he can get in. He is several inches taller than me now, so must have shot up over the last year.
He is always talking about driving so I’ve started giving him driving lessons. We go to a grassy area over the road from us. Jordan is pretty competent and is doing really well. He picked up the basics easily in the first lesson. There is a path we can drive around and after we’d driven round about 230 times (in first gear) we decided to follow a track through the grass. Jordan drove about 100 metres down the track until we realised we were on the golf course!
Given that he’s only 13, I’m not exactly sure what he’s going to be able to do with the driving skills he is acquiring. He claims he’s seen a 12 year old boda driver, but I’m not convinced.

And talking of which, Kira and I were on a boda. It stopped a few hundred metres from where we were going. The driver had run out of petrol!
“The petrol, it is lost” he said.

Our houseboy and gardener have started a chapatti business in the garden. They cook rolexes for 800/- (chapatti with omelettes in them) and chapattis (200/-) for local folk. Quite often Jon and Jordan will order them for their lunch. Much more convenient than having to prepare food yourself!

Jordan and I decided to use the library again to see if there was any chance there would be a book on Mussolini for a project he was doing. We went along and discovered that it was ‘Reading Week’, where the aim was to encourage adults to read so that their children would also read. There seemed to be a bigger selection of books this time. We chose 11 and took them to one of the staff. “You can’t take books out, it’s Reading Week” she said, “come back next week.”
Given how long things take here I didn’t want to go through the hassle again and asked if we could take them.
“Have you got a card?” she asked.
I said I had been in once before, had filled in the application form, paid 10,000/- and assumed I could pick the card up this time.
“Go and see the Librarian” she said. I went to see her. She was having her lunch and told me she wouldn’t have my card and that I had to see the Secretary. I went to find the Secretary. She was out for lunch.
Anyway it went on in this vein for quite a bit longer and I began to realise that taking books out of the library was a very unusual occurrence. I also discovered that the system has changed and they don’t use cards now. Apparently the woman who had asked me to fill the form in last time had been dismissed. Use of the library is free and I shouldn’t have paid 10,000/-. They told me to find her and ask for my money back.
In total 5 staff members dealt with my query, including the Secretary who had come back by this time and asked me for 500/- so she could go into town to photocopy the application form as I had to fill another one in.
She came back a lot later. “Have you got a pen?” she asked, “No” I replied so we went into her office - the one with the typewriter – where she asked another woman for a pen. The woman rummaged through her handbag and found one. I filled in the form while the Secretary sat and watched me.
“How long do you want to borrow the books for?” she asked.
“How long do people usually borrow them for?” I replied.
They looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and said “Two weeks”.

Eventually they deemed that I was a suitable person to borrow books, at which point another staff member took them and made a log of them in a notebook. He spent so long that I thought he was writing the books out word for word in case they never came back. I then had to sign my name 11 times against each book.
Exhausted, we finally left the library without any books on Mussolini.

Reading the newspaper is always an education as they often write about issues that we’re not familiar with or have viewpoints very different from ours. For example there was an article about a cow suckling a dog. I thought it was quite amusing, but the cow owner’s view was that this was an abomination and the animals would have to be killed. He wouldn’t be able to kill them himself in case it brought a curse on his family and so had to get another person to do it.

Another article said that ‘A young man reportedly ran mad last week after charms were poured on him. The man, only identified as Umar, was bathing in a makeshift bathroom when an unidentified person poured the contents of a pot on him. Residents said the charms included chicken heads, human hair, claws and a mixture of blood and herbs. They said Umar began squeaking and growling and refused to get out of the bathroom. He was then taken to a shrine after doctors reportedly failed to treat him. The residents said a man whose son was jailed over a debt with Umar, could be responsible for the incident.’

Sometimes Ugandans talk in ‘Ugandan time’ and we have to work out what they mean. For them the day starts at 6am and the time is calculated on that basis. So 7am for them is 1 o’clock as it is 1 hour after 6am, 8am is 2 o’clock and so on.
One day I took the children from Kira’s school for a cookery lesson in the afternoon. I asked Vicky, the teacher, that morning what time we were leaving. “We will go early” she said “at seven thirty.” “Seven thirty?” I said “that’s pretty late.” I then realised she was talking in Ugandan time and that we were leaving at 1.30pm.

One of the sessions we have arranged at Kira’s school is Community Service. Those children who want to, go to help out at an orphanage after school once a week for about an hour. Kira loves it. She has got to know most of the children there, and while they mainly play with the orphanage children, it’s a big help to the staff there.

We have started to go to dance classes now. An Australian woman has started running classes. Kira goes to ballet and jazz dance, and I go to the same jazz dance class. We are even going to do a short performance in November.
Unfortunately there is no ballroom dancing here.

However the squash court has finally re-opened, it has been in renovation since we arrived here a year ago. It’s now the sport I play instead of tennis. Much easier as it’s indoors and you don’t have to cope with the African sun.
It’s also a sport Jon and Jordan enjoy so it’s become the family sport (or at least ¾ of the family!).

Some friends of ours, Bob & Sue from NZ, have been in Uganda recently, a place they used to live in during the Amin regime. It was nice to see them. It’s always good to catch up with people we know and hear news from the Outside!

And yes, it’s coming up for Panto time again! It was such a success last year that the newly named Jinja Community Theatre is holding another one in December, this time Aladdin. Jon is obviously becoming known as the man in Jinja who is happy to wear a dress as he’s playing the part of Widow Twanky. Watch this space…

Last week it was Kira’s half term break and the two of us went to Kampala to do voluntary work with an organisation helping women with HIV and people in the local community. It was set up by a woman called Moureen and she has done a great job of being able to provide help to a range of women in the villages.
As Kira is underage – and also the first child to be a volunteer – we were restricted in the number of things we could do. However we made health & social education posters and went to schools to give them the posters and explain ways to keep healthy and safe. We helped plant trees and shrubs around the health centre. The organisation is linked with Red Cross, so we would wear the tabards and meet with school groups who wanted to be Red Cross volunteers. Kira gave out weekly food rations to women with HIV.

The people in the villages are very poor and their housing is very basic. They can buy water from a tap at 100/- for a medium-sized jerry can and 200/- for a large one.
The women clients we met were very nice. Some of them had formed a singing group and gave us a rendition at the office. A blind guitarist from Entebbe had offered to join them.

Moureen is organising for someone to buy pigs for the group - 1 male and 3 females - as an additional way for the women to raise money. She asked if I would contribute as the women had decided to call one of the pigs ‘Kira’!

A couple who are both nurses from Belgium were volunteering too. They have been here for 7 months and have done a lot to help out. Moureen has no funding and relies on volunteers helping her. We paid 150,000/- per person per week ($109, £40) which covers our accommodation and evening meal. The rest she uses to fund the charity. She urgently needs volunteers, so if you know of anyone who would like the experience of being able to make a difference, let me know and I can give you the contact details. There are a wide range of activities people can become involved in.

I did a couple of things I said I would never do. Firstly go on a boda boda in Kampala because of the traffic, and secondly go on a matatu (minibus). However I didn’t have the car with me and there was no other way to get to the villages. We were fine.

I still miss my cats in NZ and a couple of days ago we got an email from our neighbour there, Shirley, who has taken our cats, giving us an update. The cats are doing really well, thank you Shirley and family.
Just after I read this email, Kira and I drove to the shops. We saw a tiny little kitten crossing the road. It was so cute and so much in danger.
“Oh mummy can we have it?” asked Kira.
“If we can find it when we come back” I replied.
We drove back, parked the car and wandered around trying to find it. We eventually found it down a back alley by a small house. A Ugandan boy of about 11 was by the house. I asked if it was his kitten. He said it was (though you can never be sure) and said we could have it.
The kitten had a bad eye infection, its eyes were closed over and the fur around the eyes was dirty and matted. I wasn’t sure if it was his to give away so asked if there was someone else we could speak to. There didn’t seem to be.
We called Jon to see if he was OK to have a tiny kitten. Kira was saying “Please Daddy” and held the kitten up to the phone so he could hear it mewing away. He couldn’t really say no.
“You give me 1000 shillings” said the boy “and you can take the kitten.” We brought it home and I called the vet. He does home visits and so came to give it antibiotics. We cleaned its eyes and it looked a lot better. We don’t know if it’s a boy or girl yet, though it looks like a girl. It’s a gingery colour and because we live in Jinja, Kira has called it Ginger.
It is tiny and very cute and seems very much at home. Even though she’d been living presumably wild and not looked after, she took to using a litter tray straight away. She is too small to eat solids so we feed her with a syringe using milk, egg yolk, oil and warm water mixed together.
Jon pretended not to be interested, but he researched the kind of food we could give it and has been out buying things for it.
Jordan loves it and has made a box and given it a ball while Kira has it sleeping in her bedroom. Even Lotte the dog has been OK with her.

The next day Lotte was spayed. The vet came back again. He gave Ginger more antibiotics and performed the operation on Lotte in our garage. He mustn’t have given her the right dose of anaesthetic as she woke up during the operation and was in a lot of pain, so he gave her some more. I sat with her while she ‘came to’ afterwards and she was in a bad way, crying out loudly. When I went to close the garage door there was a group of Ugandan builders working at the house next door. They were standing and staring, wondering what the commotion was.
Anyway that was yesterday and Lotte is a lot better now.

So we now have a dog, kitten and geckos in the house, and goats, a cow, cockerels and hens next door. John Bosco and Geoffrey have bought some hens and a cockerel which live in our compound and sometimes wander into the house. Never a peaceful moment!

August 2009

We’ve had a little mouse in our house for a while. It was a bit elusive when we tried to catch it, so we just let it roam around. It would come out of an evening and run from behind the TV to behind the bookcase and into the spare room. It wasn’t really a bother so we just left it, especially as Kira and I had been reading a book about a little mouse who just wanted someone to look after him and feed him.
One evening Jon noticed two mice behind the bookcase. Hmmm, two mice can mean potentially lots of mice, and pretty soon afterwards he found a whole family of them living in a box in the garage, and then we started to notice different sized mice running around, albeit one at a time.
Jon mentioned it to a few Ugandans who all recommended Mouse Glue. We had never heard of it, but on asking for ‘mouse glue’ at the supermarket we discovered that it’s a very common item. Basically you spread the non-toxic glue onto pieces of cardboard and leave these out in the evening in places you think the mice will go. The next morning we found 4 mice stuck to various pieces of cardboard. I didn’t want to see what Jon did with them, but suffice it to say they are no longer here…

Unfortunately a little gecko got caught on the glue as well. We took it off and left it on the windowsill overnight. In the morning it was still there and we realised it couldn’t move because it had glue on it. Jon decided to do an ‘animal rescue’ and got a cotton bud and washing up liquid to clean the glue off. He then covered the gecko with talcum powder. We weren’t sure if it could open its mouth. This would have been a bit of a problem if it couldn’t eat, so we tried prising its mouth open with a blunt knife. It could open its mouth so we let it go free in the garden.

I still struggle at times to know what to do when people ask for money. Sometimes it’s easy because people ask just to try their luck, but other times people seem very needy.

We support John Bosco’s two nephews and a niece through their education – they go to boarding school - as they are orphans, and were hoping that we wouldn’t have to make decisions about financially helping other people as it’s too difficult to decide who to help and who not to, but things aren’t that easy.

A man came to our gate. He said he was from Rwanda. As he spoke fluent French I assumed he was telling the truth. He told me he had HIV, hadn’t told his mother but hoped that she would accept him when she found out. He had been employed by the local hospital, but when they found out he was HIV positive, had asked him to leave. He needed money to go back to Rwanda. He didn’t ask for money, instead asked if I could give him some work and pay him. He asked if he could clean the car. John Bosco and Geoffrey had just cleaned the car, and we already pay them to do work for us, so I couldn’t offer him work. Instead we gave him some clothing to sell and the children’s tithing money. It wasn’t very much, and I felt uncomfy.

The next morning I was in the ATM queue when an old lady came and stood in front of me. Without words she begged me for money.
I was the only muzungu in the queue. It does get a bit tiring constantly being asked for money because you are a muzungu, so I said no. But then she asked the Ugandan male next to me, who gave her 30/-. I asked him what she’d said. She’d said that she had no food. I told him that we are asked for money almost daily because we are white. He said it’s OK to give to old people, not youngsters. Old people may give you a blessing. She had gone to bed without food.
Now I felt really bad.
It’s very rare you see old people and she had looked at me with old, old eyes. I drove round to try and find her. I drove round and round the streets several times but couldn’t find her. I went home and cried.

And so the shops in Jinja don’t have any trim / skimmed milk at the moment. We’ve been to almost every supermarket and there is none at all. There is such a limited range of food we can get here, so losing one item is a major deal!

Most of the time recently I’ve been working away, running 3 weeks’ training on behalf of the British Council in a place called Tororo on the Kenyan border.
A taxi took me on Monday; I stayed in a hotel for 4 nights while I was working Tuesday to Friday, then the taxi picked me up again on Friday. It was very nice being away, staying in a nice hotel and working from 8.30 - 4.00 then having the evenings to myself.

I hadn’t been to that part of Uganda, and the trip over there took about 2 hours. We went through rice fields and through a forest where baboons live. One time there were about 20 baboons at the side of the road, including a tiny baby. They are fairly people-friendly as they are used to people stopping and giving them bananas. I got quite close to one to take a photo and it didn’t seem bothered. One time a matatu (minibus) overtook us and got very close to one of the baboons. It ran to the side and then turned, looked at the matatu and pulled tongues!

For the first couple of days of the training, Richard the training coordinator from the British Council was with me. He had booked us some rooms at the largest hotel there. However it’s an older hotel and quite run-down and there was hardly anyone there. He had asked for the best room for me and they gave me the ‘suit’ (ie suite), which was basically two rooms that had been joined together. It still had two front doors to it and two bathrooms. One of the bedrooms had stayed as a bedroom (complete with a round-shaped bed), while the other had been turned into a living room.
We went out to see the hotel where we would be running the training and when we got back there was no one on reception so Richard went behind the desk and rooted through all the drawers until he found our keys!
At meal times we were the only people in the very large dining room. We were amused at the part of the menu which said ‘bona petit’.

When we tracked down the receptionist we asked her to order a taxi for us for 7.30 in the morning. Ugandans aren’t generally known for being on time so she said she would ask the taxi to come early. “I will order it for 6am.”
He was there at 7.30 and tried to charge us 35,000/- ($11, $25) to go two kilometres, a ride that should only cost about 5,000/-. We were appalled, but his view was ‘it’s a fixed fee’.

Anyway the hotel where we were doing the training was newer and nicer so we moved there. It was more convenient being based on the premises and also saved us the appalling taxi costs.
Tororo is known for its Rock, which is a small mountain in the centre of the town. The hotel room I moved to had a balcony with a wonderful view over the Rock. Very impressive, and very nice to wake up to such a lovely view.

In the second week Jon, Jordan and Kira came with me in the taxi on the Monday and we had lunch at the hotel then went to look at the Rock. It is breathtaking to see it close up. Jordan took 30 photos of it.
As we were there a Nun came to talk to us. She lives in the little convent at the base of the mountain and works in the hospital next door. She asked us if we wanted to look round the hospital.
It was very special being shown around. The hospital was as you would expect it to be. Fairly old and very basic. She took us into the children’s ward. The beds were very simple metal framed ones with green plastic coated mattresses. A number of women were there with very small children. It was a sad experience.
(Photo below is of me and Kira in hospital grounds)

Jon has learned some of the language and was talking to some of the nurses in Luganda. They are always impressed, and laugh at the fact that a muzungu can speak their language.
We then all went round the market and then I went back to the hotel and the others went home in the taxi.

The first day in the new hotel, Richard and I ordered an evening meal in the restaurant. “What on earth did you order?” Richard asked as my plate arrived at the table. It looked like two large crumpets.
What I had ordered was a pineapple and cheese salad. I had expected a salad with cheese and pineapple. What actually arrived was two large slices of pineapple topped with grated white cheese … and that was it!
During the meal, two small Ugandan children who were with their family at the next table came over to see us. One was about 5 years old and the other was about 18 months.
Ugandan children are not only very cute, but also very polite. The 5 year old came over to me, knelt down and put his hand up for me to shake it. Then the little 18 month old did the same.
The 5 year old went to do the same with Richard, then called out to his tiny brother “Come and greet this one.”
Choochie!!

Anyway the cheese and pineapple salad was actually very nice so I ordered it again a few days later. This time the hotel had no cheese, so my ‘salad’ was simply pineapple.
Undeterred, I ordered it again the following week. This time it came with much smaller slices of pineapple, a small sprinkling of red cheese … and an ant. This is Africa. I took the ant off and carried on eating.

The food we got on the course was interesting. Often morning tea would comprise a banana and a boiled egg. The lunchtime food was very filling, very carb-rich. They would have rice, potatoes, matoke (liked solid mashed potatoes), posho (very stiff maize and water mix), along with chicken, fish, beef or goats meat.

Quite often the hotel would lose their electricity supply and would provide a generator instead – very noisy! One time the power was off most of the day which meant there was no water either. They gave all the residents a jerry can of water during the day and then in the evening a little housemaid staggered around the rooms delivering a jerry can of hot water to everyone.

One of the things I found a bit unnerving was the fact that the public toilets in the hotel had a bolt on the outside of the door! Whenever I used them I made it a quick visit in case anyone felt the urge to lock me in…

Running training course for Ugandans does have its differences. For example when I asked people what their expectations were, about 50% of them said they expected a certificate at the end. Ugandans generally like their pieces of paper showing their qualifications. One person said she expected a test at the end. Traditional training here is of the ‘chalk and talk’ kind, so they appreciated the interactive and varied nature of the training.
One of the feedback comments at the end was ‘Very active throughout so that I could not sleep off’. Another comment said ‘Feeding was okey’.

Some of the training was on CV writing. Things here work differently and apparently it’s not uncommon for people to send in CVs that are not their own, so part of the interview process is to quiz people on their CV so that the employer can check if it’s genuine!

The course attendees worked in the health field. Part of the field worker’s role is to visit people in the villages and ensure that they seek medical attention when ill. Even when some villagers are ill with life-threatening illnesses such as HIV or malaria they won’t seek help. I asked why. “They have learned to be dependent and will wait for someone to come and help them” they said.

Part way through one of the days all the staff had to go off to a seminar about Weapons of Mass Destruction. Crikey!

Sometimes after the training I would walk into town (a 25 minute walk) and go round the market. They got to know me there after a while. Mind you, in all the times I went I never saw another white person, so I guess it wasn’t difficult.
You can get things very cheaply there, especially if you want to haggle. Often I don’t as the prices seem fair. I got Jon some smart leather shoes for 30,000/- ($22, £9). I bought myself some sandals for 3,500/- ($2.50, £1), both of them without haggling.

As I was buying my sandals I heard someone saying “Food”. I turned round and there was a boy of about 12 standing by me. He said “Food please.” He didn’t look under-nourished but he was shaking. I wondered if he was shaking with hunger or was perhaps ill.
I’d given the stall lady a 5,000/- note for the sandals, and as she brought back the 1,500/- change I handed it to the boy. Again I felt uncomfy as it wasn’t much, but he was very grateful.
Some other stall holders had seen this and were laughing and calling out to the boy in their own language. As I walked away I wondered if they were saying “Well done, you got some money out of a muzungu”, so I turned to look at him, but he just looked very grateful.

One of the things we have to be aware of is ‘muzungu prices’. This is when Ugandans bump the price up because you are white. Sometimes if we don’t have an idea of the price we don’t know if we are being ripped off. Sometimes we know that prices are just way too high, and other times we can tell because when we ask the price, the shop assistant will pause, then they have a certain look on their face – one which means they are thinking ‘If I really bump the price up will they pay it?’. They then come out with a figure you will never pay.
I went into a small shop in Tororo to buy some baseball caps.
“How much are the caps?” I asked.
Pause…The Look…
“Eight thousand shillings.”
I hadn’t bought one here before so didn’t know what kind of price they would be, but absolutely knew that that was a rip off price. I went round the corner to a market stall and got them for 3,000/- each.

During the training course I split people into teams and have team competitions. The team that wins gets a baseball cap each.
I paid for the caps with my money and so the British Council reimbursed me. They asked me to get a receipt so I went back to the market stall, but the man didn’t have any receipts. I gave him a blank receipt I’d taken with me and asked if he would fill it in.
“No” he said.
The man at the next stall looked at the blank receipt and said it looked like a simple form to fill in. “No” the man said.
The man at the next stall explained how easy it was to fill in.
Eventually I worked out that he couldn’t read or write, so we went to another stall where the stall holder filled out the receipt for him, accompanied by 6 other people who had gathered around. There was a part on the form where the man had to put his signature. He didn’t have one, so the other stall holder drew a shape on his hand in biro and the man copied it onto the receipt.

Uganda has many tribes and Tororo has about seven, which is a large number for a fairly small place. There are two main tribes, one which is in favour of splitting Tororo and one which wants to keep it as it is. Tororo has become known for a famous incident between the two tribes. During a presidential visit, a member of the tribe supporting the split, ate a rat in front of the president to show how committed he was to the cause...