October 2009

Fairy tale: A Happy Story
Chapter 1
Once upon a time there was a nice man and a nice lady. They lived with their nice son and nice daughter in a land far, far away.
At first they lived in a big city, but it was too busy so they moved to a nice town by a long, long river.
One day while they lived in the big city, they decided to apply for a Driving Permit.
Can you say that children? Try it after me “Dri-ving Per-mit”.
Well done.
They enjoyed every minute they spent getting their Permit. They enjoyed travelling the long way between the nice town and the big city to visit all the different offices. They hired a nice taxi driver to drive them there in his shiny car and they paid him lots of money. This made the nice taxi driver very happy, and so the nice man and the nice lady were happy too.
Chapter 2
One whole year passed, and the nice man and the nice lady had to apply for another Permit.
“What fun we had last year” said the nice lady, “Let’s hope it is as much fun this year too.”
Unfortunately they didn’t go to the offices in the big city any more so they couldn’t do all the long journeys again, nor pay the nice taxi driver lots of money. This made them sad. But they decided to visit all the of offices in the nice town lots more times instead.
When it came to the last visit to the offices to get their Permit they were very sad. Very sad indeed. They wished the process could go on longer.
But The Luck Fairy saw what was happening. She is the fairy who brings good luck to nice people who are feeling sad.
She decided to help them.
So when they went into the Permit office for the seventh time, The Luck Fairy switched off all the electricity. This made the office lady very grumpy, and she held the nice man and the nice lady’s Permits in her hand and wouldn’t give them the Permits because she couldn’t use her computer.
“How fortunate!” said the nice lady “The Luck Fairy must know all about us. She helps us a lot and now she has helped us again.”
The nice man and the nice lady, however, pretended to be a bit cross. They said big words like “Inconvenience” “Customer service” and “Incompetency beyond belief.” They said the last words very quietly in case the grumpy lady heard them. The words were so clever that it might have made the grumpy lady want to speed up the system for them.
But the nice man and the nice lady weren’t really cross at all. Inside, their hearts were singing with happiness.
The nice lady felt so lucky that she cried with Jon. er … with joy. She cried with joy.
This meant that the nice man and the nice lady could go into the office four more, happy, times.
One time The Luck Fairy didn’t turn off the electricity, she stopped the Network from working instead. The nice man and the nice lady were overjoyed when the grumpy office lady held back their Permits once again.
The following time The Luck Fairy made the nice lady feel unwell and so the nice man asked if he could pick up the nice lady’s Permit instead, and showed the grumpy office lady a letter of authority from the nice lady. Fortunately The Luck Fairy’s power was strong enough to make the grumpy office lady refuse.
However The Luck Fairy then had other work to do and so the nice lady picked up her Permit on the eleventh visit. But the nice man and the nice lady had both had such a joyful experience that they were very happy. Very happy indeed.
The End.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I have discovered that I am vey delectable. At least to mosquitoes. They like me - a lot - and flock to be around me, ignoring all others.
Jordan likes to sit next to me as he knows that any mozzies will by-pass him and come and commune with me.
One evening time, which is the start of mozzie-coming-out time, I was doing my usual, trying to protect myself from getting bitten, and sitting on the couch looking like Eskimo Woman. I was wearing a high necked sleeveless top, a long sleeved cardigan with sleeves so long that they come down to my knuckles, ¾ pants and Jon’s long winter socks. I was boiling hot.
Jordan was sitting next to me, almost naked, wearing only a pair of shorts. The mozzies avoided him completely and bit me on the finger tip.
Other than wearing a spacesuit, I really don’t know what else I can do.
I feel a bit like Pig-Pen from Snoopy, who calls himself a dust magnet. I’m a mosquito magnet and seem to have my own personal entourage wherever I go.

I guess it was only a matter of time until I was bitten by the wrong sort of mosquito – a female who has bitten someone with malaria.
Half way through the month I got malaria, something I’ve dreaded happening since before we moved here.
I was in bed for four days feeling dreadful – aching all over, headachy, extremely weak, having strange dreams, and writhing in pain. Having to sit up to drink in order to take medication was almost impossible without Jon helping me.
Fortunately I have seen enough muzungus here who have had malaria and recovered quickly, to not get worried.
Many of them have had malaria enough times to self diagnose and treat themselves. When we first came here to have a look-see before we moved over, we asked people what they did about malaria. Most said they did nothing, and when they got it, took a few pills and came right pretty soon.
We keep a malaria testing kit and tablets in the house so were ready in case it ever happened. There are different kinds of treatment and the one muzungus use is called Coartem. I took it and came right after 4 days
Apparently it’s not used in the UK, and so people there tend to have a more challenging time recovering.
Anyway I’m a lot better now, but it’s certainly an experience I don’t want to repeat.

John Bosco and Geoffrey have both had it recently too, though they recovered more quickly than me because they have had it a number of times before.

The landlord has had a power line put in to their houses so they now have electricity there for the first time – must be very exciting for them. It’s rare for small Ugandan houses to have power.
Mind you we have to pay their electricity bill, so we had to tell them not to let the whole of the local community come in and take advantage of it.

And so our little kitten, Ginger, who Jon thinks is male, is growing. He is about half as big again as he was when we got him a few weeks ago, and has now started running and climbing. Lotte and Ginger get on well together which is a relief. He loves to eat the fish we buy that is found in Lake Victoria. It has a number of names, one of which is ‘baby fish’. They are very small, and are sold in the market very cheaply. We buy them dried, so soak them in water for a few minutes to make them easier for him to digest.

Generally we have a fairly cruisy life over here at the moment. Jon’s contract is for around three days a week, he teaches IT to Jordan et al, plus Kira and her schoolmates for one afternoon, and the rest of the time is his own, except for some private IT clients.
I do quite a bit of homeschooling. I do 2 hours each morning from 8-10am with Kira, and 3 afternoons a week with Jordan. I run some training courses from time to time, organise things at the homeschool centre, and the rest of the time I spend writing books.

For Jordan we have had to construct a timetable for him, and at the moment he is taught by Sandy, me, Jon, Rowena (a secondary Maths teacher from Zimbabwe), Ronnie the sports coach and a Ugandan carpenter called Richard.
He studies on Sunday mornings so he can have an afternoon off during the week.

I’m still giving him driving lessons and we decided to have a change from driving round in a circle on the open ground, so went next door to the Showgrounds - a large area of land, which most of the year is fairly empty. Everything went well the first time and he is picking things up very quickly. The second time we went, I drove in, then we swapped seats. At this point an older man and the guard came over. The older man was instantly very angry. He looked into the car, then pointed to the guard and said “You give this man some money. You give him 1000 shillings. He has not eaten since yesterday.” I said “We do not have 1000 shillings”. The man ranted on for a while, during which the guard looked very sheepish.
The man said “Who gave you authority to come in here?” We told him it was a public place and that we had been there often without trouble, which we have - at least without the car. At this point another car, driven by a Ugandan, went past us. “Do they have authority?” I asked, but knew it was pointless as they were not muzungus. Eventually we left them and went for the driving lesson.
As we went to leave, the guard came over to us. The older man had gone and the guard was no longer sheepish. He said “I have spoken to the management and they say you have to give me 1000 shillings or I will lock you in.”
“We do not have 1000 shillings” I said, “I really do not have it so I cannot give it to you.” It was true, I didn’t have it.
“You give me 1000 shillings or I will lock you in.”
“I will go home and I will bring it back for you” I said.
Jordan was appalled. “This is blackmail” he whispered “Don’t give it to him.”
Although I wasn't scared, given that the guard was standing there with a rifle, that Jordan and Kira were both in the car, and that he was asking for such a small amount of money (32p, 68c) my main aim was to get us out of the situation safely.
He let us drive off, on the promise that I would bring the money back.
Jordan was beside himself. “It’s corruption! It’s blackmail! It’s wrong!”
He was right, of course, but we were out safely, and part of me felt sorry for the guard. What must life be like for people who have to threaten others in order to get such a tiny amount of money?
“Do not go back!” yelled Jordan “Do not give him the money.”
He was very upset over the injustice of it all.
I tried to explain my viewpoint to him. “I will go back, and I will take him 1000 shillings” I said, “because I said I would and I don’t tell people lies. Plus, we only live over the road from the Showgrounds and it would make me feel safer knowing we didn't have an unhappy guard nearby.”
We had to go somewhere first, and then went home so I could get the money. As we arrived at our gate we saw the guard. He walked right past our car on his way home, but didn‘t seem to recognise us. It was pointless going back to the Showgrounds now.
Jordan told Jon about the incident, still very aggrieved over the wrongness of it. We all talked it through and tried to establish the various aspects of the situation.
The next day I went back to the Showgrounds, this time leaving the car outside!
The guard wasn’t there, but one of the Showground managers came over to talk to me.
He said “You confused us yesterday when you came in”, which I decided to take as the nearest thing I was going to get as an apology.
“You cannot have driving lessons in this place” he carried on.
“That is fine” I replied, “We will not come here again.”

And on a slightly lighter note, it’s now the rainy season, and when it rains it comes down in torrents. Fortunately it rarely lasts long, though the red earth becomes extremely muddy.
I took one of Kira’s friends home. She lives down a long, long dirt road. I’d only gone a few metres when I got completely stuck in the mud. Even when I changed into 4 wheel drive I couldn’t manage to get out. I called Kira's friend's Mum but she didn’t answer, so I called her Dad. He had to come home from work to get me out. Not only is he used to his driveway, he’s also a diesel mechanic. Very handy!

The rains and storms don’t help with the electricity supply. This means you can’t charge your mobile phone (it’s very rare to have a landline here), and when coupled with some drop outs in the internet connection may mean you cannot have outside connection at all for a period of time.

And finally, one of the things that I quite like is that Ugandan young adults and children often have what we would call old fashioned names, such as Agnes, Gertrude, Florence, Ethel, Humphrey and Godfrey. We know a couple of little children called Nellie and Cedric.
Cute!

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...

July 2009

Jon and Jordan were in the UK for most of July, and Kira and I had a nice girly time together. Usually she gets very upset when Jon is away, but she managed really well this time. Sometimes she had sleepovers which meant I was in the house on my own (along with the dog). It seemed very strange, but I got used to it. We also had more invites out and actually had a better social life than we usually do.

We borrowed a DVD from a friend ‘The Gods Must be Crazy’. We hadn’t seen it before, and we both loved it. We ended up watching it 8 times! I love the African setting to it, and if I wasn’t living in Africa, would very much want to, having seen that film.

Kira slept with me every night, and decided to ‘take over’ the bedroom. “Daddy won’t need his dressing gown, so I’ll wear it.” Daddy won’t be using his wardrobe, so I’ll put my clothes in here.” “I’ll just bring my toothbrush and put it in your bathroom.”
Just before they arrived back she said to me “I want to sleep with you forever.”
“What about daddy?” I asked
“He can sleep here when I’m having a sleepover with friends.”

There are always lots of things to organise at the the homeschool centre.
Some are drastically exciting like buying carbon paper, Omo to clean the floor or a new lightbulb …. but they need to be done.
A couple of rooms in the building are rented out by tenants, and sometimes at lunchtimes Vicky, the teacher, would have to go and knock on their doors and reclaim some plates and cutlery so the children could have their lunch! She asked if we could have some new plates and forks so the children could easily have their lunch every day. Kira and I went off to the market and had a bit of a shopping spree.
We have arranged for a caterer to bring in a cooked lunch for the children every day and we pay 3000/- ($2.15 / 87p) per child per day.

The garage is also rented out by a young Ugandan who needed a place to stay. I popped in one time and he’s made it look very homely. He teaches African crafts to the children once a week. He’s very talented, the children have done some very impressive craft work (the photo is a picture Kira made), and they think the world of him.
Because we are a homeschool centre we can organise our own term dates. As people here are very ‘international’ and tend to travel a lot, we’ve organised the term dates around when people are going to be away, which means we have unusual term dates.

I am slowly working my way through ‘Mary Ominde’s African Cookery book’ and have made a few interesting recipes. I don’t think, however, I will be trying all of them even though the blurb on the book says ‘This book will lend glamour to any kitchen’. There are recipes for invalids (gruel, rice water etc); cow blood cookery; recipes for cooking fried white ants, fried grasshoppers and fried locusts.

I also think I’ve worked out the difference between maize and corn – I always thought they were the same thing. Do correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it, sweetcorn is yellow and maize is white. Eaten as cobs, they taste very difference. Corn is sweet, and maize is tough and floury. As flour, maize flour (‘posho’ as they call it here) becomes very stiff and tastes very different to cornflour.

And so I am still having tennis lessons – twice a week in fact. It would be very nice to play tennis on a non-sunny day, though that’s not very likely. Even if the day starts out looking a bit overcast, it pretty much becomes sunny by mid morning. I usual have a lesson at 10am, and even at that time it’s really hot. One time I got mild sunstroke, and felt pretty sick for a few hours after. I’ve started wearing a cap now and it seems to help.

Mind you, I’m surprised I can play tennis at all, if Muwanga is anything to go by. Muwanga is the real estate agent (‘blocker’) who has been looking out for a property for us. I see him fairly often and one time asked how old his 7 children were. He didn’t tell me their ages, instead he told me the year they were born. He then told me the year he was born (1968) and at this point I felt obliged to tell him when I was born.
“1959” I said.
“You are 50 then?” he asked, astounded.
“Yes” I replied
“And you are still alive!!!” he shrieked.

The life expectancy here used to be around 45, though now is around 52. We rarely see older people here. We’ve got used to it now, but in the beginning we used to look around and say “Where are the old people?” Seeing someone with grey hair is quite unusual.

I’ve been trying to find a suitable building so I can set up my Activity Centre. I found a wonderful venue and put a proposal in, in April, to rent it. I’ve been waiting expectantly ever since. Unfortunately the proposal was turned down, and all the other properties I’ve looked at haven’t been suitable.

I’ve also been spending my time writing a book called ‘Better Speaking Better Thinking’, which is now ready to send off, so that’s my next project. One of my goals for coming here was to be able to sit in the Africa sun and write.

A friend from Kampala, Anne, and two of her children came over one weekend. We decided to go clothes shopping in the market.
Shopping in the market is quite an experience. It is outdoors, very busy, the alleyways are narrow, and 99% of the people there are African. Each section of the market is filled with people selling the same things – eg fruit and veg, clothing, DIY items, shoes.
There are two different kinds of clothing stalls – ones where they hang clothes up on the walls on hangers, and ones where they dump the clothes on the ground in a big pile. The ones with clothes hanging up are more expensive (though not expensive really), so we rooted through the ones on the ground. I got Kira a pair of trousers for 2000/- ($1.44 / 58p) and a t-shirt for 700/- (50c / 20p).
Anne, who is white, can speak Luganda, and most Ugandans don’t expect white people to speak their language. As we were walking round she overheard one stall holder talking about her, saying to another “That muzungu has got a big bottom”. She replied in Luganda, much to their surprise.

And so John Bosco our houseboy came to me asking if I had some brake fluid.
“Why?” I asked
He showed me his arm which had a big gash on it.
“To put on my arm” he replied.

A week before Jon and Jordan arrived back, there was the annual Agricultural Show which is the big event in Jinja. We live opposite the Showgrounds (a big area of land) where it’s held. When we moved into the house everyone warned us that we would need to move out for a week when the show was on because of the noise. They were right about the noise. It was unbelievably loud, from 9 o’clock in the morning until 4 o’clock the next morning. Non stop.
A friend Trish, offered to put us up - she lives out of Jinja and has a self contained flat on her land. We thought about it, but I decided to stick it out.
I got very little sleep all week. Sometimes I got to sleep then woke up when the noise stopped.

Anyway Kira and I went to the show – once in the morning, but had to leave as it was too hot and there was no shade, and once in the evening which was a much better temperature but most stall holders didn’t have any form of lighting so we couldn’t see what they were selling! Kira also went a third time with some others.
It was quite impressive what some of the organisations had done – they had planted various crops at the right time in order for them to be ready for the show. There were animals around – cows, pigs, goats, horses, even a camel. There was also a mini zoo which housed an enormous snake. There were merry-go-rounds, all looking pretty old and not terribly safe, lots of food stalls, promo stalls for agricultural goods, and stalls selling clothes, crafts, shoes, etc.
One man had a mound of trousers in a pile on the ground. I wanted a pair of ¾ pants, so he rummaged through, determined to sell me something. We found a pair, but there was nowhere to try them on. At this point he produces a tape measure, measures the trousers and measures me and announced that they would fit. I bought them and they do fit.

Some people we know in Jinja are from Zimbabwe. They were telling us that before they left the country, their last pay check was for 3 trillion Zimbabwean dollars…

And so Jon and Jordan arrived back at the end of the month. I’d explained to Jordan a while ago how youngsters travelling on their own on planes are called UMs, Unaccompanied Minors. Since then he’s wanted to be a UM.
They both had one way tickets so needed to book return flights. Jon had airmiles he could use, while Jordan didn’t. It ended up being cheaper if Jordan flew separately, so that was one ambition realised!
Jon arrived back on the Sunday, so we stayed at a guest house near the airport, while waiting for Jordan who arrived back on the Monday.

And finally, Trish (who offered us her flat during the Agricultural Show) lives a few kilometres out of town. Some of her neighbours are Ugandan, one of whom is a 10 year old boy who plays with her son. The boy didn’t come around to her house for a while. They discovered that he had been sold by his teenage sister for sacrifice to a witch doctor. His body was found two weeks later with the tongue missing.

May & June 2009

The month of May started off with my combined Birthday & Housewarming do, ably abetted by Sandy who baked me another wheat-free birthday cake.
There were about 40 people there and we are very thankful that we have a large garden when there are many children running around!
I’ve now mastered the art of making pizzas and impressed my guests with my culinary expertise.
In 50 years I have never impressed anyone with my baking. Someone even asked me for the recipe … crikey! Unfortunately my family now has to endure pizzas on a regular basis as it’s the only thing I can bake.

We are settled in the house now. I really like it here. Hopefully Henry the electrician likes it here too as he is a regular visitor. In fact he’s been a regular visitor in all 3 houses we’ve live in in Jinja. Although this house is brand new, the electrics are in a poor state – the light switches spark; almost all of them have had to be replaced; there was an explosion at the back of the cooker; lots of electrical things are live and we get shocks when we touch them. One time the vet was here while Henry was repairing the exploding cooker. He happened to be standing by the fuse box outside the house and said “there are lots of sparks coming from that box”. Henry came out to look at it and immediately ran off to town to get circuit breakers. Added to this, our brand new tv aerial is falling apart. We keep finding bits of it in the garden.

And talking of trades people, Jordan did a mini- carpentry ‘apprenticeship’ recently. We found a carpenter, Robert, who had been recommended by a couple of people and asked if he would train Jordan. He agreed and Jordan went for two afternoons a week.
Jon designed a TV cabinet, Jordan drew it up in a 3D package called sketchup, and he worked on the cabinet over a period of several weeks.
He went to the workshop where Robert is based – an amazing place – really ‘African’ in the heart of the ‘tradespeople area’. It is a very, very busy area – lots and lots of people milling around. The workshop is outdoors, is in a small area of many workshops, is very cramped and very basic, the flooring is just bare earth, but they had the woodworking machinery and all the right tools.
I took him a couple of times in the beginning, but after a while he would jump on a boda boda himself and go off, and come back on a boda boda after he’d finished.
Jordan did a great job and we are really pleased with the outcome.

It has been the rainy season, and when it rains it really rains. There is extremely loud thunder and lightning and the rain comes down in absolute torrents. All the brown earth turns to mud. It usually rains at night time, which is very considerate of it. However one time I was in Kampala – manically busy Kampala – when the rain came down. Instantly the city was like a ghost town. I was amazed; I’ve never seen it like that before. I have no idea where everyone went to!
Anyway I needed to get somewhere and so braved the weather – I was absolutely soaking. If I’d stood under the bathroom shower in all my clothes I wouldn’t have been any wetter. The occasional car drove past me and completely showered me with water from the road. The rain was forming rivers down the roads and I had to wade through it, inches deep, to get to the other side.
Within half an hour the rain had stopped and Kampala returned to its sunny and manic state again.
Fortunately I had a spare set of clothes in the car so nipped into the Ladies and got changed into dry clothes – and shoes.

We decided to visit The Rainforest Lodge in rainforest called Mabira, about a 45 minute drive from here. It’s an impressive Lodge set in beautiful surroundings. We went to use the pool, spend an afternoon lounging around, and have lunch. Unfortunately we chose the one cold day that we’ve had in Uganda. It rained heavily and the temperature really dropped. It was such an unusual experience being cold and we weren’t prepared for it.
The lunch menu was pretty expensive so we just ordered chips – they were the most expensive chips I’ve ever had - $10 for a plate of chips!
Anyway, while we were sitting waiting the rain to stop, I was watching the ants that are ever-present, and discovered that if you blow on a group of ants, they stop moving and ‘freeze’ for a short while, then move again. Try it – fascinating!

There are always small creatures around and you get used to it.
One time I went into a toilet at the golf club and was accompanied by a hornet, a lizard and a frog!
And regarding mozzie nets over the bed, one of the things you have to be aware of is to check that there are no creatures inside the net before you get into bed. One night there was a spider at the top on the inside the net – it fell down – onto my side of the bed! It took a lot of courage to get back into bed that night.

There are a couple of dogs at Kira’s homeschool centre, they live in the compound. One of them has just had 6 puppies – really cute. The children have all ‘adopted’ one each and given them names. Unfortunately we are going to have to find homes for them. Kira will be heartbroken if someone takes hers.

And so we are never short of interesting examples of the Ugandan approach to things.
I went to get some documents bound. You can’t assume anything here, so I asked if the binding included a front and back cover as well as the spiral binding.
“Yes” replied the woman “what colour do you want?”
“What colours do you have?” I asked.
“Blue.”

Last year Jon was offered a part-time lecturing position to degree level students on an IT course at the Jinja campus of Kampala University. The money was low, the hours were unsocial, and when he looked through the syllabus, the amount of time the students would spend at a computer was … 0%. He declined the offer. Jordan and I used to drive past the campus on the way to his carpentry sessions. We had to laugh when we the new sign they have had made. I wonder why they struggle for excellence!

Jordan and I managed to find the Jinja library, a now run-down old building housing half a dozen books or so. It would have been very nice when it was first built, and there is a plaque inside it to commemorate its opening. It says “This magnificent building…”
Anyway we very cleverly managed to find a very small number of books that had been published more recently than the 1950’s, one of which was a Star Trek book, filed on a shelf labelled ‘Personal development (Do It Yourself)’.
We ‘joined’ the library – I had to fill in a form. I needed someone to sign it to vouch that I was a citizen of good repute. The woman asked Jordan to sign it.
“I haven’t got a signature” he whispered.
“Yes you have” I whispered back “just write your name”.
Anyway she wrote down the books I was taking out on a torn piece of paper and asked me how long I wanted them for.

One of the books I had decided to get out was on Sikhism. There is a big Indian community here and I felt I should find out about the various religions. The book talks about one of the Sikh gurus who was incredibly generous, and spent his life giving to others. At this point the woman who had been to our house before, crying and asking for money (see end of February blog), turned up again saying she needed money to get back to her village, where her family would look after her. I gave her 20,000/= and immediately regretted it. My gut feeling said she had been lying to me, and when I thought about it afterwards, I had noticed that she was well dressed, didn’t look ill (she is supposed to have HIV), and this time had said she had 3 children instead of the two she told me about last time. When I gave her the money she didn’t look grateful, she just beat a hasty retreat.

We are always being asked for money – constantly. Constantly. Every time we go into town there are street children who beg, there is a woman who comes and stands by the car and just holds her hand out, John Bosco cut his leg and needed money for a tetanus injection, he got malaria and needed money for medication and a stay in hospital. He told us about a woman living nearby who had a baby, she didn’t get transport in time, the baby died, and would we give money to help her.
I have got to the stage where I see a Ugandan approaching me in the street or at our compound gates and I think “No, I don’t want to give money, just leave me alone.”

Anyway John Bosco and Geoffrey have done some good work on the vegetable garden – it’s quite large and they are growing maize, watermelon, onions and cabbages.

John Bosco usually comes into our house about 8.30am, and as we leave after this, we just leave him in the house, doing the housework.
One morning we got a text from him saying “I am in Kampala. Rock the house when you rive.”
We puzzled over this one for a while, and then I realised that in his language the sounds R and L are interchangeable, so he was saying ‘Lock the house when you leave’.
Similarly, Geoffrey usually calls Lotte ‘Rotte'.

I’m still spending quite a bit of time organising things for Kira’s homeschool centre, and am fortunate that the teacher, Vicky, is a Ugandan and can explain various things to me.
It’s also quite an education talking to her as I learn a lot about Ugandan customs.
It’s very normal, for example, for people to have a housemaid, and the one she had did a runner recently, so she asked her extended family if someone could find another for her. One of her relatives in the villages brought a 13 year old girl to be her new housemaid. Apparently by age 13 girls know how to run a house, so her job is to do all the housework and look after the 4 children, the oldest of whom is a 12 year old boy.
At the moment Vicky has no electricity in her house, so they use candles or kerosene lamps; they cook on a charcoal burner and even use a charcoal-filled iron.
Some tribes in the north and west of the country still pay dowries when their daughter gets married. The dowry ‘currency’ is cows, and the more educated you are the more cows you are worth.
Vicky’s housemaid will be worth 3 cows as she hasn’t completed her education. Those who do complete it are worth 5 cows. As Vicky is a qualified teacher she is worth 30 cows. She was a big expense to her family!

My business colleague Aziz got married fairly recently. One of the customs is to have an ‘Introduction’ ceremony before the wedding which is quite an event in itself and very costly. Then the wedding is even more costly as many people are invited, food is provided and it’s usually quite an elaborate do.
He was quite pleased because he managed to keep the costs down and only spent 5.3 million shillings on the introduction and 9 million on the wedding ($11,000 / £4,500). Most people spend a lot more than this. Given that Ugandan wages are low, this is a huge cost for them, so those getting married invite a select group of friends to help them fundraise for this. The group of helpers are expected to contribute a sizeable amount financially and then attend several pre-wedding meetings to help with the fundraising.
I asked how many people were invited to his wedding. “A thousand” he replied. “Did you know all of them?” I asked. “Well, I knew some of them” he said.
When he asked how many were at my wedding and I said 70 for the wedding and another 70 for the evening do, he thought this was highly amusing.


And so we all had plane tickets booked to come back to the UK at the end of June. However it is logistically easier if we go two at a time as then we can stay with people. So in the third week of May I wandered into the Emirates offices in Kampala to see if I could bring my and Kira’s flights forward a bit. We only had one-way tickets booked and I wanted to book a return flight using my air miles.
“To be able to use your air miles, you have to return to Uganda by 8th June at the latest” said the woman.
In order to make the trip worthwhile this meant we pretty much had to go almost straight away, and so a few days later we found ourselves on a plane to the UK, much to the surprise of our family.
We had the flights booked with Emirates and while it is a great airline and an excellent way to go from NZ to the UK, it isn't the best route from Uganda to Manchester. Whereas an airline like British Airways will go direct and take about 9 hours, Emirates goes to Adis Ababa in Ethiopia, then to Dubai (which is in the wrong direction). You have to hang around from midnight to 7am in an overly-cooled air conditioned airport and then have a 7.5 hour trip to Manchester. This takes about 23 hours.
However, the good part is that as there is only 2 hours time difference between the two countries we didn't get any jetlag, and in terms of the world, we feel so much closer to the UK and felt like we were 'popping home' rather than making the long, long journey from NZ.
The two weeks we had at home flew by. We had a lovely time though we didn't get to see everyone this time unfortunately.
It was a nice change being in a first world country, and things that are in reality very ordinary, seemed very novel to us. Like being able to buy a wide range of food at the supermarkets. Like being able to drive on non-potholed roads with drivers who know the road rules and who actually value their life. Driving on the M6 on a Friday rush hour was such a doddle compared to simply driving on roads here at 'normal' time.
I was impressed with how clean England looked. Because there is so much red earth here, seeing pavements made everything seem so clean!

Kira and I left the UK on 8th June and arrived back in Uganda on 9th. It's a 3 hour trip from the airport, so we used a taxi driver called Aaron to pick us up. Aaron is great and the muzungus use him a lot. The Ugandans who have worked out what white people want, and know how to work with them do very well in business here.

When I got back, Jordan's home school tutor and the boys were away so I taught him at home for 3 weeks. I still teach Kira maths every morning.

He has a sports lesson for two hours every Wednesday morning with the boys, and as they were in Kenya, he asked if I'd come to the tennis lesson with him. I haven't played tennis for about a hundred years, but decided to go along. We had changed the lesson to the afternoon that day, and - flipping heck! - it's hot playing tennis in the afternoon sun. I really enjoyed it but was aching all over for the next two days. I was in A Bad Way.
Unfortunately Jon and I went to an evening 'QBP' event (to be explained) the next day where we had to stand up all evening. We very rarely go out in the evenings these days, and when we do, we certainly don't stand up all the time! My legs were aching so much I was just about collapsing at the end of the evening.

Anyway I enjoyed the tennis so have started having lessons with Ronnie, the sports tutor, myself. He seems very good and has competed in the Davis Cup. I'm fairly coordinated and was doing quite well (or so I thought), though am having to re-learn how to play. He thinks it quite funny because I play in an 'old-fashioned' way. It must have been how I was taught at school and apparently the way you play tennis has changed quite a bit since The Old Days.

So, we were invited to a 'QBP' which is a Queen's Birthday Party hosted by the British High Commissioner in Kampala. Only a select group of people are invited to attend and I was invited because I'm the Jinja representative of the British Residents' Association. Jon came along as my 'plus one'. (He doesn't appreciate how lucky he is to be with me...)
We had no idea it was such a big deal to get an invitation, and had even considered not going, but there are some people who have been here for many years and are feeling quite put-out that they haven't had an invite!
The Commissioner invites those who have 'forwarded the aims' of the British High Commission in Uganda, so there were 500 people of all nationalities there, having drinks and nibbles in his garden. The UK had shipped over a couple of Household Cavalrymen (one of the country's most elite military group apparently), complete with impressive red uniform, helmet and spurs … but not the horse.
The invitation said you had to wear business dress or national costume.
I pondered the costume bit for a while, and given that I come from Liverpool, the most likely costume would be a Liverpool Football Club strip. But I didn't think it would go down very well at the do.

As we were driving over to Kampala for the event, we were flagged down by a policeman.
“Oh here we go again” I thought. The Police seem to go through phases of stopping you and checking your documentation.
I was driving, Jon was in the passenger seat, and Jordan was in the back (Kira stayed in Jinja with her friends).
Jon wound down the window.
“You are going to Kampala?” said the policeman
“Yes” said Jon.
“Can you give me a lift?” he asks.
So, Jordan gets in the front, and Jon and the policeman get in the back. Jon had a good chat with him, and as a result the policeman keeps phoning him up!

The day after we got back from the UK, I was driving along one of the main roads when we saw a woman lying face down on the road. She had just been knocked over by a motorbike a few seconds before. The motorbike was lying in the road, broken. Some people picked her up and laid her face down on the pavement. She didn't move, I thought she was dead. Pretty soon a group of Ugandans gathered around. None of them had a vehicle and I'm not sure how the ambulance service works here, but people weren't really doing anything for her. Fortunately Vicky was in the car with me and I asked if she would talk to the people and see if we could take the woman to hospital. People are wary of taking someone to hospital as it will mean that they are financially responsible for the treatment.
She went and spoke to the policeman who told her to wait, as he was taking a statement from the motorbike driver. We decided to take the woman anyway.
Her forehead was bleeding, she had hurt various parts of her body, and was quite dazed, but looked like she was going to be OK. A couple of people who knew her and happened to be around at that time came in the car with us. They carried her into the back of the car where she lay sideways, and then they got in with her. They didn't all fit, so we drove with the car door open. Kira and the dog were there too and they sat in the boot.
Vicky and the 3 people were talking in the Luganda. The woman was crying, apparently saying “my baby my baby”, but they didn't know where her baby was.
I took the woman to Jinja hospital.
You really wouldn't want to be in need of 'proper' medical care over here – the hospital looked very basic. We have joined the British Residents' Association as their main reason for existing is to help 'Brits in distress'. If anything happens they medivac you out of the country.
I assumed the woman must have been very poor as she had been carrying a basket of nuts and seeds on her head to sell – that will have been her 'job'. There are many women here carrying baskets on their head, usually holding bananas or nuts which they sell cheaply.
As the nurse came over to take her in a wheelchair, I gave her all the money I had on me – 15,000/= ($12, £4.50). Vicky said that would pay for quite a bit of treatment.
When we got home, Kira was very upset. She was in mild shock. She was crying and saying “I don't want Daddy to go on a boda boda again.” Jon gets a boda boda to and from work, but I told her I would make sure he was safe.
Vicky found out a week or so later that the woman's baby had died.

And so it was Kira's 9th birthday on 20th June. One of her friends, Naomi, shares the same birthday and is the same age. Naomi's mum had been trying to contact me to see if we could have a joint party, but I was in the UK and hadn't got her messages. Another girl here, Simran, has a birthday the day after, so they both had a party that weekend. Naomi's mum (who has 11 children) owns a beautiful resort here, and held the party there. The children went swimming in the pool then had the party food sitting in a lovely grassy area amongst the avocado trees. She had ordered 4 cakes – one for Naomi, one for Simran, one for one of her sons who had a birthday the same month and one for Kira.
The children drank a fruit juice cocktail out of scooped-out whole pineapples.

We decided to have Kira's party the weekend after, especially as that was the weekend that Jon and Jordan left to go to the UK for a month. It gave her something to look forward to.
We had the party at our house and had planned to play a range of party games in the garden.
It very rarely rains here during the day, even in the rainy season, but an hour before her party the heavens opened, there was the loudest thunder I have ever heard, and the driveway became a mud-bath. We had planned to have lots of water games and had asked the children to bring spare clothes, but hadn't planned for it to be quite so watery!
Anyway the weather cleared up for about an hour, so we went out and played the games, and the kids got suitably wet and messy - as did the house!
Sandy had made Kira an impressive High School Musical cake, and I had tried my hand at making scones. Amazingly they turned out well, and people liked them! Crikey, two culinary successes in a short space of time...
So all in all, a good time for birthday parties.

Jon and Jordan left for the UK at the end of June and will be there till the end of July.

And of course, how can I write a blog entry without some 'Uganda life' snippets ...`
There are times when we just can't make people understand us. For example my Mum and Dad have been using an incorrect PO Box number for us. Instead of 1204, they have been using the number 51209 (my PO Box in NZ). Consequently the mail hasn't been reaching us. Once I realised what was happening, I went to the Jinja sorting office and explained to the man that people had been sending me incorrectly addressed mail and asked where it would be.
“What is your box number?” he asks
“1204”
“What box number have they been using?”
“51209”
“It will not come into your box.”
“I know, where will it go?”
“There is no box with that number.”
“I know, so where will it go?”
“There is no box number like that in Jinja. Maybe in different part of country.”
“They wrote Jinja on the envelope, so I think it may be here.”
“There is no box number like that in Jinja.”
“I know. Where do you put letters with incorrect addresses on them?”
“We do not have that number in Jinja.”
…. and so it went on. There were a couple of young women there who explained to him in Luganda what I was meaning.
“You ask at Kampala Post Office” he said
So I emailed Kampala asking where the letters would be. They replied saying they would ask the postmaster at Jinja.
Aaargh

Then yesterday I parked in town. The parking wardens put a slip on your windscreen, keep a note of your car number and the time you parked, and when you leave you 'pay' by giving them a ticket and they make a note that you have paid.
I drove off, having forgotten to give them a ticket, so went back a bit later to give them one. Unfortunately it had rained and the slip had been ruined.
I explained to the warden that I had parked there an hour before and had forgotten to give a ticket.
“You want to buy tickets?”
“No I want to give you one for when I parked here an hour ago.”
“You did not park here”
“Yes I did, but I can't show you the slip, the rain has ruined it.”
“You want to park here now and want another slip?”
“No I want to give you a ticket for when I parked here.”
“You give me ticket.”
I gave him a ticket and said “Will you mark off that I have paid?”
“You did not park here.”
“I did, I am giving you a ticket for when I parked here. Will you check your notes and see if you have my car details?
“I will not have your details. You want to park here now?”
“No, I parked here an hour ago. I did not give ticket for when I parked. I want to give ticket for the time when I parked.”
“You have given me ticket.”
“Yes I have, but I need to you make a note that I have paid.”
“You did not park here.”
In the end I gave up, took the ticket back and left.


An hour after Jon and Jordan left for the UK, my laptop stopped working.
“Well that's just great” I thought, “what IS the point of marrying an IT person and enduring a lifetime of geekness if he can't be here when you need him??”
So I took it to PC World to be repaired.
“Don't leave your laptop there if there are Ugandans working on it” Vicky had said, “you need to be there while they are repairing it or they will steal parts of your laptop.”
“They are Indians” I said.
“Then it will be OK” she replied.
The shop assistant working there is Ugandan and as she was filling in the form for the repair work to be done (by the honest Indians!), she asked me my name.
Now, Ugandans find my name quite difficult, because the KI in Kim is pronounced 'ch' in their language. So really, they would say Chim and Chira instead of Kim and Kira.
And the CH sound in Chamberlain would be spelt Ki, Ky, Ci, Cy, Cu.
So what I've learned to do is either write my name on the form myself, or else give them one of my business cards and they can copy it themselves.

So the conversation went:
Shop assistant: “What is your name?”
Me (looking through handbag): “Hold on, I've got it written on a card.”
Shop assistant (amazed): “You have forgotten your name?”