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Have you seen the Giant goliath beetle?

The Giant goliath beetle! 😍 When I moved to Uganda 15 years ago my no. 1 one fear was insects – now look at me 😂

It’s amazing what interests people: one of my British friends is planning to visit me in Uganda. This is the very thing that she wants to see!

Sadly, this particular beetle was attacked by a black and white casqued hornbill. (You can see the damage to its wing).

Did you know the giant goliath beetle is the world’s heaviest beetle?

We see them occasionally at Sunbird Hill, on the edge of Kibale Forest. They love tree sap. In fact I have seen them fighting with butterflies for it. They all get drunk! Yes! Imagine this big drunken beetle flying through the air.

The Sunbird Hill team specialise in immersive nature experiences, conservation and citizen science focusing on the smaller creatures: butterflies, moths, insects, birds and snakes. I’ve written dozens of stories about our extraordinary life here.

The East Africa Travel Podcast by Charlotte Beauvoisin
Sunbird Hill is the inspiration for the East Africa Travel Podcast, launching soon.

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The Kingfisher and me

There’s something in the air tonight.

I love this time of day, walking with the dogs before the sun goes down.

A pair of African Grey parrots fly overhead, squawking all the way to their roost in the big tree behind us. The Hadada Ibis congregate on the highest roof, cackling as I approach with De Boys – Baldrick and Percy – who bounce through the long (tick-infested!) grass, delighted to be free from the compound.

There’s a disgusting smell – trust the dogs to find the rotting corpse of a dog, only recognisable by its canines. Looks like someone’s dumped it here, as it’s half concealed (I bet someone had a nasty shock when they opened that sack!)

As we walk across the football pitch someone shouts out “Muzungu! Can we eat your dog for our dinner?”

It’s OK, he’s just fooling around in front of his mates. I grin back at them.

As we turn the corner back to the house, a Woodland Kingfisher darts through the air, picking insects. How relieved am I to see him!*

Woodland-Kingfisher-birds-Uganda

Who needs an alarm clock in Africa? My love-hate relationship with the Woodland Kingfisher was put to the test recently

What appear to be flying ants and dragonflies whirl around in the evening’s pink sky. A Sooty Falcon flies overhead. A second one follows. I turn around 360 degrees, necked craned, and count seven of them!

(According to Stevenson & Fanshawe’s Birds of East Africa, this group of Sooty Falcons are migrating on their passage to South Africa for winter. They’re often associated with storm fronts and termite emergences. Another tick on my bird list!)

Sooty Falcons pass over Uganda, passing south for the winter

Sooty Falcons pass over Uganda, passing south for the winter. Photo courtesy of  http://www.arkive.org

After this morning’s heavy rains – across Kampala, everyone was stuck indoors and hours late for work – the ground has been heating up all day. The baked murram is now steaming and, from barely visible slits in the dirt track, scores of ants bubble up from the ground beneath my feet.

The long lacy winged ants quickly flutter into action and spiral skyward like sycamore seeds. This unexpected spectacle makes me catch my breath. As dusk settles, they pour out of the earth, upwards and away, a non-stop chain of swirling activity.

Two Woodland Kingfishers rest on their electric perch above the blossoming Bougainvillea. (Simpson wants me to hack the bush back – now it’s looking beautiful!)

After a a few minutes the earth is still and the last ants float skywards to join the huge dragonflies, buzzing around above us. The sound of insects fills my ears as we make our way back home. Is this what it’s like to have tinnitus?

Back in the compound, as I tell what I’ve witnessed, Simpson asks “so did you eat them?” We talk about the enswa, the White Termites that the Muganda find so delicious! Brenda’s eyes light up when I tell her the termites were right outside our house. Oh me, oh my, next time we’re going out there with a blanket to cover the hole and we’ll beat the ground until we fill it!

The muzungu's first taste of grasshoppers (nsenene)

Let’s hope enswa taste better than the muzungu’s first taste of grasshoppers (nsenene)

*Regular Diary of a Muzungu readers may remember my love-hate relationship with the Kingfisher that has been waking me up at 5.30 am PRECISELY every day for almost 4 years.

I frequently curse him but last week I thought I’d lost him – and I was worried.

With the rains, the occasional giant cockroach has been appearing in the house in the middle of the night. I’m not quite the coward I once was and occasionally I manage to deal with them on my own. (Makes me feel very grown up!)

Simpson deals with a cockroach

Our friendship was sealed when I discovered my housemate Simpson’s not afraid of cockroaches! My hero!

One particular night I’d zapped one with Doom. It’s a poisonous spray and I only use it as a last resort: aim Doom at insect, close eyes and spray. I’m sure they’ve got more than eight legs – I can’t bear to look at them. They wriggle and squirm – even the next morning the damn thing’s legs will still be kicking. Answer: get the broom and sweep it out of the house right away.

The next morning I’m sitting at my desk enjoying the view as the Kingfisher lands on the washing line just a few feet from my window.

It’s such a beautiful bird. But what’s that in its big red beak? An enormous cockroach! God it looks disgusting. And I panic, realising it’s probably the poisoned cockroach I’ve swept out the back door a few hours earlier…

I watch the Kingfisher struggling to swallow the big leggy insect – will it too succumb to Doom … ?

There then followed two days of silent mornings: “Please come back and wake me up every morning, please don’t let me have poisoned you” I plead.

And so Mr Kingfisher is back! I can’t be anything but happy and relieved now when I see and hear him (even at 5.30 am!)

“Don’t console yourself Charlotte – it’s a different bird that’s assumed his territory,” Julia chides me.

So what interesting wildlife have you seen during the rainy season?

And have you eaten enswa? Should I?

If you like birds, you might enjoy some of the Muzungu’s Uganda birding stories.

And if like dogs, you might enjoy more of my morning / evening dog walks around Kampala.

A day in the life … species by species

Adjusting to my new life in Uganda – here’s my daily routine, one species at a time

“Greetings!” as we say in Uganda.

Namuwongo 'go down' by railway Kampala view

The view over my compound wall. Namuwongo ‘go down’ by railway Kampala

We may not have the same change of seasons here in Uganda as we do in Europe but the insects and other animal species don’t know that! They come and go in phases. If you’ve been reading my blog regularly you’ll have met:

  • Mosquitoes and cockroaches – hell, but they do their own relentless thing all the year round!
  • Flying ants with enormous wings
  • Grasshoppers – or Nsenene – eat them or smoke them?
  • Black Jumping Spiders – er… they’re black and they jump! Small and dead comical.
  • Black ‘stumpy’ flies. A few millimetres long, they look like their wings have been clipped.
  • Ants, o yes. And they’re still here.
  • This week I’m noticing “Tim Burton’s” spiders – very thin scraggly long legs and tiny bodies. Proper name Golden Orb Spider.

Golden Orb Spider

Come back Ma, it only visited us once!

If you’ve ever wondered what my daily routine in Kampala is like, here we go, species by species:

Woodland Kingfisher birds Uganda

My love-hate relationship with this beautiful bird was put to the test recently

I’m usually woken up by a Woodland Kingfisher

In Uganda there are five or ten of every kind of bird… in the UK we have one species of starling and one species of kingfisher; in East Africa there are 15 types of kingfishers and 31 types of starling!

…or the ugly clack clack clack of the Hadada Ibises (Ibi?) – how can such a beautiful bird make such a bleeding racket? (And live in all that s**t come to mention it …?)

Marabou Stork, Mweya, Queen Elizabeth National Park

Marabou Stork, Mweya, Queen Elizabeth National Park

God forbid it’s an enormous (5ft / 1.5m) Marabou Stork flying overhead. They look so clumsy.

I throw open the curtains and out jumps a startled gecko.

Cock a doodle do… at 9 o’clock? The cockerel lives in the shanty town beyond the compound and likes to remind us VERY LOUDLY of his presence on an hourly basis.

As the day warms up a striking brown and bright blue Agama lizard wakes up and saunters along the top of the hedge. He’s ?? long, a mixture of beige and brown and the most vibrant blue. He’s a handsome fella.

Simpson killed another type of lizard (brown body with pale yellow and red belly). Simpson’s very intelligent but doesn’t know much about wildlife. He’s mad about his cows! (A pastoralist from the West, cows are a symbol of wealth and therefore highly valued). I told him off for killing the lizard. He was cornered on the toilet at the time (!) and he said he thought it was going to bite him. “Next time you come and get me” I said “and I’ll remove it for you.”

dead lizard Uganda

dead lizard Uganda – we nearly fell out over this one, I tell you!

As the heat of the day builds, we don’t see much other than the odd (but large and brightly coloured) dragonfly skimming past.

And when the insects get too much, I just have to remind myself that without all this food we wouldn’t have this amazing diversity of birds, one of my passions.

I do sometimes feel the Old Testament is being reenacted in my house!

That reminds me, toads (or frogs?), I often go to the sleep of them croaking very loudly after the rain.

At dusk the insects, birds and geckos reappear again. The geckos come out of their hiding spots, and stand sentry on the outside wall all night next to the security light. There are several in the house too. They TUT TUT at me loudly when I disturb them and I’m sorry that some were unwitting victims of the fumigation. They are my friends (we can forgive the fact I have black gecko droppings decorating my skirting boards!)

Ants in my pants

It’s been building for a fortnight: a column of tiny black ants marching up and down the tiles behind the toilet cistern, 24 hours a day, the dotted black line slowly becoming a solid black line. 

Yesterday I noticed ants on my toothbrush. This morning a big trail of them was marching up outside the house straight from underneath the drain cover – “and we all remember what was under there!”

From drain to toothbrush = NOT GOOD!

Simpson said he didn’t have any ants in his room this morning, but this evening he borrowed the ant powder. Just walked into the bathroom and there’s over a hundred of them running the length of the bath into my toiletries bag. It’s full of them, eating what: plasters? eye shadow? or cream for insect bites? (that’d be ironic!)

We’ve had everything else, now apparently it’s Ant Season! (I won’t be seeing you next July then Ana!! Ana – in Portugal – can’t stand ants).

“Michael Jackson is dead” notice on one of the many blackboards that line exterior walls of Ggaba teacher training college. Few schools have electricity / PCs / overhead projectors so trainee teachers have to practice writing with chalk on boards.

Michael Jackson is dead. School blackboard Kampala

“MJ is dead.” Michael Jackson is dead. School blackboard in Ggaba, Kampala


Seems my Ugandan running career is prematurely over. My knee injury (slight tear to lateral minuscus), although not serious now, could be if I carry on running. Plans to run my first 10k in November are therefore unlikely.
I’m not allowed to dance either! Woe is me.
I’m enjoying work (mostly!) Things do take forever though:
  • 2 months to get damp and rotten wardrobe seen to so I could unpack
  • 4 months to get Outlook installed and running properly

So in scheme of things, 6 months recuperation for knee isn’t surprising … but having to deal with frustrations and delays in all areas of your life simultaneously is hard though.

Success here is counted in small ways. Sometimes you just have to be grateful if you have electricity and everyone comes to work!
Last week is a good example:
Sunday
No electricity all day (maintenance or shortage? Most of the Kampala grid was off)

Monday – Wednesday
No electricity in compound thanks to useless landlord not paying last year’s bills.
Thursday
  • Colleagues both at a funeral (relative died of a snakebite, a Puff Adder. He lived in countryside near Tanzania not Kampala!)
  • Luganda lesson cancelled
  • Mobile network down
Friday
Office phone out of order (and still is five days later …)
No elec of course means no landline phone or internet too, at home or in office.
Here in Kampala, having the elec disconnected involves climbing the pylon, untying (literally!) the cable, coiling it up, and throwing it into back of lorry and driving off.
And this was Monday morning! I had to laugh, nowt else for it 🙂

Grasshoppers – nsenene: eat them or smoke them? Discuss.

Grasshoppers “nsenene” – will you eat them or smoke them?

A storm had been brewing since an intensely hot morning and a few drops of rain spattered onto my new umbrella as I walked out of the Buganda Road restaurant.

Little did I know what I was heading into.

It was fun at first, stepping though the raindrops, tremendous cracks of thunder overhead but within a few steps it was ‘coming down stair rods’, a solid, vertical downpouring. I hung onto the umbrella hard but it only served to keep my head and bag dry(ish) as waves engulfed my feet and a strong wind – from nowhere – washed the sheets of hard rain against my body. Wet to the bone in seconds, continuing my walk was no longer an option. I stood beside a bright yellow vendor’s kiosk and screamed as water funnelled down the back of my T shirt.

Torrents of water gushed downhill and the previously busy streets emptied of all but the biggest 4x4s and the maddest matatu [minibus] drivers.

My shelter in the storm was one of many kiosks, this one – in the middle of Kampala – being a very modern fibreglass job where you can buy airtime and load money onto your phone. Most are a patchwork of wood, like a garden shed (only of less sound construction!)

I was wondering what to do when someone pushed open the flap at the front of the fiberglass cabin. A head poked out and shouted “Come in! Come this way!” above the din of the rain. I ran round the side of the booth and took refuge with a man and a lady in the dark metre-square box.

“Thank you for the shelter!” I screamed above the rain, and we laughed as Juma peeled off his shirt and wrung out a pint of water onto the floor.

As the rain pelted down, we spent the next twenty minutes in the dark, talking about the rainy season, Ugandan politics and the cultural differences such as food in Uganda, specifically in relation to eating grasshoppers, or nsenene in Luganda, currently in season.

I said I don’t eat grasshoppers because ‘silya enyama’ [I don’t eat meat] but apparently nsenene are not classed as meat.

“I try not to eat them any more” Juma mused, “even though I l like them.” He looked into the distance thoughtfully and spoke like someone trying to give up the fags.

In Kenya he said the same grasshoppers are collected and put on the fire, the smoke believed to keep ghosts away. An educated man, we agreed that eating dogs like the Chinese do wasn’t something we intended to try!

Food in Uganda. The muzungu's first taste of grasshoppers (nsenene)
The muzungu’s first taste of grasshoppers (nsenene)… it took me two years to pluck up the courage to try them. Verdict: smoky (nice) but greasy (not nice) – and let’s not even mention legs etc!!
Nsenene grasshopper seller Entebbe
Nsenene or grasshopper seller in Entebbe, Uganda. I worry about how long they’ve been sweating in that bucket …
As food from Uganda goes, nsenene are pretty unique. Twice a year, it’s a thriving industry, with vendors selling huge bucketloads of them on busy street corners during rush hour in Kampala.
 
If you enjoy my nsenene stories, read Grasshopper road trip to Fort Portal.

Do you eat Nsenene? Or do you prefer eating Enswa (white ants)?

Bon appetit Simpson! An introduction to Ugandan foods

An introduction to Ugandan foods

Simpson, our 21 year old ‘gate boy’ who lives on the compound with me has introduced me to lots of new foods, which is extremely generous considering his shockingly low wages (more about that next week). He’s shared with me:

  • Cassava (like potato) and beans – served hot, mixed together, love it.
  • Jack fruit – you stick your hand in a polythene bag to extract pieces of it! Has industrial type ‘glue’ (or sap) that you can’t wash off anything. Nice tho, v different to anything I’ve ever had before.
  • Traditional food from his region (Banyankole tribe), which is three items:
  • Kidney beans – fine.
    Dark brown balls of millet flour, mixed with water and kneaded, uncooked (like thick wallpaper paste mixed with fine sawdust- yuck!)
    Served with
    “sauce” of thin white goat’s milk cheese (smells bad), watered down (double, triple yuck!)
  • Eating it once was bearable but he offered it to me again the other day and I just couldn’t eat a whole plate of it. I’m not a fussy eater but God it was foul.

“Thank you Simpson, it’s very kind of you to prepare me lunch.” (I have since told him how I really felt!)

I offer him breakfast every day (normally tea and bananas) and wish him “Bon appetit Simpson!” He just loves it when I say this and we both start our day laughing.

Last week I gave him his first ever go on a computer! He is so excited and the perfect student. He goes to uni in four months so I’m trying to teach him the basics before he goes. He’s over the moon and I keep getting ‘greetings’ messages from his brothers and his sister (he’s one of 15 children, a common family size) who are just as thrilled. It’s not part of my UCF job but I feel like it’s all part of the VSO role “sharing skills.”Simpson is such a kind-hearted and funny guy that it’s a pleasure. You should see the sparkle in his eyes.

We were trying to think of a name for his email address – he looked a bit perplexed when he saw the name Simpson had gone already so I said “why don’t we do something more personal like bonappetit.simpson?” He nearly fell off his chair with excitement!

As for life generally, I’m getting into a routine, but everything takes so long to do here. ..

  • There’s no way round it, to avoid the mozzie bites you have to apply repellent at dusk every day
  • Carefully check the net’s tucked in when you hop into bed
  • Peel the fruit and veg (or rinse in filtered water)
  • Blow the candles out because the electricity is back on
  • Do the washing-up right away cos you can’t leave anything o/night [you know why! INSECTS! big ones!]
  • Top up the water filter (after having boiled the water first …)
  • Kill more mosquitoes or they’ll sing you to sleep …
But it’s all worth doing as I’m keeping well and have very few bites.
Work’s starting to feel productive now Patrick, Enid and I sit together. There doesn’t seem to be any fall-out since we asked Sophie to leave, which is a relief.

I cooked us all lunch on Friday and it seemed to go down well. “It was a very good lunch,” Patrick said (there was lots of it I think he meant!) although I was a bit peeved to notice one uninvited visitor at the bloody table. Huh!! **

Had stupidly said “I haven’t seen a cockroach for over a week” and a small one scampered across the table – my table – not for bloody long I can tell you. It got a heavy dosing of killer spray and 63 kilos of me for good measure! Even Patrick went “ugh!”

63 kilos – just had to drop that in there, lol… am rather chuffed that even tho I feel the lack of exercise I appear to have lost weight (do bathroom scales work differently at altitude???)

The Muzungu’s photo gallery on Flickr. It’s been great fun swapping comments on my photos. So much better than the old days when I would have made you sit through a whole evening of snaps!! I think most of you are getting the hang of Flickr but please tell me if it’s still not working.

Adding photos directly to my blog is fiddly, e.g. have tried 3 times tonight and it’s failed so will have to stick with Flickr for showing more than 1 at a time…

** a cockroach darted out from a crack in the table!

Dealing with insects (aka Therapy with Simpson)

An insect phobia!

Am getting the upper hand over the mosquitoes. Score is 2:1 to them but I’m fighting back. Last night however, I came eye to eye with a medium sized Unmentionable at the back of my food cupboard. We had the obligatory game of Chase-Me-Charlie and the little fu**er scarpered.

Was kind of mentally prepared for An Encounter as I had found a very small dead cockroach earlier. THANK GOD I’m not alone in the house so have lots and lots of moral support! Such an encounter, when I was just coming to terms with mosquitoes, mosquito nets and candlelight would have sent me under just a day or two ago. I really can’t imagine how I’d have coped without Simpson (the gate boy and personal demi-god). If I had the money for his uni fees I would hand it over right now.

Simpson my hero with cockroach

We bonded over a cockroach!

Health warning – for those who fear insects!

Talking of Simpson, this afternoon’s story is just too funny not to relate but if you feel anything like I do about roaches, skip this bit…

So, this morning I asked Eva (our house girl) and Simpson whether we could empty and fumigate the kitchen cupboard (Thomas, I really really feel for you having to clean out your mum’s cupboards back home in St Lucia!) and then I said:

“Simpson, look here’s a dead one.”

He laughed, “that’s not very big. You’re frightened of that?”

“No, the one I saw was a lot bigger.” I drew a shape about 1.5 cm and he laughed again.

“That’s nothing” he said.

I recoiled (as he cradled it in his palm and looked at it).

“But it’s ALL those legs, why do they have so many?” I asked.

“So you don’t like spiders then?”

“Actually I don’t mind them. Look Simpson, put it on the ground outside and let me have a proper look at it, I need to get used to these things…”

Then he asked “you want to see where there are very very many?”

“No.”

“Look”, he said, and he lifted up the drain cover in the yard.

O MY GOD. It was like something out of a horror film.

As the light hit them, the whole lot ran, there must have been 30 or more, all colours and sizes of ‘don’t ask me what’ insects. I was too busy screaming to take it all in.

As Simpson held the drain cover open, tiny little Eva poured a tub of Doom powder down the drain and into the outlet pipe and I could see ‘things’ trying to climb out. An enormous shiny brown cockroach 2 inches long (MY WORST NIGHTMARE, give me mice, snakes, rats or ants any time!) climbed out and escaped!

And came scuttling down the alley towards me!

O god.

I ducked back into the kitchen as it was Doomed by my heroes Simpson and Eva.

Sophie came flying out of the office when she heard me screaming and we all laughed and laughed at this crazy mzungu.

Moral of the story:

I have to say this was a good team-building exercise, it has drawn everyone together laughing at me!! It’s taken me a few days to put this event behind me and relive it onscreen but it was such high drama I can see the funny side now.

*An Unmentionable is a COCKROACH.

My new pad in Namuwongo, Kampala

Volunteer life in Kampala

My new house has a garden! Really excited about this tho whether it’s what we’d call a garden or concrete yard or bare earth or dog’s toilet or what I have no idea but will take my gardening gloves and a few packets of seeds just in case. Fingers crossed I can do something with it!

Robert (currently working with UCF in Kampala) has sent me my new address, between the railway line and the sewerage treatment works! So far it sounds like London’s Kings Cross. Wonder what chances are of still having view of Lake Victoria?!

I will be living in NAMUWONGO (I love the name!)

Google Earth view of Namuwongo, Kampala

Google Earth shows Namuwongo bottom of photo; light reflects off the tin roofs of the slum area at the top of the photo.

Apparently I’ll be the only mzungu or muzungu on the street.

The house has three rooms, one of which may be the office. There are two bathrooms (with bath!) and a lounge. There are two garages, one of which may also be the office … This is absolute luxury by VSO standards and I am gobsmacked at what I am getting as I could very easily been sharing very very basic accommodation. The extra room(s) are for Trustees to stay on visits from the UK but that will be on quite rare occasions so plenty of room for friends and family to stay! I can’t believe my luck.

Namuwongo house cum office Kampala compound

Namuwongo house cum office Kampala compound

Robert and Janice are currently VSO volunteers with UCF and St. John the Baptist Ggaba Primary Teacher College.

VSO volunteer teachers Robert and Janice, Ggaba PTC

VSO volunteer teachers Robert and Janice, Ggaba PTC. DK is seated behind Janice

They are kindly leaving behind a number of items for me, including:

  • A TV on which you can get four or five local East African stations, which are mostly in English. I was offered their satellite TV dish but this would’ve cost over 1/4 of monthly allowance of 400,000 UgX (Ugandan shillings). There are approx 2850 shillings to the pound!
  • A battery operated radio …(main connection blew up during a power cut).
  • There is a fridge (but it goes off when the power goes). Apparently there are very few power cuts here cos its in a government area – let’s see!
  • Camping equipment (no Ma I’m not going camping on my own!)