Not forgetting why I’m really here …
How is the muzungu managing life as a conservation volunteer?
There’s no point in pretending: I’m really behind with work and I’m not going to get it all done in the next hour it takes for Mike (UCF’s Founder) to drive from the airport.
Kati, time for a bit of blogging …
Kati is the Luganda word for so ….well .. then … etc… one of this week’s new words. Luganda is bloody difficult I don’t mind telling you. All the words are long and most of them start with K! It’s a Bantu language and so totally different from any European languages I’ve tried. Where as we would use five words to say ‘what do they call you?’ Luganda bungs the whole lot together: bakuyika?
Having an hour of tuition a week and, tho it’s hard, I have never had such a fantastic reaction when I open my mouth to say a few words: “but you’re so fluent!” people exclaim. Fact is few mzungu bother even learning the greetings (everyone speaks at least some English) and my phrases are very short! Not sure how far I’ll continue with Luganda (till VSO funding runs out probably!) but it’s a great insight.
For example, we asked how you say ‘bon appetit’ – you don’t. There is no equivalent phrase. You may enjoy your food but you just eat as much as you can! When you offer someone a biscuit, you’ll be lucky if you see the packet again – and this goes for professional people (i.e. those with money) as much as kids or wildlife rangers in the bush.
On our last field trip, I passed the biscuits around the car. I made the mistake of offering a ranger the packet (meaning he should take a couple of biscuits and pass the packet on). As he jumped out of the car, I noticed the big biscuit packet-shaped bulge in his jacket pocket ! (Rangers are on ridiculously low wages and are based in the middle of nowhere so you can’t blame them for trying it on). Even in town tho, it’s every man for himself when the food’s served and god do Ugandans pile the food on the plate.
I was offered the cutest puppy last week and still thinking about whether to have it (I have a home for it when I leave Uganda) but yesterday acquired – with VSO grant – new furniture so perhaps not a good combination! Have to do the maths and see if I can afford to feed a dog though.
Ivory poaching on the increase! How DNA is extracted from elephant dung to map ivory across Africa
Off to the field to visit the projects from Sunday. Unfortunately elephant dung is being collected without me! Had really been looking forward to the 3 day trip with the rangers across Murchison Falls National Park to collect and map elephant DNA but Patrick and I will be going to Queen Elizabeth – a ‘small’ 1978 km2 park – instead.
Very timely news on BBC yesterday saying the number of African elephants killed illegally for their ivory is rising steeply.
“Andrew Luck-Baker asks how science can stop the new upsurge in the slaughter of African elephants for the booming illegal international trade in ivory.”
You can listen to the show on the BBC here.
We are working with Dr Sam Wasser (interviewed) and it’s a superb project – to map ivory via dung analysis so poaching locations and smuggling routes can be tackled. Not only is this a great project in itself but it’s great for UCF’s profile to be associated with it.
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.
“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.
- 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.
Monday – Wednesday
- 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
While the cat’s away….
While the cat’s away… the rats play…
Apparently we don’t have mice in Uganda. Ugandan mice look like English rats, only a lot smaller … (so isn’t that a mouse then?!)
God I’m glad this work week’s over. My knee injury is not improving so I’m really feeling out of shape now. RSI (painful wrists) has been killing me (but I do have some more exercises to try); I’m torn between getting my projects done and spending time ‘leading and motivating’ the team (one of who is possibly leaving anyway…)
Have been struggling for weeks to finish a report to a donor, a project I’m not totally familiar with, colleagues who don’t give me the full picture and a template I’m having difficulty using. I feel like I’m the bottleneck for everything. We can’t submit next grant applications until reports are done and I can’t ‘share my skills’ with the team until I understand what I’M supposed to be doing! I’m still working on the 6 month work plan VSO have asked me to put together. Still, here is not the place to get stressed: you try and buck the system and it’ll fight back even harder.
Did I say something about wanting a challenge? Next time shoot me!
Success here is measured in much smaller ways, whether we like it or not. Sometimes we’re just lucky to have power and/or phone and internet; to get a cheque signed (by an elusive and busy director). Other days we’re lucky if everyone’s at work; people get sick more often (especially with malaria; in many cases it can be HIV-related) and burials of (extended) family members mean days off from work are very common indeed. This may be one explanation for Ugandans’ less than brilliant planning skills! It is quite normal to have just a day’s notice for an important meeting. A friend was booked on a three day training course the night before it started.
I just hope next Monday is better than this week’s. This is a note I wrote to one of our volunteer colleagues in the UK:
“I came home from the field trip to find a quarter of my treasured olive oil had gone (no-one’s been cooking) and some of the honey gone too (you know how expensive that is here). Now I’m thinking about it, we seem to get thru sugar and instant coffee at a ridiculous rate of knots too. Finding another job advert torn up in the office bin didn’t help my mood either when I got back)….
UCF have asked me to pay for all the office tea, coffee sugar, etc, cleaning products, lightbulbs, candles etc. They pay Rose’s wages and the utility bills so it’s only fair – I just wish they’d mentioned it before now as I’d have kept a closer eye on what people are using… I’m a bit concerned about buying detergents, tea/coffee etc. It’s not a lot of money but Rose always ‘helps herself’ to these items and I cannot help but take it personally if I am the one paying for it! It is of course no better if she’s stealing from UCF but I don’t take it so personally. I stopped buying liquid detergent as I noticed she had taken half the bottle home as soon as I bought it.
Ugandan fruit and vegetables are tasty and often huge! Cheap too.
I’m happy to help Rose with unlimited matooke (green bananas) and sweet bananas (!) while she’s at work. I brought her back a pineapple from our trip but ‘helping herself’ to what I see as my personal food really puts my back up. I offered her a headache tablet last week and when I asked where the rest of the packet was, she produced it from her handbag. I said ‘I’d prefer if you ask before you take things’, she said ‘I would ask you first’. Well evidence is to the contrary isn’t it?
The good thing is having previous VSO volunteers in the UK I can let off steam to.
Off to the field
Tuesday night is market night and the drums are playing loud on the other side of the compound wall, just a few metres away.
Our friendship was sealed when I discovered he’s not afraid of cockroaches!
This week we will be:
Visiting Bukorwe Ridge Elephant Trench in Ishasha, which measures a whopping 10 km long x 2m wide x 2m deep, created to stop elephants crop raiding villages. UCF secured the funding to excavate the trenches and the community are supposed to maintain them, but they don’t really. They want money to do it and there simply isn’t any. We operate on a shoestring, their lives have been significantly improved by the trenches but commitment is very difficult. Kikarara is very rural and poor. It’s a subsistence culture. Their village has no vehicles, not even any motorbikes and the last part of our journey takes us down windy footpaths across field after field. It’s quite moving to visit somewhere so remote. The kids will go absolutely crazy when they see me, they never see mzungus.
Community sensitisation is a big part of UCF’s work, alongside the Uganda Wildlife Authority. Here on the edge of Lake George, the messages are anti-poaching (hippo) and warnings against fishing with undersized nets
Visiting UCF’s Waterways project on Lake George to decide where to locate our next ‘marine ranger station.’ UCF funds boats for UWA rangers to intercept poachers (mostly of hippo) and illegal fishermen. An added benefit to the community is that the boat has rescued people and boats in distress and even saved lives.
Two hands of bananas guide us on our Ugandan road trip
My colleague Patrick and I visited Kashaka, one of UCF’s marine ranger stations on Lake George. Here he is pictured with some of the fishermen’s children
As if all of this weren’t frustrating enough, blossoming ‘who knows what’ with Dutch hunk is put on hold!
Four months in Kampala and am I making a difference?
I’ve been in Uganda four months today
I realise I won’t be able to achieve anything like what I’d like to. I can still make an impact of course and I have already but mostly in the ‘softer issues,’ like showing Simpson (the gate boy) how to type and use email, educating Eva (the house girl) on all the sanitary uses of bleach (!) acting as a representative for the previous volunteer and his wife (handing a cash donation to Ggaba Primary School to help them build a nursery). All of these very simple things have given me an enormous amount of pleasure, perhaps because I didn’t anticipate them.
Because things have been quiet on the work project front, I haven’t had to deal with too much bureaucracy but on TV yesterday they said Uganda ranks 3rd in the world for corruption. I admit the frequent requests for money (+ jobs + sponsorship etc) do wear a bit thin. I had two schoolgirls follow me home last week, one of them insistent (in not a very nice manner) that I give her 200 shillings for sweets. (I gave her a firm ‘nedda’ – ‘no’). This persistence is quite unusual though.
The well-stocked Resource Room at the teacher training college contrasted sharply with the 20+ year old Gestetner copying machine (pictured) relied on by the primary school next door. The college uses papier mache for models and natural resources like banana leaves and lentils to make posters and teaching aids.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how I am adjusting to life here and how to get the team motivated. Here’s one of the email exchanges I had with a previous volunteer who set up the finance and admin structure here. His comments are in green.
On Saturday mornings we have the house to ourselves. A breakfast of fried eggs on toast has become our ritual
“Living above the shop.” I feel very secure. Eva and Simpson look after me very well and I’m happy with the living arrangements although I was led to believe the office would be in the garage, not the house. People are generally respectful but I do find the African habit of leafing through your books and papers on your desk – or anywhere else – without asking very annoying!
Early successes – good feedback on the Trustees reports and the bid submission, improved comms with Uganda Wildlife Authority (our main partner) and the Directors – gave me false impression that it was going to be plain sailing from now on! (VSO advise you not to expect to achieve much in the first few months). Agreed. Motivating the team. To be fair, when things get busy Patrick and Enid both react but there’s very little to manage at project level currently. I try and liven them up every morning (trying out my latest Luganda word on them!) although ‘working from home’ can mean it’s hard to liven myself up some days, let alone other people. Patrick and Enid were to some extent demotivated when I arrived but I think the mood has picked up.
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!
Do you eat Nsenene? Or do you prefer eating Enswa (white ants)?
“Living above the shop”
Many of us like the idea of working from home… what if work comes to you?
The past few weeks’ adventures have been great but hope I haven’t done all the best trips already?! Time to get on with some more work…
My first house. Namuwongo, Kampala. UCF team. Larking about in front of the house, taking photos for the company web site!
I have noticed that people aren’t proactive and will defer as much as they can until the last minute. I feel like a bloody nag and I hate it, it’s not my normal style. Hard enough to liven myself up some days especially since our boss is in the UK and very busy with his day job and we have infrequent contact. I live and work in the same building (house) too of course.
As for living and working in same location there are obvious pros and cons. Here it means I can arrive at work cool as a cucumber, not sweaty and covered in red dust! I can even take a shower in the middle of the day. When 5 o’clock (yes 5 o’clock!!) comes, I’m already home but it doesn’t mean I’ve left work behind…
The lounge / diner. My bedroom’s to the right and the spare (office) bedroom is to the left
Personal project over the next few weeks is to create a more personal living space. Everyone walks in and out through the lounge / dining area. First couple of weeks, people were flicking through my books, leaving them here, there and everywhere – I can’t stand that – so I retreated with my things into my bedroom, not wanting a confrontation. Now I know everyone better I’m going to reclaim my space!
Ugandans generally will pick up things and look at them, they don’t have this ‘do you mind if I take a look?’ approach us overly polite British have. With so many people living in very small homes, my guess is that Ugandans haven’t had the chance to adopt the possessive / protective tendencies us mzungus have. When I buy something new for the kitchen Eva and Simpson thank me. And I feel awful. Inside I’m thinking hands off it’s mine I’ve bought it for my kitchen! But they are so open and genuinely appreciative of every small thing I do or buy, it’s so humbling. We came back from Mt Elgon hike with an unopened tin of drinking chocolate. I knew Eva would like it and she was over the moon when I offered it to her. When she saw it was Cadbury’s – the real thing – she went crazy, grabbed hold of my hand and shook it!
Eva was very excited when a harvest of avocados dropped into our compound!
It’s hard to be angry or resentful towards anyone here for long. Eva had a long face just now so I cut her off a chunk of pumpkin to take home; she’s beaming from ear to ear now.
A bumper avocado tree harvest
The fruit were so heavy the branch CRACKED off the tree. We all went running outside. The thud of the fruit sounded like someone had fallen out of the tree. Eva collected fifty avocados that day.
So much time out of the office exploring Uganda – west to Lake Bunyonyi and east to Mbale and Mount Elgon – must partly explain why I’m finding it hard to get motivated at work. I have great chats with office staff Patrick and Enid but neither seem to have a lot of work on so I try and liven them up. Am I helping?
A girl called Kevin: climbing Mount Elgon, Uganda
A girl called Kevin: climbing Mount Elgon, Uganda
- Four days on foot
- 48 km covered
- A 3,000 metre climb
- Summit of Wagagai 4,321 m (14,177 ft) the 17th highest mountain in Africa
- First recorded ascent: 1911
- First recorded ascenders: Robert Stigler, Rudolf Kmunke
- – and a damaged knee ligament on day one!
Today I’m exhausted but elated after climbing Mount Elgon: one of the highest peaks in Uganda, with views – above the clouds – across to Kenya and northern Uganda. It really was breathtaking.
According to Wikipedia, Mount Elgon is an extinct shield volcano on the border of Uganda and Kenya, north of Kisumu and west of Kitale. The mountain’s highest point, named “Wagagai”, is located entirely within the country of Uganda.
During our five day trek, we passed through numerous contrasting habitats: forest, bamboo, savannah, moorland, strange and eerie ‘moonscapes’ – Mount Elgon was once higher than Kilimanjaro – then back down a steep 1000 metre drop looking out onto valleys that reminded me of the foothills of the Alps …
This evening I received a lovely text from my special VSO volunteer friend Isla that sums it all up:
“Hope all went well at hospital. Will forever be impressed by your resilience. You are hard core. So glad we did it. I loved it.”
AHEM.
Hospital, yes.
Ultrasound treatment for the torn knee ligament (I can’t Hash or do aerobics for six weeks) and antibiotics for two small toes that look like they want to explode.
Actually I feel fine (I’m sitting down!) although I will have to go easy on the bananas and Waragi (local gin) for next six weeks.
What a bore.
Yet, it’s amazing how quickly you can forget the truly awful times isn’t it?!
I can even find myself saying I’d climb Mount Elgon all over again, despite the terrible, miserable cold and lack of sleep for two of the nights (we were camping); the 6 am wake-up call every day; the times (hours!) when you just have to focus on putting one foot in front of the other and the sheer yucky squelchiness of it all!
Perhaps we shouldn’t have climbed during the rainy season?! Hmmm!
My first afternoon and evening were hell.
Climbing Mount Elgon was easy enough but going downhill – the terrain undulates all the way – was agony and I finished day one with tears streaming down my face, so far behind everyone else that Patrick (the UWA ranger) and I limped to camp, just the two of us walking in total darkness on the mountain for the last hour.
Patrick led me down the hillside a step at a time, moving forward three steps then stopping to turn around and shine the torch at the ground in front of me, so I could ease myself downhill.
“Step here – then here – then here,” he guided me. “Mpola mpola,” he said. Slowly by slowly… what a lovely gentle man he was.
If you’re offered bamboo walking sticks – TAKE THEM!
It was another UWA ranger – Bernard’s – turn to accompany me hobbling down from the summit. Walking was easier thanks to two bamboo sticks cut down for us on the ascent; regular leg massages from one of my male friends (every cloud has a silver lining …) and walking with my left leg stuck out at an awkward straight angle, as if I was wearing a plaster cast.
I developed altitude sickness (nausea and a headache) on the way back down from the summit of Wagagai, and got sunburned. We all did. I think we were all so relieved to dry off after all that soggy weather that we stupid Bazungu forgot to protect ourselves from the high altitude sunshine.
Bernard fashioned some protection for my sunburned hands from big green plant fronds so I walked (limped!) into camp on the last day looking like an extra from Dr. Who!
Kevin held her own effortlessly amongst 9 men (7 of them porters) for four days (they all huddled close and slept round an open fire every night). What a great role model she is. Kevin works for UWA (Uganda Wildlife Authority), and is the youngest of 24 children! (Did her parents run out of girl’s names perhaps?)
If you’re in the area, allow another day or two to explore Sipi Falls, a series of waterfalls. This is the most dramatic waterfall.
Back home in Kampala, I just had time to unload the car before the power went off. After five days waiting for a hot shower, it was a cold shower by candlelight for me!
Climbing Mount Elgon is a terrific experience.
You will bump into few other hikers; I loved the challenge and I loved being away from it all (the knee injury on day one was just bad luck!) As we passed through the forest on the climb uphill, we watched Hornbills and Dusky Blue Flycatchers; in fact some visitors visit Elgon’s foothills just for the birdlife. In 2013, the birders from Mt. Elgon National Park won the annual Big Birding Day 24-hour competition.
To climb Mount Elgon you will need to pay park entry fees for Mount Elgon National Park. This will include two (or possibly more) rangers. Click here to download the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s Tariff (price list) 2020 – 2022 which contains all Uganda’s National Park and Wildlife Reserve fees; hiking; gorilla, chimpanzee and golden monkey tracking permits; birdwatching, boat cruises; nature walks and more.
P.S. If you’re a runner, there is a new initiative to boost running and outdoor tourism in Kapchorwa. Visit the Run Kapchorwa website for more details.
Feel free to contact the Muzungu for more information about climbing Mount Elgon. Who knows? – maybe I will even come with you! A return climb is definitely overdue…
Making a Hash of it
Hash virgin attends Africa Hash 2009 in Kampala!
Kampala Hash House Harriers run
Happy May Day Bank Holiday!
Feet are killing me this morning. Several hours dancing to the most fantastic African music, after a run round the streets of Kampala with 250 Hashers descending on Kampala for Africa Hash 2009. The week-end’s only just started: at 10 am I get on a coach to Jinja ‘Source of the Nile’ for an hour’s run along the river, ‘the most scenic spot in Uganda’ (that’s some claim). Another party laid on tonight, then off to run through the Botanical Gardens at Entebbe tomorrow morning, along the shores of Lake Victoria…. followed by another party!
I’m a Hasher ‘virgin’ – no ‘Hash Handle’ yet though I’ll be amazed if I don’t acquire a (normally) rude nickname by the end of this w/end. Dancing with my legs wrapped round the waist of a gorgeous Ugandan as he twirled me around on the dancefloor last night may just have been noticed … no wonder I’m stiff this morning!
Hashing great way to meet people Kampala
Joining the Hash is a great way to meet people, 95% of whom are Ugandans. It started out as an expat club (not normally my type of thing) and there are lots of silly public humiliations, e.g. if you’re spotted wearing new running shoes you’re forced to drink beer out of one of them! Yesterday someone was drinking beer out of a flip flop somehow! The beer was flowing all day but no-one got stupidly drunk which was good.
First Hash was last week, about 7 km, longest run for months. Really had to push myself, thoughts of Prince’s Trust week-end came flooding back! We passed through a village and everyone stood at the side of the – steep and very uneven – ‘marram’ road, laughing and cheering us on. Was kept motivated by young boy of about 11, who joined us as we ran through a village; he ran next to me for 30 minutes, in his flip flops, onto the main road, through someone’s back garden, back through another village… it’s moments like that I treasure here.
It was a treat to be invited to the British High Commission, along with other VSO volunteers
This week was spent In-Country Training with VSO. I made the most of having some ‘thinking time’ out of the office and plan to make use of VSO’s networks and use them to help me develop UCF’s strategy. You get so caught up in the UCF work, it’s good to have a reminder of how we fit into VSO’s strategy for Uganda. We come under the Participation and Governance programme, helping to build capacity of grassroots (community-based organisations).
I’m investigating how, through our access to remote communities, we can help other VSO programme areas. It might be as simple as providing mosquito nets but we could facilitate introduction of other health organisations, working with HIV/AIDS or disability for example. Malaria is the biggest killer here and only a third of rural Ugandans sleep under a net; 78 000 of every 100 000 deaths are due to HIV/AIDS; the disabled are mostly hidden, they are seen as an embarrassment (or worse) and few make it to school. School fees are higher for Special Needs children and schools lack the facilities to cater for them.
It was great to meet up with the other (12) VSO volunteers who I spent my first week in Uganda with. I’ve been so lucky with this placement – one volunteer is quitting hers after six months and another’s leaving early.
I’ve signed up for more Luganda lessons. Pa and Valere: I haven’t forgotten the request for the next Luganda lesson!
Thought for the day – cross-cultural explanations
When you teach someone how to use a PC, you notice how it reflects Western society, and not just in terms of the currency characters on it. (It does get confusing using an English / Thai keyboard set up with North American settings!)
Try explaining to a 21 year old Ugandan what the return [“carriage return”] button. Why is it called return? And what is the big arrow for? I mean, let’s start with asking What is a typewriter? A manual typewriter had a big return key which you usually had to hit hard for it to make the heavy carriage of the typewriter (holding the paper in position) return to start typing the next sentence.
As you wait for programmes to load on a PC, you see a moving mini eggtimer graphic. How do you explain what the eggtimer on the screen means?
A traditional method for boiling eggs to perfection is to use a sandglass or sand timer. It comprises two glass bulbs connected vertically by a narrow neck that allows a regulated trickle of material (historically sand) from the upper bulb to the lower one.
sandglass egg timer
Here in Uganda eggs are boiled until they’re hard enough to peel and eat whole. No such thing as our very English soft boiled ‘egg and soldiers’! [That’s thin slices of toast for dipping into egg my northern European friends!]
It’s all about culture, and context…
D Day …
**D Day
Well there IS more to life in Kampala than insects but boy are they gonna give over and let me tell you some other news? Well no frankly, not this week.
D is for Death
IMPORTANT NEWS! House fumigation done! Fumigation does not involve any kind of smoke or fumes but litres of chemical spray. Not very happy about that – for myself, the boys spraying the house or the environment …. must check it out.
The fumigation was very thorough. Drains were sprayed, cupboards were emptied, tables upturned…
House and drains now cockroach-free for at least three months – yeeee ha!
D is for DDT
On the same note, headline yesterday “Court throws out DDT case, spraying to resume.” DDT kills mosquitoes (thereby preventing malaria, a very common and sometimes fatal disease). The World Health Organisation overturned a 30 year ban on DDT, a ban I hadn’t realised existed. According to another site “numerous studies on DDT have shown its environmental persistence and its ability to bioaccumulate, especially in higher animals. Of particular concern is its potential to mimic hormones and thereby disrupt endocrine systems in wildlife and possibly humans.”
D is for Despondent
Was getting down last week at lack of fitness. I don’t even run for a bus anymore (the office is the spare bedroom) and everything had become a real effort; picking my legs up felt like dragging two hefty watermelons and I was getting fed up hear myself moan about it, I just wanted to rest up and eat some more! Lol. I knew I had to snap out of it, as it was starting to knock my confidence plus a group of us are climbing Mt Elgon in four weeks time (eighth highest peak in Africa!)
Lake Bunyonyi view. Diary of a Muzungu
D is for Davina
- I am only drinking at the week-ends, and then only in moderation
- I am not smoking
- I am going to bed earlier
- I am getting up earlier
- I’m going to aerobics once or twice a week. Sometimes I walk there – uphill– then run home. Even if I take the car, I’m still getting an hour’s exercise (i.e. so don’t beat yourself up over it Charlotte!)
- I’ve done the Davina McCall work-out DVD twice this week
- I am joining the Hash (House Harriers) – for the running not the drinking! [First run tomorrow – 5 – 10k, oh god that’s most I’ve run in three months. I can’t back out of it now I’ve told you all – so ask me how it went!]
- I am not dwelling on the not-so-positive health / lifestyle aspects because they are only part of the temporary readjustment.
OK well some might call this last one ‘denial’, but hey whatever works! (Actually people have said right from the off how quickly I’m settling in so I’m probably being impatient with myself …)
D is for don’t you DIG this cricket?!
Insects freak me out – unless they’re HUGE! Somehow that makes them more interesting… nsenene grasshopper
Cricket (or locust?) close-up
I screamed at Simpson that this was a cockroach but this is apparently a cicada. It lives in the trees in our compound (YUCK)
**In everyday speech, D-Day has come to mean “a day when something important will happen.” Literally, D-day was “the day during the Second World War when the Allies began their invasion of Europe by attacking the coast of northern France. The D-Day landings began on 6 June 1944.”
Locomotion commotion
There was a big commotion outside the compound this week. We heard the train rattle past – just a few metres beyond our compound wall – and then a big BANG!
Simpson and I ran and grabbed the locally-made wooden ladder to look over the hedge but it was too dark to see anything. It took us a while to work out what had happened. However, the general hum of hundreds of voices conveyed a sense of excitement.
We heard the next day that the train had run into a lorry packed high with charcoal and the whole of Namuwongo had descended to Go Down to collect free charcoal! I asked about casualties but didn’t get an answer (read into that what you will).
The railway line is 50 metres from the house. A train thundered past on my first night here (so you can imagine what I was thinking!) “No wonder they’ve moved me here, the rent must be cheap if that thing’s going past every night, how am I ever going to sleep? …” As it turns out, trains only pass once a week or so, carrying freight from ships docked at Port Bell on Lake Victoria. The occasional passing train is quite exciting now I know it’s only once a week! And I always wonder where it’s come in from – possibly Tanzania or Kenya. Suddenly the train ‘and what lies beyond’ seems exotic.
It was raining heavily this morning so I went back to sleep to the sound of it, snug under my blanket. (What a treat! There’s the a slight chill in the air).
It’s time to make tea for me and Simpson. Not only have I missed the spout of the kettle but I have filled it with water straight from the tap. A ‘no, no’ but luckily I realised what I’d done. I haven’t had any stomach upsets yet but I don’t want to chance it. Occasionally, National Water add chlorine to the water supply and it comes out of the tap cloudy (and you a grey scums appear when you boil it). We try and avoid drinking it then.
Simpson says there’s a lot of work for him to do on the porch this morning. At first sight there are 100s of leaves to sweep. They turn out to be the wings of 100s of insects – some kind of ant, a delicacy enjoyed by the Baganda and Acholi tribes. The insects have been attracted by the security light. Now the sun’s come out, the ants are all running off, leaving their wings behind! Simpson wanted to sweep them up right away but I asked him to wait so the Greenbul (bird like a Flycatcher) can eat his fill. He wanted to put them in a bin liner but I’ve asked him to put them in a pile under the tree “so we don’t deprive the bird of his natural food.” (He’s getting used to my funny mzungu ways!)
More rain will mean more mosquitoes of course.
“You have to respect their intelligence though don’t you?” I say and Simpson adds “they breed just like African families!” Uganda has the 3rd highest birth rate in the world – he is child number 8 out of 15, and that is very common. I saw an ad for a contraceptive pill on TV last night “for mothers who are breast feeding.” It featured a happy young couple playing with a baby. The line was “enjoy bonding with your baby as a couple, without having to worry about the other children.” So it was promoting quality time (smaller families) + breast feeding as best way of feeding babies. But how do people afford the pill? Do they offer free contraception in Uganda? The authorities should (like they do in the UK) but I would be amazed if they do.
Last week as I walked down the road, someone offered me his daughter to take care of. I laughed in reply but actually the situation made me quite angry. How did that little girl feel? And why have so many children if you can’t afford to look after them? It’s funny; when I lived in the UK I made excuses for people having more kids than they could cope with but here in Uganda, this attitude gets to me. I suppose it’s on a much grander scale in Uganda and many of the kids I see around Namuwongo are absolutely filthy (i.e. uncared for).
My colleague Patrick says there’s never been a lack of food in Uganda – portions in restaurants everywhere are certainly enormous – but malnourishment is still common, as we saw yesterday on our visit to the famous Mulago Hospital (subject of a BBC documentary a few months ago). Mulago is a massive, creaking place. My friend Isla is a VSO Speech Therapist there and has seen some shocking sights.
Today’s visit was to Mulago’s Healthy Baby clinic ‘Mwana Mujimu’ to hand out toys to the kids, hear more about the clinic and suggest improvements such as cheering up the place, installing a playground for example. I’m not sure whether I’m going to get involved or not. I haven’t been in Uganda long enough to decide which personal projects I’d like to support, but will happily collect any unwanted toys or kids’ clothes on my trip home (next year?) if anyone has any they no longer need.
The clinic provides a free meal for the carer too (usually a woman but not always the mother), to encourage them to stay the weeks with the child. This gives the clinic the opportunity to educate them on nutrition.
I came to Uganda as a volunteer with Voluntary Service Overseas. We volunteers are business development volunteers (like me), teachers of special needs children, nurses, midwives, doctors and cardiologists. In addition to our ‘day jobs’ as professional volunteers, we also support other projects, in our spare time.
On a personal note, the Muzungu writes:
Thanks for all the emails and sorry if I haven’t replied yet. I will! I write this blog offline but it’s still taking time to download and reply to individual emails and I’m a bit behind this week after submitting my first fundraising proposal for UCF. Worked on it most of last w/end and two very late nights / early mornings. It’s for a wee $40k! but I couldn’t help but make the same amount of effort as I did with the big Laing PFI bids. UCF Directors and Trustees over the moon with what we submitted so fingers crossed we get the grant …
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.
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 …
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!
