Starting to settle

Here we are now, 2 weeks in. I’ve started to settle in, and got over some of the first time hurdle that await you in this city - find a room, drive a boda, get anywhere within a certain frame of time...
My room is in Munyenga-Bukassa, which I’ve learned since moving there is not considered Kampala anymore. But at least it’s close to work, and I value my sleep in the morning! It’s a nice place, although it’s the first kitchen with an earth-floor I’ve ever had! The place is locked up like Fort Knox, even though there aren’t any valuable there (I keep my stuff at the office, and my landlady doesn’t really have any technical gadgets!). There’s chicken everywhere, which have an upsetting tendency of communicating loudly in front of my window at 5 in the morning. Well, one of them doesn’t anymore, because it ended up in last night’s stew! That was another first time: first time I’ve eaten something I’d seen alive before! (Well, except for mussels I guess, but it’s kind of hard to tell they’re alive, with their limited ability to communicate). On the upside, there’s fruit trees in the garden (I say garden, but I mean deadly marsh-land that sucks my shoes into the red earth every morning, leading to extended shoe-cleaning sessions in the office shower), which means fresh fruit every day - papaya, baby banana, matoke (‘food bananas’). Miam!

I’ve also been out with Ugandans for the first time, and it was a lot of fun. Ugandans love beer (maybe even more than the English, if that’s possible), and they all seem to know each other, so that makes for some great parties. Every 5 minutes someone else would come and be greeted by the whole group! Lulu, the girl who took me out, is full to the brim of some of the funniest and most outrageous stories I’d ever heard - I barely managed not to snort any beer out through my nose.

Not that I can muster any kind of elegance anyway, compared to Ugandans - every since I came I feel like I’m wearing sweat-pants to the opera. People here tend to dress really smart, while I’ve come prepared with what Europeans like to call ‘functional clothing’, so the contrast can be very humbling. But fear not, some shopping is planned for this weekend!

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