Blogs from Uganda, Africa - page 140

About three weeks ago some young college students asked if I would classify Uganda as a peach or coconut. At least I think those are the two fruits used in the metaphor but regardless of whether my memory serves me you can get the general idea. The metaphor being that a country is either a peach or coconut, now I realize this is stereotyping and it’s all much more complicated than that, but nonetheless there is some truth to it. It was explained it to me like this- Japan would be a coconut, it’s hard to get into the society to break through (pun intended), but once in you are tight and the bonds are very close. Uganda is a peach, soft on the outside easy to get in superficially but then you hit the seed, ... read more

Week One: My first week in Uganda was uneventful. I basically just used it to get over my illness and catch up on my lazy time which I had missed in Arusha. First Weekend: Louisa showed up on Thursday and quickly introduced me to the foreign aid working community. Kampala, and Uganda as a whole has a huge population of foreigners living here and working for NGOs and other international organizations. Friday night, after meeting two of the volunteers that I would be working with (well just one actually, named Judith), we headed out to teh local Irish Pub to drink with the platoon of marines and 'regulars.' IT was interesting to hear these guys complain about teh various other soldiers in their unit or other units. However, because of all the soldiers' the ratio of ... read more

Jambo! (hello in Swahili) Arrived in Nairobi fine after an emotional farewell at Heathrow. Felt like there was a washing machine of emotions rolling around my stomach on a spin cycle for a day, but as soon as I met up with the rest of my tour group I was fine. The group I am travelling around Africa with is mostly made up of Aussies and Kiwis, bar one Canadian and a couple of Brits. Having travelled across Kenya, I'm now in Uganda on the world's slowest computer. Here's a brief run down of my safari travels so far... Day 1: Monday 31st July Nairobi is a strange city. It's not particularly picturesque, in fact there's not much to see at all. The population is vast and everyone seems to be busy getting about their business. ... read more

Last Sunday I attended Atneyi's Catholic church in her village. It was a large, modern chuch which contrasted greatly with some of the stick structures I've seen. The previous evening I had a great time with two of the guys from the church as Atneyi had told them that I wanted to take back a Ugandan Carol with me. So we sat out on the porch at her house, singing, notating and translating carols ( one of which was 'Il est nee'). They were so impressed with my Runyoro -it's easy enough to read as it's all phonetic, that we decided the following day I would address the congregation in the local language! The service was at 8am. Everyone puts on their best clothes, Atenyi insisted that I couldn't wear a skirt that I planned to ... read more

I thought I'd describe this evening as it is fairly typical. We were invited up to Madam Flossie's for tea ( she also teaches at the school). She lives up on the hillside so we walked up on the dusty tracks, through the banana plantations, bean plants, avocado and mango trees, passing houses ( where everyone greets passer bys), goats, children returning from the bore hole with their jerrycans aloft, accompanied by the sound of many crickets chirping. On arrival at her house there is a routine set of greetings: weloming, thanking for coming, thank you for inviting, what news? nothing new etc. This I can more or less manage in Runyoro. I had taken a set of playing cards as a gift and later taught Flossie how to play 'sevens'. They brought furniture out from ... read more