What it is ...

Well well well my pedigree chums (and family of course), looks like this is the entry I promised to talk about actual life in Uganda. As we spoke last time Monday-Friday is most often a true 9am-5pm office job. I sit at my desk read reports, edit reports, churn out reports and do my directors bidding. Honestly 9-5 would be nice however last night work was an 8:30am - 9:15 pm. The day is broken-up like most office life in the states except the nice part is when I walk out of the office I can walk 100yrds downhill to my house to sit on my porcelain thrown and read the numerous books that accompany that most splendid of glade air fresheners.

The clock strikes 11am my mind is rocked by the chiming of the church bells ... for whom does the bell toll? ….. Seriously there are no church bells but about 11 I get this intense stirring, my hands start to shake, Rex and Scooby-Doo, our guards dogs (really their names), run wildly about the compound and William's son Chris, my dear 7 year old friend, begins to once again assure me he escaped from Circ Du Sole by doing one handed back hand springs …... iiiitttttssss … TEA TIME!!! So I wander in to the conference room and pretend to be British for a half an hour and no I haven't started lifting my pinkie finger though most days I do adopt a terrible British accent.

Typically, it's time to read a bit more of my books at this point presently The World is Flat, Villa Incognito, and One 100 Years of Solitude. About a half n hour at my desk is all I can take at this juncture of the movie Office Space which has become my life, despite the cool, steady breeze from the window at my back. It is 75 - 80 everyday and sunny so trust me an office is the last place you want to spend the day no matter how wonderful the work.

We break for lunch at 1 and all proceed to the conference room where lunch is served. The masterful cuisine consists of a number of highly bland and starchy substances ranging from boiled cassava root, to boiled sweet potatoes (which are not sweet), Matooke (Ma-toke-EH) the Ugandan equivalent of a national delicacy which doubles as the Central regions staple food, made of strained unripe bananas mashed to the consistency of o say mashed potatoes if you added half a can of Crisco and then put it in the sun for a day… Come to think of it, it’s more or less like if you took Play-Doh, 15 yellow sticks and 4 green, beat them with something blunt and covered them in grease …. Posho … wow let me tell you about the worst edible substance know to human kind …. Is it edible? I’m not sure but I’ve seen people eat it. My understanding is it’s made by dropping millet flour in boiling water and praying for a glob of the most stark white and airy paper mache your pot can produce. The sad part is it looks like mashed potatoes but I think that’s just because your wandering the Sahara of carbohydrates begging for an oasis of something familiar.

The day flies by rather quickly after lunch which ends between 2 and 2:30. The work day is usually wrapping up by 5pm – 5:30 but there have been a couple nights now where I’ve been working until 9pm. So that is a typical workday in a typical work week but as you know most weeks in life aren’t typical so you have to stay open minded and flexible at all times.

The week nights are quite for the most part. I would say 5 out of 7 nights I either head to Seta, Mukono or Kampala for groceries and internet. Monday nights in Kampala there are almost always a few volunteers in town aside from the 5 or so of us that live within 5 miles of the city. The food in Kampala is amazing I’ve been spending a lot of time at Effendi’s a Turkish restaurant and hookah bar in Centennial Park (pictures included). Café Pap is about a 6 block walk into the city center where I use their free-wireless internet and rub shoulders with government officials on Parliament Ave. while drinking over priced coffee (the idea of Starbucks if not the place itself has truly taken the world). The city itself is busy with traffic and a bustling business crowd. The traffic on Jinja Rd coming into town is atrocious and it can take me nearly an hr to travel the 5 miles from my site to the city.

The nice thing about cities across the world is that there is always something to do. From May 1^st -11^th there is an art and film festival at the Kampala National Theater that has performances running daily from 10 am – 11 pm for free. The other day power was out at work so I headed into the city to meet some friends to watch a documentary on the Darfur Genocide. Sitting in a theatre full of Ugandans watching a film on African Genocide in a country bordered by the two countries highlighted by the film is a rather emotionally complex experience. Tomorrow I’m headed to a lecture on Globalization and Regionalism in the African Context headed by East African scholars.

In lue of a cultural event you can always find a cold beer and a place to relax. Across the globe there is the Backpackers’ chain of hostels and the one here in Kampala is one of my favorites. It takes a bit to get there like navigating New Taxi park while trying not to get pick pocketed or find yourself arm in arm with a nightworker but it’s worth the effort. The manager is now a dear friend of mine and he’s done his best to show me some of the highlights of the city including surviving thus far. Once your there however, the food is good, the beer is cold, the pool is free and there are various monkeys and foreign girls wondering about ….. what is heaven?

There are literally a few bars and clubs here where you can forget that you’ve ever left the states except for the fact that somehow everything is “expensive” but still dirt cheap. The bars I think literally never close and I must thank God for the 24/7 fried chicken place. Ugandans as a people are amazingly attractive and always willing to strike up a conversation with an absolute stranger (at least one that’s a muzungu) but really they are just an outgoing people so it makes the bars fun. You can also find an array of live music most every night of the week so your options are truly everything from an Irish Pub to Jazz, Pork and Beer to Clubbing, drinks from the club house to playing pool outdoors at a local dive bar. Did I mention it’s always sunny and 75 – 80 everyday … If your really feeling like going home then you can step into 1 of the 3 Casinos in town for free drinks and food as long as you put $10 on the table. The one at the 4 story Garden City Mall sitting on Kampala Golf Course offers the feel of home at a fraction the plane ticket. You can even catch a movie at the movie theater or go bowling at Ally-Gators.

So when I’m not in one of the towns I’m back in my house cooking, cleaning, doing laundry while listening to music. Most nights at home I either read or watch a movie (I’ve got a pretty stellar DVD collection going). I try and get some exercise in a few days a week either by playing soccer or working out at home. Soccer is a huge deal here and a good bit of the little bit of TV I’ve watched here has been devoted to pretending to support soccer outside of Uganda. You can always ruffle a Ugandans feathers by taking jabs at their favorite football club so I try and give William as much grief as possible about those pansies that play for Man. U. The championship is this weekend and he’s going to have a field day with me when they actually win it. But all in all that’s what life is here in Uganda or the best I can summarize it at least. Kaggende (Let me go)!