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Slumming it, Kampala style
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 28 January 2012
Rubbish collection is managed privately in Kampala: you pay through the nose for a private contractor to collect your rubbish once a week. Local people just burn their rubbish, and maybe that’s all the private contractors do? And so, a week after moving house, and reluctant to burn, I asked Alex how I could dispose [...]
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Check out the Muzungu’s Best of 2011!
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 1 January 2012
If 2011 was busy, 2012 looks set to be busier still! Here are a few of 2011′s highlights (if you don’t hate me by now …) TRAVELLING – Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Ethiopia, Turkey – and of course, Uganda. Kenya - The Naivasha Relay (84km from Nairobi to Lake Naivasha) is one of the highlights of Nairobi [...]
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The Muzungu meets Wandering Trader in Kampala
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 3 December 2011
Wandering Trader Marcello wandered into Kampala last week. He’s a fellow travel blogger I saw he was in East Africa and made contact. Now that I work for a tour operator, we swapped e-mails about gorilla trekking in Uganda, what to do in Kampala, etc. I’d said he could stay for a couple of nights. [...]
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Lonely Planet votes Uganda No. 1 for 2012!
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 2 November 2011
This is my shortest post ever – the title says it all! I’m so delighted to be part of something that is helping promote this beautiful country, and her fabulously warm and welcoming people. I’ve been voting for Uganda every day since I arrived two and a half years ago. “We go, we go, Uganda [...]
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Kampala to Nairobi – 14 hours of speed bumps
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 30 September 2011
It was a terrible night’s sleep – a 14 hour bus journey from Kampala to Nairobi: I awoke cold, cold and achey. The speed bumps shuddered us awake every few minutes. I swear I woke a hundred times. A few glasses of Waragi (it was my birthday after all) would have knocked me out, but [...]
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The real ‘boda boda’ – Nagawa travels sidesaddle into Kenya
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 29 September 2011
There were plenty of seats on the bus – so why does the big man always have to sit next to me? Immediately, he reclined his seat and wedged two greasy paper bags between us. “Do you even have an apple to eat?” he asked me and then proceeded to eat fried chicken from one [...]
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Still counting myself lucky! 2 years on …
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 28 September 2011
As I stumble home through the craters of Tarmac, alternately blinded by oncoming motorbikes and plunged into darkness, thanks to yet another power cut (who knows how long for this time) I count myself lucky: for the last two and a half years as a volunteer, I’ve essentially worked from home in a quiet, controlled [...]
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Last days as a volunteer . . .
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 18 September 2011
“Watch that binge drinking!” warned Mum, on our last phone call. Fact is, I’m making up for the binge working I’ve been doing recently: trying to tie up my last projects with UCF, recruiting and training my replacement, and looking for a job. I’ve always felt there are lots of opportunities in Uganda, but when [...]
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Dark And Light: Naked
Blog: Where the road goes - 7 September 2011
[Taken from the Ugandan Journals] Come morning, I sleep in until I can’t possibly anymore. Claw my pillow until every inch of tiredness has been attended to. Then brushing teeth in the damp, green cupboard of a communal bathroom, sitting on a top-loading washing machine that abuts the shower. Then breakfast. I’m surprised that there’s [...]
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Somebody ill, somebody dead – start of another week
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 12 July 2011
I found it hard to get up today; I lost count of the number of times I put the snooze on. I enjoy seeing the sunlight filter through the new curtains I made from the scarves I bought in Ethiopia. I get up and unbolt the heavy metal at the back of the house, and [...]
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Kampala’s thirsty policemen
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 1 July 2011
Why is it that I’ve been stopped twice in two weeks, driving down the same stretch of Namuwongo Road at night? Incident #1 It’s not far from my house to the centre of town. As the (local) Pied Crow flies, it’s probably only a mile or two but, in a developing country where virtually the [...]
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Warning – this blog contains snakes!
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 18 June 2011
When I suggested to the team that we all have a day out together at the Reptiles Village in Entebbe, organised by Nature Uganda, we were equally split down the middle: two for, two against. Enid’s words were in fact “No way, I’m not giving up my Saturday to see snakes!” After the office was [...]
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Erection* fever part III – acting notorious
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 31 May 2011
“The police is there to secure and guide you – unless you are notorious” said a spokesman on TV. The State’s love of violence plus Ugandans’ desire to film everything make a potent combination. It was a despicable sight: plainclothes ‘securitymen’ smashed the windows of Kizza Besigye’s car and showered him with pepperspray – directly [...]
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Microlending Behind the Scenes: How MFIs Judge Credit Worthiness
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 5 May 2011
By Nila Uthayakumar, KF14, Uganda, With the help of several other Fellows in the field I’ve met all kinds of borrowers. From age 16 to 76; from orphans to a former beauty queen; from potato sellers to auto parts saleswomen to motorcycle transportation tycoons. I’ve met them in urban slums, in villages, in homes, on [...]
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Ethiopia calling me – from my sickbed
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 3 May 2011
Two days before I fly to Ethiopia, and I’m lying in bed with a temperature. I’ve a bed in Addis Ababa and someone to pick me up to the airport – but I still haven’t got a plane ticket. Some mix-up at the bank. My debit card was refused on Friday, and after two long [...]
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Shotgun wedding – a surreal and intense day
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 1 May 2011
The word surreal is overused. But let me run this scenario past you, and I wonder if you – like me – would feel your brain split down the middle. There’s no way around it, Friday was an intense day. It started off well – we had a plan. The plan was that we would [...]
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The son-in-laws I never knew I had: funeral of my namesake, Jaja
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 20 April 2011
Anxious not to arrive halfway through another Ugandan funeral, I decided to check that “4 o’clock” means the same for me as it does for my Ugandan friend Harriet. I’m glad I called: the 4 p.m. service had been brought forward by two hours and is 40 km outside Kampala; there’s the service in town [...]
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Just don’t cry out ‘Thief!’
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 5 April 2011
6.20 a.m. and it’s still pitch black outside. It’s a heaving sweaty mess; we need rain. The Woodland Kingfisher’s piercing call fills the compound and I hear the unmistakeable cawing and crowing of the Ibis as they fly over the marshes in the distance. The first cockerel rouses me at 5.40 a.m. I have a [...]
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My Heart has Taken Root
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 31 March 2011
Nila Uthayakumar, KF14, Uganda My Rough Guide to Kenya has been open face down on my desk for the past few days. My time in Uganda has been incredible. I have seen and experienced so much in such a short period. Like my life has been on fast forward. This country captured me instantly. Drew [...]
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Erection* fever part II – feeling the heat
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 5 March 2011
Election season is dragging. No last-minute public holiday announced for today’s local election. Shame, we could have all done with a day off to escape the heat. It’s hot, sticky and dusty. Unusually there is also a strong wind, firing dust and dirt across the road as we walk. The clean floors of the house [...]
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Video Blog: The Kiva Story
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 2 March 2011
By Nila Uthayakumar, KF 14, Uganda Nila is a Kiva Fellow living in Kampala, Uganda. She looks forward to working with several Kiva partner MFIs in Uganda and Kenya over the next few months. Filed under: Africa, blogsherpa, KF14 (Kiva Fellows 14th Class), Micro Credit Development Trust SACCO (MCDT), Uganda Tagged: Borrowers, interview, Kampala, [...]
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Video Blog: The Story of Lini Nanyonga
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 21 February 2011
By Nila Uthayakumar, KF 14, Uganda Nila has just arrived in Kampala, Uganda after having spent six months in Zanzibar, Tanzania last year. She considers East Africa home now, and looks forward to working with several Kiva partner microfinance institutions throughout the next few months in Uganda and Kenya. Filed under: Africa, blogsherpa, KF14 (Kiva [...]
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In Defense of “High” MFI Interest Rates: Part II
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 14 February 2011
By Nila Uthayakumar, KF 14, Uganda On the one-year anniversary of Eva Wu’s blog post entitled In Defense of “High” MFI Interest Rates, I was inspired to write a post on this exact topic. The date of this post is a coincidence, as I was actually inspired by the concerns of a group of friends [...]
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A new start for the Sudanese but 'same same' for Ugandans
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 8 February 2011
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A new start for the Sudanese but ‘same same’ for Ugandans
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 8 February 2011
Welcome South Sudan! With 98% of the Sudanese voting ‘yes’ to partition of the country, I look forward to a new stamp on my passport. There are nine days to go to the presidential elections here in Uganda. The walls, lampposts and Palm trees are plastered with election posters. This nascent democracy (I’m being generous) [...]
