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Off to the field
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 30 June 2009
Tuesday night is market night and the drums are playing loud on the other side of the compound wall, just a few metres away.
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School sign, Masindi
Blog: Don't give up the day job - 26 June 2009
Not sure if I have already posted this before. Apologies if I'm repeating on you. But amidst all the poor taste Wacko Jacko jokes here's a little light relief from Uganda. Schools, mininbuses, grocery stores, tailors, hardware shops - if you operate a physical 'space' in Uganda, you need to get with the mode and have your very own slogan.Here's my favourite from the road to Murchison.
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Four months in Kampala and am I making a difference?
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 21 June 2009
I've been here four months today. I’m realising now that I won’t be able to achieve anything like what I’d like to.
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Grasshoppers - eat them or smoke them? Discuss.
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 10 June 2009
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 restaurant.Little did I know what I was heading into.
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More Shopping Tales From The Dark Continent
Blog: Don't give up the day job - 5 June 2009
A tale in the same vein as the one where I tried to return three rakes, and only got my money back for the ones that weren't broken...A colleague of ours was telling me a story last week. She wanted to get some skirts made out of the loud, funky Congolese cotton prints that are so beautiful. She'd bought her fabric and found a local seamstress.
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Let Sleeping Hippos Lie
Blog: Don't give up the day job - 4 June 2009
So, I'd seen Lake Albert and, more recently in our last trip to Queen Elizabeth National Park, Lake Edward too. But up until last week I'd never seen Lake George. It seems all the lakes in Uganda are named after old British monarchs and their family. They were re-named after independence, under Amin, but after his own family members, so that was hardly any better and their old colonial names were swiftly restored after his downfall.Maybe, a little cynical bit of me thinks, they thought it would be better for their tourist industry. And they'd probably be right.
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"Living above the shop"
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 28 May 2009
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...
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Don't Try This At Home
Blog: Don't give up the day job - 26 May 2009
One of our more gung-ho guests has just got back from the DRC.
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A girl called Kevin: our guide up Mount Elgon
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 18 May 2009
Four days hiking, 48km, a 3000 metre climb - and a damaged knee ligament on Day One!
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Making a Hash of it
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 2 May 2009
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’ meeting for Africa Hash 2009.
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Or Your Money Back
Blog: Don't give up the day job - 30 April 2009
We bought three garden rakes from a massive supermarket here recently.
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Days of Kings and Leopards
Blog: Don't give up the day job - 28 April 2009
We've just returned from six days exploring Queen Elizabeth National Park out west. Despite both suffering some unknown virus from the day we set off (where's that swine flu tester kit, anyone?) it really was quite spectacular.
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D Day ... and link to more photos
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 19 April 2009
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.
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Chips, Anyone?
Blog: Don't give up the day job - 11 April 2009
Call us hippies if you will, but as soon as we got here we realised that we could develop a way of filtering used vegetable oil from our kitchens and reusing it as fuel for the generator and the Land Rover. So, in our first few months last year, we asked the Kitchen to save all their waste oil in the big yellow jerries. When we had enough to do anything half decent with we'd work on the filtering system.
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Getting the horn
Blog: Don't give up the day job - 11 April 2009
Last October we added the relatively new joy of tracking wild rhinos on foot to the Red Chilli Safari tour. We kept one tour as the tried and tested itinerary, and marketed a new one, called "Big Five on a Budget", which included all the usual game drives and boat launch trips in Murchison Falls National Park (where one has the potential to tick off at four out of the 'big five' game animals), but also tacked on a visit to Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, just off the road between Kampala and Masindi (thereby ticking off rhinos, the remaining member of the 'big five').
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Locomotion commotion
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 5 April 2009
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 proposal. Worked on it most of last w/end and two very late nights / early mornings. It’s for a wee $40k! but 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 …
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The Quad Squad
Blog: Don't give up the day job - 31 March 2009
Last November, when S&J visited, we decided to do something R&I had been saving up for some time. Quad bike safaris up the banks of the Nile, up past Jinja around the Bujagali Falls adventure area.All Terrain Adventures are a company that was set up by an Antipodean couple - the mad and lovely Shirray and PK. He knows his bikes and spanners, she does the hospitality side and runs the craft shop and cafe. They built their house out of the containers the quads got delivered in, and it's an amazing warren of rooms and open plan areas that works really well.
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Bon appetit Simpson! + Disclaimer
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 29 March 2009
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:
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Uganda in pictures UPDATED
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 23 March 2009
Finally, some photos ... !
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And then there were three ...
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 21 March 2009
Last week was frustrating in many ways ... I know I've hardly mentioned it so far with all the other excitement BUT ... I am actually here to do a job too!
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Dealing with insects (aka Therapy with Simpson)
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 16 March 2009
Am getting the upper hand over the mozzies. Score is 2:1 to them (nights that is) and I'm fighting back but last night came eye to eye with a medium sized Unmentionable at the back of my food cupboard. We had the obligatory game of Chase-Me-Charlie and the little fu**er scarpered. (Julie, this one was definitely called Jayco!!)
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I am fed-up
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 13 March 2009
No internet or office phone, nor promise from provider to solve it any time soon.Feeling fat.Sophie (junior) didn’t turn up to work, nor tell anyone she wasn’t coming in.Patrick isn’t in as his kids have all got malaria.Enid has been telling me about the frustrations of Uganda – inefficiency, protecting their jobs, saying sorry but not trying to address situation, refusing to give name of supervisor, not returning calls, blaming other people etc etcSimpson not here to cheer me up.The sun’s gone in!I have no plans (yet) for
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The First Fortnight (is that all it is…?)
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 8 March 2009
Random notes from my diary
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Land of Opportunity
Blog: Don't give up the day job - 21 February 2009
It’s a strange old thing, living the ex-patriate life in Uganda.One of the stranger aspects is that there is opportunity every way you turn. One of the sadder aspects of this strange aspect is that this is mainly because we’re white.It, quite literally, opens doors.
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In the lap of luxury
Blog: Don't give up the day job - 21 February 2009
Bwindi, home of the gorillas, is not a short distance from Kampala. It’s a gruelling 11-12 hour drive. And that’s without a car that’s falling apart…
