A Weekend of Contrasts

So last weekend, in the lenten period for the great celebrations that will accompany the arrival of my sisters (or baganda bange in luganda - I will do a post all about luganda soon - promise), I took a quiet one in town an busied myself with local activities.

Saturday night, I went with some friends from work to see a Caberet sponsered by Alliance Française (where I take my french classes) at a boutique hotel called Emin Pasha, with French hits sung by Joël Prévost, who WON the eurovision song contest in 1978 with the song "Il y aura toujours des violons" ("There Will Always Be Violins"). I mean - how could we NOT go??

It was a great evening, despite the wildly-overpriced food. It was mainly a francophone crowd in attendance and the participation element of the concert became a bit nervewracking as a mircophone began to be enthusiastically passed around the audience. We didn't know any of the songs, but happily clapped along anyway. 

On Sunday we then attended the 3rd National Uganda Motocross Championship at Gayaza. If you thought Africa was all about mud huts and malaria - dream on. Ugandas too have a need for speed! My friend Joseph was racing, as were his too little boys. I won't pretend to know alot about motocross, but the event was REALLY popular and all over the news the next day, as the leading champion had been overthrown.

The track was not lined with proper seating areas, so you had to push to get a good spot... unless you were good at tree climbing! When the crowd in the tree cheered the whole tree shook. But the people watching from beneath didn't seem nervous at all.

The best race of the day was the hotly contested boda-boda race. The winner received 1,000,000/- which is more than a month's salary, so the competition was fierce. However, the drivers took the time to pleased the crowd with a few jumps!

This one's dedicated to my Nan...

So… I’m so so sorry.  Sometimes things happen here – elections / Besigye arrests / murder of homosexuality rights campaigners / documentaries made my Scott Mills… etc and I feel ill equipped to comment on them, but I can't very well write to you guys without mentioning them, or at least how they have been affecting my life. I was imagining writing casually and just throwing in the odd… “…oh and we could hear gunshots from our office today…” “…been riding around this week with my windows up and the AC on because the teargas lingers in the air…” but I was worried about alarming the mummies and the daddies.  Truth is, these things are kinda affecting my everyday life – so I guess I will just bite the bullet (excuse the pun) and write whatever’s happening. I hope you are ready for this? You asked for it!!
 
Anyway, I have two nice travel stories to kick off with, which I have NO EXCUSE for not writing up sooner. None at all…
 
Easter In Kabale, South West Uganda

I had a really nice Easter in Kabale.  I went with a guy called Noah, who did an internship with my company last summer, and his friends from University – one of whom had a mother living in Kabale, who we stayed with.  Being a student trip, it typically started in a bar, and involved a 7 hour coach ride that we commenced at 1am on Good Friday morning (there was a lot of talk of postponing to the 5am coach, but in the end sense prevailed).
 
Cross country coached in Uganda are nothing like the National Express in the UK, they are very cramped; you are surrounded by your luggage, everyone elses luggage, tyres, chickens (live, in plastic bags tied at the neck, to stop ‘em flapping) and odd children that seem to vomit spontaneously in their sleep. There are no seatbelts and they are notoriously dangerous – but you just can’t argue with the price. A 7 hour journey for £5, you could easily pay more going Herne Bay to Canterbury.  So the bus flew along at an alarming speed and we arrived in Kabale at 7:30am in a quasi-drunk, dream-like state.
 
We were picked up and drove straight to Graham’s Mum’s house.  I walked into the living room, and behold! I thought I must be dreaming, I thought it had to be something to do with the lack of fresh air or a horizontal bed, but no, in truth, there it was: A Big Beautiful Knitting Machine!
 
I proclaimed: “Graham, what’s this??”
And he replied (to my complete delight) “Oh, it’s Mum’s, she’s a knitting teacher at a local girls’ vocational college”
 
I quickly scanned the corners of the room for hidden cameras fearing a set-up, but as the actual power was off, it didn’t seem likely.  Imagine that!
 
It was decided that the guys would do all the cooking for the weekend, which suited me just fine… until the great slaughter-fest. I tried to look excited when everyone was talking excitedly about the goat-roast, but the trouble for me was that the poor little one was standing in the garden listening, while we were all talking about it.

 
A local butcher came to the house and slaughtered it for us. Apparently, it is very important to go out and watch.  I didn’t really understand the significance, but I went along anyway – for fear of missing out on anything spectacular… Possibly the biggest mistake: Presumably I had completely forgotten about the fact that I am terribly squeamish? But I soon remembered as I dropped to my knees, and lost consciousness as the metallic stench of blood hit my nostrils. Oh well, at least I’ll be remembered.

 

 

So the weekend otherwise was really relaxed, spent relaxing out in Kabale and visiting Lake Bunyonyi, the deepest lake in Uganda, a really beautiful spot. The altitude in this region actually makes the temperature quite cool.  Being all hardy and British, I didn’t bother to take a jumper – instant regret.

 
 
Kalangala, Ssese Islands

 
So this trip was taken just last weekend.  I organised it through work – but only a couple of people came. Nevermind, with colleagues like these, who needs friends?
 
So our journey began on Friday afternoon, with a drive to Entebbe for the “port”.  Lack of planning and EXTREME JAM slowed us down. And we missed the ferry (the only one of the day) by mere minutes!  We sadly watched it float away as we sipped on our Mirinda Fruity (a refreshing soft drink that tastes and looks freakishly like Vimto… as I type this, the idea of Cheeky Mirinda Fruities slowly dawns on me).  But in Uganda, there is always a plan B, and luckily this came in the form of celebrated Ugandan musician and womanizer Jose Chameleon, who was travelling to the same islands as us by speedboat.  A couple of hours and some big smiles and wads of cash later, and we were on.

We stayed at a great place called Hornbill Camp, where there are little, inexpensive, colourful bandas to sleep in and whiled away the weekend. There were even hammocks – though Alex couldn’t really work them.

On Saturday we took a canoe ride and a hike into the forest (in flip-flops) to seek out John Speke’s house, Kalangala’s only famous former resident.  It looked more like an ancient bit of wall and had a massive tree where the middle of the house was supposed to be, but I get the impression that things grow faster here in Kampala.

A nice bit of knitting
Here is a sneak peak at a bit of knitting that I recently finished… I can’t show you the whole thing – but I think that you can gather that it’s buff.