An A-Z of Uganda (Part 2)

So to continue from where I left it 2 weeks ago.

G
Greetings
Greeting someone properly in Uganda is far more important than saying 'please' or 'thank you'. You should never start speaking to a colleague or a boda driver or someone in the bank or a shop without first greeting them and asking how they are. If you know someone well then you also ask if they have had a good evening or weekend and how their family are.

Goats
Along with chickens and cows, goats are seen in most villages and along the roadside. They are very good at clambering apparently impossible banks or ditches to find a particularly attractive clump of greenery. Goat also features heavily on local menus as a cheap easily available meat. I'm not particularly keen as it's often very bony and grisly.

In the highlands they are easily mixed up with sheep as the 2 look surprisingly similar unlike our fluffy white sheep in the UK.

Grey Crested Crane
A beautiful bird and the symbol of Uganda, appearing in the centre of the flag and on the national crest. They are not particularly common but we've seen them around Kampala and on the shore of Lake Albert in the Murchison Falls National Park as well as in the Wildlife centre in Entebbe.

H
Health Centres
While we've been in Uganda we've learnt to really appreciate the NHS in the UK. Through VSO I have extremely good health cover but for many people, particularly in rural areas, it's a different story. In the area of West Nile I visit from time to time there is only one Health Centre III serving a very large area including many villages. Very few people have any form of motorised transport and the roads can be impassable in the wet season so most people can only walk, or at best cycle, to reach it. Even when they get there an HCIII will often only have a nurse available with the nearest doctor in Nebbi town. Is it surprising that women don't travel for ante natal care and give birth at home in their villages with only traditional supporters and without medical back up?

I
Independence
Uganda gained independence from the UK on 9th October 1962. This is commemorated in many places with the date written on the wall outside the parliament building in central Kampala and in many towns and villages around Uganda. Each year the date is celebrated with a public holiday, parades and feasts. The president attends the celebrations in a different place each year.

The independence monument in central Kampala

J
Jinja
Jinja is probably one of the best known and most visited towns in Uganda after Kampala. The road from Kampala to Jinja is one of the busiest in the country and the journey of around 80km can easily take 3 hours. As well as connecting two of the largest towns in Uganda it is also the main road to the border with Kenya.

Jinja is well known as the place where the Nile leaves Lake Victoria and starts it's long journey to the Mediterranean. Just north of Jinja are many rapids giving some of the best white water rafting in the world. The main centre for rafting used to be at Bujagali Falls but a hydroelectric dam has turned the rapids into a peaceful lake. This is still the area where many of the lodges and camp sites are situated and people who want to go rafting are transported further downstream to the Kalagala Falls.

K
Kampala
Kampala is the capital of Uganda and our temporary home for our 2 years here. It's an interesting city with many contrasts. Just over a year ago there is a blog post on Kampala dated 11 May 2014.

To be continued ...

Thinking of Peaceful Poppleton!

Poppleton is generally so quiet and peaceful, especially at night. There are the occasional parties or people getting home late at night from York, or very occasionally a house or car alarm goes off, but generally you can pretty well guarantee a peaceful night.

Not so in Kampala, even in a relatively quiet suburb like Muyenga. Luckily it's amazing what we've learnt to sleep through. Or we wake up but quickly get back to sleep again and it's only later that we realise just how many different things we heard in the night! In general the challenges are:

1) The gate to the compound. First there is a car hooting, or the sound of knocking and a boda driving away, then the rattle of the gate as the night guard opens and then closes it. Plus of the course the loud greetings and thanks. No one seems to consider people might be sleeping and speak at the same volume day and night.

2) Music. Luckily we are not close to any nightclubs or bars so music is usually at a distance. However, it is normal to go to bed with background music at various levels and also to hear it up to 3 or 4 in the morning.

3) Stray dogs. There is a real problem in Kampala with packs of stray dogs roaming the streets. Not so much of a problem during the day, apart from avoiding them when you are driving, but at night the barking and howling can be very annoying.

4) Cockerels. I thought cockerels only crowed at dawn! Well if so no one has told the ones in Kampala. Nearly every family will have several chickens roaming around their land so cockerel's crowing comes from every direction.

5) General wildlife. Crickets, birds, frogs etc. everything is more prolific and noisier in Africa!

Last night was particularly bad. In the last couple of weeks some builders have started to build a house across the track from the compound where we live. Our landlord has agreed that they can use the compound, which of course has a security guard, to store some of their tools and materials. Builders here work dawn to dusk 7 days a week.

So last night:
Music in the distance until about 2
Midnight - loud banging on the gate, a rattle as the gate opens and a loud conversation in Lugandan
4am - booming music and then hooting as a car arrives and then the rattling as the gate opens and closes
4.15 - An alarm going off in the distance
5.30 - The call to prayer across the valley
6.30 - A very loud preacher with a loudspeaker in the grounds of the international school across the road. We couldn't even understand him as he was speaking in Lugandan, but at least he stopped after about 15 minutes!
7.00 - The builders start work by fetching their wheelbarrows and a barrel full of water out of the compound, with much banging of the gate and conversation in Lugandan.

I wonder how long it will take when we get home before we start taking our peaceful nights for granted again?

An A-Z of Uganda (Part 1)

I've been thinking about an A-Z of Uganda for a while to pick up all of my random thoughts about the placement and, hopefully, to give a real feel of what it's like to live here. This is Part 1 as there will be 4 or 5 parts to cover everything!

A
Ankole cattle

You see these long horned cattle everywhere along the roadside as you travel, or even in the road as here! They are particularly popular in the South West, the Ankole area, and are prized for their long horns.

Avocado
One of the most important fruits in Uganda. There is an avocado tree in the compound at work, which is full of fruit that are just ripening now. I have 3 avocados from the tree sitting in the kitchen ripening.

B
Boda Boda
The motorbike taxis are everywhere, particularly in the towns and cities but you also see them on the roads in the middle of nowhere. They often carry more than one passenger and I've seen whole families, Mum, Dad and 2 or 3 children on a boda. Ladies sit side saddle and look very elegant if slightly unsteady. I'm afraid I've never tried side saddle, I sit astride the boda and hang onto the back rail!!

They carry huge loads, far more than you would think it was possible to fit onto a motorbike. We've seen a 3 piece suite, lots of live chickens, a woman, goat and baby, a bed, a motorbike, the windscreen from a lorry, a solar panel, lots of matoke and a large pile of mattresses. It isn't easy to get pictures but here are some we have managed to catch.

Bananas
Uganda is, I think, the second highest consumer of plantains in the world. But a banana is not just a banana here there are lots of different varieties used for different purposes, in the same way as we have varieties of apples or potatoes. The matoke or savoury green bananas are sold in large bunches and make the mashed savoury banana cooked in banana leaves that is such a feature of lunch buffets here. Then there are beautiful small sweet bananas I had not seen before and the more familiar larger eating bananas.

C
Call to Prayer
A significant minority of the populations are Muslim and there are mosques in most of the towns and larger villages. I love hearing the call to prayer drifting across the valley at around 5.30 in the morning and also in the evening.

Climate Change
Travelling around the country you really notice climate change here. The dry seasons are longer and hotter and the wet season less predictable. The programmes to be delivered in the Sustainable Livelihoods area are starting to focus more on Resilience to Climate Change with training around water retention and irrigation methods. But changes are also needed to reduce the impact on the environment of activities such as charcoal burning and deforestation. Local people need help to find alternative ways to make a living.

Bags of charcoal for sale by the roadside in West Nile

D
Drums
A huge part of African culture, it sometimes feels like life is conducted to a drum beat. In the centre behind the house they have a traditional dance troupe, who practice on Saturday mornings and we hear the drum beat drifting down the hill.

Driving
Driving in Uganda and in much of Africa and other countries such as India, is just not like driving in Europe. Cars rarely keep to their own side of the road crossing to the other side to overtake or avoid potholes, often with little warning. Traffic comes straight out from a turning without even looking let alone giving way to traffic on the main road. Ugandan drivers are very impatient and will overtake on the inside or outside or both without a thought for traffic coming the other way. Glen somehow copes with it all, I will only drive on the quiet local roads to and from work!

E
English
English is the official language of Uganda, a fact for which I am very grateful. I have never had a problem talking to people as everyone speaks English, usually very well. Understanding the different accents on the telephone can be a challenge but everyone is used to me now and understands my English accent a bit better.

F 
Farming
In a country where something like 80% of the population earn their living from farming, of which the majority are subsistence farmers, farming skills are incredibly important. Sadly many of the people we are working with are relatively recent returnees from the IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps, where they stayed during the war in the north of Uganda. They only came back to their villages around 5 to 7 years ago and many of the skills normally passed from parent to child had been lost. Our partners are working with farmers groups to teach skills and give initial inputs so that they can start again. I was astonished to see oxen and ox ploughs featuring in the budgets and expenditure for the programme. Then a couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to get a picture.

 (I know I included this picture only a couple of weeks ago but it's a worth a second look!)

May Day

The first of May is a public holiday in Uganda to celebrate international Labour Day. This year the holiday fell on a Friday, giving a 3 day weekend. A volunteer I arrived with 18 months ago, but who was only here for 9 months, has come back to Uganda for a holiday. There were also several other friends visiting Kampala for a long weekend.

The weekend started with a curry evening at our flat on Thursday evening while we planned our days out. Then on Friday morning we drove over to Acacia Mall. This is a new, very smart mall in an area of Kampala where a lot of the embassies are located. Working escalators, glass lifts, smart cafes and patisseries! It's where we go when we feel the need for a bit of luxury!

There is also a cinema at the mall so we were meeting up with 4 volunteers and ex volunteers to see a film. We decided on The Avengers and bought tickets for after lunch and 3D glasses. Not my first choice of film but it was actually a good escapist adventure for a bank holiday afternoon. We found somewhere for lunch and were a little apprehensive about whether the food would arrive in time but it did and was very good.

After lunch we all met up with someone else for a drink and long chat in The Bistro. We finished the evening sharing wood fired pizzas back in Muyenga.

A lovely day and a good rest from my placement, which is a little hectic at the moment.