This week I travelled to Lira in the north of Uganda to meet one of the partners I will be working with. I travelled with two colleagues and we had some useful and interesting meetings with the partner organisation. I'm sure there is a lot I can do to help build their financial management systems and knowledge. I'm hoping to travel back before Christmas to start to look at setting up a cost centre for their central costs and then allocate these across the various grants that they have.
We left at 6am on Monday morning to try and avoid the worst of the Kampala traffic. There are some major roadworks on the main road to the north on the outskirts of Kampala with a long stretch where there is only a hardcore layer and no tarmac. Uganda also has a lot of speed bumps, particularly where any work is being done on the road. Overall it took us 5 hours to get to Lira with a short breakfast stop on the way. We then had Monday afternoon and all of Tuesday and Wednesday with the partner and then travelled back on Thursday. We weren't able to avoid the Kampala traffic on Thursday so it took 7 hours to get back. But we did stop at a market on the way back and got some excellent fresh fruit and vegetables. I got a large bag of tomatoes for 2000 UGX, which is around 50p.
In Kampala I'm gradually getting settled into the apartment and getting things put away. I need to go back to the furniture market to get some more storage, especially when Glen arrives next week as I've filled up all the spaces already! I've started to use the Boda motorbike taxis as they are the quickest and easiest way to get around. It's definitely the best way to get to work. A 40 minute walk with 2 uphill climbs or a 7 minute motorbike ride? Which would you choose?
Glad it's going well and you're settling in xx
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