food glorious food?

Food is one of those central things here,people eat a lot,and fairly regularly.
breakfast is usually a light affair eggs, sausages, bread and jam and tea or instant coffee,there is always some fruit.In the middle of the morning there is tea or coffee or porridge(maize meal soup) and toasties or chapatis or fried cassava,and groundnuts. Lunch is a monster meal matooke(mashed up steamed green bananas) which has the consistency of mashed spud but less, if possible, nutritional value! rice boiled to extinction,beans , generally excellent, mashed spud(irish), and soup probably originally meat. There is also a pink sauce which is made from ground nuts.Meat is usually cooked to death so tapeworms are avoided,and pork(or goat) served up crispy as a muchomo,or kebab.The evening meal is usually much as that at midday only slightly smaller quantities.The volunteers all tried cooking yesterday and actually it wasn't at all bad,if for no other reason than Ugandans traditionally dont use oil and we also had a Phillipino and an Indian who did their own culinary thing with fish and eggplants.Ugandans also eat lots of fruit which is fabulously fresh and cheap.
What was missing was the occasional insect,not just visiting but deliberately included;at road junctions and rugby matches men and others wander round with tupperware boxes with odd things in them,Grasshoppers,a great treat!(and now you know what happened to all that Tupperware)
When it rains and you leave a light on so arrive vast numbers of flying ants which in the morning have all shed their wings and expired. Eva our lady what 'does'collects them up and hands them to Joseph the factotum ,guard and everything else who washes them ,fries them and they then tuck in . There are several different types of ant, some ants ,some termites, some just things that fly,Eva tells me that they are all very tasty and recommended, as are grasshoppers and if I buy some would I bring some for her? I tell her that people in some parts of Africa eat locusts.
"OOH," she says," locusts,oh no urgh.!"

I'm not sure about grasshoppers!

And here are the hippos and buffalo. Rob says I must mention that this very exciting and luxurious trip was only possible using his hard earned savings, not my meagre VSO allowance. They do say however, that I married well!!

Boat trip in Queen Elizabeth National park on the Kazinga Channel between Lake Edward and Lake George (all sounds so African??). It was a great trip and we saw hippo, buffalo and this elephant!

Easter break

The albertine rift, extending from the north of Uganda through Rwanda and all sorts of other bits.The drive from Kampala is about six hours, four to Fort Portal (General Portal not a gateway) then two down the escarpment ;186 hairpin bends, ok as long as you don't meet a lorry coming the other way.What you do meet are Toyota Corrolla's with twelve passengers and pickups loaded with stuff and stacked high with people,or is it loaded with people and stacked high with stuff (matooke grain goats water fuel all at once). In the far distance you can see the Ssemliki Plateau and rainforest, where we are heading. Lovely walk but sadly the chimps had left their nests, probably because it was raining!

Ggaba Demonstration Primary School

This is Primary Five Class (P5) children of around 10+ years old as some have joined late or not passed end of term exams to move up to P6. On this day there were 107 children present all squashed 5 or 6 to each bench. They stand to greet each visitor "This is P5 class, welcome to our visitor, please feel at home!" They then wait for a response. When I say, "thank you please sit" they giggle and sit! On the following day I returned to observe teaching practice students to find many children heading away from school. The class size had shrunk to a mere 68!! On making enquiries I was told that it was time to pay school fees and they were on their way home! There is Universal Primary Education here but they still have to pay fees. This school at least has buildings with roofs and concrete floors, no glass in the windows though and a play area which would not pass health and safety back home!

The Bishop's Thunderbox

Those familiar with you correspondent will be aware that he may no be the world's most openly religious individual,so you will forgive a degree of irreverence in this post.Janice works at Ggaba Primary Teachers training college.This is a catholic Church owned college which has fought hard to maintain its independence,and has at last been able to offer teaching diplomas recognised by two prestigious Ugandan Universities ,and not just church aided ones. So I was honoured and not a little surprised to find myself invited to attend the second graduation in four years, at which some 2,000 students past and present under and post graduate were awarded their diplomas and certificates. This ceremony was to take place in the presence of the Bishop of Kampala ,who was unfortunately otherwise engaged so the "ordinary"took his place( I am by no means sure what an ordinary was but it seems he is some form of deputy.
There was great discussion amongst the staff that that Bishop was to be provided with a personal thunderbox (it arrived on the back of a decent sized lorry), no great surprise as the alternative was the long drop toilets around the campus, awful is not enough and awesome probably sums it up.TK was moved to comment that it was bigger than most peoples houses.
The day commenced with a mass no bells or anything just every time the ordinary raised the host the crowd applauded, they applauded the sermon, the offertory,and when everyone wishing to do so had taken communion, again a somewhat random affair with the various clergy present wandering around with chalices and donating the contents to whoever came next ,they applauded again. the whole thing was done with an enormous exuberance which I think only Ugandans can match.
At the end the graduation took another two hours with lists of students being read out and applauded, a few more hymns and anthems, one for Buganda, one for Uganda and one for the college,and more applause we went off to dinner.
the Ordinary said grace to more applause and we ate a celebratory Ugandan feast at which for some reason I was not allowed any meat, it was a Friday (several of the crowd, students etc had called me "Father" which may have explained it). More prayers and applause and the ordinary went home. Inevitably someone asked whether or not he had used the thunderbox,which he had not.TK had the key and gave evidence to this example of religious continence, remarking that he might as well take it home as he needed another bedroom.

mutatus boda bodas and privates

Public transport is fun,here.basically there are boda bodas, cheap quick and lethal,mutatus slower cheap and uncomfortable,and privates or specials quicker more comfortable and ok.
A boda is a semiretired Honda 50 or similar usually driven by a helmetless bloke who scoots along the road looking back at anyone walking along shouting 'boda sebo' over his shoulder,roughly thats a request for you to act as his passenger.Now VSO realise that these are dangerous so no volunteers are allowed to use them,so of course none of us do ever ever(really!).
the down side of it is that today we came across one on its side with apssenger looking rather sad but in one piece, the driver definitely looking poorly.It was just outside theUganda Red Cross clinic which was open, so of course no one stopped. "ooh" said Henry who was our special driver "ver dangerous boda bodas ,always come second"
A special is a private cab,they are a bit more expensive,actually a lot more save that the maths mean that a 80k round trip to the Entebbe Botanical gardens beautiful place only cost 20 quid return for two of us, plus a soda for Henry.A taxi from home to the station cost us 10.00 the day before we left UK.
mutatus are superannuated Toyota Hi ace minibuses which the Japanese would have dumped in Japan but they recondition them and dump them here instead, they vary hugely although recently many of them have new seat covers and a few newish ones have appeared.The fares are cheap but the fare structure a little random,you pay more to go home from Kampala in the evening than to get in in the morning.Gaba where Janice works is 500 or 300 or 700 (first time only Muzungu price) depending on the Kondikator (say it quickly) or whether the Dereva (say that quickly as well) is having a bad day or its raining.
Today I got into a mutatu with the message on its windscreen "Guided by God" as it wove around the potholes horn blaring and kondikator waving at potential customers it was followed by another called "Fear God" third in the queue was another called "Inshallah" which sums up transport in Kampala. Happy Easter to all, and no Alan I don't think I would want that particular ref doing that to me with ten seconds to go in any case I would have taken the three and settled for a draw.