Prince hits Hop Farm

Prince – Hop Farm, 3rd July.

A few weeks ago now, yes, but an occasion I shan’t forget. Prince on stage on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Kent, pleasuring Lord knows how many thousand people, young and (mostly) older. And the old man – 53!-  looked to be having just as good a time as me, my brother Spencer and friend Jess, who had been drawn from Birmingham and Bristol to witness this event.

The reviews are already out. Gig of the year, best thing since sliced bread, a living legend, and so on. And all true, in my humble musical purple-tinted opinion.. I am considering getting my first tattoo since that gig. Mother isn’t best pleased, but I’m quite sure that I’ll still be as into his music in 50 years time. Only problem – will the Prince symbol still look as good on a bingo wing as on my current toned swimmer’s arms? Erm. I’ll think a little longer on it.

As a late addition to the festival, the tickets to see Prince were not cheap – £70 + £10 booking fee) and festival goers who had already booked tix for the original Fri & Sat only Hop Farm -had to pay extra to get the Purple Popmeister on the Sunday. When looking around that day as we hung out at the main stage and drank 7% cider, it seemed everyone was there just for the day, to see him (resisting the urge to use a capital ‘H’ – is that some sort of blasphemy?). This felt good. Like we belonged! And even though the excitement began to wane a tiny bit and the sore back set as his scheduled start time came and went, it was all forgotten once he made it to stage. He broke out all the classics, too many to mention, and truly moved me.

Prince worked the crowd, his voice as versatile and powerful as ever. He screamed, played guitar, shook his bum, and serenaded us, and his lovely band. His all female (bar the drummer) hot female band… I began to wonder where he might find such a beautiful crew of talented musicial ladies. No denying their talents – the music was tight – but I wondered if Prince chose them by looks or musical talents first..? Could the music have been even more electric by swapping out some of the gorgeous brown-skinned ladies for a more rough and ready bunch of jazz / funk musicians…? He kept saying ‘this is real music, we are real musicians’. He wouldn’t lie to us, would he?!

Only way to compare is to get to more gigs. Though the price isn’t quite as reasonable as the 2007  02 gigs, priced at £31.21 (to complement his album: 3121). While we, the humble fans, age with the passage of time, Prince seems to be to free from this condition. And I absolutely refuse to believe the awful rumours he may have had ‘work done’! The man represents youth, excitement, and soul to me. I reckon I’ve heard more of his voice and words than that of my own mother. Crazy to think it, I know. And as long as I’m around, I’m going to be listening. Because regardless of what his backing singers and beautiful band may or may not be, he is a real musician, and a true star. The likes of which are unmatched. There are no contenders. The purple corner wins, hands down.

The London Button

Back to It

Two months since the end of my African Adventure – it’s about time I wrote something.

From the moment I touched down in London, things were go. I dumped the bags, grabbed a shower and a sit down at the Lad’s and then hit the streets. Straight out to a good friend’s birthday drinks. Yes, back for mere hours, and I found myself in the pubs of the east end with a Leffe in hand. No flies on me…

The very next day, I began working on some freelance writing work that I’d set up whilst in Uganda. And a few days after that, it was back to full time work at the BBC.

In some ways being back was initially a shock to the system: the food, the cold, the amount of booze we drink, white children! But in many other ways it’s as if the first three months of the year may not have happened, that I may have imagined it all. Being back in London, safaris, jigga worms that burrow and grow in the soles of the feet, the red dust, and the wonderful children I worked with, all feel, now, so very far away. London doesn’t allow much time for reflection. It only has a go button, no slow down and certainly no stop. if you don’t keep on going, you might fall off.

On the Tube, a nonchalant voice comes over the speaker to announce that there are delays to the northern line because there’s a person under a train at Finchley Central. The people on the platform tut and sigh, and shake their heads at the news. Not in regret, but in annoyance that their journey is going to take 15 mins longer than usual. And I think about how unhappy that person must’ve been to do such a thing, and about the people they may have left behind. But London has no time to stop and think. It only has a go button.

I hear a piece of news from Malaika Babies House here and there, about a child I hugged, help feed, held as we waited to see a doctor. These affirm that my experiences out there were indeed very real, but a world away from my current one. I’m not sure in which I should be…

It’s my good friend’s birthday. It’s a long weekend in London. Another day of drinking, of chat and of catching up, and excess.

A storm brewing…

The last week has flown by with worrying speed but I wanted to grapple a few things out of the whirlwind and pin them down…

Malaika Revisits…

I have been fortunate enough to get back  out on the road to see once more a few Malaika Babies Home children I’d visited on previous home visits. I wrote some time ago about the little lad who lived with family in a dirt floor hut in Mityana, and how he cried when we left. Our Head Social Worker and I went back to see him and the family, and was happy to hear he was now going to school. We took him for a quick check up at the Surgery, our Practice of choice in Kampala, run by the renowned Dr Stockley. The little boy was still very solemn. The fact he had to have few blood tests did not endear us to him. We sweetened him with a trip to the refined Rocks and Roses cafe next door for a glass of milk and some divine honey on nutty bread. Still – when we dropped him back home this time there were no tears. A great sign. We waved the little chief and his family goodbye and got in the car. It wouldn’t start.

Breaking down is usually no real biggie – you just call the AA, or the equivalent and they come and sort you out. There is no such thing out here.  And we were out in the sticks. I enlisted the help of a few passersby to help me push the heavy as lead 4×4. No joy. We then paid a local – seemingly drunk and with jitters – to help us find a local mechanic. He wobbled off into the sunset with 5000ugx. The sky was darkening, and a wind began to whip up. A storm was coming.

We waited. Another local came upon us. This lady was also drunk and happy about it. She began to beg from us – not for money, but for a drink. ‘Nedda, nyabo’, we said. We have nothing, madam. She finally got bored and also trundled away, to our relief. Another man approached us with a smile, this time not drunk, but with a hand out. Where was our mechanic?!

looking healthy at Elizabeth Hse

Some 50 mins later, a boda turns up ferrying a man in work clothes. Our mechanic had turned up! Also drunk. Another truck approached then stopped, unable to get passed us as we straddled the entire dirt track. Thankfully, they ran two batteries, and with the help of the mechanic (who mercifully still seemed to have most faculties about him), a few dangerous looking sparks and a screwdriver, they got the engine running. Just in time, as huge blobs of rain began to descend and the sky grew ever darker… We bolted for home.

Just yesterday I went back to Elizabeth House to revisit our precious boy with cerebral palsy who had come into Malaika Babies Home emaciated and on the point of death. Elizabeth House takes care of disabled children in wonderfully green and open grounds. When we arrived, our young one was sat in a soft chair looking spiffy – and fat! Though he had done well at Malaika House and come to a healthy weight, he is now chubby. He no longer needs a drip to take food, and is looking in great shape. Such a relief to see him thriving.

The North South divide

the obligatory picture

Some colleagues and I decided we wanted to go be tourists and go take a trip to the equator. It lies quite near to Kampala– about 90 mins by car. We decided to go get the obligatory picture, lunch and a good coffee from the cafe we were told lay near. We arrived at the Equator –  somewhat disappointing two concrete rings on either side of the road to mark it. We parked the car outside the cafe – teeming with mzungus (of course) and suddenly felt very self conscious and a little foolish. After driving all that way, we sped through two pictures each, mortified to be there composing silly poses. 30 seconds after arriving, we were done and off to the cafe for lunch to hide our embarrassment behind a face full of chapatti chips and guacamole.

 

Here comes the rain again…

This last week has seen a dramatic change in the weather. I don’t want to end a blog on something as mundane as the weather, but that’s just it. Here, the weather isn’t

rain washed away the road..

mundane. It isn’t pedestrian. It’s intense and severe. The week began with an earthquake. And, after months of stifling, coma inducing heat, we are now sheltering from incredible downpours. Rain that turns the streets into rivers, and washes away tarmac. Rain that brings bugs, lots of bugs, and gives you goose bumps. Will the wall fall over? Will the car make it up the road? Will this boda slip out from under us and splay us in the mud? This ties into the madness in Japan, and the quake in Christchurch. It’s all so unsettling and a little bit biblical.  It’s strange this turn is happening now – just a few weeks before I go home. It’s like working in a grey London in February all over again. And all the staff are subdued. The power of the sun. Of predictably good weather. I hope there’s some on my return to see me back into real life gently…

Safari at Murchison Falls

 

So many things to kill you…

I almost never made it on safari last weekend. I had already been once while in India a few years back, and safaris aren’t cheap. But this was Africa! I decided to throw financial caution to the wind, and book myself onto a 3 day trip to Murchison Falls, a national park a good 300km north of Kampala.

And I’m so glad I did. A totally thrilling few days awaited me. I went with a backpackers and safari company called Red Chilli, who

Enjoying the view from the van

have accommodation in Kampala, and a Rest Camp in Murchison. I passed over my all inclusive dollars and let them take the strain. I was picked up from central Kampala on Friday morning, and jumped on the minivan with the 6 other mzungu I’d be hanging out with for the rest of the weekend. When I booked the trip over the phone, I asked the lady how I’d spot the right van that was coming to get me. Her reply: ‘it’ll be the van full of young white people with the black driver. She wasn’t wrong. Three blonde leggy Swedes on the back row, and a lanky American neurology with his knees somewhere round his ears towards the front, a pale Malaysian lady, and an Indian American whose name was made up of parts of her mother and fathers’ first names…

 

An 8 hour journey in the van, the heat rising, was never going to be a joy. We spent an awful 2 hours of that waiting for lunch at a travellers’ inn in Masindi, just over halfway to the Rest Camp. It took us 40 minutes to get the bill after first asking. But just a few hours after awful lunch was behind us, we reached the Rest Camp at Paraa. The first thing to strike me was the temperature. It was almost 5pm, and it was still around 30°c. Hot, sweaty and tired, we 7 slumped into the soft seats in the shade overlooking the Nile. Cold Cokes all round.

Before the light left for the day, me and my odd collections of safari buddies decided to walk down the Nile bank just ten minutes away, and see what we could see. Just stood there, we saw pods of hippos, wallowing in the shallow waters all along the bank. Snorting, growling, farting. Paraa we learnt meant the place of Hippos. It felt like we were in their living room. On the far bank – the South bank, we saw a herd of elephants ravaging their way through the greenery. In the water uncomfortably close to us, we saw the eyes of a lone crocodile. The safari the next day boded well.

We were told to give up any food or snacks before going to bed – the animals could sniff out even a single biscuit in the bottom of a bag, we were told. I took a shower – the water red with iron ore – and came out feeling only slightly cleaner.  A bottle of Club and a huge plate of veggie curry and bed beckoned. The heat in the tent was stifling, and it took some time to get to sleep.

 

Night creatures

Around 3am, the silence was broken by a hippo trundling through the camp looking for greenery (and biscuits) to snaffle. It is the dry season, and animals do what they can to find food. Our accommodation was a furnished tent. Not the sturdiest structure, and the sides were open leaving just mesh sides to catch whatever little breeze we could. I was frightened – these animals are huge, and there was one outside the door. The lamps we left burning outside were supposed to deter animals from entering the tent, but what if I’d left some peanutty snacks at the bottom of my bag..?! I lay perfectly still, eyes wide open, ears horribly attuned to the rustlings and hoof-fall outside. They faded, and I eventually fell asleep.

Morning on the South bank

A few hours later at 5.45am it was still pitch black, the stars were still glorious, and I dragged myself out of bed to get ready for safari. It is so hot out there in the day, the animals are most active in the cool of the night, hence the unsociable hours. Me and my car crew mates dragged ourselves back into the van and headed for the ferry crossing to the South bank. By this time it was around 6.30, and the huge red sun rose quickly over the Nile. On the south bank, our guide George jumped on board, far too energetic for such a time in the morning. An old pro, he reeled of his pitch with charm, and said good naturedly that if he us found a lion today a nice big ‘bonus’ would be welcomed. He found a lot to laugh at, including us young white and knackered mzungu, and finished off most of his sentences with a high pitched ‘hee’ which was infectious.

 

The Savanna

We set out across the wide plains of the savannas and soon came across herds of buffalos, giraffes and elephants. So beautiful to see them roaming so comfortably and freely. I again had the sensation that we were definitely firmly in their grounds and on their terms, and it was such a privilege to be allowed in.

 

Elephants at lunch

George somehow spotted a leopard high up in the tree, its tail dangling down was the only thing to be seen by the time everyone else saw it. Exciting none the less. On the final push, George led us cross country, asking other trackers we passed about any lion sightings. George stood up and hung out of the window of the van, ‘looking where the antelope were looking’, he said.

 

I could see nothing on the horizon, I could see nothing in front or around us. But we drove with purpose, George obviously knowing something we didn’t. We suddenly stopped at a bush. I saw nothing. ‘He’s there’, George said. In there. I looked harder, and I could make out a huge nose and tongue hanging loose out of a panting mouth. A huge male lion lay keeping cool in there. We were shocked into gasps and wows. A few more vans had followed us to this point, and mzungus were hanging out of their roofs, zooming their uber cameras in as close as possible to the bush. Thinking that was as much as we were going to see and getting ready to move on, the huge lion then stirred and sauntered out of the bush, disturbed by our presence but not threatened. He simply swaggered away, his undercarriage swaying, across the grass lands to find another bush. He was beautiful.

King of the jungle

And with that, the trip was complete. We had seen everything we could have hoped for. It was around 10am and tiredness set in as the heat became more acute. Weary but smiling, we headed back to the rest camp for lunch, another shower, and reflection.

That afternoon, a 4 hour boat trip along the Nile towards Murchison Falls was wonderful, getting up close to more elephants on the bank, to so many hippos as they wallowed in the shallows, and huge Nile crocodiles on the banks that resembled something from

your worst nightmare. And birds… so many birds, including a Bee Eater so colourful it fooled the bees into thinking it was a flower.

By the end of the day I was exhausted, but so happy to be there. We swapped stories with other safari groups, compared notes, all

equally chuffed and sunburnt. The long journey home on Sunday was dosey, content, and mercifully cool as we went through a welcome rainstorm. A whirlwind weekend. Then the alarm was going off, and it was Monday morning again before I knew it…

Ssese Islands Election Escape…

Last week, presidential election fever grabbed the nation, and scared the pants off the mzungus in Kampala. To limit worry for the Child’s I organisation, and to be safe, the volunteers working at Malaika Babies Home departed for the Ssese Islands. Some 80 odd islands, some dense in jungle, some at only 2km wide, all floating about at the northern end of Lake Victoria. We left the city early on Thurs morning headed for the port in Entebbe. The day before elections, we were expecting there to be some kind of trouble. There was none, and we arrived at the Nakiwogo ferry port in a good 3 hours early. Got to put into practise my African ‘waiting’, which is always nice.

Buggala Island

Buggala beach

The ferry crossing to the main Island – Buggala – was packed, people going back to the Islands where they were registered to vote, a group of undesirable drunken mzungu youth from somewhere in north America, and a smattering of other European faces, all escaping the mainland and the fear of violence. 3.5 hours later (this felt like longer after some time being squished in a corner and sat on a wooden slat bench) we arrived at Lutoboka port on the Buggala island. A walk off the boat and a five minute stroll into town (a few wooden huts) and we were in a huge garden, noisy with bird song, and with cottages arranged neatly in the shade of the trees in the garden. Panorama Cottages, family owned, and run by the most pleasant man I’ve come across in a very long time. Breakfast at whatever time we wanted it. Tea and cake at whatever time of night we desired. Hot water for showers delivered to the door. Arnold: you’re a star.

The port we came into lay on the main beach area, a collection of 6 or 7 small beaches, separated by greenery creeping from the forest on to the beach. Very quiet, very relaxed. There really wasn’t much to do there, and that was fine with us. After the heat, dust and election stress in Kampala, it was an absolute relief to be somewhere we could just breathe. And this we did for three nights, practising our waiting, especially at meal times. As the resorts were so quiet, what would be the point in having kitchen staff?! But with nowhere to rush off to, we managed okay.

We listened to the radio carefully whilst away. Election day came and went. The results came in – a Museveni (rigged) landslide – and went, seemingly peacefully. The ‘man with the hat’ had triumphed again. 25 years in the game, though not the game of free and fair elections. I began to feel a little guilty that we had left colleagues working hard on the mainland, looking after 25 abandoned children. The election trouble we were escaping didn’t seem to have materialised. We cut our Buggala trip short, and headed for our second island – Banda. This involved chartering a motorised fishing boat at considerable cost (£30 – more than national express!) to take me and my colleague an hour across the lake in the blazing sun.

Banda Island

Banda Island back beach

An eccentric Kenyan mzungu – Dom, ex gold and diamond miner, sociable heavy smoker and drinker, engineer extraordinaire,

decides to buy an entire island and have people come to stay. He builds stone cottages on the beach for his guests, a huge stone donut in the woods with a 360° view, with just a throne in the middle that acts as the w/c. For himself, Dom builds a stone castle with huge windows and doors, making for lake views all around. On the beach lies a boat he built, that used to be the biggest floating vessel on the lake. It’s now shipwrecked on the sand, home to a range of creepers and crawlers, and is a better ornament than a garden gnome. A huge dining table and bench the length of a badminton court, made from single pieces of wood. A pack of dogs keeping guard and guests company, abandoned on the mainland, ferried over to him for recuperation and a subsequent life of island foraging and adventure.

the Dutchman and the Tanzanian

The resort was quiet. There was king Dom, me and my workmate Josie, two teenage American Woofers that cleared land for pineapple for 2 hours out of the day and relaxed for the rest, a huge Dutchman named Bert who was prone to skinny dipping, a Tanzanian miner who had worked with Dom in the past, a pleasant but very methodical German guy who helped run the place and who suffered an horrendous attack from safari (meat eating) ants, and a 70 year old Canadian who looked at least 20 years younger, often condescending without malice, but impressive enough to still be jaunting through black Africa on his own. An odd bunch, oddly assembled on a tiny rock.

We ate three very large meals a day, enough for seconds and sometimes thirds – pasta, stew, salads, baked taters – and used as few calories as is probably possible, whilst still breathing. Of course after eating came dozing, then a bit of reading. Then a tea, or a beer – warm, as there was no electricity, followed by a bit of looking out at the horizon. In the evenings we would light a beach fire, and watch millions of flying bugs commit genocide. The dogs literally lapped up the fallout.  The stars were incredible, being on the Equator you can see just about everything going. A nightcap of homebrewed banana schnapps (so strong it is used as an antiseptic in cuts) and off to bed.

The feasting table

Huge storms raged in the night, the antithesis of the roasting days. Claps of thunder loud enough to make me jump, wind strong enough to blow open doors and knock down trees. I could see the lake from my bed, and during a storm one morning around 4.30am I watched the sky light up over the water and the trees bending, praying our glass doors would hold out. They did, and through them at about 6.30am, I watched the red sun rising slowly for a new day. A day as if that crazy night hadn’t happened.

Seasick sailors

Leaving Banda was hard for a few reasons: it meant going back to the real world, the red dust of the city and mosquitoes. The other was that it involved a 2.5 hour trip in a fishing boat that slapped and chopped its way over the lake towards Kasenyi port on the mainland. Quite a few of us made the trip, each wearing lifejackets. I closed my eyes and thought about meaty issues – life, relationships, disappointments, worries – things that I’d have to concentrate thinking on, anything to not think about the fact I could no longer tell which way was up or down. When the shoreline came into view, it was one of the happier moments of my life so far. But it wasn’t exactly plain sailing from there…

It took effort and four men to pull the large boat into harbour at Kasenyi, a horrid and rancid smelling fishing village, full of foul people. Before the boat had even been pulled in, two awful porters jumped onto the boat. They were meant to carry us and our luggage to the shore, which was quite some way away.

One of Dom's projects...

They manhandled our bags off the boat, but didn’t take them to the shore first as they were meant to to keep them dry. Instead they kept them on their backs as the waves came in up to their chests and insisted they carry us at the same time. Feeling too ill to argue, I dropped from the boat’s edge into the porters arms, and he carried me in a cradle like fashion , through the shit of the water to the shore, soaking me as much as my bag. The porter’s fee is 500ugx (15p) per piece, meaning the total was 1000ugx, though they tried hard to add mzungu tax and argued for 5000ugx. We bickered, the porter not wanting to return my bag until the mzungu tax was paid. I grabbed it from him and presented a 1000ugx note. It was snatched out of my hand without ceremony, and that was the end of that. Josie and I wearily made our way off the beach to a soda stall. We sat and drank Stoney’s ginger ale for some time, waiting for the strength to return to our legs and for the horizon line to settle into its usual place. We then got into a half full standing matatu bound for Kampala, stinking out the other passengers who had no doubt where the fish stench was coming from. Sighs of relief all round once the matatu was finally full and we pulled away, fresh air spilling into the windows, swishing out our odour.

Back to the heat and dust of the city, seemingly hotter and drier than before we left. Traffic at a standstill, sweat rolling into the eyes. Still a heavy army and gun-toting riot police presence post election, loitering on every main street. Hoping the rain will come to cool us all off, and soon.

African Time and the Waiting Game

Oh Africa.

So lush and strange. And so frustrating! Things here run on African Time. This is approximately a clock that runs 45 to 60 minutes behind your standard time keeping device.

You require patience in levels you’ve probably never had to use before. ‘Waiting’ is the number one game here. You have to play whether you want to or not. Most of the time you don’t want to play but can’t escape it. Just sometimes, you might actively enter a game of ‘Waiting’ because there is something you deem worth waiting for. You have spoken with the Games master and have clarified that what you want is indeed the prize, before you join the game. You might like to think you know the rules, and even lay some of your own, but you’ll soon find they’ve been overruled or ignored. And the object of your desire, the thing you double and triple checked on before you began Waiting, will most likely be 180° about-face from what was advertised.

The Table

Example – this last week I measured up for a new kitchen work bench to put in our new volunteer accommodation. Me and another member of staff then delivered this specification to a ‘reputable’ carpenter, and talked him through exactly what we wanted. A big piece of furniture, we asked him to make it in two parts, so as it could be fit together once inside the flat. We negotiated a price (200,000ugx inc. mzungu tax) that covered the raw materials and the workman to come to the flat and fix the bench together.

Four or so days later, I went to pick it up as arranged, and found there was no workman, and our two-piece bench had been made into one huge fixed piece of furniture. We tracked down the workman and he accompanied us to the flat with half the bench sticking out the back of the car. The workman had to smash and saw the legs of to get it through the door, splitting the wood, pulling out the nails and scratching the surface. I now have to play Waiting for him to come back to the flat and fix his handiwork.

Jenette - the ultimate mum !

Jenette – We Miss You!

A massive thank you to Jenette Davies who came from the Lake District to volunteer at Malaika Babies Home for a month and was a force to be reckoned with. She never flagged or tired. Like a good mother does, she got us ship shape, tidy and nudged us on to do more, kept us in tea and biccies, cut through the crap and told us like it was. Moreover, she loved the children with every part of her being. She picked up our newborn who was abandoned at two days old in the hospital, gave him his first bottle, and didn’t leave his side. She will be sorely missed (though my teeth will be better for her departure!). If only all the children had had mothers like her, we’d be gladly out of service.

Election Escape

My last post pre elections. The razor wire has been increased, the walls heightened around the babies home. The jerry cans are full of water and petrol, and the store room has more instant noodles and potatoes than you could swing a rat at (our cat Coda has not been seen for days). We now have an armed guard on the gate day and night, but we’re all hoping we’re being far too cautious. We are also hoping recent events in Egypt won’t give rioters ideas…

Me and two other volunteers are heading for the Ssese Islands in Lake Victoria on Thurs morn, where hopefully no trouble will befall us. I don’t know what communications will be like, but I have the wind up radio that will keep us in touch with the mainland. Everyone is a little jittery, but one day at a time…

Jinja, Falls and Flats

The last week has been tiring, and also marks the half way point through my trip. I don’t feel I’ve really achieved much here yet, but I am always knackered! I must be doing something, I just hope it’s helping.

Jinja

The Saturday just gone me and three colleagues went to Jinja, the town at the source of the Nile, lying just a few hours east of Kampala. A surprisingly ragged town, there were a few lovely cafes and lots of craft shops all selling the same carvings and key rings.

At the Source

But with a short hop on the back of a boda, we found ourselves at the Source gardens. 10000ugx entrance for mzungu, 1000 if a

resident. Try as I might, I just can’t pass for a Ugandan! We wound our way down the hill side, lined on both sides with the obligatory craft shops, until we got to the water. Despite the commercialism, seeing the source was worth it. So good to see flowing water after weeks landlocked and covered in Kampala dust. But it was also the Nile, and not just that, but the very beginning of the world’s longest river. It was cool – I felt like Tin-Tin on one of his adventures.

Also made it to the Bujagali Falls, rapids about 8km north of the town. But soon they will soon be lost and gone forever. Building of the Bujagali Dam is almost completed, but remains controversial in everyone’s eyes because it will swamp the falls, displace the people who live on its banks, and kill the business that has built up around the rapids.

Bujagali residents

The environmental impact of the dam will be

 

deeply felt, but no one knows how much. Hydro power would be one way to ease the chronic power shortages felt in and around Kampala, but the tender for the dam wasn’t as transparent as one might hope. As I see and hear all the time, corruption is commonplace in Uganda, and money making takes a higher precedence than the needs of poor people.

We were lucky enough to sit in the shade at the falls, put our feet up and read. We watched kayakers, rafters, boaters, swimmers, all tumbling through the falls. Even took a

boat trip and visited some islands in the middle of the river. Won’t be able to do that again.  Blasting of the falls begins this week…

Bujagali falls

Moving House

A good example of why I’m knackered. Last Tuesday we moved house to more permanent accommodation for the volunteers that come out to give their time to Child’s I. The day began by moving out of not one, but two houses where volunteer staff have been

staying. It involved disassembling all furniture – chairs, beds, shelves, and stacking it all precariously, with no regards for health and/or safety, in the bed of a truck that had seen better decades. With everything strapped in with twine, the van struggled out of the gates. We moved from our compound with the wonderful Julius, our gatekeeper, to a bigger flat up the hill in Rubaga.

At the other end and the new flat, we then had to unpack the furniture, get it up the stairs and reassemble it. The killer red dust had gotten in and all around the flat, even though it had been ‘cleaned’ the previous week. We had to wash down and wipe all of the floors and surfaces – all conveniently cream – before we could do anything. Much hammering and left a bit, right a bit ensued, before all

furniture was in the flat, nailed back together and safe to put weight on, just before the light disappeared around 7.30pm.

A week on and it’s coming together. A rug or two (to help collect the killer red dust) will finish it off. A 20 minute walk from the

babies home, I at least now get a chance to make room for then work off my lunchtime matoke.

Off to a new home

Elizabeth House

The little lad we had with cerebral palsy has moved to Elizabeth House, the place founded by ex Pats that looks after some twenty or

so severely disabled children. We dropped him off on Thurs, with a massive bag of Pampers, clothes, sheets and the like to get him started. He had his one to one carer ready to greet us and begin work. The other kids seemed delighted to have him – he’s the youngest there by some 7 or so years. I think he will be in good hands. I’m looking forward to going back in March to see him, just before I come home…

 

Rat catchers, hope givers, fat frolicers

Me and the new kid x

I’m going for a more positive angle this week. I’ll begin with wrapping up last week’s post, as I was wrapped in the little one passing on

(I should write about the attempted bribe by the grave digger just after she was buried), I neglected to mention the newborn coming into the home, two days after the burial. The healthiest baby we have was born at 7lbs – a monster by Ugandan standards – and was

abandoned by his ma at the hospital at just two days old. Though that in itself is tragic, at least, I thought, he hadn’t had time to be starved, abused or become ill. He so far, is doing well, but forming attachments to a UK volunteer who’s looked after him since he came in. When it comes time for her to go home, there may be tears from them both…

We now have a cat called Coda! Picked him up from the animal rescue. Poor thing was brought to the office two hours after having his nuts cut off and was still dopey, pulling strange poses. His eyes were wide and twitching, wanting to run but not being able to. Reminded me of being on some  not so good nights out! Since waking up, he has been hiding in the bottom drawer of my desk. I fear for his suitability in the role he was hired for: rat catcher. We say rat, more like a few mice. But not good to have in a babies home. I hope the pilchards in tommy sauce we leave out for him will soon win him over and he might come out to say hello.

Outside of Institutions

We have one young child at the babies home who has severe disability, quite possibly cerebral palsy. He has a very small brain, surrounded by much fluid. It’s thought he is blind and also deaf. Indeed, the neurologist said that if he was lucky, he would catch pneumonia and die. Hard words, but in a country like this, there is virtually no hope for kids with these kinds of conditions. Except… there are, rarely, slim glimmers of something better. We found one, run by an elderly English couple, that cares for 20 severely disabled kids. Elizabeth House, out in Mukono, some 25km east of Kampala. It means there’s lots of greenery, loads of space, and on an unannounced visit to check it out, we found the staff accommodating and the children out and about, in school uniform, and happy. The children have all sorts of disabilities, mental and physical. What is also great, is that each of these children has homes to go to out of term time. There are people who want them. We’re hoping our little man will be happier there, in the open space, with a carer who can tend to his needs. One of the carers said they had had children who had been ‘written off’ as deaf and blind before. But with a little attention and patience, they’ve realised that hasn’t been the case at all. I hope that’s the same for our little guy. Just got to find £60 a month for the rest of his life, to pay for his care…

Fat ExPats and club sandwiches

 

Pool of my dreams..

Ended off the weekend with grandeur. Went to the Speke Resort for the afternoon in Munyonyo. Me, my colleagues and quite possibly all the other mzungus in the city. All greased up, with our flab hanging out, crisping ourselves around the edge of the 50m pool on our cushioned sun-loungers. Ordering cokes and club sandwiches from the all black waiting staff, from under the shade of our parasols. People sweating it out in their Nikes on the treadmills in the gym that overlooks the pool. It’s 20000ugx to swim (about £6) – not a huge amount, and the grounds and pool is magnificent. But it felt weird. A rich, white Oasis in the middle of a shit heap, with mudbrick houses with tin roofs just down the road… I saw a black person swimming at one point and thought this is weird, til I remembered I was in Africa.  Might as well have been Spain. Well, that was my one time frolic with the cashed up expats. Think I’ll be back down Jacaranda keeping it real ( and cheap!) with the locals this week.

 

To finish – is it really Feb tomorrow?!? I will be handing out CVs this week. The Real World and the end of March fast approaches…

A baby dies, and one is newborn

A death

Last Sunday night, the 16^th, a premature baby that was staying at the babies home, passed away in her sleep. It was a massive shock for all, especially for the carer who found her, and had only just put her down not an hour before. It was the first death at the home. The staff were hysterical, wailing and throwing themselves about, and took some calming. All this I heard about on Monday morning, as I came into work. On my birthday. But I could feel something was wrong as soon as I walked through the door. The place was quiet. There was no chatter. There was no music playing. No one said good morning. It was not a day to be happy about being older.

The insensitivity of the emergency services was surprising, despite me knowing how ill acquainted Ugandans are with urgency. When we rang in to tell the hospital a baby had died and we wanted to bring her in, they said we might as well wait until the morning . The obviously didn’t feel it was strange having a dead child in the home through the night, with 24 other young, unsettled children.

The autopsies were fairly inconclusive. It could have been asphyxiation, but they don’t know. Put down to cot death. Just…one of those things. As most of the children that come into the home are quite weakened when they arrive, malnourished or abused, her death probably shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. I hope we’re all better prepared the next time such a terrible thing happens, which it will. Like I said before, life and death sit uncomfortably close together here.

Into the Country

Mud huts

Abandoned house

To keep in view what the end hope is for all the children that come through the babies home, I went out on Friday on some home visits. Two little boys, re-homed with family members just before Christmas. I went with a social worker, on the first visit to the boys, to see how they were going.

One young child, around 2 years old, is now out in Mityana, a 90 min journey from Kampala, living with an aunt and 3 other young children. The aunt and her husband live very basically with the children, in a very small brick hut in a field next to their crops. The red beans of coffee plants grow about the house, a source of income for the family. We brought with us a bag of fruits – a hand of bananas, a pineapple – for which they were very thankful. I imagined that fruit would be easy for people in the country to obtain, but it’s not the case. The land is sectioned out. If it’s not on your land, it’s not yours. The young boy was overcoming malaria, and his eyes were slightly discoloured. But aside from that he was healthy, and the other children were happy (if not lean), and fascinated by the presence of mzungu in their home.

The young boy we’d come to see had been quiet but close to us the whole time we were in the house. As we prepared to leave, he suddenly started to cry. He remembered where we were from, and the toys and playtimes and food and fun he had had at the home. After that, life in a hut with a dirt floor in the middle of a field must be hard to adjust to…

Missing

We journeyed out west another 150km or so to the Kyenjojo district, to make our second home visit. The boy, just one year old, had gone back to live with his father in the country. The roads we travelled to get out to the hut, through the banana plantations and thick brush, were no kinds of roads at all. The car was bounced from one axel to another, juddering and hitting rocks as we made our way. We finally arrived at the father’s hut, feeling motion sick and battered, to find the house deserted. The village children came running down the track to us at the abandoned house, barefoot, ragged clothes filthy. They told us the boy had left with his father. This was worrying. Why had they left? Where were they, and why hadn’t they told us, as they were supposed to, where they had moved to? We found a few adults in the village to ask, but everyone seemed reluctant to give their whereabouts. This worried us even further. After a lot of coaxing and reassuring we didn’t want to get anyone in trouble and just wanted to see the child, one person told us about another person who might be able to lead us to the child.

The term ‘wild goose chase’ came to mind. After some 2 hours, a lot of telephone calling, and another 50km (a lot spent going round in circles it felt) we finally rendezvoused with a guy outside a trading hut, who jumped in the car with us. He led us to a small house, hidden in the middle of a wooded area. Chickens, and lots of kids roamed barefoot around another mud hut.

Great grandma's house

The lady of the house, elderly but fit and also barefoot, put out chairs and a bench for us to sit on, and the little boy we’d come to see emerged from the house. He was fine. Thanks God. The woman was the boy’s great grandma, full of grace and humility. She bowed when we passed over the fruit we’d bought.

The father had moved the boy so that he could be babysat whilst he went out to work. He had bought a motorbike and was working in the small township some km’s away as a boda-boda driver.

We said our goodbyes with a promise to come back in a few months, and headed back out on to the road. A journey of more than 5 hours lay ahead of us. Around 6pm, we finally managed to stop for lunch. A rolex – fried egg & veg in a chapatti roll, before ploughing on through the night back to Kampala. The car steering was ruined – the off roading had killed it – and the car swung from left to right across the roads.  Many of the ‘roads’ we travelled were half complete. No tarmac laid, only rocks and dust. There are also no road lamps in Kampala. We had been driving since 8am and were tired. Our backs were sore from being jarred. It was not a relaxing journey home. I got home just after 9, and was so thankful to be alive. A cup of tea, a wash of the face was all I could manage before I took my rest. Not the typical kind of Friday feeling…

English observations…

Some things that strike me about this place.

• Life and death sit dangerously close to each other. In Europe there are many barriers between living and dying, such as ambulances and paramedics on call, a belief in science not solely in God, the Dole, roads with Tarmac, and phone networks that work.
  

  Construction, African style...

  I guess it adds up to: privilege.

• The media is horrifically insensitive to the violation of women. The brutal ways in which women meet their ends is not something I want to hear unpicked on the radio in intimate detail at 3pm in the afternoon.

• Ugandans are programmed to answer an initial greeting with ‘I’m fine’, regardless of whether you’ve said, ‘Hello’, ‘Good to meet you’ or ‘How has your night been?’

• I went out to a club called Fat Boyz the other weekend that was predominantly Ugandan males. The men in there had no qualms coming up to ask me straight out if I was married, with very little preamble, and in all seriousness. Thankfully I wear a ring on my wedding finger which saved me a number of times. When I wouldn’t give them my number they asked why. Couldn’t get out of there quick enough.

• Small mangoes cost 100ugx each – 3p. Love it.

In other news:

New Arrival: Had a beautiful girl come into our care a few days ago. Our 25^th baby, filling the last cot. She is severely

Our newest arrival

malnourished, has straight, blonde/orange hair because of this, and weighs all of 4kg. She is roughly 2 ½ years old. The only way you can tell is by the fact she has a full set of teeth in her small head. She has scabs at the back of her head and in her ear. Lesions on her hand and the back of her legs. Green bruising, visible through her dark skin, all up her back. Her wrists are the size of a one pence piece, and she hates being touched. When she first came in, she screamed and bawled as the care home manager, an Australian, tried to clean her up, remove her absolutely filthy clothes, and get a good look at the damage. She wouldn’t take food…. until one of the Ugandan carers picked her up. She then stopped crying, and when she was offered the same food by a Ugandan hand, she accepted. We realised she most likely had never seen a white face before. Quite a strange realisation. But once made we were able to change her care, to make her feel more comfortable.

Let there be light/power! I’ve moved house. To a new compound that has a few more mod cons, such as a toaster and rugs. There is also a TV on the wall, but Ugandan TV is so shocking it remains a black box most of the time. If it’s not ‘A Love Story’, a South American soap opera show dubbed awfully in American, it’s the Kenyan rnb charts.  Lord save me! Despite the

Our gatekeeper, Julius

accommodation upgrade, me and my new flatmate – the new media volunteer at Malaika Babies Home – still cook in the dark when the power goes, and take cold showers because we’ve no hot water. But we have a lovely gatekeeper who couldn’tunderstand how or why people from the UK all have different hair and skin. Ugandans all have the same hair and skin. I did a quick Windrush: a history of, which seemed to clear things up a bit. He was also horrified to hear that many people in London rent properties. Wasn’t I thinking about saving money for my marriage, land, and my family? What would we give to our children, he asked? Good question!, I told him. I look forward to our next chat.