First fortnight

First Impressions

It seems like a life time, but I’ve only been here for 2 weeks, but so much has happened. Can’t say that I got off to the best start, as my luggage arrived 24 hours after I did, then the next morning I woke up with a swollen eye, which I think was an allergic reaction to the lavender eye mask I wore on the plane. So I think I made quite a first I impression on my new workmates!

The induction has been fairly low key, which is definitely better than having information overload. We’ve had lots of time to plan and sort out our classrooms. It’s much less formal than the Anglo – I am still yet to have to stand to hear the national anthems of Uganda and Great Britain – thank goodness. Things are pretty chaotic though, since the secondary are due to move to the new site, which hasn’t even been completed yet. Primary are staying in the old building and we may have to move midyear, but I really hope we can just stay put as I really don’t like the idea of having to shift everything half way through.

I have just moved into a gorgeous new house. The view from my bedroom window is stunning – you can see all the hills of Kampala and there’s lots of tropical trees inbetween the buildings. I am sharing with another teacher as you can get something much better between 2 people. We have a huge living and dining room, a big kitchen with loads of work surface space, a big bedroom each, I got the ensuite room with a bath and then we have 3 balconies for entertaining on. The housed warming party is due in about 2 weeks.

At the moment I’m waiting for my shipping to arrive – I think it’s at the airport now and hopefully I can collect it tomorrow. Then I can really set up home. It’s all been a bit of a drama trying to move out of the school accommodation. When I arrived I nearly got on the first plane back because the house was so horrible. They hadn’t even bothered to get it cleaned properly, so the floors were filthy, the bed sheets hadn’t been washed, but as all of that stuff was in my shipment, then I had no choice to use them. If it was a hostel I wouldn’t have paid 10 dollars to stay the night. Then the walls were this disgusting battleship grey colour, which made it look really dark inside. So every night, I just sat on my balcony because I couldn’t stand to be inside there. The kitchen was so small that it was a major accomplishment to be able to boil an egg in there, and the bathroom had just a wet room and the sink on the corridor. So I am relieved to be out of there and somewhere really nice instead.

All of the new teachers this year are lovely. There’s a real mix of people – Americans, Canadians, Dutch, German, Belgians, Australians and English. We’ve had lots of nights out and getting to know each other now. Ugandans seem really lovely people. They’re a lot calmer and quieter than West Africans and not so much in your face. They only really whisper muzungu! There’s a huge amount of foreigners in Kampala, plus a massive Indian community.

That’s about it for now. I need another little snooze. This afternoon I will go on a mission to find half decent wireless – the internet is painfully slow here. It takes about 20 mins just to open an email in school, hence my lack of contact since being here …

Royal Ascot Goat Races

Royal Ascot Goat Races

An annual tradition in Kampala is the Royal Ascot Goat Races, held in a resort by Lake Victoria. I am sure it’s the only time in my life that I will have an invitation to a marquee in Ascot anyway! So we all dressed up to the nines, some even bought hats for the occasion, and spent a day of drinking champagne and a spot of minor gambling in the sunshine! It was a gorgeous sunny day and we all had tickets to go into what was meant to be the best tent, with free food and drink for the day – hooray! Well free drink all day until it ran out and was replaced with a mountain of empty champagne and wine bottles.

Watching goat racing is absolutely hilarious. For starters, they don’t really want to race at all, so behind them there’s a man pushing a barrier to give them a bit of a shove. And there’s still no guarantee that they will run – if they get distracted by a nice bit of grass to munch on or a bit of attention from the crowd, then they just come to a complete stop. Otherwise they may get into a bit of a huddle and potter along, or go in the wrong direction. Basically, goats are not really designed to run. Having said that, a few of us are thinking of entering a goat into next year’s contest. I wonder if we can get free club membership for pets. Imagine a goat on a treadmill …Sadly, my luck wasn’t in when it came to laying bets. I lost the huge sum of around 4000 Shillings – just over a quid.

By late afternoon the free booze had come to an end, so we headed over to the Latino Bar stall for a few mojitos where we met lots of Colombians! As I’d had a few vinos, then clearly I was in fluent Spanish mode and had a good old natter and found out that one of the girls lived about 15 minutes from where I was in Bogota – small world.

By the end of the day we were all suitably tired and tipsy and piled back into the bus to go home and have little rests before heading out again – or that was the plan – what actually happened was that I woke up the following morning – whoops! Off out to buy the Sunday Pepper (Uganda’s best tabloid paper) to see if we made the final copy!

Ready to go!

Hi everyone,

Well it's the day before the first day of my new life in Africa, Uganda to be precise. So my bags are pretty much packed (and feeling a little bit heavy - am hoping that somebody at check-in will take pity on me tomorrow), otherwise no doubt I will be flashing my underwear at Manchester Airport as I try to reduce the amount of stuff I have at the last minute.

So I am armed with enough deet to attack a plague of mosquitos for the next century, and a ridiculous amount of suncream, teabags, all those essential beauty products that I will probably have to live without once they run out and a million handbags from Colombia!

My passport is all ready, e-ticket printed and yellow fever certificate in the bag - so let's hope there's no last minute emergencies!

So the next installment will be from Kampala.

Wish me luck.

Ali x