The plagues of Uganda

When people think of Africa, they often imagine the vast plains, resplendent with a whole variety of flora and fauna. Many travel to the continent purely to come on safari to witness herds of elephants, lions and so on. In the past few weeks, the wildlife around Kampala has been a little bit more prevalent than I would like. In fact, it has got to the point of sleepless nights, worrying about what may be lurking around the corner. Grasshopper season is looming and there is a plethora of wild and wonderful bugs. So I started thinking about plagues and wondered how many we have been afflicted with round here. As I am not known for my religious knowledge, I had to resort to Wikipaedia for my research, so please forgive me if I am not strictly accurate. So just how many creatures and problems are plaguing me here in Kampala?

1. Water to blood – OK well I can’t say that this has really been a problem. I was in Jinja, at the other end of the Nile just this weekend and it looked in perfect order to me. However, you could risk a number of diseases from drinking the tap water. Swimming in Lake Victoria is not really recommended either. I am quite sure that I had contracted bilharzia in the triathlon, judging from the nasty reaction to the medication.
2. Flies – in the form of mosquitoes. I am still a tasty meal for all things biting and stinging. At the moment I am torn between breaking my neck from standing on a chair, on a table, on the bed, in order to rehang the mozzie net or to take my chances with malaria and being eaten alive.
3. Vermin – all I can say is that I have a morbid fear of rats. I always have done and I always will. They say that you are never more than 6 feet away from a rat in London, so I would dread to think of the proximity here in Kampala. If you walk down Bukoto Market Road, just outside my house, you will be sure to encounter piles of rubbish that people refuse to pay to be removed, some burning piles of rubbish (complete with toxic fumes), some open drains on top of the dust and potholes that come as read. So this surely must be a rat’s heaven. The new school has a fair few unwelcome pets, most worryingly, some poisoned rats were found inside the ovens in the food tech room. And there is no escape when you go home either. We found some droppings in the house a week or so ago and I have had disturbed sleep ever since. I am flinching at every bump, tap or squeak, convinced that it’s a killer mouse. The mice here are the size of rats and the rats are the size of cats – it doesn’t bear thinking about. One friend woke up with one on her bed and another one had a nasty shock when one landed on her shoulder. Now we are not sure whether the little visitor has left or not. It has rudely refused the poison injected cake we offered it and the evidence comes and goes. Today I received the strangest gift ever, when a parent brought me some sticky glue stuff, the idea being that the mouse runs over the glue and gets stuck (my class are fully aware of my rodent nightmares). All very well, but then that means that you potentially wake up to be greeted by a half dead mouse, or have to bash it over the head with a large, blunt object.
4. Pestilence – this would be diseases. To be fair, I have been pretty lucky on this front, having only had one sick day all year. Others have been struck down by flu, fevers and funny tummies. The most popular Ugandan sickness is an amoeba – how a single celled organism can cause so many problems is anybody’s guess, but they really are quite nasty. I have to drink about ten gallons of water a day to stop myself from getting a bog headache and going dizzy and as if that wasn’t enough, then the building site outside my classroom throws in non-stop banging and drilling for good measure.
5. Frogs – yes, they are certainly out in force around certain areas, creating a genuine frog chorus.
6. Locusts – are grasshoppers the same as locusts? If so, then more are coming! There are, apparently, one or two grasshopper seasons in Uganda. Locals say that they are a delicacy when fried and eaten with lots of salt, but I am giving this culinary delight a miss. As with all the wildlife in Kampala, they are super sized and come in both green and brown varieties. They don’t really bother me so much, except when they come into your room and fling themselves from wall to wall, making an annoying clicking sound. They are another reason for my lack of sleep as they make a total racket when chirping the way through the night.
7. Thunder and hail – it never rains but it pours here. I have to say that I do love the tropical storms here, particularly on a Sunday afternoon, when the temperature drops and it is the perfect excuse to lie in bed and read a good book or watch a DVD. The thunder reverberates off the mountains and the lightning flashes dramatically and it really is quite spectacular. It is not so pleasant in the middle of the week though, when your class all get sopping wet and the dreadfully designed new school allows the water to leak into the classroom, and of course the kids are hyperactive.
8. Darkness – this would be the famous Ugandan power cuts. Like the thunder storms, these often provide you with a great excuse to just curl up and go to bed early as there is nothing else you can do. They have even been blamed for the recent Ugandan baby boom – clearly the whole country believes there is nothing better to do during a power cut than to just go to bed and make their own entertainment! Again, the power cuts prove to be much more frustrating in the work place, when you lose the past 10 minutes work on the computer, the Internet consequently crashes and is usually out for the rest of the day. But you must remember that power cuts can be a good thing – on Saturday, the power cut meant I gave up trying to stay out drinking and just went to bed, hence saving a good few Shillings and a big nasty headache the next day.
9. Dogs – OK so I have made this one up myself. The streets are full of stray mongrel dogs that wander around at night. Then people have guard dogs that they treat very badly and are trained to bark and attack any passers-by, regardless of whether they are innocent or guilty. At night they howl. It starts with just one or two, then all the others in the neighbourhood feel that they should join in. Another sure-fire guarantee of a sleepless night.
10. Noise – I realise that this is not on the original list, but I am hardly going to talk about the death of a first born, now am I? The aforementioned animals are not the only source of noise in Uganda. Humans also need to take their share of responsibility. My first gripe is with the great din from the various religions – if the Muslim call to prayer fails to wake me at day break, then I can rest assured that the Born Again Christians will start singing and speaking in tongues at high volume shortly after. I have no problem with people wishing to worship their deity of choice, but just wish they could get on with it a little more quietly. So that is the mornings. At the opposite end of the day, the local nightclub kicks in, blasting out anything from the latest R and B to any old random choice – Cher has been very popular this week for some reason. The nightclub doesn’t even follow the usual form of Fridays and Saturdays but could go off on any old Tuesday evening.

So I reckon that that covers about eight of the original ten, with just a few local variations. As I sign off to go to bed, wish me luck with sleeping in this beautiful but somewhat afflicted country.

May Day holiday - where we didn't quite reach our destination

The saying goes that it's the journey that counts and not the final destination - and that is what I had to chant to myself this weekend as we had yet another breakdown, this time not my car, but my housemate's. As my car was suffereing from a dodgy battery, we decided not to take any chances and go in Romy's car. All was going very well until we started to hear a funny rattling noise. However, we breathed a sigh of relief when we discovered that the rattle was actually coming from an empty can of pop in the drink holder. So, I feel that I have already told this sorry story before, but about 3 hours into the journey the car comes to a sudden stop. We get out and do our best girly efforts to figure out what might be wrong (although in fairness I do believe that I will leave this country as a fully qualified mechanic) and only a few minutes later a car draws up to help us. Two men introduce themselves as Kenneth and Akim. They have a look with us, while a curious crowd of local kids gather to see what is going on. We quickly figure out that the temp guage had broken and the car was running dry and overheating, so a girl is sent off in search of water. We poured in a full jerrycan and then notice that the rubber tube has a big rip in it, so all the water was being lost. So Kenneth drove to the nearest town and came back with a mechanic, who quickly solved the problem.
So we bid our farewells to our knights in shining armour and set off again. All went well for about, well 5 minutes, then we were almost being choked by noxious fumes from the exhaust. And this tim it was starting to rain. The next minute, my phone rang and it was Kenneth calling to enquire how we were getting on. Not good, came the reply but I thought I could ask him for the mechanic's number. He went one better than that and also came along and waited with us while we diagnosed the problem. The prognosis was not good, so we decided to knock our plans on the head and stay in the nearest town of Tororo. We were taken to the garage and then they dropped us at a hotel, according to the guidebook it was the best in town. Well, am sure it was, but it drew a striking resemblence to a hospital to me and we later decided it may have once been a looney bin when we found that cutlery was a scarce resource. Maybe the only guests are people who are heading to Mount Elgon and never quite make it. Maybe they want to save anybody from doing themselves an injury with any sharp eating utensils following exasperating journeys through Uganda, heaven only knows. Later that evening we were joined by Kenneth and Akim, who were really sweet and even wanted to pay for our dinners, although we insisted on it being our shout, since we would probably still have been stranded by the roadside, had they not shown up to help.
The follwing day, we had hoped to get the car fixed up and continue to Sipi Falls, but when we got to the mechanics we found they had taken the engine to bits and were talking abolut a very labour intensive and costly job. So now we had to get ourselves back to Kampala. Our rescuers continued to help us and organised a recovery vehicle to take us and the car back to Kampala. We nearly died when we saw it - it was one of the trucks that are normally jam packed with cows taking their final journeys to meet their makers. However, being our only option, we gratefully accepted it. A few hours later we made it back home. So maybe we will make it to Sipi Falls another time, but it proves that sometimes the journey is more important, as we were so lucky to meet people who were more than willing to help us out in our hour of need.