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Thursday 30 September 2010

A more triumphant triathlon


Our sporty school staff

I am not genetically designed to be a natural sportswoman. In my family, extreme sports constituted the competition to complete The Sunday Times crossword before noon – so all of these energetic pursuits of mine don’t really fit.


Last year, the triathlon was really a bit of a disaster for me. I freaked out in the murky waters of Lake Victoria and was worn out with exhaustion before I even got on the bike. Nevertheless, the team spirit on the day made me want to give it another try. I got a team together and decided to do the bike ride. This was one of my better ideas! As I saw my team mate swimming towards the shore, I fixed my helmet on and sprinted (Phoebe from Friends style if the photos are believed) towards my bike. In the Botanical Gardens I saw that a friend had bike problems and I had a dilemma. It’s not that I wasn’t willing to help – more that there probably wasn’t much I could do and I didn’t really want to give up my own race. I carried on, with a few pangs of guilt for my friend. The route takes you through the gardens, along the lakeshore and around the airfield and even includes a scary dark tunnel under the runway. I was flying along and passed out a fair few cyclists on the way. The dreaded 30 km passed in a breeze and I loved hearing the cheers of my friends as I passed the finishing line only to find out that not only was I the second female cyclist back but also the fastest woman on a bike! Who’d have thought it eh!


All the competitors
 
Somehow I managed to wear my helmet in the style of a French beret, perched loosely on my head!
 


Wednesday 22 September 2010

It's all go here ...

As usual it's all go in K-Town and I'm having a rare lazy evening in at home, vegetating infront of Glee (it's going to finish soon and I am in need of a new obsession - any suggestions?).
On Sunday I'm joining a team for the triathlon. I've guaranteed  myself no repeats of the near drowning panic attack incident last time and have only signed up for the bike ride. I'm a little concerned as I haven't even covered the full distance yet, but my team mates assure me that they are not feeling competetive ... I hope that really is the case as I am no Lance Armstrong at the moment! Anyway, a few of us are heading out to Entebbe the night before and I am considering the whole thing a social occasion with a 30 km bike ride thrown in for the hell of it.
I am barely going to have time to recover from this before I head off on the Outdoor Education trip. This time we are heading for the beautiful bilharzia-free (it's a selling point here) waters of Lake Nabugabu for two nights. The kids assure me that they are now all experts at the art of putting up tents and I intend to test them out and put mine up for me too!
This half term has to be one of the longest on record - so naturally my thoughts have turned to holidays. At the moment I am battling with my conscience as to whether I should stay in the posh lodge in Kidepo National Park or in the cheap and cheerful bandas. I'm told that staying in Opoka is a 'once in a lifetime experience' but after having 'once in a lifetime experiences' for the past four years my bank balance is suffering from serious malnutrition. The other big news is that my parents have just booked flights out to South Africa for Christmas and I'm doing a very good impression of a travel agent - infact I think I could have an alternative career in the making there! We have booked some awesome places just by the beaches in Cape Town and looking to stay in the winelands for New Years - hic!
So I as my head nearly falls on the keyboard from total exhaustion I will repeat the mantra 'holidays are coming, holidays are coming' ...

Sunday 19 September 2010

Another day at the races

Goatzilla and Atilla the Goat were back in town this weekend for the 2010 Royal Ascot Goat Races.Anyone who is anyone in Uganda was there - from celebrities to politicians and a shedload of wealthy mzungus excited by the prospect of donning their gladrags. This year was more extravagent than ever, as we were lucky enough to be upgraded to the VIP tent where the pink bubbly stuff flowed non-stop ... and when supplies ran low, our friends in high places discovered the secret stash and ensured our glasses were topped up to the brim at all times. I placed a modest bet of 3000 Shillings on a goat - but forgot to watch the race as I got distracted by a glass of the pink bubbly stuff - whoopsy! Apparently I also missed the first aeronautical display in Uganda - am not quite sure how! Today I am checking Facebook in the hope that no pictures from the latter end of the day have been posted and am ready to detag any I don't like. The Goat Races give you a rare opportunity to get really dressed up, but in retrospect the cute little pink kitten heels weren't such a great idea as I spent half the day trying to unstick myself out of the mud. I am a bit disappointed that I didn't make the cut for the Red Pepper's Goat Race hot babes section!!http://www.ugandaonline.net/gallery.
A good day was had by all but I imagine a bad day is being had by many today!

Thursday 16 September 2010

You know you've been in Uganda too long when ...

  1. You turn on the radio and get a bit of Dolly Parton or Abba and think you've got the good station.
  2. You think nothing of going to up to four supermarkets to get your weekly groceries.
  3. You think it's perfectly acceptable to drive into the middle of the road flapping your arm out of the window the stop traffic.
  4. You come to the conclusion that getting on the back of a motorbike with a complete stranger and no helmet really isn't a great idea.
  5. You have watched every episode of House, Glee, Californication and many more back to back on dodgy DVDs from Papa's Corner and consider 5000 Shillings for hours of entertainment extortionate.
  6. You stroll past the bouncers in your local Irish pub on a Friday night and declare that you don't EVER pay an entrance fee.
  7. Your living room could pass for a branch of Banana Boat.
  8. You develop a cynical attitude towards large charitable organisations and their distribution of funds.
  9. You think that the Nile is first and foremost a type of beer and secondly a river.
  10. You learn to smile and shrug your shoulders when something takes four times as long as expected!

Can anybody add to this list?

Sunday 12 September 2010

A spot of indulgence in Jinja

There's a theory that the longer you stay in Uganda, the better the food tastes. A slice of mature cheddar wouldn't raise much excitement at home but it becomes a real treat here. A trip to Jinja is always about the food. It's hardly surprising really when the town sounds as though it was named after one of my favourite types of biscuits. There's cafes with chilled out gardens and a deli packed with treats like veggie lasagne and home-made ice-cream. After a night in cheap backpacker land our little group decided we had earned the right to upgrade ourselves to a bit of lazy camping overlooking the Nile. It's a tranquil spot and as we filled our bellies with delicious pumpkin soup and freshly baked bread our eyes also got a feast of spectacular views. It's funny, but when I first arrived in Uganda I thought it was pretty but I wasn't bowled over. I missed the breathtakingly dramatic landscapes I had grown accustomed to in Colombia. Now I wonder what I was thinking. Simply the drive out of Kampala makes my shoulders drop by a couple of inches. This weekend, cycling through the villages raised a smile to my face. The amazing contrasts of colours, from the myriad shades of green in the fields to the dusty orange roads and the ever changing skies. as always, the children ran along with us in their broken flip-flops and their smiles beamed brightly. I am sure that my weekend of indulgence will help push me through the week ahead!

Sunday 5 September 2010

Nesting

It’s taken a long time, but my apartment is starting to feel a little more like home. When I moved in, half of the lights didn’t work, my oven had only one working element and the water pressure in the bathroom was a pathetic trickle. There has been a series of workmen passing through my house, turning up anywhere between half an hour and four hours late. First it was the plumber. His job was to fix the water pressure in my main bathroom. He excelled at this task – to the point that I had to dam up the bathroom door with towels to prevent the enormous leak he had caused. Then came the electrician, or should I say the man with the tools for repairing electrical faults? You will see what I mean in a minute. He managed to break one of my extortionately priced energy saver light bulbs that I had very responsibly bought. He also smashed the lampshade on the outdoor light. Then, to top it all off, he switched the wiring around in all of the lights in the living room, so now I have to try out each one of about ten switches just to flick on the right light. All of these tasks were performed with greatest attention being paid to the stringent health and safety regulations in operation in this country. And if you believe that then you truly have just come up the Nile in a banana boat. I witnessed him standing on a 3000 Shilling wooden stool, on top of a flimsy wicker table tinkering with the bare wires and fusing any gaps together with a paperclip whilst I half-watched an episode of House on my DVD because of course, he didn’t deem it necessary to turn off the mains.
Anyway, progress is being made. I have a new oven, or should I say furnace , that I would imagine powerful enough to melt lead. It incarcerated my ginger biscuits in just 7 minutes flat. I need a little more practise with that I think. The leak has stopped and I can now shower in hot running water. I still haven’t got a key for the back door but I have got curtains and my sofa has been restored with a snazzy new covering. Did I mention that I returned home from work one day to find that they had taken my sofa and not bothered to tell me about it? This week I finally had time to put my pictures up and I have grand plans to make my spare room into a relaxing reading room rather than a dumping ground for cardboard boxes. Watch this space for updates!

Why I won't be going digital yet

No-one could accuse me of being a gadget-girl. My ‘classic’ i-pod is a bit of a brick compared to newer models and it’s a near miracle that my laptop works considering the amount of cereal lodged between the keys. Until recently, when I was forced to upgrade my phone as I left it behind in Uganda, my low-tech mobile phone was the source of much amusement and derision from friends. While my mates tapped away on Blackberries and popped cyber bubble-wrap on I-phones I insisted that my phone with a built in torch was THE phone to have in Uganda. Sadly, it was nigh on impossible to actually hear people talking on the phone and I probably doubled my air-time costs by having to ask people to repeat themselves, but you can’t have everything in life!
Of late, I have noticed that more and more people are buying these fancy I-readers or Kindles. I’m not convinced. One of my favourite haunts in Kampala is the book exchange (honestly, dear reader, although I know that a few of you would rather suspect my favourite place to be a licensed premises – perhaps it should be amended to favourite daytime haunt). There’s never a shortage of titles to choose from and I like the fact that the selection is quite random. All too often in the UK we are faced with shelves of the top bestsellers and the latest critically acclaimed prize winning novels that we buy books without a thought. In fact you don’t even need to go in a bookshop to witness this, if you take a trip on the tube you are bound to spot several commuters all with their heads buried in copies of exactly the same book.
Gadget lovers tell me that they love that they can carry around hundreds of books for the size of one. I don’t feel I have such a need – I’m not an Oxford professor of literature and I am unlikely to have enough spare time on any given day to read more than one book. They also argue that you will never be stuck for a book. Well call me cynical, but I have travelled a fair amount across South America and Africa and generally find that it is much easier to track down a book exchange than a decent wi-fi connection. Apparently you can download the latest magazines, but isn’t the sheer pleasure of a magazine in the flicking through the glossy pages and cooing over the unattainably expensive items with a friend? I have a terrible habit of accidentally leaving books on trains and plane so if I had a Kindle I’d be bankrupt by now. I like to read a book whilst floating on a lilo in the pool without fear of damaging such a precious and expensive item. I love pass my favourite books on to a friend or to nosy through their shelves. I’m not a technophobe, but until anyone offers me a convincing argument I will continue to read my books in book form!