There is absolutely no need for any theme parks in East Africa when you have plenty of bumpy and potholed, twisting and turning roads. Just over a week ago I set off with 3 friends on the very bumpy road to Kigali to see fellow abolo obruni, Alex. We packed the car with goodies for the trip, but he dairy milk was not such a great idea in the heat, so we ended up with a mushy mess of molten chocolate. We set off on the Friday and after an hour or so we passd through the equator. The equator experience consists of a sign by the road and a faded painted white line and a few people selling a bit of tourist tat, but it was a great photo opportunity all the same. On the Friday night we stayed in a place called Masaka, where we all had muzungu moments of anger when the club sandwiches we ordered took well over an hour and mine turned out to be a fired egg butty. After that we swore to eat only local food whilst on the raod, and this proved to be very successful the next day when we stopped off at a roadside cafe and were served delicious plates of avacado salad, vegetable curry and a few other local dishes.
We arrived in Kigali just as it was starting to go dark, then went out for dinner, then to a party where we were able to drink as much banana beer as we could drink (which was actually about half a cup - it's a bit of an acquired taste). Then on the Sunday we went off to the genocide memorial museum which was impressive but horrible and moving at the same time. In one room they just have family photos of all the people who were lost and it makes you realise the extent of it all.
The city of Kigali is so amazingly clean. You can walk down real pavements and smooth roads without having to worry about falling down potholes and dodging speeding matatus and boda bodas (minibuses and motorbike taxis for those of you not familiar with the local lingo. They also make you wear helmets on the bodas, even if they are all pretty big, and they don't let you double up either. Apparently, once a month there is a community service day where you have to go out cleaning all the rubbish off the streets. Also, even the roads oput of the city are really smooth tarmac. Incredible!
On the Monday we took a very nice bus up to Lake Kivu. We passed through stunning scenery and the sites of the mountains and the smell of the trees really reminded me of Colombia. I guess it makes sense as it's at asimilar altitude and there's also lits of volcanic activity round there. We stayed in some little cabins right next to the lake and spent the afternoon sampling the local beer, then the amarula, then very foolishly, the Ugandan Warargi (like a cheap gin, but pretty strong stuff). Afternoon turned into evening, and eveing turned into night and needless to say, the following day was a little bit painful. This was sorted out with a quick dip in the lake, followed by an afternoon of pampering ourselves with pedicures and massages and yummy food at the nice hotel in the town. It's a hard life I lead you understand!
The next day we ventured further afield, into the Democratic Republic of Congo no less. And before anybody asks, I can officially confirm that there is no Um Bongo there at all. But there is a whole town that has been recently smothered in lava from a recent erruption, leaving the roads very black and uneven. There is also lots of evidence of the war that is going on outside of the city, with UN troops (lots of hotties from Uraguay) all over the place and loads of emergency NGOs and so forth. It was quite strange walking round there, but I don't know whether it was the knowledge of what is happenng in the rest of the country or whether it was the atmosphere created from the sultry and humid weather that day and the lava covered streets that gave that illusion. After walking though the streets all day we went to a beautiful estaurant right by the lake, which was a real haven and a total contrast from the rest of the city. Oh I almost forgot to mention the special treatment we recieved from customs. We were immediately invited into the office and the cheesy customs officer greeted us with such platitude as 'how lucky they were that 3 such beautiful women were visiing the Congo that day' blar, blar blar. Anyway, the best of it was that we acually got a proper A4 sized certificate to say that we have been to the Congo. Brilliant! Getting out of the country was also a bit of an adventure as we had been relaxing at the restuarant so much that we didn't realise it was half an hour before the border shut. So we sped through the streets of Goma, yelling 'vite vite, nous avons 10 minutes' at the motorbike drivers, while they were yelling to slow down becasue they had muzungus! We made it by the skin of our teeth and Kelly even had time to do a bit of bargaining to buy a mask before we passed through the border. And I have to add that I never thought I would utter the words 'thank god I'm back in Rwanda' in my entire life!
That's pretty much it (or at least my time is about to run out anyway).

Camping trip and Eid

It's the end of yet another long and eventful week here in Kampala. We had a public holiday on Tuesday, for the Muslim holiday of Id to celebrate the end of Ramadan, so we took ourselves off to Entebbe on the shores of Lake Victoria for the day. I had my first matatu (crammed minibus) ride and was quite impressed - you got loads of space compared to the trotros in Ghana and the windscreen was pretty much in tact too! So we arrived at the beach (by the lake shore) at about 11 in the morning and pretty much had it to ourselves. We were wondering why nobody else had come on such a lovely day. Any temptations to take a little dip in the lake were quickly dispersed though as we spotted the snails that are a sign of bilharzia in the lake (they carry the disease which gives you a very nasty skin rash and all sorts of other yucky problems I imagine), but we were quite happy to have some food and beers on a sunny day. The next thing we know is that we are approached by a midget with a camera, who wanted to take our photos. OK we said and paid our 3000 Shillings each - thinking it was a nice little memento of the day. So that was all fine, until later on this Muslim girl came up and told us that she had paid 1500 Shillings - so later on we had a little debate with the little man and truly put him to shame, and informed him that no more muzungus would be shopping with him in the future (since he is pretty easy to spot ha ha). We did not, however, get a refund, but later we wondered whether the cheap price was a special offer for Id and therefore only open to Muslims!! Anyway, as the day progressed, the beach got busier and busier and turned into a huge party. There were people there from Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda - and they did not have the same worries about catching bilharzia as they ran into the lake dancing away.
On Thursday and Friday we went on the overnight camping trip to Mabira Forest. In the meeting the head assured us that it was just like a North American campsite with showers, flushing toilets and the like. So when we arrived and saw literally just a space to pitch tents and latrine loos we were not very impressed. Basically we had to do everything on the trip too - from planning and taking all the activities, to buying and cooking the food. So we had arranged to go shopping on Wednesday afternoon after school, when we were told that we had to wait for the bursar to bring the money into school. Then when we went into the school office, we were informed that another person in the office had quit and that we had to sort the money out - which was a mixture of cash stapled together, all mixed up for the different year group trips and that we had to sort it out. Now I realise that I am not a qualified accountant, but I don't think it would be unfair to say that this is not how it should be done ... surely! So by the time the cash had been counted the shops had closed. So we were told that we would go ahead anyway and somebody would do the shopping in the morning and bring it up to the campsite later on and we would take a packed lunch from school. Fine we thought ... except that the packed lunch was not ready when we were leaving school at 8.30 in the morning, so that would come up with the shopping at around noon ... except that noon turned into about 2pm, by which time we have on our hands about 30 children, who were pretty much starving, but high on e numbers from all the crisps and sweets their parents sent them as snacks. In the afternoon we set off for a nature walk through the forest, which was lovely, but I have a few little princesses in my class who are afraid of a speck of dust, let alone mud, who literally tiptoed through and tried their best to cling on to me for dear life every time they saw so much as an ant!! Anyway, the rest of the day went fine and when the kids went to bed we finished off the day with a bottle of wine - drunk ever so delicately out of the cups the kids normally use to wash paintbrushes in coz the head forgot to pack anything to drink out of! I had a barney with a TA when I discovered that one of the water bottles was actually filled with kerosene for the lamps and it had been left out next to the water bottles - as you can imagine, I flipped my lid and said that maybe sometime in the future I may wish to teach in the UK again, and that if children had swigged back a bottle of kerosene it may not go down too well on the old CV - so he continued to argue that it should not be in the car because Jerry cans with petrol are now illegal in cars in Uganda - and I drummed the point that kids drinking lighter fuel would lead to a far stronger punishment - and then he bitched at me for the rest of the day, until he slipped on the walk in his bloody plimsolls and then complained about a sprained ankle! In the middle of the night there was a huge tropical storm, with very heavy rain and lightning. I can not say that I behaved in the most responsible way, as when I heard that the head was dealing with the screaming kids with leaky tents, I turned over and went back to sleep. I was thinking that if I heard Sibyl's voice I would get up and help, while she was in her tent thinking if she heard my voice she would also do the same. Needless to say, we have been somewhat slagged off for this, and I do not imagine that I will be first on the list to be chosen to take the kids to France on the ski trip in February!
Last night we went to the farewell party for our principal who is leaving (resigned ??? who knows there are so many stories). Was good to say goodbye and all the teaching assistants were having a good old dance, but I have to say that his dancing was just like watching the scene in The Office where David Brent does his little dance performance, so we made an early exit before the evil drink could let our mouths work before our brains!

Well it's about time I updated this and fill you in on the last couple of weeks. Last weekend I had my housewarming party. We decided to have an Oscar night theme, so dressed the house up with a red carpet (made out of crepe paper), lots of sparkly stars and candles throughout. Everyone got very dressed up and even wore heels, which is a bit of a rarity here, considering the state of the roads with all the potholes and lack of tarmac and the like.
School is going on ok, but still has been full of dramas. The kids are still great - they are all very good at English (many native speakers and the ESL ones are fluent - no more 'miss, he is molesting me' or 'it is that I need to go to the bathroom'! The admin, however, is a bit of a shambles. The woman in the bursar's office is so off the rails that she makes the head of hr from my last job look like Mother Theresa. We are all a wee bit concerned that a couple of weeks ago, the bursar did a midnight shift a flew the country back to India, leaving the office and his house in a real mess (and for the house I am talking total devastation - dirty plates of food left around being attacked by maggots, clothes everywhere and loads of old furniture all over the place.

Sunday

Today I’m feeling a little dazed and sun stroked. This morning I got up early to take a walk up to the Bahai Temple up the road. I can see it from my room and it’s a big landmark in Kampala. The religion is a bit of a mixture of all different world religions and there’s just one temple on each continent, so I thought it would be rude not to bother to go up there and see. To be honest, it looks much better from a distance, it’s just very simple inside. The gardens surrounding it are very pretty and it’s a lovely and peaceful place to visit. Unfortunately my new walking shoes rubbed my feet and am now suffering from massive blisters and am not sure whether I’ll be able to make the running hash tomorrow.

This afternoon, for the first time since getting here, I had time to go down to the pool and lay out in the sun. It’s brilliant to have the free membership to the club – I’m swimming a lot after school, going to the gym and also have had a few tennis lessons. The only downside is that most of the families from school are also members, so as I walked in today I could hear 3 little voices yelling ‘Miss Crosbie’ – aaaahhhh teacher’s nightmare to be relaxing by the pool in a bikini, only to be greeted by your kids charging round and throwing each other in the pool!

Last night my friend had a barbeque on her outside terrace. I think we girls can be very proud of ourselves for successfully cooking everything on the bbq with no male assistance whatsoever.

Now for a little bit about the next drama in school. On Friday we were called into the staffroom for (yet another) emergency meeting. This week’s big shocker is that the principal has resigned, probably with immediate effect. Whether he jumped or was pushed is another issue, so watch this space for what happens next. So now we have no principal, but they have managed to replace the bursar (who made a midnight dash back to India about 2 weeks ago), so hopefully we should get paid this month.

My group of friends and I have now firmly established Friday night as restaurant night. Each week we’re trying somewhere new. There are loads of great restaurants here, all with really good food. We went to the Turkish this week, which is lovely because there are lots of comfy sofas to relax on and it’s all outdoors in a park. We’ve also tried out the Thai, the Belgian, various Indians – we think Mexican may be the next on the cards.

Now I wonder if anybody can figure out his little conundrum for me – my friends and I have tried, but we are no closer to reaching an understanding. When you want to buy soft drinks here, they come in the returnable bottles – all well and good so far I hear you say. However, when you try to buy one in the shop, they won’t allow you to buy it unless you have a bottle to return. Nor will they let you put down a deposit. So if any of you can think of a solution – answers on a postcard to …

White Water rafting on the Nile

Today I am a little sore around the arms, a bit bruised and battered and have 2 very sun burnt knees because my suncream clearly wasn't as waterproof as it was supposed to be. Well I thought I had been rafting in Colombia - but this is nothing compared to yesterday's adventure. We set off to Jinja, which is the source of the Nile to go on a whole day rafting. Apparently it is in the top 3 places to do white water rafting in the world and I can see why. It's such a shame that they are building a dam right now, so it will come to the end and make a huge eyesore as well. So there were 5 of us and we felt very sorry for the poor Swedish bloke who got stuck in a boat with us weaklings who were too weak to drag ourselves back into the boat when were tipped out and spent the whole day hauling us lot in!! We went through full on grade 4 and 5 rapids, we were tipped and thrown in every direction. At one point I got thrown out, I lost the boat and was hurtling downstream the Nile at full pelt - next stop Egypt I thought!! I struggled to understand the Kiwi instructor as I wondered what I was supposed to lift until I realised he actually meant left. The scenery was totally stunning - the river is so vast and all you can see is trees, hills, an immense blue sky and all the wildlife. We saw massive lizards, eagles flying over us and loads of different birds I'd never seen before. There were points where we just floated down and it was so tranquil. Then the guy in the rescue boat, who must've been incredibly strong, rowed all 4 boats for about half an hour, so we just lay back and basked in the sun. I think the other people in the boat must've been a bit worried about the future of the kids we're educating. Kelly made a few classic quotes - especially when she said the the instructor 'Have you done this before?' errr we hoped so (think she actually meant which other places, but never mind) and 'What does sugar cane taste like?' errrr probably sugar love - what do you think? So you will be glad to know that I am no longer the dizziest blond. I slept very well last night, being totally exhausted from the day.

School has started now and the kids have been in for 3 days now. All I can say about my class is WOW, WOW, WOW!!! Am wondering to myself when they are going to stop being so polite, articulate, helpful and nice and start behaving like normal kids and start knocking seven bells out of each other and so on. Feel like am on one of those training videos they show you when you're training to teach and the kids come out with all the right answers and nobody starts messing about or anything - very strange. I gave my top reading group books just a bit higher than my top kids in Colombia had at the end of the year - only to discover they read them 2 years ago - whoops! We are having a bit of a nightmare with the planning and paperwork though and spending very long days in school. Apparently last year there were 4 different people teaching in the year group - including an American who just got up in the middle of the night once and left the country - it's all a bit of a mystery. Also, there is a ridiculous procedure for getting hold of any resources where you have to sign things out - and there is about a 4 minute window for that each day, otherwise you're screwed.
I don't know if any of you heard but there is an old king of Jinja who died last week, so we have a national day of mourning on Monday - otherwise known as a public holiday - hooray!!!! So to treat ourselves, a group of us are heading to Jinja tomorrow to the source of the Nile to go white water rafting - yayyyyy!!!!! I can't wait.

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!