Looking forward to ...

Life is good, if not a little busy! I’ve decided to make the most of my remaining time in Uganda and have lots of ‘bucket list’ plans in the pipeline. I am now coming out of my phase of finding everything in Uganda triply more frustrating than usual to feeling a little melancholic about leaving. I'll be wearing rose tinted glasses until I leave ...

Sunday morning biking has been great fun of late. More often than not, I used to find myself the only girl in the group. These days, there are almost as many girls as boys, which means I am not the only one to complain about the swamps and single tracks. Funny how the male and female perspective is different on things – when I nearly went A over T today, one of the guys said I just performed a great front wheelie!

My biggest problem right now is that there are too many things to do and not enough time to squeeze it all in. Next week it’s the Irish Ball and I’m wondering whether I can manage to go to that, then go biking at the Lagoon Resort on the Sunday. I really want to do both, but I have a sneaking suspicion that next Sunday may be a little more sedentary! Watch this space …

Also on the cards is a trip up to Murchison Falls to camp on the Nile Delta. Yes – that’s me camping, in the middle of a national park, surrounded by wild animals from hippos, to crocodiles to lions.

If I survive that then it won’t be long until the Easter holidays when I head off Kenya for my final safari in the Masai Mara, followed by a third visit to the gorgeous Watamu on the Indian Ocean. Not very adventurous , I know, but it’s fabulous, so who cares? I’m going to be joined by a very old friend, so I look forward to showing her a few of the sights and scenes of Africa!

Cutting For Stone

This is my first post of 2012 - so if it's not too late to say so, Happy New Year! I decided to take a little holiday from blogging when I was on home shores, so I think my writing has got a little rusty.

Yesterday, we had our first book club of the new year to discuss 'Cutting for Stone' by Abraham Verghese. It was a feast for our bellies as well as our minds as we tucked into some Eritrean food, that was kindly prepared by one of the generous mums from my class. She explained what all the food was ... then I lost the bit of paper, so you'll just have to look at the pictures ...

According to the book:

The mark of a native is that your fingers are never stained by the curry; you use the injera as your tongs, as a barrier, while you pick up a piece of chicken or beef sopped in the sauce.

We ate like ferenjis!

Now I thought we had made an effort by organising to have some traditional food from the region. It would seem not though, when you compare to this website that I found when I googled some book club ideas. Most disturbing is the fact that this woman decided to recreate the amputated finger in a jar for her party. Some people have too much time on their hands!

For the record - I highly recommend the book (but won't give any more away now)!

Where is my prince?

I lost a shoe at the St Andrew's Ball last night; prince-like men of Kampala may apply below. Luckily it was not one of my lovely sparkly heels that I left behind, but one of the flats I brought with me for dancing. So far nobody has knocked at my door with the missing footwear. I am sure my prince is simply lost (eh sebo, you are lost!), fallen down a pothole or unable to locate me since my address lacks both a street name and plot number!

Twas a fun and slightly old-fashioned affair, with a band flown in all the way from Bonnie Scotland, our resident bagpiper and a toasting to the (veggie in my case) haggis. The ladies had a dance card and had to book dances with different partners throughout the evening. After a couple of glasses of bubbly and a few swigs of malt whisky from the passing quiach (I thought it was a wassail cup, but have it on good authority that the shared silver bowl of whisky was in fact a quiach), we 'Split the Willow', did a 'Postie's Jig' and a 'Round Wheel of Eight'. Fortunately, the evening was not interrupted by the police trying to arrest the 'Progressive Gay Gordons' though!

The experts show us how it's done with the demo dance!

I wanna be a Stick Chick!

A weekend watching polo? Why not? And this time I mean REAL polo, on ponies, not Boda Polo .

After a short while I became an expert and was talking the lingo. Here is a brief summary:

1. A match is comprised of several chukkas, or periods of play of 7 1/2 minutes. Any longer would be exhausting for the ponies.
2. A team normally consists of 4 players, or 3 on a smaller pitch.
3. Each team must have at least one player named Tristan. If no Tristans are available, then a Quentin, Oliver or Sebastian will suffice.
4. The audience may help by divot stomping during the intervals - this involves turning the chunks of grass that flew out during play back into the pitch.
5. Audience members must drink at least 1 glass of Pimm's!
6. Date a player and you can become a 'Stick Chick'!

Pimm's o'clock? Again!

Best dressed?

How do you get to be a chick stick?

Let's hope Customs allow me back into the North of England in December after all these posh pursuits!!

Hell is ...

Remember, remember, the fifth of November …

If I were in the UK, I would have spent this evening wrapped up in scarves and gloves, watching fireworks and crowding around a bonfire.

As no such thing exists in Kampala, I instead headed to the am-dram performance of ‘No Exit’ by Jean Paul Sartre.

Sixty years ago or so, Sartre exclaimed that ‘hell is other people’. For the past decade or so, reality shows such as ‘Big Brother’ have confirmed that. In some senses, Hell is a better place than Kampala, since there is a line about the lights never going out, because they have all the electricity they want!

After the performance we sat around and discussed whom we would least like to be stuck in a lift.  It didn’t take us long to decide that, given we were talking about all eternity; even your best friends would drive you to distraction. Trapped on my own for all eternity, I would drive myself mental too! Writers such as Sartre, Beckett, Ionesco, Camus, to name a few, have been hailed as being great thinkers, philosophers and intellectuals, regaled for their exploration of the human condition. I don’t think so. Here’s what I think really happened:

One rainy Sunday afternoon, in the dingiest corner of a shabby café on the Left Bank of Paris, Sartre, Beckett, Camus and their cronies gathered for their usual antics. Endless Gauloises were smoked, whilst they tried to impress the waitress by knocking back shots of Absinthe. Several rounds later, real conversation was getting a little tricky, so Jean-Paul (the reputation of being a brooding intellectual misery-guts is totally unfounded) initiated a little drinking game. Previous endeavours include ‘Polovember’ in which participants must wear the same polo neck sweater and oversized coat for the entire month of November. This time, the game was about with whom they would least like to be trapped in a lift. Most folks would have the chat, go home, have a cup of tea, and think no more of it. Not them. They decided to write plays to demonstrate the point. Sartre produced ‘No Exit’, whilst Beckett trumped him by producing not one, but two plays about being trapped with a grumpy old grouch for eternity, hence ‘Endgame’ and “Waiting for Godot’. Conveniently enough, for ones who spent their lives in a red wine and cigarette smoke haze, their plays didn’t really require much of a set or many props, save the odd pair of old boots, a couple of dustbins or a door.

If you would like to write an existentialist play of your own, follow my simple formula.

Characters: Keep it simple – two main protagonists, preferably old, with a few cameo visitors

Plot: Don’t bother. Stop being so conventional, will you? OK, if you insist, two characters bicker and occasionally a visitor will pass by to provoke and antagonise them further

Set and props: Whatever you have lying around – a broken clock will have the critics chirping on about the symbolism of eternity and despair for a while.

Now if you excuse me, I’m off to write an existential play of my own, which will explore human will, subversion, choices and the conformity of society. Once again it’s based on a drinking game and is called ‘Shag, Marry, Shove’!

A Meeting with Royalty

This evening I was privileged enough to be invited to a reception at the British High Commission for the visit to Uganda of HRH the Earl of Wessex - otherwise known as Prince Edward!

This is not a normal occurrence for a humble Primary school teacher! I had expected him to walk past us, or perhaps to shake his hand. In actual fact, it was a lovely, relaxed (well the guests were quite relaxed - I'm sure those working for the BHC must have felt under a little pressure, but everything was very smooth and no stress showed) gathering in the garden. I discovered that they really DO drink Pimms at posh functions - I thought it was just a clever marketing tool! He walked around the garden and chatted to people throughout the evening.

Now I can't imagine what it must be like to be a member of the Royal Family. You must have to get used to lots of nervous giggling, whispering and people saying really daft things. The all must think that the British public are like a group of mischievous Year 3 girls!

When my moment came, I managed to keep it together very well! I curtsied, shook his hand and said:
"Good evening, Your Highness," as advised.  He asked what I did and where else I had lived in such a friendly and genuine manner that I was immediately put at ease. I think I may have sounded a little ridiculous when I declared that 'International teaching is all about networking' ... erm yeah well done Crosbie for telling a member of the royal family how it all works - doh! I may have sounded quite confident, but let me tell you, my hand was shaking afterwards!

Well, that's enough excitement for one day I think!  Now I'm sitting at home in my pajamas, drinking a glass of Ribena the whole experience seems a bit like a dream. My strangely surreal weekend continues tomorrow with a 45 km bike ride, so I must get some rest! I'm still grinning like a Cheshire cat though!

It's a small world after all

It's a small world that I live in, here in Kampala. Stay here a while and you will find it virtually impossible to go anywhere without running into a familiar face.

It's a funny little world too, full of huge contrasts and diversity. Take yesterday for example. In the morning, I was cycling through the villages on the outskirts of the city, past children playing with tyres, frozen in time. Refreshment stops were outside a small shop, where they brushed the dust off the ice cold coke with a grimy cloth.

By the evening, I was dressed in my gladrags at a fancy hotel by Lake Victoria, for a function promising to celebrate the diversity of food and cultures across the world. Or, as we were told, 'it's like your school  International Day, only with wine on the tables and a bar - right up your street!'. We were promised a table with four single men ... only what we actually got was a table with three very dignified Ugandan ladies who demurely sipped Splash juice. Maybe the single men saw the sign that they were seated on a table with the International School teachers and ran a mile in the opposite direction ... who knows?

The evening was fun; full of good food laughter and dancing. The event was attended by people from all over the world, some proudly donning their saris and lederhosen. By the end of the night one thing was clear: it doesn't matter whether you're from Brussels, Birmingham or Bombay - after a few glasses of vino, everybody looks daft when they dance to cheesy 70s and 80s music!

It's a small world after all! 

A Woman's Right to Art

There is a fabulous episode of 'Sex and the City' where Carrie gets 'shoe shamed' by a friend who is married with children. When her shoes disappear from her friend's apartment, she discovers that her friend's priorities have changed. She can no longer understand how Carrie can spend $500 on a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Carrie later realises that she has spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on engagement presents, wedding presents and baby showers and that as a single woman, none of this is returned. Her solution is to register herself at Manolo Blahnik, in recognition of her just-announced marriage to herself. The only item that she registers for is a single pair shoes that went missing at the baby shower!

I think many single women can identify with Carrie in this episode. It is not that I resent buying presents for friends, it's just that I think I deserve the odd treat too. Some may think that I am very decadent - I am lucky enough to be able to travel to exotic or exciting destinations and have a very comfortable lifestyle. I know that when I eventually return to the UK, I will not be having fortnightly pedicures and eating out at the drop of a hat. I see nothing wrong with making the most of being here.

There are no beautiful shoe shops in Kampala, and even if there were, the delicate Blahniks would not last five minutes on our dusty roads. There is, however, a thriving art scene, and buying an original painting is reasonably affordable. A couple of months ago I fell for a David Kigozi guinea fowl picture. Today I paid the final installment and brought it home, just in time for my birthday!

Or what you will ...

Last night I went to see a KADS performance of 'Twelfth Night'. I had only been expecting drama in the theatre, but it seems I was in for a little extra en-route. Just as I was driving up the lane where I live, a car was leaving the little garage. Nothing unusual in that. I carried on driving along, then I noticed it was reversing. I stopped with a good distance between me and him and then expected him to stop. Except he didn't. He continued to reverse until something would stop him; that something being my car! I don't think I would be a good person to have around in an emergency as I just froze like a rabbit in headlights. I got out of the car to see what he would say. He pointed to the bar with the fog lights in front of my car and said:

But madam, this is here to protect you when something hits you!

I explained that while it may indeed protect me in an emergency, my car is not a bumper car and that I would like it to be taken car of. Whilst in the middle of this debate, a traffic policeman, in his full white regalia, emerged from the same garage. I relayed the story to him and he laughed at me. By this point, several passers by were also laughing raucously. I suggested that the driver should be charged for driving without due care and attention and he said:

But madam, this is here to protect you when something hits you!

Clearly I was not going to get anywhere with this situation, even though I am sure that if I had made the same error I would have been presented with a hefty fine. I drove off with a slightly shaky right leg.


As for play, the local am dram group is most famous for the annual pantomime, and this wasn't far off it! The groundlings didn't quite heckle, but if they did, they would have shouted 'you're in the wrong play' when Antonio appeared as a perfect double of Jack Sparrow! Our thespian doctor played the permanently inebriated rascal Sir Toby Belch a little too well. Malvolio was suitably malevolent and Olivia got more and more flirtatious and French as the play went on.

I had gone in with the attitude that Shakespeare played by amateurs could be dreadful, so I was pleasantly surprised. I do think it was a wise choice to stick with a comedy. What a shame the venue was the stuffy old National Theatre though - it would have been lovely to watch the play outdoors with a pic-nic and a glass of wine!

The luck of the Irish!

A friend who has now left Kampala coined the phrase FOMO - this stands for Fear Of Missing Out. It affects most of us from time to time and I had my dose this weekend. I had decided that I definitely was not going to go to the Paddy's night celebrations in the Irish pub on account that last time I didn't drink any of the free Guinness and when I asked for a vegetarian alternative to the Irish Stew I was told I should just have extra potatoes! In fairness, that's a pretty authentic Irish vegetarian meal, except there would probably have been a wider range of potato products on offer on the emerald isle! Besides the food issue, I was also determined not to ruin all my triathlon training with a late night.

So I definitely wasn't going to go. Nobody could twist my rubber arm ... until we went to the Ireland V England sports afternoon. This is an annual tournament where they play football, rugby and Gaelic football. Still dressed in our England t-shirts from International Day, a few of us went along to support the home team. Ireland were well kitted out (my favourite slogan being 'Well oil beef hooked') and had a massive group of supporters. The England team was a total shower, with a team of any old random muzungus and a six year old and no kit whatsoever. Pretty pathetic really. I think we won the football but lost the rugby and Gaelic football, but to be honest I was just enjoying a Friday afternoon beer and forgot to keep track of the scores.

By the time we were leaving the game, I was feeling seriously sorry for myself and my impending night of self-imposed solitary confinement. Everyone was going and even the kids in school thought I was a bit sad for not going along. I never believe that anything in Kampala really sells out. But this had, and the fact that there were no more tickets left made it seem even better.

An hour or two later, I was just settling down to Glee when a friend called to tell me she had a ticket. 20 minutes later, I was dressed in a sparkly green top and ready to go.

The band had been flown in from Ireland and the fiddler used to play with The Waterboys. Their most famous song 'The whole of the moon' was very appropriate for the night, as the supersized moon we are experiencing right now cast a warm pinkish glow on everything around and tinged the night sky dark purple. A friend was totally star-struck and told me it was the first dance at her wedding - as opposed to my school-days memory of the boys singing the song on school trips whilst pulling moonies out of a coach window! The Irish pub was a sea of green and a few brave souls led the dancing. By the second half, the Kampala crowd was doing a great Riverdance impression. There was so much leg kicking and skipping around that I would consider the evening a full cardio work-out!

Last night was the St Patrick's day ball and the tickets sold out weeks ago. I was ready for a quiet night when I found 6 missed calls and a text saying 'call me urgently'.  I called my friend immediately, envisioning that she had been knocked down by a runaway matatu or was lying in a hospital bed with some unknown and incurable tropical disease. The emergency was that I had a ticket and had roughly half an hour to get dressed and get to the hotel downtown!

More dancing, drinking and silliness ensued for the rest of the evening. Tables were danced on and the red carpet came in use for an Ireland V the rest of the world tug of war competition. I believe I missed the crowd surfing! I even got to wear my favourite sparkly stilettos too - they don't get much action in Kampala!

Tomorrow it's back to the triathlon training ... starting with a running hash from the Irish pub with beer stops along the way - erm what am I doing?

Trivial Pursuits

The pub quiz is something of an institution in Kampala town. Once a fortnight (that's every two weeks if you're from North America) a selection of Kampala's finest long term residents and short term volunteers, who are taking a break from saving the world, gather to put their trivia knowledge to the test. The prize for winning such a contest is the honour of setting the next quiz and if you tie in a round there is the notorious 'drink-off'' where you are forced to down a pint or knock back a noxious and cheap spirit. The winners are generally the team with the most Blackberries and fastest Internet connections. The quiz master is typically the member of the team with the least grasp of the English language, the female with the shriekiest voice or the American with the most drawling accent. The questions range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Tonight was no exception. Since we were unable to name any famous field hockey players from the Netherlands (I was told that writing down the name of a former colleague didn't count), nor did we know the name of the leader of the Ugandan sports press leader, we decided to quit while we were behind and made an early exit. We started to compose a few questions of our own, in the unlikely event that we should ever get the opportunity to host the quiz. Here are a few of our questions, deliberately chosen for their obscurity and their irrelevance to anybody else's lives:

1. Sports round - How many runs did South Shore cricket team score in 1982 throughout the course of the year?
2. Food and drink - What is the most popular dessert on a Hungarian menu?
3. Commerce - In which Bogota shopping centre did the first branch of Zara clothing shop open?
4. Education - What was the name of my maths teacher when I was in Year 9?
5. Music - Sing the third verse of the Ugandan National Anthem, then translate into Luganda

Seriously, I know that people need an excuse to go to the pub on a Thursday night, but this is painful. Rain check for another six months!

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!

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?

A fond farewell

If you think that airports are full of displays of raw emotion, then you haven’t been to an international school at the end of the year. As the learning grinds to a stop and the games and parties commence, the children and teachers prepare themselves to say goodbye to good friends and colleagues. The end of the school year always comes with a mixture of emotions – sheer exhaustion from a year’s hard work, relief and anticipation of holidays and reunions with loved ones, coupled with the feeling of the end of an era. Primary school teachers spend all day every day with their classes and strong bonds are formed with the children. It’s an almost family like relationship – we may have a little moan about what Little Johnny did today in the confines of the staffroom, but woe betide anybody else who dares to criticise Little Johnny!
Today was no exception. Even though we broke up at noon on a Wednesday, this week has seemed to drag on forever. The classroom has been stripped bare, we’ve played sports, painted and attempted to watch dvds – technology permitting. I have been lucky enough to receive well thought out gifts and cards with kind words about me. One letter in particular really upset me. I have a boy in my class who has a smile that would melt your heart. He loves nothing better than dancing and playing with his friends and has a heart the size of Lake Victoria. But … he can’t really sit still for very long and he can always find something else to do in class to avoid his work. His mum is an extremely busy lady, as the headmistress of a local school and his father is a well known pastor in Kampala. They mean well, but their methods are somewhat Victorian. This letter thanked me and blessed me for the work I had done with their child, before it went on to say that his behaviour was ‘the devil’s work’ and that she hoped that ‘God will reform him’. When I read this letter, I wished that somebody could reform his parents' views and help them say kind words to praise him and boost his self-esteem. However, I had to read the letter and carry on, with a smile pasted upon my face. On the same day, I received a touching card from a student, thanking me for boosting her confidence throughout the year. As always in this life I live, the lows balanced out with the highs.
This year, nobody in my class is leaving, but each year we say goodbye to students as they return to their home countries or embark on new adventures in unknown countries and continents. The children in our school are extremely resilient. They form new friendships quickly and always welcome newcomers with open arms. When they say goodbye, floods of tears are shed … but they recover quickly and continue with their lives.
We are also saying farewell to friends and colleagues today. No doubt more tears will be shed as we share memories and watch slideshows and videos recalling the past couple of years. I am saying goodbye to my flatmate and from August, will be living alone and hoping that somebody else will be there to rescue me from any scary rodents and to share a glass of wine at the end of a bad day. Our school will lose some very hardworking individuals who make it a better place. Meanwhile, we will also lose some close friends who have shared the experience that is Kampala with us over the past year or two.
I wish everyone who is leaving the best of luck. You will all be greatly missed and I hope that we can stay in touch. xxx