Acronyms and Acrostics ...

Where-ever you are in Uganda, you are never more than six feet away from a sign with an acronym. Many are associated with the multitudinous NGOs (oops - there's one already ...) or the various UN agencies.

When we climbed Kilimanjaro, we had special T-shirts printed with our school name on the back. It wasn't long before a confused Tanzanian guide asked us why we had the word 'knife' in Swahili printed on our shirts - oops! I know Swahili isn't widely spoken in Uganda, but you'd have thought that somebody would have spotted that one! I recently heard about an organisation in the North of Uganda called 'ADRA' . Unfortunately, they didn't do their research and it was later discovered that this literally translates as 'fuck' in the local Karamajong language! Just a little bit embarrassing then!

I was wondering what UMEME stands for, so I wrote a little acrostic ....

Useless

Muppets

Eternally

Messing-up

Electricity supply

Any other ideas?

The Umeme Regime

Open any celebrity magazine and you are guaranteed to find some kind of special diet or other - Raw Food, Blood Type, Detox, Atkins and many more. For the past few months I have been following the Umeme Diet. I suspect that a few of my friends have been doing the same thing. Let me tell you about it. Principally, there are two kinds of days, power and non-power, which usually alternate. Occasionally, I am rewarded by two power days in a row, but that should never be taken for granted. Here are a few examples of some of the types of food you may eat on each of the days.

Power Days
For breakfast, you can make smoothies, have a cup of tea or even a slice of toast
For dinner, choose any hot food you desire (and can find in the shops in Kampala) - pasta dishes, soup, roasted veggies ... the list is endless
Quick snacks may include beans on toast or eggs to your liking
Hot beverages
Baking cakes, scones or desserts

Non Power Days
Breakfast is limited to cereal with slightly warm UHT milk, fruit, water or fruit juice, bread if it hasn't gone stale
Unlimited amounts of fruit
Dinner choices include salad, cereal (as per breakfast), sandwiches, or any leftovers if you were smart enough to cook a lot on a power day

Non Power days are testing and often result in going out for dinner or ordering in. Luckily ordering in is not such a temptation, since the lack of street names makes it particularly difficult for any delivery services to actually find me.

I'm living in the hope that there is an end in sight to this horrible diet, if not by non power days being eradicated, at least by the addition of a gas cylinder. I'm not holding my breath though ...

Speechless

Well I haven't had much to say since I got back to Uganda. And even if I did, I don't really feel like writing in the dark. The power cuts have been every other night since I got back, but the pattern now seems to be breaking and they are becoming even more frequent. My inverter is broken and I only have an electric stove. Except, apparently, there is nothing wrong with my inverter (according to the electrician) so I must have been imagining sitting in total darkness and living off cold cereal with slightly iffy milk due to the lack of refrigeration.
Humph - will try to write a more positive post next time if I have not died of scurvy ...

You know you're back in Uganda when ...

1. The guard greets you on arrival back home and helpfully carries your heavy suitcases up 6 flights of stairs.
2. Cash not cards - no more chip and pinning for a while!
3. You invest in a serious amount of candles in preparation for the power cuts that are planned to take place every other day until the water levels rise in the Nile so that enough electricity can be generated to meet demand.
4. The house is spotlessly clean when you get home from work because the magic washing up and cleaning fairy has been in.
5. You are told that you are looking very fat by a colleague - and this is meant to be a compliment. So glad I bothered to run 4 times a week throughout the holiday ...
6. You don't recall adding black pepper to your meal ... then realise that's because weevils took residence in your bag of opened pasta during the holidays.
7. It takes over half an hour to drive a 500 metre stretch of road to the shopping centre.
8. The shower of rain at lunchtime is so heavy that 5 colleagues prefer to stay squished inside a tiny Rav 4 rather than risk a soaking.
9. You have to slam on the brakes whilst driving on a roundabout.
10. The screech of seagulls has been replaced by the incessant howling of dogs and the cacophonous caw of hornbills!

Oh Uganda!

Switch yourself on and ignore that Earth Hour nonsense ...

Today I received multiple invitations to attend 'Earth Hour', which is apparently a great opportunity to save the planet by switching off the lights for an hour. Well excuse me if I do not jump up and down with enthusiasm, but I have had about ten involuntary 'earth hours' already this month. In fact, I went a little bit further and did without power to keep the fridge and freezer running and ate cereal and an apple for dinner in the dark because of the endless bloody power cuts. 
It's not that I really want the earth's resources to run out, it's just that I don't think that gimmicks like this have any effect whatsoever. How many of the supporters would be willing to do without electricity for any real length of time? I bet that half of the people who agreed to it on the Facebook campaign don't even remember or bother. And just who should and should not participate in Earth Hour? I don't have a problem with the Eiffel Tower doing without lights for an hour, but I wouldn't like my local hospital to be left in the dark. Especially if I had an Earth Hour related injury, like falling down the stairs in the dark or slipping on a tile floor and impaling myself on a very sharp metal candle-stick.  Presumably the flashy website was all produced by a dynamo with a hamster running on a wheel. Oh no - that would get the animal rights lobby making a campaign. Wouldn't it be better to leave the lights on so that the scientists can work on finding a viable alternative to fossil fuels?
In Uganda, solar energy is slowly starting to be used more extensively. I would happily offer my support for this cause as it has many advantages, beyond the environmental ones. Once the equipment has been installed, you have a source of free energy. With a guaranteed strong light source, students can complete their homework without damaging their eyesight. Small businesses can run more effectively - who wants to go shopping in the dark? Solar energy is also cleaner and safer than the kerosene lamps that are used throughout Uganda when the power goes out - there is no danger of them being tipped over and causing a fire that can endanger the lives of everyone in the household and destroy all of their possessions. Furthermore, solar power doesn't have to be connected to the main grid, so it can be used in the most remote of locations.
Let's face it - electricity has brightened up all of our lives. My lights will most definitely be 'on' at 8.30pm tonight!

Lights out!

One of my best buys in Uganda!

I was just about to start chopping up the veggies to make a butternut and carrot soup tonight, when ping, off went the electricity again. We have been experiencing more and more power cuts of late, for longer and longer periods of time. I think this is now the third in a week. I am, however, getting much more inventive in my ways of dealing with them. Last week, I was half way through cooking my dinner when the power went out. Now a less resilient person would sigh and give up here, opting instead for a bowl of cereal or some raw veggies. Not me! I suddenly remembered that I had bought a camping stove off a leaving friend last year, so lit the stove and hey presto, dinner was served only a little after originally planned. This little gadget is so great - it even has a little rack to toast bread on. Now I will be reluctant to take my emergency cooker on any sort of camping trip though!

The power cuts are a major headache in Uganda - slowing down productivity and making life generally more miserable for those experiencing them. They have even been said to be a major cause of the high birth rate - after all, what else is there to do in the village in the dark?! When the inverter goes out (a big battery that stores up power so the lights still work in a power cut), I however, will be reading by the light of my head torch, so rest assured, there will be no unwanted pregnancies in my household!