Don't forget the full stops!

As a Primary teacher, I spend much of my time reminding children to read their work back and check the punctuation. Even smart Year 6 children are often guilty of neglecting full stops and capital letters. I therefore, found the following conversation quite amusing:
"Are you from England?" the shop assistant asked the other day as I nattered to a friend at the check-out.
"Yes, why do you ask?" I replied.
"It is because you are talking very fast. It is like you are talking without the full stops. An African always talks using the full stops!"
I laughed at the time, but it's actually quite an acute observation. As native English speakers we don't use full stops when we speak. We start mid sentence, often trailing off before the end, or find ourselves interrupted by another person. I know some people who even interrupt themselves!
But Ugandans DO use the full stops when they are speaking. There are many more pauses for breath. Contracted forms of words are also rare, for example this common comment -  'You are looking smart today!'
Most Kampala residents speak English, with varying degrees of fluency, depending on their education, upbringing, age and occupation. Luganda is widely spoken in the home,  at social events and in many day to day exchanges, but English is the language of business. So why do we use the same language so differently? In the villages, every conversation starts with a few polite exchanges - how is your mother, your father, your sister and so forth. I think that we muzungus are often perceived as being a little rude as we jump straight to the point. We are constantly racing around to hit deadlines. It doesn't even occur to us to ask about the family, the the state of the country of the latest football results before we ask what we really want to know. We pick up our phones, bark a few quick exchanges before hanging up ... if we speak at all. More often that not, we are just texting or sending one line emails.
I wonder if we are missing out in our abruptness. Wouldn't we get more out of our friendships and work relationships if we actually took the time to chat a little more?
From now on COMMA I will try to stop for breath COMMA and make use of the FULL STOPS .

You know you've been in Uganda too long when ... Part 2

Just a thought.

You know you've been in Uganda too long when Facebook actually thinks you are a Ugandan woman.

Here are the adverts that are apparently targetted at me:


Looking for a western husband? Says the advert ... well yes, but the men who sign up to this site aren't really looking for me!

http://www.afrointroductions.com/

And if I'm not successful in my quest for a western husband, then I can buy a degree online here and become an independent African woman ... Anybody know whether 'Walden University' exists outside cyberspace?

http://international.waldenu.edu/


And should I have any questions, I can always consult Google Baraza - a more localised African version of Google apparently.

http://www.google.com/baraza/en/

Always good to know these things!

Shopping fun ...

I broke my commitment to being frugal  this weekend as I couldn't resist the yoga bag and a few other goodies that I can't mention as I am supposed to be giving them away as presents. What I like about these products is that they are particularly well made and the quirky ideas behind them. Check out the supercute lunch boxes and sandwich bags!
And finally, this is guilt free shopping as it's all Free Trade, helping out women in Gulu ... read more about it on the website:

http://www.awavamarket.com/

The Bukoto Market Diet

I'm not quite ready for a diet of rice and beans!

Times are hard this month, what with paying lots of deposits for my Christmas holiday in South Africa and a 'bank error NOT in my favour', so it's time to tighten those purse-strings a little. Kampala is nowhere near as cheap as you would imagine. Financial experts may measure the rate of inflation in terms of the price of a barrel of oil or a kilo of grain,  but I have slightly different criteria. Since I arrived in Uganda in August 2008, an average bottle of wine has risen from about 12 000 Shillings to around 24 000. A 50% increase over two years is a big hike up in anybody's book. A litre of petrol is just under a pound - which is just about what many Ugandans earn for a hard day's labour. Translate that into Sterling and if you earn 25 000 a year, it's like paying 68.50 a litre! You could fuel your car with Dom Perignon for less!

Mmmmmmm - matooke!

Luckily for me, I was born a stingy Northerner, and I have a whole host of penny pinching ways. It's time to collect all the empty soda and beer bottles and get the deposits back from the shop. Next stop, the book exchange to sell any old books I don't think I'll read again. As for shopping, I'm going to try to avoid the expensive supermarkets for a week or two. Weetabix is a bargain breakfast at 4500 Sh a box, as opposed to 10 000 Sh (about $5 US) for a small bag of muesli.
Try as I might, I still can't develop a taste for matooke or posho. I do, however, have a cracking selection of recipes that can be made with a few stock cupboard items and fresh ingredients from the market. We have a great selection of fresh herbs available here and the the fruit and vegetable stalls burst with sun-ripened juicy fruits.
What do you think of my sample menu?
To drink
Freshly squeezed passion juice
Nile Gold
Uganda Waragi (not for the faint hearted)
Pre-dinner snack
Fresh guacamole with lightly toasted herby pitta bread on the side
Starters
Carrot and coriander soup
Main course
Aubergine and tomato bake accompanied by French beans
Dessert
A selection of tropical fresh fruits including pineapple, mango, passion fruit and watermelon

Yummy!

A short lesson in economics and social studies ...

"How do we recognise a developing country?" I asked  my class of children from Germany, Ireland, Nigeria, India, South Africa, Sudan, USA, Israel, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries. Should we look at the GDP, the life expectancy, health care or access to education? Not according to them! Here are a few snapshots of their thoughts on the subject:


People drive pajeros not ferraris!

 I can just imagine an aid worker watching this one!
"Oh dear, pajero sales are up 20% in Rwanda ... looks like we'd better send in some extra bags of rice this month!"



'There are many corrupt police in developing countries!'




'Not so many bribes in developed countries'

I imagine a few of the kids have seen their parents getting pulled over by the police during their time in Uganda. I wonder whether they think that the police stop more shiny Land Cruisers than beat up Corrolas?

Yes they do have TVs in the village - just that they aren't big new flat screens!

Our kids are experts on living with power cuts





And this is apparently a Boda motorbike taxi - they forgot to add the family of 6 riding it!

Meanwhile, the developed world looks something like this:

I don't think they are so far off the mark! 

The Pictures - Kampala Style

A trip to the cinema in Kampala is a guaranteed spot of entertainment – often not so much for the films, which are your general Hollywood twaddle, but more for the audience and the general experience. I know I shouldn’t complain as we are lucky to have a 4 screen cinema in a city right in the middle of Africa, and as my friend pointed out, popcorn is one of the few foods that Ugandans prepare particularly well – the other delicacy being Spanish omelettes! Even though the sound crackles and the screen flickers, it is still more up to date than the Odeon in Lancaster that I used to frequent in my student days, where you would often hear shouts of ‘two fat ladies – 88’ from the adjoining bingo hall! It is not without its quirks though. In the past, I have experienced power cuts and once I realised that the rather large blob that kept moving across the screen was infact a giant rat! The pre-movie adverts are like relics from the 1970s, with a hand-held camcorder and cheesy slogans promoting the latest newly built ‘executive homes’ (the word executive is used synonymously with luxurious here in Uganda – I’m not quite sure what an ‘executive’ bridal suite should offer – perhaps a free Filofax and oversized basic cell phone to truly embrace the spirit of the 80s?) which are just a ten minute drive from the centre of town … by Tardis I should imagine!


I had quite fancied seeing ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ as I was in quite a tetchy mood and I thought that the process of muttering and chunnering abuse at the infinitely irritating main character played by the even more aggravating Julia Roberts would be quite cathartic. Clearly this would not be such a lovely experience for anybody else, so instead we opted to see ‘Takers’ – some kind of cops and robbers film. Within minutes, the Ugandan members of the audience were splitting their sides with laughter. Now I have heard Ugandan audiences laugh uproariously at pathetic rom-coms that barely raise a smile from me, but this was meant to be full of suspense. The only point that made me laugh was that one guy was trying to sound like an East End gangster and failing miserably. When there was a slightly tense moment in the film, the lady next to me virtually leapt onto her partner’s lap. Meanwhile, I was unsuccessfully trying to stop myself from dropping off to sleep. I snapped awake as the closing credits rolled and wondered what it was all about!

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!