I've been mainly Kampala based for last month or so, doing lots of work (I'll update about that separately), suffering from a few bouts of food poisoning (no photos of those particular experiences you'll be pleased to hear!) and generally enjoying the sunny weather and social life. I've also been on a couple of day trips.

Last weekend, I spent a day exploring a few sights in Entebbe. Known mainly for the airport, Entebbe sits on the shores of Lake Victoria, used to be the capital of Uganda and has a golf course that seems to be bigger than the city centre! It's about an hour's drive from Kampala and is much quieter and calmer. 

The main reason my friend and I decided to go was to explore the botanical gardens. Laid out in 1898, the gardens sit on the shores of Lake Victoria, and contain trees, shrubs and flowers from around Africa, South America and Europe.

My favourite flower was this one from South America. I'm afraid I can't remember its name, though I think it included the word goose! -

Outside

Inside

We learnt how different plants and flowers are used for medicinal purposes for example aloe vera to cure malaria (I tried some of this in the office today, It is not a pleasant taste!) and of course, are also used for eating such as cocoa, star fruits and jack fruits. Also for beauty products. These berries are called "lipstick ladies" and are used by many women in villages to create bright red lipstick -

There's also a small, indigenous rainforest. It is widely claimed locally that the first Tarzan film was shot on location here -

This is apparently where Johnny Weissmuller swung from in the Tarzan film. We were encouraged to have a go,. I declined!

There were lots of birds, including yellow throated leafloves, Jackson's golden-backed weaver, a red-chested sunbird and a pair of giant eagle owls. The zoom on my camera wasn't quite powerful enough to catch these. Nor the colobus monkeys that sat high up in the trees, refusing to come down and just staring us out! (see here). Here are a few more things my camera did catch though -





A baby pineapple

A golden bark!

After lunch on the Entebbe "beach" -

we headed to the Ugandan Wildlife Education Centre. Commonly known as Entebbe Zoo, it is actually an animal refuge for animals that have been rescued from poachers and traffickers or that are unable to look after themselves because they're ill or have been orphaned.  

Charles, the baby elephant wondered around the centre. He was bought to the centre just a week after being born as both his parents had died and he couldn't fend for himself:

There were many other animals there, including black rhinos, some very poorly looking lions, shoebills, leopards and zebras.

The centre seems to be a popular tourist destination for Ugandans ( I think because it provides an opportunity for many people to see the animals that are generally abundant in their country, but which sadly they are often unable to see in the wild because the price of safaris is too prohibitive). Being the only muzungus ("white people") at the zoo, two people asked to take a photo of us, which was slightly disconcerting......!

I did, however, see a Crested Crane for the first time -

The crested crane, though sadly endangered, is, as the name suggests, Uganda's national symbol and crest. The national football team is called the Ugandan Cranes (and they may not have made it to the world cup, but they did beat Mauritania 2:0 in Kampala last Saturday!).

A few weeks previously I went to visit Ssezibwa Falls. Half way between Kampala and Jinja, the falls are steeped in folklore. Many hundreds of years ago, the legend goes, a woman called Naskangu of the fox clan, gave birth not to twin children as expected but to a twin river, split into two distinctive streams by an island immediately below the waterfall. It is still believed by many today that the sprits of the unborn children (Ssezibwa and Mobeya) still inhabit the river and it was once customary for any Muganda passing the river's source (20km away) to throw grass or stones into it for good luck. Still today a thanksgiving sacrifice of backcloth, beer and a cockerel is made at the river's source every year, communal sacrificial ceremonies are still held at the waterfall and the waterfall is said to have spiritual significance.

We didn't witness any sacrifices, but we did have a nice walk around the falls and a lovely picnic:

As a bit of a contrast, we got back to Kampala just in time to see the sunset over the industrial zone! -
 

 

Back in Kampala, I have also completed my beginners' Luganda course. A mix of last minute cramming and some very lenient marking meant that I passed the end of course exam! Since my last post about the course, I learnt a few more things worth sharing. There are 22 different words for banana! There are two different words for "wife"; "omukazi", which literally translates as "to be an expert in things of the home" and "omukyala" which translates as "woman who used to visit the homes of married men"! There is, of course, only one word for husband; "Mwami", the literal translation of which is "king" or "chief"......

We have a few more weeks left until the end of term and then I'm looking forward to heading out of Kampala and Uganda for a short time and exploring Mozambique on a little holiday!

 

Bulago Island

I've just spent the weekend at Bulago Island, one of the Sesse Islands on Lake Victoria and stayed here I thought I would do just a short blog post and upload some photos!

 

Lake Victoria is the second largest fresh water lake in the world and the largest body of water in Africa; the same size as Switzerland.  The Sesse Islands consist of 84 separate islands, some large and densely inhabited, others small and deserted. Bulago Island is the nearest island to Kampala  (although it feels a world away from the chaotic city)- around 30km/ about 2 hours in our boat:

 

 

Our boat docked in Munyonyo harbour, Kampala

 

On the boat:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday evening sunset over Lake Victoria from the boat:

 

 



 

 

 

 

Heading to our weekend home

 

We had a really lovely weekend, relaxing, eating lots of fab food, swimming and exploring the island a little:



 

Our pool

View from the pool



 

Freaky spiders web near the pool in the evening!

 

 

 

Super cute Apollo the puppy by the pool!



Dining room



 Exploring the island:

 

 

 

 

There a small little beaches on the island. However, it is not really advisable to swim in the lake, partly due to the risk of bilharzia and of the crocodile that swims in the lake and strikes occasionally!

On top of a hill!

 

 

We saw quite a few spiders' webs on our walk. I walked straight into one of these. It wasn't a very pleasant experience!

 

 

 

 

Pineapple bay

 

Finally a few pics of our Saturday night BBQ & campfire: 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Since holidaying in Rwanda, I've been spending my time in and around Kampala. This a short blog post with a bit of an update on some of things I've been up to.

The rainy season is just coming to an end here and, although, in practice this means it rains briefly most nights and mornings (with the odd full day of rain) and then the sun shines again, I have found the walk to work through a significant amount of mud a little challenging - so much so that I considered buying a pair of wellies (not quite what I expected to be adding to my wardrobe living in Africa!).

We've also had two more public holidays recently. The 3rd June is Martyrs Day here. For those interested in the background; in late May 1886 an unknown number of men and women, suspected or known to have been baptised, were forced to march to an area of Kampala called Namugongo and imprisoned. On the 3rd of June those that refused to denounce their faith (at least 26) were massacred. Martyrs Day marks this and there were various celebrations and marches in Kampala (though I must admit I spent most of the day at a BBQ...)

Tomorrow (9th June) is Heroes Day, which is in honour of those  who sacrificed themselves to better the lives of the Ugandan people.  Many of the heroes officially recognised by the government are fallen soldiers who died during Uganda's civil war in the 1980s. The holiday is quite divisive with debate about what constitutes a hero and no widespread agreement as to which of that war's fallen should be honoured (the Ugandan opposition are boycotting tomorrow's celebrations apparently).

On this public holiday weekend, the annual LaBa Arts festival took place. You can see more info here. Yesterday the festival was held in Kisementi (a square of shops,bars and a new shopping mall) with various small exhibitions, stalls and performances (cultural dancing, a percussion band, breakdances, fashion parade etc). Here are a few pics:

I've generally been trying to check out Kampala's cultural scene a little. I also went to the opening of an exhibition by a famous Ugandan artist called Ronex (if you're interested in looking at his work, you can see it here) at a lovely little art gallery called Afriart. Last night I visited the National theatre for the first time and went to see the Kampala Amateur Dramatic Society's (KADS) production of Grease, which was fun. Here are a couple of pics!:

I'm also still going to my Luganda classes twice a week - and still finding it a bit of a tricky language to learn, though I am starting to understand snippets of conversations when I'm out and about. I find the pronunciation quite difficult, along with the lack of logic (our teacher will introduce a rule and for a moment it all seems clear, but then he'll introduce about 10 exemptions to that rule...). It's a really lovely class though and I'm also learning quite a bit about Ugandan culture and practices.

One class that particularly made my head spin was when we learnt about time. In Uganda, as we're on the equator, the sun sets and rises pretty much at the same time every day. So for Ugandans they start time at the hour at which the sun rises. So our 7am, is 1 in Uganda. Plus they use words rather than AM and PM. So, 2am in the UK is 08:00 Ez'omutumbi (translates as "the 8:00 when the sky is black"). Once you start adding minutes on to the hours, it gets more complicated. To say " The time is 6:45pm" (so 12:45 Ugandan) you say:

"Saawa kkuminabili n'eddakiika annamutaano ez'olweggulo"

Confused? So were we...

Much of the meaning of the words depends on tone and emphasis. Often the same word has more than one meaning and the meaning can be told by the emphasis in tone. For example, the word "okutta" means "to set free" and also means "to kill", which apparently was historically unfortunate for at least one man who was imprisoned by the King Of Buganda and set free (the King's men misinterpreted the tone and so the man was killed...). The word "amazzi" means "water" but also means "excrement", depending on the tone used (which obviously could be embarrassing if you used the wrong emphasis when ordering a bottle of water...)

Finally, I particularly like that, as Luganda is a developing language, many of the words are borrowed. So the verb "to Skype" is "okuskypinga" and to use facebook is "okufacebookinga".  For clothing, a t-shirt is "t-saati", jeans are "jiini" and socks are "sokisi".

The class runs for another month. Apparently, we have an exam at the end. I'm really hoping there are lots of questions about borrowed words and not many about the time!

Finally, I spent a weekend in Jinja. Jinja is just a couple of hours drive from Kampala and is famous for being the source of Nile (and for various adventure sports...). I've been a couple of times and this time we stayed at a lovely place called Holland Park. Here are a few pics:

We stayed in some lovely cottages

 

Strange bug with a broken leg!

 

 

 

I'm still really enjoying being at Hands for Hope and have been busy. I'll do a separate post soon on some of the things we've been up to.