Gandalady

Off we go again

2009-12-16T08:57:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone and apologies for the long absence. We've had rather a lot on, as you are about to find out.

We are leaving Uganda on 21st Dec, as in 'leaving leaving' not 'Christmas holidays leaving'. We took the decision about, i dunno, six weeks ago. Why? Well, the long version is a bit complicated and more nuanced than what follows, but here is the short version.

1) My job. It was fun and most of the time I enjoyed it, but it became pretty obvious that I wasn't really making the business any money. Product development mainly involves telling suppliers "do it like this, not like that...and please can I have the perfect, finished article by next week?" Then you wait for them to deliver. Then you start the nagging phone-calls. Three weeks go past: nothing. Someone gets malaria, has to go to the village, or it's raining. Then you get the pillows/bunting/macrame dolls and it's still wrong and you have to send it back. Repeat ten times. Now, this is Africa, and things do happen a lot slower round here. Given how difficult it has been to get crafts into the shops quick enough, it was hard for my bosses to justify my full-time position.

I was offered part-time, but as the main breadwinner, we couldn't really live on the money. And in my heart of hearts, I was missing my girls a lot. I think Emma and Gloria didn't mind that much that I wasn't around, but I've really missed baby K and I like to think she has a soft spot for me too. I've also gained a new appreciation of how productive mothering is. Boiling up carrots and smearing them on my toddler's face feels like a better use of my time than waiting idly for craft paper from Kenya and feeling guilty for being paid for it.

R liked his job in the cocoa business, but realised he much preferred emergency response. But it wasn't just about the jobs. I think we found living in Uganda much tougher going second-time round. The electricity saga, a gruelling school-run over terrible roads, the riots when we just arrived back. Our friends witnessing a man being beaten and then burnt to death in a horrific case of mob justice, not one mile from where we live. A lot of frustration and sadness over a great country badly managed.

We also had something of a nagging conviction that we had moved back for the wrong reasons: the nice climate, the great school, the interesting work opportunities. All very convenient, but even three months ago we felt torn and lacking in passion and purpose for being back.

So where too now? Well, we have been exploring various options. R applied for and got a job in a country which does tick our passion and purpose boxes. (Its government is rather touchy, so that's why I'm being coy about saying exactly where.) But we all wanted to be sure it was the right thing, so he flew half way round the world intending to visit it only to have his visa for said country denied. At least he got to explore the airport for 8 hours, and he brought me back a tasty seaweed snack. Yesterday he had an interview for another job in....Teddington! I can't deny that a large part of me would LOVE to be home. We could buy a big house and stay there for forty years and never go on an aeroplane ever, ever again. But stop me before I count my many chickens before they are hatched.

Operation Pack Up N Leave is going well so far. (Another reason why I haven't posted for ages.) We have sold our car, lots of paintings, got new jobs for our staff, had parties. According to BBC Weather it will be snowing in Portsmouth on Saturday! Can I get woolly coats in Owino market?
So there we have it. Leaving on a jet plane with no job and nowhere to live. But we are happy and are sure it's the right decision. Here's a picture of our darling Emma, going out with a bang in her Christmas play, Hosanna Rock!

Problems with our utilities - fascinating!

2009-11-09T04:46:00.000-08:00

Thanks for all the comments, guys! There are lots I want to come back to (nothing like the warm glow of controversy to get me to my computer screen) but I am a little distracted at the moment..

We had a visit from the electricity people on Friday. No, sorry, the electricity people and the lawyers. Dudes in suits and dudes with wire cutters, anyway. They told us we were among their "most stubborn customers" - I love Ugandan English, even when it's threatening - and they had come to cut us off.

To cut a long story short (and boy it's long and very boring), there are about $600 worth of electricity arrears on this house, from before our tenancy began. No-one is taking responsibility for it: not the landlady, nor the previous tenants, who both blame each other for the arrears. There is no meter at the house - despite repeated requests for one - so it's not like we've got any hard evidence against either party. We have got by so far on many, many, many...journeys to the elec people's office, paying what we think we use, giving our best smiles and begging a stay of execution.

So on Friday, when they turned up with m'learned friends, we thought our number was up. After some more chit chat - I am getting quite good polite, slightly desperate pleading -they disappeared again. But for how long is anyone's guess. If they cut us off again (like I said, long, boring story) we will move out immediately and look for somewhere a bit less complicated.

If that weren't enough, something is up with the water tank. The girls' evening bath now has a layer of sandy sludge at the bottom, with tiny, creepy red flukes wriggling in it. That can't be good for you. I think the moral of this story is 'Don't judge a house by its pretty view.'

Unhappy Halloween

2009-10-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are, October 31st again, and I think this is the last year I can get away with avoiding the whole subject of Halloween with the girls.

I don't 'do' Halloween. I don't do it a) on principle and b) on preference. On principle because it's a pagan festival, specifically a celebration of spirits, witchcraft etc etc and as a Christian it's against my religion, man. On preference because a) I find the sight of little kids dressed up as vampires and skeletons weird and creepy b) I've had bad experiences with South London hoodies trick-or-treating c) why mess up a lovely harvest autumn vibe with skeletons and occulty stuff? And pumpkin pie? It's a crime against cuisine! D) (yes, I'm on a roll, but ranting can be good for you) it's also a peculiarly American festival and I resent the Americans taking over my cultural anniversaries. What was wrong with bonfire night?

Have your say, because I am feeling comment-starved. Am I
a) a miserable old fart. Put on your witches' hat and party!
b) spot on! Those trick-or-treaters should be locked up and force-fed pumpkin pie til they repent.
c) right and wrong, because I'm a nice person (not like you) and I like to sit on the fence

Forget cereal..

2009-10-24T03:34:00.000-07:00

I have been on my own the whole morning. R has taken the girls, plus good friend Zia, to the shops, leaving me to potter and fiddle around the house in perfect peace. So far I have managed to write a long email; swap the girls bookshelves and tidy them, arranging the books in order of height; pick lots of things off the floor; read The Week from cover to cover and eat some of last night's beans and sweet potato. Now I'm bored.

This afternoon Zia has promised to give me a curry masterclass. I *heart* curry, but like so many things -sigh- I can't cook a good one. Last week I tried a lamb rogan josh, and despite following the recipe to the letter, I got comments along the lines of "bit stringy and fatty", "more of a casserole than a curry isn't it?" and "are you sure this is lamb, not mutton?"

Now what do you think of our weekend breakfast? Fried with onion and a little oil, termites are a very tasty snack as well as being full of iron. And as Her Majesty The Queen Termite lays on average 30,000 eggs a day, more sustainable than beef or lamb or mutton.

Yum yum!

Should dentists be camp?

2009-10-15T04:56:00.000-07:00

I went to the dentist yesterday. Visits to the dentist are something I am very skilled at putting off, especially in Uganda where finding a good dentist involves committed research.

I have serious dentist fear. When I was a kid, I spent every three or four months in the chair (my mother was and still is, very conscientious about oral health.) It involved lots of fillings and nasty flouride treatment with mouth guards filled with vile-tasting bright blue gel. When I was old enough to decide whether or not to visit the dentist, I chose not. I have had long spells of truancy, the longest of which has been four years. But I am trying to turn over a new leaf: set an example to the children, something like that. Add to that the sneaking suspicion that all is not well dans ma bouche, and, having a terrible sweet tooth, the realisation that my chocolate chickens might be finally coming home to roost.

"Why don't you try Doctor T," said my boss. "He's great! It's so relaxing I often fall asleep in the chair!" I liked the idea of falling asleep in the chair, even if I didn't believe it for a second.

Fast-forward to a smart area of Kampala, a nice courtyard and shaded parking. "WELCOME!" said Dr T, a Ugandan man in his early forties. By this time I was already in the chair, sweating, both through nerves and the fact it was covered in plastic. He took digital photos of my teeth (very cool), some X rays, poked around...and said I needed a filling.

"Because it's only a superficial cavity, I will drill without anaesthetic ok? Any pain, just raise your hand." A split-second later, after I almost leapt off the chair in sudden agony, I got my injection. So much for falling asleep in the chair. "My, we have a jumpy one here!" quipped Dr T. For the record: I have had three children, none of which involved anaesthetic. Again it's the dentist thing: someone poking around in my mouth just gives me the screaming heebie jeebies. I really think I would rather give birth.

After I was filled, her reviewed my x rays, oo-ing and ah-ing like a pantomime dame. (I don't want a camp dentist: sorry. I want an earnest dentist, an academic type with glasses, who pauses before he gives a considered answer from the well of his experience and long medical training.) "You have another cavity right there!" he said, pointing at what I thought looked like a perfectly decent looking tooth. I have to go back in a month.

Then I went home, nursed my fat cheek and ate some mashed potato for dinner. I'm not sure I will make my follow-up appointment.

A posh function

2009-10-08T07:51:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like the words "official " and "work dinner" that make me reach for the excuses or feign sudden illness. So I still have no idea why I did actually end up going to this:

Okay, so I'm not exactly a huge fan of his, but my head was turned by the likelihood of el presidente turning up. And he did! He was two hours late, which I think is moderate lateness for a president, by which time I'd had ample opportunity to catch up on my texting, and by which time the nice waiters had filled up my wine glass many times...not good when the food, like the president, is also late, and I am supposed to be a poised and dutiful wife.

So when el P arrived with his security detail and we'd sung the national anthem (no-one sang along actually, but there were at least some chest-clutching patriots in the room), I was a little pink around the eyes and minded less that my posh frock was a little 'gappy'.

Then came the awards - the whole thing was like the export equivalent of the Oscars - and Gandaman's company got the gold award for cocoa. Hooray! Other categories included 'hides and skins' and 'stationery'. Yes, Uganda exports stationery! And fish, fyi, lots of it - wouldn't have guessed that one.

El P gave some handshakes, there were some speeches from ministers. The banana lady had the line of the night: "he who touches the banana, touches everyone!" El p came across well in a grand-fatherly sort of way, though I didn't really take it in as I was very hungry and it was past my bedtime (10:15). Gman kicked me twice for nodding off, but I woke up just in time for the buffet.

In other news: the whole of Kampala and probably the whole of Australia is overjoyed at the safe arrival of the baby warthog. Would pay good money to hop over the Brisbane and tickle his little tusks!

Ugandan dudes

2009-10-02T05:22:00.000-07:00

Week three of being a working girl again, and I am slowly getting into my job. There are things that make me want to bang my head on the table in boredom - measuring bag handles - and tasks that are such good fun I can't believe I'm getting paid to do them.

One of the fun things is visiting lots of Ugandan artists and taking pictures of their work for potential buyers overseas. That's how I met Eria Sane (above), at his parents' house in Entebbe. He does big, exuberant, acrylic paintings and treats his subject matter with a lot of humour and playful irreverance. Eria himself is bright, ambitious and articulate. At 30, he has ten years of painting already behind him, and is still energetically churning them out.

"Ugandan artists don't make money because they're not very productive! They just wait for an exhibition or something. I am very productive," he tells me proudly. I ask him if he thinks the lack of productivity is a cultural thing. "You see, colonisation brought suits and ties and office jobs and made black people despise working with their hands! Now we have all these people in offices, but what are they actually doing? We are not producing food anymore!" As he continues his productivity rant, I tell him he reminds me of Margaret Thatcher which makes him laugh.

What is Eria's favourite subject matter? "I'm a humanist. I like things like justice, fairness...I like being a social critic. I like being fluid. I am painting a lot of forests right now, because it's so important that in Uganda we keep our forests, our swamps." (De-forestation is a big problem here.) I ask him his plans for the future. "I want my art to go worldwide. I want to make a name for myself. I want to market our culture, who we are."

We are not alone.

2009-09-29T10:08:00.000-07:00

Little Warthog has a possum. We have a banded mongoose! Mickey Mongoose and his family have happily installed themselves next to the compost bins, where they snuffle around and eat any snakes and rats that come along.

They can definitely stay, then.

Punctuation matters

2009-09-23T07:35:00.000-07:00

We are settling back into Kampala life...thankfully no more hair-raising incidents to report. I love being on top of my mountain, and we even had a party last weekend a sort of housewarming / R's birthday combo.

I like parties: I just hate organising them. I get in a terrible fluster about how much food to buy and whether we have refrigeration capacity. I can't bear the thought of waste - something I have inherited from my mama - and whether my terrible cooking will be exposed. (We had broccoli, pasta and sausages the other night, which I managed to mess up. I still maintain the useless grill was partly to blame.) Barbecues are at least quite forgiving in this sense, especially when you buy the meat pre-marinated and there are lots of pyromaniac friends prepared to take over. But I most love it when the guests turn up, and the spirit of misery guts suddenly disappears.

My favourite thing though: the cake...

Yeah, "Robert", Happy Birthday!
You can run but you can't hide, scumbag!
love,
your friends at the FBI

I think I should be told.

How Uganda works, pt 3288

2009-09-17T03:38:00.001-07:00

Gandalady is on the phone. It is Wednesday. Day three in her new job!

GL: Hello? Is that 'Standard Signs'?
Male: Yes. This is Brian from Standard Signs.
GL: Oh great. Can I come and meet you? I'd like to order some new signs for Banana Boat. Can you tell me where your office is please?
Brian: We are on Kampala road, next to the Crane Bank etc etc.
GL: OK see you tomorrow!

Gandalady is in the car. It is Thursday: time for her meeting with Standard Signs! She has spent about fifteen minutes looking for a parking space in the centre of Kampala. She is trying to be smart and professional, but is actually hot and bothered.

GL: Hello, Brian? I can't see your office. Can you meet me outside Crane Bank?
Brian: Yes of course.
They meet, make chit-chat and head to the lift. They get outside Sanyu FM, a local radio station.

GL: Er...where is the office? Standard Signs?
Brian: Actually...I don't work for Standard Signs, I work for Sanyu FM! Here is my card. I am an advertising sales executive. Would you like to advertise on the radio? Wait a minute, the studio is just here, do you want to look around...?
GL: No thank you. I want to go to Standard Signs. You told me you were from Standard Signs.
(Awkward silence.)
Brian: Let me get you the number of Standard Signs.
GL leaves the building. Later on, Brian sends two numbers for Standard Signs...neither of which work.

And now for some classic Gloria:

2009-09-16T11:43:00.000-07:00

No really, everything's fine!

2009-09-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

Good news: much calmer today. We had a nice drive to the shops and I even went for a walk with Gloria this afternoon. Sadly it doesn't mean a total end to the violence; just that it's migrated to another part of town.

What's annoying is that our electricity is very feeble at the moment. Rumour has it someone sabotaged one of the transformers at the army barracks near here during all the unrest. We have lights, although very dim. (I can't see my keyboard properly. Does that mean I can actually touch type? After all these years? *emotional sob!*) But we can't run the fridge and the inverter won't charge. An inverter is a special widget that sucks electricity from the mains and stores it in batteries for when mains power fails. That is the, er, technical description. But: at least we have the internet! Who cares if the milk is sour!

Baby Kitty has also developed a nasty stomach bug. She has thrown up four times in 24 hours..she doesn't have a fever, but I hope it doesn't develop into anything sinister as we haven't got our new health insurance sorted yet. We have, however, run out of cot sheets as the washing machine is broken and everything has to be hand washed. Not that we could run the washing machine anyway with the power situation.

So yes, I'd say we've got off to a somewhat shaky start to our Ugandan adventure (round two.) But at least the rains have made our garden beautiful. I might even try and grow something in it!

A scary moment

2009-09-11T10:42:00.000-07:00

What is going on in Uganda?

We learned yesterday from our neighbour, that "there were riots in town, people dying, eh!" At the time we didn't take it that seriously because a) our neighbour is a bit of a jack-the-lad and prone to exaggerate and b) we put it down to another local turf war dispute, and so unlikely to affect us. We carried on business as usual.

Apart from being beautifully traffic-free, I didn't notice anything unusual on my school run. But an hour later, we were told to come and pick our children up. We heard of shops closing and people leaving work. I went home with my new boss and had a very nice time chatting about cushions and Christmas decorations, and from time to time we heard gun fire. Cue nervous laughter. Then it got to be frequent enough for some anxious phone calls to R and boss's fearless mother about their movements. (Fearless mother adamant about going to town to buy a new notebook.) Boss went home, and R came back with Emma, and we went about making beans and sausages for lunch. Everyone was a little tense.

Then, just as we sat down to eat, the gunfire got very noisy and quite intense. It sounded like it was a couple of hundred metres away, although we live on top of a hill and noise travels so we weren't sure. But it was scary enough for us all to suddenly get up and go and eat in the corridor away from the windows. We tried making it into a bit of a joke, but it was pretty frightening.

It didn't last, thank God, and it died down after an hour or so. We ventured down the hill and went for a swim, and everything seemed pretty normal, though 'the situation' is a hot topic of conversation. Tomorrow is likely to be bad too, as the king of Bugunda is planning to make his visit (against the wishes of the President.)

So your prayers are appreciated..for our safety, for this land, that the people won't go and screw it up. We still believe God is in charge, and that he's good. That's a huge comfort, and goes deeper than the fear.

A long absence

2009-09-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

I can't believe we're back in Uganda already and I only found time in England to write one lousy post. So here is a summary of the last few weeks. This is where those time-efficient bullet points come in handy!

It is a shock having to look after one's own children. I am not sure how anyone manages it back home. Either I am fundametally lazy, or Uganda has spoiled me. Feel free to speculate!
We did A LOT of socialising, all of it enjoyable and somehow involving food. There is half a stone more of me here as a result. I would be on the rice crackers and cottage cheese...if you could get them here.
Although we did a lot of socialising, there was still not enough time to see everyone. (Sorry, PF, are we still friends?)
We did lots of work on the garden. Actually, Rob did everything, I called out encouraging things from the kitchen.
We intended to clear the loft, but nostalgia overtook us and we ended up putting 90 per cent of it back.
Major change has occured in Tooting: Primark has become...TK Maxx! Marks and Spencers has become...Primark! And Woolworths has become....Poundland! (Not much change there then.)
Despite being grey, rainy, overcrowded and full of miserable people, I absolutely love London. It's home.
Gloria had her first filling! No more fizzy drinks and neat Milo powder for us and
...it's my birthday today. Thirty-six and still hot!

Gandalady's essential camping guide!

2009-08-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe it, but already we are two and a half weeks into our England adventure. So far, it's been great. Lots of family and friends to see, and cool drizzly skies to enjoy: yes, really. Prior to our departure there had been hardly any decent rain for a month, and Kampala was turning into a dust bowl. (I will let you know when the novelty wears off.)

The highlight so far has been camping at New Wine. We heard some excellent counter-arguments to the new atheism from Dr John Lennox, who has publicly debated its leading exponents. We came away with a library of books. And the camping was very character-building! Just in case you're thinking of taking your young family to Somerset for seven nights under canvas, I have put together this useful guide to help you learn from my mistakes!

1. It WILL rain, torrentially, unremittingly for eight hour stretches, more than once, because THIS IS ENGLAND. Factor this in before starting the holiday to minimise disappointment.

2. Come prepared. Gum boots, waterproofs, tent in good condition, sense of humour, enough change for courage-building chocolate and caffeine fixes.

3. On a camping holiday, you can never have enough warm clothes. Bring twice what you think you'll need. If you have been living near the Equator, bring three to four times that amount.

4. Tiny, two-man tents are for sixth formers and masochists. You need something spacious that you can stand up in. And an air mattress, and a double duvet. It is not supposed to be punishment.

5. Bring the potty. It is much easier to take to the toilet block in the rain than a screaming, bursting child who has lost their shoes.

6. Don't worry if you don't wash for three days or change your shirt for five (ahem.) No one will notice. Will they?

7. Don't even attempt to wash the children in a muddy communal shower. It is a complete waste of time.

8. Ear plugs. The teenagers come out in force after dark and this is..testing.

9. Take full advantage of the close quarters: babysitters everywhere! Other children for yours to play with! Very good.

10. A glass of wine at the end of the day warms you up and generally improves the whole experience.

How Uganda works

2009-07-19T11:58:00.001-07:00

It's the day before the Gandas leave for England. Gandalady is running errands all over town. Her list of duties includes collecting Emma's new passport, having only realised the old one had expired two days previously. In the car on the way to the British High Commission, her phone rings. She comes to a junction on a quiet road, indicates, feebly pulls over and answers the call. Behind her is a pick-up crammed with police. One of them jumps out and taps on the window.

Policeman: Madam! Stop there! (points to parking space over the road, waving arms around excitedly)
Gandalady: Umm... Oh? me? My phone? How silly of me. Sir, I am so sorry, very sorry. Please, I won't do it again. Please let me go, I have a thousand things to do. (She pulls over as instructed. The pick-up pulls in front, blocking her in. All the policeman, about a dozen of them, stare at her. Some of them are armed. The first policeman comes back to the driver's side of Gandalady's car.)
Policeman: (righteously indignant) You were driving like an unprofessional! If I take you to court now for being dangerous, am I wrong?
Gandalady: No. Not at all. You would not be wrong. I was not thinking. Sorry. I will not do it again. Forgive me. Pause. Can I go?
Policeman: (enjoying G's discomfort) No, it is not OK! Give me your papers.
Gandalady hands over her driving licence. Policeman pulls out Cath Kidston style flowery note book and starts writing down details. Other police watch intently.
Policeman, uninvited, gets into Gandalady's car on the passenger side.
Policeman: (lowers voice). You see madam, it is like this, today I am out with the big man. Three stars! So I must do my duty. I must confiscate your phone. 400,000 shillings fine. And then you must come to court, where they serve 6 months to 1 year for dangerous driving. What do you say?
Gandalady: Please, sir. I cannot let you have my phone. I need my phone, I am travelling tomorrow. What is the fine? Let me pay the fine. Gandalady reaches for her purse.
Policeman: (hisses aggressively) You put that money away! We go there first (points to spot a few metres away from the pick-up. Gandalady obliges.)
Gandalady: What is the fine? Let me pay it.
Policeman: We go to police station first. Then the court must decide, if it is prison or what.
Gandalady: I can't...
Policeman: Just give me 100, 000.
Gandalady hands over the money. I will give you a million shillings just to get out of my car and go away.
Policeman: (shoving notes in his pockets) Go now, if you make trouble for me I will take away your vehicle and get you in prison.

A small problem

2009-07-14T06:16:00.000-07:00

We have moved.

I am sitting in my living room on the house on the hill, looking out over Lake Victoria. Four days in and we have just about unpacked. I say 'we': actually Gandaman did all the leg work. I sat around, staring catatonically at the boxes as he unpacked, mumbling about "exhaustion."

I am a very reluctant packer, and an even more reluctant un-packer. G-man likes his house a home, with books on shelves and photos and nice lighting. I am at heart, still a student: give me a saucepan and some teabags and I am pretty happy. Everything else we need will creep out as I need it, or so I reason.

I was surprised at some of the items that had managed to make it to the new place - a plastic doll's severed leg, various tupperware boxes with no lids, some broken plastic wallets, unplaceable foreign coins. And yet, I had managed to leave behind some very vital personal property: no less than my entire underwear drawer!

Imagine my consternation on Friday morning when I discovered the absence of my precious smalls. Followed by the despair as I handwashed my remaining pair in Johnson's Baby Wash, the washing powder having similarly disappeared. Then the acute embarressment of calling the new tenant at our old house and the new boss at Medair to try and locate their whereabouts. "Hi! How are you? Yes, sorry to bother you, but..have you seen?.."

To add insult to injury, these were not any ragged old things: they were almost new, specially ordered from England. Decent bras and pants are about the only thing you can not get here. Balsamic vinegar? Check. Brand new DVD player? Yup. Marmite? Technically yes, though the arabic script is a little unnerving and it doesn't taste the same as back home. But undies? Only if you like polyester blends from China in pastel shades.

Then we got the call yesterday: the contract cleaners had picked them up (the contract cleaners!) and discreetly put them in a plastic bag, which was subsequently taken to the Medair office. I sneaked in earlier today and removed them, carefully not making eye contact with any of the staff.

It's great to be reunited with my er, 'items', but I am also saddened that I no longer have an excuse to run amok on my yearly pilgrimage to Marks and Spencers.* Though actually, I think I will anyway.

* we fly to the UK on Friday for 6 weeks - yay!!

News! News!

2009-07-02T02:25:00.001-07:00

We have a house and I have a job and we are staying in Uganda!

After much to-ing and fro-ing, we are moving into the house on the hill: the one with the spectacular view and beautiful creepers and guest house and veggie patch. And I took the job at Banana Boat! At last, Gandaman gets to realise his dream of being a househusband, although he is also sniffing around for a part-time job in case the dream becomes a nightmare.

It's all go round here: we are signing contracts and transferring money, doing inventories, thinking about work permits, booking flights. From time to time we remember we have children to attend to. We have to move in before we go to the UK on 17th July.

Worm update: Emma took it to school today for her show-n-tell. A powerful health promotion message there!

And here is a photo of our girls, because even though we've barely had five minutes with each other of late, they are still dreamy. As in all photos, I am looking a little rough:

No news

2009-06-25T02:44:00.000-07:00

No news, no news. Nothing on the house, nothing on the job. We are still in limbo. There is nothing we can do about either, so I'm distracting myself with useful things, like looking up evacuation policies and deciding which pink looks best in the cushions Eva is making. I am remembering my deep breathing exercises, and only occasionally run screaming into the bushes. As soon as we hear anything, you'll be the first to know.

And FYI, I was not exaggerating about the worm:

All over the place

2009-06-19T02:15:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, usual apologies about being a terrible blogger and leaving long gaps between posts. I actually have an impressive list of excuses and preoccupations which have kept me offline.

1. My parents were here. We went to Jinja, where our driver was arrested for being drunk and disorderly, but we had a nice time anyway (and no-one was hurt.) We went back to Mihingo Lodge, just as beautiful as last time and my mother cantered through the savannah on a horse -again, no-one was hurt, though she looked very wobbly at one point.

2. Baby K had a roundworm. It was 10.5cm long. We pickled it in some waragi (local brew, made from bananas, undrinkable) and took it to the doctor's. There are loads more details I could add, but won't, as it is stomach-churning enough as it is. We have all now been de-wormed.

3. We have been to lots of parties. We had three of them last weekend. Not sure when we got so popular, but we went with it anyway. I am looking porkier as a result of gorging myself on canapes.

4. We have spent hours discussing our future. R's job is coming to an end soon, but I have been offered a job here! We might stay. Then again, R has applied for a job in Burma/Myanmar and we might go there instead.

5. In case we stay, we have been doing some househunting. Lots of over-priced new builds, with floor-to-ceiling tiles (why do Ugandans love so many tiles? It makes the whole house feel like a giant bathroom.)

6. But we did look round our dream home: on top of a beautiful hill, with views over the whole city on one side and the lake on the other. R could paint in the guest annexe while I win the bread. Lovely creepers and burgeoning vegetable patch.

7. We would be subletting off some Americans who aren't sure yet if they're coming back to Uganda, so the whole thing may be a non-starter. If, that is, we end up staying, which we don't know yet.

8. If R gets through this next round of interviews, he will go to Seattle for the final showdown.

9. Apparently the schools aren't great in Burma, so lots of people home school. I am not sure I am cut out for home-schooling.

10. Oh yes: my job. It would be with Banana Boat, designing and commissioning new Ugandan products with local suppliers as well as lots of other interesting things. I would also have time to really develop Sweetshop, which would be fantastic. If we stay.

If I think about this any more, I am worried my head might explode.

Decisions, decisions.

Sowe island

2009-05-16T01:26:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I got to put my nurse's hat on again as I went with the Hope Clinic team to Sowe island, to vaccinate school children. It has confirmed that I am not really an aid worker type. Call me a wuss, but I am rather attached to my clean, running water and electricity.

I was really looking forward to our trip because I have never seen anything of proper, rural Uganda. It was quite a shock. Sowe island is 45 minutes away from the mainland by boat, and about 1 and a half hours away from Kampala itself. Though hardly convenient to get to, it's not exactly remote - I was back in plenty of time to watch Angelina Ballerina with the girls before dinner at 6.30.

But Sowe is a world away from our cossested, urban life. The village we visited had no running water, no sanitation, no power, just lots of kids running around with distended bellies, alot of them caked in mud and with horrible skin diseases. They drink, wash and defecate into the lake. (It was like sailing on foul green soup, featureless except for the odd plastic bag.) There is a 'health post' - run by an enterprising individual with zero medical training, who picks up 'medicines' from Kampala to sell. There is a school, a 10 minute boat ride away - only the boat is broken. And the school has no teachers, books or other resources. The school is a recent feature, so let's hope the rest will follow. These people deserve better.

Injecting the kids was a nightmare. We were doing the standard infant vaccinations - DTP, polio and measles, which unsurprisingly, none of them had had at birth. It is one thing injecting babies, quite another a school age child who can and will hit you back because, despite careful explanation, the only thing they really register is 'strange white face about to stab me'. One girl was so scared, she peed all over me. (I added 'change of trousers' to my mental list of things I wish I'd brought. Already on it were: sensible shoes, key to the toilet, functioning tin opener. It was the inaccessible lunch, not the pee, that tipped me over the edge.)

The shiney, new school was a reasonable location, but the church hall less so, as every surface was thick with bat droppings. ('Cloth for removing bat droppings' - didn't have that either.) On the way back, our propeller got caught in a discarded fishing net ('pen knife'. Tsk! I would have been a rubbish boy scout), so we had to row into shore. I got home, had a shower, made myself a cup of tea, watched Angelina...and felt a lot better.

PS. By "pregnancy-addled", I was referring to my last three pregnancies. I am not preg, sorry..though I have chuckled hard at the fevered speculation!

Where to start?

2009-05-09T01:13:00.001-07:00

Thanks, everyone for your lovely comments. It makes a girl feel loved when she's miles away from home! You are a kind bunch.

I am racking my brains for things to write about but they are not coming...except in a kind of panicy, jumbled mess. I said in my last post that I wasn't quite in the departure lounge - perhaps I am now. Hence the panic.

Topping the list of anxieties: where will Emma go to school? My pal Jo gave me the names of some good ones, so I parked that worry for a bit, thinking "I'll just go and visit each of them when we get back." (I couldn't imagine signing her up for a place that I've never seen. ) Then of course, I realised it'll be the school holidays. Great for assessing whether you think the children and staff are happy.

Another anxiety: how exactly do I go back to work? My nursing registration lapsed a while back, so I would need to do a Return to Nursing course. It's only three months, so not a big deal, but here's the rub - to get on the course, you need a job. How do I get a job without being registered? I'm sure there's a solution here, but my poor pregnancy-addled brain can't see it.

And here's another thing. R has applied for another job overseas. If he gets it, then all the above will be irrelevant. There are several more hoops to jump through, so this is by no means a done deal.

Maybe a cream cake will give me some clarity?

Movements

2009-04-28T23:48:00.000-07:00

We are leaving Uganda on July 17th.

There it is, the big news. We have known about this for sometime, but for various reasons have had to keep it quiet on cyberspace. We are departing a bit sooner than planned, and though we have got used to the idea of leaving, we are a bit heavy-hearted at the same time.

So why the early exit? Well, here is the good reason. There is peace now in Northern Uganda, after 18 years of civil war. After years of living in displacement camps, people are beginning to return to their villages and become self-sufficient again. Medair - who for years provided emergency humanitarian assistance in the Northern states - are shrinking their programmes accordingly, so that the private investors and development people can take over. This is entirely a good thing - if the emergency NGO's outstay their usefulness, they create problems (e.g. dependency culture), rather than solve them.

This, plus the less good reason (global financial crisis), means that there is a lot less money in the pot. One of the toughest periods for R at work was making Ugandan staff redundant - 5 people in Kampala, 30 in the field. It was a time of serious soul-searching for us too. We realised that our family (R's salary, our house etc) is expensive to the programme. So Rob basically sacked himself. There is a lovely, extremely competent single man who is taking over - and he will rough it in the team house like everyone else. (We did suggest moving into the team house, but they said no! Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned Gloria's 5.30 waking habit.)

Yet through all the uncertainty, we've seen God's incredible faithfulness. Most of the staff have got new jobs. We don't have anything lined up work-wise yet, but we feel at peace about this. We're considering going overseas again, some further study for R...I might even go back to nursing (arggh! arggh!)

But we're not in the departure lounge just yet. There is still plenty to do, like handover Sweetshop to the right people (details to follow in another post), find my wedding ring, and of course, catch the rat. Would it be creepy to then stuff him and take him back to England?

Lost: wedding ring

2009-04-14T03:21:00.001-07:00

I know it's just stuff and you can't take it with you, but losing a wedding ring is quite a big deal. A bigger deal than say, losing a contact lens. The contact lens is probably more inconvenient, but easier on the heart strings.

It's been over a week now, so it has jumped categories from 'mislaid' to 'AWOL', although it won't be 'gone forever' until we get on a plane and leave Uganda. But while there is that glimmer of hope that it might still be under the sofa, I am still a little sad and feel somewhat under dressed without my special bit of bling.

It was always a question of "when" and not "if" I would lose it, however. I think I have lost every piece of jewellery that I have ever been given. A gold chain from my Dad when I was about 11; a ring from my best friend on my 21st birthday. I am a bit clumsy and forgetful (and not naturally tidy), but I don't do it deliberately, either. I have sort of accepted now that I am not a jewellery girl, and have made R swear never to buy me any no matter how special the occasion.

It was white gold, plain and very small. (I am not petite by any means, but my fingers are.) I remember choosing it in R's old school friend's swanky jewellery shop, trying on lots of different styles and feeling very excited about getting married. Hours into the marriage, my brand new ring made the skin underneath red and itchy, and so my habit of taking it off a lot was born. For the next 6 years I wore it most of the time, except when I came into contact with water whereupon it was consigned to strategically-placed shelves, i.e high ones, out of reach of little fingers.

Very early last Wednesday morning, I saw my ring on the bathroom shelf next to the toothpaste. I am pretty sure I put it on. Then there was breakfast and the usual morning mayhem. I got Emma's school bag ready and waited outside our gate for her lift to school. I put her in the car and kissed her goodbye. It's around this point I don't remember having the ring anymore, though I have no memory of taking it off. Since then I have searched high and low and - nothing.

The one thing that makes this whole thing a bit easier is that R lost his wedding ring a couple of years ago. He thinks he stuffed it with a napkin into a paper cup in Starbucks at Heathrow Airport. So we are one all.

I will definitely get another one (if it really is Gone Forever), as I am sick of men throwing themselves at me in the street under the illusion that I am available. Except this time, it'll be made of stainless steel.

Ugandan dudes

2009-04-04T04:17:00.000-07:00

Meet Dan, our ex-guard and his family. That's baby Angela on Mummy's knee, who is a few months older than Katherine.

Being a security guard is a rubbish job in Uganda. The shifts are long, the pay is dismal and it is very, very boring. The big security companies treat their staff appallingly, not relieving them on time and generally being very unsupportive. All too often we watched Dan stay on, well after his 12 hour stint was up, while we made increasingly irate calls to the company - let's call them Group Five - demanding they relieve him. As a result of our phonecalls (in which we frequently threatened to cancel the contract) Dan came to us one day, obviously distressed, saying that the management at Group 5 had started intimidating him for being a troublemaker. He desperately wanted another job.

On his days off, I used to give Dan driving lessons. He was in possession of a driving licence, but his examiner must have been either drunk, blind or of a thrill-seeking disposition. But after a few door-clutching spins, Dan got to be a very good driver, and very adept at the hated school run. And he could do inch-perfect right hand turns. I said I would keep my ear to the ground in case any driving jobs came up - a step up in pay and a welcome break from seven years opening gates (which is basically what guards do all day.)

It wasn't long before Dan came to us, very excited, saying he had been offered a security management job which involved driving - and that he'd passed their basic assessment. The job was also in Mbale, Western Uganda, where Dan is originally, so the location couldn't be better. Hooray! So here we all are, having our farewell afternoon tea. We will miss Dan - a really good guy.
(And for the record: Ugandan men never smile in photos. So take his Mona Lisa curl to be an expression of extreme joy.)

Kitty is one

2009-03-30T04:10:00.000-07:00

Here she is, my little treasure, with her mad, staring lunatic of a mother. Some of us are just born unphotogenic...either that or this is just further evidence that the whole business with the (still uncaught) rat has tipped me over the edge. But isn't my Kit just a million shades of adorable?

At one she can
1. Wave 'bye bye'
2. Say 'Mummy!' 'Daddy!'
3. Squeal delghtfully.
4. Suck her thumb expertly.
5. Almost, almost, almost walk.
6. Splash in the pool - and go under water for a split second. (We've been dunking her from the get-go, to avoid the tedious waterphobia of her elder sisters. That stage is thankfully past now.)

Notice also the appropriate Kitty cake. Not bad, eh? Actually Rob did it all, under my careful creative direction. None of that messy icing business for me, no thank you!

In no particular order

2009-03-20T05:59:00.000-07:00

Ratwatch. The glue is gradually going hard and therefore useless, but we did find a little slick of rat hairs on it this morning. So there is hope. The glue from the tube is the thing apparently, and lots of it.

General insectwatch: Steve the Spider seems to have disappeared, just as well, as he had made the hit list. In his place we now have Simon the Stick Insect, who hangs benignly off the tiles above the kitchen work surface. I like stick insects: he can stay.

Internet Service Providerwatch: I have had 11 days now without internet at home. I have had many phone conversations with the contractor, varying in tone from cool displeasure to shrill rage, waited in for long, fruitless hours. After a face-to-face confrontation at head office - I actually jabbed my finger - someone has been round and is off round Kampala looking for a piece of cable. I'm not sure I am past finger-jabbing stage just yet.

Childrenwatch: Katherine fine, almost walking, Glory fine, loves to cover herself in body art, Emma a bit poorly. It was her class assembly today which she insisted on performing in despite her condition. She croaked her one line and she got a nosebleed half way through, but she soldiered on through the 'Good morning' and the 'Insect' songs (appropriate, eh) before I whisked her home to recuperate.

Close to nature

2009-03-17T04:05:00.000-07:00

My rat (should I say 'my'? Am I emotionally involved now?) is still at large. He has wised up to my glue traps. I hope that means he has moved on (Rebecca?) and not chewing the electric cables. Though that would be another way of seeing him off.

Ratty is not the only creature to have moved in recently. There is a huge lizard in the girls' bedroom. Not monitor lizard huge, but about 7 inches long and slimey, a lizard, definitely, not a gecko. He likes to hide on the mosquito nets, and jumps out at me at when i put them down at night which makes me scream. My first instinct was "kill it, kill it" (I am a born conservationist) but he doesn't bite and he eats the mozzies, so I've decided I can live with Luke the Lizard. I just wish he weren't so slimey and...animal.

My feelings are more ambivalent about Steve the Spider who waved at me while I was having a shower this morning. Steve is a hairy spider. Small, but hairy, like a tarantula. He is black and white, unlike a tarantula. Is he poisonous? Will he kill me? Should I kill him first?

Rat in mi kitchen

2009-03-11T10:43:00.001-07:00

My furry friend has moved in. He is making himself very comfortable. He has put his bags down, thrown his towel on the nearest available poolside sunlounger and is checking his watch so as not to miss the beginning of Happy Hour.

He has found the pantry. I have seen his little ratty gnawing teeth marks in the avocado and the pawpaw. He has been helping himself to our food, and smearing our cereal packets with bubonic plague. (Sorry. I am a little hysterical). My previous strategy - making him disappear by the power of positive thinking - has failed. It is time to change tack.

My international rat consultant and friend Rebecca has suggested strong traps and peanut bait, but my Ugandan friends have told me to go for special rat glue. At least I am not alone in having vermin issues.

Rat glue. Glue for rats.

The idea is this: they come out during the night to feed and get stuck on the glue, you find them in the morning and finish them off with a frying pan.

Why do things like this always happen when Rob is away?

Nairobi, rats and crochet

2009-03-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

We are back online at last after five long days of no internet. It was a revealing absence. It showed, among other things, that I am a) addicted b) always desperate for news from home c) capable of major hissy fittage with unsuspecting technical support personnel.

The headlines from Ganda are:
We went to Nairobi.
We have rats.
We are branching into crochet cushions.

Nairobi was BRILLIANT! I wasn't expecting this, given Nairobi's fearsome reputation. But I revelled in the paved streets, the balmy climate and the leafy suburbs. And the supermarkets! We left with armloads of multigrain loaves and mozzarella. We ate hummus and mushrooms - not from a tin! Bliss. Most blissful was hanging out with very old, dear friend K and her three lovely children.

We have rats. A rat has been seen, scurrying from corridor to bathroom. The fact I am writing this in such a calm way in no way reflects my mental state on the issue, which I have erased from my conscious mind. We also have cockroaches. (Tea, anyone?) I should get the fumigators in.

Following the roaring success of our crocheted Christmas stars, we have begun crocheting cushion covers and kids' blankets. The lady who owns Banana Boat - Uganda's classiest craft shop - has commissioned us. Of course, it's Joan who does the actual crocheting, not me. I just negotiate the patterns, colours, specifications and the money. There's been a lot of trial and error, but we're sticking with it - and if we get the right design and Banana Boat order in bulk, that's a very tidy little earner for Joan, currently out of work.

Beware the Glorymouse

2009-03-03T11:14:00.000-08:00

"..and so it came to pass, after being so snobby about Facebook (see below) Lizzie then decided Facebook was the best thing since sliced bread, and ditched her beloved blog in its favour."

The End.*

*I have also been in Nairobi for the weekend, there have been some very tedious power cuts and general internet connectivity nonsense.

Facebook

2009-02-13T20:35:00.000-08:00

I first joined Facebook about two years ago. I dallied around for about six months, then quietly didn't log on again for another year and a half. Back then I decided I didn't like it: I felt I was already in touch with the people I wanted to be in touch with via non-FB means, and every time I did log in to Facebook , it would suck me into The Facebook Vortex of Extreme Timewasting. So I dropped it.

Then funny things started to happen. Friends who I shared a lot of actual face time with, with whose highs and lows I was well-acquainted, would ask me (actually affronted) why I hadn't become their Facebook friend? I thought this was a bit weird, and told them so. Then I would receive emails from people who I no longer had any face time with, but wanted to stay in touch with, with requests to 'check out their Facebook profile'. My resolve not to become a Facebook monkey started to waver.

And so, the day before yesterday, after I had checked out my friends' blogs for the millionth time that day, the children were all asleep, Rob was away, and feeling sick from too much QS, I logged in to Facebook again after my long absence. Sure enough, the Facebook Vortex of Extreme Timewasting sucked me into its inky depths, and it was only 1 hr and 45 mins later that I managed to extract myself.

At first, being on Fb is a bit like being at a huge party of people you haven't seen for years. I spent ages going round each little group, catching up. Indeed this is the beauty of Fb: seeing old friends' kids for the first time, hearing about their various adventures. Initially, it made me very homesick. But sooner or later, I was led astray, and ended up nosing around friends of friends, and people who I didn't dislike, but didn't get on with either, and suddenly I felt like the teenager at the party, wondering if everyone was secretly sniggering at my choice of outfit. Then I noticed a comment on someone's wall that wound me up, and I kept myself awake at night constructing a clever riposte. That's what I mean about the Facebook Vortex of Extreme Timewasting - it's not just about the actual internet time, it's the headspace it occupies afterwards.

So Facebook, is it a good thing? Or a bad thing? I'm still not sure.

Home alone

2009-02-10T09:27:00.000-08:00

R is away.
Children in bed.
Just me.
All alone.

With a tin of Quality Street.

Anyone want the strawberry creams?

Ugandan dude -ess

2009-01-25T00:06:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday we all went to a party to celebrate 10 years of Red Chilli Hideaway. It's a chain of backpacker hostels run by my friend Debbie. I met Debbie about 9 months ago, queuing to get Emma a new passport in the British High Commission. We hit it off straight away - same height, Brit, likes talking, and as it happened, her kid was due to be in the same class as Emma at school.
Unlike us swan-in, swan-out NGO types, Debbie arrived in Uganda twelve years ago on some post-university travel and never left. (She did go back to the UK for a year, but we'll get to that bit.) She got together with Steve, who was working for the British High Commission at the time. But he was fed up of diplomatic life, and together they decided to start Red Chilli.

They bought some land, with some "derelict buildings" on it, a few kilometres from Kampala city centre and started rennovating. "Derelict buildings" is Debbie's expression, but that's generous: the photos reveal only two out of four brick walls with some grass in the middle.

The tourism business anywhere requires tenacity and nerves of steel, but especially in Uganda where political instability, fraud, unreliable infrastructure, and a tonne of red tape are par for the course. "It was one step forward, two steps back," said Debbie ruefully in her speech. Then in 1999, eight tourists were massacred by Rwandan Hutu rebels in Bwindi forest, home of the mountain gorillas and probably Uganda's biggest tourist attraction. Debbie had met some of them, having passed through Red Chilli en route. (Following their rescue, the survivors turned down a night at the Sheraton and asked to go back to Red Chilli instead.) Tourism to Uganda dried up overnight, but they persevered, and opened a second Red Chilli opened in Murchison Falls National Park.

In November 2005 Steve was in Murchison when he received a distress call from some rafters. On his way to help them, Steve was ambushed by the Lord's Resistance Army. He was shot in the heart, and died instantly. Debbie was in Kampala at the time with their two-year-old son. Two hours after learning of Steve's death, she found out she was pregnant. Grieving, she went back to the UK for a year, to give birth to her daughter. But she didn't stay. "I couldn't allow the dream to die with Steve," she said. So she came back.

Things are far from easy, but on the whole Red Chili does a roaring trade. I bump into Debbie most days at school. When I ask if she's tired, she replies "yeah well I was doing the accounts all night and then Zoe woke up three times..". Running a successful business and mothering toddlers are stressful enough - then I remind myself she is also a widow. Sharp, funny, self-deprecating, down-to-earth too. Impressive woman indeed.

Exit interview

2009-01-21T22:57:00.000-08:00

This is Auntie Caroline. Glory and I took her to Entebbe airport early this morning to wave her off after a month in Uganda. It was pouring with rain and quite chilly - perfect transition weather. I was meant to 'interview' her for the blog, but we got distracted with last-minute present buying. But I did manage to squeeze out a couple of her highs and lows. For the record then, here is Auntie C's holiday synopsis:

Best moment: Giving Nanny a piggy-back in the forest on Ngamba Island and grooming her. (Nanny is a juvenile chimp.)
Worst moment: Being wedged in the front of a pick-up with two men, one woman, one baby and one buttock suspended mid-air between seat and door handle. For eight hours. (That's a long worst 'moment.')
Most useful item of luggage: mobile phone.
Least useful item of luggage: flowery gardening gloves. Apparently useful in the forest for grasping prickly vines and such, but they stayed in Kampala with us.
I would have probed more, but like I say, we ran out of time.

So from our side:
Best moments with Auntie C: Too many to mention. All her lovely interactions with our juvenile chimps, probably. Watching her jump off the scarily-high middle diving board at a pool in Entebbe, after I dared her to. (I climbed the ladder but was too chicken - even after three attempts.)
Worst moments with Auntie C: C's consistent victories at Snatch.
Did Auntie C have anything good in her luggage? Yes! Fabulous Christmas presents from all the Schos, Green and Blacks chocolate and Mr Kiplings mini- Battenburgs (all eaten.)

We miss her already.

Not much happened today*

2009-01-15T07:08:00.000-08:00

I did clean out the car, however. This is what I found:

Plastic bottle - one
Cornflakes - a few hundred, crushed and rubbed into upholstery
Bits of tissue paper
Some shoes, presumed lost
Bits of foil
Lord Lucan - hiding in ashtray
Crew of Marie Celeste
Trillions of dollars - saving world from global economic disaster etc
(that's enough -ed)

*when I promised to post more frequently, I offered no quality guarentees

A glorious party

2009-01-13T00:05:00.001-08:00

You couldn't do this back home in January..

Look how it turned out! I'm even a bit disappointed that I've got nothing to send to cake wrecks , though the mottled cross-eyes are an unexpected feature. Handy tip, bakers: don't put smarties in the fridge.

M: Gloria, you're the birthday girl - why don't you open it?

G: No, you won it fair and square old thing -I insist!

M: You're too kind, but it is I that must insist. You open it!

Baby K: Give me that parcel!

Granny's last day

2009-01-08T10:14:00.000-08:00

Here she is, the intrepid explorer, a few feet away from the raging Nile! This photo was taken at Bujugali Falls in Jinja, where you can watch the whitewater rafters. It's exciting to watch the boats as they go over the falls, but I'm not sure I'd want to do it myself. At least not when I could stick my head in the washing machine in the comfort of my own home for a fraction of the cost.

Granny R is heading back to (freezing cold) Britain tomorrow. The girls will miss Granny bath and story time, though I'm not sure she will miss another rendition of Blue Kangaroo's Christmas which she can recite by heart. It's been fun.

A milestone looms

2009-01-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

Gloria will be 3 this Sunday. Hooray!

I am impressively ahead of the curve (for once) with the party planning, mainly because Auntie C and Granny R have been acting as willing slaves under my creative directorship. We have made invitations out of Cornflakes and yellow wool, drawn a monkey for Pin the Tail on the Monkey (I know it's a break with convention but there is a monkey theme going here.) We* have looked up 'Monkey Cake' on the internet, but that is as far as we've got with the catering...maybe we're not as ahead as I thought.

*Gandaman, reading this over my shoulder, prickled at the use of the royal 'we' in this sentence. The cake is his turf, no trespassers.

Ring Out, Wild Bells

2009-01-03T22:27:00.000-08:00

I found this in my inbox, sent by the lovely C - thank you.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Goodbye 2008

2008-12-31T08:48:00.000-08:00

The last day of December 2008. What happened last year? How much of it was I awake for?

Well Christmas has come and gone and it was very nice. We ate beef, after refusing to cough up $200 for a turkey. Emma got a new school bag, one that you wheel along like an air hostess. She had been asking for one for many months. Gloria got Baby Joe, who cries/gurgles/sneezes when you poke him. Katherine got a teething ring. Perhaps she's poking Baby Joe's eyes out in protest at such a lame present.

Best present of all: arrival of Auntie Caroline and Granny Rosemarie on Boxing Day. Certain routines have already been established; G'n'T every evening on the verandah, followed by Snatch, a word game like Scrabble only quicker and more violent.

We are aiming to actually make it to midnight tonight after years of falling asleep at around 10.30 in front of the TV. We are going to KPC all night praise thing. It's 8 o' clock now, though and my lids are already feeling heavy...

See you in 2009 when we get back from Jinja.

Silent night (and morning, and afternoon etc)

2008-12-24T09:53:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the long absence. I have been a very busy girl! But it is Christmas Eve, I have just finished stuffing E and G's stockings and I can feel the pace begin to ease up at last.

In no particular order, here is what I've been doing over the last three weeks:
1. Running all over town trying to process a whopping 25 Sweetshop garments (thank you, customers!)
2.Packing and posting Christmas stars all over the globe. We sent one parcel to Japan! (Thank you again!)
3. Completely renovating the side rooms in preparation for Auntie Caroline and Granny Rosemarie's visit (48 hours to go!)
4. Hosting a carols and mince pies evening (could I find mincemeat anywhere in Kampala? yes, but it was very much the 11th hour)
5. Curtailing Baby K's new favourite thing (eating soil from the plant pots!)
6. Staying up past midnight two nights in a row (grumpy and ratty the rest of the week!)
7. Performing poorly at charades (upsetting, as I AM THE QUEEN OF CHARADES. My word was 'nougat'. Difficult!)
8. Attending the annual Cantata at Kampala Pentecostal Church. (200 voice gospel choir, dancers, everything. Doesn't get better than that!)

Happy Christmas everyone.

My eldest daughter is officially a genius

2008-12-08T22:15:00.000-08:00

Emma's first school report arrived on Friday. Emma's first school report? She's AT SCHOOL? I had a baby? How did that happen? (I am in a permanent state of shock about the passage of time.)

The good news is that she's learning to read and can sound out 3 letter words. She can also write them down. Like her mother, she finds numbers and problem-solving a bit hard. But it was the 'creative development' section of the report that really set my heart on fire. Listen to this:

"Emma can sit and colour in for long periods of time. She can often be found by the painting easel creating fantastic self portraits." You see? Her art is fantastic, she is fantastic. I knew that already, but don't you agree?

New arrival

2008-12-02T06:29:00.001-08:00

Helen, who works at my place on Saturday mornings, had a baby girl last night! The tiny one weighed in at a very respectable 3.5kgs. At the time of going to press, the young miss is still nameless, but Helen was considering naming her Daphne after her grandmother, who brought her up. Both Helen's parents passed away when she was a teenager.

This is the post-natal ward at Nsambya hospital:

OK, it is extremely basic - no running water, thirty ladies and their babies crammed together like sardines, one measly fan - but for an extremely basic service, it wasn't bad. For a start, it was spotlessly clean. There were plenty of midwives, all of whom seemed to be getting on with the job. I got told off for flouting visiting hours - also a good sign. Still not sure I'd want to have a baby there myself, and not convinced the £35 price tag is value for money for the average Ugandan. (For a normal delivery that is: a caesarean will set you back £120.)

Aussie dude

2008-11-24T01:36:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday was the day of the MTN marathon here in Kampala. I wasn't running this year. I wanted to, but with three tiny nippers and Gandaman away, the logisitics were against me. Plenty of my friends were running, so I took Emma and Glory to watch. Getting to the 7am start was a struggle, but it was worth the sight of thousands of runners take off in their yellow singlets, like a sea of bananas. The crowd were more bemused than enthusiastic, perhaps because jogging has yet to seriously catch on. (When I ran a 5km a few months back, a spectator called out "get a boda!*") I tried to make up for the general coyness with some good shouting and clapping and leaping up-and-down.

It was not like the runs I used to do in Switzerland. Neither the organisers nor the participants appeared to take it completely seriously. The portly stragglers at the back who still hadn't crossed the start-line at 0740; the chap on his bicycle; the relaxed attitude to traffic and crowd control. Then there were the very committed: some runners in slippers, others in bare feet. The muzungus in all the gear, with ipods on their arms. The crowd gasped as they saw a man in his 70s set off for the 21km, and gasped again when he finished in just over 2 hours. The winner of the marathon itself (42km) did it in a staggering 2 hours 17 minutes - Kenyan guy.

Our baby group team, Mums on the Run, all completed the 10km in very respectable times. Well done again, Ros, Kirsteen and Jo! Ruth did a very fast 21km, barely breaking a sweat. But the biggest shout goes out to Monica, who did the 21km a mere 5 months after giving birth. Each one of us felt the lump in our throat as she approached the finish line, and we clapped and cheered ourselves sore.

Here she is about 3/4 of the way round with her pal Dionne and small fry. Watch out behind you!

PS. I meant to post this on Monday, but have had annoying internet problems all week.

*motorbike taxi

Grumpy trousers

2008-11-20T09:29:00.000-08:00

It has been a couple of weeks now since the start of the 'blog more' rule and already I am beginning to flag. What can I tell you? Let's think.

Firstly I have a horrible cold which is making me grumpy and ratty. But it is not as bad as Baby K's, whose nose is a permanent dripping tap, so much so that the skin on her upper lip is red and sore. She doesn't have a temperature, but she looks so sorry and sad I want to take her to the doctor. They would almost certainly not give her anything (apart from concerned eyebrows), but it might make me feel better. My poor baby. Did you know she can crawl and has 2 teeth?

Also the microwave is broken. Of all household appliances this is the one I love the most, and now this infidelity. We eat nothing but re-heated rice* pretty much. How do you re-heat rice without a microwave?

*with bits added

The mosquito hunter

2008-11-18T09:37:00.000-08:00

Gandaman is the mosquito's public enemy number one. He squishes them here, he smacks them there, he splats them here, there and everywhere. In the middle of the night he'll turn the light on, and stalk round the bed, carefully frisking every inch of mosquito net to flush them out. The ones that escape, in return, bite every inch of his bare flesh.

This all works to my advantage. He is the tastier of the two of us, and given a choice, Mr and Mrs Moz always go for the no-extra-cost gourmet menu, i.e him. But he is not here, and Brian and Shirley need to eat, and the chewy old gristle (i.e. me) will have to do.

This is unacceptable. He gets back in eight days.

PS. Back to the deep-fried grasshoppers. I think it's the deep-fried that's the clincher. Isn't everything nicer deep-fried?

Today..

2008-11-17T09:02:00.000-08:00

..Gandaman went to the North for 9 days to visit the Medair programmes. Lonely Gandalady. Gandalady feeling sorry for herself. However: now I get to indulge in some experimental cookery and read for as long as I like in bed.

..We vaccinated 65 children at baby clinic. My favourite name today was a little boy called "Godlives".

..I ate my first deep-fried grasshopper. It was delicious, similar to roast chicken flavour crisps, give or take a disquieting stringiness. "Hmm," said Emma as she tucked in (Glory was too suspicious). "They are nice and yucky."

The Donut Lady

2008-11-14T02:35:00.001-08:00

This is Jennifer. She is The Donut Lady. She sells delicious, squidgy, melting, icing-sugar dusted donuts. So today I brought her with me to school. Parents are invited to assembly on Friday mornings, and coffee is served, but otherwise their hands are sad and empty. Sad, empty hands yearning for delicious, squidgy, melting icing-sugar dusted donuts.

"Ambrosoli, I know it!" she clapped, when I told her where we were going. "I used to work there." As we got to the school gates she said "There I was bitten by a snake!" She showed me a large scar on her leg, just above the ankle. "It was a cobra." I told her she was lucky to be around to tell the tale. Then, hmmm, cobras on school property. Maybe I should tell the head.

Jennifer is only 48 but already a grandmother. She sells donuts to pay for school fees, etc. She has four children, all boys. The youngest one's name is George Bush.

Welcome to my inner life

2008-11-12T00:59:00.000-08:00

I've recently finished The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. As a result I've spent many of my idle moments arguing with him in my head. (RD, I mean, not God.) Gandahusband often catches my lips moving and hands gesturing into thin air, mid 'debate.' He thinks perhaps I have lost my marbles. Perhaps I have? So to lay it to rest, I've decided to commit some of my God Delusion-related responses to blog, probably in several parts* because there is quite a lot of it. The sub-headings that follow aren't quotes: they are just how I've summarised RD's arguments, albeit a bit crudely. I am not as clever as him.

1. There is no God. Scientific evidence tells us so.

I admit, when RD talks about science, he has the upper hand. I am not a scientist, and in the science part of the book (the first few chapters) some - not all - of his arguments are quite convincing. He is right when he talks about biological natural selection and the overwhelming evidence for it. (I'm a theistic evolutionist, by the way, but open to persuasion.) But he also takes his Darwinism very literally and extrapolates it to areas where the scientific evidence is at best weak or questionable. He admits it. In cosmology, as opposed to one big bang, he talks of the 'tantalisingly Darwinian' theory of an explosion of 'multiverses', resulting in mutated 'daughter' universes which are constantly adapting to survive the physics. Or to explain why religion has survived so long, he talks about 'memes': beliefs that are replicated (like genes) through the generations. As I mentioned earlier, he admits the evidence isn't there yet, but the 'tantalisingly Darwinian' comment strongly suggests he wants it to be true. Something you believe to be true without all the facts is a faith position. (RD hates faith.)

2. Scientific evidence is the only kind of evidence that counts.'Evidence' from scripture is only hearsay.

Forensic evidence is not the only admissable evidence in a court of law. There is also witness evidence. The New Testament is witness evidence. Consider this example. Caesar's account of the Gallic War was written 950 years after the actual event, and there are 9-10 existing copies. Scholars don't dispute the historical authenticity of this text. The first extracts of the New Testament appear 30-310 years after the events they describe, and there are 5,000 surviving original Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin and 9,300 others. The life, miracles, and resurrection of Jesus are recounted by the Jewish historian Josephus. Tacitus and Suetonius (Roman historians) also mention him. Even RD concedes he probably existed -but still this kind of evidence doesn't really count. God doesn't exist because we can't see him through the Hubble telescope, stick him under a microscope, grow him in a petri dish, or come up guarenteed in a double-blind randomised control trial. (Incidentally, 90% of the God RD is attacking in the book is the Christian God. Odd position for someone working on the presumption that all religions are the same. Why not share out the vitriol?)

To be continued. You are probably bored by now and I have children to look after.

*I will have have froth-and-bubble posts in between, don't worry

Back in the saddle

2008-11-10T06:12:00.000-08:00

I've spent the morning helping out at Hope Clinic. Monday morning is baby clinic: hence immunisations, weighing, cooing over loads of little bundles and the usual tedious paperwork.

It won't be a permanent gig - I'm just holiday cover for Florence the nurse. But it feels nice to be back after a career break of almost 5 years.

After a nervous start I was injection-happy like I'd never been away. Good recovery for a girl who smashed a glass of water and tipped Emma's fried egg down the side of the cooker, both within half and hour of waking up this morning. Butterfingers!

PS In case you're wondering, I am not extracting the poor kid's tooth. I am giving polio drops, yum!

Pilates

2008-11-06T22:26:00.001-08:00

I think I am coming out of my post-friend induced homesickness. It has been helped greatly by Marie's stated intention to come to Uganda again (here it is, M, a gentle reminder) and the reappearance in Kampala of Little Warthog after her long holiday.

In celebration of her return, Her Wartiness rejected my offer of a jog, and suggested Pilates instead. I agreed, thinking 'it is good to try new things.' That is how I found myself in one of Kampala's smarter cafes last Tuesday, full of enthusiasm and dressed appropriately.

The instructor introduced herself with "Sorry! I am French!". No need to apologise. Then she added, startlingly, "I also 'ave very bad language!". I think what she meant was ' my English is not very good'. (Her English was excellent.)

As it turns out, Pilates is sado-masochistic, humiliating agony. It is also quite similar to ante-natal class: women manipulating plastic balls on mats on the floor, practising loud exhalation. ("SSSSSHHHHHHH.") I couldn't find it in my heart to hate Paschale, the nice instructor, who is obviously an ex-dancer or gymnast and can't help being flexible, but I had federal reserves of un-Christian loathing for my fellow exercisers, especially the ones 10 years older and 10kgs heavier than me who still managed to put their head on their knees.

At least we had a nice latte afterwards, with complementary homemade biscuit, and that in itself is reason to go again.

(Now excuse me while I get into my Radox bath.)

Ugandan dudes: David K

2008-11-05T06:36:00.000-08:00

It's not all doom and gloom here in Ganda. There is quite an art scene going on. We went to a private view the other day: sure enough, the credit-crunch denying mist descended upon us, and we decided to buy some original Ugandan art.

Here is the artist we bought from, David Kigozi, with one of our pictures. We think it's gorgeous and worth every penny. He kindly agreed to be interviewed for this blog.

Hello David. Please tell us about yourself.

I am 32 years old. I have a long-term girlfriend. No kids yet. I rear my kids on canvas!

How is it being an artist in Uganda? Can you make a living from it?

More or less. It is 4 years since my last exhibition, although I have had commissions from the Government of Rwanda. I was also involved in making the CHOGM* monument. Otherwise I have been investing in land.

Who buys your work?

Mainly bazungu. Most Ugandans don't see the value in a canvas painting. They think it's just a piece of cloth! But this perception is changing the more people are able to travel.

Were your family supportive of your decision to become an artist?

I was brought up by my mother who was a single parent, the sixth of seven children. She rented out our house to pay for our education. Yes, she supported me. Three of us ended up going into art. My sister is one of my greatest influences.

What would you do if you weren't an artist?
I'd be an architect or an engineer.

What do you think it would take for Uganda to progress?
If it was truly democratic.

* CHOGM stands for Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. It was held in Kampala a year ago, and the Queen came to visit. It was a HUGE deal here, and people still talk about it.

Political glasses on today

2008-11-04T22:47:00.000-08:00

Hooray for Barack!

I didn't watch any of it live sadly, so I stayed glued to Sky News as I queued in Barclays (nemesis bank) for once getting irritated when eventually it was my turn at the teller's. For the 5 mins or so I watched, there was non-stop gush about how wonderful he is. I think he is pretty wonderful too. But it struck me as odd that the gush was almost exclusively along the lines of "I can't believe at last there is a black man in the white house!"

Yes it is significant, for historical and cultural reasons. But the fact he is black (or handsome or slim) doesn't mean he will be a better president for it, any more than being white made George Bush a rubbish president. (He wasn't all rubbish, either; he did some very good things for Africa I think.) Yes he is black. Well-spotted, everyone. But what about the fact he might also be wiser, have a better grasp of world events, more visionary, generally a better candidate for the big job?

Some excuses and an announcement!

2008-11-01T00:46:00.000-07:00

Oh gosh, ummm, yet another very delayed post. I have all manner of excuses, and here they are:
1. I have had a visitor! Marie is a very dear old friend and the sister of Rebecca. We were all at school together, once upon a time. Marie and I have spent days (or weeks? I'm not sure) talking non-stop, late into the night...actually I am hoarse. And tired, in a good way. She left yesterday and I am missing her dreadfully. I can already feel a wave of homesickness coming and the sudden silence is weird. I have some wonderful ex-pat friends, but there is something also wonderful about a friend who knows your history and laughs at your bizarre, dry, untranslatably English jokes.

2. Our electricity got cut off. No red bills or stern phone calls here, just a man with some wire cutters who came - while I was out - and disconnected us, padlocked the mains box and slapped on a note saying "remove this padlock and you will face prison". Or something. We are reconnected now (there was wrangling over the bill, it's a long story); in contrast to the clean efficiency of Mr Wire Cutter, Mr Wire Connector took his sweet, sweet time.

3. I get a bit rattled when anyone says they like what I write. I don't know why this is. It is a bit like stage fright. Ms Mac (hello!) gave me a lovely plug the other day, and while it makes me blush with pride, I also get into a bit of a tizz about how 'the next thing I write will be terrible' and so I don't. Marie gave me some excellent advice on this, that blogging is a bit like practising scales, just do it, it is good for you and it doesn't always have to be perfect. So I will try and blog more.

4. The announcement. Remember the business idea? I have been tinkering away and guess what, we now have website! In case you don't feel like clicking on loads of links, the synopsis is this: I am paying Ugandan ladies to make beautiful clothes for kids which I then sell to you, dear reader. All the profits go to the tailors. You get a lovely item with a handwritten note, and they get a much needed boost to their income. It's like giving to charity with bells on. I must add here that there is NO WAY this idea would have seen the light of day without the help of my friends Clare Benians, Lexi Smith and Simon the tech genius. They get all the credit: THANK YOU.

We are also selling these star wall-hangings (there must be a nippier description than that!)
in Christmas colours. They are really beautiful and selling like hot cakes over here. £5 to you, plus £1 p&p.

Sauda's story

2008-10-13T01:34:00.000-07:00

"Praise to the living God. Am Sauda, aged 20, a mother blessed with one lovely daughter named Tracy.

I was born in a poor family. I grew up with my father and step-mother. I was alone, I didn't have a brother or a sister. My step-mother had 6 other children and I was badly mistreated. I only made three years of school. So I escaped to my aunt's house and stayed there for three years. She also mistreated me. She forced me to love men so I could buy myself soap, pants etc."

"From there someone persuaded me to come to Kampala to work as a housegirl. I was 10 years old. I found work with a lady who had 5 children. She sold bananas and sweet potatoes to make a living. One day, the neighbour asked my boss if I could work at their place for a day? She said OK. The neighbour - a woman - escorted me upstairs to the bedroom and left me alone. When she left the room, a man came from behind the door. He turned out the light. I started to shout but no body would help me. I cried and cried but nobody would help me. The man raped me, I was 13 years old."

"I went back to our house but I was so weak. I slept the whole day. I told my boss I was sick. After some time I still felt weak, I didn't see my monthly period for three months. My boss took me to the doctor who told me I was pregnant. My boss asked me about the man, but I feared to tell her so she chased me away and told me to go back to my parents. But my parents had already rejected me."

"I went to a friend who took me to her grandmother. The old woman gave me local herbs for drinking and bathing for abortion. I even took some tablets. But the abortion refused. After some months I gave birth in that house because I had no money for the hospital. I stayed in that situation for three months. Then the old lady died and I was chased off that plot. I went back to my friend's place. The Lord blessed me and I got work washing and cleaning, for a Kenyan, then an Indian, then Beatrice [a Medair colleague]."

"After two years, I was told to leave as there was no money to pay, Beatrice was looking after too many relatives. I started to suffer alot with my daughter. So one evening as I was going to the market I met a born-again Christian, preaching. At that time I was a Muslim. He told me that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and to come to him, all who are carrying heavy loads and I will give you rest. I was heavy loaded in my life, and no-one can help me, only Jesus. So when they called people, I ran freely and confessed salvation without anybody forcing me. From that day I started going to church and they prayed for me. After this time I met Liz."

"Before I had nothing to eat with my daughter, she was not being schooled and we could not pay rent. But I praise God for his many miracles, now we have everything that was lacking. I thank him so much."

Ugandan Dudes: a new series

2008-10-13T01:04:00.000-07:00

Everyone meet Sauda. She looks after my children. It's because of her that I can write this. I can hear Katherine gurgling and giggling in the background, and her laughing along. I owe her my time and my sanity. The girls are besotted with her, and she is definitely their favourite over moany old Mum. I don't mind. Even when the girls are otherwise occupied, I love having Sauda in the house. Her sunny disposition brightens up my grumpiest moments.

We took Sauda on full-time two months ago. She is the reason I have not been posting much -suddenly I had lots of time on my hands, and not much to do. Aside from a bit of clothing business work - more on that later - I've been shopping, visiting friends, drinking some lattes. (Roughing it in Africa, see?) Not much story in that.

Sauda's story is something else. Harrowing and humbling, I asked if she'd mind me writing it up so that people all over the world could see it? (That was my best explanation of 'the internet'.) She said she didn't mind.

I was expecting to interview her, but she arrived at work this morning with an exercise book, the first 10 pages or so covered in Biro. She had got a friend to write it for her. So while I will edit it for length and a little for clarity, the next post will be Sauda's, as much as possible, in her own words.

re: RE

2008-10-10T23:01:00.000-07:00

In this brave new world they call 'school', apart from the driving, the uniform, the homework etc, I have also discovered the bored housewife's home from home, the PTA. I normally hate things like the PTA; there's nothing like an earnest discussion on social events that makes me want to chew gum and heckle from the back row. But in the absence of very much to do in Kampala - rather you do stuff, but it tends to be the same stuff over and over again - I started going to these meetings as welcome distraction and to make some more friends. I am a (slightly) bored housewife myself, after all.

Imagine my surpise then, when both meetings strayed from the original agenda ("The role of class rep" and "The British Curriculum" yawn) and turned very interesting. We talked a bit about the thorny issues around how you teach history and geography in an international school, and then it was a matter of time before we were handling the hottest of hot potatoes: religious education.

I wasn't paying attention 100 per cent,but this is what I remember. UK schools are meant to offer religious education of some sort, without bias towards any one religion, unless you are a designated faith school. Parents have the right to withdraw their children from all RE lessons. OK then. At Ambrosoli (Emma's school) it is not taught at all. While that should make life easy for everyone, actually it doesn't really. An example. Last year, Diwalli and Hannukah got coverage (in fact Ambrosoli is meticulous about covering every international event..Song Khran, anyone?) but the 'Christmas' play was about....different hats. Happy holidays, everyone! (There was a nativity play, but only after considerable parental lobbying and then only out of school hours.)

I am a Christian. Of course I want Emma to be taught about Christianity. However, it was a conscious decision not to send her to a faith school (and I could do a separate post on the reasons why.) So in choosing Ambrosoli, it was never my expectation that Christianity would be taught pre-eminently in RE lessons. But to have no religious education at all? Nor can anyone answer precisely why this is case.

If the head teacher or the board were made up of prosletysing atheists a la Richard Dawkins, who argue that religious instruction is a form of child abuse, it would depress me but at least it would be a clear position. What riles me is the impression that they want to steer clear of the whole issue for risk of offending people. When did we all get so sensitive?

I love the challenge of defending what I believe, and I like being challenged in return. It would be almost impossible to come up with a religious education curriculum that everyone is happy with, but life's like that sometimes. Let it at least follow some honest debate; debate that wouldn't even be allowed in many countries around the world.

To give them credit where it's due, the lack of RE at Ambrosoli has been recognised as problematic by the board, and a questionnaire was sent round last year to all the parents about the kind of religious education they'd like to see, if any. It's a start, though like many an initiative, at risk of being quietly shelved in case the results don't lead to neat and easily implementable solutions.

In my new role as Head of the Awkward Squad, I look forward to bringing it up again and again...

A moan about school.

2008-10-03T07:20:00.000-07:00

No posts for a long time, sorry. For once I am not entirely to blame: Blogger repeatedly refused to recognise my name and password. I mean, not recognise me? Moi? After all these years? That hurts. There is also something fishy going on with google and gmail and whatever. Blogger teccies I am not happy, if ever you read me..

I digress.

I have also been consumed with momentous things, like Emma's first day at big school. I felt pretty emotional, as if the credits were rolling on the Baby And Toddler Years. No time for wistfulness, though, as quick as a flash we're into the years of The School Run. Why did no-one tell me about this? The military timetable from 6.30am. The fights. We have four before we leave the house: 1) Eating breakfast, 2) getting dressed 3) brushing teeth 4) brushing hair. In the car we have fight number 5) listening to the radio. I have banned listening to the radio, as it is unsuitable for children. Constant Mr LoverLover Man, I wanna love you tonight type pop tunes, as well as some Heimlich manoeuvre explicit adverts. An example. "Are you sensuous? Passionate? Then maybe you should consider Ohhh! Condoms!" Did I mention this is 0730 on a work day? Emma always wants to listen to it and gets annoyed when turn it off, purse my lips, and tighten my corset.

Home schooling is looking more attractive.

How to get from A to B

2008-09-11T00:56:00.000-07:00

Leave Geneva 2.55pm, Egypt Air to Cairo. "May I have a seat belt for the baby please? The plane is about to take off," I ask. A reasonable question. "We don't have one." says Mahmoud, a kind-looking member of the all-male flight crew, looking worried. "Just hold the baby really, really close!" I reel Katherine to my chest and breathe.

There is no telly. No film. Some rather piercing Arabic music on the headset. We have a bag of snacks, 2 children's magazines, a pack of crayons (which I will discover don't work on the shiny magazine paper), a pack of Animal Snap and four hours til we touch down in Cairo. The minutes tick past. God, help me.

7pm Touchdown in boiling hot Cairo. "May we have our pram please? We did ask if we could have it in Cairo," asks Gandaman. "Ya, ya!" says jovial Cairo air official. "Why is your baby sucking her thumb???!!"

9pm. Gandaman meets us in a cafe (Cairo airport - good facilities, FYI) looking thunderous. "We got the pram," he said. "And this." He holds up one of my McLaren Techno Classic's wheels, which has been completely severed. A small argument ensues about whether we should try and claim damages. This time I win, citing age of pram, pre-existing decreptitude, whiney tired children, whiney tired wife and the immenent gate closure of our next connection. The McLaren is abandoned in Cairo Airport, gate 9. A sad moment: Emma was wheeled home from hospital in this (now) knackered pram when she was born.

10pm depart Cairo. More kind staff, one man in particular who wings a seat for me at the front. And a bassinette! I could kiss him.

3.45 am arrive Entebbe, feeling faint and headachy and desperate to lie in a comfy bed. I have spent the last few days wondering if my brain made the journey along with my limbs.

At least some people found it very comfortable:

Gandalady goes a bit scary.

2008-08-21T10:37:00.000-07:00

Snake dead.
K's bum cured (partially).
England tomorrow.
Switzerland in one week's time.

If that all sounds very focussed, it's because all day I have been VERY. FOCUSSED. on packing. So focussed that I can't really string a sentence together.

See you in two weeks.

Get me a stiff drink NOW

2008-08-15T02:40:00.000-07:00

There is a snake on my property.

We've not met him in person, 'Mr Snake' (for I'm trying to pretend I am not screaming inside for the sake of the children), but we know where he lives - in a hole in the garage floor. He made us aware of his presence by leaving some of his skin behind. Sweet! If it weren't for Eva's beady eyes, I'd still be thinking it was a bit of plastic.

Rigid with fear, I called my mate K to tell her the momentous news. "Oh, it's probably only a mamba," she drawled dismissively. She didn't know you don't say things like only a mamba to someone as snakephobic as me. You say 'only a really large worm', the kind that sheds its skin, etc etc. "They don't attack anyone," she continued reassuringly. "It's the cobras you need to watch out for. They killed a 5 foot one outside my classroom the other day." Yay, cobras too.
Anyway, I thought mambas - the green, deadly poisonous ones - were aggressive snakes, that did attack. I also thought they lived in trees. Why the heck did it think it would be more comfortable in my garage/utility room? Damn snake.

Still, despite the icy cold terror gripping my heart (E keeps telling me it's fine, it's daylight, Mr Snake is sleeping), I don't like much the idea of killing him. I will never be a vegetarian, am pretty unsentimental about animals generally (K has some cute black Lab puppies that she is desperate for me to take and every week I say 'no'), but suffocating old snakey with parrafin seems pretty rough. But then one snake into a house full of toddlers doesn't go.

I've done the only acceptable thing in the circumstances and made it someone else's problem. The pest people come at 3.

What I did on my summer holidays

2008-08-09T01:42:00.000-07:00

Days 1-3 we went to the spectacular Mihingo Lodge , in Lake Mburo national park. Luxury safari tents with thatched rooves overlooking savannah as far as the eye can see. Even the loo has a full-length window, as the only other prying eyes will be antelope or if you're really lucky, leopards. (Hooneymooners take note: the most romantic place I've been in my entire life. Less romantic with small people in tow.) Gandaman got scared by a buffalo snorting at him on his after-dark walk, Gandagrandad had a close encounter with a crocodile, all of which added to the excitement.
5 stars.

Days 4-5 expectations dramatically curtailed with visit to here , which Gandagranny noted would be a good place to committ suicide. Dark, damp and gloomy, yellow water issuing from the taps, threadbare bedcovers - all at a trigger-pulling 200 bucks a night. After an hour waiting for our sad, tiny sandwiches to arrive, I got on my mobile to the smart place up the road to see if they had any cancellations. But when the manager got wind of our chagrin, the charm offensive he mounted was so effective - drinks bought, little sweets left on the threadbare bedcovers - we caved. The Gandagrandparents took it all in their stride. Throughout the holiday, as long as the Scrabble was close at hand they were pretty happy. On a more sinister note, our friends called us later to warn us not to pay by VISA at Malaria Lodge as this is where they'd had their identities stolen. So people, resist the urge.
No stars.

Days 5-9 a very welcome upturn in the shape of Ndali lodge. Built on a breathtakingly beautiful ridge between two crater lakes. Took some much-needed, child-free long walks. Visited the brilliant, v inspiring vanilla farm. Developed a nightly gin and tonic habit. Spent many hours in the swimming pool with Emma and Gloria. (E and G in fact would have happily spent the entire trip in a concrete bunker, as long as there was a swimming pool.)
4 and a half stars.

We had some pretty good animal spotting. Antelope (impala, topi, bush buck, water buck, but no eland.) Elephants (hard to miss and therefore always a winner with toddlers.) Hippos and crocs we have already mentioned. Hyenas, a personal favourite, and worth the 5.30 start. Lions, cool, but quite far away. Any attempted photos would have just shown grass. No leopards, though and everyone knows they are the coolest of all. Lots of lovely birds: I have a soft spot for Mr Blingin' here.

To my mum and dad, with love xx

2008-08-02T05:52:00.000-07:00

John: Hellowsy!

Angela: Hellowsy!

John: How is your good self?

Angela: Grand!

John: We're eating AFRICAN FOOD! This yellow stuff is called matoekey!

Angela: What?

John: MA-TOE-KEEEYY! It is like a LARGE BA-NAAA-NA! (dramatic pause) I say, did this chicken die of malnutrition?

Angela: What?

John: I think this chicken died of MAL-NUU-TRITION!!!

(much falling about with laughter from J and A)

Angela: I like the baked beans. Very tasty!

John: I say, Rob, will you order me a beer? Most kind.

(beer arrives. appreciative glugging.)

John: This Friday your mother and I will have been married forty-six years!! (looks at A.) Your good health, pet!

Angela: Your good health!

Back from safari

2008-08-02T05:30:00.000-07:00

Hello again! I've just been on safari with my parents. It was a blast. Full disclosure in the pipeline, but after 10 days of bumpy roads and stalking big game, I need a shower to wash the tonne of dust off my person.

Gandaman and Gandagranny went chimp trekking and look what they saw!

The next day, they saw the whole family:

A cheeky request

2008-07-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

I have been preoccupied by my baby's bottom.

Obviously because it is round and perfect and delightful, but it also has eczema and I have run out of ideas how to treat it. Friends, agony aunts, health visitors, dermatologists - over to you.

I am pretty sure it is eczema and not common or garden nappy rash because my usual tricks (airtime and Sudocrem) haven't worked. The rash is not spotty, either, but uniform patches of dry, red skin. I have tried pretty much every cream now: petroleum jelly, E45, something that looks and smells like Metanium Ointment but it's a South African brand and the instructions are in Afrikaans. (It might even be oil paint - who knows?) I have stopped using all Johnson's products as they make her go dry and flaky all over. I put olive oil in the bath: when she comes out I want to put her in the oven with onions and some garlic.

The only thing that seems to 'cure' it - it's only temporary - is sticking her in disposable nappies. I hate doing this. Disposable nappies are twice the price as they are back home, hideous for the environment wherever you are in the world but even more so in a country where rubbish is collected and then dumped somewhere convenient where little kids pick through it for anything they can use. Or eat. (She still uses a disposable at night, though - something's got to give.) I have looked all over Kampala in vain for non-bio detergent, in the belief that it's what I wash them in that's the problem. Then my friend told me yesterday that the bio/non-bio distinction is a bit of a con anyway.

Very reluctantly I have started using steroid cream to try and crack this thing. But in the long term I know it's a bad idea - thins the skin, discolouration, etc. I don't want to give up the nappies - they cost £270 and were barely used with E and G, and I want value for money.

Any suggestions? No remedy too wacky for consideration. To all the homeopaths, hippies and herbalists I've offended in the past, I apologise.

I'm all ears.

Born on the 4th of July

2008-07-06T10:25:00.001-07:00

This is a message to my BEST FRIEND who had a baby yesterday.

Dearest BBH
Am aching to see you, be with you, squeal with you about the 'birth story', ooh and ahhh and pinch the small cheeks of the tiny young chap, sit on your bed, fuss round you, make tea, change a nappy (even), bore you with tips, tire you with gossip, and generally jump for joy at such a happy event. I am jumping for joy, just in Ganda; tremors can be felt throughout the land. If I were home all of you would be under a small mountain of flowers, chocolates, cuddly toys and the odd How to Make Your Infant Sleep manual. I can't do any of the above, but here is something for now:

Big love to the proud daddy. Miss you. xxx

My favourite bank (again.)

2008-06-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

It's not been a great week. The big reason being yesterday's post, but add to that tropical tummy trouble, Gloria splitting her head open on the shower attachment* and the car breaking down outside the local brothel and you could say Kampala is losing its shine.

Whenever I'm down, though, there's nothing that lifts my spirits like a bit of Barclays bashing. Hello, corporate spies!

My brother recently sent me through some info about Katine, a sub-county of Soroti district, where The Guardian is sponsoring various health, education, watsan and livelihoods programmes. "It starts with a village", goes the lofty strapline. The Katine projects are run by AMREF (African Medical and Research Foundation), who, to give credit where it's due, seem like dudes. But it is all funded in partnership with...Barclays Bank! BB are matching them pound for pound in donations. Barclays who charge £5 on every withdrawal once your balance goes under £50 (£50 pcm being the average wage here in Ganda.) They should make their money back in no time by squeezing the very people The Graun wants to help! FYI, my local branch also scores pretty high in Basic Incompetence. I needed to withdraw a couple of million shillings the other day to pay for our holiday, and after a lot of waiting around and flustered tapping on the computer, I was informed sheepishly they had ran out of money. Well done!

I feel better already.

*Gloria is fine. She is a bit accident-prone. She will have a scar on her hairline, but only a tiny one.

Another tragedy

2008-06-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

My friend Monica gave birth to a beautiful baby just before midnight on Tuesday. She sent round a joyful text giving the vital statistics: little girl, 3.75kg, 52cm long. The beep of my phone woke me up. I grunted happily to Rob and poked him with the news. A grunt from him, happy sounding. Then we went back to sleep.

At 7.30am the next morning I replied: "Congratulations! Well done! Girls rock!" Or something. At 8am, or thereabouts, I got another text from another friend. "Hello baby group. I have some very bad news. There were some complications and Monica's baby has died. Please don't send any more messages right now. See you all later this morning." I was numb with shock.

Lots of tears at baby group. We had all been so excited about this new arrival. It was Monica's first baby, and she had been hungry for all the intel about nappies, breastfeeding, sleep, birth, hospitals. We had loved dishing it out. We had spent a very enjoyable morning with a latte and a cinnamon roll, while I gave her my Katherine birth story. The past few days I have been racking my brains, trying to remember what I said. Had I given Monica a false impression of the risks involved?

On Saturday Monica and Dave invited our baby group to a reunion. It was enormously gracious of them given the magnitude of their loss, that they could acknowledge our grief and bewilderment. It turns out little Mazhira (it means 'light' in Hebrew) died of meconium asphyxiation. Dave showed photos, and we passed round a paper with her footprints on. She was a pretty little thing, and she had big feet. They are on their way to Australia as I write this, to bury her in a cemetary just walking distance from their house. I can't imagine the pain they must be in.

Monica and Dave both said they were comforted by the knowledge that others were sharing their grief with them. Please remember them in your prayers.

Yessir, that's my baby!

2008-06-13T06:45:00.001-07:00

Baby Katherine is 10 weeks and 2 days old. She is chubbing up nicely, although I have no idea what she weighs. (Getting her weighed means a drive across town, on doddery, unreliable old scales. And by the third kid it's all a bit less urgent anyway.) She doesn't cry much. She loves milk. She doesn't seem to mind being manhandled by her big sisters. She is still sleeping through the night, 7 til 7, which I can't quite believe. (If it's any consolation, Gloria still wakes us up 2 or 3 times.) I love snuggling into her round belly and big cheeks. Rubbing her with baby oil after her bath is a gorgeously delicious treat. Ahhh. Makes me almost want to have another one....*

*no way. not really. sigh. well, maybe. actually: no. er..

Paining

2008-06-08T23:31:00.000-07:00

Ugandans don't say something 'is painful'; they say 'it is paining me'.

My start-up is paining me.

Following some very useful customer feedback, I have been trying to get East African fabric. Uganda has not yielded much so far, at least not of the right quality for children's clothes. You can, however, get lovely soft Kikoy fabric from Kenya. Baby K having no passport, I figured the best thing would be to get my contacts (hi Phyllis) to buy the stuff and post it. This has led to much paining.

My package got stuck in the post office. FYI, if MI6 need a new office, they could do worse than move to Kampala main post office. It makes rabbit warrens look like palaces of minimalism. Package located, they wouldn't release it until I had paid duty on it, which FYI was sixty percent of the value of the fabric inside. Coughing up the tax bill involved a morning of utterly needless standing around in the Crane bank. (It was Charles, a friend of mine, who did the standing around: I sat in the pouring rain in the car park opposite jiggling baby.)

I don't have a problem with taxes. But sixty per cent duty is eye-wateringly high, I'd say. How can anyone turn a profit with that kind of tax burden? If there were decent roads and shiny new schools springing up here and there I'd mind a lot less. So where is the money going? Answers on a postcard..

At least now I have these babies:

shorts, wrap skirts, towelling-lined bathrobes coming soon

PS Happy Birthday Mama xxxxxx

Good, bad, whatever

2008-06-07T02:34:00.000-07:00

There is no water coming out of my taps. There is no water coming out of anyone's taps. There is no mains water in Kampala today. BAD.

I have been to a fabulous hairdresser's! Despite the weakest of briefs, she gave me really rather a nice new barnet. GOOD.

It is raining torrentially, ironic given water shortage. Good for the garden but rubbish for the toddlers. BAD.

The torrential rain has started flowing down the Internet antenna on the roof onto the electrics. VERY BAD.

My nine week old baby now sleeps through the night. BRILLLLLIIANNNT!!!!!
Don't hate me.

Battle of wills

2008-05-31T00:18:00.000-07:00

Sometimes - ok, most of the time - I wish my children were like the Von Trapps, who wore uniforms, stood to attention and came when whistled for. (Until of course Maria comes along and ruins everything.) It's a case of the terrible twos and the feisty fours...

Scenario 1: Getting Dressed. E insists on wearing clothes 2 sizes too small for her, garments that would be perfectly acceptable on an 18 month old, but on her make her look like a teenager on a bad Saturday night. G changes her costume about 4 times a day, but her preference is nudity.

Scenario 2: I'm bored. Every afternoon around 4pm, after Glory's nap and Emma's "rest time" (fat chance), the cry resounds "what now, Mummy?" Indeed. For it is about now that I too have run out of ideas, we have done colouring, made cards, played on the swing, read stories and avoided anything that involves anything like exceptional creativity and mess (painting, basically.) 4pm is when I frantically phone round everyone I know in Kampala (I am terrible at forward planning) asking if we can come, have tea and trash their house. These days it is more difficult as everyone disappears over the summer. If we don't leave the house there is about an hour of wailing, breast-beating and general naughtiness. And that's just me, ha! ha!

Scenario 3. I'm tired. Emma has given up her nap, but by the third day of no daytime sleep she gets to around 6pm and completely crashes wherever she is: on the floor, standing up, she doesn't discriminate. The safest strategy is just to get her into bed, fully dressed if need be, and retreat noiselessly. Wake her accidentally, and she cries loudly and inconsolably for ages...then decides she would like to stay up late after all.

Help me, Captain. (Don't listen to the nun.)

Things I wish I'd done before moving to Uganda:

2008-05-24T10:48:00.000-07:00

1. Done a car maintenance course.

Cars. Doncha love em? Big, expensive hunks of metal, destined to go wrong. And so it goes with our ~~useless Japanese tonka toy~~ Rav 4.

For weeks we have been having battery trouble. Well, the battery terminals to be precise, get furred up or judder loose every time you go over a pothole (which is often.) So now, were you to ask me 'what do you never leave the house without?', I would answer wallet; phone; water; snacks; nappy; wipes; spare babygro; number 10 spanner; wire brush. I am getting good at whipping the bonnet up, scrutinising the engine as if I have an idea what I'm looking at, scrubbing furiously at the acid fur and then fiddling with the spanner, unsure whether the thing has been tightened or in fact loosened further. We have applied vaseline to the affected area - snigger - poured boiling water on said terminals and rammed bits of tin foil/copper wire/chocolate wrapping to try and get the thing to spark.

On Monday I will be on the blower to the smiley-but-makes-me-wait-in-all-day mechanic.

Blogger's Block

2008-05-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

Hello, I promised I would write properly and so I shall.

What's been going on down Ganda way? Well quite a lot of mundane stuff, the sort of thing that goes on in middle-class homes all over the world. Which is probably why I haven't written about it. I've changed a lot of nappies, done a lot of breastfeeding, drank lots of cups of tea, drank even more glasses of water, had other mums over with their children and compared developmental notes, commented on the weather, been shopping. I've also swanned around in my 4x4, told my staff what to do, removed gekko droppings from the kitchen sink, forgotten to get fuel for the generator, visited various international schools, spoken Luganda badly, led an Alpha discussion group, visited a tailoring school in the slums, not seen the neighbours and felt guilty about it, drank more tea, ordered some kikoys from Nairobi, been frightened by an excel spreadsheet, got lost in a very rough area of Kampala (also frightening), discussed theology over lunch, made heavy inroads into our stash of Swiss chocolate, listened to my fantastic iopd shuffle (thanks bro), received an exciting parcel from America (thanks sis), read Private Eye, watched several episodes of Lost (still don't get it), wiped Gloria's nose, laughed by the pool (but didn't get in), held K as she was given 3 injections by a nervous nurse, spoken crossly to the builder, raged against Barclays, raged against our dodgy electrics, but rejoiced at the regrading of the road. I've written emails, stared into space, missed my friends, wished I were in Zanzibar, wished I were in damp, misty Dorset, but not really wished I were in rip-off miserable London.

Business as usual. We're OK.

In all her Glory

2008-05-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

Will write something proper soon. Busy busy.

Chop, chop

2008-05-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

Gloria and Emma have had their hair cut. They both sat quietly and compliantly for the hairdresser, no need for the usual blackmail with sweeties and ice cream. It was over in minutes.

All this would have been great only mummy was absent, the hairdresser in question was 4 years old and the result was....jaw-dropping. On one side, Glory looked like a normal toddler: on the other, her hair had been all but hacked away apart from the fringe and rat's tail at the back. Think East Germany. Think Limahl from Kajagoogoo, those of you over thirty. Emma got away slightly better with some thatchwork at the fringe - the same fringe I've been growing out for months.

Don't ask for photos. I am traumatised.

Business update...

2008-04-27T23:56:00.000-07:00

Remember the business idea? Well even though I've been slacking of late , it is very much still on.

We have sold our first item, to belgianwaffle no less. After some nail-biting weeks of thinking that our parcel had not arrived, and that we would be cobbling together complaints procedures depressingly early in our operational life, it turns out that the dress arrived, well on time and that the small customer in question is very satisfied, if a bit chilly. Eva and I got very, very excited when we heard such feedback. A month or so ago we sent some stock back to the UK and we'll see how that does too.

I had a bit of a dip in enthusiasm after scouring Kampala's textile shops and finding very little in the way of nice, quality fabrics. (Unless teflon-coated lime and black tiger stripes is your thing, and more power to you if so, you would like it here.) I went in search of some Ugandan-woven stuff, at a place called the Textiles Development Agency, but all the weavers had been laid off as there was not enough work. More on this another time. Just as I had written Kampala off and was preparing to go to Nairobi to get some decent material, I took special K into town (her first visit) and came across a new shop with some pretty stuff in it. So we are back in business. Expect more photos soon.

(Nor can I write this without giving a big shout to my friend and now business partner Clarey B. Thanks to her we have a logo, a brand name and a website in the pipeline, and without her time, committment and general enthusiasm, this whole thing would surely have hit the buffers.)

PS this green spotty number is one of ours. Send me a note if you want one.

The future's bright, the future's..pink

2008-04-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in a previous post, the Scho's have now finished their breeding bonanza.* Three children is just dandy, now the shop is shut. While a little boy would have been very exciting and rather novel, baby K is such a cutie it's already hard to imagine the world without her.

As far as oestrogen-heavy families goes, it seems we're not alone. Just in Ganda, our friends L&F have 3 girls, B&D 4 girls (and 1 boy), E&L 2 girls, S&F 2 girls, I&J 2 girls 1 boy. Back home the record stands at C&M's 5 girls (and 1 on the way, sex unknown), but the pattern continues.

Where are all the men children? Is there something in the water?

*still, it's dangerous to make pronouncements like this. As my friend Dan puts it, "the stork is always listening."

In which the terrible reality of life in Africa hits home

2008-04-11T10:20:00.000-07:00

OK. This post is not going to be blogging-lite. If you want blogging-lite, click away now. Normal service (rabbits, Katherine etc) will be resumed soon, but you can't live here and meet Ugandans without at some point brushing against the desperate misery that so many of them face. As I said: not blogging-lite today.

Remember the neighbours? From time to time I have visited them. I bring bits of food and homemade playdough for the gangs of kids which seems to go down a storm, especially as not many of them speak English. A while back we exchanged mobile numbers. (An aside: no-one does landlines here. You guys are so backward in this regard.) They have always welcomed me into their home. Sometimes we've prayed or read the Bible together. No-one has a job or much in the way of schooling. No-one has ever asked me for money either. A surprise -and very humbling.

When K was born, Pastor Rashid asked if they could come and visit. So last Wednesday, a little troupe of 4 adults and 2 children, all looking immaculately smart turned up at our gate. We sat on the balcony, drank sodas and ate chocolate brownies while they cooed over the new baby. They gave me a gift: a Pepsi Cola T shirt and a cook book from the 80s entitled "Fresh ways with soups and stews." I re-iterate - none of these people has a job or anything like a regular income. Baby Israel, who I saw being born, was looking very healthy and huge for a 3-month-old. Baby Simon, 7 months old, was climbing all over his mother and seemed fine. When I asked how he was, I was told "he is diarating." (Ugandan English, and a neater way of saying, "he has diarrhoea.") I didn't probe: he really looked fine. Just the week before I'd gone to the doctor with one of our guards and his baby daughter, worried that she was "diarating", only to be told that up to 10 loose stools a day is normal for a breast-fed baby. (Shows how long I've been out of the nursing game. But it was reassuring to be told, anyway.)

The next evening, quite late, I got a phonecall at home in the middle of a leaving party for a Medair colleague. It was one of the neighbours, telling me that Simon had died. I was stunned.
At first I panicked. Just the day before we had all been sitting around my week-old baby. Could she have caught something life-threatening? By the morning I was more rational. We went over to see Simon's mother in their tiny shack. Simon was there, under a blanket on the floor. He looked beautiful and peaceful. His mother was distraught. "My heart is hurting," she said. This lady is an orphan herself. We all cried. They buried him that day, in a town about 60km away.

Rob bumped into Pastor Rashid later that week. Apparently, they had taken Simon to a local clinic. The doctor there assumed he had malaria and injected him with quinine. Very soon they noticed that he was having a bad reaction to the drug, so they got in a taxi to Nsambya hospital, but by the time they got there it was too late.

Did he have malaria? He might have done. Diarrhoea is one of many possible symptoms. Many places can't afford expensive microscopy, and even if they could, the clinical conditions aren't great for effective diagnosis. Blind treatment is the only option for many people, and malaria is a killer. But quinine is also a nasty drug; it has horrible side effects and (I have a good source for this) should never be given by injection. More likely, he just had diarrhoea and would have got through with clean water and a couple of oral rehydration sachets. We'll never know.

His memorial service is tomorrow, under the tree by the shack where they live.

Hard Labour: the Afterbirth Rated 12. Contains more gory detail.

2008-03-30T04:41:00.000-07:00

starring Gandalady, Gandahusband, Katherine. co-starring Frau and Mrs Midwife. Supporting cast: other midwives. Another special appearance from The Man from Accounts.

I am wheeled by Gandahusband, Frau and Mrs to Private Room no. 1. Baby - who we think might be called Dorothy but are not sure yet - has her first feed which she seems to enjoy very much. I am tired but very pleased with the new bundle and relieved it is all over.

Frau and Mrs feel my tummy and check my BP which is low. I am bleeding alot, but they think all will be well. They each give me a friendly squeeze, complete bits of paperwork and prepare to go home. I send Gandahusband on his way, and soon it is just me and the small, pink person. She is wearing a vest, a sleepsuit and a blanket. The temperature is ambient to warm. I am happy in a T shirt and a sheet.

I lie awake all night, due to after-pains, adrenalin and copious amounts of bleeding. The midwives on duty are not very troubled by this.

3am. I stagger into the corridor. "May I have some more pads please?" I croak. "And a new sheet?" A midwife returns at a leisurely pace with the pads. "No sheets. Sorry." She is about to leave when she sees the baby. "This baby is not wearing A HAT!" she exclaims. "Er.. it's OK," I reply. "It's not cold. I'm British!" I quip, as if this should explain everything.

"This is Africa!" says the midwife. On this continent the baby wears a hat whatever the weather, lady.

She starts rummaging through my bag and digs out a black vest of mine and a muslin, and then wraps the baby up in these extra layers, fashioning a kind of head covering out of the folds. Reverend Mother from The Sound of Music. It rather suits her, even if she is being cooked alive.
3.30am I text R to bring sheets from home, and remove the extra layers.

Sheets delivered, I stare at the ceiling until 6am, occasionally getting up to change them etc. No one disturbs me. 6.30am. I would love a cup of tea.

7am. I really would love a cup of tea.

7.30am. Do I get breakfast?

8am. I'm hungry. And I am gasping for a brew.

8.30am If I don't get a cup of tea I will cry. I stagger into the corridor. "Er...can I get a cup of tea please?" I say to anyone who will listen.

A midwife wanders over and looks in the room. "This baby is COLD!" she exclaims, and starts fussing over the baby with layers again. I clench my jaw. A chef arrives with a mug of hot, sugary milk and two tiny sausages wrapped in a paper napkin: better than nothing.

9am. Gandahusband arrives with latte and pastries. Heaven. We start planning our escape.

10am. The man from accounts again, ever conscientious. Fill in this form please.

More forms. Then a visit from Ugandan obstetrician who is wearing a pink shirt and we have a nice chat. He is happy for us to go.

11.30am We are heading for the exit, already sweltering in the tropical heat. "Stop!" cries one of the midwives. "You must be accompanied by a nurse!" The nurse comes. Again, the horror: "where is the baby's hat?" goes the cry. "No hat." I say. Don't go there sister.

We get home. E and G fall over themselves to cuddle and poke Katherine (for she is no longer Dorothy.) By the afternoon it has turned chilly and is pouring with rain. I dig out a pink beanie hat and put it on the baby.

Hard Labour (rated 15. contains blood and guts, and some bad language)

2008-03-27T07:11:00.000-07:00

starring Gandalady, Gandahusband, Katherine. Co-starring Frau and Mrs Midwife. Special appearance from The Man from Accounts.

A True Story.

Tuesday. Twinges all morning, but didn't get excited by this as twinges were by now pretty commonplace. After a nice lunch and a lie down with E and G I thought they might be getting regular or regularish. I started recording the times on my shopping notepad: beans, loo roll, 14:23, 14:35, 14:44. Every ten mins. Yes! I texted Frau Midwife (for she is German) and started doing brisk circuits of the garden.

Frau Midwife calls me. "I can't come right now," she says. "One of my children [she has 8] is very sick and vomiting everywhere. Let me get Mrs Midwife [for she is British] to see you instead." I continue my circuit training until friend Suzanne comes and we walk up a very steep nearby hill and drink passion juice at the bar on the top.

We get home. Twinging definitely stronger. Mrs Midwife arrives. "There's no hurry!" I tell her brightly, as she walks in the door. "You could have waited another....GAAAAAHHH!" Suddenly interrupted by an unmistakeable and very painful contraction. She examines me - 3 cms. We go to hospital, Rob, myself, Mrs Midwife and a large, purple birthing ball. In his excitement, R drives past the front entrance.

"I can never remember which floor the maternity floor is!" chats Mrs Midwife, clutching the birthing ball. "Anyway, I don't like this place and never refer my mothers here anyway."

We by-pass lots of tutting, officious looking nurses, aggrieved that we haven't stopped to complete the necessary paperwork, and head straight for the delivery suite. The Man from Accounts at least has the boldness to follow us in and collar Rob about paying the bill. By this time I am having strong contractions, and would give the man my last penny just to make him go away.

I clamber into a flappy blue hospital gown and haul myself onto the bed. There is no adjustable backrest. Hence the ball comes with me onto the bed, covered with a sheet, and I lie draped on it for the next 4 hours or so.

Frau Midwife arrives, chewing gum. Frau and Mrs Midwife are delighted to see each other. How is the little one? How's everything going? Would you like a Coke?, etc.

Another exam. 6 or 7 cm. "I can feel the membranes," says Mrs. "If we rupture them, that would speed things up." Do it please. "What shall we use?" says Frau. "Hmm," says Mrs, and goes off to hunt for a suitable implement. She returns with a long, steel pair of scissors.

"WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH THAT?" I shriek. Mrs reassures me that I won't feel anything. She has a go, then gives up. "I don't think these membranes were meant to be ruptured," she says sadly. "We need an amniohook!" says Frau. "I've got one at home," replies Mrs.

Meanwhile, a nurse comes in to ask us to move the car. We have parked in the CEO's spot. R suggests we do it later.

Pain relief please, I say. Frau leaves the room and returns with some gas and air - at last some useful equipment. Ahhhhh. I go on a short journey to la-la land. Lovely Ugandan Obstetrician arrives and snaps on a pair of gloves. Time to push. Then: a power cut. "Has anyone got a torch?" flaps Frau. R moves laptop (we were listening to music on it) and holds the screen behind LUO so thus illuminated, he can catch the baby, who is out in less than a minute.

A few nurses come and go as baby (for she is not yet named) is weighed, the cord clamped, etc. I am helped onto a trolley and wheeled to a room, accompanied by a tiny, wailing blue bundle. "When is this baby going to be dressed?" says one of the nurses. It is to become a familiar refrain...

story continues in Hard Labour: the Afterbirth

Coming Soon!

Ta-daaa!

2008-03-27T06:24:00.000-07:00

Here she is: Katherine Dorothy Schofield. Born 26th March 2008, 23 mins past midnight. We're not sure who she looks like. But she is rather lovely, don't you think?

Guess the mystery object!

2008-03-21T11:09:00.000-07:00

I know. It looks like a loaf of bread. But it is in fact, one of these:

an emergency home delivery kit! Just in case I don't make it to the hospital in time. It's been fascinating studying its contents, and I'm not the only one to have had a nosey - see the tiny hands?

Not that baby has given me the slightest indication that s/he is about to come out. Although I have a week til my due date, I am getting a bit crazed with impatience. I have never had a late baby before - Emma arrived on her due date like a Swiss train, and Gloria was 8 days early. There is a first time for everything I suppose. I could always give myself an appendectomy with the instruments if I get that bored.

The mongoose strikes again.

2008-03-20T10:04:00.000-07:00

Sally rabbit.

That's all I can bear to write on the matter.

Does anyone have a recipe for slow-roasted mongoose? I don't care if they're endangered.

Creaming the fat off the poor

2008-03-16T05:15:00.000-07:00

I am in a rage about Big Banks - no need to name names, that would be indelicate. Not long ago the British press were huffing and puffing about the BBs lining their pockets from overdraft fees and the like. But gutting as it is to have to fork out 30 quid every time you get paid late and the direct debits go out, I see some sort of reasoning behind why banks penalise you for spending cash that isn't yours. (I still think £30 is too steep.)

If you think that's being ripped off though, try this for size. At my bank - which, as I said, shall remain nameless, I don't want a reputation as an agitator - they charge you every time you withdraw money over the counter (60p), each time you make a withdrawal if your balance is under £150 (£5) and each time you use the ATM (1p.) I would grind my teeth a bit then forget about it this issue if it weren't for the fact that £5 to a moderately-off Ugandan is two days wages. And you haven't even gone overdrawn, remember: this is still your money.

Not that you'd've heard of them anyway....

Look at my baby

2008-03-07T09:29:00.000-08:00

A pregancy update has been requested. Here it is.
- I have 3 weeks exactly to go til my due date
- I am booked into Kampala International Hospital, less than 5 mins drive away
- I have had an appointment with the very chatty German midwife. We bump into each other at the pizza restaurant quite a lot too, where she sometimes gives me a quick feel
- don't know the sex
- don't know what we'll call him or her either
- any suggestions?
- not having contractions or anything exciting like that
- baby is head down at last, after spending ages hammock-style or 'transverse'. Very happy it's moved as transverse = automatic caesarean
-although I do strain my abdominals during a vigorous game of Duck Duck Goose
- i am fantasising about sleeping on my front
- i am hoping there is a spare canister of Entonox lying around at IHK
- this is the last addition to the Schofield tribe

I think that covers it.

Huge excited thank you to everyone who wants a dress. I need these measurments: bust (circumference), waist (circ), hips (circ), shoulder to waist, shoulder to knee (or mid-calf, depending on the length you want) and shoulder strap (back to front.)
Please tell me fabric you like and delivery address too. If you can tell me before tomorrow (8th)early afternoon then I can probably get your dress in our friend's suitcase when they go back on 14th March.

Two totally unconnected stories

2008-03-02T10:41:00.000-08:00

Wow!

Thanks so much for your encouragement. I'm sorry to have been away for a few days, but in case you were thinking this business idea was a case of all mouth and no trousers, have a look at this.

Eva made these dresses and Lexie the Excellent took these photos. It took her an entire morning in sweltering heat, and all she wanted in return was a few glasses of water. I supplied the gorgeous supermodels. Like what you see? Let me know. We have some friends going back to the UK on 14th March so your order could be fulfilled in record time.

OK, enough sales schpiel (at least for 5 minutes.) Did you know UB40 have just performed here in Kampala? Did you know that not many international pop bands manage the African circuit? It made the front page of the national newspaper. They mentioned in their report that

"Security personnel, comprising mostly of hulking bouncers were left with no choice but to use stun guns in order to prevent silver section ticket holders from surging over the stage barrier."
Stagedivers. That'll teach yer.

Name 3 UB40 hits and I'll give you an ice cream.

Down to business.

2008-02-24T04:34:00.001-08:00

Everyone, this is Eva. Eva has three children, Trevor (8), Trisha (5) and Terry (1 and a half.) Eva works in 'our' house, and has done for 6 years. She's seen us Medair types come and go. She cooks, cleans, looks after my kids, and has become totally indispensable within a matter of weeks.

She's also a very talented seamstress and can make anything you ask her. But this is the scandalous part - she's stuck being a cleaner because in Uganda, any old job is worth holding on to because even rubbish jobs are for the lucky few. Eva is the only breadwinner in her family (and here supporting the extended family is the norm), she travels an hour and a half to work (one way), leaving well before the sun comes up.

So here's my idea. I want Eva to make pretty little girls' dresses that I can sell to people back home. I am thinking of smart, sweet, playful designs, but not ethnic. Think Boden catalogue, not safari scenes. As they get made, I will post photos of them, either here, or I'll give Eva her own flickr site. If you like what you see, give me an email with your darling's measurements and we'll take it from there.

The big vision is this: a team of tailors, processing regular orders from the UK and beyond, not just dresses either. Apprenticeship posts for the Jordan House kids, some of whom are reaching school leaving age and need a trade. All managed by Ugandans, leaving me to do the UK sales and marketing side of things from home when we go back. The profits will go straight to the tailors, with some left over to grow the business. All the cash risk will be ours, and we don't expect (personally) to make any money from it.

What's in it for you? Well, a pretty frock for starters, and a warm glow that your money is making a huge difference to someone's life. One £25 dress equals an average monthly rent or a term and a half's school fees here.

Comments most welcome on this one, especially from any entrepreneurial types. (My only business credential is watching Dragon's Den, but perhaps I should keep that quiet.)

Change the record

2008-02-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

Sigh. It's not all delivering-babies-in-bush-hospitals. 80 per cent of the time it's dealing-with-inconvenience. (Did I mention that things can be very inconvenient here?) For example: I have had no internet access for 4 days. This is a bit gutting when broadband is twice as expensive as back home. (Do you remember me saying how expensive it was?) The problem, it turned out, was my rubbish, back-of-a-lorry extension lead had short-circuited the LAN cable. (Did I mention the poor quality electrical products? But notice I used the acronym LAN with convincing authority.)

If it's not t'internet, it's the leaking sewage pipe, dripping sink, faulty immersion heater - the plumber and I are best mates now - did I mention that everything is a bit gerry-built?

I think I did.

I also think being pregnant for a hundred years is making me cranky.

Glorious Gloria turns two!

2008-02-03T10:11:00.000-08:00

Yes, it was Glorymouse's birthday on Jan 11th. We had a fantastic party, but unfortunately the photos from it contained too much nudity - hey, we're in the tropics ok? - and I didn't want to end up on a police register.

There was frolicking in the garden. There were loads of other children. There was splashing in the paddling pool (hence the nudity.) And I made a half-decent, unsaggy cake for once, though I did have to sandwich 2 flat halves together to make it a reasonable size. (The moral of this story is: the size of the cake tin does matter.)

Glory got a wodge of lovely presents...and the best present of all she gave us, by deciding to pottytrain herself a week before her birthday. Clever mouse!

My visit to the hospital - the revised version

2008-01-28T22:13:00.000-08:00

Originally I had it in mind to blog about my tour of Kampala's International Hospital. "Bit basic after Switzerland, but OK!" would have been the general tone and message. But I'm not going to write about that anymore, because I've discovered since then that - surprise, surprise - 'basic' in Uganda is a very relative term.

This story needs a bit of background. Since I wrote about the Medair neighbours, I've been visiting them on and off. I've got to know one 'family' in particular. When I say family, I mean a pastor, a married couple, two widows and three children. They all live in a shack the size of a small-double bedroom. The pastor converted from Islam to Christianity, and has suffered a lot of rejection as a result. Most of the others have Muslim names, but are also Christians. None of them has a job. There is no electricity, no running water and they share a latrine with the rest of the 'village'. (Still, the men in particular always look immaculately turned out, and there is always a pristinely-ironed shirt hanging from a nail on the inside wall.) Zira (married to Nicholas) and I hit it off straight away by dint of us both being heavily pregnant.

On Friday I got a text message from the pastor. "Praze the Lord. How r yu. Zira not fine" it said. I called straight back. "The baby is imminent," he said. He was not panicking.
Panicking, I drove round to their place and got her in the car. "Er...where are we going?" I asked. She directed me - between strong contractions - to the local maternity home.

The midwife in charge - late 40s, scary-looking - directed us to the delivery room at the back. There was an iron bed, a foam mattress covered with a blue plastic sheet, a wooden cot covered in woolly blankets, and a metal bucket with 2 pairs of forceps inside. It was a tiny space. The scary midwife came and talked to me. "We need 40 thousand shillings for the delivery," she said (about £15) "2 thousand for the plastic sheet."

I stayed outside while the midwife examined Zira. "Relax." I heard her say, sternly. Then, shouting: "COME ON. RELAX." I'd never heard a Ugandan shout until now. It was absurdly funny if not at all relaxing. It seems stroppy midwives are a global phenomenon. From the examination, she still had a way to go, so I said I'd come back later. I spent the next couple of hours buying odds and ends for the barbecue we were meant to be having that evening.

I re-appeared about 4 o clock with a carton of juice. There was no baby yet and Zira was on the dirty floor obviously in a lot of pain. "They can cut it out of me now!" she moaned. Pain relief was not an option. A younger, less scary midwife was spoon-feeding her Lucozade. "Auntie," she told me, "she needs strength for the pushing." I hung around like a bit of a lemon, rubbing her back from time to time. Then all of a sudden she was back on the plastic sheet, and in about 2 minutes I heard some crying and tiny toes wriggling at the end of the bed. A little boy. The midwife clattered around with the forceps and tied up his cord with the end of a plastic glove. Then she wrapped him up in about 4 blankets and put him in the cot. It was about 35 degrees outside - I was already melting in my cotton trousers. I didn't say anything as I was still feeling like a bit of an intruder. And I was a bit overcome.

"It's a little boy, Zira, he's beautiful!" I gushed. Zira looked knackered. "Can I get you anything?" I would have got her anything she wanted at that point - blame the hormones again. She paused. "I would like a Coca-Cola." A Coke. No problem.

I drove her home the next day. She was embarrassingly grateful for the £15. The thing that humbles me most about this family is that they have never asked me for anything, ever. I sat in their shack while everyone cooed over the baby - he doesn't have a name yet. "I'd better go," I said, as I felt a bit awkward and was a bit pushed for time.
"Wait, Madam," said the pastor. "We would like to bless you. We will do it in our language." They stretched out their hands and prayed for me. Then I said goodbye. On the way home I did indeed feel very blessed, but mostly grateful that it had all gone according to plan. It was not the sort of facililty that could have coped with anything at all untoward.

(Of course, there is still a lot more basic than that. Just when I thought I had a good story to tell, my friend Jenny told me how the same day, she had delivered her friend's baby herself in the corridor at Mulago hospital and had to ask other labouring mother's to spare a razor blade so she could cut the cord.)

A Mongoose Ate Our Rabbit

2008-01-22T23:49:00.000-08:00

Poor Fraser.

At about 9.30pm a couple of weeks ago, Hannington the guard* knocked on the window while we were curled up on the sofa watching a DVD.** "I heard the rabbit crying," he said. "Come and look."

I slipped on my crocs*** and went outside. There was Fraser, motionless, under the Hibiscus bush.
"How did he get out?" I wondered. I had put him in his hutch myself.
I went to investigate.
The clever bunny (or perhaps a small child) had worried a hole in the chicken wire at the front, through which he had escaped. Obviously my carefully-placed cabbage leaves weren't doing it for him, nor his all-you-can-eat buffet that is our garden during the day.
"A wild animal got him," said Hannington. "Small. Brown. Long tail."
It sounded like a mongoose, but only because I can't think of any other creature that matches the description and would be interested in killing rabbits. I baulked at how we would break the news to Emma and Gloria in the morning.

Shortly after the kids wake up around 6am, Rob did the necessary. Emma came straight out of the bathroom after hearing the sorry tale.
"Mummy. I need to tell you something, Fraser died in the night," she tells me matter-of-factly.

After church we have a rabbit funeral. Fraser is buried under the hibiscus bush where he fell, and where he spent many hours evading my attempts to catch him. We talked about death, and God and sparrows falling to the ground, etc. We said a prayer. But not a tear was shed; Emma mentioning that she was "a bit sad" was as emotional as it got. He was never the friendliest of rabbits; rather contemptous of our attempts to cuddle and stroke him, sniffy about the cabbage.

We have a new rabbit now. Her name is Sally, although she might be a boy. She is black and white, and unlike Fraser, loves being held on her back, paws in the air like a baby, having her tummy tickled. No mongoose is getting their teeth into her. (The hole has been fixed.)

*Hannington can make anything from a picture. He made the hutch. He specialises in lamps. The man is a genius.
**Boston Legal. A slightly lame US lawyer show.
*** Ugly, but so comfortable!

An update!

2008-01-21T23:05:00.000-08:00

Sincere apologies for the delay, and a big thank you for all the emails to check we're OK. Since moving to our new place getting internet access has been difficult, especially as we've been without wheels. But things are looking up: not only do we have a nice, shiny new motor, but we're getting the Internet installed at home. It's about the only service that's twice the price of the same thing back home, but worth it I reckon. At 30 weeks pregnant it's an effort getting from the bedroom to the kitchen, let alone navigating the cratars that mash up the road between house and office.

We've had quite a few adventures since I last wrote. Expect posts coming soon with the following titles:
- When Kampala ran out of fuel
- My visit to the international hospital
- Glorious Gloria turns two
- How about this for a business?
- A mongoose ate our rabbit

They are all true stories. (Sadly, yes.)

The Gandabunny

2007-12-26T00:10:00.000-08:00

Name: Fraser.
Sex: Unsure. They think I'm a boy.
Age: Unknown.
Likes: Cabbage. Carrots. Washing my paws. Hopping.
Dislikes: My new tiny owners who follow me round the place squealing. I find it a bit frightening.
Home: Currently a cardboard box full of shredded paper. But look where I go when they let me out!

Belated Happy Christmas, everyone.

Love Fraser x

Avos anyone?

2007-12-21T03:38:00.000-08:00

We've moved into our house, and to quote my best friend EG, 'you can swing quite a number of cats in there.' The avocado tree is an excellent fruiter, and every morning the lawn is littered with about 30 of them, each the size of a newborn baby's head. I've been running out of creative ways of giving them away. I visited our former neighbours this morning (the shack dwellers over the chicken wire) with a huge bagful, and I think it was a good ice breaker. One guy said, in excellent English (noting that my Luganda extends to one phrase), "You are most welcome and thank you for the fruit!". I almost burst into tears - not sure why. I'll be back, I think.

I have been trying to upload a pic of the garden but the connection is working against me.. it is still a struggle to adjust from Switzerland, where Everything Works, All The Time, to Uganda, where Some Things Work, Some Of The Time. It would be especially nice if Some Things would work First Time JUST FOR ONCE.

So no garden photo, but here's a sweet one anyway:

2007-12-13T09:37:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the cyberlove, everyone! I am feeling much better, thank you, despite getting to the team house kitchen only to discover all the Extremely Chocolatey Biscuit Rounds had been eaten. (I should have known this kind of rare treat would disappear in seconds.) So when I spotted some Chocolate-Dipped Rich Shortbread, I got straight in there. It was naughty not to ask, first, but these were desperate times (and it made a magnificent substitute.)

Ugandaman is back! After a diet of posho - think of solidified, cold porridge - and beans, I prepared him a Welcome Home love basket of broccoli and other greens. It may be the only time in our marriage that I've brought tears to his eyes. Either that or it was the stench - we'd had no water for 2 days, so couldn't shower, flush the loo, anything. It's back on now, phew..

I've been meeting some great people and getting some good ideas about what to do with my time here now that a lot of the domestic drudge will be out of my hands, but I'll save that for another post. Happiness is restored at least, and even the Christmas tree is up. A hot Christmas just isn't the same, though. I had a mince pie this afternoon, but with the sweat pricking and the sun streaming in it just didn't feel right.

Going bananas

2007-12-08T09:16:00.000-08:00

If you're not in the mood for reading self-pitying whingebaggery, please click away now.

I'm homesick. The initial excitement has worn off, and there's little I wouldn't give for a glass of chilled white wine and a chat with an old friend. Looking after the girls all day, much as I love them to pieces, can also make me cry with boredom sometimes. Just getting anywhere is totally exhausting. Take today's project, Project Swimming Pool. Once the gathering of swimsuits/waterwings/ plastic tea set had taken place, the screaming ones placated with biscuits, the car booked, the car seats installed, the log book filled out, I realised I'd run out of money to pay the entrance fee. After a kind person had been identified, money borrowed, biscuit eaters installed in car, perilous dirt tracks negotiated (including truck parked half way across), parking space identified (pool jam packed due to wedding reception), I realised I had forgotten to bring a towel. The pool in question is about 1.5 km away, but impossible to get to on foot, at least with small children. I'd had enough by this point - we all drip-dried and I probably flashed my bottom at some wedding guests. (no changing rooms, either.) Add to this the voice in my head murmuring well at least you have the luxury of swimming..did you see that kid with the gerry can and no shoes? There are days when it fuels my zeal to Do Something, and days when it stalls in knackered apathy.

I can't wait to meet some other mums. The team house is great, but relief work is mainly a singles (or childless) game. Everyone works during the week, so I spend quite a lot of time on my own policing Em and Glo and it's a bit isolated. For now. But at least this is a stage I recognise - the weird, slightly painful settling-in phase that you just have to go through before things improve. It was the same in Switzerland. Not having a husband around or our own home - our own home! We've not had one for 3 months and I'm gagging for one - doesn't help.

On the upside, someone just came back from the UK with some M&S Extremely Chocolately Biscuit Rounds. I think I shall go and eat one now, and suspect that afterwards I will feel much better.

Congestion charge

2007-12-06T09:55:00.000-08:00

When I wrote earlier about the crazy driving, etc, I think I forgot to mention the traffic:

Despite the er, hold ups, I did actually make it to town this morning where I changed some money, bought 2 slightly rubbish quality car seats, topped up my new phone and drank an excellent latte. All of which made me feel sort of capable and productive.

Meanwhile, Gandaman is in Patongo (i.e. up North) staying in a hut in an IDP camp, where a stream of little boys constantly stare at him through the window. He comes back on Wednesday.

The Muzungu's dilemma

2007-12-02T03:56:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of our temporary home. It's a stone, whitewashed annex in the Medair compound. It countains two pretty small rooms, enough for 2 single beds and a cupboard each but not much more. Our suitcases are cluttering up the corridor, which is more frustrating for the fact they are crammed with stuff I now know we don't need. Two jumpers? Two pairs of pre-pregnancy jeans? (As if!) On the other had we only bought one water bottle for a family of four - I blame the hormones.

Anyway, the girls share a room, Gloria in her cot with a bit of improvised netting stretched over. Emma has her very own mozzie dome, which she loves as it reminds her of camping holidays. Rob and I have pushed our single beds together, but our nets are not big enough to cover us both so we have one each. It's not great for romance. There is a toilet and a shower which are connected to the town water, so the supply is a bit erratic, as is the power, so a hot shower is something of a bonus. Drinking water we have to get from the main team house, where there is a fully-stocked kitchen, washing machine and living room, shared by the whole team. It's quite a cosy arrangement, but we're happy. It's been great getting to know the rest of the team, and Em and Glo have lots of new aunties and uncles. Indeed I'm only able to write this because Shelley and Ian, God bless 'em, have taken them swimming for the afternoon.

Although basic by our standards, our accommodation is nothing compared to the neighbours, the cockerel owners, who live behing the razor-wired fence to the right of the picture. The cockerels are the the only things they do actually own, apart from some plastic buckets and the odd cooking utensil. They live in a small cluster of very rickety wooden shacks without electricity or running water. There are lots of kids who run around naked or half-naked, and we hear them cry a lot. When they see us they shout "Muzungu!" (whitey), "How are you!" and "bye bye!" and wave. (We wave back and say "Fine, thank you.") It's a shocking situation, and so far, it's the thing I find hardest about being here. It can only get worse, as in 2 weeks we'll move into an embarressingly palatial house, plus guards, a gardener and a housekeeper. (The standard muzungu lifestyle, in other words.)

Of course there's a plus side to this: we'll be giving people jobs. I need to feel my kids are safe - and we heard some scary stories about near kidnappings from our new friends who tried a simpler lifestyle in the bush, so this is not paranoia. And I'm not going to deny that I don't like the idea of sitting on my own veranda, staring at an acre of garden and chortling at the thought of Tooting Broadway tube station in rush hour. You can have a very nice life here as an ex-pat - more on that later. And yet - we didn't come to Uganda for the lifestyle.

When I start blogging about the swimming pool and cocktails, you may need to remind me of that.