3 weeks update

the housing problem is still not solved, although i visited a nice one this week. BUT i am likely to move into that available, excolleagues house far far away, cause all not so easy to solve with the landlady and the payment and determination of the contract. mmmh. completely unsatisfactory.

weekend plans will be then to start shopping for detergents, cusion, pillows, and plates, and glasses, and tools, and and and.... and maybe go to muyonyo beach club, and brunchen at a colleagues house. thats what one does here on weekends.

at least my box from germany arrived! with good things: good dvds and books and licorice and shoes.... things i could not get enough. i am still worrying about the 3 boxes i send by post from china. have not arrived yet. its past 2,5 months. inside are my literature, some chinese souvenirs, my art books and ... ehhh.... more shoes.

MONSTER!

Faster!
Monster !
Truck!
Driver!
Highway- Rock n Roll- desaster!
(from: T.Raumschmiere feat miss kittin „the game is not over“)

that is my new car, jeep, pickup, 4 wheeled, or as i call him: my Monster. It is the biggest Toyota-model in town. Honestly! and i have to handle it! And additionally Uganda is left side-driving. And terrible traffic, with jams and lots of crazy motorbikes and no pedestrains. Argh!!!!!

insects

i am experiencing the sensation of being a cruel mosquito killer ,with the official hunter's hyme "DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM, i want you in my room" , insects and me will never be friends. surely also no friendship with the pregnant fly that was sitting tonight somewhere in my room trying to give noisy birth to millions of heirs,- at least it sounded like that. But, to be fair, there are nice ones, p.e. this praying goddess sitting on my balcony the other day. maybe my sympathy for this lady is because she is also a cruel killer-..... of males!

Mosquitos

If i ll ever find the one who "made" mosquitos, and probably thought these little tiney annoying flying things are of any use, i will squeeeze him, like i have to squeeeze approximately 2 mosquitos per night, that manage to come under my mosquito net. not only is that sssssssssssssszound somewhat waking-you-up-allnight , but here in Africa, they also transmitting Malaria. which is why you better not get bitten at all.
yes, i am taking anti malaria "drugs" with big side effects, but i also need my sleep to stay mentally healthy and not end up as a zombie after 2 years. so i bought DOOM yesteday, a highly anti pest spray, that use a special insect poison, called for its benefit:
MORTEIN! that has to be effective!
and probably kills also my nose slimey skin, too. but at least i am not looking like a PANDA with black eyebags anymore.

Mud hut in Busia

Mud hut in Busia, Uganda, originally uploaded by inainchina.

Yes, one of the mud huts (r mut huts???) i saw on my trip in Busia. The old landlady , 2nd winner of the sanitation event in that parish, wons about 6 of them, for family and relatives.
what is really nice and special are the paintings on the outside wall. in front one of my accompanying sdm-kids, and a Jackfruit.

BUSIA

I ve been out of Kampala to the countryside, or as we say here "upcountry" , In BUSIA town, right at the border to Kenya. a small town, which is one of my 5 partnercities.
On the way and there I experienced the real country, and istnt it everywhere like that, when leaving the exceptional country capital. in china it was also similar, when leaving BJ and the big cities.

i do not want to talk abt china , but about Uganda and africa. and my first encounters of it. so, the pictures everyone has in mind when thinking of \africa: red dusty roads, the african huts, and a lot a lot a lot of small dirty malnourished children (whom i start to call sdm-kids). it is really like that. and i post some of those typical pictures, which i made when walking with Denis, a young youth volunteer, through one of the parishes in Busia. accompanied by , yes, a lot of small dirty malnourished children.

housing

currently i am looking for a HOUSE. yes, appartments are not so common, and having a house with a garden and a carport and an adjacten building for the guards (boy quarter) is the chosen option for most of the people here.

the problem is that there is a house , which i might have to move in, cause it is already rented by the DED untill end of the year. but its huuuuge and quiete far away. so i was looking around with the estate agent for other options nearer by the office, and he is trying to get the other house re-rented earlier.
that seems not the problem, but more if the landlady is willing to pay back the upfront money to the DED. and that the agent is a really ... mh how to say... typical person for his sort of business. like car vendores, and bankers, slimey business persons.

and i am currently really confused where to move in, and if not staying in the guesthouse for ever....

museveni in germany

The president of Uganda, Museveni , or in his abbreviation M7, has visited germany last weekend, and while nothing was written in german press, i found something in the local.
germany is asking M7 or Uganda, to influence and solve the crisis in dafur. but if this means also military i wasnt sure.
M7 himself adressed a very HOT topic in development aid: that teh international donors are not doing enough, and in teh same time dictating the government what to do. But china is just investing without interfering in local politcs. and that, mr M7 said:" is more cristian from a communist country, than from the so -to-say christian countries". mmmmh......
having lived in china for 2 years , i must day the chinese have no christian sense at all! but a real business sense of doing things, and that is their interest in africa.

for the first time......

.... a car accident
everything is now happening of course the first time. this noon it happen to be my first car accident. luckily it was not me driving, luckily nothing happend, and luckily the car was anyway damaged before.

i was driving around with my realestate- agent to see some houses (will write about this sometime later),. and he showed me the GABBA market, when suddently a young girl without looking crossed the street. we were not driving fast, and hit the breaks, but she stopped and falled down on the front heck. but she run away immeadiatley. no blood, no broken bones. Unfortunately by that time a police car - not a car , they are huge pickup trucks- passed 2 minutes later, and they picked up the girl and her relative. my agent had to stop first time: "wasnt my fault" driving license, everybody can confirm, " i have to bring this lady back to DED" etc.... we could continue. after 400 meters we@ve been stoped again by same truck: this time to assure a police report will be filled. we could continue. after 5000 meters of careful driving we were stopped again, and now the police decided that we have to accompany the girl with her relative to teh medical. and my agent had to pay her treatment and way back and probably also " compensation" to the police for 50.000 UGS (25 €).

but thats how accidents are handled here: a) be nice to the police and "compensate" b) even if its not your fault, if you have more money you pay

by the way: i'll start my driving classes on Monday....

GONG BAO JIDING

oh, yesterday i had my first GONG BAO JIDING! that is my favourite chinese dish: chicken with peanuts and chili- and i became over the 2 years an distingueshed expert in this dish.
There are around 14 chinese restaurants and smaller ones in Kampala, but we checked out the rumoured-to-be-good FANGFANG, the most expensive one. and yes, it wasn't Bad, actually i tasted worser one's in China (especially around shanghai).
The owner is here since 18 years and i chatted a little bit with the waitress from sichuan. (in chinese of course!) and there is a menue for english guests and in chinese for chinese. But the prices...... mmh for fried beancurd they want 5 Euros excl 18% wat. thats 5 times the price than in BJ! but okay....i am not in china anymore, and glad to have a decent chinese restaurant on site.

kampala

mmh, maybe its about time i write you something officially about kampala, my new resident city.
The name comes from " Kosozi Mpala" this is lugandan for Antilope Hill. how nice. and significant. cause it was not only a vrey animal rich area, but also kampala was build up on 7 hills (right, same as rome). now it is on about 23 hills and growing.....
the city center is not very attractive, many buildings beeing build by the british around independence time, are now pretty ugly. traffic is horrible, yes, same as beijing, there are too much cars for to small roads and no existence of traffic rules (or better lack of people to obey them). there are some very nice hills for residence, very green indeed and some international restaurants and bars.
what is most obvious is the red soil> silit old mineral erosive soil, which is everywhere and leaves a red dusty layer on everything. especially on my shoes and shirts. and creates red muddy streams when it starts to rain. which it does now every second day.

but except the greens and the red soil, i expected uganda or kampala to be more colourful. and - that there is more music in the air. i thought african music would come from every corner. but it is not. sadly. (and you all know i am much into sound)

luckily there is chocolate!

my haircut

thanks to you all who wrote something nice about my new haircut. it was in the range of 'cool', like a 'business women' and good laugther.
it is still very strange for me that it actually "feels" differnt now: short and soft, instead of long and rough. and, mmmh... now i can support my mother's complaint (which by the time then i always ignored of course) about the dreads that " they smell like a dead dog" . maybe not sooo bad, but with this rainy humid weather here, i think it is much better to have short one.

and, basically, it is less annoying. i am more undercover, cause walking with the 'dreadlocks ' on the streets, markets etc, would be definately cause huge interest and laughter and shout-out-louds by the locals.

good mroning

i am currntly staying at teh DED guesthouse on Muyenga hills (one of the 7 hills Kampala is buidl on) and i have a green and fantastic view from my balcony, which gives you an impression about ... ah yes the GREEN. this one is taken early morning - the sun goes up at 7 and close at 7- at a rainy rainy sunday.

if i go further down the road, i can directly see the Victoria lake.

first weekend

my first weekend, and for introduction inti Kampala the DED gave me and another new colleague a local Guide. Dennis Matanda, a "hans dampf in allen gassen" - or an "action-jackson" . probably i will write more about him soon, cause he is doing a lot of stuff that is of interest. anyway, he showed us around to: the cultural village ( african souvenirs shopping huts) a cafe with a HOTSPOT (thanks!) , the world cultural heritage of the Baganda kings tomb, and art gallerie, the kings palace. yesterday the weather was rainy rainy rainy, so the only deal was to go into theather, shopping mall and we drove almost 1 hour to the chicken-barbecue place outside of town. huge chicken legs and bananas on sticks. delicious, but teh chinese "chuars" are much better.
the evenings i spend with my new colleagues, cause today we have the first water workshop, so everybody came down to Kampala from their northern project cities. and i got the chance to meet everyone in one time. and i must say: they are all very nice! puh, i am so glad, cause this was my biggest fear: that my new collegaues whom i have to work together with are idiots. but lets see.

first impressions

i know you are eager to know more, and to know everything about my new country, my new city , my new job my new life. but slowly slowly, i just arrived 30 hours ago, and i sort of not getting into the internet with my computer :(

but the first impression is always the deepest (but not one you can reveal and after a while the little special things are easily overseen), i am now writing only a short notice, and trying to keep the rest of the input for later stories.


and photos i will post later then, because of the i-net problem.


so, my first impressions: it is AFRICAN. oh that is not a suprise, yes, but it comes with the poor people, it comes with this red soil everywhere, and one sees always young and only a few old people. Poeple are friendly, and cause english is here the official language, it is very easy to access, joke and react with each other. something that i misses in china, untill i mastered the chinese language to such a taxi-driver-degree.
right now, it is late midnight, the mosquitos are buzzling, from somewhere african music is playing, and i just had dinner at an italian restaurant with some of my new coleagues.

so, so far, so good, ill write soon more

new hair!

after, originally uploaded by inainchina.

"le frisur nouveau avec niveau"

the dreads are gone, the hair is short .....

coco rosie

one of the definate highlights of my home residence the last weeks, and also a wonderful farewell to germany, was the COCO Rosie concert this monday. cocoRosie are the 2 'cassidy' sisters of which one sings opera and is a lovely elf, whereas the other one is rough and grumply. in their combination they sing about fairytales, landlife, prostitues, sailors , cows, rainbwo warriors. They are fantastic & very special!



















in the pre-program and as a beatboy TEZ was also another suprise
watch him here

Heiligendamm

there is a big event in germany right now, that dominates TV, media and advertising. G8 meeting in heiligendamm, starting from tomorrow.
around 50,000 protestants met on saturday in Rostock for a rather peaceful dmeonstration and concert against globalism and for a fairer world. and that is so right! i attached a spot from Attac, one of the important NGO's-

BUT there have been around 1000 people from the "black Block" who came there to fight against the police and the state. The police itself did nothing to deeskalate, and policemen stared to hit everybody, wasserwerfer and traenengas . in the end 1000 people were injured (inlcuding 500 policemen= a lot more arrested.
all the peaceful talk before did not help, and the policecorps could definately not handle the situation right. and the officer in comand had to resign from his post just in the night after the event. a singular event, that shows that internally the police strategy was critical.

why one should demonstrate against G8


what happend