my oh my....

my House...






















....the space.....














... and Emel....

my space

exciting day: thursday i finally moved into the bigbig house. and i am locking 3 (!) rooms, cause the space is still to much.
emel moved in with me, and that helps to feel more comfortable and less lost.
so, the house is basically furnitured now, i even managed to connect the gas oven, but still have to shower with cold water cause all warmwater pipes are blocked.

Then i have my staff (oh man what a task!)
Mustafa , the house boy who is cleaning and washing clothes and taking general care. he is a student of catering, and came along with the house.
The nightguard Wenjiale I got from my friend Maren who is leaving the country. I equipped him with : BOW & ARROW!, raincoat, a woolen hat and gloves, a torch, a nice chair. when he started his job last friday, he proudly showed off his new equippment, and i had to laugh so much: he looked like a mixturecrossing of a Norway fishermen with an african antilope hunter.

there is also Rachab, who is the replacement for Mustafa when he is in school, but he only speaks KShuaheli, and that is a problem. so i might dissmiss him. cruel as i am ...



life here is very very different to what i was used to.

upcountry

i didnt post for a while, cause i was 4 days "upcountry" on the lake kyoga round trip. it sounds like holidays, but it was my and my programmes introduction to the town councils of my partner cities Soroti and Lira. it was really heavy driving. The roads are like swiss cheese , with deep holes so that you get seesick driving in circles trying to avoid the worst and protecting your car wheels. and although that makes me driving around 60 kmh/h, it does not stop the trucks and overland choaches from speeding with 100 km/h and more. and they drive not only much too fast, but also on the other side, and seldom stop. and brakes are not their favourite gear .... and i saw myself and my boss crashing with some trucks oir mad drives more than once.
after more than 1000 km in 3 days, and 6 hours of driving yesterday, i started to thank god to arrive safe and was exhausted like hell

population growth

in Uganda now every year 1 Million new Ugandans are born, and currently 40% of the population is younger than 15 years. discussions started in Rwanda if family planing similar to the chinese- 1 child policy should be introduced, cause that land cannot feed and educate all the people in the future. The plan is to reduce the number of children per family from 6-8 (!!!) to 3 (!).

in china, from my experience it was absolutely necessary from a society point of view to have only 1 child, but from a social point o f view the kids are often "princes" and princess"ly spoiled. In uganda population control should be somehow be advocated, to give equal rights and chances for every boy and especially the girls. But i am of the opinion it should somehow not be a law.
cause imageing the situation in Germany: decreasing population growth, and old society, pension problems, and then the government orders by Law (!) that every couple needs to have 1-2 children. puh.... what is my personal freedom and decision against the society wellfare? mhh.

not really a symbol of population growth, but just had to post this panorama picture of the old taxi park. amazing, eh?

oldtaxipark2, originally uploaded by inainchina.

busy bee- responsability

only short blogging today, beeing busy busy in meetings to coordinate my coordination. I will coordinate the work of 5 and maybe up to 8 local experts all around the country. that includes selection, contracting, then the programme itself, training and supervision, and accounting. puh. additionally i have since yesterday a swedish-turkish student Emel, who will write her diploma here and assist me in some issues. hopefully.
okay, won't complain, guess thats what you call carrier: starting to be boss for other people.....

and talking about bossing : i will have to hire staff for my house, that includes a housekeeper, gardener and night watchmen. and a dog :))
dealing with all that stuff/staff is completely new for me.

new country, new work, new taks, new challenges, new experiences to be made.
sounds tough, but i am not as tough as i wanna be, but hopefully less naive than others, trying to collect advice from my colleagues in all these issues.

Public transport (2)

bodaboda, originally uploaded by inainchina.

another public transport with anoher funny name: the BODABODA. they are motorbikes or just bikes. and likewise dangerous cause teh ydrive mad, fast through the traffic jams. and as well not allowed for DED to use them! Okay, no one of us really cares, but its the warning that counts.
First you bargain hard for the price, especially as white person. Then Ladies sit on the BODABODA in womens-horse sitting sieways, but i prefer the normal sitting, caue i am afraid of knocking my knees on other taxis and cars in the dense traffic. and its advisory to wear sunglasses, cause it comes dusty and smoggy (!) when speeding through the city. its thrilling but fun!

Public Transport in Kampala (1)

kampala taxipark, originally uploaded by inainchina.

The taxis here in Uganda are called MATATU, and are small white-blue vans, fully boarded with people who constantly hop-on&off. Officially we as DED are not allowed to take them, cause They drive like crazy! harakiri style- Yeah Ha!
The picture is a small frame of central taxi park in kampala downtown, where you switch taxis to your further desitinations in town or country. It is a crawly busybusy area. from above it looks similar to an ants nest only with cars.
its very easy to get lost here, and not finding the taxi to your next destination.
But thats part of the africa-adventure!!!

furniture'd down the house

i decided to move in the bigbig house soon, cause i was left with no other choice, so i started to buy oven, plates, forks, brushes, detergents, pillows, DOOM, cups, blankets, decoration, sponges, rope, chocolate, blankets, curtains, boxes, carpet, much more and: furniture. the choice is pretty limited and not pretty at all. There is an IKEA franchise here in town, but the prices are triple, and thats not worth the quality. so saturday after the rain stopped, i went down GABBA road, the official outside furniture street, and bargained hard for the most simplest and least ugliest bed, table and chairs. the vendors could not understand why the white people have such a tasteless taste, choosing always the non-pompeous furniture, although they have money (besides i really do not earn THAT much money.....). The best bargain I bought area 4seater huuuge and comfortable basket couch, and 2 similar chairs i can put on the veranda.
So all prepared for a sunday veranda chillout or room chillin!

Kampala Klo Tour

Slum kid in Kampala, the sanitation is so bad!, originally uploaded by inainchina.

Yesterday I visited together with Kampala city council their ecological toilet projects in one of the poor parishes of Kampala. Under local conditions it is considered as a ‚slum’ , or more or less informal settlement. Considering the building structure it is not as ‚Slummy’ as for comparison what i saw in South African townships or in Bombay, where the people have no real houses at all. BUT regarding the conditions, it is as poor as everywhere. The infrastructure is not existing at all, and the people live in terrible sanitary conditions. Waste and sullage everywhere, animals and a lot of SDM Kids. Right in the middle. I met a family, owner of one of the very nice ecosan toilets, and the old lady told us, she has now 5 HIV/AIDS orphans more to take care of. Luckily the kids were all smiling at me, otherwise i would have been totally depressed and in shock. Seeing the sanitary situation I immediately felt sick.
The approach to solve the s(h)ituation is difficult but not impossible: People need to change their attitude and increase awerness, and in teh same time having the right technology for faeces and sullage, and enough waste bins & collection system established. having technology but no awarness, OR having awarness but no technology, will not change anything. so both neeed tp go hand in hand. it takes time, effort, and money, and political interest/will.
nevertheless i am truly convinced that the ecosan toilet is the right approach for slum areas instead of smelly dirty pit latrines.

Mabira forest

i would like to explain a little bit more about Mabira Forest, which i explored last weekend (on the picture is Maren with one of the beautiful huuuuge trees there). Mabira provides a habitat for many species of plants and animals, including 312 trees and shrub species, 287 species of birds, 16 small mammals and 199 species of butterflies. There are also 97 species of large moths and is currently a burning political and environmental issue in Uganda. (uganda environ ALert)

Late last year the government of Uganda decided to hand over 1/3 of the forest to an indian sugar company. and handing over means in this case, against no payment! whoever decided got bribed a good portion of money, maybe it was even M7....
the dicision, highlighted by the governement as a way to forster economy, was blamed by the rest of the population, environmental activists and the political opposition as totally unnecessary, far far below value (what is zero against any value at all...) and as an absolutey ecological desaster.

People went on the streets to demonstrate in March, where unfortunaltely 3 people died. and Mehta group- the indian company rapidly changed the logo on the sugar companies existing plants near the forest. two weeks ago M7 said, he have not given up Mabira, but who knows...
it would be a pitty for this precious place!

cool pools!

the weekend i spend with 3 mates in the MABIRA rainforest, one of the 2 remaining rainforests of uganda, and only 1,5/2 hours drive from Kampala. we first checked a dammn cool new but expensive lodge (100$ per person), but it was booked out , so we just enjoyed the wonderfully located pool and the very good food there.

in the afternoon we the went for the nature walk tour throuh the forest. and it was amazing. besides that it was........ raining. yes, pretty predicatble, isnt it? and one of my mates even had a umbrella with him. so that was a weird thing... the forst had wonderful old large trees and nature was dense and green. when after 2,5 hours we disembarked the green forest, we were white skin but brown muddy monsters , and the local barbecue grill were staring at us astonishgly.

The night we then spent at Kingfisher safari resort, beautifully and less expensive directly located at the Victoria lake at the rightbank source of the Nile . kingfisher birds and frogs, and a wonderful pool again. (see pictures left with the "bandas" teh guestrooms in the back.

you see, i am trying to make you all jeleaous about these wonderful weekends, and motivate the one or the other to come visit me in UGANDA!
(the forecast for next weekend: zebras in a national park!)

kampala street

kampala street from jinja road, originally uploaded by inainchina.

to show you what kind of traffic i have to fight downtown, i shot this picture coming , no actually standing in the jam on Jinja road. and no, i havent used a foggy-photoshop extra , it is dusty like hell, cause the roundabout down there is currently under cunstruction.
Hach, sort of beijing feeling, isnt it?: Traffic jams in dusty air.

relax!

the weekends in Kampala are lazy relaxed ones. besides saaturday morning fighting the traffic to start shopping house necessities, i spend the afternoon at a 50meter pool at SPEKE RESORT reading the SPEX (! which i own Olaf now a ethopian dinner for...) and eating advocados and papayas. sunday was even more lazy: brunch and then nothing else than chilling in the garden with my colleague Tina, her boyfriend and 2 DED colleagues., eating self-baked applepie, advocados (its season and they are damn cheap!) and passionfruits. Hach..... how nice!