hip hip hurray

my humble reader, did you know that the erotic zone for African women are the HIPs and the butt? the bigger the better. yes, yes, and them ladies can have wonderful, amazing huuuuuge backsides zones. much to much, in my opinion. but isnt it such a stressless beauty ideal: no diets anymore, and eating tons of chocolate instead and still looking sexy. Ye-ha!

yesterday i stumbled over this hilarious paradox poster 'hips gain without side effect ' ;))

This is UH-GAN-DAH! This is GER-MANNI

 saturday night in Kampala, on my way to the UGANDA-EUROPEAN Film festival, i crossed  a road with 2 colleagues, and were almost overrided by a small car, which did not stop for us pedestrians. and then even the female driver, instead of excusing herself for not seeing us or not obeying  general traffic rules,  she was shouting at us: "this is Uganda!" ????? i was speachless.... (hey, that is yet another traffic story,.. 

the film festival was quiet fine, we watched a german movie called STATUS YO! about hiphop kids in Berlin. very low budget, very authentic. and we wondered what the Ugandans now think of us germans: we are learning breakdance at school, the girls are all damn agressive and shouting at the boys, them are smoking ganja  the whole day, have nothing to do instead of rapping and hiphop, and are constantly broke. .. yo, man, alter, "this is germany"

another traffic story.....

I am driving a lot here, cause walking is not a way to get around, but it only happened three times so far that I have been stopped by police men.
The first and second time I managed to talk myself out of the situation, arguing that I am an experienced Kampala driver (“Mr policemen,. I am living in Luzira!” ) and that I haven’t done wrong (“so how could I know, I weren’t allow to make a u turn here, if there is NO signpost????” – damn us Germans can be so official and insisting on rules….), But anyway, now it happened that I broke this rule:

Don’t drive and phone.

A rule that no one really obeys, but honestly I find this rule okay, even if I don’t follow it…. So I was chatting on the phone with a colleague abt where to watch the german soccer final, hung up. and after a few seconds I heard a police horn, and then there was a policemen next to me. On his big american style motorbike with bluelights, antenna & co. SHIT!
And here comes now the typical story about how it goes with policemen in Uganda, and prob in the rest of Africa …..

- Lady, you know it is not allowed to use the phone while driving?

- Aeh… yes, sorry, I know
(me: smiling, thinking stupid me!)

- So? Why you do?
(come on! Think of good arguments and a tactic………)

- I just receive a phone call from my nanny, cause my kid is ill
(Ha! How smart, eh? I thought in a child-loving society like Uganda, that would be a killer argument!)

- Aha..mmmh.. besides, how are you?

- I am fine, okay that the kid is ill. How are you?

- Ohhh, so much stress, standing here the whole day, traffic jams… you know….

- Oh yes, traffic is terrible…
(it is indeed, I am playing the understandable…)

- Yes, the job is tiresome…

- Yes, yes,….

- Lady, do you have your driving license with you?
(SHIT , its at home….)

- Ah, no, I was just out urgently for grocery shopping, you know my kid….
( kids can come in handy sometimes…)

- Mmmhhh…..so, anyway, how are you?
(okay….. I do understand this wink with a big pole. the option of going to police station, troubleshooting with licence and car, maybe informing the office…- no way, so the way out of this s(h)ituatin is: )

- Sir , mind if I offer you a Soda, to appreciate your tiresome but important job? Or better…..aeh…

So , I hand him 10,000 USH (around 4.5 Euros) and he disappears.
That’s it. Money lost somewhere in the policeman’s pocket. Me, saving time and trouble with the police/office. is it already bribery, is it already corruption?
I don’t have a problem of paying a fine when I did something wrong (which I apparently did) but that the money does not go into the official budget, but is disappearing into private pockets, and: which is generally accepted (!) to top up poor salary. That’s a typical sad story, but I am not the one to change…..

and no, i wont break another rule: dont shoot photos of policemen,. so no accompanying pics .

new photos, yeah!

giraffes are damn cool, besides that they look so so funny with their tall figure, long legs, and funky puschel-antennas on their heads, they are very calm and relaxed colleagues. standing in the parks and eating the whole day grass and bushes, slowly stalk-walking to the nearest water hole. you may call them the cows of Africas...
new photos from the Tanzania trip here at flickr

streetlife

Maybe its because I am coming from an AUTOBAHN country, but I am astonished how much traffic and streets are determining my daily life & talk here. besides all the usual , useless traffic jams. So I want to share with you some of the issues:

- the first ever traffic light in Uganda was introduced maybe 5 years ago by reconstructing a round about. Now we have maybe an impressive number of 7 (seven) traffic lights. The recent addition is Jinja roundabout, and I was wondering how traffic lights can work in powercut-striken kampala in general and when drivers seems to totally ignore any rules of red-yellow-green. But after 2 months of total crossroad hara-kiri (maybe because it was sponsored by the Japanese..) it works almost fine

- the construction of 1km highway costs the amazing sum of 500,000 – 1 Mio US$, but almost 60% is lost in corruption. (bribery, selling of construction material to use in other sites, etc….) and that is making me very frustrated, especially given the bad situation of roads in Uganda in general and the low national budget. In Luwero where the new highway construction has been supervised by a Tschech company, there are after 3-4 months already potholes in football size. It’s a damn thing…

- when I cam back on Monday to the office, I was so surprised, cause the mud road leading to the office was suddenly almost tarmac’ed. Wow! How come? 3 weeks ago Mr. Ghaddfhi (yes, the lion of lybia… man with the second worst dictator fashion sense in the world) visited Uganda. and his daughter apparently stay in a place down the road form DED. So: the road had to be nice for a short visit. BUT: they haven’t finished when Gad' arrived. And have not even by today. That is soooo typical African . *g

KARIBU KILIMANJARO!

so, after 6 weeks germany it was time to say 'goodbye' and KARIBU to Africa again. and exciting enough, i am spending the next week for a regional DED meeting in Moshi * right at the feet of the Kilimanjaro. but: in the first 2 days I couldnt see nothing. nothing. only clouds. cause its rainy season. but then suddenly, the clouds dissapeared, and through the colourful garden we could see it: the majestic, snowy cap of the KILI. how beautiful! and how surreal in the setting of greenish lushy nature of the area.
then we had a trip to arusha national park (see picture above with one of the dozens giraffes we saw) and to a coffee farm.
and yes, we worked hard the others days, but i ll post some more tourist pictures later :)

happy eastern

.... to everyone!