Last Tuesday night the historic burial ground of the Buganda Kings - the Kasubi Tombs - were seriously damaged by fire. The Buganda Kingdom is a significant traditional Kingdom within Uganda. Kampala is also the historic Capital of Buganda.
The fire is a cause of great sadness for many and there's been much discussion and debate these last few days as to the cause of the tragedy.
For more information follow these links:
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/882844/-/wjr01d/-/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2010/03/100317_uganda_nh_sl.shtml
Sunday 21 March 2010
More about the Most At Risk Populations network team that Ian's working with
This is Geoffrey Mujisha the Executive Director and driving force behind the Most At Risk Populations (MARPs) network. Geoffrey is a medical doctor by profession but decided while working at the big Mulago hospital in Kampala that his passion was prevention - working to create really effective public health programmes that are essential to tackle challenges like HIV / AIDs. Geoffrey rallied people to the cause and the MARPs network was officially launched by the Uganda Aids Commission last June. MARPs exists to support, co-ordinate and strengthen organisations and programmes focused on people who are most at risk of becoming HIV positive.
Thomas Muyunga, also medically trained, is the senior programme officer at MARPs. A key part of Thomas' role is to design and implement mobilization initiatives that raise awareness about and advocate for best practice in combatting transmission of HIV / AIDs. Thomas has taken on the task of supervising my work.
Sam Rabwehare is MARPs' finance and administrative officer - Sam is a recent graduate from Makerere University in Kampala. Sam has also shown Ian how to negotiate his way from the office through Kampala's taxi parks and market area to get his taxi to Ntinda!
Richard Mboizi is MARPs' office manager and takes care of much of the practical stuff. Despite the fact that MARPs has been officially launched by the Uganda Aids Commission and that the team has been properly appointed to roles within the MARPs network secretariat - they all work for nothing at the moment! MARPs has been commissioned by the UN and others to carry out a public dialogue with people from organisations working on HIV / AIDS prevention work throughout Uganda but, as yet, no one has put their hand in their pocket to fund the running costs of the Secretariat. There is currently a bid on the table with a large donor organisation so please keep your fingers crossed.
The team are an inspiration to be working with and they have made me very welcome. They call me "Mzee Ian" - "Mzee" is a Swahili word for 'old man' - and usually a term of respect. We've all had a good conversation about the priority areas for my work - all of which will be to work with the team individually and collectively to build the organisation's strength and effectiveness. Right now I'm supporting a process for analysing the significance of the findings that have come out of the public dialogue events. I'm learning so much! It's a privilege.
I'll post further updates on MARPs progress.
A workshop at the public dialogue event held in Kampala just before Christmas
Renate on her first 4 weeks in Uganda
Four weeks ago we were approaching the dimly lit Kampala airport after a great flight and it's hard to believe time has passed so quickly. We seem to have been on the go non-stop and are only just coming up for air.
Our In Country Training took place at the VSO Programme office in the ‘Banda’ - a large thatched roof with open sides all round. It was so good to be back in Africa and I kept filling up with sheer joy as memories of my early childhood in the 1950s in Venda in the far northern part of South Africa, near the Zimbabwean Border, were vividly recalled - the heat, the bright light, the red soil, the tropical down pours, the lush green vegetation and familiar plants and birds.
To be in a place where ‘Muzungus’ (white people) are in a minority also reminded me of life on mission stations where we mixed freely with local people and life moved at a relaxed pace. What a treat and a joy to experience something of that again after almost 40 years in England.
Having said that Kampala could not be more different - a sprawling city, bustling with hundreds if not thousands of white minibus taxis all blowing their horns as they compete for space with boda-bodas (small motorbikes that take passengers), cyclists, pedestrians, special hire taxis (private saloon cars) and huge 4x4s.
A "Google Earth" view of Kampala's taxi park - the little white shapes are all taxis!!
May seem like chaos to us, but it works! And up the road from where we were being trained is a huge Italian Super Market that sells everything, including delicious ice cream in many yummy flavours and dozens of different types of pasta and pesto! So the differences to the Venda district of South Africa are just as stark as the similarities are noticeable!
We really like our spacious flat in a relatively quiet part of Kampala and love sitting on our balcony in the evenings overlooking a narrow green valley. Down side is that it is quite far from the centre and from other volunteers except for the 2 living in the same block.
The first week was tough as Ian started work right away on the Monday. Our flat only had a bed and a three piece suite in it. The temptation was to rush out and buy all sorts, the challenge to get simple tasks done with little or no equipment. How to dry dripping hand washed laundry in the pouring rain without hooks, hangers, airers, rope or hooks? Leave it out in the rain, of course, or put it on the floor, which I did in our empty spare bedroom after sweeping up the fine red dust that covers everything.
Enjoying our kitchen in the amazing flat that we have
Going shopping was also a challenge as £1 = 3,000 Ugandan Shillings! Before venturing out, I wrote down what coins (in 100, 200 and 500 Shilling denominations) I had and went without any notion of what anything might cost. Most people speak English and are happy to wait patiently while we sort the cash out. I bought food locally and was gutted when it went off so quickly. I soon learned I had to go out everyday and buy just 2 bananas, 2 tomatoes, a small bunch of greens. This is obvious but I’m used to a weekly shop and being a full-time housewife is also a new experience. We have succumbed to getting a fridge and are generally better equipped now. I’m now in a routine of boiling water, filtering it, washing smalls by hand, going out shopping, go to the air-conditioned internet cafe and have even managed to soak beans overnight and make a bean dish!
A lovely woman called Sarah, a Ugandan who was a VSO volunteer in Zambia asked me to help her with funding applications for a new organisation she is setting up to tackle the problem of jiggers in a district east of Kampala. Jiggers are parasites (worms) that burrow under the skin in toes, feet and fingers, where they multiply and spread causing severe pain and in extreme cases the loss of digits. In the absence of adequate health care in this very poor rural area, unsterilised, shared needles are used to remove the jiggers and in so doing spread jiggers and HIV/AIDS. People with jiggers are outcast and live in abject poverty.
The project has a clear vision and the aim is to tackle the poverty in a holistic way, but securing initial funding for a brand new organisation is well nigh impossible. I doubt I can be of much use as I have no idea (yet) what grant aid, if any, is available here in Uganda. In the mean time, it's been a real pleasure meeting up with the applicant on a number of occasions, usually in a cafe and having lunch together. I've learnt a huge amount from her and she's been friendly and looking after me.
Thinking of starting to ask around for voluntary work, although I've enjoyed being at home and as we have met quite a few other volunteers and been out and about quite a bit, there's been no time to get bored or lonely, so that is very good.
Over to Ian to post this on our blog. I want to learn how to import photos how to use our Christmas and leaving gifts: short wave radio, my electronic reader, e-photo frame and Ian's sophisticated lap top! Crazy - come to Africa and move into the 21st century!
Love to family and friends - you are often in my thoughts.
Writing this post on the balcony tonight
The friendly supermarket in Ntinda where we get stuff we need
I have been spending a fair bit of time here in Ntinda's Internet cafe during the day researching the information that Sarah needs for her fund raising bids
Today is 21 March - the Spring Equinox - the day when the sun is directly overhead at the Equator (just down the road!) - but we had cloud cover at midday - so you'll have to imagine the shadow right underneath me!
Our In Country Training took place at the VSO Programme office in the ‘Banda’ - a large thatched roof with open sides all round. It was so good to be back in Africa and I kept filling up with sheer joy as memories of my early childhood in the 1950s in Venda in the far northern part of South Africa, near the Zimbabwean Border, were vividly recalled - the heat, the bright light, the red soil, the tropical down pours, the lush green vegetation and familiar plants and birds.
To be in a place where ‘Muzungus’ (white people) are in a minority also reminded me of life on mission stations where we mixed freely with local people and life moved at a relaxed pace. What a treat and a joy to experience something of that again after almost 40 years in England.
Having said that Kampala could not be more different - a sprawling city, bustling with hundreds if not thousands of white minibus taxis all blowing their horns as they compete for space with boda-bodas (small motorbikes that take passengers), cyclists, pedestrians, special hire taxis (private saloon cars) and huge 4x4s.
A "Google Earth" view of Kampala's taxi park - the little white shapes are all taxis!!May seem like chaos to us, but it works! And up the road from where we were being trained is a huge Italian Super Market that sells everything, including delicious ice cream in many yummy flavours and dozens of different types of pasta and pesto! So the differences to the Venda district of South Africa are just as stark as the similarities are noticeable!
We really like our spacious flat in a relatively quiet part of Kampala and love sitting on our balcony in the evenings overlooking a narrow green valley. Down side is that it is quite far from the centre and from other volunteers except for the 2 living in the same block.
The first week was tough as Ian started work right away on the Monday. Our flat only had a bed and a three piece suite in it. The temptation was to rush out and buy all sorts, the challenge to get simple tasks done with little or no equipment. How to dry dripping hand washed laundry in the pouring rain without hooks, hangers, airers, rope or hooks? Leave it out in the rain, of course, or put it on the floor, which I did in our empty spare bedroom after sweeping up the fine red dust that covers everything.
Enjoying our kitchen in the amazing flat that we haveGoing shopping was also a challenge as £1 = 3,000 Ugandan Shillings! Before venturing out, I wrote down what coins (in 100, 200 and 500 Shilling denominations) I had and went without any notion of what anything might cost. Most people speak English and are happy to wait patiently while we sort the cash out. I bought food locally and was gutted when it went off so quickly. I soon learned I had to go out everyday and buy just 2 bananas, 2 tomatoes, a small bunch of greens. This is obvious but I’m used to a weekly shop and being a full-time housewife is also a new experience. We have succumbed to getting a fridge and are generally better equipped now. I’m now in a routine of boiling water, filtering it, washing smalls by hand, going out shopping, go to the air-conditioned internet cafe and have even managed to soak beans overnight and make a bean dish!
A lovely woman called Sarah, a Ugandan who was a VSO volunteer in Zambia asked me to help her with funding applications for a new organisation she is setting up to tackle the problem of jiggers in a district east of Kampala. Jiggers are parasites (worms) that burrow under the skin in toes, feet and fingers, where they multiply and spread causing severe pain and in extreme cases the loss of digits. In the absence of adequate health care in this very poor rural area, unsterilised, shared needles are used to remove the jiggers and in so doing spread jiggers and HIV/AIDS. People with jiggers are outcast and live in abject poverty.
The project has a clear vision and the aim is to tackle the poverty in a holistic way, but securing initial funding for a brand new organisation is well nigh impossible. I doubt I can be of much use as I have no idea (yet) what grant aid, if any, is available here in Uganda. In the mean time, it's been a real pleasure meeting up with the applicant on a number of occasions, usually in a cafe and having lunch together. I've learnt a huge amount from her and she's been friendly and looking after me.
Thinking of starting to ask around for voluntary work, although I've enjoyed being at home and as we have met quite a few other volunteers and been out and about quite a bit, there's been no time to get bored or lonely, so that is very good.
Over to Ian to post this on our blog. I want to learn how to import photos how to use our Christmas and leaving gifts: short wave radio, my electronic reader, e-photo frame and Ian's sophisticated lap top! Crazy - come to Africa and move into the 21st century!
Love to family and friends - you are often in my thoughts.
Writing this post on the balcony tonight
The friendly supermarket in Ntinda where we get stuff we need
I have been spending a fair bit of time here in Ntinda's Internet cafe during the day researching the information that Sarah needs for her fund raising bids
Today is 21 March - the Spring Equinox - the day when the sun is directly overhead at the Equator (just down the road!) - but we had cloud cover at midday - so you'll have to imagine the shadow right underneath me!
Monday 8 March 2010
A flavour of our neighbourhood - Ntinda
Hopefully these photographs will provide a bit of a flavour of the neighbourhood where we are living - we are just getting to know it and the pictures were taken during a Sunday stroll
A view of one of the many hills in Kampala
In the bottom left-hand corner of this photograph you can just see a bright blue roof - the angle of this roof is pointing to the balcony of our flat
This is Annette with her daughter Joy - Annette's Partner Edward is the caretaker of our flats
Joyful Joy!
The main road that runs through our neighbourhood - in the foreground is one of the white minibus taxis licensed to carry 14 passengers - the cheapest form of public transport
A mural decorating the wall of one of several primary schools / nurseries in the neighbourhood
What a paint job! - a parade of small shops on the main road
A little local cafe on a side road near our flat - shame it was closed when we passed
Mum's got left behind here - this family is walking up the quite steep lane beside our flats
A view of one of the many hills in Kampala
In the bottom left-hand corner of this photograph you can just see a bright blue roof - the angle of this roof is pointing to the balcony of our flat
This is Annette with her daughter Joy - Annette's Partner Edward is the caretaker of our flats
Joyful Joy!
The main road that runs through our neighbourhood - in the foreground is one of the white minibus taxis licensed to carry 14 passengers - the cheapest form of public transport
A mural decorating the wall of one of several primary schools / nurseries in the neighbourhood
What a paint job! - a parade of small shops on the main road
A little local cafe on a side road near our flat - shame it was closed when we passed
Mum's got left behind here - this family is walking up the quite steep lane beside our flats
Wednesday 3 March 2010
A lovely day for Ian got off to a very bad start!
We were warned to be on the lookout for pick-pockets when using the minibus taxis in Kampala. This morning, (Ian) having been warmly greeted and offered a prize seat up front was told after 600 metres that I was on the 'wrong' bus and I'd have to get off and get another - so after scrambling out I discovered my pocket had been picked clean of loose change and bank notes - fortunately the wallet was in the rucksack that was clutched safely on my lap.
A bit of blow to start the day - still, within 10 minutes, Abdul, a 'special hire' driver (saloon car taxi that you have to yourself) was taking me to work via an ATM to replenish stocks of the folding stuff. As it turned out Abdul forgot to go via an ATM and dropped me at work assuring me that it'd be OK to settle up next time I booked a ride. Things definitely looking up!
Once at work (my third day) I felt - and was - really included in an excellent problem solving discussion in which we focused on the problem of having to arrange a public consultation event 200 miles away without a sufficient budget to do the work - we came up with several options (including saying: "No - without the resources we can't do it!"). Pleased with ourselves, we went off for lunch together. I had stewed beans to die for with chappati and spinach.
Back at the office we all tackled a budget setting exercise together with writing a justification for why we need the money (for a funding bid to US AID to establish a proper office for the MARPs Network - the organisation I'm working for). Again we're all chuffed by how much we've enjoyed working together on the task.
Now, at the end of the day, I had to go to an ATM to get cash - so Sam, one of my colleagues, offered to walk into the City Centre with me to find a VISA ATM. The route that Sam chose took us right through the minibus taxi parks and market areas - absolutely heaving - and I can't recall seeing another white face. I felt a little keyed up by this but needn't have worried - most people didn't look twice and those that did make eye contact had a twinkle or a smile for me. Wow! The walk was about two miles in length through the very busy evening rush hour crowds and up and down the very hilly Kampala streets in the warm evening sun. My senses were (mostly pleasantly) assaulted by unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells - probably soon to become everyday experiences.
At the end of the walk with more cash in my pocket and having waved farewell to Sam I sank into a chair in a cafe and waited for Renate and Abdul. I had a smile on my face and a freshly blended and ice cold water melon juice drink in my hand. I had that lovely knackered feeling!
A bit of blow to start the day - still, within 10 minutes, Abdul, a 'special hire' driver (saloon car taxi that you have to yourself) was taking me to work via an ATM to replenish stocks of the folding stuff. As it turned out Abdul forgot to go via an ATM and dropped me at work assuring me that it'd be OK to settle up next time I booked a ride. Things definitely looking up!
Once at work (my third day) I felt - and was - really included in an excellent problem solving discussion in which we focused on the problem of having to arrange a public consultation event 200 miles away without a sufficient budget to do the work - we came up with several options (including saying: "No - without the resources we can't do it!"). Pleased with ourselves, we went off for lunch together. I had stewed beans to die for with chappati and spinach.
Back at the office we all tackled a budget setting exercise together with writing a justification for why we need the money (for a funding bid to US AID to establish a proper office for the MARPs Network - the organisation I'm working for). Again we're all chuffed by how much we've enjoyed working together on the task. Now, at the end of the day, I had to go to an ATM to get cash - so Sam, one of my colleagues, offered to walk into the City Centre with me to find a VISA ATM. The route that Sam chose took us right through the minibus taxi parks and market areas - absolutely heaving - and I can't recall seeing another white face. I felt a little keyed up by this but needn't have worried - most people didn't look twice and those that did make eye contact had a twinkle or a smile for me. Wow! The walk was about two miles in length through the very busy evening rush hour crowds and up and down the very hilly Kampala streets in the warm evening sun. My senses were (mostly pleasantly) assaulted by unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells - probably soon to become everyday experiences.
At the end of the walk with more cash in my pocket and having waved farewell to Sam I sank into a chair in a cafe and waited for Renate and Abdul. I had a smile on my face and a freshly blended and ice cold water melon juice drink in my hand. I had that lovely knackered feeling!
Monday 1 March 2010
Settling in
We've been in Kampala for 10 days and it's been non-stop since we arrived. We've started to learn some of the language in Kampala - Luganda - we've had some enjoyable induction training from VSO, we've sampled sights, sounds and tastes and today Ian started work. He met Geoffrey Mujisha, his employer, last Friday and he and Geoffrey 'clicked' straight away.
Geoffrey helped us move into our flat over the weekend and now Renate and Ian (Renate mostly) are building their nest for the next 12 months.
Here are some photographs that might capture the flavour of our early experiences:
The Uganda music and dance evening we went to on our second evening began with guys playing this huge zylophone - it did sound great as well!
This dance troupe is amazing - here they are dressed in the Ugandan national colours - their energy and speed left us exhausted after 10 minutes! And they got us dancing later on!
These guys are representing dancers from the north east of the Country
A view of the garden of the place we stayed during our first week - the place is run by an Irish faith based organisation - no booze allowed on the premises!
Another view of the place we stayed in during the first week - look carefully and you might spot Renate on the verandah
This is a photograph from our balcony of a neighbouring flat - just like ours - we'll be living here for the next 12 months
Renate 'online' in our sitting room - we've got ourselves a 'go anywhere internet dongle' - amazing!
A view along the valley from our balcony - we're to the north east of the City centre near a place called Ntinda
A view across the valley from our balcony - taken at 6.00 pm in the evening sun - it had been pouring all morning - the 'short' rainy season has started
This four poster in our flat has a purpose - the mozzie net hangs perfectly!
Geoffrey helped us move into our flat over the weekend and now Renate and Ian (Renate mostly) are building their nest for the next 12 months.
Here are some photographs that might capture the flavour of our early experiences:
The Uganda music and dance evening we went to on our second evening began with guys playing this huge zylophone - it did sound great as well!
This dance troupe is amazing - here they are dressed in the Ugandan national colours - their energy and speed left us exhausted after 10 minutes! And they got us dancing later on!
These guys are representing dancers from the north east of the Country
A view of the garden of the place we stayed during our first week - the place is run by an Irish faith based organisation - no booze allowed on the premises!
Another view of the place we stayed in during the first week - look carefully and you might spot Renate on the verandah
This is a photograph from our balcony of a neighbouring flat - just like ours - we'll be living here for the next 12 months
Renate 'online' in our sitting room - we've got ourselves a 'go anywhere internet dongle' - amazing!
A view along the valley from our balcony - we're to the north east of the City centre near a place called Ntinda
A view across the valley from our balcony - taken at 6.00 pm in the evening sun - it had been pouring all morning - the 'short' rainy season has started
This four poster in our flat has a purpose - the mozzie net hangs perfectly!
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