Uganda might be OK

When I first arrived at the airport at Entebbe, I thought my journey was over. Little did I know that I had a 6 hour minibus journey ahead of me! The population of the bus was mystifyingly small. There was Betty (not my line manager but my immediate senior – she was my friend and teacher in Kenya before she became Program manager here) and also 2 drivers. This may have been uneconomical but at least it meant I could lie on the back seats and get some rest. I woke up at about 7pm for a pit stop. Do not imagine a service station, rather a toilet block, hidden behind some shops (I had to wonder whose toilet it was?!) and many hawkers selling (amongst other things) baked plantain (savoury bananas) and barbecued chicken. This roadside food really was top notch and I began to think that food in Uganda wouldn’t be so bad after all.

The hotel here isn’t too bad either. There’s hot and cold running water (although in practice there’s rarely any difference between the two advertised temperatures), I’ve got a double bed, and the smooth but unfamiliar flooring material doesn’t appear to be concrete – you can put your possessions on it without having to clean them after.

It's a good start!

Introducing my team...Especially Claude

My team arrived on Saturday last week. This meant that I had a 11 hour round trip in the minibus to pick them up – not the best of days, but it was nice to meet them all. They seem a pretty cool lot. The quality that stands out more than anything is the diversity. One guy is from UK, Thailand and New Zealand. So between the 11 of us we can count 7 nationalities (despite having several bland people like me that only claim one).

While in the most part everyone is well travelled and/or street wise we have one notable exception: Claude. Claude is very posh, French, and turned 19 yesterday. Regardless of what he probably ought to be doing, he can usually be found without his shirt outside the classroom reading a book. His possessions can be found anywhere within a 2 mile radius because he has no idea how valuable they are in this country. So far he sounds a bit lovable and scatty. That was my first impression too. He was a bit of a liability because he kept taking his shirt off at inappropriate times (something shocking to the locals), but otherwise ok. Then, on the second day, the shirt that he chose to put on featured a large photograph of some full frontal female nudity. Plural. There were many nudes on the tshirt. We couldn't believe it! This is a culture in which I can't even wear shorts in order to be socially presentable.

On the third day we briefed the whole team on catching moped taxis but Claude didn’t want to practice. Upon being asked why, he told us wouldn’t feel safe unless he could take the wheel himself. Clearly taxi-ing was going to be a problem.

On the fourth day Claude decided to go for a run first thing in the morning by himself (as he keeps telling us, he likes to “explore Africa alone”). He inevitably got lost and then ended up paying a motorbike driver to bring him back to the hotel. He was so pleased to be back that he didn’t ask the price, but spontaneously gave the driver 10,000 shillings, which incidentally is 10x the going rate here.

Yesterday was Claude's birthday. He had gone to town with the group and they lost him (not surprisingly, as mentioned, he likes to "explore Africa alone" and so gets lost on purpose). To everyone’s surprise he resurfaced having been invited to the ‘stage’ (think roped off square) in a dance pop-up. Turns out Claude has talent and it is dancing. Sensing his opportunity, he immediately took off his shirt (because he had seen someone else in tribal dress without a shirt) and proceeded to amaze everyone. He tells me that he's had the best birthday ever and he has the video to prove it.

Delays and Dubai

My travel to Uganda has not been 100% smooth as my first plane was delayed by so long that I missed my connecting flight in Dubai. When I arrived in Dubai, I had to get a boarding card printed for my next flight by the air Emirates service desk. The chap I had been sat next to on the plane (Jessie, a multi-lingual bleach-blond first-year student, who was planning to revise for his university resits in Thailand) managed to get me to the front of the queue for first class passengers (some people have all the charm!) and I hoped that this swift service might help me get on board in time. Sadly not. So I hugged Jessie goodbye and was sent with a hotel voucher to the Copthorne Airport hotel as the next flight to Uganda isn’t until tomorrow. The man in front of me in the queue for hotel vouchers is migrating to Singapore. All his possessions arrive today in a container, while he will now be arriving tomorrow. This reminded me that my problems are small. The man behind me in the queue was on his way to New Zealand to teach rugby, he was issued a voucher to the same hotel as me so we strolled off together, and were presently allocated rooms on the same floor.

I did my best to send a message ahead to tell the organisation I'm working with about the delay but it was a real struggle because I was fighting to stay awake. Both the rugby teacher and I decided we would take naps until lunch. Although the bedrooms were very standard (I thought everything was done to excess in Dubai?!) the lunch buffet was glorious. The piece de resistance was that there was baklava for pudding (and lots of salad mum, don’t worry). There are lots of restaurants  and bars in the hotel including an English bar called ‘Biggles’ which I was very intrigued by – I’ve always wondered what international people eat at English restaurants. Turns out they eat shepherd’s pie, fish and chips, roast meat and curry. There’s that lifelong mystery cleared up. We had a couple of drinks there and I learnt that my companion (Will) not only went to Hoe Bridge School but lives in Woking and studied at Southampton.

In the afternoon we went for a walk. It would be a shame to be here after all and see no city. However, see no city was what we felt like we did as we couldn’t find anything particularly significant looking to see. Not even a sky scraper (how can a sky scraper hide?! I heard that there was meant to be one a mile high here). Nevertheless, in order to encounter all this nothingness we did have to venture out in the sweltering heat. It wasn’t long before we were both shining with sweat – not a good position to be in without a change of clothes. I dipped my feet into an office water fountain and even the water was warm! Presently we were offered a welcome interlude by the discovery of an ‘Irish village’ which needed some investigating and turned out to be a series of Irish pubs. Rather than being a non-smoking pub, or even a pub with a smoking area, we were seated in a small cordoned off non-smoking area of an otherwise smoke-friendly pub. How odd!

Before dinner there was time for showers.  I was a bit cautious in mine not to wash under my arms in case my deodorant was the type that lasts 48 hours. I can’t remember if it is, but it’s worth a chance. These are desperate times! My deodorant is in my hold luggage and so I won't see it again until I arrive in Uganda.

This evening we’ve been to a pool bar where we were served no drinks but had a lovely chat with the Egyptian bar man. Apparently Dubai offers him a much higher quality of life than Egypt does as there is “100% no corruption here”, one is safe walking in the streets and he is very pleased to have moved – you never hear that side of the story do you? I was always told that Dubai’s many migrants were an abused underclass.

The other interesting thing he told me was that he had a great deal of respect for David Cameron for resigning because in many parts of the world leaders hold on to power for grim death and never recognise that it is time to hand over the reins. That too I found very interesting since the only opinion I’ve heard voiced in the UK is that Cameron (and every other leader who has resigned recently) is abandoning Britain in her time of need. When you look at most other countries around the world the UK isn’t doing so badly really even if it does currently feel like it’s falling to pieces.

I’ve got to be up at 6am in the morning to catch tomorrow’s flight. However, I think this hotel is in league with Emirates airline (I found their logo on one of the doors to lend support to this theory) as breakfast starts at 5:30! They cater to every culture here and so serve dinner (incidentally featuring another type of baklava) until 00:30am just for the night owls. The chef must never sleep.

After the bar I feigned excess tiredness (difficult considering that we were 4h ahead of the UK time zone) and left Will to watch his hotel room TV by himself. But before I went to bed he gave me his number so that once my travels are over I can contact him in the UK and let him know how it all went. How sweet.