• They drink their beer at room temperature which here means warm, even when there’s a choice of that or cold beer. Why? WHY?! Don’t get it. Don’t get it at all.
• ‘Toilets’. Only a small minority of places have toilets as we know them. As for the rest, you just have to squat and aim in the latrines. My quads haven’t had this much of a workout since Chamonix!
• Dust and diesel fumes. Coaches, lorries, van and pick ups cough and splutter their way through town belching out thick black lingering clouds of diesel and throwing up bright orange dust behind them.
• The heartbreaking poverty on every street. As easily as Uganda can take my breath away with its beauty, it can shock me with its inequalities and injustices. Some people live in opulence whilst the vast majority suffer and struggle to survive on a daily basis.
• Loud cheeping, chirping, sleep depriving, sodding, shitty crickets. Fry them all I say.
• The sheer volume of rubbish discarded on the streets. And if it annoys me, imagine what it would do to Rhys Hughes, Rivers people – he’d have a shit fit (Environmental Crime Team Leader from work who has similar feelings on littering as I do on crickets, possibly stronger).
• However many times you wash in one day, your feet will NEVER be clean.
My Anal in Africa spreadsheet didn’t include nail brush or pumice stone - I’m a packing failure ***hangs head in shame***.
(That said, those of you who mocked me for bringing waxing strips, I’ll have you know I have used them all- turning into a hippy is bad enough, turning into a hairy legged hippy is not an option!)
• Timekeeping is an alien concept, which for Type A’s like me can be wholly frustrating. Five minutes means anything between an hour or tomorrow.
What I guarantee it does NOT mean, however, is five minutes.
• Ugandans seriously a love power ballad (But they’d never heard of Steps, Stereophonics or Tom Jones until last week. They weren’t fans).
I have never heard so much wailing from Celine, Mariah, Foreigner or Glen Madeiros since I went out with a lovely boy in the 90s with a silver E reg metro and Love Anthems on tape!
• Monotony and blandness of food. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that I’m no Deliah. When I cook for myself, I’m resigned to super noodles, omelettes or pasta.
If we eat out, they’ve usually run out of half the stuff on the menu - to get your first choice is a rarity!
As soon as I get home, I’m heading straight to The Italian Way, Potted Pig or Oscars and ordering two of everything on the menu.
• Despite the bland mingingness of food here, Operation S ain’t on track as I hoped it would be. You’d have thought I’d have caught something over here to make me skinny, but oh no – not me!
Just my luck to stay perfectly sodding healthy!
• People approaching me in the street and asking for money.
Yesterday, a fairly well dressed man about my age who had been hanging round motorbikes laughing and joking with his friends just came up to me on the street and said (with a bad attempt at puppy dog eyes), “Excuse me. I have a problem, My father died in 1994 and I must leave school so I have no education. I have many womans I impregnised but no money for my education. Can you help me?”
I was very tempted to snap back, “Yes I can help you but with advice, not money. Stop shagging ‘many womans’, keep it in your trousers and concentrate on providing for your families or at least helping your ‘many womans’ with the chores instead of hanging round bikes with your mates and asking random white people for money. Dick.”
I didn’t though. I just said no.
• I swear there is some sort of parallel universe thing going on here - that time is rocketing by and I’ll be back home and in work in July in no time.
Poor me.
* * *
Photos :
* Banana (Well, matoke) man photo as requested. Will try to get a front shot before I leave.
* Burning rubbish at the side of the street. If you can zoom in, you can see the Mbale approach to enforcement - a sign saying 'No dumping of rubbish here'.
* Club beer, nice and cold as it should be!
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