More interesting images

It's pretty amazing just how much people can load onto their bikes or motorcycles here. We've seen kitchen table sets, bundles of metal rebar, large storage trunks, stacks of beer crates 4 high, and this guy with about a dozen empty water jerry cans. These loads are certainly the norm, rather than the exception.

Barb and I went back to Aero Beach this weekend, and arrived hungry. Luckily they will serve you food and drink on the beach, so we were excited to hear that they had fish and chips available. Not exactly the English style breaded fish sticks, the dish arrived with a whole tilapia and a side of chips! Yum... it was actually quite tasty despite the somewhat terrifying appearance.



We got comfortable with the baboons visiting the camp, though not too comfortable... they're still pretty scary sounding even if the young ones are really cute.





Here's the current water setup, hopefully just the very short-term setup. We procured the large 1000L tank and managed to fill it with a few trips to the local well, with the 10 new jerry cans that we also bought. Hopefully we can soon run a long pipe from the adjacent hillside, to pump spring water into the tank and keep it topped up. Until that happens, the guys will have to continue filling jerry cans and bringing them back to the camp on a bicycle.



Lots of small villages grow coffee among their matooke banana trees, and they lay out the crop in the sun to dry. I think some of the coffee is for their own use, while the rest is traded or sent to a local coffee co-operative for packaging and sale. Ugandan coffee is pretty good, but we're heading to Ethiopia next week where I hear the coffee is even better.

Sweet Sweet Water...

It's been a pretty amazing week for Barb and I, we've been out at the mine camp in the southwest of the country for the last 6 days. The camp runs pretty smoothly, the 10 or so guys working here have a good rapport and all work really hard. We've been doing lots of different things; setting up the office area in the main house, buying a large water tank for the camp, scouting out a clean water source to supply the camp in the future. This first picture is at the big waterfall in the area, where they're planning to install a hydroelectric project in the future. We went out to see it while the guys took a reading of the river flow rate.


This picture of Barb on the hill is from the day we went to scout the water. There's a natural spring coming from the mountain near this point, and we were measuring the distance from the campsite, in order to estimate the cost of running a pipe across the valley to provide fresh water for the camp. We went back another day with a GPS unit to measure the elevation - we may be able to send the water just using gravity, no pumps needed.


We stopped along the road on our way to the mine to check out the drummaker's shop - Barb was pretty excited! As I'm writing this post Barb is outside with the miners, playing on the drums she bought! Music has an amazing power to transcend cultural boundaries and language barriers. Last night I brought out my harmonicas, and some of the guys were very interested. I brought along a few extra harps to give to the guys, so I think they're going to learn. This afternoon I heard one of them practicing across the camp on his own, so there's definitely some interest!

Battery power is running out on our computer, and I don't know if we can run the generator tonight, so I'll cut this post short. I think we're driving back to Entebbe this weekend so more posts should follow in the next few days. I must say that both Barb and I are really loving this trip and adventure, it's been amazing in many ways. I'm sure more adventures are on the way for both of us!

Aero Beach day

When you head out for a day at the beach, you may not expect to arrive to a field full of decommissioned airplanes, but this is Uganda and this is Aero Beach! After paying 2000 shillings at the gate for admission (a little less than one dollar) we parked near one plane that supposedly was once used for smuggling goods into the country, perhaps during the reign of Idi Amin. It certainly looks like it's been parked here for a long time, the wheels are sunk into the ground and the engines are in various states of disassembly.

Across the field another plane was also parked, and it had been painted in tribute to the current American president. Apparently Obama is quite a celebrity here in East Africa, as he has family roots in Kenya. Oddly, it seems that Gaddafi of Libya is also a bit of a local celebrity, though I haven't really figured out why just yet.

We walked down to the lakeshore after parking, and found some interesting sights at the water's edge. Lots of people splashing around and playing in the water near the shore, which is to be expected, but then when you look out at the water there's a small boat with a pair of guys casting out a net for fish.

Then about 30 minutes after we sat down a pair of camels appeared behind us waiting for some customers. A few thousand shillings gets you a camel ride up and down the beach.

It was a pretty interesting day... it's nice to have someone bring you drinks right to your chair on the beach, but after a few hours the place filled up with drunk teenagers and was quite a wild party. We ducked out just as it was getting to be too much crazy energy.

I spent last Saturday evening sitting on the balcony of the Aero Club in Entebbe, watching the setting sun gradually change the colors in the sky. It's a fabulous place to spend a few hours watching the planes coming in to land at the International Airport, flying over Lake Victoria. Jenn was excited to go sit with the other ex-pats here, since the lovely scenery seems to brighten everyones mood - a rare social outing where no one was negative or complaining about something or other. It seems that the typical conversation always comes around to some negative comment about the people, the food, or the traffic - it's easy to get frustrated with the way things work (or don't work). But an evening at the Aero Club tends to wash all those complaints away, if only for a few hours.



I'm now at the end of week two of this three month trip, and the majority of the last week we've been at Entebbe. The house here is very comfortable, and well protected by the four vicious dogs in the photo! They're actually quite sweet but would certainly not hesitate to bite an unfamiliar intruder to the compound. They can certainly make quite a mess of their food, which is a home-cooked mixture of small dried fish and pasho, a ground maize powder that is cooked like rice to make a thick paste. The dried fish boiling on the stove certainly add a unique aroma to the house...



While daily life around Entebbe is quite tranquil and relaxed, other parts of Uganda have been considerably more volatile lately. There have been protests and demonstrations taking place over the last few weeks, mostly centered in the capital city of Kampala. The government opposition leader has been heading up a series of 'Walk to Work' demonstrations, ostensibly to protest rising fuel and food prices. The inflation rate has been steadily climbing, and is currently around 14%. It's certainly made life difficult for a lot of people, but prices are rising everywhere in the world, not just here in Uganda. Anyway, the opposition leader has been arrested several times now for causing trouble, but the police response has been quite heavy-handed and people have responded by protesting even more. Yesterday most of Kampala ground to a halt as some people erected barricades on the roads with burning tyres and branches. There were multiple security forces dispersing the crowds with teargas, guns and rubber bullets... anyway, all this is information I picked up from news reports, as Entebbe was business as usual. I spent Friday afternoon sitting in a garden cafe working on the computer and listening to the Royal Wedding in the background. Uganda is a Commonwealth nation, and there's a lot of interest in the big ceremony.



It's certainly a lovely place to work, with lots of interesting flowers and lush plantlife around. I've been going through a crash-course in small project management, doing my best to fill in the gaps and help Jenn and Jonny keep the mine project moving forward. There's a lot of pieces to consider, and like most everything in Africa progress happens 'slowly slowly', polepole. It looks like there's still a lot of administration and paperwork to get finished here in Entebbe, so I'll be here for a little while yet. One of the next big challenges is getting some sort of solar power set up at the mine camp, so that we'll be able to run computers and basic equipment there and continue to work. Luckily there are several options readily available in Kampala, and it seems like a solar electricity system will be fairly straightforward to setup. Lots to learn, lots to do, and of course lots of fun to be had!

Time to feast!

My first week in Uganda has certainly been interesting... I've been told that people's first three months here is like a roller coaster ride of loving this country and hating this country. Some times you swing from one extreme to the other multiple times in a single day! After a very long day in the car, I got to see the view above that I'll be enjoying for the next three months.



This very exhausted pig was brought to the mine camp site from the local village. I arrived at the camp with Jenn and Jonny after driving across the country from Entebbe the day before. It was Jenn's first time back to the mine in quite some time, and they were having a party to celebrate all the work that had been done so far, and in anticipation of the rapid progress on the horizon now that there is an investor in the project. The workers now number about 10, down from 15 a few months ago, but those still committed to the project are very loyal and great workers. The pig was part of their reward for working so hard under some rather challenging conditions, remaining committed even when things weren't ideal.



Unlike the goat feast I enjoyed on our last trip to Africa, I didn't watch the slaughter of the animal on this day. Not because I didn't want to, but rather the guys did it so fast I didn't even know it was happening! Before I knew it there were skewers of meat being put over the fire. In this picture there's pieces of pork along with beef sausages that we brought from town. The sausages were what we used to cool the beer from warm to lukewarm... I'm learning that warm beer is something I'll have to get used to here.



Only a few of the guys speak english, so we have to rely on other forms of communication but I get the sense that they are all very friendly and happy to have me there. I was especially popular when I brought out my portable iPod speakers to provide some music, though my Canadian indie rock and pop music didn't really translate. At least I have some Bob Marley and an African Groove mix cd, along with an album of traditional Zimbabwean mbira music that I bought for Barb before I left.



Since this weekend is Easter weekend, we only spent one day at the mine site before driving back to Entebbe. The workers also had the weekend off, so we travelled back with a vehicle full of people and three chickens in the back. The chickens were for Easter dinner... it seemed a bit cramped, but I was told not to worry, these are African chickens, they are very hardy. They crapped all over the trunk, including my bags! Ah well...



We stopped for some refreshment along the way at the equator, and of course had to snap a photo at the centre of the globe! I think I'll be crossing the equator many times in the coming months, but the first time was very exciting.

Africa bound...again

Well here I am waiting at the departure gate in Vancouver, minutes away from getting on a plane for Uganda. I never dreamed I would get the opportunity to go to visit Africa once, and now here I am about to make my second visit. It's been a fast and furious scramble these last few weeks getting ready, but somehow it's all worked out and I'm ready to go. I'm not sure just what to expect, except for the guarantee of adventure and new opportunities to learn and grow. Never a bad thing.

The last posts on this blog were from 2007, when Barb and I visited our friends and family in Kenya and Uganda. Looking at those posts now for the first time in several years brings the whole trip flooding back into my mind, and I'm ready for another wonderful experience.

Well, there's the boarding announcement...time to boogie! Lots more to come...

Masai village welcome dance

On our final day of the Masai Mara trip we visited the village where a few of the Riverside lodge staff live. We were greeted outside the perimeter of the fenced village by the men, who performed this for us.