Andre complained with me that I have not been updating my blog regularly. So here's a new post. I should complain that noone reads my blog :-( Or they read and don't comment!
So let's see, what's new in UG?
Last week I threw a tantrum at the office! Not a real tantrum, but I work with a Canadian girl who is an intern, and when I came everyone assumed I was an intern too, but actually I'm not. I'm getting quite a lot of money to do baloofers!
So fine I got into 'intern' mode for a little bit, but aftersometime I said this is ridiculous! and when the secretary introduced me to someone as the new intern I nearly went ballistic!
So after quarrelling with everyone, I sent an SMS to the Chairperson, and asked if this was supposed to be a six month holiday, because if it was I'd gladly take it! She assured me that no it wasn't supposed to be like that. And probably also quarrelled with everyone else. But since then things have been great.
The truth is inspite of quarrelling with everyone, I do enjoy the job, and love being out here in UG. I'm even considering applying for another six months.
Not sure what the long-distance BF will say about that! :-(
Will update again soon.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Monday, March 07, 2005
The Matatu ride to hell!
We left Kampala ridiculously late! at about 8 p.m. on a trip to Jinja where we were going to work at/attend a conference. Think Gilligan's Island, our trip should have taken 45 minutes, but took a whopping 3 1/2 hours!
Our overzealous matatu driver decided to beat the traffic by overtaking a zillion cars at once! Of course a very attentative policeofficer stopped him and we had to endure one hour of lecture and a fine before we could continue along our merry way.
Later in the middle of nowhere after a passing a vehicle with flashing hazard lights a man called out in a very timid voice "Parking.....Parking...Conda... Parking"
The conda/conductor just quarrelled with him and told him to sit down and be quiet. The polite gentleman got up again and said in his East African voice "Parking, parking". Now everyone in the matatu turned around and shouted at him to sit down and shut up!
Mr. Polite stood up and started to try to walk to the front of the matatu over all of the people in the 'jump seats'. In his polite voice he explained "but I'm taking spares to that vehicle that we just passed about 3 km ago!"This brought the matatu to a screeching halt. Mr. Polite tried to negotiate with the conductor and the driver as the poor soul would have to walk back 3 km in the pitch black. This was too much for all of the passengers. They all shouted at the poor man in Swahili, English and Luganda" Oh Shut Up and get off!" and the conductor pushed him out of the bus into the darkness and we sped off.
About 20 minutes later, we came to a long line of trucks. The weary passengers all started to talk excitedly in Luganda. I thought we had reached a weighing station. Our travel partner probably embarassed by all the excitement of the journey was quite slow in translating and left us listening to the Luganda chatter for about 10 minutes. I kept pressing, 'what's happening.... what's happening' then she said that 2 petrol tankers had creashed further up the road and the bus driver was trying to decide whether to wait in line or take another route. Eventually he chose the other route, much to the dismay of a few passengers who were stopping along the way, but the 45 minute trip was already over 2 hours long so the driver took the other road through the banana plantations and cane fields.
As there was no moon we could see the hal;o of the petrol fire in the distance and drove through the fields for another 20 minutes in silence, possibly fear, as every now and again we would pass groups of people who were shouting at the bus in Luganda. I later found out they were complaining that the roads need to be fixed because people only remembered them when there was an accident on the road. Then we came to a fork in the road, and the driver's spoken thought broke the silence....
"Which way"....
At that point I looked at Naila, who I was travelling with, and had to laugh. One road would have taken us further into the banana plantations, sugar and coffee, but even I who had never been there instinctively knew that we had to go right. Finally he chose right and we continued down the road.
Eventually we saw a few other cars in front of us and after yet another obstacle - this time a truck stuck in the mud, we made it to the city of Jinja at 11:30p.m.
Our overzealous matatu driver decided to beat the traffic by overtaking a zillion cars at once! Of course a very attentative policeofficer stopped him and we had to endure one hour of lecture and a fine before we could continue along our merry way.
Later in the middle of nowhere after a passing a vehicle with flashing hazard lights a man called out in a very timid voice "Parking.....Parking...Conda... Parking"
The conda/conductor just quarrelled with him and told him to sit down and be quiet. The polite gentleman got up again and said in his East African voice "Parking, parking". Now everyone in the matatu turned around and shouted at him to sit down and shut up!
Mr. Polite stood up and started to try to walk to the front of the matatu over all of the people in the 'jump seats'. In his polite voice he explained "but I'm taking spares to that vehicle that we just passed about 3 km ago!"This brought the matatu to a screeching halt. Mr. Polite tried to negotiate with the conductor and the driver as the poor soul would have to walk back 3 km in the pitch black. This was too much for all of the passengers. They all shouted at the poor man in Swahili, English and Luganda" Oh Shut Up and get off!" and the conductor pushed him out of the bus into the darkness and we sped off.
About 20 minutes later, we came to a long line of trucks. The weary passengers all started to talk excitedly in Luganda. I thought we had reached a weighing station. Our travel partner probably embarassed by all the excitement of the journey was quite slow in translating and left us listening to the Luganda chatter for about 10 minutes. I kept pressing, 'what's happening.... what's happening' then she said that 2 petrol tankers had creashed further up the road and the bus driver was trying to decide whether to wait in line or take another route. Eventually he chose the other route, much to the dismay of a few passengers who were stopping along the way, but the 45 minute trip was already over 2 hours long so the driver took the other road through the banana plantations and cane fields.
As there was no moon we could see the hal;o of the petrol fire in the distance and drove through the fields for another 20 minutes in silence, possibly fear, as every now and again we would pass groups of people who were shouting at the bus in Luganda. I later found out they were complaining that the roads need to be fixed because people only remembered them when there was an accident on the road. Then we came to a fork in the road, and the driver's spoken thought broke the silence....
"Which way"....
At that point I looked at Naila, who I was travelling with, and had to laugh. One road would have taken us further into the banana plantations, sugar and coffee, but even I who had never been there instinctively knew that we had to go right. Finally he chose right and we continued down the road.
Eventually we saw a few other cars in front of us and after yet another obstacle - this time a truck stuck in the mud, we made it to the city of Jinja at 11:30p.m.
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