Rafting the Nile!

25/07/2010
I’ve come to Jinja this weekend, which is a couple of hours ride from Kampala by Matatu. I’m staying in a hostel and the whole place is really chilled out compared to Kampala. It’s really nice to get away from the craziness for a few days. Yesterday, my friend, Maja and I went rafting, here on the Nile is an amazing place to go white water rafting because there is a huge volume of water which makes really amazing grade five rapids and amazing waves. The Rafting was amazing and the we also spent a lot of time flipped up and swimming, however we also negotiated a lot of the really crazy rapids successfully as well! Today we have just chilled out and paid to go to hotel pool near where we are staying, we also went down to the Bujagali falls to watch today’s rafters go through. I am quite a glad I didn’t do that before as standing on the rocks at the side actually makes it look a lot scarier than when you on the river. We watched lots of rafts go through and a few flip! Tonight its back to Kampala for some last minute rushing around interviewing before heading out to Fort Portal on Tuesday.

The Amazing Resource Centre at Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda!

A huge thank you to the staff at the ACCU for letting me use there amazing resource centre and spending hours helping me find and photocopy some really unique resources.

Nando's (sort-of) is everywhere!

Tuesday was a very busy one, in the morning we went into the city for a 10am meeting with Transparency International. It was a really good meeting and the African Education Watch Co-ordinator Frances, answered all my questions and told me all about the three phases of the research they were undertaking. After that meeting we walked down the road to the Akamba Bus office, to book Mum’s and Dad’s fare to Mombasa. We managed to book the Royal Service changing at Nairobi, so it should be a pretty comfortable trip.
After this we were pretty disappointed because we went in search of the Hari Krishna restaurant, which Rachel was particularly excited about however it turned out to be a sham and just a front for a profit making outfit. So Rachel said she would take me to Nando’s because it was BOGOF day on Tuesday. The Ugandan version of Nando’s was an interesting experience, they had many different counters and sold pizza, fried chicken (KFC style) and had a bakery and internet cafe attached as well. So not quite like out version of Nando’s although all branding was the same (see photo) due to the non existing property rights laws here.
We sat there for a while after our pizza and did some work and reading as we had a while before our next appointment. In the mean time Rachel’s friend Alfie rang and offered to come and meet us and take us to the next appointment as it was quite far out of town. It was a pretty good job he did because it was a very difficult place to find if your assuming that a government office would be in a built up or developed area you would be wrong because this office was very nice when we found it but down a very rough dirt track. Luckily we weren’t too late and Mary Frances the School inspector I was meeting was incredible helpful and I found out a lot of interesting facts for my research. After this Alfie dropped us in Garden City the shopping centre because Francis had referred me to some books I should get in the book shop there. We also wanted to investigate the cinema there, as Rachel thought that it was half price on a Tuesday. It was so we went to see the ‘The Back-Up Plan’ this was an interesting experience because I found out that Ugandan’s laugh at everything even the things that aren’t meant to be jokes or funny.
We were about to head home when Alfie rang and said he would pick us up again because he had finished work. So we walked out of Garden City to wait outside a hotel because there is always a massive queue round there. We were sitting on a massive rock waiting when a policemen came up to us and asked us ‘what we were planning?’. Initially we were quite confused and assured him we weren’t planning anything, another policeman from the ‘riot police’ arrived and this was when we discovered we were sitting outside the hotel were the African Union Summit was going on. When the police realised that we weren’t planning anything and obviously no risk to the summit. They were more friendly and in the end told us a lots about the summit and what was going on. Eventually Alfie appeared and we went for a drink on the way home as we didn’t have any interviews so didn’t need to be up early.
We got up pretty late on Wednesday as we ended up having a few more drinks than we planned. I did some work and preparation in the afternoon and then we headed out to meet a friend Maja who I had met on the plane and was doing some volunteering as a Nurse for a month. We ate in the food court at Garden City because it was easy for Maja to find and there was lots of choice. We also wanted to meet because we are planning to go to Jinja together this weekend and wanted to make some plans for Friday. It was good to get to know her some more and find out about what she has been doing. After dinner I was keen to get home and get to bed as I had a very busy research day planned for Thursday.
Today has been going really well! I got a lift to my first meeting this morning with The Ugandan Debt Network, unfortunately the person I had came to see had had to rush off but that didn’t matter because another lady Rebecca that works there helped me find lots of reports and the best part was they had a huge board in there reception area with masses of newspaper clippings relevant to my research, so I spent several hours there making notes etc. Just before I left my contact there came back and I had a brief chat with him before going to my next appointment.
At the moment I am at the Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda, where I met with the Executive Director Cissy, who was able to help me a lot as well as tell me about all their initiative in the education sector. I am currently in their resource centre which is a real find as it full of reports and books on corruption in the education sector. The resource manager is currently photocopying some things for me, so I am just finishing my blog while I wait. After this I have another organisation called the Federation of Education NGOs to find, which I know is situated round here and then I am going in search of some wireless internet to post all this and catch up on emails.

Progress at last!

I’m now living in a place called Kansanga, nearby where Sam and Abby live. It is a very interesting house about 17 people live here. Rachel has a room with ensuite and is the only Mzungu (white person) in the house. The people in the house are really friendly if not a little crazy, half of them are musicians and out and about with all there bling on! The house is owned by a lady called Mama Lala, who owns a bar. Also there are three dogs, which are constantly causing destruction, there is a new puppy called Friday (in the picture with Rachel) that is not trained at all and destroys everything, yesterday he chewed right through the wire of the iron. Mama Lala said that if he didn’t improve she is putting rat poison down for him?
On Saturday after being dropped off went into town to sort out my Ugandan phone and then Rachel too me too meet her friend Mary and her family. She is Greek but was born in Fort Portal, Uganda. She owns a hotel in Kampala called the Athina. She is a very interesting lady and told me lots of interesting stories about her life and all the times she met Idi Amin and the political history of Uganda. It turned into a pretty crazy day because while we were with Mary having a few drinks in her Hotel Garden, the doctor came to see her elderly Uncle and decided he needed to go to the hospital. So in the end we ended up taking Mary to the hospital and helping her sort some things out there.
Yesterday (Sunday) was much more chilled out. I needed to check some emails so we went in search of some wireless, my friends told me there was some by the US embassy. Sheila (Mama Lala’s daughter) came with us, so we got a matutu (minibus) because Sheila could make sure we got a good price. We found the place, it was called Le Chateau and a lot smarter than we were expecting. It was really confusing as several places told us there was no wireless but eventually we found there was. But we were suppose to have food, we smiled very sweetly and persuaded them to let us have two hours if we bought some drinks.
During that time we decided to cook stew for tea as they had really nice vegetables for sale there in the shop and to go to Rachel’s friend Ali’s flat to cook it and watch TV that evening. We got home quite late and went to bed as we had a lot planned for today.
Today, we got up and as it was finally a work day. I made lots of calls to all the people I had contacts for and managed to make quite a lot of appointments. Robert’s contact Mary from the Education Standards Agency was incredibly helpful and I can tell is going to be a real help for other contacts. So now I have written this we are going to find some internet to do lots of sorting out and post this, then we are going in search of the Actionaid office as I can’t get them on the phone and the office is near here.
We need to do a bit of sorting out today as Ali is going away for a week tomorrow and we are going to house sit for him in his flat. Also I have three appointments tomorrow all in different parts of the city.

Now living in Kansanga with the ex Carni crew

Just a quick post to tell you all I moved to my friend Rachel's house today. She and the house is very friendly and interesting and I will explain more when I have time.

Rachel is a star and I feel like we have been sent to each other at exactly the right time she is helping me loads and I am helping her with her plans. I definitely believe in fate now!

Try and blog the details soon!

Lizzy ventures out into the city!

Today, I decided it was time to take the plunge, so I caught a lift into the city with Sam on his way to work. I needed to get maps. A-Zs and sims cards etc. So he dropped me at one of Kampala's two shopping malls which are interestingly next to each other. I found everything I needed then went off for a wonder before starting to head back. I spent a lot of my time fending off Boda-boda drivers (a man on a taxi-bike) who didn't seem to understand why someone like me who clearly didn't know what they where doing was wondering round on foot.

However this proved incredible fruitfull as I happened to wonder past a street, which was a street I had been trying to find for sometime. This is because it supposedly had the Ugandan branch of Transparency International (an organisation I desperately want to talk to for my research). Eventually I found the tiny sign and then the office. I introduced myself and made an appointment for next week. The most useful thing was the education officer gave me five contacts I would have never found by myself, which I am currently chasing up.

The best part of day was finding my way home, I walked to find a Matatu (crazy crammed with people mini-van) to the old taxi park. I found one and then encountered the most honest matatu driver in Uganda because I gave him a 10 000 note by accident when I meant to give him 1000. He chased me down the street to give me me my money back. Then I discovered the taxi park and I have never seen so many matatu's in one such small place (or ant type of vehicle). Becky will be pleased to hear that just before this sight yet again I was crossed over the road safely by a little old lady taking my hand just like Hanoi. Not surprisingly it took me about half an hour to find a Matutu to Muyeng. On the next leg of the journey home. I was sat next a Zimbabwean man who had moved to the USA and was a uni proffessor on a 10 month exchange. We discussed governance and my research and he has got some stuff to send me. Eventually the Matutu wound its way back to Tank Hill and after some further negotiation I managed to get back to Cafe Roma and walk the rest of the way home.

I spent the rest of the day working and emailing, making the most of Sam and Abby's wireless broadband before I move tomorrow. I have quite a few appointments now and leads to chase up this week, so things are looking up. Tomorrow, I am going to stay with my friend Rachel, who I know from my Raggie Carnival days. It seems the RAG network is going strong, she was part of Sheffield Rag and we hitched to Bucharest, Romania together. I had no idea she was in Kampala, so it was a total bonus and very kind of her to offer to put me up at no notice. Rachel house is only five mins from here, so its not too much of a move.

My blogs may get more sporadic as of now because I lose my access to quick, free internet!

Arrival in Kampala

I arrived late yesterday evening, the journey was pretty uneventful, just lots of queuing and airline food. I got the bookings right this time so I only had to break my journey once in Amsterdam, as opposed to the Birmingham-Amsterdam-Nairobi-Entebbe gauntlet.

I am staying with my friends Sam and Abby (there house is in the picture) at the moment, so it was lovely to recieve a very homely welcome and have an excellent nights sleep. Today I have tried to go and buy a Ugandan sim card but have been thwarted by the door lock. So my inability to lock the door means I will have to wait till Sam or Abby get back from work before I can walk up to the main road to buy one.

I have lots of contacts to chase up but they almost all required phoning and liaising with people on arrival, which I am in the process of doing. I also met some people on the plane journey which I am going to keep in contact with and maybe share accommodation with at a later stage.

So thats all for now, I'll try to let you know anything interesting that comes up in my research (hopefully some of it will be interesting!). Also keep you abreast of my movements and I have completely lost track of who from IDD might be out here at the moment, so if anyone who reads this would like to use the comments section to let me know that would be great. All my movements will be around Kampala and the South-West, so probably no good for the conflict lot?

When I get to Fort Portal, I will be undertaking some work for the Rwenzori Development Foundation (RDF) of which I am a trustee and I know I pestered many of you to get involved, so I will tell you all about how that is going as well.

Finally I will try to get some photos on here as that will be far more interesting than my ramblings.

It has been very overcast all day and now it is getting really windy outside, even the dog has scarpered! I don't know what this means as it is the dry season, so though I have never been here this time of year I assume it can't rain? Also I am very intrigued by Sam (a second one) he is the son of the family that live here and look after the house and garden, about twenty minutes ago he left and came back with a radio and now he has left again with the radio and several bits of broken mirror. I am quite bored of doing my stuff so I may go and investigate?

Pre-departure

Its been an interesting 24hrs or so. The tragic incident of the twin terroist bombings in Kampala have obviously meant that I have had to check with various people and agencies that it is still a good idea for me to go. However things seemed to have calmed down and the advice seems to be positive.

I was also relieved to hear that all my fellow students in Uganda were also fine as well and accounted for. So all there is left for me to do is go and fetch my currency, sort out my international driving license and fit everything in my bag.

I have various people to meet in Kampala and interview before heading out to Fort Portal to conduct some interviews with school head teachers and chase some issues up for the RDF.