Christmas in Hell

Chunk two. Hell! Well, no, it wasn't really hell, but it was pretty hot and that's enough of a similarity to justify a bombastic title.

You'd imagine with almost a month off for the Christmas holiday that I'd have plenty of time to write a couple of posts on a poxy blog; you'd be entirely correct. However, rather than use the holiday productive I did what all good procrastinators do and sunk around 200 hours into Football Manager (in my defence I'm trying to get it out of my system before I become an adult... 28... in April).

So now, with marking pilling up, schemes of work begging to be written and classes in open revolt about my lack of planning*, I've decided to take an evening out to wow you with my continuing adventures and hopefully get you up to date.

*This is gross exaggeration tantamount to a lie as I really can't build up a picture of any element of stress in my life at the moment, at least not with a straight face.

For fear of boring you senseless I'm going to abandon the chronological narrative and jump straight into the couple of juicy bits and ignore everything else.

The biggest news is Alan.

I love dogs, we've always had dogs as a family and I have a pretty good idea of how to train them and all the things you need to think about when buying one. However, my purchase may have been slightly whimsical.

I'd considered getting a cat to scare off the rat that used to lurk in the spare bedroom, but not really made a move in earnest. A chance bit of eavesdropping revealed that one of my students had just picked up an extremely cute puppy and that was it. Within around 6 seconds I'd decided to join the club. Two day and $300 later I was bounding down the road carrying my new daemon (his mum and dad live just round the corner, as does his sister).

Dogs in Uganda generally look as if they are the survivors of some sort of zombie apocalypes: scraggy, mottled coats, ribs a model would die for and that malnourished-I'll-eat-anything look in their eyes. Alan is about as pedigree as they come. A black labrador with documents and a mother and father who are also clearly black labradors (this is not as daft as it may read). However, I'm not sure he'll be acknowledged as a lab in the UK as apparently breeders are quite snobby about the colour of labradors' coats. Alan's, although nominally black, is turning more and more silver every day.

Why 'Alan'?

Named after a friend from university with a fear of dogs. Surely no one can be afraid of something that has been named in their honour, so it's partly therapeutic. However, I've always been drawn to the idea of having to call out such a mundane human name in busy public parks and Alan just fit perfectly for that as well. Up yours, Fluffy, Rover, Rex.

He's now almost 4 months old and has tripled in size in the 2 months I've had him. His main interests appear to be showering, chasing huge cow monsters (I'm fairly certain this is not the scientific name, but this is much more apt), stealing shoes and biting feet. Walking him every day has actually proved a really good way to get a glimpse of life in Kampala for the majority of people.

Each day I track through people's farms, homes and fields and have to apologise to Alan trying to destroy everything and everyone. I've now got a small army of children that regularly come out and practice their limited English with me and suffer my feeble attempts at Lugandan (three, maybe four words so far...). I hope it doesn't sound condescending to say that it is like going back in time, but a lot of the homes and lifestyles remind me of dull social history lectures going back two, three and even four hundred years. That's by no means the majority of homes, but certainly a good proportion. Considering the tough, manual labouring existence I find it absurd how  ridiculously terrified they are of a little puppy. Nothing more amusing than watching a grown man of 30-40 leaping up like he's seen a ghost straight into a ditch to avoid an 18-inch long puppy. Ugandans!

I'll skip over a fairly amusing story about trying to get a doghouse built for him*, as I don't won't to go on about him too much (you already have!), but he's pretty damn great.  The pictures should give you a good idea.

*The story involves delays, deceit, confrontation and the first time I have ever used the 'C' word in anger and I believe the repetition of the phrase 'You are a living piece of shit, fuck you, shit!' Apologies to any sensitive souls.

Alan showing toes that he means business (he's a right git for biting toes in the morning... 5am, when he's ready to get up.

Chilling under a bush with some grass.

Traumatised after his first shower. He now races ahead and leaps into the bath without invitation. 

Blankee. Pink and manly.

Nailing a treat without permission. (You should be able to see the silvery-white bow tie under his collar. His legs and arse are the same colour, getting lighter every day)

 

Huge monster cows. Scary when they start to charge back at him.

Well, Alan aside, Christmas was pretty uneventful. The vast majority of people that have become my African posse decided that they couldn't stand the idea of a non-traditional Christmas in Africa: what a wise decision. There was some acknowledgement that it was Christmas, enough that you were forcibly aware of the date and what you were missing out on: three or four shops had tinsel in the windows; an 18 year old black Santa in a frozen grotto (a cardboard box made for an unconvincing belly full of jelly); a brass band seemed hideous misplaced, but gave Jingle Bells a good old go and there was some sort of religious celebration in the late hours of Christmas Eve. That was the sum total though. I've never felt as un-festive or depressed and I was longing for miserable conditions of the North West, whilst being baked alive.

The day itself, I ventured out of my hermit-like existence and spent the day with some friends, getting burnt whilst having an utterly inappropriate swim. Sunbathing and swimming on Christmas Day, I've always thought people visiting Australia and posting about Christmas on the beach were wankers and this only served to prove me right. I'm ashamed of myself and feel I have let a nation down.

New Years was a little more normal: a barbeque (I provided the garden salad!), drinks and a Spanish tradition that seemed to involved choking on too many grapes and getting annoyed with everyone.

A week later and I was back at school and grateful for it. Things are going very well; I love my department to bits, the kids are magnificent and my non-interactive-whiteboard teaching kicks ass. Life feels very good at the moment.

It's been really lovely to hear from a few more people in the last month or so. I think there have been 5 declaration of intent to visit either this summer or next Easter. Everyone is welcome and I'm convinced you'd fall in love with the place (especially seeing as you'd get to leave before you could really become annoyed with the inability of anyone to do anything they say they are going to do, mosquitoes finding their way through even the smallest of holes, things masquerading as roads given you a very sore bottom). Have a look at the cost of flights and see if you can convince yourself, it's very cheap once you're over here as long as you don't expect the 5 star treatment.

My love to you all and I'll try to get the next blog up relatively soon, although I fear as I become more settled the blog will inevitably become more bland.  

    

Safari!

It's approaching two months since my last update. I won't offer any excuses it is mostly down to laziness and partly down to my fear of having to sort through all my photos to provide a visual narrative of my tales. Don't worry, I'm going to do it in chunks rather than one long nonsense (Sorry to those of who consider this to be a long enough nonsense).

Where to start?

During my silence: I have been on my first safari, have had surgery for the first time in at least 20 years, had more toilet escapades and have added a new member to my family.

In chunk one I'll cover the safari, the surgery and the toilet incident; you'll just have to wait to hear about Alan.

Murchison Falls: Having left Kampala for the first time the previous week, having an amazing time in Jinja (Bujagali Falls, not Bugolobi - sorry, Mrs Kiwenuka), I couldn't wait for half term and a mid-week trip some 300km northwest to Murchison. I'd been told that if I wanted to go on safari and see loads of animals, Murchison is the most heavily populated although not the most astounding by all accounts: a good place to start.

Not the ideal start as my little travelling group of new teachers was reduced by a back injury and a death in the family. I'll leave you to imagine my reserve regarding these drop outs and the almost doubling my costs! It did mean more room in our safari van, which I really should have exploited by bringing at least some sort of sleeping bag/blanket/cushion.

Being stuck on motorways for over an hour can be fairly tedious in the UK, but in Uganda 12 hours travelling up country is anything but tedious. For one thing you are pretty terrified the entire time: boda drivers performing stunts to weave through the traffic in all conditions; giant trucks electing to overtake at 100kph on blind corners on two lane motorways; and local villagers swarming round the van whenever it paused and poking you in the face with every variety of meat-on-a-stick you can imagine (if you're imagining anything other than cheap and nasty chicken and pork then I've overestimated you). Overlooking these slight concerns, you are confronted with the most stunning scenery I, in my fairly limited experience, have ever seen: giant tea and sugar plantations, the most ridiculous plant life (including sausage trees... yes, sausage trees) and a mixture of aspirant, heavily polluted and messy urban centres and isolated rural settlements in the most rudimentary huts. Part of me wishes that we had stopped and had a chance to take it all in properly, but another part of me was very aware that 12 hour journeys don't really need any optional delays.

I lie, there was one optional delay. About half way to Murchison we stopped at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary to do a bit of rhino tracking. Unfortunately the tracking element was minimal to say the least. After around 2 minutes we were confronted by three adolescent rhino bulls and spent the next half an hour chasing them around with my camera. Hopefully my pictures demonstrate just how close we got to them, at one stage I was fairly convinced I could've mounted them with relative ease... I've always fancied my own Battlecat-style steed. The first few minute was really exhilarating, but I was really surprised by how quickly I grew bored and it made me wonder if I've been ruined by Western zoo-culture and David Attenborough. 

Back on the road, our driver, Joseph, took it upon to make sure none of us got bored. One of 22 kids and having just fathered his ninth child (Jeremy Kyle would love the family); he was full of interesting stories, advice and local knowledge about the landscape we were speeding through. He also proved invaluable in handling the mobs that attacked the van with offerings of food at each stop.

7:30am we set off and arrived at the camp site, just outside the park, at about 6:45pm with about 15 minutes to erect our tent. Thankfully, previous experience in Jinja made me an expert and construction was painless (on the second erection) and we were able to settle in at the camp bar for a few drinks. Mosquitoes and travel fatigue forced us to bed at a thoroughly unrespectable hour, but not before some Germans had helpfully pointed out that a rather large hippo had decided to explore the camp site.

No photos of this particular chap as I was advised my flash may send him into a rage and see the end of the primitive camp site facilities and a death or two. However, I followed him around for a bit and was in complete awe at how close I could get with him seemingly not giving two hoots.

One of my companions had booked a safari tent (minor luxury: electricity, a raised bed, a mosquito net) while my other companion and I were in the normal tent. We were the only non-safari-tenters and were told we had to camp in a separate area: the car park. Ridiculous. I'm still angry now, it was a sodding car park, one which was used fairly frequently in the evening and left us fearing being crushed by a Jeep throughout our stay.

At around 3-4am I was woken by my tent buddy squealing in some distress (a girl, incidentally). The hippo had decided to come and check us out and was sniffing and stomping rather loudly; no concept of the time, the inconsiderate bugger. Anyway, I've received rather a lot of abuse for not really consoling her and instead simply telling her to be quiet and immediately falling back to sleep. Just to clarify, I wasn't grumpily demanding my peace, rather I was advising her that shrieking would probably intrigue the great oaf even more.

We weren't crushed, but it was interesting to see we'd had other house guests as well. I'm convinced it must have been warthogs, but baboons is another potential suggestion, who cleared out the shared section of the tent and took particular interest in a drinking game called HalliGalli, which was scattered around our tent.

Two days and two safari trips. I was left slightly disappointed by missing out on lions (apparently we drove right past a couple), but hundreds of giraffes, several herds of elephants, a lake of hippos fighting, birds of every colour and the beauty of the grassy savannah made it well worth it. I took about a thousand pictures and am still trying to sort through them and get them down to a manageable number. However, we were right to just go for two days; as great as going on safari is, it quickly becomes repetitive if you're in the same place for hours.

Before we left we also went on a boat trip along the Nile to Murchison Falls themselves. Not the biggest or most powerful waterfall, but stunning nonetheless. I'm not sure if my pictures have captured it, but a magnificent rainbow seemed to be coming out of the Falls and gave it a really magical feel. The boat stopped at the bottom and we had a 2-3km march up to the top, where the views were at the finest. It looked so fresh that my mind could not stop thinking about diving in... probably best I resisted that urge. The experience was spoilt a bit... about half way along the march, I felt a familiar sensation in my stomach and had to sprint to the top and gambled that there would be no snakes lurking in the quiet spot I chose to relieve myself. Disgusting!

This is already a sizeable chunk, so I'll try to be concise now. After a harrowing night-drive (three probably life-ending crashes witnessed along the way) we arrived back to the relative comforts of Kampala and, the following day, agreed to meet some friends to celebrate our return and share our tales. I decided to walk the last 500m or so to the bar just to wake my legs up after the boda journey.

In England, the pavements are well lit, generally flat (with the occasional raised slab to help those fully versed in the philosophy of compensation culture) and extremely safe (if you can avoid teenage gangs). In Kampala, the pavements are not lit at all, have huge holes in the them and are more dangerous than walking in the middle of the road. Apparently this was common knowledge to everyone apart from me.

As I ambled along gazing at the distant lights of Kololo's array of bars, I felt my standing foot wobble and then the paving stone tumbled down into the drain it had been hovering half over, taking me with it. The drain was around two metres deep and I disappeared from street level, but my impressively girly shriek had a number of Ugandans running to help me. I didn't need help, I pulled myself out with relative ease, but my left leg was in utter agony and my ribs were severely bruised. In the interests of retaining my credibility, I chose to continue to the bar and drown the pain with some well chosen beverages after a quick bit of a cleanup in the toilets. Whelping, I left about an hour later.

I let it heal for a week, but a complication with the way my blood clotted left my lower leg with no circulation and rapidly turning purple. Hospital. They seemed more concerned than I'd imagined and fairly quickly had me ready for minor surgery. Painkillers and an IV cannula, tie in my mouth as they dug deep into the flesh above my shin and then 'massaged' the clots out of my veins. Agony! They helpfully showed me the first clot they removed, which had a diameter of around 3cms.

Horrible. Approaching two months now and I'm still having to go in twice a week to get it dressed, but the agony died down after maybe 6 weeks. I'm proving to be fairly injury/sickness prone in Uganda, but I figure I'll get it all out of the way in the first six months and then I can enjoy myself without fear.

Hope you enjoy the pictures and I'll blog again very shortly as our almost-4-week Christmas holiday starts on the 14th!

Cleansing my insides and leaving Kampala

The time is ten past eight. The night is pitch black and my world is only visible thanks to my laptop's backlighting and a slender, precariously balanced candle.

It's probably not one of the things I ever associated Africa with, but being so close to the equator and still not having fully embraced electricity means that it gets truly dark, very early, every day. Having spent virtually my whole life in Europe and very rarely having strayed from the safety of home or cheap hotels, I'd never really seen true darkness; it's all rather magnificent having only stars (and, I will admit, the occasional electric light or the odd boda boda's dim, surely not roadworthy, beams) to guide your way. I stumble quite a lot... but no one can see, so what does it matter!

This evening's stumble has taken me to a thoroughly unIndian-looking Indian restaurant called 'The Coconut Shack', which has had some less than disastrous reviews and thus is worthy of further investigation. I'm getting rather fond of eating alone. In England one might assume I am a sad loner (shut up!), but in Kampala a muzungu eating alone almost certainly means that I am looking for an escort, not a prostitute, but someone who will love me dearly for a couple of days, claim they've become pregnant and milk me of my riches until I die. I've taken the precaution of getting a table outside that is discreet by nature of the complete absence of light in the street. I'm still not convinced the evening will be completely hassle free.

Life has been quite busy since my last post, generally in a positive way, but starting in possibly the most harrowing way imaginable.

In 27 years I can only recall three occasions where I have been unfortunate enough to involuntarily soil myself and I find it to be an extremely uncomfortable statistic that two of these occurrences have been within the last twelve months. Each new occurrence seems to take on a new level of embarrassment.

At 8 (it could've been slightly older) I think I managed to disguise the waddle back to my front door from my fellow footballers on the green outside my house, but my mum soon pieced together the mystery of why a pair of my y-fronts were bobbing around in the downstairs loo. Lesson learnt: y-fronts do not flush. Last Christmas I couldn't hide my shame, but I took others along with me, infecting my whole family and almost seeing off my grandma.

However, this was something else. I always imagined shitting yourself as a pupil at school to be probably be a fate worse than death. I don't think I'd even contemplated the prospect of this happening as a teacher. Having nominated myself as the meat taster at a friend's barbeque, I have no one else to blame. I won't go into all the details, but needless to say, I am now grateful for the odd shower contraption in school's toilet cubicles, copious amounts of toilet roll and for owning boxer shorts without holes in them. I somehow managed to escape school without having to admit I'd shamed myself, although the harrowed look on my face must've raised some suspicions as must my sprint to the toilet from lunch.

Ah well, three days of solid shitting (the shit itself was anything but solid, if you care to know) seemed to sort me out. I'm sure I joked about dysentery helping me to lose that extra bit of weight, but it hasn't worked and I wouldn't wish my fate on anyone (maybe Gove?). This episode delayed my first departure from Kampala by a week.

For those ignorant few of you who don't know about Jinja, it's the home of arguable the best rafting in the world. Apparently I'm a couple of years late for truly the best rafting, which has been ruined by a great, whopping hydro-electric dam, but it was pretty amazing all the same.

It is a fairly large town/city by Uganda's standards, which means, if I'm ridiculously generous to the point of lying, it's of a roughly equivalent size to Stockport. One roundabout, ten or eleven shops and lots of shacks... and that dam. The adventure tourism industry is fairly well developed, but from what I saw of it, these companies tended to be based a little bit out from the town and my group stayed at a campsite around 15 minutes outside the town.

Setting up a tent was interesting as we arrived in almost total darkness, but somehow was achieved without death or serious injury (my pride aside as the girls took charge). A few drinks and a rather aggressive Dutch drinking game later, I slipped off to sleep in comfort despite being afforded the most meagre of sleeping areas.

I'm glad we arrived in darkness because it made my morning so much more sweet. Emerging from the tent (to boos and hisses from my tent buddies) I was greeted with a magnificent view of the Nile and what used to be known as Bujagali Falls, but since the dam has become Bujagali Lake. In some ways it is just a very large river, but all I could think about was the history, the length and the prominence the Nile retains in every Geography classroom the world over. It was teeming with wildlife and just stunningly beautiful. I was joined in my gazing by a family of monkeys who didn't seem troubled in the slightest by my presence next to them on the wall.

I didn't get into my raft until around 11am, after a completely unnecessary preamble by our guides. For $115 I got to spend all day on the river and getting very wet, I initially thought this was an unreasonable sum, but now I'd happily pay twice that. You forget how hot it is and how easily sun lotion rubs off with a bit of water, but my body does not forget the excruciating burns... at least I'm getting used to it now and knees aren't anywhere near as painful as shoulders. I'm a very odd multi-tonal colour now, with my back and groinal region completely letting the side down.

Anyway, I abandoned my friends in favour of a raft with folks prepared to tackle rapids up to grade 5 and quickly found camaraderie with my crew (I was up front and leading the stroke rate, therefore silently assumed the rank of captain) who were a charming bunch of American volunteers doing various odds and sods in Kenya. Each rapid was such a rush and every break between them was a chance to take in the mesmerising beauty of the river and all of its wildlife (which unfortunately did not include any marauding hippos or crocodiles the size of a bus, despite our guides assurances) and the even more interesting site of the local villagers gathering to do their washing and exploding with joy every time they caught sight of us: one continuous word 'Howreyou's and cheers of joy when I was able to respond in Lugandan.

Eventually my friends decided to upgrade to the proper rapids so I joined them for the second half of the voyage. Almost immediately I started to get very wet, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and claim the rapids jumped up a notch at this point. The first submergence felt very much like the end, stuck under the raft for a good 5 seconds that felt like hours, emerging to two massive engulfing waves. The second of which housed one of my friends wielding her paddle like a weapon and trying to make absolutely sure I didn't survive, but thankfully my head appears to be indestructible.

The one thing better than rafting was getting multiple chances to swim. I'm not much of a hot holiday sort, so potentially the feeling is fairly common, but the water felt so fresh, warm and easy to be in that I could barely drag myself back onto the raft (not an easy thing to do, if talking literally). Anyone who does come out to visit me in the next two years is definitely repeating this experience with me.

Next week it's Murchison Falls, which is apparently where I will see hoards of the animals that define Africa: elephants, lions, hippos, hopefully leopards and all the boring ones like antelope and that sort. Expect lots of pictures.

I've gone on a fair bit and my curry is long finished. Even in Ugandan, Indians still insist on not being able to provide desserts so I am sipping the last dregs of a black coffee and am starting to feel eyes begging me to leave. I've not even had chance to mention Independence day (really good fun), getting stoned (three spliffs for less than 50p), my African instrument collection, my new job as school photographer nor to regale you with more stories of my completely barren love life!

Independence Day celebrations with my gang/form

Ugandan dancing accompanied by the cry 'Waaalllaallllaaawaaaalllaaallwaaa!!' Very entertaining

Primary school singing: dreadful with an element of cute

Flag hats. Why not?

All my form - favourites are all posing on the left hand side

Morning view from camp in Jinja

If you leave food on the floor of my house this is what happens in 30 mins

Sunset, well just after, on the Nile

Tranquil, sexy Nile

Monkey family grooming each other

Picking at her beard

Sinister baby monkey eyes

More of my lot dressed up

Please enjoy some pictures and I expect to start having people sign up to come and visit me. I've got very long Christmas holidays if you can't wait until the summer. Much love! xxx 

About to drown

Man overboard

Blood, gore and tennis

My life as a stuntman. Picture the scene: Charlize Theron is struggling in the front seat with an abusive punter/boyfriend/super villain, her only option is to plunge out of the car onto the open road, despite her assailant driving way above the speed limit. 

Now replace Charlize with me, the villain with a packed car of helpful so and so's, the struggle with a helpful suggestion that I have a lift hanging onto the roof rack and standing on the step next to the door and the break-neck speed with at best 20mph. And then the dismount.

Needless to say I expected to land, stagger and stand to rapturous applause from all around. Several somersaults into a filth-filled drainage ditch and raucous laughter were not part of the plan. However, I managed to conceal a fairly bloody knee and elbow and limped off adamant that I wasn't injured and had performed the stunt for their amusement. I guess it was a fairly fitting way to end a week of injuries and mockery (worryingly, mockery appears to be becoming a consistent theme). Today is being used as a recovery day with lots of nothing and maybe football at a bar later.

I spent the rest of the week coping with another serious injury. Teaching barefoot as a result of a thoroughly irritating blister that refused to allow me to put any pressure on my left foot whatsoever. Unfortunately, all the staff and children at the school are very caring and nosy, which has meant I had to reveal the cause of my sorry state. It's hard not to laugh at a giant hobbling round like a war veteran as a result of a blister, harder still to listen to the abuse. Although, I was grateful that two year 7 girls offered to carry me to the staff room at the height of my suffering; I'm not convinced they know how heavy I really am thanks to my deceptive baggy trousers.

This 'injury' stemmed from my first foray into staff football and the studs in my new boots refusing to sink into the school's cement like pitch. Perhaps even more traumatic than the blister itself was the quest to find boots in Kampala. As I'll not be playing in any kind of competitive manner, I was advised to visit Owino, Kampala's biggest market, to find a cheap and cheerful pair with strict instructions not to pay more than 50,000ugx (£12).

Owino is the Ugandan equivalent of the bazaars of Morocco or Istanbul. If you're imaging tightly packed stores and the rich smell of spices then my comparison is useless. It started off a bit like that, but then it turned into maze-like, narrow warrens cut through piles of rubbish, plastic tac, rotten meat, animal (I hope) faeces, second-hand (questionable) clothes and distressed Ugandans. These Ugandan were poor, really poor and as the only white person (an immediate confirmation of extreme wealth) in the maze I was a popular attraction.

'Bida, bida, bida, bida, bida' was consistently screamed in my face. I'm still not entirely sure if this was an invitation for me to buy some of the muck by, or under, their feet; a threat; or pleas for help. By the anguished expressions, I'm fairly confident it must be option one or two. Either way, my polite excuses were ineffective, so I decided to demonstrate rude indifference to their pleas and focused on navigating. On three separate occasions I ended up back at the entrance having spun myself into confusion.

The shoe section of the market is found just beyond the meat section. Now, I'm a little peculiar about meat here based on the state of the meagre and diseased looking cows and chickens that litter all the roads and find most of their sustenance in huge heaps of rubbish pre-burning. In any case, like most people, I'm a bit iffy with butchery and carcasses. Owino's meat section is the most repulsive experience of my existence: rotting, discoloured, covered in flies, having spent days in the baking sun, within feet of excrement on the floor. The narrowness of the walkways meant that I had to push meat aside to get through, retching and then having the stench on my hands until I got home: truly harrowing.

It took an hour to haggle for the boots. I was quoted 500,000ugx (£120ish) initially for a pair of second hand boots with a huge hole in the front, but eventually secured a pretty average pair for 50,000ugx after agreeing to take the three salesmen for lunch (another 3,000ugx).

Other news:

Next weekend I will be leaving Kampala for the first time and getting to experience some of Uganda's natural offering in Jinja, which is famed for its extreme sports. Hopefully that will also mean more wildlife and I'll try to be a bit more prolific with my camera.

I've made friends with a baby monkey at school. He hangs around in the tree outside the staff room and I've been teaching him to wave. Apparently I will forget how cute they are, when they invade my classroom and start flinging chalk around... Surely this would only make them cuter?

Hobnobbing has started as I've joined a group of tennis players, which includes an European ambassador, the director of a large airline, the head of a NGO and a university ambassador. Patronage within the year, I reckon.

Hope you're all well. Have some random photos:

Demon: Dr Ian Clarke, who set up a big hospital in Kampala and became the first and only elected muzungu in Uganda, presenting some awards to our kids.

 One of the weird and wonderful birds that frequents my garden.

 There is a quarry at the top of my road. This thing is the hub of the operation and is clearly well constructed and suited to purpose.

 The school football field, half of it, and the building in the background houses my classroom, as well as the dance studio and drama rooms above it... not at all irritating.

 School pool dressed up for the awards evening.

 Close up of my chicken looking pensive.

 A view down my road.

Boda drivers. These helpful chaps take me everywhere and tried to charge me 100,000ugx for this picture and then told me they were all members of Al-Shabaab to try and scare me... I couldn't remember what Al-Shabaab was and talked them round with my charms.