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.