Weekend Wrap-Up

I must say, my first weekend in Africa was quite terrific. It definitely feels a little bit like I’m just on a short holiday right now, especially as I’m staying with Kim and David and they are a lot of fun and have quite an active social life here in the expat community. So they have been bringing me along to all of their events which have been a lot of fun.

On Friday night, straight after work, Kim, Ben, and I attended a potluck at Ben’s school. The school is an international one and was really nice, with a very diverse community of parents and children. Then David joined us (and Ben was sent off to bed back home with the driver) and we went to a friend’s birthday party that was being thrown at another aquiantance’s house in a compound high up on one of the hills surrounding Kampala --although I can’t remember which one (I must really work on that)! The apartment was very nice, but even better was the view from the two levels of terraces that overlooked the dark hills sprinkled with bright lights. Dinner was not served until late, but what a feast it was: grilled hamburgers, sausages, goat, potatoes, salads, and three different birthday cakes, complete with Pimms and sprite, and Club beer (a very good Ugandan lager). Then David’s driver from the office drove us back to our compound around midnight. I’m telling you, if I had to pick one of the virtues of living here, I would vote for the driver, especially considering the various traveling anxieties (see above post re: taxis) that it woud save you from having to ever take!

On Saturday afternoon, there was a going away party for Kim and David’s friends who are leaving Kampala next month. The party was in their compound, actually just behind my guest cottage. There was a big white tent, a moonbounce for the kids, and lots of food, including a whole roasting pig on the grill. Then I found out that the Yom Kippur dinner that I had been invited to attend thanks to some family friends back home was starting at 4:30. There I faced quite a difficult decision: stay at the lovely party, lounge comfortably in the gated compound of palm trees, drink a beer and eat some roast pig, or brave the streets of Kampala to find a special hire that would take me to the Garden City Area of town and then hopefully meet up with this family I didn’t know who would give me a ride to a Yom Kippur dinner with people I didn’t know. Ah, choices! Not to mention I had been fasting on Saturday, so that pig and accompaniments were looking especially delicious—the devil on my shoulder. But I mustered whatever “good Jew” tendencies I had and went with the angel on my shoulder, left the compound, wandered down the street as bodabodas called after me all the way down the hill. I found a special hire (what we would call a taxi, but it is just a normal, usually fairly beat-up car with no taxi marking really), but he wanted to charge me 10,000 shillings (the equivalent of $6), but I had strict instructions to only pay $5000-7000. Oy. So I got out of the car, though I was already running late mind you thanks to the short notice. Some other guy came running over and said he’d take me for $7000, but when I got in the car he said he would need exact change, second Oy. Then my cellphone (which was my sole means of contact with my connecting ride) ran out of minutes. Oy oy oy. No good. So I pleaded that the driver stop at a gas station that sold Celtel prepaid cards, ran in bought more minutes, and got him some change. I finally made it to meet the family, a woman Insaf who works at the US embassy, her husband and sons, and another American who was in Kampala on business. We arrived at her friend’s house, an Israeli who had cooked an enormous feast to break the fast. Pumpkin stuffed with rice, chicken phyllo pie, roast chicken, pirogies, cakes, cappucino, wine, and after dinner drinks. The angel on my shoulder had not let me down afterall, and I had a very nice evening and good company to boot.

Then on Sunday I was in for another treat! Kim and David’s friend lives right on Lake Victoria and was taking a boat ride with their other friends to see the plot of land that they have recently purchased on one part of the lake called Murchison Bay. We took a motorboat ride across the lake to that particular spot and had a picnic. But this was not ordinary motorboat—it was a long wooden one that held 10 of us and all these coolers and could have held many more. After eating lunch complete with the largest, most perfectly ripe avocados I’ve ever seen, we hiked around the grounds and saw mud huts still left from previous squatters of the land, and spectacular views of lake. There is also a school that the local community there is trying to build and these families are trying to help with that as well because it is on an adjacent plot. I will try to post pictures of all of this soon, but it was quite a weekend!

Until then, here's the first five pictures that I've been able to upload:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14053968@N04/
This took hours! Kampala is not known for it's internet connections, but what can ya do! I'll keep trying.