Well my attempt to write more often failed, so here it is another novel!

The power problems Ali and Me were facing at home last week was only the tip of the iceberg of what we were about to face. Monday afternoon we saw the start of almost a full week without power (actually just between 9am – 6pm) to the whole Nakasero area of Kampala. Since both CFI and the SchoolNet office are in this area it meant that it was going to be a pretty unproductive week. The one benefit was that CFI has backup batteries thus making it possible to get a few hours of work in, in the morning before they died out.

On Monday when I came into the SchoolNet office (before the power died) Allen told me that a teacher from Duhaga was coming the next day to pay some fees and pick up some computers. She also told me that she wanted me to do a bit of a training session on installing Linux with that teacher as well as a few others. I agree that I could do it and started to get myself prepared for the next day’s session. I planned to install Linux and write down all the steps, key packages, etc down so that the next day doing the session would be a snap. Just as I started to plug the Linux box into the power supply the whole office went down. Power outages are a common thing around the office so I thought nothing of it, hoping that in the next hour or so it would return. I waited around the office for 5 hours, yet no power did return. After being fully fed up with the power situation I took off back home. At home I was pleasantly surprised to find that we actually had power at the house and took the opportunity to make myself some dinner. I went to bed early because I planned on getting to SchoolNet bright and early so I could prepare before my session. The next morning waking up early I knew the day was going to be a rough one. I felt the start of some sort of sickness coming on, and it was in the stage where if I pushed myself I would get sicker, where if I stayed and rested I would be fine. Smartly enough I left for work anyway. At work I arrived to a powerless office, which meant the early morning prep was going to be a no go. I ordered a fruit salad from the hair salon next door in the hope that it would revive me somewhat. The fruit was tasty but didn’t help me any. An hour rolled by with no power, yet the teacher had arrived from Duhaga and was very eager to get started. Allen had a backup plan for if we had no power. She got us to pack up the Linux server and we headed out to Makerere College to do the session. We took a special to the school, yet the driver didn’t know where it was and dropped us off a good distance away. Since we didn’t want to waste more money on another special we decided to walk. The walk was a good hike taking us probably a good 30 minutes. It also made me start to feel even worse. At the school we meet up with the other teacher who was going to take part in the training, and got right into it. I decided to take them through a sample install first then get them to install Linux by them after. As I was going through my install what happened? Oh we lost power to the lab. Luckily the outage didn’t last long and I had just finished showing them the basics of the install. Once power had come back I got the two teachers to do the install. They did a flawless job of it; remember almost everything I had shown them. When the machine came up I then showed them some simple Unix commands and also the first steps you would take to configure the server. I ran into a problem with the Ethernet cards that I was eventually able to somewhat fix (I later found out there was a conflict with the cards and that I had to replace one of them). Time ticked on and after an extensive training it was time for the teacher from Duhaga to leave (He had to catch a matatu home and didn’t want to travel in the dark). I think this was a good thing, because the two teachers were on information overload. If I showed them anything more I think they would have forgotten most everything. Anyway by this time I knew something was wrong with me, I was started to get a sore throat and I was feeling very weak. When I got back to the office I got a call from Murad asking if Ali and Me wanted to meet at DV8 for dinner and drinks. I decided it would probably be a good thing to finally get some food in me, as well a couple of sodas might help me feel better. At DV8 Murad showed us his Visa he got for his trip to Eritrea that he was going on. The food I ordered at DV8 was excellent, and a few sodas down the hatch did make me feel somewhat better, granted I still wasn’t 100%. I left for home relatively early in an attempt to see if sleep would make me feel any better. The next day I woke up and felt not overly well. Decided I was healthy enough for work thou and trekked on to CFI to start the morning. Met up with Murad and Ali for lunch at this quaint little restaurant on the other side of town. Had myself an extremely tasty spaetzle dish which right filled me up. After departing from lunch we said our goodbyes to Murad who was leaving the next day and carried on back to work. My energy levels were beginning to get worse and worse and any bit of walking really took the life out of me. I left work early with Daniels driver who took me home. At home I couldn’t stand just sitting around so I lay in my bed programming code for the SchoolNet site for several hours. When Ali got back home from Mosque he told me I was just going to make myself feel worse by working all day, when I should be resting. He was probably right, but I really needed to get that stuff done. Anyway then next morning I felt even worse then the previous two days. After spending the morning at CFI (until the power died) I decided it was high time I see the doctor. Luckily on our walk to the doctor Meddie happened to be driving by and he took us there. The doctor looked at my throat and told me it was extremely swollen. Then did a blood test to see if I had malaria or any other such sickness. The tests came out negative to malaria (thank goodness) so she assumed then that what ailed me was some sort of bacterial infection (possibly streptococcus). She prescribed me some painkillers and some antibiotics, which she told me to start on right away. When I arrived at home I started in on my prescription and made myself some dinner. After dinner I proceeded straight to bed. In the morning I woke up feeling a lot better. My throat didn’t ache, and I seemed to have a bit more energy. Went to CFI were I met up with Ali (who had no power at SchoolNet) where we spent the morning. After loosing power at around 1pm we decided we would go to the VSO office, which we hadn’t visited in months. On our way to the office we stopped in Kabalagala where we went for some lunch, as well met up with Ruth and Jamie who was in town due to issues in Masindi. Ruth told me that there was a big NGO volleyball tournament at VSO today and that I had to play. Granted I was pretty sick the day before, I figured a bit of sweating and exercise could be good for me. The tournament was quite fun actually, despite the fact we played quite horribly. We ended up loosing every game except for the loser’s match in which we beat an organization called GOAL. The most hurtful lose though must have been to Oxfam, GRRR those Oxfam folk! Anyway Oxfam went on to beat Concern in the final and took the trophy. I made myself feel a bit better about our lose by stuffing my face with samosas and BBQed meat. After leaving VSO I decided that staying at home on a Friday night would be silly so decided to accompany Ruth and Jamie in an night on the town. We met up with the other Y2Y’s who were in Kibale earlier in the day chimp trekking. We then proceeded to play many games of pool and dance, dance, dance! The next morning I woke up feeling very good (probably because I was unable to drink due to the antibiotics) and went with Laura to go buy the group of us some chapatti eggs. Boy oh boy you haven’t lived until you have eaten a chapatti egg! After spending some time at Ruth and Daisy’s place (where I actually spent the night) I departed for home. I met up with Ali downtown who was going to be doing his training session on Authorware. We decided to go check out a clothing market where we picked up some nice shirts for roughly 6000 shillings a piece. After shopping I decided it would be best to head home and get a bit of rest. After resting at home for several hours I took back off to meet up with Ruth and Jamie to have dinner. We went to one of my favorite restaurants AfriAsia where I had a very fine chicken curry. After dinner we went to DV8 where we chilled out for a bit and planned our night. We met up with Sudan David who informed us he was accepted to go to England after being sponsored by his American friend. We then proceeded on to the Rock Garden, which is one incredible place. It has an amazing view of the city, and this outdoor bar is just immensely huge. At the rock garden I met up with a few friends of mine who I ended up talking to for quite some time. One of them tends to come to me for all her advice. Anyway after spending a good amount of time at the Rock Garden we then departed for our final destination of the night, Al’s Bar. At Al’s things were crazier than normal and extremely packed. On arrival Ruth proceeded to go up to the DJ booth to go talk to the DJ. 30 minutes later I see Ruth just steaming with anger. She goes to inform us that one of the security guards of the place had told her no one was aloud in the DJ booth and ended up dragging her by her hair out of the booth and down the stairs. He told her he would throw her in jail if he found her in there again. The funny thing is, is that Ruth DJ’s at Al’s every so often. Anyway Jamie and Me attempted to cheer her up as much as we could, but it looked as though she just need some time alone. Soon after the hip-hop started playing which was the one thing that would snap Ruth out of her funk. Soon enough she was up on the dance floor busting out moves. The rest of the night consisted of lots of water and lots of dancing. The next morning I left Ruth’s place early so I could get some rest at home. Oddly enough with all the late nights I was getting I was actually feeling pretty good. The drugs the doctor had given me were working wonders, granted I did not want to temp anything. I purchased some dried pies and some milk from a local shop and proceeded to make some dinner. I realized after boiling the peas for over an hour that I had no idea how to cook dried peas. Thus my dinner for the night was a big failure. After eating the rice I had cooked and attempting to eat the still very dry peas I went on to have a big bowl of cereal to top the night off. Once again I was in bed early so that I would have the energy to start another week. Lessons learned this week:

· Lack of power can make for a very unproductive work place
· When your sick see a doctor

Pictures up from my visit to a school on Friday, as well as our trip to Bujagali Falls on the Nile.

Before I start the week in review just wanted to say that two things (among others) this week really made me feel good. Sometime last week while I was walking home I passed by some people sitting on by the side of the road. As I walked by a girl in the group said hi (actually twice the first one didn’t get my attention) then after I said hi back, she said to me, “Welcome back” in a very sincere voice. It may seem small, but to me it really made me feel good.

The second thing that really made me feel good happened today. As I walked up my usual route home from work two guys standing behind a gate said to me “Walaba Ssebo” (Luganda meaning “Goodbye Sir”). It felt good to be greeted in their local language and not to be called a white man or Muzungu. I think people are starting to see that I am very friendly, and that I am trying to make the effort. I am sure these two gentlemen had heard me greet many times the children here “Mwalaba” (Mu –> walaba the Mu makes walaba goodbye to many people). I think that as time goes on longer and longer the people will be a lot less afraid of Ali and myself. Anyway back to the week in review.

Well the week started off like most, mornings at the CFI office and afternoons at SchoolNet Uganda. Not anything too much of excitement these week really. Monday we attempted to see Panic Room at the cinema but found out that it wasn’t playing until later in the week. So we ended up just staying at DV8 bar for drinks and food. On Thursday Murad, Ruth and myself met up at DV8 again to go see Panic Room. It was playing Thursday so we finally got to see the film. Maybe it was that I hadn’t seen a movie in a long time on a big screen but it was decent, quite funny at times. That night when I got home I sat and watched a bit of TV with Benjerman before heading to bed. As I sat and watched I noticed a mouse like figure go running into my room. When I went to bed I checked all my closets and under my bed but couldn’t find anything. I eventually fell asleep only to be woken up by something crawling up my curtain. I tried to shake what I now knew to be a mouse but he got away. I decided I would just sleep it out and hope the mouse would find his way out of my room. The next day I met up with Allen on Friday and we went to Ndejja Secondary School roughly 1 hour north of the city. The reason we had to go up there was to reconfigure their Linux server. After fixing the server I spent the rest of my time in the lab fixing small problems they were having with some of their workstations and showing them how they could fix their own problems in the future. It was good to watch them fix one of their own workstations after I showed them how to do it. I almost got caught just fixing all of their workstations without passing on any knowledge, luckily though I caught myself and realized that for me to do that would be pointless for nothing would be gained. After a few snacks and some African tea Allen and me departed, mainly due to the fact we had to take a special hire all the way up there and that if we left any later it would cost us even more than the 60,000 Shillings it was already costing SchoolNet(U). The teachers on the other hand would have loved to have us stay for the whole day. Back at SchoolNet(U) I worked away till around 5ish then headed off to meet up with the Y2Y gang at DV8. I was the second of the group to arrive only behind Sarah who already had ordered a beer. I sat down ordered myself a beer and started off the weekend. Our plan (Murad and myself) for the weekend was to go to Bujagali falls (on the Nile river) and relax a bit outside the busy city, then Saturday night come back to the city to enjoy some of the nightlife. The Y2Y’s all being on their holidays were going to spend the weekend at Bujagali and on Saturday raft the Nile. Soon after I arrived Daisy, Leah and Ruth all arrived. The only person left we had to wait for was Murad (as Becky and Laura were already there) who was on his way back from Masaka. I realized that by the time we would eventually get to Jinja (town close to Bujagali) it would be dark, and probably pretty costly for all of us to get out to the falls so I took the initiative and called the place to find out if they could pick us up (and also if there was room for us). They agree that they would pick us up once we got to Jinja, all we had to do was call them. After making the phone call I headed on out to the bank to get some money for the weekend. At the bank I met up with Murad and Ali who were both doing the same. After getting our cash Murad and Myself met up with the Y2Y gang and then departed to the taxi park. We then hopped on the next taxi heading to Jinja and departed. On the way out of the taxi park a man came to my window in the bus and told me he would give anything for my sister (daisy, not really my sister but to him I suppose) I agreed that if he wanted my sister he would have to pay me 100 cattle as compensation. He laughed and said he would gladly pay! Anyway the ride to Jinja was quite uneventful, just lots of traffic. In Jinja the Buji Falls crew who took us to the site promptly picked us up. After dumping our bags in our dorm room we all headed back to the bar to enjoy the rest of the night. One point in the night Ruth started to play some music (r&b) that was short lived, for quickly after it was switched back to the Offspring, which was playing earlier. Later as more and more people went to bed Ruth got a second chance to play some tunes, which she played for the rest of the night. We all got up and danced to support her in her musical beatification project. I took a bunch of pictures of us all, as we were all really feeling good and relaxed. Eventually it was time for bed so we all headed off to our bunk beds in dorm room B. As we were settling into our beds Daisy asked who had all the pillows. Murad answered telling her that he had them all and that she should come get one. Daisy then went up to a bunk she assumed was Murad and ripped the pillow from under the head of the sleeping person. As it turns out the person she ripped the pillow out from under was not Murad but rather one of the safety kayakers who would be looking out for her the next day. After giving her an evil stare Daisy quickly returned his pillow and settled into bed. I think I got the wrong end of the stick that night by sleeping above Daisy (who also had Becky in her bunk) due to the constant poking and kicking I received from my two friends below me, eventually after hitting them in the head with my pillow the stopped their torment and headed off to bed. Next morning Murad and Me watched the Y2Y’s depart on their rafting excursion, only to be completely destroyed on the first rapid! After their departure we headed off to Jinja to check emails and just relax. Jinja is a quaint little town situated on Lake Victoria. It’s streets are clean, and in no way as busy as in Kampala. It is actually really refreshing to walk around in Jinja because there are no cars on the road, mainly just bicycles. In Jinja we first went to a barber shop so Murad could get his head shaved. The shop was split with another store. In the other store a guy was djing (or practicing). He was actually quite good and played a lot of cool local music. After Murad’s head was shinning with the lack of stubble we went to a place called The Source Café. The internet there was quite slow, yet worked. After checking our mail I bought some chocolate chip cookies at the café which tasted oh so good. Finally it was time to depart Jinja as we needed to get back to the falls to make dinner and to see the arrival of the girls. We took boda boda’s back to the falls, actually we got them to race. Since Murad’s driver stopped to get gas my driver drove very slow most of the way up to the falls, shutting off his engine and letting the bike coast on all the down hills. Finally Murad caught back up and the race was back on. After a close battle I thought I came up victorious as my driver stopped… then I realized we still needed to go by the gate we stopped at and down one more hill. Since I stopped Murad took advantage of his chance and had his driver take him down the hill ahead of me. Needless to say I lost the race, granted I know we should have won! Back at Buji we took in some local music and dance waiting for the Y2Y’s to arrive. They came shortly after we got back and said they had an amazing time. We then all indulged on a lovely bbq talapia meal. Which I must say tastes fantastic. Personally I am not a big fish fan, but bbq’ed talapia is just amazing. Its funny too because its probably one of the only fish that you can catch in Uganda. After dinner Murad and myself left the Y2Y’s and headed back to Kampala with the Bujigali bus. Back to the city, the big lights, the dirty air, the heavy traffic, but most importantly our home. After cleaning ourselves up at Murad’s we headed out to Kabalagala were we couldn’t help but indulge ourselves in some bbq chicken. Around the Kabalagala area there are a lot of bars/restaurants with outside patios that have people bbqing chicken, beef, goat etc. The chicken you get from these guys is probably some of the best chicken you will ever taste. Plus it comes with a chili sauce that will make your head sweat. After a lengthy and intense conversation Murad and Me headed on off to the real bar for the rest of the night. Like usual we were home shortly after 6am after a night filled with pool, dancing, and some entertaining conversations. Sunday I arrived home to find a dead mouse in the middle of my bedroom, I think he must have died either by starvation or by the smell of my dirty underwear. Personally I think he starved seeing how I had locked him in my bedroom with no food. The other thing I noticed upon arrival was that the power was out. That night the power never returned which meant dinner was going to be chapatti and samosas from our local guy. I spent the evening reading the Grapes of Wrath under candle light before heading off to bed nice and early. Today I woke to another day without power, luckily the water was not out or I would have been quite stinky at work. Today I called the landlord to inform him about the power situation. When I arrived home today the power was back, which was good, and there was more than just Benjamin behind our fence. After finally having the door opened for me by one of the two girls in our complex I greeted them in Luganda then headed into the house. I quickly changed into something a little less work like and had a seat in the living room. Shortly after the two girls and Benjamin joined me. The girls (sisters) where our neighbors, one of them probably 16 while the other was maybe 9. The older of the two got right to the point, and told me that she wanted to come to my country. I told her that Ali and Me come from India and asked her if she really wanted to go to India. She said that she thought I cam from Canada. I eventually gave in and told her she was right. She went on to tell me she wanted me to sponsor her to come to Canada. I asked her why she wanted to leave, and she told me it was because of all the bad that is in Uganda, the corruption, the hard life, and everything else. I eventually had to break it to her that to sponsor someone to come to Canada you need to fund them for an entire year, which roughly costs 30,000 Canadian. I then told her that I had no job for a year before coming to Uganda and that in no means did I have the money to sponsor her. I went on to talk with her about where she went to school and why I was here in Uganda. She seemed like a nice enough girl. Eventually the girls departed, and I went on

Added some pictures from the Bahai Temple as well as from the CFI office. Now you can see what my working conditions are like out here!

Well my birthday has come and gone and I am now another year older. Actually on my birthday I felt a little bit old. I think 21 was a pretty good age to be at, but alas I have to grow up. Anyway on Friday night Murad took me out for dinner for my birthday at a very expensive, yet very excellent Chinese restaurant. After which we went out to a few bars to chill.

The next day Ali, Murad and myself walked from our house to the Bahai Temple. The walk took us shorter than I anticipated as we arrived only 15 minutes from when we left. The temple and the grounds around it are quite amazing; very Tranquil and relaxing. The temple itself is quite large and very beautiful. I think I will probably return to this temple quite often as the park surrounding it is a great place to have a picnic or just to read a book. Later that day Murad and Me left Ali as he headed off to Mosque. We went for dinner at a pub we often frequent and got ourselves some BBQ chicken and chips. After dinner we headed out to a bar where we met up with Jamie as well as some other friends of ours where we danced the night away. We left probably around 6:30 after a very entertaining night. All in all my birthday was everything I wanted it to be. Relaxing, entertaining, and spent with friends. Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday greetings, it really made me feel good getting them!

I felt I should spam you all (kind of like those silly ICQ messages) and let you all know that this Saturday is my birthday. I am still unsure what I am going to do for it, but some possibility are: going to the Miss Uganda competition, relaxing on the beach, or doing a bit of site seeing (something I have still YET to do in Kampala).

Regardless I will probably get myself some fine Italian ice cream and try to enjoy myself as much as possible. Below is a list of birthday wishes/gifts that would be quite excellent if they came true:

- A slice of fresh fruit pie smothered in whip cream that only my mother knows how to make
- Tickets to see Pearl Jam play this spring in Europe
- A big wheel of gouda cheese
- Chunky peanut butter
- My movie cds that I regretfully left at home
- A hot shower
- A surprise visit

I realized that most of those wishes probably wouldn’t come true. Realistically a phone call (or at least an SMS) from anyone that cares would really make my day.

Well actually the country. A fellow volunteer and friend had felt he had fulfilled everything he wanted to do in Uganda and wanted to go home. He left the country Wednesday morning after one last night out on the town. Actually we spent the weekend partying as well, which made it quite the send off. After a lackluster Friday we had quite a excellent Saturday at the bars staying up until the waking hours.

That is one thing about the bars here in Uganda the party never stops. After the bar a group of us headed up to Murad’s House to chill before heading off to bed. At Murad’s Mike picked himself a lime from the lime tree and began chowing down. For some reason I decided to take pictures of Mike eating said lime, which can be found in the photo gallery. As well since we stayed up till the waking hours of the morning I got a few nice shots of the sun rising over the lake.

Wednesday we went out for dinner at a restaurant called the Bistro. This was a pretty posh place that is a big Muzungu hang out. For being such a nice place we sure didn’t get great service. I think it took roughly 2 hours to receive our meals (which actually came one by one) and it had been 3.5 hours from arrive to departure. I took a bunch of pictures from the restaurant as well as from the bar we met at beforehand. After the restaurant we went to Capital Pub for Mike to have one last Ugandan bar experience. I think Mike got the send off he wanted.

Mike will be missed out here in Uganda by all the fellow volunteers and by a few bar girls who I will leave nameless! ;) Regardless I want to wish Mike all the best back home in Hull, and I await your visit to Canada!

Cheers Mike!

It appears that most of my time these days are consumed by work. Well not totally true, I still do a lot of sleeping (not on the weekends) and of course ironing but that is about it. I wish I could tell you some amazing stories of monkeys, giraffes and zebras but alas all I have is what’s going on at work and a few stories from the bus to and from work. So lets begin with the dry stuff first, what does a normal workday encompass

? Well I start by waking up at around 7:30, drag myself out of bed and head off to the cold shower. After dancing around the cold stream of water I finally get myself in, cleaned, and back out by 7:55. Get myself dressed, feed, and pack packed and Ali and me our on our way to the taxi’s at around 8:30. I get off the taxi first two blocks down a hill from CFI (Computer Frontiers International), where as Ali continues on to SchoolNet(U).

I spend the morning at CFI with the person developing the SchoolNet(U) website. I provide guidance and act as a mentor with regards to the coding and database for the site. I am also work on code-level documentation pertaining to the site. I guess you could basically consider me a project manager for the creation of the site. Depending on how much help was needed at CFI I will leave somewhere between 11:00am-1:00pm back to the SchoolNet(U) office.

The SchoolNet(U) office is roughly 5 blocks away from CFI and a downhill trek so it isn’t as tough as the hike to CFI. At SchoolNet(U) I generally order myself some local food from a lady who comes by everyday, then get back to work. Once I get myself to work at SchoolNet(U) I have a number of tasks to do. First off is to meet with schools to do needs analysis on what skills are most pressing for Ali and Me to train them in. When we aren’t meeting with schools we will both be developing training materials on the specific subjects we are going to be teaching. As well I have also been spending some time working to setup a test Linux box to act as a template setup for other schools to set their boxes up like. As well on the Linux box I have been setting up a proxy server/content filtering system to use at the schools to filter out content from the students such as pornography, illegal content, warez, etc. Today I was able to get a system working, which now needs to be tweaked to filter things correctly! Anyway our last thing that we are set to do at SchoolNet(U) is to actually do the training we are planning. We are both quite excited to start some session, which we anticipate will happen quite soon!

Anywhere between 5:00-7:00pm Ali and Me will take off for home. Some days we go out for a drink with Murad to cool off a bit from work. Usually the traffic is quite dense on the way home and it takes us about 30 minutes to reach our house. If we don’t feel like cooking dinner we will buy some samosas (50 shillings) and chapatti (100 shillings) from a local shack (I will get pictures of this place soon!). The food is quite good and I find I am going here more and more. Anyway the night is spent cooking (if we didn’t buy dinner), ironing, a little bit of TV, and then off to bed at somewhere between 9:00 and 10:00 pm. That is what a normal day in my life usually consists of. As for my weekends, well I will save that for another time.

One last thing, just wanted to write down some interesting things I have seen on my way to work.

- A child maybe 2 years old holding a foot long knife peeling a passion fruit
- A kid pulling his younger brother on a old jug on the dust as if it was a sled in the snow
- A local family that makes brooms; they do everything from craving the wood into the broom handles, to making and dying the bristles.
- On the taxi home before we get to the major destinations the conductor of the taxi asks everyone if they need change so that when you get off the taxi you won’t hold everyone up. Well one lady never gave her bill to the conductor and waited till she got off to do so. The conductor was quite pissed off by this and prevented the lady from getting out of the taxi. I think he wanted the driver to continue driving to make her have to walk farther home. Eventually after the lady threw a hissy fit the conductor let her out and gave her her change.
- Cattle being herded down the middle of the road. I always fear one day a bull will charge the taxi, because I have a bad feeling the taxi would lose.
- Kids playing soccer on a field that has posts made of wood poles, crossbar made of string, and the actual pitch is on an incline that could be used to roll down.
- Kids playing basketball on a similar pitch to that of the soccer field without backboards to the hoops.
- The fruit venders who sell their fruit out of a wheel barrel. They push these home made wooden wheel barrels filled with pounds of fruit all day long from community to community.
- 2 Muzungus walking up the road in Kyebando… I thought Ali and me were the only ones in Kyebando.
- Ladies balancing everything from buckets to stacks of chairs on there head.
- Kids sprinting from their homes to come out and greet Ali and Me. “Bye MUZUNGU!” “How are you?”
- Children playing with a tire and stick making the tire role. Oh to be young again.
- The shock on the local’s faces when we speak the slightest bit of Luganda on the taxi, such as “Mu Maso Awo” or “Wabale”.
- The brick makers. These guys work all day in the mud, digging, filling the brick mold, and then stacking them into a big castle. After the castle is built the cover it with hay and light it on fire. The heat dries the mud and makes bricks.

Anyway I hope this big post makes up for my lack of posting of late. Everyone have a good weekend.