Highway to Hell

So – I leave tomorrow to fly home for Christmas, and I really don’t think there are words in the English language (certainly not in my vocabulary) to describe how excited I am about this – it has been just about the only thing getting me through the last week or two – the thought that “you’ll be home in two weeks, ten days, one week etc” has gotten me out of bed in the morning, and through the day. I really don’t think I have ever been this tired before in my life – a bone-deep weariness that just dogs you around. I have warned my parents that I may sleep through much of my home leave, although my mother may take drastic action on that matter – it usually involves being woken by Phoebe (see picture below) who licks you into submission. But who I just can't resist...


I left Soroti on Sunday and drove back to Kampala – this is the first time I have actually driven myself across the country – I drive around the cities etc, but for around Uganda, we use the drivers. However, we didn’t have any spare drivers in Soroti, and we also had a spare car (through reasons much too boring and complicated to explain, my Prado wound up there for my last week in town, which was lovely to drive around – more so than the twin cab which had been my mode of transportation for the past 2.5 months). But I was a wee bit nervous about driving across the country – many prayers were sent up through the trip! Ugandans are completely crazy drivers – I have driven in some mad places, and I really think they are the worst – they are very reckless, and also very selfish on the roads – there’s no sense of working together to solve a traffic jam, it’s just “oooh – there’s a three inch spot I can try to squeeze into – ahead of the 15 other cars that precede me” etc. And they also have a predilection for…as my Grandad used to say “they only want half the road – the middle half” – which is wicked scary as they barrel down the center of the road towards you and won’t budge over. I have seen any number of wrecks here – really bad ones – they often involve the boda bodas (motorcyclists who take passengers on the back and weave in and out without ever looking over their shoulder – they have a low life expectancy) and matatus (the vans that serve as buses around and between cities – also mad as hatters on the road and the cause of many accidents).


So I was reasonably nervous getting out on the roads, and had warned Geoffrey (the water engineer) that I would be taking longer than our drivers, as I was not going to do 150km/h like they do! The trip was mostly okay – we drove through quite a long stretch of roadworks, stuck behind a never-ending line of trucks (this highway is the main road from Kenya to Uganda so full of trucks) which meant that dust was kicked up so thick that I literally could not see the road in front of me at all – I couldn’t see a thing. Which was pretty scary – I just had to drive straight and pray… We also passed a dead pedestrian in the road – obviously knocked by a car in one of the villages (again – not a great deal of care exhibited when walking/cycling/crossing the road) and that was pretty awful – he was lying at a strange angle in the road with blood running from his head – I looked away pretty fast! Apart from that, we made it okay – which I felt very triumphant about.


Seeing as I was driving on Sunday, I took it pretty easy at the Christmas party on Saturday night (not ours – a German guy in Soroti had a party at his place). I spoke to Florian on Friday night and he said “the staff are bringing the food for the party. So today, they brought the food – it is tied up outside, eating the grass” I was devastated (seriously – goats are so cute – how can you?) and didn’t go out back to the BBQ area at all (I think it is easier to deal with when it comes in a plastic box etc – but my vegetarianism is re-affirmed!) But it was a fun night – the remaining flood response people all got together for one last night – although I didn’t follow them to the local disco afterwards, as I had to drive the next day (which I think was a good thing, looking at Brett the next morning!) The local disco is pretty hilarious – bad music and a dance floor lined with mirrors – people dance in front of the mirrors, just watching themselves – it definitely provides for a novel night out, although being a small group of non-Ugandans there means you get a fair bit of attention…


Anyway – I am back in Kampala and packing up to go home. Cannot wait – quivering with excitement and all of that. My home list includes many things – often food related! I will also get up to the beach house in Queensland for a few days to say goodbye to the place – my parents intend to sell it and I am devastated – I adore that house.


So – in case I don’t write again beforehand – Merry Christmas to you all…

God Save the Queen

So – a few events recently have conspired to make me realize that it’s a frightfully long time since I updated…once again. In the interim, Australia elected a new PM – about whom I know extremely little, except that he speaks Mandarin and has a suspiciously full head of hair. But he seems to have started well by signing Kyoto and making moves to close the offshore asylum seeker centers – we’ll see how it continues…

Amusing side note – during the election coverage, the BBC International news referred to Kevin Rudd as both Jim Rudd and Kenneth Rudd – gave me a few chuckles, and made me wonder how long he would have to be in power before they got his name right! Last night at dinner, we were discussing politics, and a Spanish Red Cross chap was noting that Australian elections don’t really get much coverage in the international news. I suppose I never really thought about it, mostly because I’m used to Australia not getting much coverage in international news (only in the Sport news, and then mostly related to cricket!) but I did think for a minute about why this was – as I said to Lorenzo, I think it’s usually because our elections are fairly undramatic affairs – there’s a winner and the loser normally accepts the results pretty equably. Plus, honestly – nobody really cares about politics in Australia – our events don’t usually have great dramatic impact upon world events (despite what Johnny Howard kept trying to convince himself, and us) and I think we like it like that – we are the land of sea, sun and sport and that doesn’t make for great headlines…

During the election, I was online with a Zimbabwean friend, and said “oh, by the way – looks like we have a new PM” (this was about an hour before Howard’s concession). And I realized that he probably hasn’t seen an event like that for most of his life. It’s things like this that make me so passionate about voting – I don’t just think it’s a right, I also think it’s a responsibility – I think I owe it to the millions of people around the world who have no rights to chose their leaders to exercise my democratic rights and march down to the polls. Sadly, I was thwarted in this desire this election. Uganda has no Australian consular presence – the closest in Nairobi (I really should try to not ever do anything whereby I require consular assistance, hey?!) which makes voting a wee challenge. It was also not helped by my current residence out in Soroti, which could politely be termed ‘the middle of nowhere’. So – I arranged with the High Commission in Nairobi for them to courier me my ballot papers, and gave them the street address of the office out here in Soroti, and the address of the office in Kampala, as a back-up (in case DHL don’t deliver to the middle of nowhere!)


And I begin waiting… and waiting…


And my boss orders me back to Kampala for R and R over the weekend of the election (think I was starting to fray around the edges!!) and my ballot papers still hadn’t arrive by the time we left on Friday lunch time. So I had a friend checking in with the office on Friday, and Saturday, to see if my papers arrived. Still nada. Saturday – the election is all over and I haven’t voted, for the first time since I turned 18. Monday morning – I get a call from DHL – “we have a parcel here for you – where can we deliver it?”


I was ready to scream down the phone, but being a well-brought up lady, I didn’t. I just politely gave them the address of the office in Kampala, and took delivery of my ballot papers – two days after the election!! I really think DHL should give the Australian Government a refund on that one… Somebody could have walked from Nairobi and delivered them more quickly than that…


Due to electioneering, the Australian Government also missed a truly significant event in the life of Uganda – one that has been a dominant feature since I arrived…I speak of course of CHOGM. What, wait – you haven’t heard of it? Hmmmm – don’t tell the Ugandan Government – they’ll be crushed!! The whole country went CHOGM mad (not sure how much of that was inspired by the two days of public holiday declared for the event thought?) I have no idea who represented Australia – the third deputy under-secretary of agriculture in DFAT?


For the non-Australian/British/Canadian etc readers out there, CHOGM is the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting – it happens every two years or so, and is basically a talk-fest of all countries that are, or used to be part of the British Commonwealth (although if someone can explain to me the presence of Mozambique, I’d be awfully grateful!) I think the last one was in Australia, and this year, it was held in Uganda. Ever since I arrived, the city has been in the throes of preparations – filling potholes, fixing roads, planting flowers, building dozens of hotels that will never be full again. There were also campaigns of picking up undesirable people from the streets of Kampala and locking them up/shipping them away etc, in addition to massive clean-ups of the streets (very entertaining talking to people who came in to Uganda just during or immediately after CHOGM – they were commenting how clean the streets were. We just sighed and said “give it a week or two for the rubbish to accumulate again”!! – Ugandans don’t ever actually throw any trash in the bin – they just drop it in the street or throw it out of the window of their cars – it’s so sad).


Anyway, as always, CHOGM was presided over by the Queen, and the Ugandans went royalty-mad with a fervour I have never seen – rivaled only by our old next-door-neighbour in Brisbane, who had the most massive collection of royal memorabilia plates, wall hangings and china I have ever seen. As we drove back to Kampala on the Friday, most towns had big signs up saying “[insert town name] welcomes Your Majesty to Uganda” and then in teeny, tiny writing underneath “and the other CHOGM delegates” – it was pretty funny. Sometimes Prince Charles got a mention as well – but never the Duke of Edinborough or Camilla. And as we drove from Jinja (source of the Nile – famous for white water rafting – about two hours drive East of Kampala) to Kampala, people were lining the streets in their hundreds – I think they were expecting either the Queen or Charles to drive along there. Poor darlings…all they got was the Nigerian delegation, thundering along in blacked-out BMWs!!!


And boy do these Ugandans love them some Queen Elizabeth. They just went bananas about her – she was beautiful, she was elegant, she gave a fabulous speech (no point trying to tell them she didn’t actually write the speech herself!), she sat beautifully, she walked beautifully, she dressed beautifully, she spoke beautifully – they all wanted their wife/daughter/mother to be just like her. I saw one woman on BBC news saying she just wanted to give the Queen a great big hug – I couldn’t help thinking how utterly delighted Her Majesty would have been to be on the receiving end of that embrace!! And poor Museveni (Ugandan President) didn’t fare too well in comparison – he was looked down upon for his hat (which is rather absurd, I must confess), his smug air, his bad way of walking. It was quite amusing for about five minutes, but I had my driver raving about the Queen for literally an hour and a half as we drove on Friday!! Eventually I turned to him and said “Daniel – I think I’m going to have to tell your wife that you are in love with the Queen” – which dampened his spirits for a minute or two, but then he continued right on again. It was exhausting, I have to tell you!!!


Anyway – CHOGM is all over now, and the investigations into where all the CHOGM money vanished to have begun, with a sad inevitability. Glorious international conference, followed by corruption investigation. Rinse and repeat…


At least it keeps the Red Pepper tabloid in headlines.