This morning I woke up to heavy rainfall at about 7am. The walls, glass doors and windows are so thin at my house that I can hear everything around me. At night, it’s hard to tell if loud noises are coming from my neighbor’s yard or somewhere within mine, and I do find myself constantly checking the guard’s outpost in my courtyard. The thought of him here with me in this enormous compound is definitely reassuring, as is the razor wire. Last night I gave my parents a video tour of my house, and showed them bedrooms I had not even entered yet! May is nearing the end of Uganda’s rainy season, and I happily read my book in bed as the rainfall stopped. Thunderstorms here don’t last longer than about 10-30 minutes, and soon the sun was right back out. I prepared my pineapple like Miss Josephine taught me and made a delicious breakfast of gluten-free toast and eggs. My gluten allergy hasn’t posed too much of a problem here, besides refusing pizza at Café Roma it’s really quite manageable. After breakfast began my very lazy Sunday. Greg and Layla are at an all-day function, and since I don’t know my way around the city well enough to venture out alone, I’ve spent the day out in my yard tanning with a good book and this blog.
I started this blog because I have to write the same account of my time here, except in French, as part of a business French class I am enrolled in at Michigan. Originally my internship was in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, a francophone country in West Africa, but due to outbreaks of extreme violence I was let go from that post, reapplied, and was accepted in Kampala. I let my French teacher know with regret that since I would no longer be working in a French-speaking country I would not be able to participate in her class, but being the amazing woman that she is, she is allowing me to blog about my internship in French and still receive credit. If you’re a French speaker (Margie) and would like a link to that blog, let me know!
I would much prefer to be out and about exploring the city, but since I have little else to do today besides lounge, tan, read and cook (the rough life, I know) I’ll give a couple more tidbits that I’ve picked up about Uganda. For starters, Burkina Faso is a French-speaking country because it is a former French colony. In Uganda, the official language is English because it was an English colony before it gained independence in 1962. Unlike other English colonies, like Kenya for example, Uganda never had that large of a native British population. In Kenya, the British people found the game reserves way more impressive, and more importantly, there is no threat of malaria there like there is here. So, the British people outsourced most of the day-to-day responsibilities of Ugandan maintenance to Indians. Here, it is the Indians who own the stone quarries and sugar plantations, and it is these people who the Ugandans viewed as their oppressors instead of the British. To this day there is still underlying hostilities between the Indian and Ugandan people.
For any of you news-followers out there, conflict between the current ruling government and opposition parties has calmed down almost completely in the city of Kampala. The elected President Museveni (opposition leaders believe the election was rigged) recently abolished the constitutional limit on presidential terms, and that’s got a lot of people, especially those who enjoy democracy, in a bit of a huff. For a few days before I arrived, civilians protested in Kampala against the high cost of living, especially of fuel. The people participated in Walk-to-Work demonstrations and anyone who did drive would honk, or “hoot” as they call it here, to demonstrate their support for those walking. Needless to say, the government has now made “hooting” illegal, and in Friday’s newspaper there was a half-page section listing about 40 license plate numbers of those cars that had illegally hooted and were now WANTED by authorities.
Tomorrow, Monday, I have another day off to celebrate our American Memorial Day. The Embassy gets 10 official days off, and chooses a mixture of American and Ugandan holidays that they will recognize. After this three-day weekend I’ll have only a three-day week because Friday is off to celebrate Uganda’s National Martyrs’ Day, which remembers those who were killed for converting to Christianity in Buganda, one of Uganda’s kingdoms.
That’s enough of a history lesson for now, hopefully I’ll be out exploring more soon, and first official day of work is Tuesday!
