Change is coming...

The end of my African adventure is in sight, less than 5 weeks left…where has the time gone?! We are busier than ever trying to finish writing our recreational programmes, building the sports pitches, train a group of budding business women, launch the outreach clinic and get everything in place to ensure that what we have started will continue long after we have left the place I have come to call home for the last 6 months – Bajjo!...

Last week was Annas birthday and she decided a trip to Kampala for the night to sample some meat, wine and a hot shower was in order to celebrate – I certainly wasn’t arguing. We took Vinny (our local programme manager) along for the celebration. Now, although Vinny is reasonably well educated (he almost finished secondary school) and his English is pretty damn good (he’s even using a bit of slang now!) he is a true village boy, and rarely travels into the city (this was his third time in 2008 and the second time was when we took him to watch Uganda play football last month!). It was truly a night of ‘firsts’ for Vinny – his first ever hot shower, his first ever pizza and his first ever time on the internet (I have been giving Vinny regular computing training sessions on our laptop so he can send us reports when we are back in the UK but this was the first time he had used the internet and email!). When I told him that the internet was like a giant book with pages about every conceivable subject he could ever imagine I don’t think he believed me…but an hour sitting on Google typing in anything that came in to his head convinced him and, to be honest, blew his mind a little bit!

My rare mid-week internet access is due to the fact that I am preparing myself for the impending arrival of Mr Jeremy Katz tomorrow morning. Jez is a good mate of mine and I’m thoroughly looking forward to the next couple of weeks. I shall be ensuring he earns his keep with some hard graft sorting out the five-a-side football pitch, constructing a climbing frame and painting the school…but will also take in one of the highlights of Uganda – Murchison Falls National Park (includes the worlds mast powerful waterfall). And yes, for those that have requested it, I will try and sort out some pictures of the locals stroking the body hair of my furry friend (see earlier blog for those who are confused)!

The big news item last week, that no doubt didn’t go unnoticed where you were(!), was of course the US election. It’s amazing how the election has gripped Africa as I’m sure it has everywhere else. Food stalls have re-named themselves to ‘Obamas outlet’ and ‘Barrakcs Buns’ (ok I made the second one up, but you get the idea!) and on the lead-up to the election locals in Kampala would regularly call out their support for Obama as you walked past (we muzungu are all the same – American, English, whatever!). The night itself coincided with Annas birthday so we were in Kampala and thus had access to TV’s – indeed the hostel we were staying in had an all night election party for all the ‘Peace Corp’ in Uganda (can never say ‘Peace Corp’ without using an American accent…or smirking afterwards…not sure why!). The reaction the morning afterwards was even more amazing – as we walked through Kampala locals were constantly coming up to us shouting the name ‘Obama’ and enquiring as to whether we supported him. There is a real feeling that because of his African roots he is gonna directly help every individual here in some way. Now, while I think that Obama is a great choice, I’m not sure American policy towards Africa will change that much and ,indeed, one of the things that people don’t necessarily give Bush credit for is the huge amount of money he has ploughed into Africa over his 8 year term (albeit with a number of conditions attached...). At any rate, if change is going to really happen in Africa then it will have to come from the people that are here, not a leader from some ‘developed’ country overseas… Right, before I get into a really deep political rant, lets talk about eating bugs!

So, when I am travelling I always like to try and sample the local foods. For me it’s part of the experience and living here in Uganda has been no different. One of the local delicacies that has only recently come into season are flying ‘white ants’. They are about an inch long and are similar to the flying ants we get in England in the summer – the ones that all of a sudden appear on a summers day and start flying around in swarms (how the hell they all coordinate and synchronise when they emerge from their nests is one of lifes great mysteries!). It’s exactly the same here – although it seems to be every couple of weeks that is designated as ‘flying day’ and the little beasts decide to take to the air...and the locals love it, especially the children! They run around catching them as they fly from their nests (they are quite sluggish in the air) and pop them straight into their mouths! Now, whilst I like to try everything, I haven’t quite brought myself around to eating them ‘raw’. Nope, being a sophisticated fellow, I wait for Justine next door to wash them, then fry them before I sample the little blighters! And what are they like, I hear you ask…’crunchy’ is all I can say – they are neither good nor bad, just kind of crunchy!

Idi Admin, the name in the West conjures up images of mass graves, of oppression and of evil dictatorship. But the impression of Idi Amin here in Uganda is not the one that was portrayed in ‘the last king of Scotland’. Indeed I have spoken to a number of people now about Idi Amin and what they think of him and have received the same view from people of different tribes, from different areas of Uganda and with different levels of education – that Idi Amin was not such a bad guy, that he didn’t commit all the atrocities we are led to believe in the West. Indeed the general feeling is that he was a good, honest leader who helped to develop the country in many ways. The stories of mass killings that we are told in the West are said to unfounded, unproved or the work of the opposition who then blamed Idi Amin for the atrocities. It is interesting that this view is repeated across Uganda and you start to wonder who has been fed propaganda…is it us in the West, by Governments that had fallen out with Amin and were not comfortable with his relationship with Colonel Gaddafi and so led a huge smear campaign assisted by Amins opponents in Uganda…or have the Ugandans been brainwashed into believing that one of their former leaders was really a hero and that the meddling of foreign governments prevented him from fulfilling his dream of developing Uganda into a great developed nation…who knows!?

Finally a quick word to all the accenturites out there reading this – have a few leaving drinks on my behalf this Friday! For those not enclosed in the dark world of accenture you probably won’t be surprised to find out that the current global ‘credit crunch’ (that has barely made the news over in Uganda) has hit accenture hard and they have been through a big process of cost cutting and redundancies. The process has, apparently, been a long one, although I only heard about it last Wednesday evening when HR rang me informing me that the deadline for applying for voluntary redundancies had passed! I managed to get an extension considering my circumstances (complete and utter ignorance of the whole process!) and, after considering the package on offer, had my mum submit the appropriate forms on Thursday (lack of internet needn’t be a blocker in these circumstances when you have supportive family!). By Monday this week my application was accepted and that is pretty much that. After a little over 4 and a half years of working for one of the biggest consultancy companies in the world I am out of there. It’s a strange feeling, but I think it is definitely the right decision – I have been thinking about leaving for a long time and this provided me the perfect ‘get out’! It feels good, I can go into the second half of my year out with a clear head and can think about what I really want to be do with my life, hmmm…