Old age beckons

It’s been another week full of new experiences. For a start, Chris celebrated his 57th birthday. “No, it’s not possible” I hear you cry, but the reality is that it is! To be kind to him on the actual day we cancelled our weekly Swahili lesson, which Chris would do anything to miss at the best of times. We enjoyed a meal with friends and then celebrated in ‘style’ on Saturday with a bar-b-que at our house complete with chefs and waiters. I’m not quite sure which ‘style’ could describe a Mongolian bar-b-que in Uganda! Anyway, we mus-tered up our small but select group of 15 friends here in Masindi. It’s interesting to think that a place such as this can attract people from the Philippines, Canada, Germany, Zan-zibar, Kenya, Holland and of course the UK and Uganda.
Another cause for celebration was on Tuesday when Chris borrowed the hospital phone, which is programmed for the internet, and we actually managed to get on line at home us-ing the laptop!! Unfortunately the joy was short lived as the phone had to go back the fol-lowing morning just in case somebody needed to use the internet but at least we know it’s possible. We think we’ve found a similar phone but it seems to have something missing. It’s only taken 9 months to get this far so we’re not giving up yet.
Through a friend who is doing a research project on chimps in a nearby forest, I heard about a group of women from a small village who make baskets but are struggling to mar-ket their products. I took a taxi to visit them and have a chat about design, quality control, prices, etc. They were swahili speaking but thank goodness there was an interpreter - I really should do my homework! There’s a lot of talent out there, it just takes time to dis-cover it. Another Ugandan friend has brought some of her own label garments to sell; at this rate I’m going to need an extension to the shop!
This week we were also invited to the wedding of the daughter of one of Chris’ work col-leagues. The actual wedding clashed with our party so we went to the Introduction instead which was the previous day. We’re getting used to Ugandan time keeping so when the invitation said to begin at 2.00 we knew not to arrive before 3.00. We thought we’d stay for a couple of hours and make a discreet exit. Proceedings finally began at 5.00 and to our surprise we were treated like guests of honour and were seated on the front row. There was no escaping! Fortunately, because of the late start, they cut the ceremony down to a couple of hours. It’s very interesting to observe. The families of the two parties are seated opposite each other in different marquees with Elders from the villages repre-senting the bride and groom. Using a PA system, there is a lot of amusing banter and bargaining going on until the bride and groom and the two families finally accept each other. Of course, it’s all followed by an enormous feast. A table was laid especially for us inside the house while the rest of the party stayed outside. There was no way we could refuse the hospitality but the problem was that we were meeting friends for dinner that night. Ugandan ceremonies always seem to involve feasting.
One of our askaris, Soloman, had to go to Kampala this week to see his sister. This meant that we would be with out an askari for some of the time. Rasoul refused to allow us to be unprotected and stayed at his post for 36 hours! We feel very grateful for the loyalty of our staff. There have been a number of robberies in the area and every one is very upset about them. Happily we seem to have been spared so far.