Day 4, More Street Food and Party Banquet, Buwama

Well that was a strange day, the first of many no doubt.

Finally dropped off around 2am after the music finished, woke up at 5am to the sound of cockerels, don’t they know the sun doesn’t come up for a couple of hours? Drifted off and woke up again around 7am is to the gentle pitter patter of the rain. Except it wasn’t a pitter patter it was a constant thundering from a torrential downpour.

Despite all that I rose from my bed at 8.30am to venture to the bathroom to enjoy a cold weak shower that necessitated running round in circles to get wet and keep warm. Apparently the best shower is the one that I banged my head into the previous evening in one of the toilet cubicles. Good to know for next time.

By the time I was ready it was still chucking it down and I could see small rivers flowing. Very small, but still. With no sign of life around I put on my waterproofs (so glad I packed my waterproof trousers) and headed off for the office.

Most other people were more sensible and I hardly saw another soul on my 10 minute walk to the regional office. 10 minutes is pretty much the maximum journey time wearing waterproofs in this humidity. Any longer and it’s pointless as you’ll be pouring with sweat anyway so better to be wet from the rain.

I got to the office and introduced myself to the few people that were there at 9.15am. As I’d surmised, and later had confirmed from others, everyone just waits for the rain to stop before cracking on. Good to know for next time.

I then offered my services to help out with the set-up of the launch party only to end up taking part in the ever useful act of standing or sitting around watching other people work for several hours. This is much harder work than you can imagine and I was thrilled when I got to multi-task this arduous work by not only watching people put up tents, but also saw the ‘leccy company, UMEME, inspect a transformer on a wooden pylon. I didn’t know which bit of work I was meant to observe so ending up looking like I was either a meerkat or watching a long tennis volley.

More and more activity took place including rigging the local office’s shuttle bus with speakers to go round the local villages drumming up participants, decorating the tents, setting up the rest of the PA system. We had a brief team meeting with my boss, who introduced me to team with his second remark being that I’m single should anyone be interested. Not the first time that he’s brought attention to my marital status.

From my inexperienced eyes it looked like organised chaos and 15 minutes after the event was supposed to start and with plenty still left to be done I was exhausted. To recharge my batteries I headed down with Hope to the main road to get something to eat and drink.

On the way we were stopped by the local police for a chat. Honestly it was just a chat, but I was side-lined by the female traffic officer about solar power for several minutes. I gave it my best sales spiel, but I suspect she had ulterior motives. Thanks to a shrewd bet on my half, I now stand to be £5 (at least) richer if I return to the UK without a wife.

Rolexs weren’t on the menu yet so I went for 3 Pizzas. I also picked up a bottle up purple (fruit) Miranda and a pack of local crisps. The Pizzas were good, better than last night as still hot and slightly more tomato in them. The crisps surprisingly good and the Miranda was interesting. Immediately it tasted of fizzy Vimto, yay! Then came the unpleasant cough mixture aftertaste, boo!

Lunch was a solid 3 out of 5 judged by more recent standards.

After a couple of hours things were starting to kick off, only 2 and a half hours after it was supposed to start, not bad going all things considered, as the rain had legitimately stopped play for a solid hour and a half. There were two tents facing a central open area, one tent slightly bigger with space for 50 people, and the other smaller one with 75 seats. The smaller one was pretty full, and eventually the 3 VAD volunteers, Hope, Leon and myself, as Muzungus, were ushered to the larger tent as guests of honour. All VAD employees were wearing branded logo shirts except myself as I kept my shirt and trouser uniform intact so I was doubly conspicuous.

The MC and a delegation of local villagers

We secreted ourselves self-consciously near the back. We went for the next to last row first, but the seats were on a large incline so very unstable. Back row it was. Then the MC started events and he was followed by a string of local business and community leaders giving speeches in Lugandan for the next 2 and a bit hours. I’m sure it was funny and fascinating stuff given the laughter and clapping coming from all corners.

My boss was the penultimate speaker during this event and was followed by I believe a local government dignitary (I’ll find out exactly who) to give the closing speech of this launch party.

Oh, I just realised I haven’t mentioned what all this is for. It was a launch party for a new organisation that aims to provide subsidised solar panels for people in the Mpigi (and other) districts. The subsidies come from a variety of development agencies most notable GIZ a German organisation. Our organisation is partnered with the Ugandan company to hopefully provide microfinance options for people to buy these solar panels at reasonable rates of interest. A worthy cause I’m sure you’ll all agree.

Anyway back to final speech, all was going swimmingly in Lugandan no doubt, until the speaker switched to English and started thanking GIZ for their involvement whilst looking and pointing to us Muzungus. GIZ representatives were invited, but didn’t turn up and whilst continuing to thank the GIZ reps the speaker kept on looking more towards me as not only the oldest, but the only white person wearing a shirt.

Nod and smile, nod and smile, was the only thing running through my mind as this unfortunate mix up occurred. My body dutifully agreed to keep on doing this despite an involuntary reddening of my cheeks. Because of the heat no-one could tell the difference. Thankfully this didn’t go on too long, and as the last part of the speech of went on we had a good laugh about it after receiving some embarrassing applauses.

My duty of impersonating a representative of another organisation over with, it was on to the cake cutting ceremony. All VAD employees were wheeled around the cake whilst the most important dignitaries got hold of the knife to jointly cut the cake. As this was being prepared with numerous photo and videographers assembled, the final speaker insisted that I, as a GIZ representative, also hold the knife to cut the cake.

It would have been embarrassing to expose the lie that I was happy to be complicit in a few minutes earlier, so all smiles I made my way to the front to help out with the cutting of the cake. After a tense countdown the knife sliced through the cake to huge applause and the firing of a number of metallic confetti cannons. I’m still finding large pieces in my hair despite several showers.

Cutting the cake

My duties now complete I retired to the comfort of the tent and eventually we were called down to have something to eat and drink as IPs, the VIPs were already tucking in and the hoi polloi’s food was being dished up separately.

The meal consisted of matoke, rice, beans, coleslaw style cabbage and carrots, meat, sweet potatoes, small roast potatoes and groundnut sauce / paste. The coleslaw  and roasties were the particular delight of this meal the rest pretty much the same as usual with the addition of the groundnut sauce / paste and interesting addition. It’s not quite the same as a peanut sauce but similar and with a thicker consistency.

We’d already had a slice of cake which was surprisingly good, it was a ginger sponge affair with icing rather than marzipan. The whole ensemble was washed down with Stoney, another Coca Cola produced beverage, which is actually Ginger Beer. All in I’d say 3 out of 5, there were certain highlights and a few lowlights. I need to mix things up a bit to get a bit of variety in the scoring.

After early dinner it was time to go down the road to get a matatu back to Kampala, but we were lucky as a bus had stopped and so managed to travel in relative luxury. I jumped out at Backpackers and was back in my room unpacking by 7.30pm. I noticed a damp patch on the floor near the door, but no obvious leak, and relaxed by the outdoor bar area for a few hours with a beer and packet of salt and vinegar crisps.