Day 5, Lunch, VAD Office. Supper, Backpackers Hostel

Well I now know where the wet patch on the floor came from. When the rain started in the early hours of the morning. I could hear the patter of rain a lot closer than it had any business being. On with the handheld Sun, great leaving present btw, and it was clear that there was a small but worrying collection of water droplets going the length of the ceiling. Not a deluge, just drops every few seconds and some worrying pooling in the paint on one of the walls. I moved my stuff out of the line of fire and went back to sleep. No-one was around anyway at that time in the morning.

After getting ready for the day, the water was boiling today, I could stand in it for less time than the cold water, I went to reception to inform them of this unfortunate turn of events. Left them with the key and made my way to work. Location wise the Hostel isn’t too bad. I’ve decided to name all boda drivers as Karl (after Fogarty not Pilkington), as in spite of all the traffic I still manage to get from the hostel to work in only 10 minutes.

So into work for another arduous day, not sure what today would bring. Not much was the answer. I brought my hard drive in to work to supplement Hope’s dwindling supply of quality TV and Movies. I got a few choice titles in exchange, but thankfully managed to dodge Sex in the City. I still ended up with guilty pleasure Love Actually, which I’ll turn in to a Christmas double bill with Die Hard if I’m still in Uganda over Xmas and not in the UK. Don’t ask me which order I’ll watch them in.

After a short while Daniel the Projects Officer for Mpigi district informed me that he had some potential properties sorted and would I like to view them. Absolutely was my obvious response so we got in his car and headed to the first potential. Salubrious it was not, though it was pretty handy for the office, a short (500 UGX) matatu ride away. The second option was smaller and a bit more inaccessible. Neither option has made it forward to the second stage.

On the drive back it was obvious that my brief wasn’t as clear as it should have been. Daniel had been working to a budget similar to what I’m paying at the Hostel. After embarrassingly informing him that my potential budget is much larger than that, he seemed relieved. Obviously trying to find ‘good enough’ accommodation for a decadent muzungu within that meagre budget was a task too far.

Back to the office and it was more slow work, I’m knocking up a simple but updated version of their website in my spare time. It’s nothing too drastic, but I want to use it as an indicator of what they could do simply and cheaply so that the website is more accessible to the personas that they hope will visit their site. I’ve no doubt this will be a hard change to implement, but if I take small steps, hopefully I can implement something positive and enable them to keep the content fresh. It’s at least two years old as I write this.

Eventually it was time for lunch. As most who read this blog will well know one of my favourite questions is ‘I wonder what I will have for lunch today?’. I’ve brought this ever important question with me and thankfully the irony of the question translates well. For lunch today I had matoke, rice, beans, sweet potato and ‘greens’. The regulars were the same as always, but the greens were interesting. They were red for starters, but clearly some form of vegetable with a mildly bitter taste. Not too bad on their own and fine when mixed in with everything else.

After lunch I had a bright yellow Mirinda to wash down my Doxy. Turns out that it wasn’t lemon, but pineapple. Ridiculously sweet, but enjoyable. I do like looking at the vibrant colours of the soft drinks here. I think they may glow in the dark, definitely worthy of a future experiment to see if I can light my room by soft drink alone. It’d be good to replace the SI of lumens with Mirindas.

Score wise, 2.5 out of 5, but you knew that anyway.

After lunch nothing eventful, but good chat about everyone’s plans for the weekend and some chat about music. My collection shows my age apparently. Not an unsurprising conclusion. Left the office at 5pm and jumped on a boda for a 10 minute trip back to the hostel. I’m very happy with the Caberg, the second sun visor is a great feature for these sunny climes.

On arriving back there was a small queue at the reception, the place is definitely busier today than during the week. Wondering what the room situation would be I was informed that I’d been moved, including all my stuff. Many thanks to the staff for doing that for me. My room is slightly bigger, slightly better appointed, but has no power point. That said I don’t have to clatter into a dorm’s hall room in order to get access to the room so all in all I’m up for the day. Grey clouds and all that.

Finished off the evening with a pizza (the Italian variety) at the hostel with spicy sausage and a hint of chillies. The heat was wonderful after having so much bland food. A Tabasco trip is well in order and the pizza was pretty damn good washed down with a Nile beer.  3 out of 5, roll on the weekend.

Time and memory willing I’ll add some old restaurant reviews from London to keep things fresh as I start venturing further afield and start sampling the numerous culinary world delights available in cosmopolitan Kampala. Oh and photos, more photos.