a party at the Pagan rock

I’m sat outside the front of our house, on our veranda, with Holly, who is drawing a picture of a shoe which has been out here since I arrived. It’s seven o’clock in the evening, which is a particularly beautiful time of day in Uganda, tainted only by the little mosquitos, (pronounced just as it’s written here). The sky is beautiful, hopefully, if I remember, I will add a photo to this blog to show you just how beautiful! It’s so vast, it’s true that African skies are magical, and bigger than skies anywhere else I think. There are so many noises, a goat and a baby are competing for who can cry the loudest, whilst another boy across the road from us recites the alphabet in the Ugandan way of speaking English, which I’m becoming very accustomed to! There is someone pounding g-nuts (the Lugandan word for peanuts), so there’s a rhythmic thudding. Our road can get quite busy at times, by that I mean we can sometimes get a whole 10 vehicles passing in a matter of minutes! It’s crazy! Two bodas just past each other in front of me, beeping at each other as they crossed paths, as is the custom here. Of course there’s the persistent ringing of crickets.

clockwise from me we have Matia, Rogers, Holly, Joseph.
Jenny, James and Calum . The gang of teachers!

On Sunday we went back to our Pagan rock, as a surprise for Joseph, who has been a teacher at school, he’s now left to go back to school, to finish his own education (he hasn’t yet sat the equivalent of A levels) so anyway, to send him off, James, Matia, Holly and I took bodas up to the rock, Jenny, Calum and Joseph came an hour later (after finding a replacement boda as the one they hoped to ride had no key) we all jumped out at them, much to Jospeh’s  surprise. We ate bananas in chapattis and scoffed oreos. Oreos are turning into a bit of staple for us, they are pretty much the only western treat we can get, and even better than that, they are only 50p for a packet. We played mtatu, the only card game Ugandans seem to play! And climbed on the rocks, to the sound of a mixture of Ugandan music and our music, played on my little speaker, it’s so great having that speaker here Louis, thank you, hope you have a new one! So many people have asked me for it, or asked me how to get one! We rode back to Kiwangala before it got dark Unfortunately Joseph somehow managed to fall off the back of a boda on the way home, which was a shame, no one’s quite sure how it happened, he said there was a big bump in the road, but Calum ,who was driving, insisted there was nothing there!  He was fine anyway, after a few rolls and scrapes he got up and we went into the nearest house, where they gave us water to fix him up. People are so ready to help each other if someone’s in trouble here.

Thank you for all your comments everyone, sorry I don’t reply to them all. I really do appreciate them though!