Arrival

We arrived in Uganda in March 2009; I with a working contract as a development worker and my husband as “following” partner. Following an excerpt from an email an to friends dated 17.3.2009:

We didn’t have any Internet reception for two days and now I’m sitting on a private laptop of a colleague with satellite Internet, but have to wait nearly one minute or longer until a side is loaded…

Thus our very first impressions:
– Instead of cats we have monkeys in the office
– The windows do not have glass, only mosquito mash
– There are awfully many cars in the roads and they look almost brand-new (until now I haven’t seen any scrappy cars)
– Birds start singing at exact 6 o’clock; it is still dark by this time but 30 min later it’s full daylight
– The behaviour towards us Europeans is very “normal”, no special treatment
– In the quarry (approximate 20 min away from us) I saw a few children working
– Rich and poor live direct next to each other – there is a 5 star restaurant and across the road slums
– Most expatriate houses are guarded with armed guards
– Up to now we only had rain at night, and during the day around 35 degrees and sunny
– People are very open, speak about their families, their training, and dreams…
– Many, many building sites with sometimes exquisite houses
– Influence of the English clearly noticeably, as for example that in the pubs all English games will be shown as well as the architectural style of the houses
– Quality of own Ugandan production is very bad (e.g. furniture)
– People eat with fingers

Original text – email to friends to 17.3.2009