HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU!!!

Christmas celebrations started early in Kampala this year. At the beginning of December, I joined some friends for one of the first of Kampala's many musical events.  

This initial event was a performance of Christmas music by internationally mixed choir, The Kampala Singers, up at Namirembe cathedral. It was a beautiful sunny day as I headed up to the concert!  I enjoyed the uplifting performance by this talented choir.

A week later, I took a boda up the hill again to the same venue and joined the atmospheric "Carols by Candlelight" service:

This was clearly a favourite event for many Kampalans and the cathedral was packed out. It was tricky to find a place to squeeze in on a pew!

A formal event, the Ugandan choir processed slowly down the aisle before the service commenced with a solo of "Once in Royal David's City".

As darkness fell, the service was more reminiscent of a Carol service format from back in England and it made the season come to life for me!

At the end of this lovely Christmas Carol service, I took a couple of photos of the choir leaving the service- and of the view behind me to show how popular a service this annual event is.

The next Sunday, Esther featured as Herod's assistant in a church Christmas play. Her dramatic flair came to life and she did a great job!

The children led us into some singing at the end of the play and we all raised our voices with some more Carols:

At school, Esther, then Ben and a week later Joel all took part in school Christmas concerts. Here is a photo from Joel's performance, as the younger pupils from the school delighted us with their singing:

Part of our Christmas time for us as a family always includes Ben's birthday, so it was fun to celebrate his 10 years this 2017! We got together with some friends in Kampala and enjoyed a posh cake which a friend had won at a Christmas fete and very kindly shared with Ben for his birthday!

It's been a special Christmas season for us- and a lot easier than last year, when we were new to Kampala and feeling a little forgotten and lonely, lost in a new city full of very busy people. We hope you have had a lovely time celebrating this special time of year and we send you our very best wishes from Uganda!

Anniversary Adventure

On Thursday Andrew and I celebrated 14 years of wedded bliss ;-)

To mark the occasion, we planned a fun day out.... an adventure to explore some of the prominent sites of Kampala. I chose five venues to visit on our day tour.

We set out just after 9am on Andrew's motorbike, our helmets firmly in place to brave the chaos of Kampala's traffic!

We teamed up with another couple, who had arranged to ride on local boda boda (motorbikes). Their obliging drivers were set to show us the way to visit the five sites that I had requested.

• We started at the palace of the local tribal king- the Buganda king, known as "kabaka."

Apparently, once we entered the compound, all women automatically become the property of the king and have to cover themselves with propriety- which in our case turned out to be an orange rectangle of material! I'm not sure how Andrew felt about giving his wife over to another man on our anniversary!

Tour guide Augustin led us around the grounds of the palace and related the rather bloodthirsty history of the kings of the Buganda tribe. The actual palace now lies empty because all the blood shed there makes it an unappealing residence for the current king.

Part of the tour led us into the dreadful torture chambers used by dictator Idi Amin during his reign of terror. In this dingy, dark, underground hideaway, Idi Amin ordered the torture and death of over 19,000 men.
Following on from Amin, Obote retaliated against those who had been loyal to Amin. A further 7,000 men were condemned to die gruesome and cruel deaths in the belly of this concrete monstrosity.

It was a sobering visit.

We finished the tour with a walk around the photo gallery that chronicles the family members of the Buganda Royal family from the late 1800s, when photography first reached Uganda. It was fascinating to hear and see history from the Kampala region.

• Our next venue was the Catholic cathedral of Rubaga, set high on one of Kampala's hills.

I would like to say we zoomed up the hill, but that's not quite true! The motorbikes we use here are not known for their speed! Just for their resilience and for being large enough to fit passengers (sometimes several!!) behind the driver!

We arrived at the cathedral and parked the bikes under a nearby, shady tree:

Rubaga cathedral boasts some beautifully constructed stained glass windows. Sadly, though, these windows portray the tragic stories of some of the 46 Christians murdered for their faith by Mukasa II- one of the Buganda kings. He had felt threatened by the rise of Christianity in his kingdom. Several of the windows show the martyrs receiving baptism before being forcefully taken to their death at Namowongo, just outside of Kampala.

It was a sad kind of illustrated history lesson.

Our lovely guide, Rose, also showed us the ancient organ donated from Germany over 100 years ago. She unlocked the wooden cover - and was most obliging when I asked if I could try my hand at playing a few notes! 

I enjoyed the colours chosen for the church interior- definitely bright and cheerful and a great reflection of local choice!

It was a cathedral well worth visiting. I was gaining a better understanding of this city we live in as I added to my sketchy historical knowledge of Kampala.

• Our third stop was Namirembe Anglican cathedral, to visit their small museum. 

I have visited this venue several times for inspiring musical events, but Andrew and our friends had never been and none of us had visited the cathedral's Cultural Centre. 

We collected another guide. This time, Rosetta led us around the cathedral's "archive chamber". This spacious room was packed with photographs, information boards and models depicting the history of the churches which had stood on this site.

The current cathedral is the fourth cathedral constructed here since the 1880s. Lightening strikes, gale force winds and ambitious architects have all contributed to the volume of buildings!

We learnt more about the martyrs and some history of the Anglican bishops sent from England to support the church here in the 1800s- one of whom was captured and killed for his faith by the local king. 

Another died of fever before even reaching Kampala. 

Yet another was a key figure in a spiritual revival which swept through Uganda. 

We even read about one church leader half a century ago who felt compelled to sell his motorbike in order to dedicate himself better to serving God. I wondered what he would have to say if he heard of us riding around Kampala on Andrew's bike today!

We took some time to get a few pictures before leaving this impressive cathedral site:

• After this, we four mounted our trusty bodas to set off into the heart of Kampala city to visit Kampala's- and indeed, Uganda's- first ever shopping centre!

Andrew and the other boda drivers deserve a medal for their incredible feat of driving through the utter CHAOS and bedlam that is Kampala city centre!

 I would have loved to have taken some photos! However, it is ill advised to have the phone or camera in your hand as you squeeze between trucks, buses, other boda drivers, pedestrians, cars or traders staggering through the crowded streets with heavy sacks of goods balanced between their shoulder blades. The risk of either dropping your phone or having it swiftly swiped from your hand is high!

After a hot, hair-raising and incredibly fascinating and colourful ride, we made it into Kampala's gritty downtown!

We dismounted, left the other two boda drivers in charge of all three motorbikes and headed into "Pioneer Mall". The slogan above the entrance says it all: "the first and still the best mall in Uganda" !!

We ate our lunch at the advertised "Antonio's" cafe. I was so hungry that my trademark East African "chicken and chips" was polished off in no time!

• Happy, with out tummies full and with the glow of having survived a motorbike ride through the labyrinth of Kampala's busy streets, we embarked on our final destination.

In stark contrast to the noise, heat and rather interesting (!!) smells of the city centre, we headed back up the hill into Kampala's hotel district. To finish off our anniversary tour, we enjoyed a most civilised cup of coffee at the newly constructed and somewhat opulent "Pearl of Africa" hotel.

I thoroughly enjoyed our 14th wedding anniversary! What a way to celebrate being in Kampala together- and to now look forward to more years here with a better understanding of the place we live in.

Terrific Tuesday!

It's not every day that you go shopping and find yourself winning a prize when you check out!

There's an Eritrean supermarket near to the children's school. I went to do my shopping there on Tuesday morning - it seemed to cost a lot of money even though I did not feel like I bought many items.

Here is my shopping, boxed up for me by the staff, plus the huge bag of dog food for Harry:

After paying my bill, I was given a SURPRISE!! Apparently a local bank was doing a promotion and when customers paid a certain way, they were liable to win a prize - and I was one of the winners!! YIPPEE!!! I won 6 vouchers to spend in the shop during the month of December with the value of 60,000 Ugandan shillings. I love surprises! And I love to win vouchers! So it made the sting of the high cost of shopping suddenly seem insignificant :-)

While the staff sorted out my vouchers, I was given a chair to sit on and one of the staff came to chat to me. I was made to feel like a prized customer as I sat on my high stool observing the other customers checking out in the normal fashion!

I was duly presented with my vouchers by the bank representative- Mr. "Swipe and Win".

I felt very excited!! It's not every day one receives a surprise win- and it made my morning!

The Kampala "Marathon"

This weekend, one of Uganda's largest mobile phone companies, MTN, sponsored a marathon to raise money for two worthy causes, as quoted on their website below:

1. To reduce exposure of school children to cancer caused by carcinogens in asbestos roofing of public schools.
2. To improve maternal health through providing better facilities in Kiswa and Komamboga health care centres.

A few of us from MAF Uganda joined together as a team to take part in the fun! There were options to run 21km, 42km- or 10km.

Most of us on the MAF team only opted for the 10km run... along with THOUSANDS of other participants!!!

To get an idea of how many people we were, there are some great photos on a local newspaper's website- follow this link:

https://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1465961/pictures-thousands-grace-mtn-kampala-marathon

It was 6am when I set off with our night guard to walk the short but dark distance to a nearby garage to meet up with some of our fellow MAF-team runners.

As the sun came up, we climbed into a friend's minibus and set off to the race starting point in town:

We were dropped off by another friend and walked to the Kololo airstrip where an impressively organised venue had been set up for the race start and finish.

There was time for some group pictures as we congregated:

A few of us ladies also took time to make a quick visit to the less-than-desirable toilets! We took turns to hold the doors of the long-drop loos for one another whilst trying not to pass out from the stink that emanated from the general area!

Soon all the 10 km race runners were being called to order by booming voices bursting from loud- speakers on one of the giant stages.

We made our way into the throng of runners- and I mean throng!  It was not easy to stay together. We often had to grab each other's hands to stop ourselves being swallowed up in the thousands which made up our crowd of participants.

Suddenly...
... we were off!!! However, with so many thousands of runners it was a slow start, as we struggled to find space to move independently!!

We were immersed in a SEA of yellow and blue, as all runners had been kitted out in MTN yellow running tops and caps. 

However, we MAF-ers ditched the MTN caps and wore MAF hats!

Once we were able to get going, I tucked away my phone and therefore my camera and we set off for 10 km of running, up and down Kampala's hills. It was already getting hot by 7:30am! Thankfully, there were a couple of water stations en route where bottled water was handed out- WONDERFUL relief!!

It was around an hour later when some of us crossed the finish line. We found our speedier team-mates already relaxing on a grassy patch of  Kololo airstrip, enjoying the shade of a tree! 

We joined them for some victory photos, but those pictures really are so terribly unflattering (with our red, shiny, sweaty faces!!)  that I will not be posting them here- because of my own vanity and out of respect for my team-mates!!

However, just to prove that we were still smiling at the end of the race, here is a photo from our ride home!

Our new baby!!!

Yesterday, an 8 Week Old joined our family....

Meet Harry- our new hairy friend!! We went as a family to collect him and bring him home across town in our car on Saturday morning:

Harry is our first ever dog as a family. We will be learning about how to raise a dog as Harry settles in!

Silver, our cat, is not overly impressed- when they first met he seemed to think that Harry was just passing through...

It's a bit of a shock to his system that Harry is here to stay!