Another two weeks have passed by super fast and now it’s Saturday night, my rock and roll lifestyle means that I’m home about to watch a movie with my housemates before being in bed by about 9.30! The past two weeks have had their moments with royal weddings, job applications, staff trainings and trying to do hundreds of things. I managed a couple of days at work last week before taking Thursday off to work from home and Friday for the royal wedding. The day didn’t begin quite as planned and instead became a bit of an adventure. I was going to my friend’s house for about midday (10am UK) to watch all the lead up etc and so I went to town and ordered a couple of pizza and snacks and while they were cooking got a big smoothie and sat reading a book. About 11.10 my housemate Jo texted who was on the way back from the airport saying that as they arrived in Kampala, riots had broken out and they had had to take refuge in a motel while tear gas and bullets were going on around them. They couldn’t move for a couple of hours and even when they finally got on the road they still had to get through lots of chaos. So I was sat in Mbale reading this thinking how glad I was to be in quiet Mbale when the cafe owners went, ‘trouble has just started up the road and there’ll be tear gas in a moment’. So they started locking the doors and barricading us all in. I looked out and there were people running up the roads and then there would be calm and then running again – very weird. My food was nearly ready but I didn’t want to be locked in for hours and miss the wedding so I stood trying to work out what to do. Then we heard the canon that lets off tear gas (very deep booming sound) and people running again. Very strange sense of confusion, panic but also uncertainty about what was going to happen next. About a minute after tear gas you got this horrible smell of mouldy egg but at least I didn’t get painful eyes or throat which my friend’s in Kampala now know all too well. In the end I got one of my two pizzas, a guy from the cafe ran and found me a bike and I jumped on and went fast in the opposite direction from the trouble. Very strange though as there were groups of people all through town almost waiting for trouble. Got to my friend’s to find her parent’s had had to close their shop so were joining us to watch the wedding which was nice. All afternoon they were getting messages from folks still there saying bullets were being fired and stuff being burnt everywhere. Lots of chaos. When Jo finally made it back to Mbale she said the place looked devastated with rocks and broken stuff everywhere. We didn’t hear anything else but all a bit crazy. We were then told that we should expect trouble the next morning as well but we had absolutely no food in the house so we needed to move at some point. We decided in the end that because we were almost out of tea bags we would brave the riots and tear gas and go shopping – how very British! Oddly we were told late in the day that World Vision have pulled all their expat staff out of Uganda because of the trouble. Looks like Brits are made of sterner stuff as we all think it’s ridiculous!
So the royal wedding was watched with americans and palestinians and involved me explaining quite a lot about British culture and the crazy way we do things. Got a bit homesick seeing London especially as it looked sunny and we’re now having rain. Nice day though and very glad I took time off to watch it even if my Irish boss thought I was mad!
My biggest acheivement in the past two weeks is probably sitting through and understanding a training session on finance for NGOs! I now know what cash flow is and charts of accounts. Pretty impressive I think!
Other than those exciting things my week has looked pretty normal and so now it’s time to begin our film and eat the cake that I just made and decorated with Christmas toppings for want of anything else! Who says you can’t eat a snowman cake in May…
Your biggest achievement in last 2 weeks was understanding finance for NGOs training session? Sounds to me like that should read braving tear gas and riots to shop for tea bags! Pleased you’re safe and OK with all that’s been going on. God bless.