a little update

hello hello...little update from uganda.

first of all, concerning the last post, of course i wasn't sad to see the back of the other guys =). It was seriously the illness, I was heavily under the weather for a good few days.

The last few days have had a strange vibe to em...it seems like people and uganda have opened up a bit more since the guys have left. I think that if you're in a group here u stay in a semi-closed environment, but when you're alone things open up more. Now people around here are more like 'where are your friends? in Belgium? cool, what you drinking?' My guess is that they disliked Gert-jans face...but who can blame them =). It also seems like some of the less positive aspects have shown themselves since the guys have left - once or twice we've encountered racial slurs from people passing by shouting something like 'WHITES OUT'..these people probably think that we're just touristsm not realizing that we're actually here to help out their communities. I also stood on an infant cobra yesterday...people who know me know that I'm not a fan of snakes. I moved pretty fast.

This week we've been going on location for the day with overland volunteers which is basic but fun work. You're still around all the children, still refurbishing schools but also meet people from all over the place. I also have to organize sponsors for a cycle marathon that soft power organizes. Thios is basically a charity event which is primarily aimed at receiving donations and offering prizes to local participants whom are sponsored.

Unfortunately I don't have that much time for an extended update, so here a quick lists of things NOT to do whilst in Uganda;

- don't eat roadside food ; done that
- don't drive in matatu's (suicide taxi's) ; done that
- don't take boda's (suicide mopeds) at night ; done that...a lot
- don't go with two on a boda; done that...a lot
- don't go with two on a boda at night; done that...a lot
- don't walk home 5 kilometers at 2 in the morning; done that
- don't go up to an armed gang and curse at them; i'm not that stupid.

will make sure that pictures follow soon, internet just sooo slow here.(and sorry for the lack of softpower-related information. will make sure that more follows this week with relevant photo material).

So till next time I suppose!!

The Back-home-syndrome.

For 3 of the 4 expedition members the trip ended early this morning when the plane re-entered belgian airspace and we finally set foot on belgian soil at 6h30 this morning after an 8hour flight back from entebbe.

two days before leaving we met up with shawn one last time and wished him the best of luck for the following two remaining months he was left in the pearl of africa. shawn looked a bit sad but it can also be his sickness.( shawn felt a little sick the last few days. thank god it was nottin bad)

As for Lio, Gert-jan and Benj, the trip was almost over. after we left murchinson falls national park on wednesday, we had to spend most of thursday in the kampalan taxi-park cuz benj forgot his painting in the murchinson. after four long hours of waitin and refusing tons of local fake gucci or armani wallets the painting finally made it to kampala.(thank u yebo & richi)

now that we have mentioned murchinson, that trip was really nice. we finally got to see some real african wildlife such as the lion and the elephant. it's hard to put in words, just believe us when we say it was really worth it.

after all of this we had just one last trip before returning to the european pearl wich we all call home=> Belgium.(still no gov ey?). just one more day to fill and we agreed we'd spend it in entebbe.

entebbe. what to say about entebbe, after walking around the taxi park in the mornin we decided to try out the zoo. much to our surprise we had to pay five times the price of a local's entry fee becauze we were white!!! bye bye zoo hello botanical gardens. no entry fee here cuz we snuk in trough victoria lake. the gardens are pretty nice. lots of old trees to see and there are a monkeys runnin around wich gives it a little safari touch. much to our regret we ad about enough of the gardens after an hour wich left us with nothin more then pay the stupid admission price to the zoo. but thank to Gert-jan's trading skillz we reduced our entry fees to only three times the local fee.

we should also mention that friday was i think th end of the muslim fasting periode. they celebrated this with a huge get together in the zoo. lots of people in the zoo that friday and when we left at around 5-ish there was still a huge cue waitin to get in.

after that we just packed all our stuff and left for the airport.

little factbook:

We saw our first traffic accident today. some lady left a junction made a u turn and crashed her car into a wall. strange , very strange.

gert-jan got hit by a car just a few hours before we left uganda. he got hit by a car while we were walkin back home from the zoo. the lady that hit him apoligized. we had her arrested and she is now waiting for her sentence.

Thank u for supporting us and helping raise money for the softpower mission. we cashed in a total of just over 3million ug-$ or somethin like 1400 euros.

the gertjan story is true, but we didn't have her arrested. we just gave her the mean look and walked away after cursing some dutch swear words.

Kampala by Night

Jambo mzungus.

So we left shawny behind in search for some big pussy-cats. Before we actuall said our goodbyes to our fellow compadre who is staying for two more months we went to a belgian party in kampala. The party was a little posh and very closed to outsiders but we didn't mind cuz they served leffe and hoegaarden and best off all buffet with real MAYO!!!

As for Kampala, it will never be a city benjamin will enjoy. First afternoon off todlin around searchin for the belgian party benjamin got hit by a car. The policeman standin 2metres away from him didn't really mind and so the driver of the green toyota corona did a little britney or paris.(hit 'n run).

After the belgian Party the threesome bein ben, g-j and lio decidd it was time for a little kampala nightlife. Hooray for prostitutes in kampala. they are everywhere in every decent pub and they only cost 2500ugandan shillings wich is like 1 euro. god we love this country.

Our place to stay in kampala is the lovely fiance hotel, wich is actually somekind of whore-house i think but we didnt mind cuz beside the leaking shower and the noise of the fan( wich is about to fall off )and street the beds are a welcome cange from the tent.

But i search of the pussycats we had to leave Kampala and head north-west to masindi. The means of transportation was the bus or as one might call it "the madmann from hell drivin way to fast in a overcrowded bus and i was happy i slept most of the time"-vehicle.

Tommorow we head in to Murchinson national park in search for Real african animals cuz all we have seen so far are bats, heeps of insects and monkeys.

gotta go now... hope to update soon again.

ps: no prostitutes were hurt during our stay in kampala and nobody cracked for their charmes.

still no sign of the driver that crashed into benjamim, a nation wide search was started yesterday.

the bus was really scary

benjamin is fine, he is just no very keen on the ugandan traffic.

alrighty, quick recap of what happened last week as we have to head to kampala to sample some belgian beer at some belgian event;

- went on location again where we continued painting the school. shitloaaaaaaads of bats at night, basically ur lying there in the pitchdark with the squeaking of bats and the batting sounds of their wings all over the place. also, when u switch on a light chances are they whoosh straight over ur head. quite interesting.

- we painted little kids. literally; drove them into a corner and painted them when they were being a pain in the ass =)

- we took a late night stroll into a local village. quite the sight, everything is lit with lanterns and the whole place comes alive. people selling their agricultural produce etc as they have to work during the day. shitty part tho, as soon as they see the mzungus there a company of 50 follows you back home asking for everything ranging from your socks to your mothers.

- a canadian couple joined us for 2 days on location, nice people, fun to have new ppl there as well etc.

- one of the teachers was trying to hook up his sister with lio. obviously to get passage to europe. lio successfully got rid of him by saying that he was engaged.
shawn went to the teacher however and told him that lio was very interested in his sister. lio was screwed the remaining days.

th9is computer is f-ing up, will update later

Intermezzo

Quick intermezzo before we go on location again tomorrow;

- the cows we mentioned in our previous post. lio showed off his amazing footballing skills by running cross field with the ball and then hitting a cow's ass with his first kick of the game. the loud 'MOOOOOO' was obviously cheered on by tonnes of children.

- Turns out its best we didnt go to volunteer at lake albert. Cuz of the oil that's been discovered 6 Europeans/Americans have been involved in violence related issues, amongst which gunfights and deaths.

- power works like 50% of the time

- there was a near fight in one of the bars the other day. seemed to be a bit of racial tension.

- we had dinner in a local scouts place yesterday, there was also a dayparty for teenagers as a 'last party' before headin to exams. it ended at dusk to prevent the teenagers playing naughty little games with each other in the dark. so no nookie for them!

- floods everywhere in uganda, here the water level rises a bit makin extra cool white water rafting

we're goin on location tomorrow, so update friday or saturday!! check you later!

second week update

Long Drop also known as LD: Small hole size of brick in a small confined space in Uganda they call this a toilet.

We left on monday to a school called Buzoona (or something like that) for our first 'location' trip. A locatipon trip is where one goes to one of the schools which needs refurbishment and stays on site. On site in Uganda is an empty classroom, a few mattrasses on the ground and pretty much nothing else.

We heard that the group before us encountered a black mamba on location in their sleeping bag, an occurrence which obviously put us all at incredible ease. I mean, black mambas, thats only paralysis and pretty certain death. As you all know we're die hard adventurers this didn't bother us at all...*ahum*

But yeah, no encounters with black mambas, no encounters with man-sized spiders, only shitloads of bats which swirled around our room all night. That's where u hope that their 'radar-function' is still operative.

The school itself; about 800 children in what one could call dire poverty. The strange thing is; as everyone lives in the same conditions it doesn't affect us too much. When we arrived all the children surrounded us and shouted the same ol' 'MZUNGU MZUNGU' and then we started painting. During breaks we played football with the children with two balls that we brought along. This put the kids in a form of ecstacy as their previous ball was a rag plastic and newspaper. They kept asking us for money but a few words in local language (DJA! - go away \ KOMALELO - stop today!) kept them at bay. Not to mention a few well placed smashes on the ground with a long stick by Benjamin.

During painting one of the children came to Shawn and asked him to come with to one of the classrooms. Benjamin and Lio joined and there we taught the children to count to 10 in various languages...whilst the children revelled at hearing us screw up their local language. Coming to think of it, these children are sadistic little bastards. Every time one of us fell on the football field (which is weed infested and as even as the mont blanc with three cows grazing it) our fall was greeted with lkoud cheers of just about 200-300 children watching....little bastards. We'll teach em when we get back...*ahum*

Furthermore, theyre not too used to seeing whities. Local children brought a 1-2 year old girl whom had never seen a white person to Shawn...imagine the look of a pig in a slaughterhouse when a man walks up with a huge axe.

We got back to basecamp today where we are hugging the western toilets and staring blankly at fridges filled up with cold drinks - read- beer.

Monday we're going back on site where we are sure that we'll be greeted again by children dressed in rags, living in dire conditions, having absolutely nothing - yet strangely enough; very happy to see and hang with mzungus.

Pictures are still on its way, once we find a solution to Benjamin's stupidity in forgetting the transfer cable.

We'll blog again this weekend!

ps; gert-jan has sun problems- his head was heavily burnt after a few days. His forehead resembles a mix between an 104 year old man and frankenstein. pictures to follow.

The first days...

Ahalrighty...3 days into our Ugandan adventure and here are some of our main impressions so far. As we only have 9 minutes left on a prehistoric 1k per second internet connection i'll get down to business;

1) Our basecamp is located in Bujangali, right at the start of the river Nile. The nature is absolutely fantastic and amazing and a whole bunch of synonims like it...once we find a computer on which we can upload pics we'll show u what we mean.

2) MZUNGU. MZUNGU. MZUNGU. Everyone calls us mzungu, meaning white man. as soon as children spot us they get into an overexcited frenzy, sprint to their friends and suddenly a chorus of 'MZUNGUS!!!!!' is heard all the way to Kenya. Picture material will also follow.

3) A gang of suicidal guys are outside our basecamp at all times on pre-communist mopeds offering us a ride into jinja town for 2500 shillings ( 1 euro)...it was interesting. shawn almost lost a flipflop. lio seemed to dig it. gert-jan went up hills at 40meters/hour and benjamin has it allon camera.

4) food is cheap...picture material to follow

5) i'm waiting for pics to fully expain our experiences so far with the local children.

Coming to think of itm this is a prertty worthless post. Plus I'm getting stressed with only 3 minutes to go on this damn timer. So this is mostl;y a sign that we have not forgotten about the blog and will update it as often as possible!!

And do excuse the type-o's. This keyboard lives a life of its own.

Early mornin action.

Morgenvroeg is het zover en vertrekken we richting de republiek van Oeganda of zoals ze het zelf zeggen Jamhuri ya Uganda. De koffers zijn gepakt (of dat hoop ik toch) en morgen vertrekken de vier helden richting de oevers van Lake victoria.
Wat gaan we daar doen? Awel, we gaan daar vanalles doen.
We gaan in jinja de organisatie softpower education helpen met een van hun projecten.
Dat kan gaan van restauratie van de huidige infrastructuur tot effectief nieuwe infrastructuur bouwen, maar ook lesgeven en sportactiviteiten organiseren zal een van onze taken zijn.
Op hun website kun je uitgebreid lezen wat ze precies allemaal doen.

soit, de vlucht vertrekt dus om 10h40 en de vier helden van dit epos hebben rond 8h30 afgesproken.
veel valt er verders hieromtrent niet te zeggen dus ga ik gewoon slapen nu.

Slaap wel allemaal en tot de volgende eerste echte uganda update.

Benja,

Test

Just checkin.

Looks like its workin.

Cheerio.