Not so 'Raid on Entebbe'

This week I gave my lungs a well-earned treat and escaped Kampala for a day! I ventured out to Entebbe, the old colonial administrative capital of Uganda, which sits along the northwestern shoreline of Lake Victoria (pretty much on the equator). I must admit, as I sweated the 1 hour journey out - with my head virtually in someone's armpit - I did question how much of a treat the day trip was really going to be. But as soon as I disembarked the stuffy matatu (about 1/2 a mile too early - whoops) and felt the gentle breeze from the lake, I'm sure my shoulders visibly dropped in relaxation.

Section of Lake Victoria's shore

On recommendation from both my guide book and friends living here, the place to visit in Entebbe is the Botanical Gardens (where the first Tarzan film was shot!) After walking around in circles with an inaccurate map, a questionable sense of direction, and really unhelpful instructions from a Ugandan policeman, I finally made it to the entrance (which I then realised I had actually already passed twice)! The consequent sweat and desperate thirst was so worth it though; the Botanical Gardens are really quite something.

Botanical Gardens

Covering 16 ha with a 1.5-km stretch of lakeshore, the gardens were originally a natural forest used as research ground for the introduction of various exotic fruit and ornamental plants to Uganda. My favourite section was a small patch of virgin forest down close to the lake shore. 'Walking through this, you will experience lots of different noises and smells, and it's worth remembering that large areas of Uganda were once forested like this patch' (please excuse the lazy but inevitable quoting from my guide book).

Walking down to the virgin forest bit, looking for Tarzan...

After being on my feet all morning, I stopped for a coke and snack by the lake, and suddenly felt like I had been transported to yet another film set! I'm not sure what I was expecting, but for some reason I was surprised to see sand, swimmers and grass-roofed beach huts.

Beach of Lake Victoria

After a morning of beautiful trees, flowers and beaches, I thought the afternoon would be best spent catching up with some animals (to complete Phoebe's Day of Nature, Entebbe 2013). So I walked on to the Ugandan Wildlife Education Centre. UWEC was established in 1952 as an animal orphanage but today it is more of an education centre, replicating Uganda's ecological zones in miniature (i.e. savannah, wet lands, and tropical forest). Although more zoo-like than safari adventure, it is a really lovely place for kids and adults, Ugandans and foreigners, to learn about the natural world of Uganda, and meet her animals. I think the signage could do with reviewing though - whilst wondering though a relaxing woodland walk, my day-dream was disturbed when I came across a rather alarming sign 'you are now in the Leopard Zone. Look up as leopards like to climb trees'. That got my mind racing - have I somehow entered an enclosure? Where are the bloody fences!? (In fact, the leopards were not roaming free on the woodland walk, but in an enclosure much further ahead.)

Paul, one of the Chimpanzees at UWEC

After a lovely day spent entirely outside in the fresh air, I waited for a matatu and psyched myself up for the voyage home. At which point my skin started to feel a bit sensitive and I realised I had forgotten to put any sun cream on that day. Needless to say, I am no longer a mzungu. I'm not sure there is a African slang word for 'red person who used to be white, but is an absolute wally'.

‘Music to the Rescue!’

Communal area at MLISADA home

This week I visited a very special organisation called ‘MLISADA’ to meet 4 new violin pupils. MLISADA stands for Music, Life Skills, and Destitution alleviation, and its mission is to reduce the number of children living on the streets, and to provide opportunities to less privileged children in Kampala. The orphanage was started in 1996 by ‘Bosco’ and 7 of his fellow street children friends with the dream of starting their own brass band. As the MLISADA motto ‘Music to the Rescue’ suggests, music is at the heart of their organisation. As well providing shelter for around 80 former street children - with meals, basic health care, clothing, and schooling - MLISADA also give children music lessons and encourage them to join the MLISADA brass band, which perform at more than 100 functions a year. In addition to all the wonderful life skills the children learn from making music together, the brass band is also the orphanage’s main source of income. I highly recommend watching this short film, made by Musequality, featuring MLISADA. 
 

MLISADA brass band

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to experience the band in action at The Sheraton Hotel. Their performance was full of contagious fun, and all the players clearly loved the music they were performing (in particular, I distinctly remember the tuba player really enjoying Abba’s Super Trouper).  

Although MLISADA is best known for their brass band, since its beginning 17 years ago, their children can now also take lessons in ‘cultural dance’, acrobatics, and violin (cue me!) When I visited the orphanage on Thursday, my new violin students were not yet back from school so I waited in what seemed like a quiet area out of the way. Within 60 seconds I had a baby in my lap and about 10 young children climbing on me, stroking my intriguing skin, questioning where I was from and why I was there, playing with my hair and jewellery (note to self, tie hair up next time, and don’t wear accessories), and asking if I had come for ‘uncle Bosco’s birthday’ (I wondered why there were balloons everywhere!) They were all very sweet and welcoming.

Bosco, and a handful of MLISADA orphans

Finally, about an hour later - by which time I had attracted a crowd of about 40 children – the last handful of teenagers arrived back from school, from which four beaming girls came to introduce themselves to me as the violinists. They explained that they were given a few lessons last year by another visiting volunteer. One of them, Rebecca, asked me to teach her the happy birthday tune which she learned incredibly quickly. She then proceeded to perform it perfectly to Bosco and all the other children. Although the impromptu birthday party meant I couldn’t teach as planned, it was lovely to meet everyone, especially my very keen (and evidently musical) violin pupils.
 

Me and Rebecca (um, and a baby drinking coke? I'm pretty sure this was a joke for the camera!)

In what seems to have been a week full of celebration, it was also Ugandan Independence day on Wednesday. My host family threw a lovely garden party for the local neighbourhood. There was a delicious Ugandan lunch, music, children’s party games, plus we borrowed some violins from Kampala Music School so I could give some of the local children a taster violin lesson! 

Independence day party games

  
 Click here for more information about MLISADA.

'My name is not Mzungu'

Kampala Music School. Situated just north of the centre of Kampala, near the uptown area of Kololo

The last 2 weeks have been overwhelming. I knew moving to Kampala would be a challenge, but there is nothing here that resembles my life in London. Except music. I’m in the capital of Uganda for the next year, volunteering for ‘the centre of excellence in classical music in Uganda’ that is Kampala Music School. Work has been slow to start, but next week I will be thrown in to a full schedule of violin, viola and cello (!) teaching at KMS and also for their various outreach programmes. Meanwhile, I have been exploring this wild city, nicknamed ‘the city that never sleeps’ of Africa, trying to find my feet. (When I used this phrase on a friend the other day, he helpfully pointed out that my feet can be found on the end of my legs).

Kampala is set in seven hills and so there are some fantastic views to be found. The very centre of the city is quite modern, with sky scrapers, shopping malls, parks, and a National Theatre. Uphill from the centre is a very pleasant area with colonial style buildings and even a golf course (yes, in the city centre, with a main road running through!) By huge contrast, down the hill from the centre, things get incredibly hectic.... the roads are congested with matatus heading for the matatu park, the streets are lined with markets and stalls, and the general population seems to increase ten-fold.

View from Makindye hill

I’m staying in a calm, suburban area in Southern Kampala called Makindye (‘ma-chin-dyay’), which sits on top of a hill and is beautifully green. Unfortunately, though, it is on the opposite side of the city from Kampala Music School. My commute involves a matatu - misleadingly called ‘taxis’ here when in fact they are public buses - to the taxi park, a stressful walk through downtown (the roads are impossible to cross), then another taxi and another little walk. Particularly downtown, my fair skin attracts attention and rouses shouts of ‘Mazungu! Mazungu!’ which is mostly meant as friendly banter (I think) but can get irritating. This is clearly a common frustration with foreigners though, as I noticed you can buy fabric bracelets in the craft market, embroided ‘My name is not Mazungu’.

Other than accommodation, Kampala is an inexpensive place to live. The markets and roadside-sellers offer an abundance of fresh mangos, pineapples, passion fruits, avocados, and all things delicious, which are local of course. A bus in to town is between 10-20p, and for lunch at KMS, one can buy a huge plate of freshly cooked Ugandan food for just 95p!

My standard Ugandan lunch – matoke (boiled and mashed green plantain), rice, beans, greens, and ugali/ posho (maize meal). Sometimes, instead of beans, a sauce made from ground nuts (peanuts) is served

 Other things that are taking time to adjust to include:

• ‘African time’. I was kindly taken to a Ugandan wedding last week which started at 4pm, but most attendees - bridal party included - wandered in at about 6pm!

• Ugandan’s are very friendly, and they take their time greeting you, especially when you are meeting for the first time. Handshakes always go on for longer than I expect, and all conversations – even with a complete stranger whom you just want to ask directions – start with ‘how are you?’

• It’s hot - really hot - and apparently set to get hotter. I’m sweating more than I would in a bikram yoga class, and deodorant does nothing in this heat.

• The downpours. October-November (as well as March-April) are rainy seasons, which mean for about 1 hour of the day - usually when you’re least expecting it - the heavens open and the whole city comes to a standstill. It is perfectly acceptable to not turn up, or be late for work, because ‘it was raining’.

• Red earth. Which I actually love! But a lot of the roads are not surfaced in tarmac, so after a downpour, roads turn in to muddy swamps, and red rivers gush through the city. My new cream-coloured Havaianas flip-flops are unrecognisable.

• Marabou Storks (unofficial national bird of Uganda). These things are massive, and the sort of bird you might expect to see in a safari park. But yet here they are in Kampala, chilling out in the city centre trees. I just find them a bit creepy.

So before I sign off, just a quick word about language... Although most guide books state the national language is Swahili, in Kampala it is actually Luganda that is most commonly spoken (alongside English). It’s a really tricky language so I have only picked up two Luganda words so far, from listening to the lovely young family who are hosting me for the time-being. ‘Webale’ means thank you, which is obviously invaluable to know, and the only other word in my vocabulary is ‘su-su’, meaning wee-wee...