Happy Holidays

With Hannukah beginning this evening and Christmas just two weeks away I am really getting into the holiday mood:)  It may also have to do with the fact that I leave Kampala on Sunday to start my 4-week Southern Africa Adventure!  I will meet the group on Wednesday at Victoria Falls and we will travel in an overland truck through Botswana and Namibia to Cape Town.  Christmas will be spent in Etosha National Park (Namibia) and New Year's Eve will be in the famous sand dunes of Namibia.


Christmas in Kampala has only a bit of the commercial feel of North American Christmas'.  One of the grocery stores is decorated and I did hear Christmas music in a shop yesterday but there are not as many decorations as I am used to.  I think that the holiday is still much more religious than commercial here.  I asked Elvis, one of the RTP drivers, if there put reindeer out here - he had no clue what I was talking about.  In fact he didn't know who Santa Claus was!!!  Here it is only Father Christmas.


While I am excited to set out on my adventure it is bittersweet - I must admit I will miss Kampala and my apartment while I am gone - but the Holidays also mean that friends will leave Kampala for good.  Tonight will be the last night out with Anthony, who has been working at RTP for the past few months.  He was part of a pretty cool Deloitte program that allowed employees to take a leave of absence and volunteer - he ended up here:)  Also leaving will be our Danish friend Martin who on more than one occasion has saved me from an evening of conversation in Norwegian and Swedish which I just don't understand! (the Norwegians and Swedes understand each other but Danish is too different so they will switch to English.) While it is sad to say good bye to new friends it is common here and I anticipate that there will be many new faces when I return to the Kampala scene in January.


For now - farewell, happy holidays and all that jazz.  I may be able to do some brief posts from my Blackberry as I travel but there will be plenty of pictures come January.  Wherever you are spending the next few weeks - enjoy...I know I will:)