play = smiles

One of the best parts of my time in Uganda have been the days when I have had the opportunity to visit the field and see the children play.  Even before you see the smiles on their faces you can hear the sound of joy.  (I have taken some video that I will share when i am back in Toronto....with faster internet!)


Over the past week, while I did not end up in Ethiopia, I did end up making two field visits. The first was to see our Junior Leaders lead activities and the second was to visit ECD centres where the leaders are using puppets to help lead discussions with 2 - 6 year olds.  In between I had a good night out of play.  All in all it was an important reminder that playing leads to smiles and happiness.

So, I just love the t-shirts that many of the children have at Kampala schools!

Dauphine - one of our amazing Junior Leaders

Children watching the action

group of girls waiting for their turn at a rugby clinic

(it was pretty cool that there was a rugby clinic taking place along-side the RTP activities)

rugby clinic

Trude, Sonia & me at Cayenne - play-time for us!

Sonia & Magnus

Thomas, Magnus & me

Back to the field

(another great shirt!!)

children walked with the beanbags and if it dropped they waited for another child to help them

The head was easy compared to the chest!

cute toothless smile

cooling down

warming up at the next school

game time

contrast between the child in school and the one at home across the road

smiles

best buddies

unsure of the mzungu with the camera

JOY

Excitement is building with the kick-off of the World Cup tomorrow!  On Saturday I will go white water rafting and will need to get rested in time for the England - US Kick-off.  (Sorry Dad - I will be in my England Jersey!!)

Caroline graduated last week and today is Emily's graduation!  Congratulations!!

Football Friday Celebrations

My three night / four day stint in Joburg was a bit of a whirlwind.  I started off exhausted enough to leave my passport in the forex and never quite fully recovered.  That being said it was an overall successful trip.

it wasn't the ice cream that made it a success - but haagen-dazs does make me smile!!

The purpose of my trip was to build on the UAM partnership sessions that had taken place the week before in Kampala.  We worked on country strategies and discussed some of the upcoming events where UAM will be featured.  Particularly exciting was the announcement that Brazil would travel to Tanzania to play their final pre-World Cup fixture and the game would be dedicated to UAM!!

View from the meeting room

Sandton - a Joburg Suburb

On Friday Standard Bank (known as Stanbic in much of Africa) hosted a UAM Partner's lunch.  They really pulled out all the stops and it was a great success.  Driving into downtown Joburg to get to the lunch you could really see the World Cup spirit.  It really was 'Football Friday' and almost everyone was in a football jersey - mostly supporting Bafana Bafana (South Africa).  Cars are also decorated with window flags as well as mirror covers.

Giant UAM Bracelet made on Big Brother Africa

(bracelets are being sold for $3 at Nando's across South Africa and will soon be available online - they are made by a women's group in the Kaelisha Township outside of Capetown.  $1 goes to the women, $1 to the Global Fund and $1 for materials)

Standard brought in a group to teach us all the 'Disky Dance'

I won first prize in the contest - a signed Abedi Pele Jersey

They are shipping it home for me....

Group shot of the core UAM team

On Friday night we went for dinner outside of Sandton which was really nice.  Admittedly in three visits to Joburg I had never really left this area which is dominated by Nelson Mandela Square and the Santon City Shopping Centre.  It was great to see that there are actually some real communities where people wander around and there are shops etc.  I know, it sounds silly but with the reputation of Joburg I hadn't realized that these areas existed.

Saturday morning did not start off well.  I went to pay for my hotel with my 'BidVest' visa. This is something that they are offering when you change money - they load it onto a card so that you don't have to carry the cash around.  From a safety stand point this makes sense.  I must admit I fell for the gimmick of it all and the idea of having a world cup visa so loaded R4000.  Well what wasn't made clear to me was that you had to keep R20 on the card so as we tried to process my hotel bill it was declined over and over again.  The hotel called and they said there should be no problem....so we tried again and declined.  We called again and were told about the R20 so they told us to process R3980 and it was still declined.  Upon calling again we discovered that for each time the card was declined I was billed R5 + a R1.5 transaction fee!!!  I was not pleased at all but 25 minutes later my bill was paid and I was en route to the airport.

When we got to the airport (I was traveling with a Ugandan colleague) there was a giant line to checkin for our Kenyan Airways flight.  Luckily they had little terminals that could be used.  Upon printing my boarding pass I discovered our flight was 2 hours delayed and we would miss the connection in Nairobi.  This would mean a 4.5 hour wait in Nairobi provided we could get onto the late flight and would arrived back in Entebbe at midnight!  This was not acceptable to me.  

It used to embarrass me when my parents would make a scene about things at the airport (well truthfully it still does sometimes) but they have managed to get us bumped to business class before.  Well I called on those skills and began to make my complaint and my request for them to switch us to the direct South African Airlines flight.  After speaking to three people I was put on the phone with the manager who insisted nothing could be done...but also told me to go back to ticketing to find out what it would cost.  At this point I was feeling pretty hopeless and a bit embarrassed about making such fuss in front of a colleague.  BUT when we got to ticketing the changes us both to SAA at no charge!!  The bonus for me is aeroplan miles and I ended up in the first row behind business class but still in a business class seat!!

I made it back to Kampala just in time to get to dinner!  Sunday afternoon I went to see SATC2 - I must admit the wardrobes seemed a bit extravagant and outrageous.  The power went out in the middle of the movie so that made what was already a fairly long movie even longer.  Still liked it though:)

Happy Graduation to Care today!!!

15 Days pre-World Cup

Today was a long day of travel!  I left my apartments at 3am (2am SA time) and set off for Joburg.  It was quite exciting to see that the main road towards my apartment has been fixed...and by fixed I mean they have added huge piles of dirt and smoothed out most of the giant potholes!!  


En route to the airport I realized that the data on my BB was not working - this is not too surprising as I am pretty sure that the network is down between 2am - 6am most days.  I had a smooth check-in and by 430 was half asleep on the plane waiting for take-off to Nairobi.  We arrived just before the sun came up but parked really, really, really far from the terminal.  This mean a 15 minute wait on the plane while waiting for the stairs and then a bus to arrive.  I had a quick run through the NBO airport and then sat down to wait to board the next flight.  It was another smooth flight but much longer and there were no tvs (personal or overhead) which was probably good so I could get some more rest.


As we approached Joburg I began to get excited - not only to see the prep for the World Cup but also to be in a 'real' city!  The difference is noticed almost right away - when getting off the plane you don't go outside.  That being said shortly thereafter I was brought back out of my bubble and realized that yes - I am still in Africa.  The power went out!!  This caused all sorts of issues from people not being able to get their bags (luckily I had only carry-on) to not being able to change money to not being able to exit the parking lot!


For me it all worked out and by shortly after noon I had arrived at the hotel and was ready to head to Nelson Mandela Square and the Sandton Mall for a little bit of shopping.  While there the exhaustion from the early flight set in.  I wandered in search of a Football Jersey as that is the attire for the lunch I am attending on Friday.  I had decided if I was going to spend close to $100 on a football jersey it had to be a team that would make it to the second round (not knowing much about the teams I assume the US won't make it so ruled them out!).  I also wanted a nice colour and this ruled out South Africa and Brazil as I didn't want to be in fluorescent yellow.  I decided to try on England, Spain and Argentina jerseys and decided to support England because it was the best fit!!


I was once again reminded about the kindness in Joburg today - in my state of exhaustion I left my passport at the place I changed money - shortly after my return to the hotel I received a call from them to come pick it up!!  I am not even sure they knew exactly where I was staying but they found me!!  I am lucky:)

The beginning of the end...

The excitement/ planning started in the middle of last week.  Over the past five months I have hung out with a core group of 5 (Janet, Sonia, Trude, Peter & Thomas) and all have hosted dinners.  At one of the very first dinners Thomas volunteered to cook one evening....well that had yet to happen and we decided it was his turn.  (Note: I never committed or suggested that I would host as there just isn't enough space in my apartment....I just planned to help Thomas!).  On Wednesday I sent out the invitations for dinner Saturday and quickly the dinner grew from 6 people to 9.  On Thursday Thomas found out he would have to travel to Zambia...leaving for the airport at 230am on Sunday morning...not ideal but he said the dinner would still happen.


Now neither of us are big into cooking so there were some arrangements to make.  Thomas had decided to cook a dish he used to eat in Tanzania and we would need re-fried beans and chapatti.  We spoke to our drivers and colleagues and he found a place to buy the beans and found someone to make the chapatti.  I had decided to make a greek salad and gingerbread (I had been looking for an occasion to make it since US Thanksgiving!).  By Friday night we were set, had bought all the ingredients and had a preparation plan - I would make the gingerbread in the morning and then head to Thomas' at 430 to cut all the required veggies for the salad and entree. 


But then Saturday morning came and TIA!!

11am - My kitchen - getting ready to make Gingerbread (remember that I had wanted to make this since late November...when I bought the flour!)

330 pm - fresh start to making gingerbread.  Note the black shopping bag with new, non bug-infested flour

mixing ingredients and carefully following the instructions from my Dad

mixing in the flour and water

finished pre-baked product

5pm - Thomas prepping in my Kitchen

(His flat lost power at 10am and it had not returned so we had to move the dinner!!!)

yummy salad

chapatti and beans

prepping the food

(it was chapatti baked with beans, veggies and cheese and then topped with guac)

the crew in the living room...with some extra borrowed chairs

Trude, Janet, Dada and Sonia

Thomas and Peter 

So even with the TIA issues dinner was a success - that is the great thing about Africa...it seems that somehow everything works out....just not always as planned.

This week was a busy one - I booked my ticket to Ethiopia (this took half a day!) and I spent two days participating in a workshop on partnership building!  There were some great ideas and I am excited to continue the discussion in Joburg next week.

In planning for the dinner and over the past week I really realized that it is the beginning of the end.  While I am not sure when I will leave many of my friends will head to their respective homes over the next 5 weeks.  We have already had to book a final farewell dinner for June 10 as the departures will begin.  While I must admit that I am excited to go home it is a bit sad to see the time come to an end.  It really hit home with the arrival of Janet's boyfriend Scott - we had a dinner last night and today they head on an African Adventure.  Sonia and I will meet up with them at the Entebbe airport when we return from Ethiopia....but it really means time here as I have grown accustomed to it is coming to an end.

Janet & Scott

me & Trude

Sonia & Janet

I know that I will enjoy and treasure the rest of my time in Kampala (and Joburg and Ethiopia) and will keep you all posted on my return.

Best wishes this weekend to my cousin Daniel and Marika who are getting married tomorrow!!  Sorry that I cannot be there to help you celebrate.

Not much new....

Not much new to report in Kla but I figured it was best I posted something before I heard about it from my mom!


The rest of my week in Dar was good.  While I didn't actually get to go to WEF it was still pretty cool to be on the periphery of it and to feel the energy and excitement.  I did go to a WEF party - there seem to be a lot of them and I am guessing that this is where many of the connections are made.  This was the first time Africa WEF was held outside of South Africa and though I think the organizers faced a whole new set of challenges I hope that they continue to explore venues outside of Cape Town in the future.

A Bajaj in the rain

Flooded Road

This was the main road to the office - traffic was only a bit worse than normal!

Not a great pic - but they had a raised path to get from the truck to the store

En route to the airport

more traffic

Cyclist along the road to the airport

I was home just in time for the weekend and to catch up with some friends.  We had a great dinner of Korean food at Sonia and Janet's (unfortunately no pictures...but the food was really good!).  I also went to a house party - only my second this year.  It was quite something with a DJ and big bar.  I may have to wrangle invites to a few more of these before heading home.


Heading home....for those that are wondering I am not quite sure when that will be but will keep you posted.  I will still be working with RTP in a role at our Headquarters in Toronto.  All of the details are still a bit in the air and I am working on being patient (definitely a skill I have slowly but surely acquired this year).


Before I go home there are a few things that I have planned!  I am aiming to head to Northern Ethiopia for a week in June - if you have any tips let me know.  I had been contemplating it for a while but after seeing Angela's photos I decided it was a must do!  Luckily there are two public holidays in Uganda so I will take three vacation days and travel for a full week!  I also have to white water raft on the Nile.  I am hoping this will happen just after Ethiopia.


I heard there was snow in Toronto for Mother's Day....there is something crazy going on with the weather!  It is STILL raining in Kampala - it started in November!!  (That being said there are still some gorgeous days but the weather is pretty unpredictable so have haven't spent many weekends poolside).