Out of the Village

I have moved to a new flat in Kampala. A new flat and new neighborhood on the opposite side of town. I have to say it is a nice switch, though I do miss Kasubi, “the village”, from time to time. Some would say I’ve “upgraded”, though looking at the outside of our complex sometimes makes me feel like I’m in an episode of The Wire, or living in some of the Soviet housing imposed by Khrushchev (though these flats are shorter). I’m still waiting for Bubbles to walk up to me one of these days and say something to me while twitching. Hasn’t happened yet.  

Bugolobi is a “nicer” area of town. I have to say I am still overly excited about the fact that there’s grass here (no grass in Kasubi) which translates into less dust, the roads are better, it is more conveniently located for me which means I have to take transport a bit less BUT the boda drivers here are stubborn and often overcharge quite a bit (though I’m breaking some of them in), and there are a ton of Maribu storks, my favorite bird recently re-named as the trashodactyl because they eat trash and kind of look like a pterodactyl. They follow closely behind me every time I take our garbage out to the dump and one of these days there may be a scuffle.  I have yet to determine who I think might win.

There is a nice restaurant/bar/art gallery place within walking distance of my new home which I am kind of obsessed with. My wireless modem works like a dream (ok, pages load most of the time) from there, the food is quite good and the staff is nice. There is one waiter who thinks I’m weird because I don’t put sugar in my coffee (he asked if I was sick, as in diabetic) and laughs every time he hears me spelling something in Luganda or the name of a Ugandan town even though I’m generally right (this happens more than you would think…me spelling these things out for people).

The flat itself is nice. It’s newly redone on the inside, has two toilet rooms, a bathroom with a bath tub which is just brilliant (I bought bubble bath before buying a broom), a laundry room (also brilliant), a nice kitchen with tons of cabinet space, a dining room (next big purchase…..table and chairs), a HUGE living room with one wall that is all window that opens up into an enclosed porch of sorts, and three bedrooms.   OH!  How could I forget?!  The bedrooms have closets!  This is the first place I have lived in Uganda that has closets and I’m possibly waaaaay too happy about this but it makes my mild OCD a bit easier to deal with. Downside….the thing that disturbs my OCD, is the walls are made of cement. I can’t get anything into them. I have masonry nails and everything and it just dulls them down and sometimes leave a big hunk in the wall. I tried to bring my drill with masonry bits back from the US but it wouldn’t fit in my suitcase and I had already sacrificed my dancing hip-hop frog that sings 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” and dances on two trips back to UG so this time it was him or the drill and I chose the dancing frog with lots of bling. I have to say, the frog makes me happy on a daily basis. But power tools bring a lot of joy to my life as well.  Hmmmm.  Dad, any suggestions?  But all in all it is pretty fantastic. I will get my Russian Orthodox icons and Molly Murphy paintings and pen and inks up in no time. No time at all.

Once everything has its place and my walls are covered with beautiful batiks, prints, paintings, icons and Obama kangas I will take some photos and post them. Promise.

I have to say, staying in Kasubi was good for sure. I felt like I was actually in Uganda. Now I’m half in half out…experiencing mild culture shock. It’s good that I now know I could never live in one of the “fancy” neighborhoods like Kololo (where a lot of ambassadors live) because I will likely never be able to afford that kind of bougie lifestyle and the village seemed to have helped me not desire it.  Good, good.