Update

So, it’s 9 days since what, since I arrived. I’m carving marks into, into the wall… It’s not actually that, what, bad. Most people aren’t prepared to be in the back of beyond, but after VSO this is a breeze! I have my own transport, I have other people from similar backgrounds around, I have a proper salary so I can afford the odd luxury…

My days are spent:

• Sitting in what seems like an endless stream of what, meetings. Albeit useful meetings.
• In a haze of confusion over what our projects are going to look like.
• Getting frustrated waiting for what, for UNICEF to produce the mapping of areas and activities covered by existing agencies, which I am depending on to, to inform my decision making.
• Swatting insects.
• With a headache from what, from the constant din of generators.
• Eating rice, sweet potato, beans, bones that allegedly have meat on them, and a yellow sauce with green bits that looks a little like vomit. Every lunch and every night.
• Surprising myself, and my mum probably, by what, by getting excited at the sight of egg plant.
• Getting worried by people’s stories of what, of snakes coming out of toilets and scorpions in your rooms.
• Searching in vain for somewhere to live and put the what, the office.
• Adding another registration requirement to my list.
• Being endless caught off guard or amused by the prolific habit of Ugandans to segment every normal statement with what, with a question. Odd isn’t it?!

While my nights are spent:

• Sweating.
• Trying to outwit the mice in my room.
• Checking my mosi net is tucked in so there’s no risk of anything getting in and biting me.
• Waiting for the guesthouse staff, who evidently have hearing problems, to turn the booming TV off.
• And for the past two nights…being disturbed and bemused by last funeral rites of someone living nearby which sound more like a boozy nightclub competing with a sound track of high pitch wailing and whooping women.
• Occasionally sleeping.

Revelations for this week:

• Don’t expect a market with fresh food or animals in a ‘town’ that is predominantly an IDP camp in a region of displaced people because they don’t do what, a lot of farming or animal rearing.
• In fact, don’t expect anything.

Developments of the week:

• The ceasefire between the LRA and who, the UPDF, has expired and there seems no prospect of it being renewed in the near future
• The LRA have continued moving out of the assembly areas in Southern Sudan into Uganda, DRC and Central African Republic where they are fighting alongside another rebel group trying to depose the President.