Good morning everyone,

On Saturday I had two Ugandan families for tea which we all enjoyed and they were on Muzungu time!

One Sunday I once invited a family to lunch after church, they told me 5 people would be coming at 2pm. I left church early to prepare the meal then waited for them to arrive, and waited, and waited. At 5pm a pickup came through the gate with 9 people on board Ugandan time! I had to quickly cook more rice, cut the chicken pieces in half etc. This is life in Uganda. When you are invited to a Ugandan home for a meal many times the host will only start cooking when everyone arrives as they never know how people will turn up so you have always to be prepared for a long wait, however the host will feed you snacks whilst you wait, sometimes you think they give you so much that you can think that is your meal. I have learnt to sit back, have plenty of time to spare and just enjoy the event. Ugandans are very hospitable people and give high importance on how they look after visitors and many times I have been told that I do not eat enough when with them but I just cannot physically eat all that they serve. I always remember being in a village where a small child in rags came up to me to give me a passion fruit, that is the nature of these people.

Ugandans eat a very high carbohydrate diet, little meat and practically no vegetables. The soil is so fertile here that greens grow wild, the culture has grown up believing that if you eat greens you are poor as they are so plentiful and nobody wants to be labelled poor. The meal will consist of more than 2 different types of carbohydrates sometimes 5 /6, I cooked 2 types for my Ugandan visitors at the weekend and realised that my tiny kitchen is totally inadequate for cooking a varied menu. I went on the hunt for some form of work surface to put on my kitchen verandah to ease the burden of where to place all the crockery needed for such a meal, yes I have a verandah outside my kitchen, the space would be more effective inside the kitchen.  Ugandans mainly cook outside on charcoal stoves so when they build houses to rent to Muzungus kitchen space is not a high priority.

As I have mentioned I went on the hunt for extra work surface to put on the verandah, nothing is that straight forward in  Uganda but that is a story for another time. Have a good day.

Pat

Sad news today,

Our thoughts and prayers are with our neigbours in Kenya as they try to resolve the terrorist attack on the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, our prayers are with the relatives of the people who have died, those injured and those people still held as hostage.We pray also for the security forces as they deal with this attack and the hospital staff caring for all the injured.

African Time

Africans say, “The whites have the watches but the Africans have the time.” Meaning the whites are always running around watching the time, whereas to the Africans relationships are more important than time. This creates the saying “Muzungu (white person) time and African time.”

I train trainers and I will tell them we work to Muzungu time, and they are learning!

It also can be difficult to set a time for an appointment. On Tuesday I spoke on the telephone with an African gentleman (George- not his real name) who wanted to meet me on Wednesday.

George:  Good afternoon Madam, How are you?

Me:        Good afternoon, I am fine thank-you, how are you? (greetings are so important in Africa)

George:  We can meet Wednesday at 2:00pm.

Me:         No, Sorry, I cannot make that, but I can make Thursday.

George:  We can meet at 3:00pm Wednesday.

Me:         No sorry, I cannot make that, but I can make Thursday.

George:  We can meet at 4:00pm on Wednesday.

Me:         Sorry, Can’t make 4:00pm Wednesday.

To complete this conversation I finally agreed to meet at 5:00pm on Wednesday

.

No way was George going to wait to meet me until Thursday. 

Welcome to my blog

Hi everyone, I am Patricia Crook, National coordinator for a Health Preventative Training Programme in Uganda. I have been living in Uganda for 11 years and have realised that so much happens here it is good to share with you all my experiences of living in Africa. I have started this blog so that I can share with you the events, humorous and otherwise. A sense of humour is very necessary living in Africa, I live in the city of Kampala, it is untidy, noisy, chaotic traffic, on Africa timeline!!!but I love it.Every day is different, I have been here such a long time but every day I either learn something new or put 'my feet in it' BIG TIME.

Today I am working in my office which is in my garage, the work I do involves training Ugandans to teach their fellow neighbours and communities in the rural areas, that involves me travelling around the country in my faithful car, (that everyone recognises now) I drive myself which is an experience.

The car didn't make it this time! but I am fortunate in having an extremely helpful mechanic, he came on the bus from Kampala to rescue us.

More news soon