We will work this week!

This week Sacha and I were determined to start working, and so we commit to going into the office for a few hours every day to show face. After all, as Mirjam told us on Monday, ‘we have planned out your whole time here!’. This does not appear to be the case, and so we have spent most of our mornings writing countless emails to all our contacts here requesting things to be getting on with. Whilst this doesn’t lead to much exciting blog material, we have finally made a breakthrough. Next week we have an interview to conduct and transcribe, and a proposal to write for the Eritrea project, so that should keep us entertained for a few days at least. It’s for this reason, and not at all due to the fact I’m over a week behind on blog writing, that I have compiled the other events of the week into one easy post.

Doing Kayla proud….
In a bid not to turn into total potatoes, Sacha and I have come to Uganda equipped with Kayla Itsines work out plan, with the idea that will be both fit and tan by the time we come back home. Dream on girls! It already seems like a bad idea when we wake up on Monday morning for the first day of our healthy regime. Nonetheless we persevere and take a mat and some water into the back garden ready for our first workout.

To say we’re inelegant exercisers would be a huge understatement. A better description would probably be a tangle of limbs (Sacha actually fell over mid-burpee, much to the amusement of our highly bemused gardener). Furthermore, because we are so reluctant to do any exercise whatsoever, what should have taken us 20-30mins, ends up taking us at least 40. Nevermind, we tell ourselves, we’re sure that once this becomes a routine we’ll start taking to exercise like ducks to water. One can only hope…

The next day we wake up literally unable to move. We actually fall trying to get out of bed, and the local boys laugh us at as we pathetically hobble through the university. Thanks Kayla!

No refugee camp for us!
Apparently everything that we thought we were supposed to be doing this week (visiting the refugee camp and presenting our bachelor’s thesis’ to a class) has been cancelled. “But it’s okay, when you get the permissions you can go to the refugee camp any time with your friends” Viola attempts to reassure us. Ummm… what friends? “We don’t have any friends here” Sacha bluntly responds. Viola is clearly surprised by this (I don’t know why, there is literally no-one around here), and suggests that we attend some of her classes to mix with the students. Ermm no thanks, we didn’t come here to take classes (we literally just graduated), we came here to work, so we politely suggest that she finds us some of that to do instead. She promises us that she will call Primrose to discuss and get back to us in the morning if we choose to come in, apparently tomorrow is a mid-week public holiday! Who knew?

Our lunch out and the pancake
Ugandan food update for all those that are interested. Sacha and I have made the decision to eat out once a week to try local foods. And I’ve just this second realised that, like the old married couple we are, we have essentially decided to have date night once a week. If we’re not lynched before we leave it’ll be a miracle. Anyway, never mind that, this week was the first of our many date nights (/ days) to come, as we went for a late lunch at a local café. The menu is fairly basic, we assume they make a big pot of everything in the morning and then you got dolled out a plate as you order. We are typically very late for lunch, arriving at around three in the afternoon, and so our choice is pretty limited. We initially choose the fresh fish dish with some groundnut casserole type things. However, the fresh fish must be a popular choice as that is out for the day, leaving us to try and work out the rest of the menu. Being the laid-back husband type in our amazingly functional relationship, I sit back and let Sacha decide on whatever she wants to order for our second dish. Thank god she asks questions, as she very narrowly avoids ordering cow’s hooves and offals as our second dish. Vom. In the end she decides upon a spiced beans type thing to accompany our G-nuts, all of which comes with a huge heap of rice. Love that.

In typical buffet style, our food arrives within minutes of it being ordered, and they were not stingy with the portion sizes. Thankfully, unlike your regular buffet meal, it also tastes amazing! Pictures are attached in here somewhere for your viewing pleasure. We got all of that food for 4000Ush each, less than £1! All in all it was a top feed and we will definitely be back.

During our time in Uganda Sacha and I have also been sure to try out all the local confectionary; we are convinced that if we try every cake

on offer we will eventually find one that is not as dry as plasterboard (girls can dream). Today we entered the supermarket in hunt of a chapatti for lunch (unfortunately these are also becoming park of our staple diet here), but they were sold out. So we start to peruse the other things on offer in the bakery. Strangely enough our eyes are drawn to a burger-like thing being marketed as a pancake, and stranger still we decide that this is something we’d like to try (our sugar cravings fully engaged by this point). We even get two, deciding we definitely wouldn’t want to share the burger pancake (I have no idea why we thought this, it looked even less appetising then it sounds!).

Once we’ve purchased said ‘pancake’ we waste no time tucking in and oh my days was it grim. Like really really dense, deep fried, stale bread. Probably up with the top ten weirdest things I’ve ever eaten. Sacha gave hers away after one bite, and quite frankly I wish I’d done the same. From now on we’re sticking with the confectionary that at least looks appealing.

By the way there is a picture of this pancake somewhere in the blog post. I’m not sure where though because I have zero control over where the pictures end up.

Simon

We actually made a friend this week! His name is Simon and he’s a 22-year-old second year Ugandan medical student at the university across the street. We’d noticed him a few times as he lives right next door to us and often says hi as he passes by (we spend most of our lives here sat in our front garden). However, now he regularly brings us fruit and flowers and wants to see us every single day. This isn’t necessarily a problem, we like to be adored, but Simon is a very gentle, quiet, soul, whilst Sacha and I are not. This means that conversation doesn’t exactly flow, and we end up making very awkward conversation whilst cracking a lot of awkward inside jokes (this is probably not helped by the fact we basically only socialise with each other day in and day out). This left us slightly concerned when he came round for dinner one night this week, when we’d already spent a few hours together earlier in the day. We needn’t have worried so much though, because Simon was very intrigued by our cultural differences. He wasn’t very impressed when Sacha confessed to being a vegetarian, and even less so when she said that her future husband would have to cook his own meat if that’s what he wanted “but what if he is tired?!” Simon questions. Oh dear. We baffle him even more when he finds out that neither of us are interested in getting married and having children straight away. “30-35?! You will be unable” - good to know! Nevertheless, he can’t have found us too bizarre because he wants us to go around for dinner this weekend. Sunday at 6o’clock sharp to be precise, so at least we have a couple of days to brush up on our small talk!

The Market
Admittedly this isn’t a very exciting story, we just went deeper into the market to fabric shop and find tailors to make us African clothes. But the fabrics here are SO pretty and I wanted to upload pictures of them. Maybe the market really is SUCH fun.