DeannaInUganda

I just can't answer all the fan mail, but i thought i'd just do it this once

Dear Deanna,
You work in Uganda, right? I'm nosy, and i was wondering, what does your office look like? How about your co-worker Ruth? What's the view look like from the doorway of your office building? And I hear that the street your office is on is quite lovely?

And besides, your work days must be pretty relaxing, what with you spending all that time going for lunch with your friends? I know that today it was with your friends Sara and your roommate Heather, but what's the usual routine?

Oh, and you told me aaaggges ago that you were going to show me some gorrilla pictures and you never did. What gives?

Sincerely,
Imaginary Soandso

Dear Imaginary,
I can tell by your name that you must be Ugandan. Are you related to Innocent, or Peace, or Harriet, or Harriet, or Harriet, or Sara, or Sara, or Sara? No? Weird.

Your right. My office is quite nice! The building houses one of about 6 broadband-service-providers in the whole freakin' country, and the road has relatively little traffic. Most of the buildings are NGOs or embassies, so the people on the street are pretty used to the sight of muzungus, so it's a relatively harrassment-free zone. It feels really isolated and quiet, but its actually only a 5 minute boda-boda ride from downtown (in one direction) and home (the other way.) The office is pretty good too - although I'm done working there this week. I have to say I'm not too broken up about that! Its time to move along! (Although I will miss the lunch-time socials- it started off in January as a grouping of about 8 female CIDA interns, but our numbers have dwindled as people move back home. We still do it about 2-3 times a week, but now its usually 3 or 4 people at the most.)

Oh, and I feel badly about the gorilla pictures. I've been having trouble uploading them for some reason. I've got a few though- one of the market in Kabale, on the way to bwindi, one of Maria trekking in front of me through Bwindi Impenetrable forest (pretty impenetrable, huh?) and one of an actual gorilla. I have some super cute baby gorilla pictures but they're not cooperating. Maybe in a few days. And I mean it this time!

Cheers,
Deanna

a market stall in Kabale:


On the way through the forest:


The big bad silverback gorilla:


[Oh! And an Update! Somehow things started to cooperate, don't know why. Here is an adorable-roarablebaby gorilla and a gorilla who was peeling a stick to feed the middle to her baby. Also, this is what the four of us looked like on the way down the mountain after it stopped raining (by the end we were a lot muddier!) And how many people do you think it takes to escort 4 girls gorilla trekking? More than THIS. There was probably about 3 or 4 more guys out of the frame. We had two porters, one guide, and a bunch of soldiers accompanying us. (MOM COVER YOUR EYES NOW.) The soldiers were there because in 1998, eight gorilla-tracking tourists were murdered by Congolese rebels. So to woo back the tourists they now send everyone out with a bunch of bored, but armed, soldiers. (MOM YOU CAN OPEN YOUR EYES NOW.) But its all perfectly safe now. (Or, at least it was three months ago, the congo is sort of heating up again, so who knows.)
And here is my favourite gorilla-tracking picture:
What are Maria and the Gorilla both looking at?

P.S. Oh, and one last thing: On the way home, we bought this big bag of strawberry-flavour candies (which must be confusing for people here, because strawberries don't exist in east africa) and then we kept on making our driver stop so we could give the candies to kids on the side of the road. (Our driver 'loooved' that, let me tell you.) Anyways, these kids were really excited and shy, and it was really cute, so i thought i'd share it,

posted by Deanna @ 4:20 p.m.