Thursday, November 25, 2004

An intro to my digital camera.

I present to you, dear readers, the fruits of my spankin' new digital camera (a fabulous birthday gift from my parents this past month.) I inaugurated it at Saturday's wedding of my friend Tina (from Victoria, BC) to her now-husband Hassan (from Kampala.) The wedding was held at the Bahai temple (one of only 6 Bahai temples in the world!) - which proved to be a beautiful spot for photos, and also the only place of worship that would marry people of two different religions. (Tina's an unknown flavour of christian, Hassan is muslim.) Here's a pic of the wedding party after the ceremony:

Tina's the one in white, the bridesmaid in the long dress is my friend Emily, the bridesmaid in the shorter dress is my roommate Heather. I'm a little fuzzy on the groomsmen's names, but one of them is The Shorter Groomsman and the other one is The Kinda Hot Groomsman. Those names worked well enough last saturday, so they'll have to work well enough here.

I was drafted as an 'official' wedding photographer (taking black & white photos with Tina's much, much better camera) so unfortunately I don't have any photos of myself (okay, i have one, but i look really crappy - it's a strange angle), and I'm not really in many of the official (colour) wedding photos. But, just in case you really want to see more photos of people you don't know at a wedding reception this time, here is a picture of Jess, Heather, Ida and Becky at the reception at the Blue Mango; and later, of Heather giving her speech.

Also, because there has been a lot curiousity (mainly emanating from my parent's home) regarding what my apartment in here in Kampala looks like, I present to you Heather "looking cheesy" (her words, not mine) on our living room couch:


For those of you who are really curious, you can also click on the following links to see what's to the right of the couch, the messy computer/dining/dumping ground across the room from the couch, and what my quite-empty bedroom looks like, and observe how I'm lazy about putting the groceries away.

Man, my parents have gotten their money's worth on that camera already!

This next week promises to full of strangely un-ugandan activities. Tomorrow I'm heading to a friend's house for American thanksgiving dinner. She's going to be trying to find a turkey (I know I saw one walking around a market once, so they definitely exist here, but no one's ever actually seen it frozen in a store, or on a restaurant menu, and none of us were trained as small children to kill and pluck a turkey), but I'm betting on chicken. Friday after work i'll be attending a Japanese Film Festival, presented by the Japanese Embassy. This one confuses me a bit, as I think i've seen about 3 possibly-japanese people since I first arrived a year ago: why does Japan get a whole embassy, when all we get is a consulate? And there's hundreds of canadians running around all over the place! You can barely throw a Tim Hortons travel mug without hitting a canadian, for goodness sakes.

I'm off to snuggle under my mosquito net while i listen to the rain slapping the banana trees.

Good night!

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Back on the bodas again.

Scene: London's Heathrow Airport, last thursday evening. We are at Gate 6 (Terminal 4), about one hour prior to the departure of a flight bound for Entebbe, Uganda.

Note: Text in regular font are an accurate account of the scene; Italics represent the scene as envisioned by the author, prior to the scene actually taking place.

*****
Me: Excuse me, sir? Could you tell me what time boarding starts for this flight? Excuse me, sir? Could you tell me what time boarding starts for this flight?

British Airways Uganda Crew Member:Ah! It is not yet! There is is nobody here! Look!! 8:45, miss!

Me: Yes, I know, but do you know what time boarding begins anyways? Thank you!

BAUCM: Ah! Have a seat! Relax and do not worry! It is not time yet! (nothing)

Me: Yes, I know it's not time yet, but I wanted to go look in the shops, but I wanted to be back in time. Could you tell me what time boarding starts? (me walking towards duty-free shops)

BAUCM: Ah, you go shop! You go enjoy! (nothing)
Me: (silently) sigh... And so it begins (silently: ah, what a good price on for Calvin Klein perfume!)

End scene, curtain descends.

Sunday, November 07, 2004

These are all the countries I've visited

I need to spread around some more blobs of red. Don't want those colourless continents to feel left out!


create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

I bought it.

I finally did it. The waiting is over! This afternoon I walked into my local Flight Center, and an extraordinarily helpful travel agent sold me a plane ticket to Uganda. I leave next Wednesday!!! Woohoo! (Would you beleive that in the 7 years the agent had been working for Flight Center, I'm the first person she's ever sold a ticket to Uganda to? First ever!) I'm going to be genuinely sorry to leave my family and friends again (I'm already thinking in advance to who and what I'm going to miss) but I am definitely looking forward to being productive again! The new job is pretty exciting too.... I just hope I can pull it off!

Wow, I can't beleive how much easier this entry into Uganda this is going to be compared to the first time, last year - how overwhelmed I felt, how... well, overwhelmed pretty much covers it!

I'm off to bed!