guyphenix.com: Masaka

I had another busy weekend with me traveling to Masaka for a project trust birthday.
On Friday night I went with James to a leaving party for Jane and Bob who are a retired couple who have been living out in Uganda for 18months, he has been working as a music teacher and she has been I think just generally living it up, joining various clubs such as the gardening and book clubs including many womans club’s aswell, they are both very friendly and from Devon, England. I had an enjoyable night at Gweniths house where they have been staying, Gwenith is engaged to my neighbor Simon. I chated to a lot of people and mainly discussed the usual, where I am from, why I am here, what I am hoping to do at University.
I got up at 7:30am so that I wasn’t rushing to get the bus to masaka and that I could have a shower, got up to find the electricity was off so had a lovely cold shower and off I headed. I got into a mytatu and headed off into town, after a while I noticed we werent taking the normal root, I soon realized we were heading through the pretty much ghetto if there could be such a thing in Kampala as we passed houses and the farm yards with cows I finally arrived in Kampala after about 20minutes extra of a journey, I then headed to shoprite to get myself some breakfast which was of course some lovely apple donuts.
I then headed past the old taxi park to some of the many mobile phone shops scatterd all across Kampala and Uganda for that matter, I was on the hunt for a new phone as my lovely old nokia has decided it decides when it switches off or receives calls. After looking at a variety of very strange chinese imports I decided I wasn’t going to have any dice so headed over to the new taxi park to find a bus to masaka. I paid my 4500shs and on I popped bought some Fanta and started reading my viciously deep book on Gurdjieff.
It was now about 10:00 and the bus started to fill up, there was a lady outside peeling matoke, its rather calming watching somebody do it.
The bus finally fills up and its about 10:30, suddenly though everybody stands up and starts running off the bus I unsurprisingly am totally and utterly lost as to what is happening as anything that may have been announced was in Lugandan, I turn to they guy beside me and ask whats happening, he explains that we all have to get off and onto another bus. I eventually get off and I am informed that the bus currently driving through the taxi park is the one I have to get on, I run after the bus with about 4 other Ugandans as we try to get in, I manage to get on first as it starts to leave and realize this bus is a lot smaller than the last one and there are no seats left. I head to the back where I manage to get a two seater to share with three. The ticket man soon came along to collect but the lady across the isle from me wasn’t trusting the bus and so wouldn’t pay until she arrived in Masaka, what followed was a 2hour Lugandan argument which I understood didle about but which ended up involving pretty much everybody around me who wanted to stick their 2cents into the argument. Somebody finally got off and I got myself a proper seat well I had to share a two seater with three kids but they took up little space so I was in comfort.
All the while during this kurfuffle of arguments and awkward seating they had “night of the living dead” being played on the TV in Lugandan which was quite disturbing due to the amount of kids and rather annoying due to the Lugandan translator showing off his voice acting skills and taking it slightly too far.
I soon arrived in Masaka well in the middle of a field pretty much with a large amount of rubbish dumped into it and no sign of Callum who was suppose to be meeting me off the bus. After declining lifts from pretty much everybody around I phoned Callum to find out firstly where I was and secondly where he was. After we realized neither of us knew where I was I headed to whet seemed like a main road, I soon meet Callum and we headed off to the hotel we were staying at, I got a lovely little room with a sort of bed in between single and double and I even had a lovely balcony to look out over Masaka’s main road. Roddy and I headed off to the local market and shops to have a look for some interesting buys. Roddy got himself a fetching shirt and tie and a rat trap for the mice that annoy him in the night and I got a nice pale blue t-shirt.
That night we went to a restaurant called 10 Tables where we had a room to ourselves for the birthday celebrations, there was 9 of us in total. We had green soup for starters, chicken and sausage kebabs with swahili rice and what seemed to be corn flour and water which was some sort of dip. The girls also got a massive chocolate cake made as you can see below. During the whole meal we had been pounded with loud music which when we went outside after the meal we realized was a Uganda Telecom concert. We decided we just had to go so we headed towards the music and headed in, what we experienced was rather strange, there was about a thousand people there all standing in rows except there wernt any rows to stand in as it was in a football pitch. Roddy and I soon were up the front showing them how to dance but alas our silky moves were a bit to much for them to handle and we headed back to the rest of the group at the back.
We stayed till the very end which was quite late and managed to get some free Ugandan Telecom caps which was a great souvenir.
The next day Roddy and i headed to the bakery to get breakfast and then headed to the market again as I had seen a lovely Star Wars bed set but hadn't purchased the day before, unfortunately somebody had bought it and I left disappointed and empty handed but was rather close to buying a small spear.
The journey home was rather quick and I had a seat the whole way, I considered going to watch the Bolton V’s Liverpool game but I am rather pleased I wasn’t in the mood as a 4-0 defeat wouldn’t have been easy viewing.
Matt is heading away on Friday to attend two wedding’s of friends and wont be back till the 19th so I will have a free house.
Hope the temperature is getting lower and the Christmas push is getting to you as I sit in sunshine and haven't watched TV in 3months.
Regards
Guy