New home

I made it safely to Fort Portal on Tuesday morning using the always lovely Link bus, complete with plastic covered seats. I have a one bedroom apartment in a FP "suburb" called Boma, where apparently "the rich people live". Sadly I have a first floor apartment, but otherwise it is nice, and new. Internet coverage a little sketchy, and electricity the same; there's a generator but at the moment it has "failed". No electricity means no hot water (why oh why don't more people have sun heated water? We're on the bloody equator!) so my glamorous morning today started with an icecold shower. Well, at least you heat up again quickly. My next door neighbors are two Swedish girls doing an internship here; small world, but nice to have people to talk to who experience similar culture shocks (though honestly I've become rather difficult to shock or even annoy, even the slow pace. I know that somehow, things tend to work out one way or another even when things seem hopeless...).

Already yesterday I met with the guy from the NGO I'm semi working with, semi studying. Luckily he really is a doer, so we're planning to do the first real research activities at the start of next week (focus groups/workshops with other members of the organization). Today I went with him and a colleague to visit and do follow up with some of their farmer groups in Kyenjojo district, next to Kabarole where FP is, which was quite interesting minus the fact that I understand very little of what they say other than the occasional English. But some got translated of course, and some is observable. The farmers in the groups were so welcoming and friendly, it is always a bit of a weird experience not being able to communicate other than through smiles and getting the nice seat and all that but I think generally they rather enjoy getting an outsider visit. Something different and someone showing interest. Oh - on the way back I saw my first wildlife spotting - a gang of baboons hanging out on the road. Those guys are kind of creepy..

In other not-so-surprising news, it's hot. Hopefully the rains will start properly within a few weeks although I may take that back when I have to go on the muddy roads. I became refamiliarized with the Ugandan definition of a driveable road today, and that with your average sedan that had seen better days. But yes, hot and dry - I hear there's a hotel just up the road where you can pay to use the pool - praise the lord.