How would you feel?

When you see someone carry this burden

Back view of her load

did you wish plastic jugs were not reused?

Empty jerry jugs for refilling

When you see these women carrying firewood to market

From the mountains to the lowlands

did you wish people are not afraid to use LPG?

Bringing the load to market

When you see the load on this bike, 

did you wish he had a horse or donkey to drag the load?

Sugar canes for sale

When you see how these babies are carried

Baby in a box tied behind the bike

did you wish they did not have 5 or more children in each family

or had strollers to tuck them in?

Babies from womb to back

Heard in Africa - what's (watch) your language?

The rare white colobus monkey

Don't take offense when someone tells you You Come, Sit, Give me, Listen, Do this, Write, Bring.  It is not being impolite.  Please and Kindly or Excuse Me are not generally used and I understand these words have no equivalent in their local language.  But Thank You is commonly said and Welcome is expressed in the context of Come In. 

Ankole cattle on a pose

SMS is not popular as it is more expensive than talk time.  It is not rudeness when a phone conversation is abruptly ended;  the caller just ran out of air time.  I once overheard a conversation between

Let's learn to relax this way

a boda-boda driver and an elected town councilor.  It seemed that the driver would not take the councilor to her destination, so she asked..... and what do you think should your excellency do?

A lizard stalking

Once, I was looking for an acquaintance whom I have not seen for quite sometime.  I was told he is on a safari - an official trip.   Then I said, oh so having a holiday is an official business.
No, he is on safari.  That's when I learned that safari means journey, and an official one at that.
If anyone has not seen you for awhile, it is ordinary to greet you with You Were Lost.  When I was first greeted this way, I thought it was some kind of joke.  So in the usual American English rhetoric, I said Now I Am Found.... and shook his hand.  Had I been asked Where have you been, I would have given the traditional reply of Been to London to visit the Queen.

Those with brownish feathers are female weavers

A year ago today

Need to learn to ride to be accepted

This time last year was when I missed my regular paycheck and nothing was to be forthcoming afterwards.  I just left my job then and was busy preparing

WHO card - good for 10 years

Send-off by my sons' friends

Selling my corporate wardrobe

for my trip to Africa - polishing my biking skills, attending motorbike lessons, getting all the inoculations, writing instructions for the household, preparing for Mia's schooling in Scotland, packing and re-packing, announcing my eclipse.  I remember braving the aftermath of a typhoon to pick-up my World Health Organization yellow fever card - a requirement for one entering Africa.   Now I am wearing a different  pin and carrying an   identification card whose logo  was to change a year later (quite coincidental because in my last job, the logo was also changed as I was leaving).  My lifestyle now as a volunteer is the first step in the life-changing decision that I made.   As can be found

ID that opens no electronic doors

Made by women with HIV/AIDS

in its website, most people join VSO because they want to give something back and find they get much more in return - a wealth of memories and a whole new perspective of life.  In 1985, I was excited to travel around Europe using Frommer's Europe on a $25 a day.  Twenty five years later today, I am excited to live in Uganda, East Africa on a $7 a day - excluding rent.  This is an institutional standard (with some exceptions) as volunteers are in places where we can more than get by with the allowance.

Both are equivalent to about USD 50 cents

When I told my boss that I'd be getting some USD300 as a volunteer, he said it was not bad. But when I said that it was per month, I sensed his newly calibrated heart blinked and he blushed.

Have yet to ride around on this; till the roads get paved

The Royal wedding and the African brides

What a beautiful sight

Uganda was a British protectorate from 1894 to 1962.  Queen Elizabeth last visited Uganda in
2007.  On 29 April 2011, the world witnessed the

The newly wed royals

spectacular wedding of Prince William, an heir to the British throne. I watched the wedding on BBC news in my Mac and I took the picture here from my computer monitor.  But

No balcony kiss to watch

Here comes the bride

and the noisemakers

I was able to watch an equally spectacular wedding at the Holy Rosary parish. The church offered a mass wedding to celebrate 100 years of faith in Gulu.  There were around 12

Fr Gino, Italian

couples who exchanged I dos under the sweltering midday sun.  It was very colorful and festive.  When it was the

Ready for the march

Sword formation

Fr Domingos, Portuguese

couples' turn to approach the officiating priest, their village mates will surround them and sound those bird calls. There was not much ground for a bridal march, but the last couple was pretty lucky because there was more space now between them and the priest.  It was either pure luck or some strings were pulled because the bridegroom was a military official, so he and his bride  had all the works.... bridal march, and a band to accompany the march.  There was even a sword formation.  The Comboni missionaries seemed very happy at the turn-out.  Fr. Domingos delivered the homily in Acholi language. He did not grope for words yet it lasted for 30 minutes.  After 4 hours in the sun, I was sun stroked and dehydrated.

I was not, of course, invited to any of the receptions.  But I cannot express enough the joy of witnessing how locals celebrate a grand occasion. 

The drummer girl

Heard in Africa - Of legacy bride and family

Just monkeying around

Legacy bride is practiced such that when a husband dies, his brother would take the widow for a wife and recognize the earlier offsprings as his own. Most people do not have family names or surnames.  You would not know who is related based on their names. 

Bison and egrets

They usually have two or three names, and one of them would be an English name - nothing carried from his father's or mother's name.  Married women retain their names.  But in urban places, prominent persons have adopted the western naming system where wives and children carry the husband's or father's surname.

Ravens on a network beacon

Mob justice is also practiced in more than a few places.  Some good Samaritans ended up being clobbered in their attempt to help.  It is common to call anyone sister or brother.  They can be real siblings or belong to the same congregation or organization.  Cousins are also introduced as sisters or brothers while relatives no matter how distant are called cousins.  No steps or halfs. 

Glad to catch this with my lens

Degree of family relationship is nothing to contend with.  Belonging to the same village is a more popular way of tracing genealogy.

The lights went out of me when I was called Momma - not a few times.  I was not sure if it meant Mother or Grandmother.  I wanted to swim with the hippos to cool down.

Hippos enjoying themselves