Monday 16 March 2009

Week 3 - Settling In

We're finally getting to know our way around Mbarara town, and learning the best places to buy things from. For example, I went to the market on Friday and got 12 eggs from one of the stall-holders - when we got home we discovered that 6 of them were rotten! I don't think you can really take them back and demand a refund over here, so we will just try a different stall-holder next time. We've found a lady in the market who sells the most amazing little bananas - a bunch of about 12 for 30p, and there's a man who sells exquisite pineapples (2 for 30p!) from his bicycle over the road from our flat.
There are loads of little supermarkets in town, but they don't all sell the same things, so you spend ages traipsing around them all. We found Cadbury's chocolate in one of the supermarkets, but it didn't taste the same as it does in the UK. It's surprising how much stuff is actually available here - I have even seen Ribena on sale (but have not yet succumbed to the temptation!).
Work-wise, the week was quite slow and frustrating for me. I finally managed to get some lectures to teach from one of the other lecturers, Laurence, and am teaching for the first time later on this week. I'll be teaching Pharmaceutical Technology to the 2nd year students next semester, which is not really my area of expertise, but at least I have got a while to swot up on it!
We had a VSO cluster meeting on Saturday near a town called Bushenyi, which is close to the Queen Elizabeth National Park. We met at the Kingfisher Lodge, which had spectacular views over the savanna - even though it was quite hazy. Apparently when it's a clear day, you can sometimes see elephants in the rift valley below. We met the other volunteers from the Mbarara and Bushenyi Areas. The aim of these cluster meetings is mainly for peer support, but you also get to discuss your placements, and think about the possibility of becoming involved in certain projects as a cluster.
On the way back from Bushenyi, we saw a group of Baboons on the road. They were really cute, and some of them were carrying babies. We took some pictures from the car, but they didn't come out very well.

Weve been socialising quite a bit with the other people from our compound this week. We have discovered that we live next door to two doctors from England, and they are really nice. We went to a party on Thursday night, to celebrate the birthdays of 3 of the residents. It was really good to meet everyone properly, and build up a bit of a network.
We're settling into our flat pretty well, and are beginning to feel at home. We have managed to find a cleaner who will come once a week and do all our laundry and cleaning for us, which is great. The floors in our flat are bare concrete, so they get pretty dirty. We had no electricity for most of the weekend, which was really frustrating because we had forgotten to buy candles! Luckily the power came back on in the evening, otherwise we would have been sitting in the dark. I've finally got round to taking some pictures of the flat, which I am currently trying to put on the blog, but the network is being too slow! Hope you will be able to see them soon.




2 comments:

alan said...

Your flat looks like the house in Italy before it was refurbished!

I pity the cleaner!!!

Anna said...

It does actually remind us of the house in Italy a bit.
Just wish we could pop out to the Golden Star and get lovely Italian pizzas!