Uganda

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Kate's KBS Society had a special meeting at the Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort on Lake Victoria just outside of Kampala in Uganda. This was our first trip to Africa. We flew there through Heathrow in London, then straight south to Kampala.

The resort is quite a fancy place and was built recently for a Commonwealth of Nations 2007 meeting (the commonwealth is a league of 54 nations with very close ties to England including places like Canada, Australia, India, Uganda and many more). But there are some things that remind one that you're in a developing nation -- minimal internet, mosquito nets over your beds, tap water that should be boiled first, avoid the lake (schistosomiasis), and more. I suspect it's the only luxury resort of it's kind.

The resort is quite luxurious compared to what's outside those walls. The rooms are large and well cared for. The grounds are landscaped with tended gardens, artificial waterfalls, palm tree, lots of flowers and wild life. There's several swimming pools, a cricket pitch and even stables with fine horse flesh (I'm not a judge, but they looked pretty nice). Of the wildlife the storks, ibis and weaver birds are all quite interesting. The monkeys are there whether you like them or not. I gather they can be a bother. The snails make the snails in Burgundy look like pikers ... I wonder if anyone eats them? One would be a meal.

The grounds are so lovely -- wedding parties come for photo sessions, some have their weddings and banquets here. And it would appear that the wedding culture is very much like north america -- long flowing gowns, veils, attendants in tuxedos, the whole nine yards. But there are some peculiarities to marriage as polygamy is allowed in Uganda. We found out about that sort of by the by. We were talking to our driver who was taking us some place and he was talking about his mother and his other mother his father's second wife. You mean your mother died and father remarried? No. You mean your parents divorced and your father remarried again? No. It took a while to figure out that his dad had two wives.

We stayed mostly on the resort grounds. I did venture out and walked to a nearby fishing village;  another time we had a driver take us into Kampala. People were friendly and seemed happy. Gift shops had mostly hand fabricated clothes and art works. It's a pretty hard scrabble life.

We had some nice dinners together at the resort. Often there's an Indian influence to their dishes -- spices, curry, and so on. We had an interesting conversation with one of the servers. She was a pretty young woman, perhaps 20 years old or so. We wanted to take some drinks to one of the pools that overlook the lake and she insisted on helping. We got talking to her and discovered that she felt really fortunate to have this job serving guests at the resort -- there aren't that many jobs around. We asked if she was getting good tips from the guests as the restaurant had a 15% VAT and 5% tip added. Close to tears she told us that she didn't get any of that, it was scooped by the resort. After that we made sure to tip in cash directly to the server. Kate told her that she had worked as a server when she was her age. How can that be possible? How did you end up where you are? The answer was education. She had no hopes of having an education or of doing any better than being an underpaid server at a resort serving rich foreigners like us.

And, by African standards, Uganda is doing pretty well.

There's a picture in the album of Kate with a couple of security guards. Each are carrying shotguns -- I don't think they've ever been used. Both weapons were a little rusty and they one had a dinted barrel. I wonder if they'd be safe to fire?

Kate and I had an adventure on Ngamba Island near Entebbe. It's a secluded island that's a chimpanzee refuge. Our friends took a white water rafting tour on the river one day (those aren't my pictures). Other friends took a safari tour into the wilds, staying over night and meeting up with rhino's and other native beasts. We weren't keen on bumping around on the back roads -- the roads around the resort where bad enough.

I mentioned schistosomiasis in Lake Victoria. It's a parasite that's carried by snails that will get in your eyes and will make you blind. That's why the water isn't safe for swimming. There are lots of crazy stories about  people mucking with the eco-system. Lake Victoria is the source of the Nile and separated from the Nile by Victoria Falls. This meant that the lake had a unique eco-system with fishes that were only found here. Below the falls there's the large Nile perch (they're huge, some as big as a person). Someone had the bright idea back in the 1950's that they should bring them to the lake and establish a commercial fishery -- this nearly wiped out the native and much smaller fishes. To make matters worse the big perch are a commercial fishery from bigger boats for external markets, the natives who fished from their small canoes relied on the smaller fish for their food!

Anyways, check out the photos. It's an interesting place to visit and staying at the Munyonyo Resort gives you the western comforts.