The Police

On Wednesday, I got caught in a radar gun. It irritated me that the Ugandan police even had a radar gun. But it irritated me more that they were wasting their time catching me doing a glacial 15mph when I should have been going an even more glacial 12mph over the precious Owen Falls Dam. What about the coaches haring along at five times that speed through the middle of towns and villages? What about the public minibus drivers overtaking said coaches on blind corners? What about the trucks that are so mechanically deficient they actually move along the road at an angle? Is the speed limit on the bridge really a priority?

The policeman informed me that even if I was only 1mph over the limit there would be a fine of 100,000 Ugandan Shillings. My irritation intensified. “So I give you a receipt and you go to the bank and pay,” he said, looking hard into my eyes. I stared back inscrutably. We stayed locked in this stalemate for a long, long time. It was the point where I was supposed to offer him a bribe, and I wasn’t sticking to the script. Eventually he prompted me: “not so?” I gave him a “what are we waiting for?” face, somewhat insolently, and thus sealed my fate. But I’d already decided I’d rather pay twice as much and let the Uganda Revenue Authority have my money.

Friendometer

Having been adopted as a trophy Muzungu by an ambitious young Ugandan entrepreneur called Charles, I spent most of last week going to various launches and lunches, with the primary purpose, I assume, of smiling and looking white. After one such party – the launch of a new cake business – Charlie took me and another of his pets to the Speke Hotel to see a dance troupe he manages. The troupe were outstanding, but what he had failed to mention was that they were just the filler in another show: a beauty pageant being run by an Indian transvestite, who, by the way, really wasn’t trying hard enough to maintain the illusion. As if that wasn’t bizarre enough, the place was riddled with prostitutes who would stop at nothing (short of tearing off your trousers) to drum up some business. It was all perfectly not the way I would have chosen to spend a Friday night.

Working Hours

My working hours were lengthened, much to my vexation, by the 5.30am call to prayer emanating from the loudspeaker of the local mosque. Some croaky old crooner got trigger happy on the volume knob and spoilt my sleep three days running. I wanted to get out of bed and go and tell them that God was busy doing other things and shouldn’t be bothered until later, but I don’t think they’d have appreciated the advice.

Close Encounters of the African Kind

We’re coming dangerously close to only being able to open one and half schools, rather than two, in February. We’ve had to take drastic steps to cut expenditure. We’ve decided to reduce the daily delivery of roses to twice-weekly and now we only have champagne on Fridays. Someone told me there was a global financial crisis but I don’t believe them. I would’ve seen it in the papers.

I could abuse my position as a writer of moderately entertaining ramblings and spend a paragraph persuading you that PEAS is a cut above other charities, but I won’t.

Actually, yes I will. The ambition of PEAS is to overhaul the Ugandan secondary education system, and I work with such a talented team of people I truly believe we can do it. Firstly, we can improve its financial efficiency, which is the first step to widening access (enrolment is just 20% of those eligible). Secondly, we can improve its quality through innovation and the import of best practice. We’re a small fish in the Ugandan not-for-profit community but our schools are really just examples for us to show the big fish how it should be done. Perhaps most importantly, we think very, very carefully about even the tiniest expenditure before we approve it. I’m sorry we’ve got such a stupid name but you can’t have everything.

So buy me a Christmas present from this website and I’ll be a very happy man: www.peas.org.uk/gifts

That chicken don’t belong to nobody

The chicken found its way back into the larder the other day, where it flapped around and upset all Galvin’s spices. We concluded it was suicidal and was trying to marinade itself to save Galvin the job. I nearly accepted its plea as it seemed to have stopped laying eggs, until I discovered it’d been hiding them in the storeroom at the back, the devious bird.

Tikka the chicken, as she’s now affectionately known, is very much her own woman. She frequently lets herself into the house and poos on the floor, which tends to culminate in her meeting the hard end of Galvin’s foot. Sweep Dog still makes some half-hearted attempts at intimidation from time to time, but that hen just don’t care. She’ll do what she damn well pleases…