Us outside the ground
Inside the ground with our fellow volunteers (sorry to Eliane for the flag in front of your face)
Some of the pre match entertainment to get the crowd going! (like they needed an help)
Inside the ground just before kick off - Very VERY mental - but ace!Jay Says: So this weekend was spent in Kampala, Ugandan’s capital city. Kampala is pretty hectic! Its quite well developed with lots of tall buildings, big banks, fast food restaurants (there’s even a Nando’s) and a thousand internet cafes. Typically though the traffic is pretty much always gridlock!
Before this weekend we hadn’t seen that much of the city though, just the main area, which has a few impressive shops, but not huge amounts to write home about. A lot of what we’d seen was also quite dirty, busy and congested. However this weekend we saw a different side to the city and to Uganda in general. We stayed with Charlotte UK/Ugandan friend (Angie)’s sister and her husband. They are both bankers and work in Kampala. They live in some of the what we discovered were mass, sprawling, green, clean and attractive suburbs, covering the hills surrounding the city. It’s a completely different world from the village life we have been getting used to, and a different Kampala we hadn’t discovered yet. Angie’s family really spoiled us, taking us out to one of the swanky new nightclubs (where the music consists of cheesy 80’s and local music – the local music is clearly superior!), taking us to eat REALLY good roast pork, feeding us lovely breakfasts of omelettes, our first bowls of cereal for 5 weeks and driving us all around the city (as well as insisting on paying for everything)!
It was good to see a successful and rapidly developing side of Uganda. The lives they lead is just like we do in UK (whether that is such a good thing is questionable). They also showed us other areas of Kampala, including a shopping mall that could be out of any European city, with nice clothes shops, a susi bar and a supermarket with shelf after shelf of chocolate and, just as importantly, the first wine section we have seen in Uganda (a purchase was of course obligatory)! It was quite surreal, after being used to our village where 5 cars pass by every hour.
The best part of staying here however was the chat we had with Martin, the sister’s husband. He’s a successful area manager for a Ugandan bank, not the first person I would of thought would give us inspirational ideas on development, but he was. I think it probably deserves a whole other blog, so watch this space.
As we said in our last blog our main reason for going to Kampala was to go to the Uganda vs Niger African Nations Cup qualifier. We knew it was a big game but we didn’t realise was that Uganda hadn’t qualified for the Nations Cup since 1978, and as if they won by 3 goals they would qualify, so it was the biggest game for nearly 30 years! We went to the game with 4 other volunteers and a Ugandan friend. We got to the stadium a full 4 hours before kick off (we were advised to get there very early in order to get in)! After a quick Rolex (a sandwich of two fresh pancakes, fried egg, onions and tomatoes (all for the costly price of 15p) we headed in to find thousands already in there. The party had already started and as the stadium filled to capacity it only got bigger and better – four hours of singing, cheering and flag waving. Its just a shame that they only have one song! The game itself was great, although the quality of the football definitely left something to be desired. And Ugandans have a tradition of throwing water everywhere after every goals – thankfully the sun was shinning so a bit of water didn’t matter! We won 3-1, so everyone was happy, and whiles we weren’t quite sure how much to celebrate as qualification wasn’t guaranteed – it depending on results elsewhere, everyone else seemed more than happy to party! Walking back from the stadium to town was pretty crazy, but just as it would be anywhere after the biggest game in 30 years!
Anyway a good weekend was had, and we’ve read about some really good coffee shops, Indian restaurants and an Italian delicatessen – all our waiting for us on our next visit!
Oh and also, our friend Mona, another ICYE volunteer (from Germany), who was living a couple of villages away has now moved to come and live with us and work at Kiyumbakimu – that’s really nice as she’s lovely and so one else to help us get things going as fast as possible at the project!
That’s all for now,
Take care, bye xx
Before this weekend we hadn’t seen that much of the city though, just the main area, which has a few impressive shops, but not huge amounts to write home about. A lot of what we’d seen was also quite dirty, busy and congested. However this weekend we saw a different side to the city and to Uganda in general. We stayed with Charlotte UK/Ugandan friend (Angie)’s sister and her husband. They are both bankers and work in Kampala. They live in some of the what we discovered were mass, sprawling, green, clean and attractive suburbs, covering the hills surrounding the city. It’s a completely different world from the village life we have been getting used to, and a different Kampala we hadn’t discovered yet. Angie’s family really spoiled us, taking us out to one of the swanky new nightclubs (where the music consists of cheesy 80’s and local music – the local music is clearly superior!), taking us to eat REALLY good roast pork, feeding us lovely breakfasts of omelettes, our first bowls of cereal for 5 weeks and driving us all around the city (as well as insisting on paying for everything)!
It was good to see a successful and rapidly developing side of Uganda. The lives they lead is just like we do in UK (whether that is such a good thing is questionable). They also showed us other areas of Kampala, including a shopping mall that could be out of any European city, with nice clothes shops, a susi bar and a supermarket with shelf after shelf of chocolate and, just as importantly, the first wine section we have seen in Uganda (a purchase was of course obligatory)! It was quite surreal, after being used to our village where 5 cars pass by every hour.
The best part of staying here however was the chat we had with Martin, the sister’s husband. He’s a successful area manager for a Ugandan bank, not the first person I would of thought would give us inspirational ideas on development, but he was. I think it probably deserves a whole other blog, so watch this space.
As we said in our last blog our main reason for going to Kampala was to go to the Uganda vs Niger African Nations Cup qualifier. We knew it was a big game but we didn’t realise was that Uganda hadn’t qualified for the Nations Cup since 1978, and as if they won by 3 goals they would qualify, so it was the biggest game for nearly 30 years! We went to the game with 4 other volunteers and a Ugandan friend. We got to the stadium a full 4 hours before kick off (we were advised to get there very early in order to get in)! After a quick Rolex (a sandwich of two fresh pancakes, fried egg, onions and tomatoes (all for the costly price of 15p) we headed in to find thousands already in there. The party had already started and as the stadium filled to capacity it only got bigger and better – four hours of singing, cheering and flag waving. Its just a shame that they only have one song! The game itself was great, although the quality of the football definitely left something to be desired. And Ugandans have a tradition of throwing water everywhere after every goals – thankfully the sun was shinning so a bit of water didn’t matter! We won 3-1, so everyone was happy, and whiles we weren’t quite sure how much to celebrate as qualification wasn’t guaranteed – it depending on results elsewhere, everyone else seemed more than happy to party! Walking back from the stadium to town was pretty crazy, but just as it would be anywhere after the biggest game in 30 years!
Anyway a good weekend was had, and we’ve read about some really good coffee shops, Indian restaurants and an Italian delicatessen – all our waiting for us on our next visit!
Oh and also, our friend Mona, another ICYE volunteer (from Germany), who was living a couple of villages away has now moved to come and live with us and work at Kiyumbakimu – that’s really nice as she’s lovely and so one else to help us get things going as fast as possible at the project!
That’s all for now,
Take care, bye xx
3 comments:
Bring on the Footie photos!! x x
That all looks so cool. Did you learn any chants?
Hello friends... Do you have any picture of Uganda-Niger match?
Best regards from Argentina...
Pablo
www.arogeraldes.com
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