Election Party in Kaabong

Since our last blog, we have been mostly eating beans and rice and getting stuck into some real work. MercyCorps delivered and installed machines for flour milling and nut grinding to a number of beneficiaries. Our role is now to make these profitable businesses. We have also started to make applications for bank loans for a number of other businesses through the MercyCorps loan guarantee scheme. Other than that, life has been all about finding something else to eat rather than ......................


One evening, we went to a local attraction called "Sliding Rock" - there's a clue in the name. The picture shows Alison making a daredevil move of sliding under Garry. There is only rock and no soft landings, so our first few attempts at a high speed descent on plastic trays resulted in too many injuries. We decided to go down at trouser speed instead. After sliding down the rock, we hung around for a while on the top, drinking beer and watching the sun go down.

This is the local cattle market, recently refurbished by MercyCorps. It is a huge success and now attracts all kinds of traders not just people selling cattle. This group is selling tobacco. As you can see it looks like a lump of mud or something nasty and no, we haven't tried it yet.

Alongside the cattle market, there is a commodity market which sells everything from football kits to animal medecines. The guy in front of the stall is a typical Karamojoan Elder in tradtional garb - skirt, bedsheet, hat and stick.

Football kits sold behind this young lady. She's practising her "on the ead son"

Three very fierce looking Karamojoan warriers. They are pastoralists and use the stick for guiding the cattle. The guy on the right, in his right hand is carrying a small piece of wood. They almost all carry this and it is in fact a stool, so when you sit down, you don't get ants in your pants (wearing skirts, we are not sure if they wear pants)

Chicken tonight? These three are selling the chickens that they are holding by their feet.

All the above people insisted on us taking their photos, but despite them always smiling, they don't smile for pictures (yet)

This is the area of the market selling cows and bulls.

This bit is where you buy goats. A goat is about 20 pounds and a cow about 100 pounds. The problem is you have to eat them all in one go as there is no refrigeration. We might buy a goat for the staff party barbie.

This is our training room. Alison is deep in conversation discussing business skills training.
We used to share the room with a dog and two chickens, but they have moved to Kaabong.

Alison went to the local jewelery shop

This is Bena on the right, Alison's personal shopper in the store, not quite Harrods, but similar to Ratners.

This is a Rolex. We walked into the office one day with one of these and a colleague asked 'do you like Rolex?' Garry responded with 'it's not a Rolex, it's a Swatch', thinking the guy was talking about watches. He was most insistent it was a Rolex and Garry insisted it was a Swatch. After some discussion, we found he was refering to the food that we were carrying. It is actually called 'rolleggs'. It is our favourite breakfast and is a chiapatti with two eggs fried and rolled up inside it, all beautifully packaged in a page from a school notebook.

More 'on the ead son' pictures. This is Masei, the owner of our local, he is wearing a cabbage leaf on his head as it is pretty hot sat in the sunshine.

The Night Out!

A posse we met up with one night at the local 'hotel'. We enjoyed a couple of beers with the gang and later went to Kotido's one and only 'night club', Planet 10. The favourite song is "Shake Your Waist'. Check it out on Youtube. It's definately number one in Kotido.

No pictures from the disco sadly! Everyone was really friendly, girls and boys alike. No-one was smoking or drinking, so no aggravation.

The groundnut paste machine being started for the first time. It was great for us to see something tangible (though the smoke).

Simsim paste (sesame paste). Tastes better than it looks and an expensive commodity round here. You can make all kinds of things with it, you can even add it to beans for an improved
flavour.

The happy owner and the local community.

Heath Robinson was here before us. This is actully the coolest/warmest thing we have come across so far. It is at the guest house in Kaabong. You lower the bucket, add hot water (the only place in Uganda where ther is any hot water), raise the bucket and treat yourself to a great shower. The hot water comes from a solar system in the garden.

This is our election party in Kaabong. A group of us relocated to Kaabong whilst the elections were being held. Great company and good fun. From left clockwise, Tim, Alison, Sam, Rolan and The Other One. There are 2 dogs at the guest house. One that used to live in Kotido, called Kooch and one stray, affectionately known as The Other One.

This guy has an amazing story about an incident during the Sierra Leone civil war. One day, we hope it will be published and could be made into a film (tear jerker). He is on the top of telecoms rock, the only place round there with a telephone signal.

A view across Kaabong, taken from the top of telecom's rock in the back garden.

The election was trouble free and we have moved back to our normal location in Kotido.

Hope you are all having fun and enjoying continuous electricity and (hot) running water!

Bye for now

Alison and Garry

Beans and rice again

We have arrived in Uganda and have settled in well. Our first few days were spent in Kampala where we enjoyed Erytrean food and Tim's hospitality (Deputy Country Director for Mercycorps, the company we are working for). Kampala is a "reasonably" cosmopolitan city on the edge of Lake Victoria. Unfortunately we didn't have any time for touring, but did manage to stock up on a few essentials before moving up to Kotido. This is in the North East of Uganda, in the Karamojoan territory where we will be spending most of our time.
Some of you blog readers may be wondering why we are in Uganda. A brief update is that we are not on vacation or a back packing jolly. We are working for an American NGO as economic development officers or to put it simply, we are helping people to start up and run profitable businesses. If you are interested in the detail, there is a website - www.mercycorps.org


This is our little home for the next 6 months. You're right, no satellite dish or TV aerial, however we have got running (cold) water and electricity, but not much of either. We have a nice little sitting area in the front, but we have to share this with cows, chickens, ghekkos and a million bugs. Apart from that, it's fine. We have been entertaining ourselves with watching DVDs and playing backgammon.

It is a little like the Wild West round here. This is the "main" road into town. Traffic is not really an issue and unlike Cyprus, there is no problem about walking on the pavements. Wild West is actually not a good description as the people are in reality nice and friendly. This guy is not taking his goats for a walk, he is taking them for lunch!!

This is the local market built by Mercycorps. It is busy with lots of traders all selling similar stufff, so choice is a touch limited. We haven't found a bread or cheese stall yet, but remain hopeful.

These two made it past lunch!

How cool is this? Whisky in a sachet. Would it catch on in UK?

There is a bit of building work going on, near our house. The paper bag on the guy's head complies with all relevant safety standards, including UV protection. Scaffolding is also to a high standard - yeah right!

This ugly looking bird is a Malibu Stork and it is huge. Look at the size of the crow near it. This was taken outside our hotel in Kampala.

This is Phillip, one of the entrepreneurs we will be working with. He has a milling business.

Phillips business is in a village called Kachery and we were mobbed by these children as we walked through.

Another Mercycorps project. These people are building a much needed micro dam under a scheme called Cash for Work. There has been a high dependency on handouts. Obviously this scheme is slightly different as people get paid for working. When the project is finished, the local community is financially better off and will have a critical water source to see them through the dry season. A real win:win situation.

This is Daniel, the project grant's manager we are working with. One of the problems is the ground is really hard - Daniel is showing us the bent hoe.

How's this for a builders radio. Dewalt and Makita - eat your hearts out. It really is a radio and it does work!

This is the site it was working on - a grain storage silo built by Mercycorps and donated to the local community.

There is even a Hilton here.

A Local Economic Development committee meeting that we attended. We will be working with these committees in various areas to help get businesses off the ground. We were made very welcome and were left with real enthusiam and committment from the locals about making these projects work. It is also quite nice holding a meeting outside with dogs, ducks and chickens free to join in when they wanted.

Our first puncture - sure it won't be the last. There are no tarmac roads, so travelling is a bit slow and bumpy.

In the past we have been asked about what we eat whilst we are working or travelling. So, that is the reason for the title. This week we have been mostly eating beans and rice, although one day we did have rice and beans, however there is no shortage of goat! For the time being, we will stick with rice and beans.

Bye for now

Alison and Garry

Dark chocolate hobnobs

We are on our way. You may remember the last blog, back in June, when we said watch out for what is happening next. Well, guys, this is it. We have taken up a wonderful opportunity to work in International Development in Uganda. More on this as we publish future blogs. Right now we are in Istanbul, waiting to join our flight to Entebbe. Thanks to our great friends in Cyprus who entertained us before leaving and helped send us off!


In the meantime, enjoy the following photos.

This was at the Sailing Club Christmas dinner, a traditional Cyprus mezze - something we may miss.In the picture are Lorraine and Dave, and Pete and Elaine who gave us great recipes and tips for Istanbul.
Boxing Day at the saiing club. Lots of cheating but under a gorgeous blue sky. We will miss this too.
The two of us enjoying Christmas morning on 27th December. Alison had to work Christmas day, whilst Garry was royally entertained by friends Pete and Trish. So we had our own Christmas day, the Full Monty on 27th.

Unfortunately, the sporting activity of the day, a spot of gentle cycling, ended up with Alison falling on her face. Fortunately, the black eye didn't ruin her good looks!

Whilst on a business trip to Limassol, Garry's eye for long legged birds spotted these two pelicans and a member of the klu kluks klan.

We are travelling to Uganda via Istanbul, so decided to stop off for a couple of nights. Fabulous city and highly recommended that you visit. We will be back! The above is the Blue Mosque, one of the famous sights.

Hopefully, you can see this picture ok. This is a Roman underground water cistern, one of the biggest in the world. Some joker has put in fish which are enormous. Look carefully for the two Medusa Heads.

Wow. What a view! The Sea of Marmosa from Hotel Daphne, next to our digs.

And finally, why the title dark chocolate hobnobs? Alison asked for these for Christmas. Garry had the best shopping experience ever charging round Cyprus on his scooter looking for these biscuits. They are not available on the island, so he made them. Yum!!
Bye for now.

Next update from Uganda

Alison and Garry

Long legged birds

Sorry blog followers, that we haven't done a blog for a while. Some of you thought that was it all over with. Well we're happy to say it ain't. We're still living and working in Cyprus and life is very good indeed. But we have a plan. And that is we're now going too ............................................ Ah, you'll have to "watch this space" to see what we do next.

In the meantime here is a little update on our wonderful life in Cyprus.

Chris and Tony from Beverley came over for a couple of weeks. Great to spend some time with them. We took a little road trip down to Paphos and Polis. We've got a great book of places to visit in Cyprus that are a little less touristy and maybe off most peoples radar. A kind of "a road less travelled" type of guide book. So on our way we stopped off at a couple of wonderful little, out of the way places. The above photo is from a little ancient village called "bugger can't remember the name" ("bugger can't remember the name" is a strange name for a village hey?). Anyway it's a world heritage site and was worth the effort of getting there. A small place with about 40 old houses, some habitable others in need of refurbishment. It looked as though only 2 or 3 of the house were occupied so it would be ok for those kind of folks that can't get on with their neighbours! There was a bar though. In the picture are some old pots. We're still "on a mission" to find out what these were for and how you used them. They don't have a hole in them or a lid. So how do you get stuff in and out? Answers on blog please.

Our friends Chris and Tony outside one of the houses in "bugger can't remember the name" village.

Now this was funny. We had another friend (Chris Ryall) staying with us for few days. So we took off on another little road trip. We've now only got a 2 seater car, so challenge number one was getting 3 of us in it. Fortunately Chris is tiny, so we squeezed in and took off to the occupied north. It's actually correctly referred to as The Democratic Republic of Northern Cyprus (a country only recognised by Turkey). Anyway enough of the background stuff. How did this little fella get in the picture? Well, we were driving East from Kyrenia and missed a turning we were looking for. So we found a place to turn round and there we see a very interesting looking, but abandoned, building site. It looked as though this place was going to be a hotel. Garry climbed over the wall to explore. Fab looking place. The hotel had been cut into the cliffs and the rooms would have had spectacular sea views. Then, this guy (the one in the picture above) makes an appearance. This was his patch and he was not happy that some random stranger had wandered in (Garry did wonder why the walls and fences around the site were so high) so he got his angry face on and made a charge. Fortunately Garry being the athletic type was able to out run the beast and get back over the wall before it all kicked off. Also, fortunately, Alison being a bit of a happer snappper was able to get picture of big bird showing his angry face and flexing his muscles.

Cool hey. Having a big pigeon as a security guard.

On the same road trip with Chris. You pay your money and make your choice. For 1 Euro you can have a dodgey video or an even dodgier moggy.

Blimey this picture goes back a few months. Right now it's too hot for mountain biking but this was a while ago. We were following the route of a hash (a walk/run route of course) round some mountains near the small town of Agros. This is the area where they grow roses and make a very popular rose water drink. Again a lovely day out but somehow we got it wrong as we couldn't find any of the hundreds of acres of roses that are supposed to be in this area. At this point in the photo, Alison had gone off on foot to reccie the route. Garry (still being the athletic type) had had to carry both bikes up a steep, narrow, un-rideable path and in the picture is riding up hill and pushing Alison's bike. Is he hard or what?

Easter BBQ with our neighbours. Angelos (the one on the left of the picture) and his wife, Maria, are the most fantastic neighbours. They're very generous and are regularly feeding and entertaining us. Thanks Angelos and Maria.

Same BBQ, Maria is on the right of the photo and is just threading a little Souvlaki. Angelos and Maria make the best Souvlaki (pork Kebab) on the island. Just a pity Alison is veggie. But then they always do something magnificant for her as well.

We've now got Television. This is the guys putting the cable in for it. A very sophisticated high tech set up. You want TV? Well you just get in touch with one of the many providers (well any 1 of 3) wait 5 or 6 weeks and then they show up, lob a cable up from the telegraph pole and plug it into the TV. Simple hey. Who needs all this digital nonsense?

Some countries are little over regulated and get hung up on minor details. This is just an example of why we love Cyprus so much. You see on this road there's double yellow lines so you can't park on the road. Never mind just park on the pavement instead. You see Cypriots don't get hung up on minor details like parking regulations.

Just to prove the above isn't a one off. Just further along the same road this guy has done the same thing. I reckon this would work a treat in England. What do you guys think?

On the road trip with Chris and Tony we visited the Tomb of The Kings just outside Paphos.
Garry decided to check out one of the tombs for size.

Kolossi Castle near Limassol - would make a great party venue. Must remember to buy a lottery ticket.

Is this the photo that explains the title of the blog "Long legged birds"? Well possibly, but no it isn't actually. This is Wednesday night, girlie night, in the Royal Standard in Beverley. Alison was back in the uk for a few days and was able to catch up with some friends. All beautiful birds but "Long legged" could be stretching it a bit. The average height round this table is probably 5' 3" and 7/8ths.

This is where, if you're brave you dive in, if you're not, you jump in. Lovely water in the sea caves.

More long legged birds. These are the ones that explain the title. They are really shy (unlike the birds in the Standard) and we only get to see them early in the year on the salt lake. Amazing colour!

For keen cyclists, this is one of the targets to aim for. Stavrovouni Monastery, right at the top of a hill. 45 minutes to cycle up and 7 to come down. For some reason, our brakes seem to have worn out. Yes, it's really steep.

WOW. NOW FOR THE HILITE OF THE YEAR. NO SORRY, HILITE OF THE DECADE OR MAYBE EVEN THE CENTURY.

A note from Garry below.

Kenny Quinn, a good friend of mine had a birthday with a 0 (thats a o or a zero) on the end. His wife Mariann very generously organised tickets for Kenny and I to go to the British Formula 1 Grand Prix. Now these were no ordinary Formula 1 tickets, oh no, they were the full monty. We were in a hospitality unit, with champagne and food etc etc right on the pit lane entrance. It would have been impossible to get any closer to the action. On the Saturday we had Johnny Herbert (an ex formula 1 driver and a real nice guy) spend some time with us. He was very surprised to see his old mate Kenny Quinn there and commented on how nice it was to bump into him again! Sunday, race day was just fantastic. The best day at the track ever. So a big

THANKS to Mariann.

Kenny, thanks for being patient and listening to my boring stories about living and working in Cyprus. I really enjoyed catching up with you after such a long time. Now, when Mariann has a birthday with a zero on the end if you want to get her tickets for the Grand Prix I would be very happy to escort her.

Thanks again to you both. It was a very special weekend indeed.

Remember I did say we were very close to the action. This is Jenson Button walking away from his car, at the end of the race, having just parked it outside our hospitality unit.


And this is Heikki Kovalainen getting out of his car after the race. Close to us or what hey?

The man himself. My good mate Kenny Quinn with a brace of Bugatti's. He was trying to decide which one went best with his hair colour. Was it the polished metal one or the blue one. I told him he should just order one in tartan and be done with it.

Good bye for now.

Garry and Alison