andersonbowen.comBLOG

for those who are aware of the kampala riots, this is an excerpt from an email i just wrote to my brother:

we are okay in kampala.  most of the rioting was in the city center (which we are very isolated from in mbuya) or along the roads as you enter into baganda from other regions of uganda.  it was definitely sketchy.  we were in consult with the director of security for the UN so had a direct line to what was going on where. actually needed to adjust the travel of some of my staff so they didn’t end up accidentally in the thick of it.  people in kampala were laying low for several days and we kept our travel around the city minimal and to those areas far from anything happening.  we probably watched the same youtube vidoes that you did - it was not pretty.  we were also tracking things on twitter.  we don’t know anyone that was hurt, but friends heard gunshots in various parts of town.  supposedly things are under control now, but it is a good example of how quickly things can spiral out of control here.  people are not happy with museveni (our current president).  there has always been speculation that the next elections (2011) were going to be dicey - we’d always planned to be gone by then purposely to avoid it - but now there’s even more evidence that those speculations could be true.

thanks for checking in on us.  it’s nice to know people are keeping tabs on us here!