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just because i didn’t post for six+ months doesn’t mean nothing was going on. it was actually a pretty eventful (in a good way) year. i’ll see if i can work on the backlog and fill in some of the blanks. here’s a car story from sep/oct. check the photos here after you read the story.

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the cats have taught me something that i never knew about lizards.

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if you’ve been reading the news coming out of east africa these days, you’d think the region was in chaos. since early december: ebola outbreak in uganda (also outbreaks of cholera, plague, and yellow fever), usaid worker killed in sudan, riots in kenya. but, the important thing to remember is that only the bad news makes it out of africa. [Read more →]

if you know me, you know i’m not much of a cook and i’m super happy i married a guy who is. i made chili for dinner last night, though, and it was good. i was proud.

i searched allrecipes.com for a chili recipe forgetting that there are whole cooking contests dedicated to chili, so i was somewhat overwhelmed with my options. i settled on “minnesota golf course chili.” first for its nostalgic quotient; second for its simplistic ingredient list. i admit i was intimidated by the pages-long ingredients of some recipes, but more importantly when selecting recipes to cook in uganda you have to choose based on likelihood of ingredient availability and how willing you are to drive all over town in search of those ingredients. for example, i’m probably not going to find rice vinegar regardless of how many stores i check. so, for success in cooking in uganda, the first step is to start with manageable ingredients. [Read more →]

we’ve been here a year and a half. which means we have a year and a half to go. half-way(?!), where did that go? and after bragging that we had put up 100 posts in the first six months we were here, we’ve pretty much fallen off a cliff since then. i’ll try to start making up for that.  hey at least i’ve been posting pictures.

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this morning i decided to see how many birds i could ID in our yard today. i came up with 23. + one raptor that i couldn’t figure out. 19 before i left for the coffee shop with the morning papers. i’d say that’s pretty typical - the number of birds i saw, that is. me getting up at 6:30 was not so typical. uganda has 1100 some birds and while we’ve always been animal lovers and paige has worked in the raptor center at the u of m, we definitely weren’t as in to birds as we are now. it’s easy to be a birder here, though. i probably saw as many birds today as i’ve seen in a lifetime of chickadees, grossbeaks and goldfinches in northern MN. the full list: [Read more →]

the uganda telecommunications system is hamstrung, clogged, ineffectual (should i go on?) since the three dominant cellphone companies – mtn, celtel, uganda telecom – started their 50% extra airtime campaigns simultaneously two months ago. the headache has caused enough national fervor that the uganda communications commission is intervening. today’s front-page headlines from the main daily newspapers: free airtime suspended (new vision), govt bans 50% airtime promos (daily monitor).

floods cutting off north and east uganda, stagnating peace talks in s. sudan, continued unrest in north kivu (eastern d.r. congo) and this makes front-page news? so, what’s the story? [Read more →]

i spend roughly 75% of my time in uganda in kampala. kampala is the environment and culture i know best in uganda, so tropical fish: tales from entebbe, a novel set mostly in kampala and some in entebbe and los angeles (i still don’t get why the sub-title is : tales from entebbe), gives me a great opportunity to use scenes from the book – as experienced by the main character who is a twentysomething ugandan woman – to highlight some kampala idiosyncrasies. this isn’t a real book review per se; rather, it’s disconnected commentaries on my kampala life. [Read more →]

labor day weekend, the quintessential end-of-summer last hurrah at the lake…normally fox lake (andersons) or lake superior (bowens), but this year lake victoria (anderson bowens). reeling from a week of nastily coinciding work and personal issues, i desperately needed a getaway just me and phil. with just 2+ days and not much money, we headed for ssese islands – a good combination of short drive, cheap camping, and the possibility of new birds.

we had the short drive (3 hours from kampala + 1 hour across the island), the cheap camping ($4 per person per night), and the new birds (little bee-eater, common greenshank, yellow billed duck, violet chested sunbird, tambourine dove). but, the story of the weekend? the ferry. [Read more →]

when i travel, i like to read novels set in that country or region, preferably ones written by locals. it’s my way of learning local history, customs, nuances as told by those who live it. i looked all over for thailand reading recommendations, but surprisingly, i found very few. maybe i just don’t know how to use amazon’s readers listmania function? in the end i found four books, reviewed here in the order that i read them… [Read more →]