Back in Uganda

So basically the story is that I cycled down to Lilongwe, Malawi. And had many adventures and so forth. Then since it's almost Christmas, I found a safe place to store my bike and got on the bus. I traveled three days and three nights to finally reach Kampala, Uganda.

This is a picture of Dad from when we went to Jinja, Uganda, in July and I discovered the macro button on my camera. If you look carefully you can see he cut himself shaving.

When my two older brothers graduated from high school and moved to the United States, Dad presented each of them with a razor. The thing is the new kind of razor blades are the biggest scam ever. Everyone knows it doesn't cost Gillette $1.45 to make a razor blade. When Dad saw that soon you wouldn't even be able to buy the older style razors he bought extra and stored them for when his sons started to shave.

Somehow, though, I missed this little coming of age ceremony when I graduated.

Anyway fast forward a decade. I'm living in Fremont, California. I work as an engineer for a computer company in Silicon Valley. Dad and Mum are visiting.

Dad sits down next to me on my bed. "Son," he says, "You know how when you graduated from high school I gave you a razor?"

"Uh... No Dad." I respond, "That was only Noel and Jason. I never got a razor."

"Oh," says Dad. He looks relieved. "Well it turns out the new razors with the three blades give a better shave." Dad stares at the wall for a moment thinking. "I don't know. Perhaps it could also be they use lower grade steel in the thin blades these days. It seems like the thin blades don't keep their edge like they should."

"Ah well." He says as he puts his hand on my knee and starts to stand. "It's no use trying to kick against it."

Anyway. Family. Merry Christmas.

Crime and Punishment

Mbalala Uganda.

I guess the guy in the yellow shirt must have stolen something because a mob was chasing him down. He fell down in front of my window and people started kicking him and stamping on him.

The big guy holding him by the shirt possibly saved his life and definitely saved him from getting even more beat up. He pulled everyone off the guy and made people calm down a bit. The security guy with the rifle and the red sleeves also helped calm things down.

When the police arrived they dispersed the crowd and drove the thief to jail.

Mbarara Uganda

I saw this statue of a traditional cow herder in Mbarara Uganda and I thought his pipe was fantastic. I haven't seen anyone smoking a pipe here but I assume that everyone used to back in the day.

Flame Lilies

I'm in Kabale, and about 40 km for the Rwanda border. It's a decent size town. The kind of town where they have internet cafes, for example. I'll spend a day here and then cross over.

But what I most wanted to say was that I saw some flame lilies yesterday and it filled me with so much joy.

When I was a young boarding school student, the flame lilies used to bloom right before Christmas vacation. The older kids would take an afternoon and collect buckets and buckets of them to decorate before the parents arrived.

I remember one time a group of us had to testify at the court in Mwinilunga. The case was about a guy who stole a bunch of things from the school including my towel and my Hawaiian shirt. That's not important for this story.

On the drive back to school, we passed through an area with lots of flame lilies. The deal was the car would go pretty slow so we could stand on the rear bumper and if we saw one, we'd jump off, grab it, run and cling on again. I had never jumped off a moving car before and didn't hit the ground running. It wasn't like I fell over, it was more like I stayed standing up but the ground came up and smacked me in the face.

Ha ha. You get better with practice.

I still remember that day as one of the best ever.

On the road again in Real Life too

Why does Snoop Dog carry a pink umbrella?



Fo drizzle.

So I've had a great visit with Jason and Linda and the kids. Actually I've been mooching at their house for just over three months.

It was really great to see the kids growing up. This visit was my first time to see Sam. He just had one tooth when I arrived but now his mouth is stuffed with teeth. He also can walk now. Asha learned how draw recognizable faces. Jake learned some new soccer tricks.

It's amazing the changes that happen in three months. For me mostly the changes were that I got fat and lazy.

I'm currently in Masaka Uganda. It's my birthday today. The twins, Asha and Jake, sang happy birthday to me on the phone. I'm 30 years old. A full decade smarter and better looking than I was back in 1998.

Off we go...

In Egypt you have to wear long pants so when I started cycling from Addis Abeba it felt great to wear shorts for a change. I envisioned a leisurely trip of 40km to Muketuri. I started out late and went for an hour in the wrong direction. Also it turns out that Ethiopia is quite hilly.

At around 2pm I had traveled 40km but everyone still insisted that Muketuri was 40km further. Fun Fact: Ethiopians say everything is 40km away. By this point I was sunburned and had to put on my long pants again.

In the end, I crashed at a town called Bunar which was 10km short of Muketuri. I was too sunburned to cycle the next day. I expected the skin to peal off but instead my legs developed these tiny blisters so when I rubbed my knee they would burst and make my hand all icky.

So uh... Some people asked me if I was still in Egypt or whatever. Actually I just had those blog entries written up a long time ago but hadn't posted them. I've been loafing at my brother's place in Uganda for exactly three months today. In Ethiopia there was no internet to speak of so I didn't write any blog entries. Also the pictures I took are mostly rubbish.

The picture in this blog entry was meant to be a mini-bus (called taxi in Ethiopia), two old ladies carrying huge loads of firewood, and the distant hills. Instead what you get is a picture of children all over the place. Foiled again!

I flew from Cairo to Addis. The plan in Ethiopia was to cycle north to Gondor and then south to Kenya.