Rain

My stomach is much better, thanks! I think it really was just an adjustment phase. Anyway, if I do get food poisoning or catch something from the water (which I’m not drinking), then I have some heavy duty antibiotics from the travel clinic to clear things up.

On Friday, I filed a police report in Kampala. They gave me a "temporary" report that supposedly lasts 1 month (whatever that means), as a permanent one would cost $30. "Hello officer, I've been robbed." "Your money was stolen? Hand over more money and I'll investigate." I don't know what a permanent report would involve, anyway. They don't seem to have an automated system of reports, as my temporary one was hand-written. The man handed a blank form to my driver and told him to go upstairs to have it photocopied--that would cost 200 shillings. 200 shillings for them to photocopy their own blank form!!! He then filled in the form by hand, asking me to list the items I wanted recovered, even though I had already listed them all for him.

Later, I called my travel insurance company to file the claim, and they said I should get £150 back for my phone. Sweet!

We had a ridiculously expensive dinner on Friday night. Okay, it was only about $20 per person, but that's a lot of money in Uganda! Nothing costs that much. We should have known better than to go to the restaurant closest to the UN station and the airport, where most of the customers are white. On Saturday, we went to the Botanical Garden here (no pictures because we didn't want to pay the 2000 shilling camera fee) and to a resort beach. It was nice, but I wouldn't swim. Them there's schistosomiasis-infested waters.

On Sunday, it was a housemate's birthday, so we had drinks and a cake we bought in Kampala (looked pretty but was horrible! We had to use a knife to create holes for candles in the rock-hard icing).

Rain, rain, go away. I want to eat lunch in one of the tents on the lawn, and you are making that difficult. It has been off-and-on stormy here for the past two days. There is no drizzle here. Rain is heavy, fat, and noisy on the corrugated tin roofs, but it never lasts for long. Now the sun is coming out again.