That God blessed the broken road, that lead me straight to you

As part of my tour of Jinja and the River Nile yesterday, Moses and Peter (my hosts) took me to see a place called Amber Court [the main entrance is pictured at right]. The building was once part of the British Colonial compound, I believe where the barrack was housed.


They brought it to my attention as it was where Queen Elizabeth II stayed when she last visited the country in 1954 [view of from the front/road]. She had come to Jinja for the opening of the Owen Falls Dam, which is where Uganda gets its power.


The building was interesting to see: it's run down to the point that it looks distressing, even the 25 yard pool [at right]. But the structures are still sound, and probably still able to be returned to their former glory. They probably will not be, and the site will continue to degenerate... this, even though HRH might pay a visit to the area when she returns to Uganda in November for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting...


Some other pictures from yesterday:
Planted fields of sugar cane edge the remaining portion of a tropical rainforest which has yet to be cut down to allow for more planting.




Behind a road lined with vegetation, a hillside is cultivated with a tea.





Some of the local, large birds, hang out on a golf course overlooking the arm of Lake Victoria which leads to the Nile.

By the way, have I mentioned the strong prevalence of religion here? I also heard Bless the Broken Road yesterday while at lunch... and it got stuck in my head.

Anyways, I leave tonight for my journey back... 20 hours of flying: I can hardly wait.

I set out on a narrow way, many years ago
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept pushin' through

It's a small world, after all

Today, I inadvertently learned how to delete all the photos on my camera.... Also today, my Uganda hosts (Moses and Peter) took me about a 45-minute drive east of Kampala, to the town of Jinja (pronounced "Ginger"), and the source of the River Nile, where it emerges from Lake Victoria (although apparently under some argument, as the lake is fed by some other rivers). The switch from Victoria to Nile is shown in the picture at right: between the island on the right and the left-hand shore. Other pictures (all taken after the deletion, which luckily happened while at the source park):

Sign at the park, mentioning the history of the discovery of its connection the Nile.






[left]: Cross-river from the sign's location. On the hillside to left of the palm tree in center frame is a tall obelisk-like marker where Speke stood and proclaimed Lake Victoria the source.

[right]: A former bridge across the Nile, near the source, from before the nearby dam was built. The remains of the bridge now only span about half the river.






A view down the Nile...

(and yes, part of today's trip included touching the waters... so I've now been in de-Nile the Nile).




As for today's title, it has more to do with the last class day yesterday. Two of the participant coaches walked in wearing "Texas Swimming" shirts... (apparently, one of their swimmers recently attended Longhorn Swim Camp in Austin).

I'm now back in Kampala, and leave Uganda tomorrow... so I will leave you with the composite panorama of Kampala I took earlier this week and patched together. hasta


It's a small world, after all
It's a small, small, world...

Blue... oh so lonesome for you...

While there is not a U.S. fast food joint around, Harry Potter does exist [at right] and at the moment Beyoncé's singing, "to the left, to the left" on the radio. (The Pan Am Games are also on t.v., which is strange 'cause I don't think they're really on in the U.S....)

Strangely, there is apparently not a McDonald's in Uganda; nor Burger King, KFC, nor Taco Bell... but I've seen some Clear Channel billboards. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've been out of the country and not seen some American fast food places around (there was even a McDonald's in the Amsterdam airport).

Also interesting is the prevalence of US music here on the radio. It's even in restaurants, like the other night at dinner I managed to hear a slew of country songs including LeAnn Rimes's Blue and some song where the singer kept saying they were from "San Antone" (I think it was Clint Black, but am not positive).

Things continue to go well... had another driving tour yesterday, and saw the Ugandan Parliament building [at right]. Also saw the interesting turning walls [above left] at one of the hotels here....

Well, I will sign off here by mentioning that the city is Kampala after one of the hills here that the British named "Hill of Impala" due to the antelopes originally in the area. In Luganda, the language of the local Buganda population", the hill was called "Kasozi ka Empala" which got nicknamed "Ka'mpala"...


Three o'clock in the morning, here I am
Sitting here so lonely, so lonesome I could cry

I feel it, it's coming, rain...

Well, I have managed to take a few brief jaunts out-and-about here in Uganda and remembered to take my camera with me. And now that I've downsized the pictures enough so they should hopefully load, I bring you...
Scenes from in and around Kampala

I'll start with a picture of my hotel (behind the palms, at right), from outside. It's located within Kampala's banking district: a Standard-Charter bank is directly across from it, down the street is the headquarters of East Africa Development Bank, behind us is the Uganda high court, and the tall building on the left hand side of the picture is actually the (Federal) Bank of Uganda.


After today's class, I was driven around town and also visited the country's only 50m pool in nearby Munyoyo (a picture of the pool is available here). Part of today's tour included a trip up to the top of one of Kampala's 7 hills, where the Kibuli Mosque sits, along with it's giant mango tree [at left].


From the left minaret of the mosque, I snapped a sequential panorama shot of the city itself. The first of the 5 is at right, showing the part of town I'm staying in (I'm just to the right of the tall building with the blue middle section).

I visited the shores of Lake Victoria, as well [pictured at left]. The picture is from the Speke Resort--where the 50m pool is--currently undergoing a massive expansion in preparation for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting which will be in Kampala in November.

And while out at the lake, I visited a more typical Uganda town on the lakeshore (Ggapa, if I've remembered correctly), and snapped a picture of its fish market [at right]. The partially cut-off sign to the left is a list of rules/recommendations about how to treat the fish population of the lake, part of which included not using explosives to kill them...

Well, I must jet, as net time here dwindles... hasta


I'm gonna stand out here on the mountain top...

Another suitcase in another hall

Scenes from airports...
FLL, IAD, AMS, EBB

As of 10 p.m. local Uganda time (about 2 p.m. in Florida, I think), I am checked into my hotel in Kampala. This is after 24 hours of travel...

FLL
My trip started around 11 a.m. at the Fort Lauderdale airport (FLL), where, after checking in for my first flight (FLL-->Washington Dulles) with United, I headed outside and over to Terminal 1 to attempt to check in with KLM (at the Northwest counter) for my second (DC-->Amsterdam) and third flights (Amsterdam-->Entebbe). I mention my trek between terminals because by the time I'd made my roundtrip, I was sweating massively (it was probably 90° with 90% humidity) and because I wasn't able to check-in for my second flight. (Polk Majestic, who made my reservation, had apparently purchased 2 separate roundtrip tickets: one domestic; one international. As they were separate, the one confirmation number I had check me in for the United flight, and didn't work for the KLM flights--and the ticket counter staff can't check people in on flights that don't originate there... they were nice enough to change my seats though.)


IAD
After cooling down, grabbing some lunch and attempting to check-in online (your flight doesn't originate here, please check-in with the flight origination...), I eventually caught my 1:40 p.m. flight to Dulles (IAD). Upon arrival in D.C., I was a little worried/frantic: I had an hour to find my next gate/flight, which I didn't think I was checked in for. My worry wasn't relieved by the fact that at Dulles I couldn't locate a departure screen with my flight on it; United flights--yes; flights arriving--yes; map of restaurants within the terminal--yes (3, I believe); information about where I should go--NO.

After blindly hopping one shuttle to change terminals, a brief chat with a fellow confused transient, and a chat with a knowledge shuttle driver on break; I was headed toward what turned out to be my gate (pictured above; the driver knew from where the flight left from memory--I was impressed). Upon visiting the gate counter, I had my remaining two boarding passes and about 20 minutes before boarding...

My trans-Atlantic flight didn't go ideally. While the seat next to me was empty (yes!), the one in front was not... which wouldn't have been such a bad thing if the person it it had not reclined fully a quarter into the flight. The angle the chair was at made it impossible for me to sit in the seat and be able to see "my viewing screen" that was on the back of it. I was, however, able to see that my reclined forward neighbor was watching Hercules. Added to this was I ended up not being able to fall asleep on the flight.

My eventual frustration drove me to a minor contortion act which allowed me to view the screen (and put one of my legs to sleep), so I watch Pan's Labyrinth for the last part of the flight.


AMS

After my sleepless (overnight) flight, I arrived at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport (AMS) around 7 a.m., Sunday morning, surprisingly awake. It wasn't until the end of my 4 hour layover (where I saw the fish mobile above, as well as the interesting smoking warnings on the cigarettes in duty-free--at left), as I was waiting to board my last flight, that I started to get sleepy. I managed to stay awake long enough to find my seat, and then crashed and slept most of the flight 8.5 hour flight. I did manage to wake up about mid-way through the flight, as we flew over the north Africa coast and the Sahara, though.

EBB
Upon arrival at Entebbe airport (EBB) around 8:30 p.m., I waded through immigration and then managed to find my ride (Peter and Moses) in the throng of people waiting outside the terminal's gate. After a 45-minute drive, around Lake Victoria (not really close enough to see the lake, save at one point--but it was also dark), we arrived at my hotel here in Kampala, the Grand Imperial Hotel.

My clinic starts tomorrow morning... so I must go and make final preparations for that. Hasta...

So what happens now?
Where am I going to?

I bless the rains down in Africa, gonna take some time to do the things we never have...

So, as I'm leaving later today for a week-long trip to Uganda, I picked Toto's Africa as today's song.

In inspecting the lyrics, I was surprised by how I'd misheard part of the lyric: I have though that the song talked about "a leopardess" rising above the Serengenti, but the lyrics I found indicate that it should be "Olympus". I'm not sure if I like the shift or not...

I've still got the flipping between to "bless" and "miss" in the subject line to ponder as well ("I miss the rains...").



Back to the trip, I leave today just before 2, get to Amsterdam (in The Netherlands) tomorrow morning and arrive in Kampala late tomorrow. This fun (hopefully sleep-full) flight follows my surviving through both Friday the 13th yesterday, and a rather hectic work-week (I'm saying it was hectic because I'll be out of the office next week).

And as of last night, I'm all packed and ready to go. I just need to put the final touches on my presentation for while I'm there, and I'll be ready. And hopefully while there I'll be able to figure out the seeming paradox that a country on the Equator has temperatures in the 60s-80s... (I read online somewhere that there's a 0% chance for a "Hot" day (above 80°); that it's never been that warm there). But I will find out...

And hopefully, I'll be able to get online whilst there and do a post or two (or if only to hit my blog page so that I have a visit from Africa on it ;-). But I won't know this until I get there... so possibly hasta my return (on the 23rd).

Speaking of my return: the irksome part of this trip is that the last Harry Potter book comes out while I'm gone. That day-of-release delivery is going to waste! (That, and I need to be patient to wait and read it upon my return...)

I know that I must do what's right
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like a leopardess Olympus above the Serengeti