Harpa & Vignir volunteering in Soroti, Uganda

Back in Iceland!

2009-07-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

We are back in Iceland!

Can´t say the feeling wasn´t a bit weird, the mixture of happiness and sadness. However Iceland greeted us fairly, with warm hugs from friends and family, but at the same time FREEZING coldness, that bit your skin like an angry lion.

Well, there were some things that you had already forgotten about this beautiful, and yes cold, country. Driving down the Laugarvegur on a sunny afternoon, seeing the tourists in their 66 North jackets, ordering a beer and falling down of sickness as soon as the bill came, concerts everywhere, the political discussions, the weird humor and etc and etc.

But wow how I miss Uganda. I miss you all you guys and hope everything is well. I am very grateful for those who gave their time to read our blog and sincerely hope they thought it interesting, at least at some point. Thank you for your well appreciated support.

As most of you remember, the last 3 weeks we had an adventure! Oh yes, we took our small motorbike and drove through Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. What a fruitful and great experience!

I will post the travel story here soon, on this blog, but for now I want to scream from the bottom of my lungs:

GOODBYE UGANDA, I LOVE YOU!

yours Harps

p.s. check out photos from our Rwanda trip on my facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/harpa.sigurjonsdottir?ref=name#/harpa.sigurjonsdottir?v=photos

Burundi & Tanzania

2009-06-13T05:02:00.000-07:00

Nu erum vid stodd i Tanzaniu, nykomin fra Burundi.

Skemmst er fra thvi ad segja ad Burundi er stormerkilegt land. Vid eyddum nokkrum dogum i hofudborginni sem liggur vid snjohvita ferskvatnsstrond. Skitt med pakkaferdir til Costa del Sol, Bujumbura er stadurinn!

Vid landamaerin hofdum vid bara fengid leyfi til ad vera i landinu i thrja daga og forum vid thvi til innflytjendayfirvalda til ad fa ad vera lengur og their sogdu okkur bara ad setja inn umsokn og koma svo eftir helgi og fa stimpilinn. Thegar vid svo komum eftir rolega helgi i hofudborginni konnudust their ekkert vid thetta og sogdu ad thad vaeri omogulegt ad fa Visa thann daginn og vid gaetum kannski fengid daginn eftir, takid eftir ordinu kannski. Their aetludu semse ad lata okkur hanga tharna i hofudborginni og bida i von og ovon um ad komast yfirleitt ur landinu!

En Harpa let vitaskuld ekki segja ser slika vitleysu og spurdi "are you forcing us to stay in this country?" Tha leist nu skrifstofublokinni ekkert a islenska skapsmuni og sagdi eg gef ykkur fimm daga og ekkert mal.

Vid forum thvi og skodudum restina af landinu sem er geysifallegt. Thar matti sja uppsprettu Nilarfljotsins, sem var nu bysna fabrotin midad vid Ugandisku uppsprettuna (thaer eru vist fleiri en ein) og svo villtumst vid i einhverju fjalllendi thar sem vegir voru lagdir i 85% thverhniptar fjallshlidar, litlu matti muna ad skellinadran okkar hefdi thad ekki.

I gaer keyrdum vid yfir ein landamaeri og allt breyttist, vid vorum komin til Tanzaniu. I fyrsta lagi thurfti eg ad skipta um vegarhelming, sem tekst naestum aldrei fyllilega fyrr en a thridja degi. Svo ma nefna ad Burundi og Rwanda eru einhver thettbylustu lond i Afriku, pinulitil frimerki stoppud af folki og raektudu landi. En Tanzania er hinsvegar taeplega milljon ferkilometrar og adeins um 36 manns a ferkilometra. Vid keyrum her a rennislettu malbiki halfan daginn an thess ad sja einn einasta bae, einhverjar orfaar hraedur sem gud ma vita hvad eru ad gera a midjum thjodvegi fotggangandi, en svona er vist Afrika.

Rwanda!

2009-06-02T05:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not updating the blog, but we've been busy finishing our stay in Soroti. Long story short: we've said our goodbyes and left our home for the last eight months. All the people we met there will be dearly missed, but we hope someday to go back.

But each end is a new beginning (or something profound in that line) we're now well on our way in our epic journey through east africa. We've driven on our "motorcycle" all the way from Soroti to Kampala and then down to Kabale (still in Uganda) where we spent some time in Lake Bunyoni, which is one of the most beutiful places on earth, or so we thought...

The next day we set for the border of Rwanda. Even though Swedes, Germans, Brits and Americans can stroll through without paying as much as a dime, we had to apply well in advance (which we didn't) and cough up 60 bucks each. After some negotiating the border people were kind enough to let us through, then we had to process endless piles of documents to get our "motorcycle" through. We had even been kind enough to remove all our plastic bags in advance, since they are appearantly illeagal in Rwanda. Everything worked out and we were on our way to the "land of a thousand hills."

Rwanda is truly spectacular, the landscape is without compare... The people seem nice, the roads and infrastructure is extremely organised. Even the boda-bodas (motorcycle taxis) are obliged to wear labeled outfits and have to provide the passangers with helmets!

A bit expensive though... We spent some days in Kigali, the capital, but now we are in Kibuye, which is extremely beutifully positioned next to a grand lake.

In contrast with this country's beauty is it's horrific history, which is well documented in the numerous memorials spread out the country. So far we've visited three and seen skulls in the thousands, heards stories that shook us to the bones, and still there are more to go... in fact we are going to visit a memorial as soon as I complete this blog.

Next stop is Burundi!!!!

Gestagangur Pt. 1

2009-04-14T23:53:00.000-07:00

Thad hefur verid mikid um gestagang hja okkur ad undanfornu og thvi aerid taekifaeri til ad halda uti einhverjum myndraenum samskiptum vid umheiminn. Vid forum med Sylgju, Palma, Isar, Daliu, Herdisi og Benedikt i messu uti i thorpi.

Thad var sett upp aegilega fin songva og danssyning einungis fyrir okkur.

Kirkjuklukkan i bakgrunni.

I godum felagsskap.

Thad var hatid hja bornum nagranna okkar.

Vid forum i thorpin og tharna ma sja Herdisi kanna geymsluskilyrdi korns i naerliggjandi herudum Soroti.

Vid kitkum i heimsokn til vinar okkar og bornin hopudust vitanlega um okkur, enda faheyrt ad annar eins hopur Mzungua sjaist a thessum slodum.

Vatnid "okkar," Lake Kyoga var omissandi vidkomustadur ad okkar mati. Thangad var tekin med hin dyrindis Betty Crocker sukkuladikaka, sem kom alla leid fra Islandi.Vatnaliljurnar voru i fullum skruda.

Thratt fyrir oflugar motbarur var Herdis tilneydd til ad taka vid einni slikri ad gjof fra raedara okkar.

Benedikt fekk ad bragda a thvi sem her er kallad "the local brew" og var haestaanaegdur med (og heimamennirnir anaegdir med Benedikt.)

Esther samstarfskona okkar var svo hrifin af "Italiu" og Isari ad hun let sauma a lidid thessi samstaedu glaesilegu local fot.

Vid forum med folkid ad kikja a prydi baejarins.

Stulkurnar skemmtu ser vel.

Einnig leyfdum vid gestum okkar ad bragda a spiritualisma baejarins, en hann er alsettur musterum, moskum og kirkjum. Shiva var held eg sattur med okkur.

News of the World

2009-02-25T02:20:00.000-08:00

Apparantely we are living in the poorest district in the whole of Uganda. See news story here.

Fyrir ykkur Islendinga sem erud ad lesa, tha ma til gamans geta ad vidtal vid okkur birtist i Sunnlenska frettabladinu fyrir skemmstu.

Gone fishing

2009-02-17T01:18:00.000-08:00

The newest addition to the fauna in the house was this lovely scorpion. Apparently they are not that common here in Uganda and this was the first time our collegues had ever seen one. This brings the list to: Scorpion, Mice, Bats, Cats, Hedgehogs, Lizards, Spiders, Rats, Frogs and millions of flies. Who needs a national park when you've got a zoo in the house. Me preparing to get rid of the bats in the attic.

We found some canned Carlsberg on sale in the local supermarket. Either it had expired, Carlsberg is not nearly as good as I thought it was or Turkey makes worse Carlsberg than other countries.

Everything is manual in Uganda, we even have to grind our own meat for the pizza! Thank god Pamela had one.

Pork in Pamba with Lavera (from Texas) and Rosa (from Holland). This would be around the 50th time we've had pork there.

The garden sometimes needs maintainance and of cource there is no chainsaw, only the "slasher."
We decided to go fishing in Lake Kyoga the other day. Which basically means buying some nylon, hooks and bait at the market, tying it to a stick and find some random guy to take us out on the lake.

It was quite beautiful. Even though Lake Kyoga is not nearly as big as Victoria it still looks like an ocean.

In the bait bag we found this freakshow. Apparently it was cought at the exact moment of trying to swallow another fish whole.

Harpa was very patient. The boatman had cought some 6 small fish, while we had nothing!
Finally I cought this bad-boy! For you fishermen reading, the boatman forbid us from letting it go.
Later that day we has a BBQ with some friends. Rosa, Marcy from the East Coast, Eric from Alaska, Lavera and that is our neighbour Alice.

The BBQ Queen!

The fish I cought was quite tasty as you can tell by my expression.

The food was excellent.
The gin and juice was a hit!

The food was a hit!

The icelandic music was a hit!

This funny fellow is called Megas and he (or she I don't really know yet) is the latest addition to the birdlife in our compound. Soon we plan to put up ads for bird-watching tours around the house. Megas is perhaps one of the ugliest creatures found on this planet and also one of the noisiest. We plan to murder him soon.

Megas is quite the troublemaker, firstly he leaves enormous droppings all over our front porch and secondly he likes to drink every basin of soapwater he can find.

While on the field the other day a local witch doctor threw these branches at me and told me it was a beneficial spell. If he hadn't told me he was a witch doctor I'd have thought he was a drunken buffoon looking for hand-outs, but he did tell me he was a witch doctor, so...

The north!

2009-02-05T01:09:00.001-08:00

Finally, a vacation for a week! But what to do? Where to go?

We were pretty short on money, like usually, but still wanted to do something exciting, crazy and interesting and, like normally with us guys, something different and off the beaten track. We concluded that there were 3 things we wanted to do the most:
1. Go to the north, and experience the mentality and destruction after the civil war.
2. Go to Karamanjoland in the north east and not get shot!
3. Go to a national park. That was bound to be expensive, but come on, once in Uganda... We therefore decided to go for 1 day to Kidepo Valley, a park far north, which was full of Sudanese and Karamanjong poachers and had just recently re -opened after the civil war.

After we had settled on the route, we soon found out it was easier to decide what we wanted to do than to actually be able to do it!! How should we get there? Should we go by bike? Rent a car? Go by public transport? Where could we get accommodation? Should we bring the tent?

We met a lot of barriers. Some people told us that the north was depressing, bitter and unfriendly and you would not be welcomed as a tourist. Others told us that former rebels, or bandits, were still roaming around the roads. The authorities told us that the roads in Karamanjong were not safe at all, and you would definitely get shot using private transport. Others told us that the Karamanjongs were shameless warriors, walking around naked, waving their guns in your face. Still others told us that there was no food or accommodation to be found in the far north, so you would have to bring food and a tent and camp in the park, which was apparently the only safe place in the north!

After all these helpful tips, we still decided to go, left the tent but packed some warm clothes, a pot, some food, a flashlight, a soap, raincoats and Vignirs Swiss army knife for protection and went off!

DAY ONE
We finalised some details at work and hopped on the only bus going to Gulu, some 250 km north-west of Soroti. The bus ride annoyed us pretty much because we had to stand the entire way! Well, we would never had complained if we would have known what was waiting us...
Once in Gulu, some 7 hours later, tired, hungry and thirsty, we found cheap accommodation, an Indian restaurant and a bar and even met some former student of ours from Lalle Primary School! We were happy and didn't mind the inhospitality of the north or rebels or the LRA or anything, all we needed was a chair and a cold beer.

DAY TWO
We found a Western bakery in Gulu (!) and bought everything there we could carry! (croissants, cinnamon rolls, sugared doughnuts etc.) Mmmm.... How delicious...after that we continued the trip to Kitgum with a matatu (shared taxi-van). The matatu was crammed like usually, around 25 people in the van (with around 9 seats.) We arrived in Kitgum in the afternoon, walked around for a while, got some bad pork, found some limited supplies for things to come. After that there was nothing to do but have some beers, but at the lodge we confirmed the word on the street regarding the hostile northerners, for we were forced to move outside because of some rude locals. Well, we didn't allow that to spoil our good spirit!

DAY THREE
We woke up early and went through our supplies once more, since Kitgum would be our last possible supply stop. We added some spaghetti and tomatpaste, along with some muffins and more crackers. After that we started looking for transport to Karenga, some 20 km from Kidepo park. We soon found out that even though Karenga only lay 110 km from Kitgum, the ride there would take a while.
Finally we found a pick up truck which was leaving "now". After "now" had lasted till noon we got a little anxious. In addition the vehicle was in very poor condition and had a busted tire, which later on would trouble us along the way. We decided that we would not leave with the truck later than 2 or we would risk not arriving before dark.
At 1 pm the pick up truck went off with us onboard. After 500 meters it stopped to load some additional illegal cargo and that procedure continued for some 20 km. At 4 pm we had not gone 1/4 of the way, and the road ahead was even worse. At nightfall we reached a small village and went off the truck. After discussing with the passengers and the drivers for an hour, we decided it was better to continue with the truck, than to maybe be stranded in some village in the middle of nowhere. We also decided to try to find some accommodation in Karenga, the village near to Kidepo, since we could forget about reaching the park this late.
After an interesting and dirty 8 more hours ride, us having to push the car several times, walking up hills carrying babies, sitting on the local brew jerrycans and stinking of alcohol with no food in our stomachs, we reached Karenga at 3 in the morning. Everything was pitch black, no people and no lodges, but luckily we met 2 policemen who took us to the police station where we lay down on the rock floor with one blanket and slept like babies till morning.

DAY FOUR
We woke up early and tried to find a ride to the park. The police was of much help and sent someone to get the only vehicle in town. It was the village ambulance. We paid the fuel and set off, still tired after the 14 hour drive from Kitgum, and still stinking of alcohol. We booked a banda (a thatched hut) in the park, took a bath, washed our clothes and cooked the most delicious packed noodle soup ever! We also met the neighbor, BulBul the alcoholic elephant, which liked us a lot, since he is very fond of the local brew and we greeted him stinking of it!
After a great nap we took a game drive in the park with Richard, a park ranger. We saw elephants, zebras, buffalos, many types of antilopes and birds. Richard also told us stories of poaching, which was still quite common in the park. He carried a machine gun and told us that last month he had caught 2 poachers from Sudan, meaning he shot and killed both of them. After the game drive we cooked some spaghetti and ate surrounded by BulBul, buffalos, jackals but no other human being, us being the only visitors in the UWA hostel that day.

DAY FIVE
In the morning we went for a nature walk, or more a construction walk, where we went to look at the remains of an Idi Amin structure in the mountains in the park. Amin had started the construction of a luxury hotel with more than 300 rooms, but he was overthrown before he could finish it. The building was remarkable, the rooms were somehow built into the rock, the bricks made from rock, the scenery spectacular, the architecture amazing! We were stunned!
After this remarkable experience we left the park back to Karenga to get a pick up to Kabong. We found a truck which only went half the way, or to Kapera. On that route, for about only 30 km, we noticed the climate and the people changing. We were now officially in Karamajoland! The land was a semi desert, no gardens, no market places, no casava bags or sweet potato bags on the side of the road. Only cattle, cattle and more cattle, and yes, some soldiers keeping the cattle. We also noticed the Karamajong beautiful beads and traditional clothing, which everybody wears there on daily basis. It also surprised us to see that their tradition is to cut their faces from an early age, some cuts being even real deep.
When we came to Kapera we had a soda and some crackers, but nothing else was found to eat. It was a karamajong village so they only had cow blood porridge! Yuk! We were getting pretty hungry for real cooked food and begged the driver to continue to Kabong, another nearby village which had a restaurant with normal food! He finally agreed and we hopped on the pick up truck. In Kabong we were lucky enough to find another pick up truck even going further into Karamajoland! We stopped in Kotido where we found a good restaurant with local food and a good cheap accommodation.

DAY SIX
We went to Moroto at 6 in the morning, some 100 km south from Kotido. The poverty and deserted land on the way was devastating, and in Moroto as well. We met the LC1 (local government official) of a neighbouring village which took us around and allowed us to take photos of the extraordinary karamanjong! We came across a lot of beggers and were quite surprised of the food shortage and poverty. We bought some local beads and clothing from the locals, with help from the LC1, and therefore made the day for at least 3 families that afternoon.
After a “sightseeing day” of the karamajong, we sat down, had a cold beer (finally) and laughed about the stories of the naked guncrazy karamajongs. Yes, they were some naked under their quilt, and yes, some of them carried guns and had no respect for human life, but even though these are not the friendliest people ever in uganda we soon saw that there was no reason to fear them and drank beer with a smile on our faces throughout the evening.

DAY SEVEN
We headed home, to our small cute grotty Soroti. We talked about what to do when we came home, take a shower for the first time for a week, have a samosa, drink some cold coke and watch seinfield. Even though we really looked forward of going home, we couldn't get rid of the excitement the thought gave us: "we had just been in the north!!!"

The best Christmas present ever!

2009-01-16T00:36:00.000-08:00

We received the best Christmas present ever from my family...
After driving on the motorcycle for 4 days and sleeping in a tent, we drove up to the Speke resort in Munyoni, all dusty and dirty, and demanded to be let inside the hotel!

We had a reservation!

My family had booked a Christmas offer of one night for us, which included a breakfast buffet, a lunch buffet and dinner. It was amazing to finally eat cheese, bacon, ham etc.

Somehow I think that they will reconsider their lunch buffet after our visit.... Me personally went six times to the buffet and you can just imagine how many times Vignir went!

We had some difficulties on the way to the resort.

But those difficulties were soon forgotten with the taste of cheese, ham, bacon, bread etc in our mouths.

On the road again

2009-01-09T04:53:00.000-08:00

So we decided to take a little road trip after christmas and our motorbike was the chosen mode of transportation. Money being short we packed the tent, sleeping bag, two bottles of gin and 5 packs of instant noodles, a pot, a broken compass and head off.

The first stop was Nyero rock, pretty impressive piece of rock!

But the charm of the rock is not on the outside. So we had to do some climbing.The rock is most famous for its rock paintings, which are reputedly up to a 1000 years old. They were fairly impressive, but all the more impressive for the fact that the only other visitors were a pack of monkeys.
I also managed to persuade Harpa to climb to the top. She did not regret it.

We took a scenic route down to Kampala and saw some pretty interesting (and desolate) towns. Every other town seemed to contain some pre-Amin buildings built by the Asians. None contained any post-Amin buildings, meaning: all buildings in Uganda are built before the 70's.
Campsites really arent that common in Uganda so we asked to put up tent at the local police station. They were more than happy to oblige, the only price was having 20 police officers and friend watch your every move while you prepare for the night.

The road system in the north-east leaves something to be desired, we were told we had to cross a river on the way, so we put the bike on a carved out log and set sail.

No space was left unused in the dingy.

Turns out it was no river at all... more like a never ending swamp!

Then came time for another river crossing, and this time it was the great NILE! This guy was bathing on the bank, taking a bath and for some reason he was really adamant about us taking his picture. Well here is the naked guy, for your pleasure.The bike was again put on the boat.

We found this great getaway on an island in the middle of the Nile where we put up camp.

Pretty nice, apparantly islands on the nile aren't all that expensive!

Us bathing in the Nile!

We decided to do our version of the Blair Witch Project and visited a forest reserve on the way. On the campsite there was some giant concrete slab, resembling an altar... and there were some eerie people sitting in the darkness long into the night...

But the forest was mighty impressive and had some BIG trees and a few red-tailed monkeys that the insurgents somehow failed to kill (and/or eat).

And the forest had some 50 types of butterflies and thus many many many flowers to Harpa's extreme delight.

We bought some roasted chicken from the road. Very very cosy.

Harpa was very adamant about seeing me swingin in the vines as a certain King of the Apes did... (I was allowed to do it in my clothes.)

We went out celebrating with David and his cousin, and we all had a real good time.

David was facinated by the fireworks the Sheraton hotel put on display, but I must admit they weren't all that much compared to the madness back home.

We of course brought some Champagne. (Yeah yeah I know it wasn't made in France, but it all tastes the same to me!)

Happy new year everybody!

On the road again...

Holidays in Soroti

2009-01-05T06:58:00.000-08:00

On thorlaksmessa we had some pork to uphoald some family traditions for Vignir. No offence mom, but it was the best ever!

Simon seemed to agree!

Our lovely christmas tree.

We decided to treat our Askari (nightwatchman) to a little christmas spirit and gave him a brand new bicycle for christmas. Poor Simon had previously been a victim of both Scrooge and the Grinch who collaborated in stealing his old bicycle.

Bring out the red wine and...

cheers everybody and merry christmas!

Given that the price per kilo of the duck was equal to a monthly salary here in Uganda, Harpa was a bit nervous in preparing it, and the funky smell did no favours either. Turned out that the smell came from the packaging, not the content. And the duck was so delicious that we savoured it for an eternety and didn't even think about the presents.

Instead we had some homemade Icecream (made by yours truly). I was not stingy with the vanilla drops, which apparantly gives a sour taste... But time for presents.

I decided that it was time that Harpa made the move from amateur photographer into the pros and gave her this vintage Canon film camera and a black and white film.

Harpa however decided that it was time for me to go native and bought me this special made local attire, with elaborate embroidery and all! As well as a local board game and a thumb piano!

On christmas day we went to a "jolabod" to Simon's place. He brought out a delicious meal for us and we brought soda's and beer. A truly heart warming experiance to be invited to his home for Christmas day.

They do however celebrate Christmas quite different than us Icelander, meaning getting pissed for the whole holidays. We of course joined in for some delicious local brew.

Which looks like this...yummy!

We ran home for our own special plate of goodies, not that the beer was that bad...

And perhaps the most special christmas gift of all: the gift of life. We now have 13 newborn chicken which are each cuter than the next. (Except for "Ljoti," who is the cutest of all.)

This is "Guli" for those who prefer the more traditional beuty.

Christmas preperation photos and silly thoughts.....

2008-12-23T03:47:00.000-08:00

Is life easier?

There are so many things here in Uganda that you have almost never thought about, which is most often a result of the westernised community. Let me remind you of some...

Were do our endless piles of wrappers, cans and other garbage go to? isnt there a blackhole somewhere in space that swallows all our garbage? For Uganda there isn't. The trash piles up everywhere, even where its visable to us "mzungus"! Can you believe it? There are no garbage guys which remove the trash from us and allow us not to think anymore about where it goes etc. What a shame...

From what is KFC made? To be honest I have never thought a great deal about chicken in general, all I knew was that KFC was just too good, whatever it was made from. Yes yes, little cute chicken possibly, but wtf... Now it happens to be that our hen, who is called Heny, is laying eggs. 12 of them! Everybody in our small family, including our azkari (watchman), are so exited. 12 new cute family members running around the compound with Heny. How lovely! And what a possibility! With all these chicken we sure can open a KFC in soroti!

How does a washing mashine work? Well, I genuinly thought that you put in your clothes and some washing powder, press start, the mashine shakes for an hour and then kaboom, your clothes are ready and clean! But no..., it just must be a little bit more complicated, because no matter how much i try to look for a start button on the washing basin or how much washing powder i put in there, my clothes just dont get clean! the other day i even tried to shake the basin for an hour with no results...

Well, enough of these reminders, it's Christmas time and here are some photos of our Holiday preperations:

I made heavinly beef on Sunday and it was delicius! We have finally managed to pick out the best pieces from the meat, after having been chewing on necks, liver or feet for the past 3 months.

We also had some redwine for the first time in almost 3 months! It was the cheapest wine in the store in Kampala but we are certain it is the best wine we have ever tasted... hmmmm... maybe our standards are getting a little bit too low...

Christmas tree!!!

And even Chrstimas lights we bought... oh yes...

Do they know its Christmastime at all?

2008-12-16T07:06:00.000-08:00

From the pen of Vignir:

A mechanical person greeted me at the supermarket the other day. A feeling of uneasiness came over me; the mechanical person was somewhat sinister and eerie in appearance. He had a disturbing laugh and a smile which seemed to hold many unsetteling secrets. This was of course Santa Claus, christmas time is coming!

Of all places in the world Soroti is one of the last place where I'd expect to see one of these abominations. But the spirit of the season is here, although the climate would indicate that it is now the middle of summer and christmas is months away.

We will of course do our part in making the holidays festive. Harpa has already bought red and blue lightbulbs, although the red one gives the appearance that we're running some sort ofbackstreet business... None of that sort, we're celebrating christmas a time for cheer.

We'll be going to Kampala to stock up on decorations and food supplies. Including a duck. We will be going completely "native" when it comes to the duck. We'll be travelling on the bus with an alive and kicking duck.

Happy holidays everybody.

Vignir and Harpa

Time, is not on my side

2008-11-19T07:23:00.000-08:00

Busy busy we are. After 2 weeks from now, 4 December, there will be a big exhibition in Lalle Primary school. We will be presenting the kids art works from the Art group, the kids music piece, which is Neil Young's "Helpless" in an African arrangement, from the Music group and finishing with an exciting quiz between 4 teams!

The Art exhibition will consist of art work made from colour pencils, water colours , Coals, clip art, art forms and callicraphy. We will have around 300 art pieces

The preperation has begun for this exciting event! We got the kids to make flyers and posters and after having made 40 flyers and 4 posters we proudly marched to the market to distribute them. Afterwards one 12 year old came up to me and asked me sincerely if 4 November hadn't already passed?

Oops....

Has time really gone past so fast???

Well, if you look closely at this photo you can see a 12 year old doing his flyer conscientiously, following closely my directions on putting 4 November as the date of the event...

Here we are practising "Helpelss"

And practising the chorus. The

Our lovely P6 class

Here is were we often buy our breakfast, lunch and dinner...mmmm.....

Until next time,

Harps

Snapshots of our lives

2008-11-16T22:59:00.000-08:00

Our neighbour bought us a new chicken, and here you can see the results. Notice the "nest" which was a gift from our friends in Iceland. This chicken is less vouyeuristic than our previous one. We were courteously invited to a mass the other day, where the locals showed us some moves.

The sermon was on the longer side, and in the local language to boot, so we took a break outside.

Then the fun continued.

Others were equally tired.

They were very excited to see their performance on video.

And of course they gave us a chicken, now we have two!

The kids playing badminton for the first time.

Me, the chicken farmer.

Motorcycle diaries

2008-11-07T06:26:00.000-08:00

We went back to chaotic Kampala the other day, we used the visit to stock up on some nessecities, bacon, burgers, sausages, cheese, BBQ sauce and such and such.

But the main purpose was however so that Harpa could participate in a Boccia tournament!

Well, not only to play Boccia, there was an event called Nordic Sports day, where all the hundreds of Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and 10 Icelanders stationed in Uganda competed in various events.

The Icelandic population in Uganda couldn't very well put together a whole soccer team, only one brought a swimsuit, we weren't invited to play in the volleyball game, the Danes had been practicing for weeks for the running and even though Harpa showed excellent prospects in Boccia we failed to bring a win home there as well.

The tug-of-war was our home ground, however, we put in all our efforts and won almost everybody, except the Danes! A bitter defeat, given that the Danes cheated. But we did however win one event: the warm-up!

(For those of you who don't know how to win in a warm-up, it is calculated this way: the percentage of those registered who participate in the warm-up. 9 out of 10 Icelanders did, which gave us a 90% score!)

A typical day in Lalle Primary: the younger kids so very curious about what we are doing that they flock together around the windows, the doors and wherever they can catch a glimpse of us.

We went to a new site, where some farmers are interested in growing chili.

They greeted us with mandarins, which was all fine and well, but their second offering was harder to refuse...

They had puppies and they offered to give us one, we don't even know if we can keep a dog in our house... they're only two weeks old anyways, so we couldn't take them anyway, but we sure hope we'll be able to...

They were three all together, but one of them possessed unique serenity and tranquility, which is something to look for in a dog...

We decided to take a trip to Serere, which is a small town of some 3o.000 people. When we went to look for a restaurant, there wasn't much to be seen. So we stopped some people and asked around and wouldn't you know it, one of them owned a restaurant.

He was very proud of his establishment and commented especially that the sanitary issues were up to date, as can be seen by these pictures of the "toilet..."

...and the "kitchen."

The food was however decent enough, stewed goat meat, rice and some beans. But the chef had a special spice mix, a secret sauce if you will, which was delicious. We even got him to sell us some of it to take home (I think Harpa is going to try to steal his recipie.)

On the way back I persuaded Harpa to climb a hill, which was beside the road. She was somewhat reluctant, claiming snakes were around and what not. "Pish, posh" I said, "Snakes, brakes." We climed and didn't find any snakes, but a beutiful view we did find.

On the way back, however, we almost drove over a snake on the road!

The sky is blue, trees are green, smiles on faces, road is wide, Africa sure is great.
Harpa doing a great job driving, while I'm fooling around with the camera.

Power out!

2008-10-31T03:39:00.000-07:00

From our trip to Mbale, which is a big city 100 km away from Soroti. We went there to get our visa extended, but the immigration officer was nowhere to be seen. A whole day wasted, but at least we got some Indian food. And we bought an enormous beef fillet (more on that later).

Harpa is unbelivable excited about growing our own crops like the locals, mostly spices and foreign stuff. But first we have to cultivate the land. Our next door neighbours were so surprised to see a white man doing this kind of labour, that they stopped whatever they were doing just to see the Mzungu work!

We are teaching the teachers how to use a computer in Lalle (even though there is no electricity there.) This can be quite challenging given the fact that most of them have never used a computer before.

Here you can see the pizza mentioned in the previous post.

We brought some water colors for art class the other day, the kids were ecstatic. We only had three sets so they just piled up on top of each other to see what was going on.

The next generation of Ugandan artists.

There is an album by the age old post-punk band Wire (a personal favourite) which is called "Chairs Missing" Now we know why.

Harpa preparing for class.

The classrooms in Lalle can be quite crowded, some 130 kids in one class is not uncommon.

The power has been out in Soroti town for almost a week, which was pretty bad considering that we just bought an enourmous slab of beef in Mbale, to be saved for a special occasion. We had been trying to save it until the power came back, but were eating all the meat we could. Spaghetti bolognese for breakfast, hamburgers for lunch, an then when dinner time came there was no other option than bringing out the barbeque. We used literally everything we had in the fridge 2 kilos of meat, enourmous amounts of cheese, cream potatoes, vegetables, and it was delicious. But as fate would have it, the power came back on when we had just started eating.

Our daily live in Soroti

2008-10-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

Soroti is treating us fine. We have marked our spots; found the club, the local bar, the local shop, the supermarket, the take away place, the best beer brand, the internet cafÈ, the fresh food market... Well, for most of you guys that¥s everythnig you need, right? For those who know me that is ALMOST everything I need.

So, where is the pizza? (Or pizaaa like they pronounce it here in black Africa)

Firstly, I was shocked they don't have Pizza Hut here. No Pizza Hut? Like most of you know, my week routine always involved one delivery from Pizza Hut (ok, Martine, 4 deliveries a week is maybe more accurate…;/) Secondly, I had noticed that in Kampala they had indeed desent pizzas, even a Dominos!

Here in Soroti there's another story…We have already made three attempts to go out for Pizza. First, the waiter at the restaurant told us that we had to wait for 1 hour and a half for the pizza. We didn't have time, unfortunately, but decided to come another time. That time the oven was “spoiled” and for the third time they suddenly didn't have any pizza!

But, wait a minute. This traged story has a happy ending! Because my Vignir sure knows how to bake a pizzabread! So we rushed to our supermarket, bought frozen minched meat, frozen cheddar cheese, weat flour, vegatable oil and a pizza sauce (yes, they even had a pizza sauce at this remarkable market!) and made THE best pizaaa in the world. Lucky for me, but not so lucky for Vignir, because now he has to make pizaaa for me 4 times a week! (I'm pretending I haven¥t learned it yet….;/)

Yours pizaaa lover,
Harps

What are we even doing here in Uganda?

2008-10-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

We get the feeling that some of our dedicated readers have no idea whatsoever as to what we are doing here in Soroti. First of all, we are here representing a Belgian NGO (godgerdarsamtok) called International Friendship for Development (IFD.) The NGO is relatively new and still very small. IFD is headed by Pamela Anoyti, who is originally from Soroti. IFD has two main operations in Soroti and surrounding areas; Lalle Primary School and Chili Production. We are involved in both these projects as follows:

Lalle Primary School: We are teaching there as volunteers. We are however not teaching in the conventional sense, as the school already has a number of teachers. What we are trying to do is introduce new methods for both the teachers and the students. We will be having special groups for different topics with the agenda to fish out the individual talents and interests of the kids. As the school has some 1000 children and only 16 teachers, there hasn’t been much room for the individual, which we wish to change.

The Chili Production: IFD, in co-operation with another company, has been supplying loans to local farmers in Soroti to finance chili production. The situation for farmers here is pretty desperate, they have no money to cultivate the land properly, no money to buy proper equipment, no money for fertilizers, they have little or no access to external markets and most of their labor is spent on growing their own food. IFD has and will supply money (interest free) for plowing, growing and harvesting and will buy the chili back from the farmers. This process is, however, plagued with many difficulties and needs to be supervised constantly. The people have been burnt on many occasions by NGO’s with good intentions and bad management and "NGO money" has therefore been turned into "free money" in the minds of many. Our job is to monitor the farmers and encourage them to continue with the project.

Here are some pictures from the school:

The classrooms.
The children playing a game we introduced. The kids were so excited, but initially failed to grasp the concept of the game, so there was a lot of running around in the beginning.
Harpa managed to get things going and before we knew they got it. They were singing, clapping and yelling during the entire thing (even though I suspect some had no idea why.)
The kids are very dutiful and lower the flag after school every day.

Music club was interesting, the teacher spent most of the time tuning the thumb pianos, but we mangaed to jam to the chords of Neil Young's "Helpless" way past schooltime. After some time I expect to hear a choir of children singing: :"And leave us helpless, helpless, heeeeelpless."

The kids find us very interesting and crowd around us at all times. Not strange given the fact that one of the teachers said that the last time a Mzungu (white person) was seen in Lalle was in the 70's.

Photos from our new home

2008-10-16T07:26:00.000-07:00

Pictures from our new home in Soroti with directors commentary (Vignir):

We bought another chicken the other day, no ordinary chicken, mind you! The chicken has taken to sitting on the windowsill outside our living room and stares incessantly into our lives. And no ordinary stare, not the mindless stare you'd expect from a chicken, no!, this is something much more dark and sinister. It is as if the chicken is the devil incarnate. I've decided to call him Beelzebird, Lucifowl or for you Icelanders: Djofuglinn. I'm not even sure if we dare to kill it when it comes to making a stew, do we dare kill the devil himself? Will we go to heaven or to hell? How would that work? I'm not sure we're willing to take the chance, I guess we'll just have to get used to that infernal chicken following our every move.

Here is our very live-in-able living room. The kitchen is still being constructed, but very nice, nonetheless.

The backporch, where I intend to sit and smoke my pipe and play my guitar.
The outside sink (of course!)
All the washing has to be done by hand, which is quite a daunting task.

Our dining room.
Bedroom and mosquito-net.

This badboy is ours! and it's called TVS Star. I found the name somewhat lacking masculinity wise so I've dubbed it DEATH STAR. Harps wasn't very fond of it and bought the not so masculine basket.

A blog about food (because Im very hungry, waiting for us to go to the market)

2008-10-12T04:18:00.000-07:00

FOOD!
What a surprise, I tell you. The food here in Uganda is amazing! I really thought I was going to loose weight, but no…

For me being a huge connasseur, the first thing I do when I arrive at exotic places, is to find out what are their food specialities.

And what a discovery here in Soroti!

Me and Vignir have been fortunate enough to eat local food, cooked by locals, every single day since we came to Soroti. Pamela¥s sister and friend have been kind enough to cook for us and line up the local specialities, the next one being better than the last.

Pamela is leaving today, so that means me and Vignir are going to the market today by ourselfs to buy some goods! (Woohoo!) The market here is a gourmet, with fish, vegetables, fruits, beans, corn, meat etc. It¥s really difficult to decide on what to buy each time, because you simply want to buy everything! If we can cook something out of it on coals… that is a different matter…

My favourite food here is samosa, which is minched meat or vegatable fried in an orly triangle. The variety of fish here is also some, but we have only tried the tilapia, which is white soft fish and tastes very good. Matoki are the green bananas, which tastes just like potatoes.

Vignirs¥faourite is Mandas, which is just like icelandic "kleinur"

Well, enough about food…

Till next time.. taka care,
Harps

p.s. promise to post pictures of the school and the house next time. Were starting in the school tomorrow.

Pictures from the what? Uganda.

2008-10-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

The meeting with the chilli farmers. The project entails funding from International Friendship for Development (IFD) to farmers to cultivate their land for chilli production and export the chilli to Europe.
Children in school uniforms.

Vignir in the field
Harpa and Pamela in the field
Harpa getting on with the locals... locals style.. sitting under a tree

An african child.
We walked past a school in our visit. Mzungu! Mzungu! Mzungu! they shouted. ( which means "white person")

We went for a short visit to Lalle Primary School, where we will be teaching. The kids were so happy to see us, and sang and sang and followed us around.
Here they are standing proud next to the water pump, which IFD funded recently.

Pamela, Harpa, me and my moustache travelled to Lake Kyoga, which is huge and unspoiled.

The vast savannah's are quite impressive. You can see the tiny huts in the background.
This is the nightwatchman's shed. (We'll post pictures of the house later.)
Although the fauna in Uganda is mostly restricted to the national parks, that doesn't mean the occasional hedge-hodge doesn't get in the way of construction, or lizards in the bathroom and golfball sized beetles in the sink for that matter.

Harpa was very impressed with the girls' ability to carry objects of almost any nature on their heads.
This is Soroti rock in the background, which is in the centre of town, which we intend to climb one day.

The "fancy" suburbs of Soroti

The families at the chili sites where happy to see us and gave us oranges, aubergines and a live chicken! As it is considered rude not to accept a gift, we of course took it, even though, you know...

...then we naturally had to get the chicken home, Harpa was less than keen to share the backseat with it, the chicken was not so happy either and raised some objections with its travelling companion.
This is a cleaning facility, very cost-effective, as the chicken are apparantly used as labour as well.

...then the unavoidable demise of the chicken. (Even though I did suggest keeping it as a pet.)

Soroti, soroti

2008-10-04T03:13:00.000-07:00

Well… well…

At last we were on our way into dark Africa. On Tuesday morning we packed our things, went to the store with Pamela and bought all the neccessities we could think of to survive in the bush. And off we went!... to Soroti…

Soroti… where nobody we knew had ever been to…

Soroti… where boda-bodas are bicycles, not motos…

Soroti… the only part in Uganda with no wild live…

Soroti… which has only two streets, main street and market street…

Soroti… grotty Soroti…

On our way we noticed how the road condition, the condition of the houses and live standards in general got worse. The futher we drove from Kampala, the capital, the worse it got.

After one hour of driving we got to Jinja, which is considered to be the next biggest town in Uganda. Well, to explain the term "considered to be", the truth is that nobody knows exactly what is the exact population of any town in Uganda, and for me it seems that the population of the country itself is also unknown! This might have something to do with the constant influx of rural refugees, settling in the towns, especially in the north, with towns like Lira and Gulu, where population has trebled for the past decade.

The town Jinja can consider itself relatively "lucky", because there you can find the source of Nile. Therefore many tourists pass through Jinja and to get a close look at the source you "only" pay 7 dollars! And like the true tourists we are we went to get a close look at the source of Nile. It was a great and glorius feeling standing in the same shoes as Mr. Speke, who was the first European to discover this giant lake and find the source of Nile, the world¥s longest river.
After that we went on to Mbale, which is pretty much the last drop of civilisation you can find before going further north to Soroti. We walked around and tried to memorize the most important places, the pub and the restaurant.

We went on north, with only one hour to go. After Mbale the geographical climate changed, from plantations to Savannah. The scenery was beautiful. Everywhere you looked you could see savannah, with one huge tree here and there, like cut out from the "little house on the praerie".

That was the only thing you could see… for miles… almost…

If you looked closely you could see a grasstop here and there inside the savannah. And if you looked even closer you could see these where houses. Grass-thatched-houses.

It was absolutely beautiful. The houses fell completely into the landscape and filled you with excitement… this you had only read about and maybe seen once or twice on CNN, but hello!
After 10 minutes of a remarkable feeling it began to rain. That¥s when you realised that no matter how "cute" the houses were, people actually lived in them! The walls are made of dirt and the floors as well. Their only hope when it rains like that is that the grass roofs would hold the water so their floors or walls would not be washed away. My exitement turned to sadness immediatly…

After a silent one hour ride in the rain we arrived in Soroti. Soroti town was crowded with smiling faces, people, kids and boda-bodas (which are bicycles by the way;). We went straight to Pamela¥s house and were welcomed by her sister, brother and friends. Her house here is amazing and we are so grateful of the welcoming and hospitality that she and everybody has shown us.

Well, I could keep on writing forever, because the last 4 days here in Soroti have been very eventful, but that has to wait better times. Yeah, yeah… I know you must be excited, but be patient!!! Yesterday, for example, the internet was out in the whole district!;;)

Cheers,

Harps

Some pictures from Kampala and others:

David showing off his lovely cows.
We found some Icelanders (of course) in Kampala. Kristjan and Karl from ICEMARK, and they knew how to play Bridge!
...we played well into the night...

A busy street in Kampala.
Here are Harpa and Pamela at the source of the river Nile.
(the time sequene of the pictures is a bit out of order). Kampala again.
David in his humble abode.

David and Vignir at the equator, where the water flows both ways.
Harpa and one of David's cow.
Kampala.
..again Kampala.

The restaurant where Harpas sister used to go to when she and her husband lived near Kampala.
The busy, infamous, taxi park. Belive it or not, this is where to get a cab.
Here we are at Kitetika primary school.
David helping with cleaning the peas.

In Uganda!

2008-09-25T00:40:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Entebbe on Tuesday morning. David, a friend of Harpas' sister, picked us up at the airport with a big sign and a bigger smile. He's been taking us around Kampala in a rental car. The traffic here in Kampala is something else, chaotic to say the least. That didn't stop us from taking the wheel and David was a bit worried that we were too good drivers to be driving in Kampala, but after one hour slithering at snail speed trhough a gridlock, he told me I was getting to be a very bad driver and thus good to drive in Kampala.

Having David has proven extremely helpful, we would probably be like fish on dry land without him, but we're getting the hang of the city.

We've been shopping for supplies in Kampala, buying phone cards and such, going to the gigantic, badly smelling market, seeing the mall (that was David's suggestion, he was very proud), we even found a cheap, working guitar, which will be used to teach both the children and Harps.

Our prensence here is met with some interest, although we are far and away the only tourists here. "Mzungu" is a word we hear frequently, but my friend Dadi seems to have passed the torch to me, as we heard someone say yesterday: "hey, look, it's Jesus!"

The last couple of nights we've taken our friend David out for dinner. First to the place he and Sylgja and Palmi went to some 2 years ago, and last night to a fancy thai place called Krua Thai, imagine that! That was his first time eating thai food, and was quite impressed.

He was still laughing when we left him, because we were planning to take a taxi home, and they're called Mutatu's. Harpa was having some problem remembering and asked him: "So where are these Mutaku's?" We later found out a "mutaku" is something quite different, something which the french call derriere, but the americans so eloquently have dubbed: "ass."

He's probably still laughing, asking: "where are these asses?"

Yesterday we went to Kitetika, where Harpas' sister used to work 10 years ago. We were welcomed and the head mistress showed us around the campus and we met Trudy Odida, the head of the organisation that founded the school. That was really educating and interesting. We showed up at a great time at "show and tell" week and the kids put on a song and dance for us. Very impressive!

...

Slight change of plans for us, Pamela, IFD's executive director, won't be coming until Sunday, so we'll be staying in Kampala until then. Then it's what Lonely Planet calls "Grotty Soroti."

(pictures will come later)

We are outta´ here!!!!

2008-09-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

Well, its time....

Tonight, me and Vignir head off to Afrika.

We fly to London at 8:00 tomorrow morning, then we fly to Nairobi at 19:00 and from there we fly to Entebbe at 8:00 Tuesday morning. We will be arriving at 9:40 Tuesday morning and a friend of my sisters, David, is going to pick us up and drive us from the airport to Kampala. On Wednesday Pamela (executive director of International Friendship for Development) will fly out to Uganda and meet us and accompany us to Soroti two days later.

So... it´s ON!

Harps

Another bank account

2008-09-11T20:20:00.000-07:00

Dear all

Please note that if you want to donate to our project in Euros, we have a new account in Iceland, that does not automatically transfer the money into Icelandic Krona's (thank god, given the unstable status of our currency!).

Please use that account, so we can make the most of the money we receive from your generous pockets. For all you EFTA people, we would of course not have this problem if we would were to join the you-know-what!

Here is the information regarding the new account:

IBAN number: IS47 0567 38 710188 170881 4519

SWIFT (BIC) : ISBAISRE

Name of the account holder:

Harpa Fönn Sigurjónsdóttir

Laugarvegur 133

105 Reykajvík

Iceland

Another note: Our new phone numbers and our e-mail contact information is:

Harpa Fönn Sigurjónsdóttir= 00354 8223717; harpafonn@gmail.com

Vignir Andri Guðmundsson = 00354 8646959; vignira@hotmail.com

Until next time, and those of you living in Iceland, remember our goodbye party at Hverfisgata 105 on Saturday 20. september!!!

And last but not least, thanks to all those who have contributed so far!

Harps

Where we are working now

2008-09-11T13:12:00.001-07:00

Some people have been requesting a photo of were we are working now. It´s at my parents place, in the north of Iceland, 1,2 km out of the town Husavik. They own a beautiful land and run a cottages/guesthouse accommodation for tourists there... lake, seaside, trees, birds, horses, a beautiful view...

Comments now enabled

2008-08-29T04:34:00.000-07:00

Due to technical reasons comments were previously unavailable, this has now been remedied and now you can leave your comments and we would love to hear them.

Thank you!

2008-08-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

My birthday-fundraising party in Iceland, on 15 August, was a success!

I raised 660 EUR and I am extremely grateful to all who supported me and gave me a birthday present by donating to my fund-raising bank account. Thank you so much and I certainly hope everybody had a good time;)

We are still raising money, of course, so if you want to support us, every penny is gladly accepted. Please see our bank account details in the post below.

Thank you again my dearest friends and family;)

And I promise to throw another party like that when I come back to Iceland i June 2009! Put it in your calendar!

p.s. We are not just sitting around waiting for things to happen, we are collecting money in my hometown, where me and Vignir are laboring day and night, sawing, digging, chopping wood, making paths, building, cutting, planting. As you can see from the below picture, this is hard work!

cheers,

Harps

Donations to fund our stay and work in Uganda

2008-08-13T03:09:00.000-07:00

For those interested we are accepting donations to fund our stay and work in Uganda:

Account name: Harpa Fönn Sigurjónsdóttir/Uganda
Account number: 0567 – 14 – 602601
Social security number (kt.): 170881-4519
IBAN: IS60 0567 1460 2601 1708 8145 19
SWIFT: ISBAISRE

Uganda here we come.

2008-07-30T05:34:00.000-07:00

We have now confirmed the flight and we will be leaving on the 22. September.

Now, however, we are heading to Azerbaijan, where we will stay for a couple of weeks to visit Harpa's brother, who's working for an NGO there.

Then it's off to Iceland, where we will try to save up some more money for our trip and then it's Soroti, Uganda.