Wednesday..

Just a quick post tonight.  It's been a frustrating day today.    Robert was absent until about 3pm today - long story but it involved the death of a friend (some time back), a truck, a driver, Sudan, the police and a court case to which he went today as a witness.  He returned very stressed and said that his brain was finished today.   I had managed to get along with a few things - writing up some Qbooks instructions,  developing a new template for recording cash/bank balances and reviewing some of the paper trails.  I had a list of questions though and with him being back thought that it would be useful just to run through these.  Not so - he had disappeared again!  What is difficult is that he didn't say he was going!  He went off with Denis so I think he needed someone to talk to.  I think I could write a soap based on just Robert.

Have now learnt a few words of Luo which I've been practising on the staff today - my pronunciation is terrible but I'm beginning to get more confident.

They had opened up the premises today to the local NGO forum who were holding their strategic planning session.  It was run by a guy who I'd had lunch with a couple of days ago - he invited me to join them for lunch today.  There was outside catering - I stuck to rice, beans and greens which was nice.   I was eating with my hands for the first time today which was not easy and I made rather a mess of it.  They all managed to do so with such refinement and I just ended up looking like a 2 year old after they had tried feeding themselves!  I was trying to hold an intelligent conversation at the same time so all a bit of a challenge.

The guy that runs the NGO forum is a really interesting person to talk to about the political situation in Uganda.  He was giving me a long account of the history and his thoughts for the future.   Quite an inspirational person to listen to and very proud of the Alcholi people to which he belongs and who are the main ethnic group in northern Uganda.   The political situation remains very fragile especially in the run up to the referendum in Sudan, which is being held in January to decide on whether Sudan should be split into a southern and northern territory.  If Sudan destabilises, there is real concern that this will cause problems in Uganda and invite trouble from other neighbouring countries (and a route back in for the LRA).  So much trauma though - he was telling me that as a child he would literally come across corpses throughout Kitgum - not just 1 or 5 or 10 but at least 100 every single day.  There is nothing you can say to that.