Do They Know It’s Christmas?

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except for Rascal who will not stay out of the Christmas tree no matter how much we yell at her!  Christmas in Kampala is a bit different than back home since there was not a single snowflake in the 75-degree weather, and we were wearing shorts and t-shirts.  It was even too warm to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate.

Merry Christmas from Greg, Katie, & Rascal!

Though the weather wasn’t the norm for us, we kept the Christmas Day atmosphere by relaxing together in front of a wood fire crackling on the TV, while the lights on the tree twinkled and classic Christmas songs played in the background.  Even Rascal got into the Christmas spirit after she opened her stocking and started playing with her new toys.  We were ready to spend a relaxing Christmas Day at home, but instead decided to go to an Embassy friend’s house and enjoy good company and food at their pig roast!  Not your regular way to enjoy the holiday ham, but it was definitely tasty and fun.  We may just have to take this tradition home with us the next time we are back for Christmas!

Rascal was very excited for her stocking!

Christmas morning.

So, do they know it’s Christmas here in Uganda?  Yes, they do, especially in the stores.  Like back home, the big stores put a ton of toys and decorations (trees, lights, etc.) right in the front and the usual Christmas music plays over the loudspeakers.  The Marines here had a toy drive at the Embassy and delivered the gifts to a local orphanage and played with the kids there.  And as for the reason for the season, tons of locals head to Christmas Day mass dressed up in their Sunday best.

Some parts of Kampala Christmas are the same as home, but nothing can beat a snowy Christmas morning with that cup of hot chocolate and a real wood fireplace.

The Annual Chizziz and Beer Fest!

Saying goodbye to people at Post is always hard, but is a way of life in the Foreign Services.  Everyone has something different that they want to do as a part of their going away party, but one of the Marines planned what is now going to be an annual event.  For his going away party, he planned a chili and beer fest.  Anyone who came could bring chili, and he enlisted the homebrewers to make a batch of whatever we wanted to be judged.  All of the brewers were more than happy to provide a drink, and we all worked together to make sure that each brewer had what they needed and were ready to represent.

While I was the Dustman representation for the homebrew competition, both Katie and I were representing for the chili portion.  Katie made a beef chili and I made a lamb chili with bourbon and beer named Hammered Lamb.  For a little while, I was in a kick of cooking with bourbon and this seemed like a fun recipe to try.  Katie’s chili was delicious and mine was tasty, though a bit sweet which is somewhat the opposite of what you expect from chili.

We definitely had a competition to win the best chili, as a ton of people brought their own concoctions.  Spicy or not, beans or no beans, vegetarian, cornbread, rice, or pasta accompanied, any type of chili you could want you could get.  To wash it down, there were seven brewers handing out their homebrewed beer.  I made a Maple Bacon Stout, called Sticky Pig, made with real bacon and also maple bacon vodka.  You could really taste the maple and it finished with a bacon flavor.  The maple taste took over as the beer got older, but I was pretty happy with that brew.  It could have gone really bad and been too sweet, but instead tasted good and I got a lot of compliments.

Being a competition, there had to be winners for both the beer and chili.  For the beer, an IPA and a Pale Ale took the top two spots.  The chili is where the real surprise came.  2^nd place chili was a beef chili with quinoa and cilantro which tasted really good.  The overall winner though was a vegan chili!  I have no idea how a vegan chili won the competition, but after a few laughs, the two winners were given their trophies.  The awards were hand carved from a local woodcarver and were definitely works of art.  Mostly because of how chili was spelled on them.  The carver spelled chili as chizziz!  The Marine that ordered the carvings still has no idea how the woodcarver got that spelling, but the misspelling made the awards that much better.

From now on the competition is going to be renamed to the Chizziz and Beer Fest, and while I don’t know what I am going to brew yet, I can’t wait for the next one!

Keeping Up with the Marines

Most Embassies, including Kampala, have a Marine detachment, and Greg and I have become very friendly with all the guys/girls at our Post.  Since they are far from their homes, friends, and families, like us, we always make sure to include them in dinners, events, and outings.  Sometimes we feel like their older siblings since, for the most part, they're younger than us (and we're one of the youngest couples at Post).  Plus, it’s always good to be friends with the people that are in charge of protecting you!

The Marines are always involved in the special and formal Embassy events, but the main event for the Marines that brings out almost everyone from the Embassy and the host country is the United States Marine Corps Birthday Ball.  The official day is November 10^th (a Tuesday this year), but the ball was held on the Saturday after so that everyone could party hardy!  We were not sure what to expect since this was our first U.S. Embassy Ball, but we survived the Irish Ball earlier in the year, so we're ready and excited for another reason to get fancy.  For the Irish Ball, we had a friend’s driver take all of us, but this time around we hired a private matatu driver to arrive in style!  That is if you count being dressed very fancy and emerging from a beat-up minibus as arriving in style.  We’d show a picture of our chariot, but unfortunately, when we asked the driver to take a picture of all of us at the end of the night, he had his finger on the zoom and only got a picture of one of our heads :(

We expected the Marine Ball to be like the Irish Ball and have a speaker, some entertainment, and then on to the music, but we had no idea that the Marines had so many traditions!  Since neither of us comes from military families and this is our first Post, it was very interesting to watch the Marines perform the ceremonies for the evening.  Stern and formal looking, our easy-going Marines now marched into the ballroom as a strong force to present the U.S. flag and go through their motions as a unit.  Readings and speeches were then done, and one speaker asked us to look to the back of the room and reflect on the somber tradition of a single lone table draped in black with one chair to remind us all of our fallen Marines who are no longer with us.  While the mood was very dignified and respectful, there were also more lighthearted traditions like the cutting of the Marine birthday cake.  The first slice of cake is given to the oldest Marine present, who in turn passes it off to the youngest Marine present, symbolizing the old and experienced Marines passing their knowledge to the new generation.  The oldest Marine was announced first and was a gentleman in his 80’s.  A respectful clap for his service happened and then the age of the youngest Marine was announced.  A painful “I’m so old groan” came from the crowd as it was announced that the youngest Marine was a female who was only 20 years old!  Everyone had a good laugh, but she and the rest of the Marines along with all the other military branches present were then given a respectful round of applause.

Greg & Katie at the 2015 Marine Ball.

The girls!

Out on the dance floor.

They clean up nicely.

After the ceremony traditions concluded, we were served dinner and then it was time to party.  We had a great evening with all our friends, I’m excited to see how next year's Marine Ball will go!

Two weeks later we started to get ready for Turkey Day, and instead of having just a dinner for Greg and myself, we decided to put together a Friendsgiving feast.  The list of people for the meal kept getting bigger and bigger, so the Gunnery Sergeant and his wife offered to host at the Marine house.  The day of, I think we had close to 40 people, 4 turkeys, 2 hams, and mass amounts of sides, desserts, and drinks.  Everyone looked very happy to have all the tastes of home, along with some great company to enjoy Thanksgiving in Kampala.

As many of you know, Thanksgiving is my all-time favorite holiday.  With this being our first Thanksgiving away from our families and on the other side of the world, I wasn’t sure how it was going to be.  However, we were surrounded by more friends than I thought possible and we had a Friendsgiving that I will never forget.

Halloween Havoc in Kampala!

Halloween really isn’t a thing in Uganda, but there was no way that we weren’t going to celebrate it and luckily we have a ton of friends that wanted to celebrate too!  We decided to host a Wine and Cheese event for Halloween, which is an Embassy-sponsored event that all of the American Embassy staff are invited to.  We started to decorate the house and I am really not sure what the guards were thinking as I set up a skeleton BBQ’ing human body parts, walked bloody footprints to our front door, and set a carved pumpkin on fire at the gate.

Your cook for the evening.

Spooooooky!

I think my favorite decoration was a wooden coffin that I turned into an ice cooler for drinks.  I got the coffin from the husband of the person that runs Kids Club Kampala (a group that Katie has volunteered with).  He was talking about how he is teaching carpentry at the villages, and I jokingly asked if they could make a coffin.  Surprisingly he didn’t push off my request but was all for it as the people he is teaching really want to make coffins.  I guess that they just understand that death is a part of life, so they are more than eager to join in the Kampala coffin business.  A little while later I had a really heavy black painted coffin filled with beer sitting in the yard.

Stone cold refreshments.

Katie and I went as Kevin and Russel from Up, while for a few brief moments we had Rascal dressed as Snow White and Munch as a dinosaur roaming the yard.  Our guard's favorite costume was our two friends that came dressed as Ugandan traffic constables.  They would stand in our driveway with the guards and direct cars coming in while looking down at their phones.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone’s guards laugh as hard as ours did that night.  There were lots of other costumes as well and I think everyone was happy to have a little taste of home in Kampala.

Russel, Kevin, and Snow White.

Munchosaurus Rex.

Some of the girls.

Duffmen, ooooohhhhhh yeaaaa!

Hello Neighbor Rwanda!

Columbus Day weekend actually marked a four day weekend for us as we also had a Ugandan holiday.  Greg and I decided to take advantage of the extra day off and drove to Rwanda.  Looking at a map, neither Uganda nor Rwanda is that large, however, the roads and traffic aren’t always the best.  On the way down we decided to stop for lunch, which at this point we should know better because it took us almost an hour and a half even though it was the two of us and we only ordered sandwiches.  The next major delay was actually crossing the border.  First, you wait in line on the Uganda side.  Once you fill out the customs paperwork you get back in your car and drive across the border.  They made us get out to check out temperatures (Ebola was still a concern I guess) and then we thought we were finally on our way.  Since no one really spoke English (they’re a French-speaking country), we thought we were all set.  We somehow missed the customs section on the Rwanda side because a large bus was blocking the tiny little room.  We knew something was up as a man ran alongside our car saying we didn’t go through customs or get insurance.  Long story short, there was a lot of confusion mixed in with no one speaking good English and 11 hours after we left our house, we finally made it to the place we were staying for the weekend.  Also to note, the Rwandans drive on the right side of the road and Ugandans drive on the left.  Driving around with your steering wheel on the wrong side of the car was quite an experience.

Our main reasons for visiting Rwanda were, it’s right next door, it’s supposed to be beautiful, and we figured we would get a good history lesson.  Almost immediately after arriving, it was obvious we weren’t in Uganda anymore, however, it felt like we weren’t even in Africa.  The countryside was breathtaking, the roads were paved, there was space for pedestrians to walk, there wasn’t trash everywhere, and the cattle aren’t allowed to walk in the roads.

The countryside of Rwanda.

It was the end of the day and you could see all the people running through the tea plantations.

Since it is a full day of driving between Kampala and Kigali, we had to make the most of our time.  The first day we headed to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, which is a free museum that depicts the history of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.  I thought the memorial was very well done and very informative.  There was a section giving the background history that led up to the genocide that killed more than 800,000 people over the course of 100 days.  The memorial is also the final resting ground for over 250,000 people, which while in a beautiful garden, is also really upsetting.  They also had a section dedicated to other genocides around the world, including some that are not recognized as genocides by different countries, including genocides in Namibia, Armenia, Cambodia, the Balkans, and a large section on the Holocaust.  The final section was an area dedicated to the memory of all the innocent children who were killed during the genocide.  Up until this point, I did pretty well, but I just couldn’t make it through the kid section.  It was a really sobering experience and it’s amazing how far Rwanda has come since then.  (We didn't take any pictures at the museum out of respect for all of those who lost their lives.)

A view of the city from the gardens.

This little guy was quite talkative.

Another view of the city.

Continuing with the memorials, we visited the Belgian Peacekeepers Memorial which is where 10 Belgian UN peacekeepers were murdered by the Hutu extremists.  The memorial has a column for each of the murdered peacekeepers, and there are lines in each one that represent the ages of each person (if I remember correctly, most were only in their 20's with no one over 35).  Right next to the columns are the two buildings that the peacekeepers tried to take cover in while under attack.  The buildings still have the bullet holes and marks from the attack.  Another sad memorial, but it is important to learn the history of what happened only 21 years ago.

The Belgian Peacekeepers Memorial.

The building the Belgian Peacekeepers took shelter in.

The next day we went for something a bit more upbeat and did a tour of a local town through the Nyamirambo Women's Center.  Our guide took us around a section of Kigali and showed us what daily life was like for most people in the city.  It was a nice tour and we got to try our hand at mashing up some leaves into a sauce that the Rwandans like.  Mashing the leaves was actually a lot tougher than it looked and the old lady that was doing it must have been pretty strong because I got tired after only a few hits.  While doing the walk we passed a lot of places that said milk bar or milk zone.  Since most bars don’t usually sell milk, we were really curious as to why a bar that serves milk would even be a thing.  It turns out that Rwandans really like their milk and since they can’t have their cows in the city, they instead have these milk bars so that they can get a glass of really fresh milk.  Greg said the milk was really good, though I don’t think I’ll try to order a glass of milk from a bar anytime soon.

Katie mashing leaves.

Greg at his first Milk Bar.

We ended our day by walking around the city some more and picking up some coffee to take home, which turned out to be some of the best coffee we’ve had!  We also had dinner at the Hotel Des Mille Collines which is the actual hotel in the event from the genocide in the movie Hotel Rwanda.  To see all our pictures from our weekend getaway, check out our SmugMug.

While this was one of our more educational and sadder (at times) trips, it was really great to get out of Uganda and see another country in Africa.  It’s crazy to see how two countries right next to each other that most would consider being the same, can be so different.

The Botanical Gardens

The best part about this job is that Greg gets a ton of days off because we get all of the Ugandan holidays.  Muslim holy days are included in the Ugandan holidays, so since I’ve been wanting to go to the Botanical Gardens for a while now (I heard there’s some good birding), we took advantage of our day off and headed down to Entebbe.  We had a beautiful day and a tour guide who was more than happy to point out all of the different plants and birds we came across.  We lucked out and actually had 3 tour guides as 2 local pups joined and followed us everywhere.

This guy kept us company all day.

One of the first parts of the tour was an area filled with these ginormous spiders.  Spiders aren’t my favorite thing, and these things were huge and everywhere.  It was more than a little creepy.

They were everywhere along the path.

It's eating Greg's face!

As we walked around more, the guide pointed out the area where some of the original Tarzan movies were filmed.  Unfortunately, it’s not much of a jungle in that area nowadays, but still cool to see.

Black-headed Heron.

The jungle where Tarzan was filmed.

While we saw a decent amount of birds, after all our other trips around the country I didn’t feel like we saw anything new or out of the ordinary at the gardens.  Either way, I did get to see the birds and got a few good shots.  For more photos, check out our SmugMug.

Great Blue Turaco.

Black-and-white casqued Hornbill.

Black Kite.

Red-chested Sunbird.

On our way out, our guide gave us two mangosteen’s, an Indonesian fruit that is sweet and tangy.  They were pretty cool looking and they actually tasted really good.  All in all, it was a nice day and it’s always nice to get out of Kampala for a bit.

Some mangosteens.

A Romantic Safari

As a surprise for our anniversary, I booked us a stay at the Mihingo Lodge in Lake Mburo National Park.  Lake Mburo is one of only two parks in Uganda that has zebras, the other being at least a 10-hour drive away on the border with Kenya.  The lodge is super fancy and the room has an amazing view of the park and also a portion of the lake.  You don’t even need to leave your room to see some animals!  Since there aren’t many predators in the park, maybe a few leopards and one lone lion, you are able to walk around the grounds of the lodge to a blind that is next to a salt lick for the antelopes.  While we have already seen all the animals that were at the salt lick (like waterbucks, warthogs, impala), it was cool to see them on foot and outside of a car.  The zebras were plentiful and we even saw some rolling around in the dirt and playing.  We also saw our first snake on safari and I think the first snake in Uganda.  While it wasn’t a large lion eating python, it was still cool to finally see a snake.

Ankole on our drive in, they had some of the biggest horns I think we've seen!

Our first snake!

Bushbucks coming to the salt lick, they're normally very shy.

Waterbucks.

A perk of the Mihingo Lodge is that at night, some thick-tailed Gallagos or bush babies (kind of like nocturnal monkeys) come to a deck on the main building for a treat.  The lodge only feeds them a little fruit so that visitors can see a bush baby (very shy usually), and so that the bush babies will not get too reliant on people and still have to go out and get the rest of the food on their own.  We were expecting small furry guys with big eyes, but instead, the bush babies were decently big and had a weird looking hand with six fingers.  As we walked down to the deck, two of the bush babies were already sitting on the deck waiting for their treats.  They have the routine down because the moment the guide pulled a banana piece out of a bag, the bush babies outstretched their hands and eagerly grabbed at the treat.  After devouring their bananas, they waited for more and walked around the deck hoping to find some pieces that might have fallen or hoping that their cuteness would get them some more.  They did find a few bugs to munch on while looking for more bananas but ultimately left us a little while later.

Thick-tailed Gallagos, aka Bush Baby.

I had one more surprise up my sleeve for Katie, and let her know that our breakfast the next morning would be out in the middle of the park and that we would get to it by doing an early morning horseback ride!  It had been a while since either of us had ridden a horse, but we were excited for the experience of riding through the park and hopefully getting even closer to the animals.  The guides said that the animals sometimes get a bit closer to the horses to check them out, since horses are something new to them, even to the zebras.  I forgot how rough a horse ride can be, especially when your horse seems to want to get off the trail or keeps throwing his head to get rid of the many flies buzzing around him.  I think Katie actually handled her horse better than me as she was all smiles on the ride, while I felt like I was constantly shifting in my saddle, and tapping the horse with my heels to have him move a bit faster and catch up with the group.  We arrived at a small mountaintop where a table was set up overlooking the park.  It was a really romantic breakfast and a nice way to pamper ourselves a bit since we usually go more low key and cheap with our trips.  After breakfast, we hopped onto our horses and rode back to the main lodge.  A breakfast break didn’t make my horse any easier to handle and I think it is safe to say that I am no cowboy.

Sunrise from our bedroom.

They brought us coffee and cookies before our horseback riding.

Breakfast was all set up when we arrived, what a view.

Fresh juice & coffee, fresh fruits, eggs, pancakes, & bacon all out in the bush, what a treat!

While Lake Mburo doesn’t have the wow factor of some of the other parks, it was a nice way to celebrate our anniversary alone and treat ourselves to a fancy trip.

Zebra!  As always, for all our pictures visit our SmugMug.

U-gan-da Come Back Now, You Hear!

With the end of Dad's trip drawing near, we figured the best way to end an African adventure is to experience some culture.  We went to the Ndere Cultural Centre to see some cultural dancing and music and eat some local food.

Ndere Troupe performs a repertoire of more than 40 authentic Ugandan dances and songs accompanied by various indigenous percussive, string, and wind instruments.  The performers do not only do Ugandan music and dancing, but other African countries like Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania.  It was a fun show and the performers were awesome.  African dancing has a lot of jumping and swinging of hips, though I have no idea how they move like they do sometimes.  The coolest part of the music portion was the Burundian drums which range from tiny to almost person size.  The large ones must have been really heavy but the drummers carried them on their heads with ease while they walked around and continued to play, also sometimes reached up with their legs to kick them.

The Ndere Troupe performing some Ugandan music before the dancing started.

Shaking their hips!

The drums, later they put them on their heads and played.

Rwandan dance.

We left a bit early because unbeknownst to us we went to the children’s show.  We didn’t realize this until they asked all the kids to come down onto the stage floor to sit around an elder as he sang a song.  Really nice, but it went on and on for a long time.  After that, they wanted to sing happy birthday to one kid.  But you can’t just sing it to one kid, you need to sing it to all of them with birthdays around that day.  It started out okay, but 20 minutes later we were done with happy birthday and heading on out.  We could still hear happy birthday being sung as we got to our car, and were happy we left early.

That was the last big activity for Dad on his big Uganda trip.  Over the three weeks that he was here we checked just about everything there is to do in Uganda off of the list.  It was an action-packed trip and we were really happy to have him with us.  Unfortunately, he had to head back home, but he’ll just have to start planning to visit us again at our next post!

Behind the Scenes

The Uganda Wildlife Education Center was originally founded to accommodate confiscated and injured wildlife and to look after orphan animals which have been taken away from smugglers.  While they do reintegrate some of the animals, it is basically a zoo.  As part of their education program, we went on a behind the scenes tour, which is a two-hour tour that starts before the park opens so you get to hold, pet, and feed some of the animals.

We started out with the snakes and got the chance to hold an African Rock Python.  Thankfully Dad went first because Mr. Snake decided to poop on him, gross.  The snake was rather large and we both required help holding it.

I guess everyone poops, even snakes.

He was heavy!

Next stop, the giraffes.  We were driven around the Education Center in the back of a pickup truck.  As we pulled into their enclosure, you could tell they knew what time it was as they were lined up waiting for their morning treat.  We pulled the car in and the giraffes, along with an eland, marched in a line after our car.  They got a nice treat of carrots and eggplants.  Feeding them was quite entertaining, and even though we were in the truck they still towered over us.

Soo much fun!

The eland really wanted snacks too.

Got any food left?

After stopping by a few other animals (chimps, rhinos, and hyenas), we were headed to the big cats (my favorite)!  They recently got a new male lion since the one they had passed away last year from old age.  He was being held separately so they could slowly introduce all of the females to him.  Zara, the head female lion was extra friendly and we got to pet her.  The guide literally said, “You can pet her just don’t put your fingers by her mouth.”  Not sure why he needed to add that, because would most people really try to put their fingers in a lions mouth?

The lone male.

Just like any cat, she kept rubbing up against the cage and seemed to like being pet.

We got to feed her some meat, look at those paws.

After the lions, we were off to the leopard.  After just seeing two in a tree, I honestly didn’t realize how large they were up close.  He was slightly aggressive and I definitely would not want to mess with one in the wild.  We also had meat for him and he literally pulled this frozen hunk of meat through the tiny holes in the fence.  It was intense, to say the least.

He was a big boy.

He devoured the frozen meat.

Last, but definitely not least, was Charlie the elephant.  Unfortunately, he is the only elephant at the Uganda Wildlife Education Center, but he didn’t seem to mind.  At just 4 years old he’s already as tall as me.  We got to give him some treats and in return got to give him a hug.  It was love!

Afterward, we got to do the zoo at our own pace and then headed out for a nice lunch to reflect on all our travels.  Three weeks is going by so quick!

Hugging Charlie.

We had to give the command, "Charlie, up" as an exercise.

My new buddy, Charlie.

:)