Terroristen unter uns

Auszug einer Email eines Freundes:
"... Eine Sache muss ich dir noch beichten: Der defekte Laptop Akku, den ich für dich zurücknehmen wollte, ist leider vom Bundesgrenzschutz gesprengt worden. Kein Witz! Mein Gepäck kam hier etwas später an, da ich auf einen anderen Flieger umgebucht wurde. Offensichtlich wird dann das zuzustellende Gepäck nochmals vom Grenzschutz durchleuchtet. Als ich dann meine Tasche aufmachte, war dein Paket aufgerissen. Ich dachte zuerst, jemand in Entebbe hat den Akku geklaut, aber nein: da war ein schöner Beipackzettel vom Bundesgrenzschutz dabei, dass ich offensichtlich ein Gefahrengut illegal transportiert hätte und sie dieses gute Stück zerstören mussten. Den Zettel hab ich aufgehoben und bring ihn dir gerne mit. Tut mir echt leid, aber wahrscheinlich werde ich jetzt auch als potenzieller Terrorist in den Akten geführt...
Ich hoffe der China-Akku war nicht allzu teuer. Du kannst aber gerne einen neuen Akku bestellen, den ich dann mitnehmen kann. Ich werde ihn auch bis auf die Zähne verteidigen. Sag einfach Bescheid. LG..."

LOL!!

I'm old!

January 7th again... Leona's 10th birthday this year.
- "So Leona, what's the theme for the birthday party?"
- "I want a disco party!"
Ooops, I smell trouble....
"And I'd like to invite the whole class, disco music, dancefloor, sodas, a tent in the garden; well, you know... a disco party!"
Ooops, definitely trouble!
But after all it's her first double-digit birthday, so let's get it organised :-)

Anita is providing one of her beautiful tents, dance floor and lighting, the place looks stunning. I add a generator, food, two dozens of soda bottles, my hi-fi system and ... music. Music? Eh? What music? My playlists all end somewhere in the 90s. But that's not really what they play on the radio these days, is it? Somebody help! The night before I manage to get hold of about 100 current MP3s, US Charts and local Ugandan Reggae, Hip Hop and R&B and I listen to the songs and cram their titles until 2am.
NExt day at 4pm the party slowly takes off but at around 6pm we've already quite some dancing going on. After fish fingers, buns and sausages the kids are competing in a dance and best-dressed-girl / best dressed-boy contest.
And then... the dance floor is open! Wow... and how they dance. I'm playing all those songs I listed the night before, but soon I've exhausted my playlist. Anyway, I'll just play some of my cool 80s and 90s hits. The moment I put the first song on - the dance floor is empty and I have a bunch of kids heading towards me demanding: "Ohhh, do you also have some music which is not classic? You know, something modern?"
WHAT??? My cool hits are "classics?" OMG, I'm getting old, so old. Time to freshen up! And if I do really well, I might stand a chance to be taken out by my daughter when she's 15 :-/
But well, fortunately I have plenty of enthusiastic advisers and we find more stuff to play and the party finishes with a bunch of tired and happy disco kings and queens...

Typical Ugandan Xmas

What do you typically do for xmas in Uganda?
Well, you do the usual christmassy baking stuff....




...and then - of course - you go and chase some Rhinos :-)

I wanna be rich

A worrying picture: A recent survey amongst the rural Ugandan population has shown that out of all possible things, 62% of young Ugandans have named "Being rich" as "most important thing in life". While there's nothing wrong with being rich, it is the pronounced gap between "being rich" and anything else.

Aehm, I don't mean to be a know-it-all, but money should come in return for some valuable job done or some valuable product delivered... not just by itself. So, just wanting to be rich and not caring how, why or with what sounds like someone's looking for a shortcut. Being promoted and awarded benefits for looking smart, being smart or talking smart... but not actually performing and producing. Unfortunately, I already had too many opportunities to witness this attitude - and it is this attitude which opens the doors to bribery, corruption and theft. Multiply this with Uganda's steep population growth (800,000 new Ugandans every year)... this is not a good mix. I'm starting to think that besides all the technical work we do here, population growth and attitudes are key to development...

I've made it into the news...

Finally, 3 years of hard work have come to culminate in a press coverage of my sacrificial work here in Africa ;-)

Daily Monitor: KADS exude attention to detail in Xmas fairytale Snow White