New House on Semawata Road

Here are some photos from where I’m living – it’s a brand new house on Semawata Road in the Ntinda neighborhood.  Some funny things (okay not funny exactly, but amusing to me) about my surroundings 

• The market two doors down.  It’s an open-air market with baby chicks running around everywhere.  Things that are sold at the market: beans, rice, eggs, eggplants, bananas, tomatoes, avocados, onions… and not much else.  I went there the first day and then went to the supermarket the second day – quite a contrast to have an extremely traditional and a very modern food store within just a few blocks of each other.  I think that could be said of many things in Kampala – it feels like a mix of a village and a modern capital.
• The open-air charismatic church that sets up shop right next door on Sundays from about 9am to 2pm (well actually, I’m writing at 2pm and it doesn’t sound like they are stopping).  They have a very loud microphone – this allows me to clearly hear the pastor speaking in tongues and the extremely tone-deaf singer repeating phrases over and over.  I am going to have to plan my Saturdays knowing that there is absolutely no way I’ll be able to sleep past 9am on Sunday.  
• Power outages.  For the past month or two, there have been rolling blackouts in Kampala.  So far, it’s every other day from 6pm-midnight.  I never thought I would be excited to come home and successfully turn the lights on, but oh it is exciting!  Coping mechanisms: 1) keep computer and phone fully charged at all times 2) always know where headlamp is.  It’s not that hard to get used to, just annoying and sad as a sign of how weak the overall infrastructure is. To my fellow GHC-ers in places where there is no hot water and power a maximum of 6 hrs a day, please forgive my small complaint.