Ki Kati! (Luganda for Hello!)

I'm on a three month visit to Kampala, Uganda, where I'm working on a Pfizer Global Health Fellowship at the Infectious Diseases Institute at Makerere University.

I'll be blogging about my work at the following link:
www.pfizer.com/ghf

This blog will focus on cultural aspects of living in Uganda.

Geography:
Uganda lies on the shores of lake Victoria, just east of central Africa, between the east and west branches of the Great Rift Valley and on the equator.  It's bordered to the east by Kenya, to the south by Tanzania and Rwanda, to the west by Congo and to the north by Sudan.  The equatorial climate is tempered by the high altitude and it's a comfortable 25C / 80F during the day, a little cooler in the evening.  The sun rises at 6:30am and sets by 7pm, and we are two hours ahead of BST, 10 hours ahead of PDT.

Economics:
The currency here is the Ugandan Shilling; the exchange rate is 2,500 USh = $1.  Cash is king - it's hard to exchange travellers' checks outside Kampala and credit cards are only accepted in upscale stores and hotels.  Happily I've had no trouble using my American ATM cards here in the big foreign banks (Barclays, Stanbic, Standard Chartered).

Major exports include agriculture (coffee, tea, tobacco) and minerals, including coltan, which is a key raw material used in cellphones, although most coltan is mined in neighboring Congo.  Oil reserves have  been discovered recently in Western Uganda but since the country is landlocked it's not clear whether the government will build a refinery here, or in Kenya on the coast.  The short term plan is to produce 4000 barrels a day and to build a basic refinery producing diesel, kerosene and heavy fuel oil which will be used to fuel a new power plant with transmission lines to connect to the National Grid.  Uganda has 2-3 hydroelectric projects but there are widespread electricity shortages.  The medium term plan is to build a full scale refinery and pipeline and to establish a domestic petrochemical and energy industry. Oil has also been discovered in neighboring Kenya and Somalia so given the local competition and geographical challenges the locals are skeptical whether oil revenues will benefit the general public.

Ugandans equate personal wealth here with land, mostly for the purpose of growing cash crops like maize rather than property / real estate.  Land is relatively affordable; people sometimes subdivide and sell of part of their land to raise money, resulting in a patchwork of larger luxurious and small, basic homes sitting cheek by jowl,  A coworker told me that you can rent a plot of land, plant maize and employ people to tend the crop for 4 million USh, and then sell the maize for 12 million USh just 3 months later.  At 1200% APR - not a bad investment!

June 27: I met some new friends who are trying their hand at agriculture, however the manager at their farm 1.5 hours' drive from Kampala  decided to cut corners and plant a whole acre of Nairobi cucumbers at once rather than the market farming practice of planting one eighth of an acre at a time, at two week intervals so as to secure a steady supply of produce.  As a result, my friends have a whopping crop of 400kg of cucumbers to sell today...anyone for pickles or a facial?