Second run

We have officially given up on Mr. David Carry. Call me conventional, but isn’t it normal courtesy to let people know if you suddenly change your mind and decide not to work with them despite several phone calls and e-mailing? Anyway, the church of Uganda isn’t much better they either, so we are taking matters in to our own hands. Yeah.

Today has been a good day. Despite the 100% pressure of all the water storage in heaven (lots of rain) and the 0% pressure of water in the shower, sink and toilet this morning, we have started producing stuff and that always feels good. We are making a folder presenting our thoughts and ideas for the compressed soil brick in combination with community development, hoping that it will give us the opportunity to pursue our ideas – and bring in some money…

The planning people had presentations of their findings and progress over the week, and it was quite interesting to listen to their stories of horrible destinies and difficult working conditions. It is not easy to work your way through the slum when you are so enormously white and rich and the inhabitants see you as either a moneybag or just one more of the ‘good people’ spending their time on silly questions. It will be exciting to follow their work.

I went out on a new run today. Only this time in the afternoon with more people out than last time. I wish I could have recorded what I saw on a tape. It is SO weird to run down a street being noticed, stared at, pointed at, shouted after and even run after by the locals. At one point there was a matatu (a minibus taxi) that had driven out of the road into a water channel. These things always get surrounded by people and there were maybe 80-100 men looking at it being pulled up. Running past this scenery, becoming the very unwilling centre of attention for all these men, shouting and calling, actually made me somewhat uncomfortable and a tad nervous. But it was all ok of course. Just… not so fun.


A better part of the run came later. After being followed by a young mechanic for about 200 meters, I reached a big marked place. I turned the corner and it was all so beautiful! To close out all the calling I had the music on quite loudly, so I had Kasabian (again) with a background of cars, horns, shouting and talking in my ears, a smell of dirt, pollution, sweat, animals, food – a kind of an African mix that is difficult to describe, and the setting sun shining so delicately through the grey, dusty air. It was a big, open space with a lot of sky over it, as alive as in the liveliest pile of ants with people and cars and boda-bodas going everywhere. The running through all of this while dodging the crazy boda-bodas, bicycles overloaded with goods, and busy, hurrying people - was a run to remember.