National Theatre in Kampala

Last night Axel, Jules, Jen, Goldis and I went to the only open mic night we know of in Kampala. The place was absolutely packed, several hundred people were there, mostly crammed into the tiny little room where the band was playing.

There were some excellent musicians in the house band, particularly the trumpet player and the sax. Every performer, without exception, played full band reggae covers. So when I walked up an hour after we arrived, bringing a little stool with me and my acoustic guitar, I had no idea what the reaction would be. I figured they'd either love it or hate it. Thankfully, it turned out great! There were lots of people dancing and everyone cheered at the end. Good stuff. The open stage runs every Monday so I'm planning to be back next week.

I've been thinking a lot about ways to help people here, and right now I feel like one of the best ways to alleviate poverty would be to get people here creating something that is marketable to people in developed countries. I'm not sure what that will be. But one of the things I started on today is an online portrait of the village. There will be lots of photography, streaming audio with people telling their stories, and various people from the village contributing. The refugees have already been writing stories of how they've got to where they are now, and if nothing else it's theraputic for them, and it helps them practice their English. They're also extremely excited about Westerners reading what they wrote. I'm hoping it will encourage people to donate to the projects here, and maybe bring in some more volunteers.

On the way to the internet cafe today I walked past a woman sleeping on the street with 2 new born babies. I think there's only so many times you can walk by something like that and not do anything. If she's still there on my way back I'll give her some money.

Something that I haven't mentioned yet, but keep meaning to: the public transit system here is absolutely fantastic. It's not too comfortable, it's usually very packed, but I've never waited for a matatu for more than one minute, literally, and the half hour ride into Kampala costs me about 30 cents. It beats every other city I've been to hands down. You can go door to door, pretty much anywhere in the city, for less than a dollar and you won't wait a minute.

Another thing, for all my fellow web geeks: every internet cafe I've been to in Africa, South Africa included, has had Mozilla Firefox. Wow!

The internet follows me everywhere I go. Time to go and buy film so I can start working on this "Portrait of Ndejje" site.