Ugandan media

In some respects Uganda is vastly ahead of the times. Lord of the Rings 4 is out on DVD already here, even though they haven't even started filming. I bought it for 10,000 shillings (about $7). From what I watched in the store, it looked really good. It's a bunch of Chinese guys with bad English overdubbing and Chinese subtitles, and lots of horses. The production quality doesn't seem quite up to par with the first 3. Here's the blurb from the back of the DVD, letter for letter:

Lord of the Rings 4
The Keeper of Time

Time is shocked to discover that he has been chosen to the the most power full good wizard of his time. With His master Udo and brave portector, Bullrock, he has to travels to the dark castle. where dark evil power remains. to stop it. Alin the way. the most evil wizard and thousand monsters try to stop them too. how do they reach the castle alive?

The DVD has 4 other movies on it too, including "The Beastmaster" a guy who can control animals and forms an alliance with the cannibal bird-men against the evil sorceror Maaz, in an eenchanted warld of long ago. Genius.

The media is a little skewy here in general. I read the paper about every other day. Here are some stories I remember reading:

How can I shaft 3 girls with a dildo when I have a long penis? - that one was a front page headline, on a national newspaper, about a guy denying that he had used a dildo on his three step daughters.

Heads of gays named - this article listed roughly 10 homosexuals who the paper felt the public needed to be aware of. The list consisted of descriptions like "Mike from the IT lab at Kampala University".

What would you be a martyr for? - This was on the front of the main newspaper's children's magazine. It was interviews with various kids saying what causes they would die for.

I'll write more as I remember / read them.

I taught kindergarten class today, which was loads of fun. I always have fun around little kids. They all shout "Hi mzungu" at me when I walk by, which means "hello white person!", and I reply "Oli-ocha mudugavu", which means "hello black person!", and that usually makes the locals laugh.

Axel left this morning, which is a real shame. That guy was doing so much good work here and he was a blast to hang out with too. I think we'll be going for beers in the UK in a few months though.

I have decided to split my 3 months here into two parts, so one month from now I will be spending between 3 and 5 weeks travelling around the region, and then I'll return and do my final month's work. Despite already having collected a little sponsorship money, I don't think it will be feasible to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. After park and guide fees the total cost will be over US$1000, which is more than what I was able to raise. I'm going to go there anyway though and I may decide to just do it for my own experience. Either way any money given so far will go towards an extremely good cause, and if anyone wants it back I'll happily refund it.

I also plan to get to Nairobi, Zanzibar, Luma island, Ethiopia (hopefully), and go on a safari through the Serengeti. That's based on 30 seconds of research this morning, which is about the average amount of planning I do before any kind of trip.