Sunday, 8th August, Kampala Time: 4:35

There are many things in which the people of Uganda display admirable tenacity. One of these things is enduring large amounts of noise pollution. The only thing that the people here excel at more than enduring the most bone-shaking cacophonies is creating them. A couple of nights ago, we stayed at the ‘New City Annex’ Hotel, where we paid though the nose for the only available room, a “luxury double suite”. The word luxury was perhaps an exaggeration, but it did have clean sheets and an electric fan, which was more than most places offer. Sadly the dream did not last. Our room, while comfortable, didn’t have any glass in the window it shared with the hotel kitchens. All that separated us and the hotel's dishwashing facilities was strip of thin wire mesh. This would have been fine if it weren’t for the fact that the dishes were washed in large, steel pans, starting from around midnight. Each time I wandered towards a temperate and blissful dreamland, I was dragged back to reality by the sound of someone filling these stupendous metal resonating chambers with water from what I can only imagine was one of those hoses you use to blast the dirt of the side of houses. At 1:30, I stormed downstairs.
“WHEN WILL THE WASHING UP BE FINISHED IN THERE”, I yelled at their unfortunate shift manger.
“Sir” he replied politely, “they shall be working … all night”.
They worked … all night. They were nice enough to fill the tubs up more slowly for us, but this simply drew out the pain.

Last night we were stranded in Fort Portal and endured a similarly excruciating experience. The main-road noise running right under our window was bad enough, but it was nothing compared to the 100-decibel instrumental nursery rhyme music that pumped from a concealed source somewhere over the road. This was replaced at about 1 a.m. with the sound of terrible terrible African pop music from the next door night club, which was in turn replaced at 6 a.m. by the sound of someone somewhere else in the guest house having a fraught argument in Swahili. When the apocalypse comes, I do not envision the sound of screams and hellfire. Oh no. There could surely be nothing more fitting to the end of the earth than a tinny recording of “When the saints come marching in” played louder than a Black Sabbath concert. This morning we discovered that the kindergarten choonz were being played by a lone woman attempting to draw visitors to her shop. The mind boggles.

The news has just arrived that that the car is leaking radiator fluid and we’ll be spending another night in the same place. Tonight I shall go to sleep dreaming of my bed in the jungle. The sounds of colobus fighting, cicadas calling, lions roaring, leopards growling and lizards running past the bed aren’t exactly soporific, but compared to African hotels, it will be heaven.


(P.S. Happy 28th Birthday, Mom!)