We thought you might like to see a photo of us and some of our colleagues here at Oasis Uganda. It's not quite everyone - we are 46 in total, including volunteers - but it gives you an idea.

Most of our staff are Ugandans, with 6 international staff members (including us) and varying numbers of shorter term UK volunteers here at different times. Recently we have had an accountant, a physiotherapist, a teacher and an engineer, all doing very helpful things either for us at Oasis or partner organisations.

Gill Olaaka, who will be taking over as Country Director when we leave in August, is above Matthew to the right. She is an Irish lass, who has been working for Oasis Uganda for nearly 6 years and has married the most muscular Ugandan man we have ever seen! It's worth keeping on the right side of him!

We were just about to sit at a picnic bench but changed our minds when we saw this rather lengthy snake just where our feet would have been. Apparently it is harmless but we didn't want to take the risk.

Snakes aside, we had a great weekend recently at a place called 'Hairy Lemon', a small island in the River Nile. We went with a couple of friends who are leaving Uganda this week after 9 months of working with us at Oasis.

It is an idyllic place, as long as you are not a 5 star hotel type.... or any star for that matter! But for us intrepid African explorers it was a perfect weekend retreat from the noise, dust and grime of Kampala. Highlights were wallowing in the river, sitting under the vast starry night sky and monkey-watching.

Another dull day at the office....

Just when you could have been forgiven for thinking that we have nothing more interesting to talk about than Matthew's weird skin condition (see entry below this one), it's been a lively morning at the office for us today.

It all started when we were driving to work and roads were being blocked by local people in order to protest about the state of our road, which in all fairness is appalling - a main road with no tarmac and clouds of orange dust every time a vehicle drives along it. Occasionally the council sprays the road with water to keep the dust down but considering the heat of the sun, the dustlessness lasts all of 5 minutes.

It took us ages to get to the office through the maze of rough, narrow tracks behind the main road. Thankfully we decided to park the car at the Bambejja Project, away from the action - you will see why ....

To start with, it was weird having a normally busy and noisy road empty apart from pedestrians - everyone walking in the same direction trying to get to a point where they could pick up a taxi. All roads in the area were blockaded and fires were burning in the middle of the street. As we worked it was unusally quiet to start with, with the absence of the normal traffic, interrupted by the occasional rumpus outside the office as men targeted those who were riding bikes and forced them off. Then the real excitement began.....

Swarms of people (where on earth do they suddenly emerge from?) started moving up the road chanting, followed by a local official and the police. There was lots of shouting and movement, people waving sticks and general commotion. Eventually the police decided to take action to disperse the crowds and gunshots were fired- quite a lot of them in fact.....and very close to our office. At one point we were ducking down in case bullets came through the windows - one hit the adjacent building.


We locked ourselves in the office, which we were thankful for as at one point, there was a disturbance on the stairs of our office building as a man was chased by the police into our building and was banging on our doors.


This photo, taken from our office window, shows one of the trucks of police arriving. We didn't get the camera out for the shooting - for obvious reasons!

Anyway, things seem to be returning to normal now. Don't worry - we are fine - let's just hope we can get home and don't have to spend the night in the office!

It's been a long time since our last entry. Two possible reasons:

1. We have been so taken up with exciting things that there has not been a minute to spare to update our blog

2. We have very little excitement to report

We'll let you decide........

One noteworthy incident, however, is Matthew's recent mysterious 'outbreak' on his arms - see photo.....one of the joys of living in Africa where there is an incredible number of beasties that can do nasty things to you.

In case you are worried about what you might catch when and if you come into contact with him, it has mostly cleared up now, all but a few scars. Lovely.