In Uganda

I was in uganda at Kampala in Mekerere University for a course on gender and ICT. From 9th August to 16th August, 2008. This was my second trip to Uganda for earlier I had been here to attend the Women’s world Conference in 2005. I found Uganda to be a beautiful country with beautiful landscapes. The houses had red tiled roofs and since the region was in slopes they looked very beautiful spread across the hills. Like India I found a lot of disparity among the people in terms of their riches and wealth. We were put up in in a beautiful hotel called Kabira. The fruits in Uganda were really very tasty and we had lots of pine apples, oranges and apples. We went crazy calculating the prices. There were 1600 shillings to a dollar and we were paying some thing like twenty five to thirty thousand shillings for one dish. I kept wondering how much money would people carry to buy land, house or a car. I think they would need a trunk to carry this money. In the Department where we had the Conference they were selling lap tops and this was costing some thing like sixty lakh shillings.

The workshop was inaugurated by Ms. Lukiya Isanga, the Minister for Gender in Uganda. I was very happy to note that Uganda had a gender policy, which we still did not have in India. I got a copy of this policy and only hpoed that one day India would also have a gender policy. The participants were all very mature and were from different fields of computer science, Banks , managements, gender studies and we became very friendly with them and shared many happy moments. We had a great time with Theo, and Nicole from Radboud University , Nijmegen in the Netherlands and Joan and Rouf from South Africa. It was great fun to introduce Rouf to Indian food and since he was young he enjoyed every moment of this when we gave him some of our namkeens and kurkure to eat. In the breakfast we introduced him to pooris and allos.We had a memorable time in the African village and were wonder struck with the way the dancers moved their hips. The women had so much grace in their movements and it was fun to be a part of their celebrations. We went around and did shopping for some art objects and the Kiyondi the African bag which I love. It was a memorable trip and visiting the source of the Nile will always remain fresh in my memory. We always associate Nile with Egypt but it was nice to know that the source of Nile was in Uganda.