Lodged

I'm now installed in my new temporary home at the Lodge, in the Crater Lakes region of western Uganda, about a bumpy half hour drive from Fort Portal. To paraphrase the George Washington story I just read to the local school, I cannot tell a lie--I think I am in paradise.(Yes this had serious cultural barriers, from "what is a cherry?" to my wincing at "he turned white with fear", but we have a shortage of story books, and yes I'd accept donations.) So far the only downside is that I feel like a ridiculous freeloader for just dropping on my gracious

hosts' unbelievably idyllic life.

I'm here doing a range of projects which I promise to detail soon, but first a bit about the lodge which my employer/hosts run and where I am staying. To give an idea, right now I'm lying on the couch on the porch of my cottage overlooking the valley, the smaller lake, and the view stretched out across tiers of hills to the distant mountains and beyond. They are the Rwenzori mountains and beyond is the savannah-like Queen Elizabeth National Park. (We went to a party inside the park last week where I successfully taught some older british expats to play beirut with half a champagne cork and plastic mugs.)I've been settled into the lodge in paradise a few days now and just yesterday unpacked into this cottage where there is space for me for a few week--an upgrade from shuffling around spare rooms when the lodge was full. There are sunbirds (look like hummingbirds, fly like normal birds) living in the roof thatching, geckos inobtrusively darting across the walls and occasionally snatching mosquitos, and the resident dogs sleeping under the table.
The flower arrangers are walking about, serendipitously named Rose and Katutu. The lodge had to plant a dedicated cutting garden for them due to a growing tension with the gardeners in charge of the decorative rose bushes. There is also a kitchen garden, and now that I know where it is, and specifically where the plot of carrots is, there may be a growing tension between myself and the head cook.

Other amenities include the newly built sauna (they somehow came across a Finn expert enough to get an entire sauna apparatus out here and installed) and the yoga pav

ilion (the missus of the lodge just got teacher certified.)

The only real drawbacks are that anything 21st century is a little difficult (internet, electricity, etc.) except for mobile phones (which seriously everybody, including people who cannot afford things like sugar, has); that the only food option is whatever the lodge is serving for lunch and dinner, which you have to beg to not be served four

courses of--if I'm not fat in a few weeks I'll be lucky; and the isolation of course. But my hosts are lovely company, and the rotating cast of guests takes the edge off.

Let's just hope I can get some good done while I am here being done well by!