Skating in East Africa-ca-ca-ca

From the New York Times:

Before Jack Mubiru, a father of the skateboarding scene in Uganda, could build a half-pipe in his native Kampala in 2006, he had to avoid paying a construction fee, so he fabricated a story about building a private enclosure for a pet crocodile. Most local officials — and neighborhood residents — had never heard of skateboarding. Six years later, the sport has spread from the skate park to the streets, attracting children as young as 5 and adult women. Its profile is growing throughout eastern Africa, with skate parks built or planned in neighboring Kenya and Tanzania. Proponents of skateboarding say it gives participants a welcome leisure activity in countries where there are few other options. ‘‘There is not much else for younger people to do,’’ Mubiru says. ‘‘So many people want to skateboard.’’

Julie Bosman

Love it! When they open the skate park in Kenya you ALL have to come visit and teach me how to do a kick-flip.

 

Final Daily Photo Challenge

I was going to take a picture of the grey, rainy disgustingness that greeted me when I landed tonight but I can do one better. I brought back six jars of honey from our very own beehives and the dickheads in customs seized the lot.

Wankers, but they were polite enough to give me a receipt.

And that’s all folks!

Special thanks to Sam & Anna for inventing the challenge in the first place.

I hope you’ve all enjoyed the pictures.

Daily Photo Challenge (Friday)

Apologies for lack of photo yesterday, there was computer meltdown at home.

It’s another two-photo bonus.

This first one is how mail is delivered in Kenya, a lot of streets don’t have any names so it would be hard to deliver to houses.

This second photo was spur of the moment – I saw a man in a hard hat sitting on a massive mound of dirt. How could I not?

Daily Photo Challenge

Well here we are again.

Today’s photo is of jam. Lots and lots of strawberry jam, made from scratch in our kitchen.

Daily Photo Challenge

I found these bones among the trees behind the house, and from the size of the skull fragment I think it was a dik-dik. Then again, one of the bones seems way too big in proportion to the size of the head. Whatever it was, the condition of the bones indicate that it was eaten by….. something quite awhile ago.

Daily Photo Challenge (Friday-Tuesday)

I’m back from the village!

Here are the photos from last Friday until today (in that order):

Mum spotted this one on our way into town. Coca-Cola have branded an entire building.

This is one of my granny’s neighbours, we bumped into her in the yard, just as she came to pick up her goats.

This is a traditional Luo musical instrument. It’s called “nyatiti” and you can hear it in the background of the music by Owiny Sigoma that Tom posted the other day. This particular one belongs to my granny.

Took a picture of the only plane at the “airport” in Kisumu just before we left yesterday morning. Kisumu airport is a glorified shack attached to an airstrip. Still, it’s faster than driving, especially since there’s practically no road!

And last but not least, I took this picture today. It’s the bumper sticker on my Dad’s car. Once a stoner, always a stoner.

And that’s it for the time being.

Can’t believe I’ve only got four days left before I’m back in sunny Edinburgh….

Daily Photo Challenge

I can’t take credit for today’s photo. Mum spotted it on the way home. See if you can spot the error. 

I’m going up country for the next four days, so I won’t have any internet. But I’ll be sure to upload all my “pictures of the day” when I get back.

Also Tom, I’m not in the internet cafe anymore so regarding your earlier request: Nguuni Lovers Lovers, Cheza Ngoma. You Tube.

Owiny Sigoma Band

In 2009, a handful of London-based musicians travelled to Nairobi in Kenya to collaborate with two local musicians: Joseph Nyamungo and Charles Okoko, who hail from a village up country called Owiny Sigoma. The workshop/rehearsals were a lot of fun and pretty fruitful so they set about finding a studio that could accomodate a 7-piece live band. The resulting four tracks made their way to Gilles Peterson who promptly signed the band to his Brownswood imprint and sent the boys back to Nairobi for another week-long recording session with Joseph, Charles and their extended musical family.

Brendan picked up these guys’ new single a couple of weeks back and it’s triple-double-nice. Turns out the ‘London-based musicians’ are the same guys who used be Task Force’s live band, and one of ’em is also AKA as Louis Slipperz, who made the incredible “£10 Bag” mixtapes back in the day. This is ‘Wires’, and it is good:

Daily Photo Challenge

Today was a busy day as we’re going to attempt to make jam, so I was elbow-deep in strawberries. But I did find time to take pictures and it’s yet another two-photo bonus.

I went for a walk to visit the sheep and the bees in their hives. There’s a line of acacia trees that  were planted as a screen around the hives so the first picture is drips of resin from an acacia tree caught in a cobweb.

The second picture is what I baked this afternoon. I made apple cinnamon muffins, so imagine my horror when one of them came out looking like a certain part of the male anatomy…. I ate it anyway.