Größere Kartenansicht
uganda. what a wonderful country - i am so glad that i actually visited eva; who turned out to be the perfect guide & host for me.. thank you for that!
we visited a lot of interesting places and i must say that i would have never expected it to be that beautiful; both nature and wildlife simply stunned me. |
| uganda's nature |
besides being fascinated all of the time, though, i got to learn a lot about the ugandian culture & lifestyle.
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| lifestyle in uganda |
people refer to us whites as muzungu, which is a common african term for strange, white people.
contrary to the austrians, who also have various terms for our foreigners, they mean it friendly.. it is simply their way to address us. in general people are very open-minded and interested; they have a good sense of humor, and if they are stunned, they laugh. so, for example, it is very uncommon for them to be able to swim. when we told them that we could, they non-believingly laughed and said 'man, you are good, muzungu'.
body contact is usual - it is possible that you hold your counterparts hand during the whole conversation. although homosexuality is illegal [that was quite shocking for me] men run around holding their hands.. just in a non-sexual way.
the way of conversation is totally different to the austrian, too. deriving from luganda, they do not use please or thank you too much; they mainly talk in commands. e.g. 'you take this', 'you go over there' instead of 'would you like to have this' etc. this is not being rude, it is just how they talk and how you answer. bargaining is also very common, it is a form of communication. when they offer you a certain price [which is generally a muzungu one, i.e. at least thrice as high] you just say 'you must reduce the price a bit' a start negotiating. something i had to get used to but turned out to be quite fun.
people have a simple lifestyle, but they seemed really happy to me. i really had to get rid of some of my prejudices.
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| ugandan people |
food is awesome, too. local fruit are mangos, papayas, bananas, pineapples and avocados. we almost daily mashed tomatoes with them and filled chapattis, incredibly taste bread-crêpe-things.
to sum it all up - this was the best vacation ever and i hope to go back to this country soon. although the standards are low, the quality of life is undescribable due to the positive atmosphere.
