ROY X CONE contest, 1.1.11 - 2.1.12

[almostnice]

today it was about time to fulfill my sons desire of a little boattrip

he dreamed of a canoe,but my recent spinal and back disorder told me to choose a pedal boat-also great to build up my floppy leg muscles

as floppy as my legs were the pedals

crappy looking steering device worked surprisingly well

my working out in full swing

pedaling,steering and taking pics at the same time needs definitely more practice

[DocBlue]

this weekend i finally went to my father's farm with my kiddos. beautiful sunny day.

boys went for a little karting....

while my girl mown the loan....with dad and his Roys

Terminator went out for war

thne i started the serious job: i took out Lulu for a little session :

my Roys were happy to ride Lulu for the first time

My Roys at work.... pretty messy.

hopefully i am going to have apple trees and pears too here, one day....

[DocBlue]

kids were so happy

they spent their day riding that.

the old barn, used to have horses here, about 10 years ago.

[fre-co]

Nice farm, nice tractor.... this thread has gone tractor crazy.

[dkatz]

Hahahah, loving the farm theme of late!

Some more of Arua, courtesy of Homegirl.

On the way from school

Fruit? Veggies? Cassava?

The landscape in Arua - and in Northern Uganda in general - is much different than in Central, Eastern and Western Uganda. It's much more arid and, frankly, looks a lot more like "Africa" than the rest of Uganda does to me.

Village life

Anyone need some charcoal?

On the bus on the way out of Arua, a new experience: police made everyone get out of the bus and show their ID. Intimidation much?

I have to say - I love working in Arua. It's not that noteworthy a place (in terms of stuff to see or do), but people in Arua tend to be much more gracious and genuine in my experience. For the lifetime of this project, Arua has been an absolute dream and breeze to work in. Two examples of what I mean:

1. Every survey-group we visited for pretesting served us a light meal and often tea when we were finished with the pretesting. My teams working in Arua during the baseline reported that this happened to the extent of it actually making their job more difficult since they had a tight timeline to keep.

2. In our stakeholder meeting, a member of our partner organization there asked something about what the respondents would get after the survey. The top dog of the partner organization cut off my response with "I don't believe in handouts. After the [LRA] war, all of these organizations came giving handouts, and it made people lazy. I don't believe in them." I wanted to jump over his desk and kiss him - I have NEVER heard this from a member of a Ugandan organization.

After the meeting, dude said (a Ugandan proverb) "I hope you are not going to go, but you are going to come." I got a bit choked up. I'll miss Arua! Fortunately it's now looking like I'll be going back one more time before I'm done here.

Baaaaaaack in the Kla. There's this absurd crossing guard near where I live. While I support the safety of school children crossing busy roads, I can't support this dude. Unfortunately you can't see in the picture, but the sign he's holding is basically a gigantic advertisement for the NRM (National Resistance Movement - the ruling party) that says shit like "NRM: protecting our children's future" and some bulllllll shit. I'll have to try to get a better photo next time.

And then off East to Mbale for more of the same. Saw a couple clusters of riot police on the 4-hour drive, and joked about it. Shortly after we arrived in Mbale, found out that shit had popped off like mad all along the route we had just traveled. Gnarly.

More pretesting in more churches

Though concentration (and confidentiality) was particularly difficult when the primary school on the same grounds had its recesses

And more pretesting in more churches...

[DocBlue]

Nice farm, nice tractor.... this thread has gone tractor crazy.

yea. didnt notice your posts before i posted mine. so funny.

Zissou, you are so damn right, Lambo is lambo because of tractors....

Fre$sco i dig the red one you posted ... can(t rep tho

Dkatz tractors in Africa are land rovers no? i wish i could find a real old one in not too bad shape....

[Paul T]

as others might know, David Brown, who the DB6 is named after, made his money as a ... tractor manufacturer, just like Ferrucio Lamborghini.

[DocBlue]

once again Paul TheBible T adds the ultimate killer detail.

[robbie]

A fairly uneventful Sunday but I bought a new chair today at Goodwill.

It is extremely comfy, only I've got more rolls than a baker in this picture

[zissou]

I feel like we just had a real bonding moment over tractors. More proof that the universe is more aligned when ROYs are worn.

Looks like a wonderful time with the kids, almostnice and docblue!

Lovely photos of the churches, dkatz...

My ROYs(+Key) and I are completely exhausted after a looooong weekend of working on the house. I got all of the trim primed, installed, and prepped in the hallway for my painter friend to paint tomorrow. It's Miller time.

[ThisSunday]

I'll get around to my real post later tonight. Here's another fit

[tvshooter]

man RXC threak is just blazin! the best pics on sufu are right here. diggin the family guy stuff from Doc and mr. nice.

[zissou]

Oh, and I almost forgot- happy 4 months, everyone...

[aho]

^Makes me depressed I can't wear mine as often...brilliant work!

[ThisSunday]

Sakura Matsuri

Cosplay

Ikebana

Taiko

Bonsai

[ThisSunday]

ThisSunday

Japanese Hill and Pond Garden

Tulip

Korean BBQ Dinner

[dkatz]

Looks like a wonderful day, ThisSunday! Strange (though certainly not bad) to see you without a hat.

[almostnice]

this pic was taken by To,the RW storemanager,hence the fedora above my head (oh yeah,funny guy he is).was too cold to try it on,unfortunalety.

a big hug goes to Robbie for this nice card,cheers!

[mikecch]

Celebrating 3 years with my girlfriend...

Went to a local Japanese grill restaurant:

They specialise in wagyu beef and kurobuta pork...

My BBQ shirt:

[tg76]

today we went to school, did a screen printing class, did some research into denim for a new unit (yeah i put my feet up) came home read the mail, bills bills bills, postcard

and watered the cat, who will only drink from this glass and only in one corner of my bedroom, fackin weirdo cat

[Paul T]

Weird English Practices…

Just for those of you who live in 'normal' places, here's my Weird Anglo Weekend. Did a lot of things, but I've just tried to present the more bizarre, distinctly English ones.

Thursday night: off to meet a friend for an Arts meeting. Arrived to see Buildings Wrapped Up.

These days, royal events are commercial affairs, opportunitues for promotion (probably they always were). Every flag sponsored, in this case by Hello, the hilariously straitlaced and respectful Celebs mag.

The city is packed with toursits, here for the royal wedding

The meeting was at The Guild Of Artworkers. Started by WIlliam Morris and others in the Arts and Crafts days. Now it seems to be the preserve of terribly posh people in ludicrous outfits. But as you can see, the building is beautiful, classic high arts and crafts, packed with some very good and some very bad paintings. Check out the dude on the left in the red gown, he's the Grand Master, or similar.

The talk was on construction of a medieval-styler chateau in Burgundy.It was a bizarre audience, ludicrously refined voices, seemingly all people who'd never get their hands dirty with real work, who have a hefty private income but Dabble In Art, dear.

But my god, posh people do get to hang out in nice buildings. The front of the house is all Georgian, pristine and beautiful.

Quick drink after in a nearby pub, all bedecked in royal regalia.

But not very friendly, so then it was round the corner to a much nicer pub, the Princess Louise - High Victorian, a beautiful interior. (I highly recommend the toilets in here, they're in the Dirty Dozen thread).

Even the hallway out there is beautiful. Of course, by now me hands are a bit shaky.

The walk home, too, was weird and distinctly English. I'd noticed this huge building many times before - but never realised it was the Headquarters of the Masons. Round the corner are lots of shops selling Masonic regalia… strange to see it so prominent, right in the centre of London.

The next day was the wedding, which was of course hilarious and surreal. But it was a buzz to see this extra holiday in the middle of nowhere, and an excuse for people to drink continuously for four days. Well, for me, anyway.

[Paul T]

Normal service resumes Sunday. Me and the nipper back to the market after a break of a couple of weeks.

NO English thread would be complete without Pearly Kings! HEre they're off-duty, having their traditional english brekkie.

Obligatory shot - jacket and T are LVC, plus the Roy x Cone, natch.

The nipper, behind the counter at our friends' flower stall. Insanely busy…

We liked this object in one of our fave shops…

We were back for lunchtime, and got to drink a quick pint of fine Meantime beer with Dr Heech (complete w magnificent 101J). Then we dropped in quickly to see The Clerk, for some quick 3-way Cone action.

Sadly, the nipper's photo commemorating this historic event has been lost, I have no idea how, but I suspect he might have started deleting denim-related photos from his iPod touch! Grrrr.

Finally, Monday, another holiday, and down to the beach.

One of the main pleasures: crab sandwiches from an ancient shop called Wheelers. Well worth the 40 miles trip out to the coast.

The nippers' Levis got some intensive wear. Went thru at the knee today…

[Paul T]

Now, the last Bizarre English Practice. Morris dancers and green men, celebrating the arrival of Spring….

In a couple of local shops, they were celebrating the hioldays with a Wooly family. They're cute, and they cost a hell of a lot less than the real thing.

Have a great week!

[Maynard Friedman]

One of the best posts ever Paul T, shame I'm unable to rep you for it. Almost makes me a little homesick

[dkatz]

Hahahaha, great stuff Paul! Tragedy that that 3-way ROYxCone shot was lost though!

Today I've spent way too time in two soul-sucking places:

Central Police Station, recovering my license after paying a 40,000 Shilling (~$17) for making a u-turn in a right-turn pocket that had no signage saying I couldn't. I pointed this out to the cop, who informed me that if it doesn't have a sign saying u-turn are allowed, then that means they aren't. Nevermind the fact that every other goddamn place in this city where you can make a u-turn doesn't have a sign... UGH. I've sworn off bribing, though, so I just have to accept this arbitrary shit.

And Immigration, where I need to return shortly to *hopefully* finally get my researcher visa renewed

Check out that incredible filing system in the back there...

Anyway, continuing the catchup of the past weeks:

More churches in Mbale

I liked the light

Back to Kampala again. I appreciate little bursts of natural beauty that manage to fight through the Kampala grime!

And little bits of absurdity

Tried something new: attended a boxing match! Boxing is actually pretty big in Uganda - Idi Amin himself was a heavyweight champ. I've never been to a boxing match before, but I found that I enjoyed it much more than I expected.

When the last fight got exciting, everyone got up from their seats and bum-rushed the ring.

Next day, went out to Entebbe to veg at a nice spot over a cup of coffee

then to the lakeshore for some grilled fish (unfortunately camera battery died)

[dkatz]

Monday we headed out for more meetings and pretesting in Mukono. It was a bizarre day because shit blew up a bit with the protests. Only two of the five enumerators who were supposed to come made it before police and protestors shut down the road. At the end of the day, we wound up booking it out of Mukono quickly after seeing police fire tear gas into a slum off the road and some serious heavy military machinery rolling in. Interestingly, we wound up leaving because the last enumerator we were with is from the West of Uganda and he said "If things get bad, once the people here [the Buganda tribe] see my height and my nose, they will attack me". There's a bit of animosity between the Baganda tribe and those of the west because the west has all the money (and is where Museveni is from) and tends to be very arrogant. So we trucked out. Gnarly.

But anyway, more churches in Mukono [note: my project and organization or not religously affiliated, just working with churches for this project]

and more

Not a bad spot to work

Had to have a word with that cow about infringing on respondent confidentiality

After Mukono, I finally had a couple of days in the office in Kampala

And then the great reward! Early Friday morning of Easter weekend, hopped in the car with a couple friends (and picked Homegirl in Masaka) for the seven-hour drive to Lake Bunyonyi.

Look at that gorgeous mug.

Driving here is always an adventure. Yes, that's a fuel tanker overtaking a dump truck. I've been run off the road by overtaking fuel tankers a couple times. The suckers are crashing all the time, then people come running with jerry-cans to grab as much petrol as they can, and then something sparks and they all burn.

Local bus. Takes cattle one way and passengers back.

Scenic Kabale town.

Another page for my American Bicycle Messengers are Bitches coffee-table book

[fre-co]

Ah Whitstable!

Nice set of pictures Paul.

[dkatz]

Rutinda market, on the shore of Lake Bunyonyi

Ahhhh, arrived. We stayed at Byoona Amagara on Itambara Island, in a "geo dome" for ~$15/person/night.

Trying to capture the beauty

Might as well be a different world from Arua

Not a bad spot...

On Sunday we decided to go to church on the mainland (as if this Jew doesn't already spend enough time in churches in Uganda...). Reading while waiting for services to begin. Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda is pretty amazing...

[Paul T]

Just realised the nipper took photos in the camera pro prog, they don't show up automatically.

Pearly Kings, close-up.

And some multiple COne.

I did ask the nipper to shoot us full length, but the market was crammed, so all you get is our crotches and asses. Well, that's my best angle, anyway...

From left, The Clerk, PT, the Dr

It was great seeing you, Doc, hope it's not such a rush next time!

Daniel, gripping stuff, by the way (and sorry I've lowered the intellectual and photographic tone)

[dkatz]

^ the eclecticism is the best part of this thread! Great lookin tri-moneyshot!

Inside the church

Who needs church bells when you have big drums?

I've been in and around so many churches in Uganda, it was fun to see one actually in use!

The view from the church. This place is unreal...

Looking back up the path towards the church. STEEP.

Back to our island

And back to the hard work