Pizza under fire....!

The last few days in Uganda have been pretty quiet for us. Although not for Uganda. There have been a couple of days of political unrest, with rioting in the capital, Kampala. Apparently the king had been planning to visit part of his kingdom and the government objected and said he couldn't. And then the supporters of the king became somewhat irate and began rioting. So the government brought in the army, closed a couple of radio stations and arrested some journalists.

We are about 5k (I think) from Kampala. And some of the rioting had spread to centres beyond the capital. We could hear gunfire from here for a couple of days. Apparently, the rioters, or the police, or both, were shooting into the air. Quite a number of people have been shot and the shops in the village were unable to get supplies. Everything has calmed down again now and all is back to normal. Except for the families who have lost loved ones in some rather pointless violence.

The school here was shut on Friday. (I guess getting a day off feels the same when you're seven, whether it's for snow or polling or political unrest). Which left us with not a great deal to do. So Andy and I were drinking tea and playing cards with the sound of occasional gunfire in the background. Really slightly surreal.

On Friday evening, we had planned to go out for pizza. And then decided this was probably not a good idea, given that there were riots in Kampala. Then the couple we were going with turned up and announced that pizza was 'on after all'. Assuming they had local knowledge and had carefully assessed the situation, we went with them.

It became clear that our companions had perhaps not engaged in quite the sobre assessment we had assumed they had. Certainly no one else had thought it was a good idea to go to Kampala. It was almost completely deserted. They assured us that the gunfire we could hear on the way into the city was 'on the other side'. There was no one else in the pizza restaurant and the waiters, though very courteous were obviously in a hurry to get home. The man who served the ice creams was not there. He'd gone home because his brother had been arrested. It occurred to me that this was possibly one of the least sensible things we'd done, as we watched the armoured vehicle pass the restaurant.

The pizza was excellent. If you're ever in Kampala, I thoroughly recommend Mommamias....