Across Difficult Country

A pair of tortoises set fire to a home in Fordingbridge, the Salisbury Journal reports . Remember how we all laughed at the Ugandan policeman who shot and killed a fleeing tortoise , after it aggressively and violently chased him? Maybe we owe him an apology.

A reader named Garland forwards an incredible story from Uganda : In a bizarre incident in Nebbi district, a policeman says he was attacked by an aggressive tortoise at his home.  Charles Onegiu, who is attached to Ndew Police Post in Ndew sub-county, says he was in his grass-thatched hut sipping away on a cup of tea when the incident happened. The tortoise crept in and when Onegiu tried to scare it off, the hard-shelled creature appeared unfazed, and instead turned aggressive. The policeman, who had just returned home after a long field day training crime preventers, tried to wave off his unwanted visitor.  “I tried to scare it but the tortoise became very aggressive. I took a stick to chase it but it instead became more violent making me to make alarm. “I immediately picked a plastic chair to hit it. It then got out of the hut and moved towards the latrine as people rushed to my rescue,” he told New Vision.  The shaken Onegiu then instinctively reached for ...

Mulazim Awwal Moamer  Mohammad Abu Minyar al-Kazzafi. In Libya, Sarkozy and Obama helped rebels murder Muammar Gaddafi*. Why is unclear, perhaps they envied Mr. Khaddafi’s style. Obama inserted troops into Uganda , which sounds vaguely dirty, and probably is. In the UK Mike Newman, a blind man, flew a plane for a record setting 26 consecutive loops . He insists he did it on purpose. *Prounced Qadhdhafi .

Pterygotid sea scorpion, tickling a bird. Pterygotid sea scorpions, 8 foot long arthropods that lived hundreds of millions of years ago were not fearsome predators, a new study says .  Their oversized, lethal looking claws were actually weak and clumsy, making them the buffoons of the Paleozoic ocean. Scientists exposing and embarrassing them now, after all this time, strikes me as mean-spirited. Another new study says “ giant pandas need old-growth forests as much as bamboo forests .” Am I the only one who finds Pandas’ demands excessive? I've never seen them do anything to warrant the adulation heaped on them, either. After observing a group of Ugandan chimpanzees for 14 years, a pair of easily entertained scientists concluded “ young females in one group of African chimpanzees use sticks as dolls more than their male peers do .” I forwarded the report to the Women’s Studies department of a local university, with the suggestion th...

I laughed when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni announced his dream of going to the moon (“ We must also go there and say: ‘What are you people doing up here ?’”). At the time, I had no idea he owned a $48 million private plane, purchased using money given to him by the US and EU . Now he is using $22 million in foreign aid to buy seven supersonic fighter jets Ugandans can’t fly or maintain . Our generosity, then, may have caused Museveni to believe Western nations will someday buy him a rocket ship . I’m starting to believe it myself.

Around the time  two big balls plopped on Razdolnoye, Kazakhstan , a pair of balls, one larger than the other, were seen dangling in the sky above Tashkent, Uzbekistan . The balls remained in the air for approximately half an hour, then floated off toward the south east. At no time did the globes descend low enough for locals to fondle or attack them. Observers of the balls describe them as having an “extra-ordinary nature”, jealous skeptics who didn’t actually see them insist the balls are mundane (how would they know?). In other space news, 45 years after the legendary Zambian Space Program failed to launch, Africa may once again be reaching for the stars : Africans must travel to the moon to investigate what developed nations have been doing in outer space, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said Saturday. “The Americans have gone to the moon. And the Russians. The Chinese and Indians will go there soon. Africans are the only ones who are stuck here,” Museveni sai...

Local progressive ladies have invented a new way to amuse themselves : On a sunny Sunday afternoon earlier this month, about a dozen Bethany Community Church members knelt by the shores of Green Lake, filling 5-gallon jugs with water and carrying them part way around the lake. It was a way to experience, at least for a few minutes, the heavy burden borne by women and children in Uganda who sometimes walk for miles each day to get water for drinking, cooking and washing. After the physically and psychically exhausting “few minutes” it’s off to a nearby eatery for some heavy reflection and light dining (white wine, duck salad, and pan seared scallops). If these women want a more authentic and exhilarating Uganda poverty experience they should toss out some yams and then gather them back up while some Tumbo-Mbonga type dressed in a loincloth beats them with a switch for not gathering fast enough. I sense a business opportunity.

Normally I’m the last to complain about someone squandering money on a party, but in these troubled economic times why is His Presidency The Barry Obongo spending $150 million on inaugural festivities ? Consider the alternatives: $150 million buys the entire population of Uganda a $5 foot long from Subway, it buys a custom perch for each of China’s 34,000 human-bird hybrids , or it buys a Boeing 767 for every single one of America’s openly Mustiphino congressmen.

Live in Switzerland . Inventions stolen from the pastoralist Karamojong people of Uganda include a better mousetrap, a fashionable sandal made from recycled tires, and a distinctive haircut. Minor design flaw discovered in Seattle monorail . The Greek satirist Lucian (c. A.D. 120-180) describes visiting the moon : "Moonmen have artificial penises, generally of ivory but, in the case of the poor, of wood...The diet is the same for everyone: frog."

There are many reasons why anti-poverty measures are less than successful in Africa. In a recent column, the Ugandan commentator Charles Onyango-Obbo provides one you've never heard before: ...sometimes plans to end poverty fail because of, well, poverty. Take a recent case from western Kenya...A lot of money was pumped into a programme to save poor rural women from walking many kilometres to fetch water. The women, however, didn't collect water from the new modern "wells". Were the women ignorant? Not at all. With just one harvest a year, the women had a lot of time on their hands. Without electricity, TV, and other distractions at home, they would be bored to death. They preferred to continue walking many kilometres away to collect water, because it helped them kill time. Beryl Bainbridge on smoking (note her observation on the decline in language ability upon quitting, it's something I can attest to, and something that those who oppose tobacco never mentio...

Have you ever noticed how in Africa the Kenyans have all the plum jobs, particularly in marketing? Ugandan opinion columnist Charles Onyango-Obbo has: Yet, I discovered, rather unhappily, that this increased level of contact has at the same time raised old prejudices from the dead. Ugandans sometimes bristle at the fact that all the plum jobs (particularly in marketing) at the major regional and international companies in Kampala have been taken by Kenyans - the feeling is stronger in Dar es Salaam. Kenyans and Tanzanians tend to think that Ugandans are a people who are unable to consistently manage their affairs without degenerating into violent madness. Perhaps the only thing that's enduring about the country is the beauty of its women, I have been told. The Tanzanians? They are laidback at best, and at worst lazy - corrupted by the cradle-to-grave ways of the socialism of Nyerere's days. And Ugandans and Tanzanians will tell you that Kenyans are boorish, greedy, arrogant an...

My new favorite opinion columnist is the Ugandan commentator Charles Onyango-Obbo (who I have cited previously - see ' Togo situation so-so ' below). His recent work can be found here , see also this archive of his articles written between 1995-2002. It's full of gems. Some highlights: Why is the use of bikes widespread in poor Asian countries, but not in Africa? Onyango-Obbo explains : The scooter and small bike is ubiquitous in Bali as in most of Asia…Beautiful girls ride their own scooters, and are also carried by their boyfriends on their tiny bikes. Apart from demographic and social realities, no doubt the petite hips of the Asian women and men make scooter travel possible. The belly of the Ugandan male and elephantine hips (much loved no doubt) of some of our women make this form of transportation impractical for many. Honestly, has Thomas Friedman (who some absurdly call the American Charles Onyango-Obbo) even once said anything as insightful or entertaining? You r...

The situation in Togo is little changed, but it seems that as a result of outside pressure from the usual bores Togo is inching toward democracy. Which is a shame, and is a sign of how out of control the whole democracy fad has become. Everyone knows Faure Gnassingbe, as son of a president and possessor of an MBA (I call him the African Bush) is the best possible president for Togo, and what everyone is failing to acknowledge is given the chance to vote, the Togolese will elect the scariest witch doctor they can find instead. Fascinating Togo fact: In 1963 Togo was ruled by a man named Nicolas Grunitzky, who was half Polish and half Moba . (How can you tell that the kid who stole your bike is half black and half Polish? He's running down the street with the bike under his arm.) I still have not been able to get past the palace security to meet with Gnassy jr. While waiting I’ve stumbled across the writings of Charles Onyango Obbo . I would describe him as a Ugandan Thomas ...