Been having problems with the bikes we’ve bought here. We’ve not had punctures yet, but I’ve been struggling to pump them up. I bought a normal pump (compatible with the two types of valve I’m used to: Presta and Schrader [spelling?]). But the pump isn’t very compatible with the type on our bikes. They’re all fairly similar (although there’s a few small differences) but they’re two that have problems. The one photographed doesn’t hold air (it just leaks out fairly quickly) and another one barely lets any air in. I’ve also noticed that occasionally when I’ve nearly got it full something fails in any of the valves and all the air leaks out. Really annoying.
Anyway, the question is… what is this valve type called, and how do I pump it up? Can I replace just the valve (the long-bit in the photo)? And where in Kampala can I get this?
Someone on facebook said it’s just like car-tyre valves… maybe they’re different here?
Since term has started there have been countless strikes – by both the students and the lecturers. Working here is a continuing lesson in how not to conduct industrial relations…
Today’s notice
One interesting feature of the student strikes is that most students are physically coerced into it by the organisers…
I’ve been at the office when some have happened, the most difficult being having to sneak via the undergrowth around a riot. I’ve managed to avoid the days when the police used tear-gas or, live-ammunition which was used last week. Definitely will try to avoid strike-days if I can help it.
I’ve been lecturing here for a few weeks now, so it’s time to write down some impressions.
First; the environment: With a limited budget, the university decided against building purpose-made tiered lecture theatres, so instead the lectures are just in large rooms or halls. This works ok, although it does make the people at the back seem a long way away. The building is very noisy though, with the scraping of chairs and tables and the talking of hundreds of students in the corridors and stairs making being heard sometimes quite tricky. I also need to concentrate on speaking slower!
Sorry about the lack of photos of the lectures, but in the background of this photo (behind Lyndsey) you can see one of the two Computer Science buildings!
The building, although new, seems a bit dingy and grubby – the effect of five years of dusty air and countless students. Without the nightly scrubbing of all the floors and stairs I’m sure the place would be considerably worse. The lack of water to the toilets is however a more pressing need – a large tank and a bucket being the sanitation alternative. Once I find a source of cheap alcohol hand sanitiser I plan to install it by the sinks.
Second; the students: An incredible mix from across the country. With very different attitudes towards learning and towards their lecturer! Many are keen to learn, printing out practice papers already, but many are also quite lazy, as I was, halfway through my undergrad, too distracted by other aspects of student life to focus on search heuristics or other academic concerns. The official language of the university is English, but Ugandan English is very different from ‘our’ English – making lecturing a challenge. The ability of the students is also very mixed, with some following along in lectures and able to shout out answers, while others even seem to struggle with written English. Teaching many hundreds of students with this spread of ability feels like a real challenge.
Rose (my co-lecturer, who I take turns with), and I decided to give the students a short test on the first four weeks of term. Worryingly, many of them seem to have struggled with it – even though the answers are all in the notes online. The apparent willingness and keenness during lectures doesn’t seem to translate so completely to work outside the lecture theatre.
Had my first lecture during a power-cut the other night: But the students were able to combine their mobile-phone torches to illuminate the white-board.
Hire bikes in Tirana, note the kiosk where you hire them
Early morning bus (was awoken before six anyway, by the nearby mosques) to Tirana.
The new road wound through the mountains of northern Albania; through deep cuttings and over countless bridges spanning gorges and valleys.
At one point the road disappeared into a three mile long tunnel. The day long journey of five years ago taking only three hours.
The orchestra of Tirana (complete with TV cameras).
We found a cafe close to our flat, which doubled as a designer chair shop. Modern chairs of every shape and style were on display and used in the café.
The fountain where we stopped for one of our many cafe visits
We wandered about town, to other sights: the one that sticks in my mind is the giant concrete pyramid built during the long dictatorship.
The design was by the daughter and son-in-law of the dictator.
The pyramid of Tirana, designed by the daughter and son-in-law of the former dictator (Enver Hoxha).
In the evening we visited the national theatre for a free performance of Tchaikovsky.
We’d noticed while flicking channels that much of the news in this region consists of long segments about classical concerts. I’m sure we were on TV many times, but we forgot to check the TV news when we got back to the apartment.
28th
Tirana street
Tirana is not yet really geared for tourists and seems to have few sights of interest. The main museum, oddly a “top choice” in the guidebook is a typical painful experience.
The art gallery is better though, with many examples of “socialist realism” from the last 60 years, with useful captions explaining their background and which eventually were banned.
We caught the last bus to the ferry port (the tourist information office lady was very friendly when we asked about the bus, but told us the wrong time and place to get the bus).
Tirana ‘socialist realism’
The cabin was clean but run down, and it didn’t give me confidence when the ferry company gives me my life jacket as soon as I get to my cabin.
It had an emergency whistle but the torch had been stolen. The next morning we went on deck to inspect the life boats. One was inflatable, but had mostly deflated. It was fairly academic anyway, as the cranes hadn’t been moved for a long time.
Bizarrely the museum has the Albanian Eagle made of dozens of guns of different sizes, in pride of place.
The ferry arrived very late, as one of its two engines had failed. Docking was a fraught experience as we watched ropes getting tangled and the crew’s panicky clambering over railings to reach thrown ropes.
29th onwards
After a few hours in Bari we took the bus to Rome.
Testing out the life jacket
As everyone’s been to Rome already, I need not describe the enormous coliseum, the incredibly ornate basilica in Vatican city, the number and size of the tour groups or the number and beauty of the churches, halls and squares around every corner.
We enjoyed our time here, although after the small, untouristed towns of the last few weeks it was completely overwhelming.
Rome
For those interested! After a few days in Rome, a high speed train (300kph) got us to Milan, then a sleeper train to Paris. We spent a day enjoying the sights then the Eurostar took us home!
25th: Peje
The next morning after a breakfast of roasted peppers in warm cream, pickled vegetables and some strong coffee we set off for another amazing day in the hills. Before we left, our host showed us the cattle and bee hives. Even though it was early, the sun was warm and a bee was already climbing out of the hive. The views were some of the best we’ve ever seen!
Why had no one told us Kosovo is such an amazing place to go walking! Up through villages, valleys and forests.
Another village on our walk over the top of the hills, this village was uninhabited, as the people move off the hills during the winter.
(Hint to travellers here: the bus up the gorge, the TIC advertise, doesn’t exist!)
The Rugova Mountains
The Rugova Mountains
The Rugova Mountains
26th: Prizren
Off to Prizren, Kosovo’s second city. Arriving about lunchtime we headed to a traditional restaurant for the obligatory piles of salty meat with tasty bread.
Prizren, view from the fort
We have finally figured out how not to order too much and have continued to eat salads. Luckily they haven’t made either of us ill yet!
For the afternoon we wandered around town organising our tickets to Albania which didn’t seem as straight forward as it might. We wanted to buy some coffee pots but when we found them realised the quality was very low and so eventually decided against it. We walked up the hill to the fort where there was a spectacular view.
That evening for dinner we tried traditional veg soup and bread. Fairly standard but filled us up with out too much meat! For desert we found a cafe, for a cake each. The coffee was served with ice cream.
We caught the early morning train to Peje. There are only two a day. The barely used train station had clearly been more popular in the past, a few photos of the railway’s heyday were on the platform. I read later that these rail lines had been used by the Serb forces to deport Albanian kosovans to Macedonia.
A village in the Rugova hills
The train passed through a hilly, forested landscape, dotted with little villages. Many houses had bee hives, and little plots of land growing vegetables. In the fields were hay stacks and not many animals, except chickens. We assume the larger livestock are in barns (the family we stayed with in the Rugova mountains, kept their three cows in a small barn).
Occasionally we would pass a burnt out house or a whole destroyed, abandoned village. We regularly passed graves from the ’99 war.
Meadow above the village
In Peje we took a taxi to the hotel (2 euro, very cheap!) in a battered ancient mercedes. When the driver’s friend suggested we put our bags in the boot, the driver looked worried and got a bent bit of wire to jimmy the boot open. We quickly intervened!
More Rugova hills
We stayed in a posh hotel in the middle of town. Tourism hasn’t arrived here yet, so the choices were limited. The town does have a new tourist office, which was closed. It rained briefly so we hid in a popular café for lunch, then went to the bus station to get to the monastery. No bus appeared, but eventually a man with a minibus took everyone. The minibus dropped us in the centre of town, where it was a mile or so walk down a country lane to the monastery. The walk along the road was past KFOR protection (a watch tower, an APC, and an angry soldier who saw Mike taking photos!). The monks are Serbs and so need quite a lot of protection. There have been attacks in recent years. We got shown around by Peter, one of the monks who spoke English well and knew a lot about the spectacular frescos all over the walls of the central church. Mike knew some of the bible stories the frescos
Honey from their bee hives
depicted, and asked to see fresco of Jesus upending tables in the temple. Peter took us to the covered gateway to the alter. He disappeared and then shone a torch up into the darkness, illuminating the fresco high on the wall. We could just make out the pigeons being tipped off the tables.
The surrounding gardens were very tidy and peaceful.
It was strange to think how the tiny enclave was surrounded by KFOR. We wondered what it was like to live here.
The following day, he took us to see the hives
Back in Peje that evening, we enjoyed our hotel’s spa facilities!
Lyndsey and our host
24th: to the village
Since the TIC had been closed yesterday we hadn’t got today organised. After going to the TIC a couple of times we managed to get a place to stay in the hills booked for that night. We set off in a taxi. It turned out our taxi driver had been in the KLA (UCK) and then worked for HALO as a de-miner. He dropped us off high up in the gorge where our walk started. The walk was excellent, up through occasional villages, woods and fields. The villages were mostly deserted – the people move their animals out of the high villages for several months each year, during the winter. Usually I think the villages are still covered in heavy snow in February. We got a little lost but made it to our B&B by dusk.
We were greeted with a tradition meal. Home sausage in a yogurt sauce with bread and pickeled things. Everything had come from the small holding they ran. They have three cows and a lot of bee hives. We spent the evening with the family in their cosy front room, probably the guest room. Although the house was new it’s interesting to see old traditions remain. The head of the family was a retired professor who has been a commander in the KLA and showed us on our own photos where on the mountains he had hidden from bombardment. His wife was ill, in hospital in Peje, but he also lived with his son and daughter who made us our dinner, tea, coffee, etc.
Our apartment was on the ground floor of a house owned by our host’s parents, in an older part of town which climbed steeply up the hill to the east of the town centre.
First we went to get breakfast at Dit e Nat, a bookshop/cafe. I learnt faleminderit (“fala-men-deera”) for thank you. Had really yummy bowl of muesli (loads of fresh fruit and honey).
Wandered down the swanky, shiny new, wide pedestrian road through the centre of town, popped into a book shop and found the bradt guide to Kosovo sold by one of the many book stalls on the street. Lots of “second hand” phone sellers on the street too.
The Ethnographic Museum was in an old house. Bright and airy guest, sun room.
In the main art gallery was a photo exhibition of old photos from Kosovo and Albania from the beginning of the 20th century.
Our host, Edona (and our guide book) had recommended Tiffany’s for lunch. Hard to find though, with no sign or front door. Instead it was hidden behind a carefully trimmed privet hedge. Vine leaves stuffed with rice and mince. Tender lamb cooked in cream in a traditional terracotta rectangular cooking pot. Excellent salad.
Monument to Independence, repainted each year
The Ethnographic museum is housed in two Ottoman era houses within a compound, near the busy market. The place is a bit tricky to find, but after asking directions a couple of times we made it. We were met by a guy in his late twenties who showed us around the two old houses. They’d been laid out using Albanian kosovar items into a typical home in Pristina from the 18th century (although people, to a greater or lesser extent, still follow many of these traditions). He explained the complex details of how guests should be treated, their separate entrance to the house and the oda, for entertaining them. The oda is a room with long windows, with a low upholstered bench beneath them, covered with cushions. Rich, thick carpets give the room a cosy feel.
Frescos in a nearby monastery, in Gracanica
Everything down to the order people sit around the oda is defined, the guests facing the intricately carved shelves and cupboards. A “mangall”, a sort of elegant heater with coals in was placed in the centre of the room, similar to the one shown to us in Mostar. Both the one there and here were very important for making coffee on and keeping your cup warm.
We went back to the book shop to buy a book I’d had my eye on, “travels in blood and honey” by Elizabeth Gowing. It might be described as a practical introduction to kosovan cultures and traditions.
A gallery/museum of photos, showing the damage left by the Kosovo War
In the evening we climbed the hill to the west to an Italian restaurant. Mediocre pizza, but a fantastic view across the town at night.
22nd:
Back to Dit e Nat for breakfast again! Definitely my favourite cafe in Pristina, then we caught a taxi out to Gracanica, a town nearby, with a relatively large Serb population. The taxi dropped us right outside the orthodox monastery we had come to see (the guide book had advised we didn’t tell bus drivers our exact destination as we might not be allowed on or off, but our taxi driver was friendly and helpful). Within the monastery, there were beautiful frescos, from many hundreds of years ago (14th century, although nothing compared with those we saw later in Decani at the UNESCO listed site). The monastery walls were topped with barbed wire, but nothing else here revealed the ethnic divide.
Behind the curtain we found their alternative exhibition – stuffed animals!
We took the bus back and got out at the national museum. Upstairs was an odd exhibition, with lots of old news cuttings about the Kosovo war, and massive NATO banners and photos of Clinton et al. There were few interpretation panels, so it was difficult to see clearly what message the collection was trying to present, but the emphasis seemed to be on how wonderful NATO had been. Across the country, we quite regularly has people give us pleased grins and exclamations of “Tony Blair” when we said we were from the UK.
On the floor below were a collection of “before/after” photos of mosques and other buildings destroyed by the Serbs. Since the war, in occasional outbreaks of anger, Serb homes and churches have been destroyed. These photos aren’t in the museum.
The park just out of Pristina’s centre
Went to “Home restaurant” for lunch (Lebanese selection for me, really good hummus, etc).
Failed to get bus, instead took a taxi to the large park to the East of the town centre. It stretches for several miles through a woodland and parkland. In the centre, hundreds of children and teenagers of all ages were playing (basketball, etc). Our walk took us up through the woods to a clearing where we could watch the sun set.
We walked back via a little corner shop that sold better and more varied vegetables then the biggest supermarket back home.
19th: walked from Capari, over a pass, and down to Magarvo.
Second day’s walk through the woods
Took taxi to Capari, another small village at the foot of the mountains. We got a little lost in the winding alleyways. Eventually came to a junction where a family were chatting. They all wanted to help and gave us lots of different bits of advice. One man showed us the route, telling us on the way (through the medium of terrifying hand actions) that he loved hunting in the mountains.
The path followed the stream up into the woods along the bottom of a steep valley. Around a corner we came across two men wearing complete camouflage outfits and carrying rifles. More hunting! Maybe this explains yesterday’s absence of wildlife?
Lost in the woods, with the bears
The walk was a lovely, if strenuous, climb up the wooded hillside. We finally did see some mammals: deer disappearing into the shadows, deep in the wood.
We stopped in a clearing to look out at the view, then after losing the path and a half hour of off-piste struggling through the undergrowth we got to the track which wound slowly around the hillsides down to Magarvo.
Fresh (hungry) bear poo (maybe)…
It was getting dark as we followed a road out of the national park. The hotels we past were very closed, but, just as night was falling and we were giving up hope we came across a lovely, cosy hotel/cafe where we had a hot, filling meal. After being out in the gloomy, cold evening it was a relief!
20th February: Bizarre Museum and trip to Kosovo
Mike’s new outfit
Museum: bizarre hero worshipping “exhibition” about Atatürk Funded by the Turkish government.
Lyndsey joins the army
We caught the bus back to Skopje, passing through Prelip where we saw tobacco driers by every house. In Skopje we went straight to the train station, dodging the dodgy taxi touts. The station was almost empty. Compared to the bus station which was full of people, buses, ticket offices and shops, the train station was a bleak abandoned shell. Most of the dozen platforms stood next to abandoned spaces, where even the tracks had been removed. Our train arrived, one carriage pulled by an antiquated engine. While we were waiting I noticed that because the cab was on the side I was able to see in to the old engine’s controls. In a fit of trainspotter-like behaviour I took a photo, but was spotted by the driver. Luckily he was happy with my interest and invited me up the ladder and along the rickety walkway into the tiny cab.
Train to Kosovo
He explained what different dials and buttons did, revving the engine, then encouraging me to press the lever that sounded the horn. I could see Lyndsey grinning outside.
We could only buy a ticket as far as the border. There we switched to a (more plush) kosovan train to Pristina…
Mike and Lyndsey's African Adventures 