Rain

General picture of tea bushes with pluckers in the background. A good worker may pluck 70kg a day
We have had a sociable time recently with visitors and parties, sadly, mostly to say good bye to friends who are leaving. One friend who has been in the country for over five years but on her first visit to Fort Portal was really impressed by the social life.
On Saturday we were invited by a friend who has bought a very interesting tea estate with a fascinating history which he is researching, We arrived down in daylight after a long and tortuous route through the estates. The roads/ tracks are designed for the harvesting of the tea not for convenience of getting around and finding friends. We discovered on arrival the the reason this particular large house being so far off the road is that the " road" we had come along used to be the old road to Kampala because it avoided having to cross the Mpanga river. Much of the time a small car and a bicycle would be a crowd, especially if it was one of the sections where the road was really two trenches deep enough to take the bottom out of anything lower than a tractor. The party was great and the venue interesting as the owner is developing a business in soaps, creams etc all made out of local materials, fully organic with no chemicals, really nice to use. Most of the pressing and other works being run off solar power, just as well at the moment when the national power is on for only 50% of the time if lucky. He tells me that the UV index frequently reaches 16 in September/October when the air has been washed clean by the rain and the sun is vertically over head. In more health conscious parts of the world anything over nine is considered off scale. Hats are important!
Before we left we had some serious rain which makes driving on dirt roads much more interesting, even in 4WD sliding sideways into the ruts. By now it was pitch dark and surprise, surprise we missed a turn. We knew other people existed somewhere because every now and again we saw the tracks of a bicycle. We were beginning to think we might bed down for the night when up a small rise we met a tarmac road. We were home and dry, there is only the one paved road within 300km so not much chance of getting lost again. Blocked again just before getting home by several vehicles which got stuck in the mud on the little hill on our side of time of town but a detour on a less used road got us home without further trouble. Bald tyres really do not work very well in mud. With a return trip to Kampala on Wednesday [600km] the we really appreciate the sealed road.
Rainy seasons reduce the malaria problem because they are colder and also most of the water is on the move sufficiently often to interfere with breeding. The beginning of the dry is the worst time.