Crtd 08-07-16 Lastedit 20-11-24
Nile Source Updates
What we see and what we do
Chapter I: what we see
Photo: Early morning. Four of our fishermen spent all night in the bar, now COMPLETELY drunk, ran out of money but wanted to drink more, so decided, dressed in their town clothes, to catch some fish to sell. Though boats and crew made highly unusual movements, nobody got wet, they caught three, went, markedly unsteadily, the sprawling fish hanging under their hands, back to the bar. Payment in kind!
Parliamentary news. Kampala: A woman member of parliament
attending a peaceful gathering near a market place got arrested by police and,
as she claimed, got her clothes literally torn off in public, by police
officers. The officers told investigators that they were not sorry at all. She
was said to have misbehaved and deserved everything she got - though that would
not have been quite as much as she claimed. In particular, the lady member of
parliament was said to have threatened to hit officers with the Police
Office's suggestion box. Officers added that they had received a threat
against her and the whole operation had been to rescue her. Asked why they did
had not called her they claimed to have been unable to get her phone number.
More Parliamentary news. Kampala:. Quite some members of parliament are
searching a con man who has posed as a president's assistant in charge of making
up the short list for minister-appointments by subscription. Many had
already paid the considerable fee.
Photo: four Isra�li youngsters are building, in a local fisher village, their own dream boat to cross Lake Victoria, uninhibited by any knowledge of sailing and ship building. They had the highly original idea to buy a 11 m bamboo stem for a mast! On their request, I told them a few things which I hope, will keep them afloat a bit longer. For the rest, we cannot wait seeing it launched and sailing!
Right: lateen rigged professional (!!) charcoal trader from the islands, left: Kingfisher Safari Lodge laser operated by Peter (a Karamojong)
Chapter II: what we do
Studying French revolution, printout the first three of the
ten volumes of Thiers "Histoire de la revolution fran�aise",
on screen my colourful MS-Excel history billboard (every row is 12 months).
Click on the picture (or here) to get it on your screen exactly as I
have it now.
The larger part of the day is now spent on my study of the
French revolution. It started as an exercise in French. Reading French now on
speed close to English, but meanwhile the subject acquired an interest of its own: few historical subjects have
been studied so ardently and in such detail, so it is ideal reading for someone like me,
void of any ambition to contribute, enjoying my role as a decadent consumer of
history, ranging from its loftiest philosophical observations to anecdotes good
enough to even amuse Two Friends restaurant in Jinja.
I found the 10-volume (!) history of the revolution by M.A. Thiers, a later initiator of
the July revolution in 1830 and minister of Louis Philippe, in txt-format on
the internet (hurrah for
). With my slow wireless it took me an evening to download it into
the dhow. I print A4 in two columns of very small typecast, reducing a volume to
50 pages. Getting every page on the proper sheet, 25 sheets two sides, is more difficult than learning French!
I read
from 9 cm with my bare -6 myopic eyes.
Another joy is Wikipedia.
Wiki has matured: for any name, event, or term
you do not know, wikipedia really contains
all footnotes all readers, starting 5 year olds (like me!) would like to see in any book. Yes, you may find
errors, but you also find them in renowned paper encyclopedias.
Thirdly, I have some memoirs by people of the time, and I will buy some more.
My study notes are in my laptop and
I have linked them up to documents, pictures, and date tables, self made and
down loaded, in a local web on my hard disk. My command and control centre is a
colourful MS Excel billboard in which a row is a year, and a cell is a month.
If cells are too small, I write comments that show when your mouse pointer is on
the cell.
The main lessons I learned so far are:
Understanding a fellow's history starts with finding out why he takes the effort to write and make you believe it.
Principles are luxury items, dangerous to your health
There's no good people, neither bad. Indeed, there's even no ugly!
I remember my days and days on the early 70s spent, as a university student, searching library card-trays, rarely really finding what I was looking for. Would I have had these internet instruments at the start of my university studies! I would now, at least so it feels, know all knowledge to know. And this is in a boat on Lake Victoria!
But sunset is golf time. Being suspended[protected page] from Jinja Golf Club, we have several options. The soccer field of St. Moses primary school is for goal-to-goal pitching wedge exercise. Since Karamojong Peter can already operate outboard engines, a laser, and our dhow (we trained him click here), I thought he should learn golf as well, serving conveniently as my liaison with whoever we need (local persons to obtain license to play, kids to chase our balls). A village at the bay has a suitable range for our long shots. We take sweets for the children who chase our balls.
Pitching wedge: trying to score goals from the opposite goal
line
(click on picture or here for video clip,
enable sound!)
Bert tells more about the French revolution,
consulate and empire: click on the pictures):
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Bert tells about other reading: Go to:
Bert
Tells
What He Reads
