Banda News
Progress Is Unstoppable, And So Is Degeneration

We are on Banda (details: A Summary Guide to Banda Island). My throat-nose-headache (previous greeting) knocked me out for two days. Meanwhile I dealt a fatal blow to Ben's claim that it had been the red oxide I was sanding off the dhow: I infected him!
While working we of course enjoy our Banda life:

Ben with a monitor lizard killed by the Dom's Banda dogs.
Let me haste myself to avoid misunderstandings:
the lizard is the one on the foreground.

Dom's castle is progressing, especially since Ben is working at the grid. Here the central dining hall outside. (photo inside dining hall, view on castle from lake); right: castle staircase made of branches straight from the rainforest. Carefully designed to appear straight to Dom when he gropes for his bed after a heavy evening.

Entry from Castle Hall to Bathroom, painting: an Adobe Photoshop impression of my latest proposal: Ben under mosquito net in morning sleep, suffering the heavy cold I infected him with.

Christmas is coming, the time when Uganda needs money. We see armed patrol boats frantically chasing fishermen for using illegal methods -  they are ignored the rest of the year, but Christmas is not a time for peace in Uganda. The guys with the guns are on the loose. Would we have our share in the Christmas lake skirmishes like we had two years ago?
In my computer, I list the issues to balance between Dom and me: we did a lot of hardware and food shopping, Philemon and Doi are working for Dom. We drink Dom's  sodas and beers and Dom feeds all of us. Food is excellent as always. Our cheese however tastes like paraffin because late night a Belgian held a paraffin lamp upside down in the fridge to find his favourite brand for a 7^th beer. Ben and me reacted by telling Dom some Dutch Belgian-jokes, and we were amazed that outside The Netherlands, Belgians do not have a reputation of particular lack of intelligence, though the case proves they do faithfully live up to it.

Printing the Banda Island Christmas advertisement (extreme left: working socket: Ben!)

Also we updated Dom's web page http://www.traveluganda.co.ug/banda-island/ where I suggested to replace the picture below left by the picture below right

My rejected proposals for attracting Banda public

adding the text: "plenty of dogs dying to get cuddled by anyone regardless age, sex, money, status, posture, muscles, skin folds, hanging teats or whatever, even intelligence is not a problem!" The proposal foundered dramatically in the board. So did our proposal to insert the following wild life pictures:

Refused for official Banda web page

Not a hippo: Dom swimming to stubborn canoe fishermen to seize their nets

Hippo prints recently damage Banda paths and lawns. As for scale: my feet are size 48 European (see our Banda hippo picture 061202)

Does not look disturbing, but imagine a hippo getting on the beach from there, dogs barking, but he is used to it, he simply proceeds!