Change is in the air

Wow, Brazil and Argentina are out of the World Cup. These are the two teams that I was reckoning would make it to the final! Everybody is in shock about this World Cup... it has been really exceptional with some of the traditionally big teams going out (read the France and Englands of this world...). Spain managed to scratch a goal in a heartbreaking game on Saturday, hey at least it is good to go ahead, not everybody goes ahead playing their best always, so we shouldn't be criticised for doing it once in a while.

I was reading that there are is no clear favourite for the game Spain vs Germany. Well, Germany did go ahead playing their very best... 4-0 against Argentina can only be read as the very best I think.

We watched the Paraguay vs Spain game at a friend's place, it was his goodbye party. Just before leaving for the World Cup in mid June we had heard that a couple of people were thinking of leaving Uganda... but it has been quite shocking to come back and realise that things had developed so quickly and they were moving out NOW! One of our friends, a lovely woman entrepreneur is returning to Nairobi after years living in US and then 2 years in Kampala; another friend, senior person at a local Bank is leaving Kampala after around 6 years to go back to Kenya too... and our friend, the host of Saturday's party, is leaving Kampala after 2 years too to go to a new position with his company in Indonesia.

Just before going to the World Cup a couple of my Latino ladies friends also left... One, Argentinian, moving from here to Vietnam, the other one, Mexican, leaving Kampala after 3 years to go back to Denmark.

Well, I suppose it is what happens when lots of your friends are from outside Uganda, although this was never so acute in London because thinking about it lots of our friends were international but their span of time in London was longer.

Somebody told me that it is a good time of the year to move out of Uganda, as the tax/legal year ends now so companies do a lot of restructuring now. For others their children finish school around now so it is also a good time to leave and enrol in the new country.

Even our citizenship is changing. We met one of our friends in South Africa, a Kenyan who is currently based in Dubai. He was telling us about his son being asked in Dubai by other kids where he is from; the dad paid attention as he was curious about what the son was going to say... the dad is Kenyan, the mum half Ugandan/half British; the kid was born in London and the family have lived in London since the kid was born until they moved a year ago to Dubai. The kid said to the other kids that he is from London. The dad couldn't avoid realising that, actually, on reflection, he has now himself spend more time of his live outside Kenya than in Kenya... It's interesting, less and less we feel attached to one place and we are just more global citizens.

And talking about global entrepreneurs... This morning as I was leaving Garden City shopping mall after my grocery shopping I saw one of these adventure-like trucks I see around Kampala from time to time. We don't see so many tourists around Kampala, only these trucks which tend to start the trip in a country like say Kenya/Tanzania and take the tourists from country to country around East Africa and then going South towards Zimbabwe or SA most likely. What was interesting about this one is that the name was RatPanat! I knew this must be a Spanish company, and alas it is! I have checked http://www.ratpanat.com, it is exciting to see Spanish companies operating in Africa.

Even the weather has changed since we are back from South Africa... it is a bit 'fresher' (I can't say 'colder' really as it is not cold really). This morning I woke up very early and there was a quite cold breeze coming in through the window. It is definitely the 'coldest' that it has been here, although I am not complaining.

My brother sent me an email from Spain end of last week... his cat had just disappeared, but without time to mourn too much, his partner came back home with a new one...

As said, change is in the air!