A Mere Setback on the Road to Kampala

My e-pal Anne-Marie is finally in Uganda, where her blog will chronicle the rewards and challenges of running the Red Chilli Kampala backpacker's lodge.

Anne-Marie was originally going to manage the Red Chilli Rest Camp at Murchison Falls last year. That's when she found me. The rest camp was right up the hill from where I lived—and blogged—in the summer of 2005. A-M didn't make it to Uganda last year, and instead spent the year in London undergoing painful treatments for breast cancer.

She's a remarkable woman, having approached breast cancer with the same positive nature that got her across West Africa in a pink heap-of-crap banger car a few years back.

A lot of medical procedures and a clean bill of health later, Anne-Marie left her day job and moved to Uganda. She's there now, and I love today's post on her blog. She found my friend Celsius and gave him a copy of Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik, which he is mentioned in. I wish I'd seen how baffled he must have been before she managed to explain what was going on. I can't remember now if he knew I was writing a book, but he always called me Mary, so it probably took a lot of explaining on Anne-Marie's part.