My journey is nearing the end, and so is this blog. Next week will be busy with evaluation and writing reports, so this might very well be my last post from Mbale. Looking back at what I have written since I came, I can only conclude: There is no method to this madness. First of all, the chronology of my updates has been horrible. I keep adding stuff often several weeks back in time, so the articles appear near the bottom of the page. A couple a weeks ago, I posted something way back in November (you can find it in the archives, it’s worth a read if you take the trouble to look it up).

Secondly, the end is better than the beginning. As it always is. I sincerely apologise for statements like «that’s the way it is in Africa» and all the times I have made assumptions and opinions into facts. I have often been tempted to go back and edit some of the previous posts (and in a couple of cases, I have actually done it), but I have decided to leave the blog as it is. This journey is also a personal journey, a coming of age story, and this blog reflects my growing understanding, or maybe my growing appreciation of my lack of understanding, of life in Africa, in Uganda, in Mbale.

And now, suddenly, these passages in English appear only in the final month of my stay. Surely, any English speaking readers must have been thoroughly scared away by now. If I was to do this over again, I would probably have done it more systematically – maybe alternate between English and Norwegian in every second post or something. As I say, there is no system to it. But I digress. There is no way I can write this blog again, without living it again, and for that, unfortunately (or fortunately?) you only get one chance.

This blog can be read the way it is presented – from top to bottom – or in chronological order – from bottom to top, but for the latter option, you will have to look in the archives – from September 2005 onwards. Anyway, this is a Uganda-blog. After I leave this country, I will continue blogging at hoybraten.blogspot.com, maybe not as frequently as here, but I will try to maintain a steady pace, nonetheless. Stay tuned!