Uganda

Yes Uganda! I am heading there today for the charity Plan International as part of their Because I Am A Girl campaign. I'll be writing about the lives of Ugandan girls for an anthology published by Vintage which is due out in January 2010 - put the date in your diary now! I won't remind you! Well maybe I might.

The other authors taking part are Irvine Welsh, Joanne Harris, Kathy Lette, Deborah Moggach, Henning Mankell, Tim Butcher and Xiaolu Guo. And maybe Jeanette Winterson. In fact I should probably say that the whole list is subject to change, I don't want to get into trouble... But yeah, good company huh? Mainly it's a reminder that I really need to get a website that I didn't just throw together myself one afternoon, and that I update more often than once every six months. Praise be for Tim Butcher who doesn't seem to have a website at all.

So, what will I be doing in Uganda? Visiting some of Plan's projects and the people that they help. I'll be spending about four days in a village around three hours drive from the capital Kampala, as well as meeting some girls who are sex workers in Kampala itself. I will also be finding time to drop in on Gandalady. I'm hoping to be able to blog about my experiences while I'm there, but obviously not with the kind of regularity to which you have almost become accustomed except that every so often I skip a day without warning. However, allowing for power cuts, computer stubbornness and dysentery, I might not blog until I get back at the beginning of November, so please don't assume that no news is bad news (except perhaps for my guts).

Meanwhile enjoy the end of the month, and just in case you were tempted to get all jealous about my departure for warmer climes, don't forget that it's rainy season...

UPDATE: From an e-mail I just got, I realised I should have made clear: we authors are all going to different countries, so I am off to Uganda by myself! (With Plan representatives.) Not sure whether I'll ever get a chance to meet the other authors...