Not sure what it is about the new office...

...but people randomly walk in. Constantly. For no reason at all. We're not really sure what used to be there (I've heard a tailor shop, possibly), or what people are even doing wandering around on the 3rd floor of the building. There are a few other businesses -- an Internet cafe, a couple of restaurants, a massage place, etc, although none seem to get much traffic. And the Internet cafe has a sign, right at the top of the stairs, that you can't miss, that says where it is (which is NOT where our office is).

We changed the layout of the desks to make it more convincingly office-like and totally unmistakable for an internet cafe. It's otherwise empty. There's really not much it could possibly be. Yet people are constantly sticking their heads in the door or walking all the way (sometimes weirdly far) in.

We definitely need a sign.

Anyway, this afternoon was the best one, though. About five of us were standing around talking before we left, and, as you might expect, we had clustered by the door as groups on their way out frequently do. One of the developers, Jerry, was actually standing in the doorway, with a backpack on. Needless to say, he took up the majority of the doorway and certainly didn't leave enough space to walk easily by. And then some random guy comes up to the door, squeezes past Jerry, and looks around. WHY?!

There's no easy way in, you have to brush by someone. Whatever the place is, it's clearly about to close, since everybody in it is standing right by the door talking (and blocking it!). When would it ever occur to you to do that?! And he didn't say anything, no asking what the place was or anything. He just looked around, presumably catching the silence that descended over the group and five sets of eyes with looks that screamed "what the hell are you doing here?" and then turned around, squeezed back past Jerry and left.

It was really hilariously weird. And it wasn't just me -- an English friend of mine who's been here six years and all of the Ugandan developers (both present for that incident and just in general) find it weird and annoying, and found this specific instance especially bizarre and hilarious.

People who walk by our (usually open) windows along the building's outside corridor also frequently look in, and don't tend to make any particular effort to look away when any of us look up and make eye contact or anything, either. It's a bit odd. I really don't know what's so fascinating about what we're doing.