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gretha, 29 July 2010
Uganda , Jinja 26°

holiday with Bart!!

Hello Everybody!

It has been exactly two weeks since my last update, so time to share some stories!
Thursday the 15th was my last day in the orphanage, because a new group of volunteers started. I continued my work at the school, because we were going to the next round of the competition! On Saturday I went on an excursion to see the source of the Nile. It was a fun walk and very nice boat trip. We went with the streetkids from adsn centre , where Paul works. For most of them it was the first time to see this place, although it is very close to the adsn centre!
Tuesday was the big day! I was going to Entebbe to pick up Bart! First I went to teach Tonny in Kampala and after that I went to Entebbe. All went smoothly and the next day we were on our way to Jinja. Because we only stayed in Jinja for four days, I made a full schedule for Bart. It took us a full day to drive back, because we went together with other Dutch people and an African man , who showed us a voluntary project in the country side he has set up. It is a little school, so the children get some education in stead of the children trying to sell stones they bake, to earn very little money. It was a very tiny school in a town called Kajjansi. We went of main road, into the village, drove through the tea fields and then we stopped at a tiny school. The children welcomed us with many songs and we saw their classrooms, which were about 9 square meter each. So this was quite an intense first experience for Bart.
The first night in Jinja we immediately went to a good restaurant and had a three course dinner! I had been looking forward to that for so long!!
The next day I took Bart to see Soweto, a poor village nearby and Bart took the city tour. In the mean time I went to the hairdresser to take out my braids. I waited until Bart saw them. Luckily it didn’t take half as long as putting them in, although I have the feeling I lost half of my hair, but maybe because the braids were so thick…
In the afternoon I showed Bart the primary school where I teached and I practiced a bit with the children for the competitions second round on Saturday. I also showed him the orphanage. In the evening we had my farewell party in the orphanage. We ate dinner with everybody and the boys sang some songs and the brother gave a speech. They even tried to make “ hutspot” a traditional dish I once cooked for them with potatos, carrots and onions! The singing was very cute, because they performed the competition song and one of the boys conducted it, as if he was me. After speeches and thank you’s, we left. It was not a very dramatic saying goodbye, because there where some food leftovers in which the boys were quite interested…. They are also used to getting new volunteers all the time, so I guess it was more difficult for me.
Next day we went for rafting!! As always, I tried to get the cheapest deal, but now I started to worry, because the price difference was 50 dollars. I informed with the tourist office, but they couldn’t tell me if there was any quility difference, so we just went with the operator I booked. Some Indian guys picked us up in a car of which I hoped our rafting equipment wouldn’t be similar to…When we arrived, we where only with three people. Actually that was good, because we got 2 guides on the boat. They gave us a half hour lesson and of we went on the Bujangali falls. It was very much fun, but when we went of “ the big brother” we flipped and I was under the boat, but all went very quickly and soon I was floating somewhere, trying to get a grip on our safe boat( together with the rafting boat comes a safe boat and two kayaks, to pick you up when you our floating somewhere on the Nile after a flip) After that I was scared to death, but Bart really enjoyed and we didn’t flip again. The falls are graded in levels and six is the highest. The one we flipped was a 5,5. For me that is not the scariest, but the rocks are. We were happy we had very experienced guides and with the life jacked on , you will always keep floating. In the end I think our operator was fine, you just need good guides and that we had.
On Saturday we had our next round in the music competition. We came out as second, what was fair, we did the best we could. The day ended with the major and jury giving endless speeches, so Bart has experienced a full day with the locals! In the evening we had our last dinner in Jinja with Franka and Sjors.
On Sunday we traveled to Kampala red chilli, from where we did a safari to Murchison Falls, starting on Monday. It was a great trip! The Murchison Falls itself are very impressive and we had a game drive and saw elephants, Giraffes etc. In the afternoon we did a boat cruise over the Nile, where we saw lots of hippos and crocodiles. The camp staff warned us that there are hippos in the camp at night, so you should watch out when you go to the toilet. We stayed in a tent (with real beds) and the first night it rained. The second night I woke up at around twelve and heard a funny noise, after a while I realized it was a hippo eating grass, just besides our tent!! I also heard one guy from our group, who wanted to walk to his Banda, and the hippo was right in front of his door! Luckily a staff member could get the animal to move. They just eat grass, so they are not likely to attack you, unless you are in their way, but hippos are the animals that kill most people in Africa every year!
On Wednesday we went on rhino tracking. It was not all that spectacular. It is a sanctuary where they try to bread the rhinos, because they have gone extinct in Uganda. They take you in the park with a car, but they know exactly where they are, so within three minutes we “ found “ the mother and baby rhino.
Today we left Kamapala red chilli and took a bus to Fort Portal, a city in Western Uganda, from where you can visit many national parks. Taking a bus sounds easier than it was…. First we had to find the bus park, there are three different ones in Kampala. We took a boda, because the matatus we tried to stop were all full. So we both got on a boda with each one suitcase and drove through the traffic jam. They dropped us at a very crowded place and some guy took our suitcases and started to walk. We thought, o that’s nice! The bus driver helps us with our luggage! Then Bart started running because he couldn’t see the guy anymore and I started running after him. Then I didn’t see Bart or the suitcases anymore and was lost in the crowd and matatus and markets. Some guy came to me and said:” hey, somebody is looking for you,” so luckily he helped me finding Bart and the suitcases and the bus park… We got on the bus and the guy carrying our suitcases asked a lot of money for carrying them… we handed it in to him because we didn’t wanna get in any trouble. Finally we sat and waited until the bus was full. We puzzled our way out of Kampala and finally started our trip to Fort Portal. We arrived a few hours ago. We are in a very nice hotel and we will stay there until our flight back on Tuesday night. Every day we will do a trip, which we can just book a day in advance. Tomorrow we are going to Kibale Forest to see chimpanzees and crater lakes. We are very much looking forward to it!
I am not sure if there will be another update on my traveling, so at least you know what we are up to!
Gretha and Bart

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