Walking

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Living at the top of a valley and the nearest village being down and up the other side it’s been fairly easy to fit in lots of walking and there are some great walks to do. Every evening before supper we’ve been heading out exploring the local area. We walk from village to village slipping along muddy paths, passing both men and women working on their land surprised and touched that we greet in Lugandan, children shouting ‘bye mzungu (not sure why they learnt bye and not hi!), goats tied to trees, chickens roaming around, boys moving long horned cattle to graze, boda bodas (motorbike taxis) driving people home or trying to give us a lift (confused when we say we like to walk), mounds of charcoal in the making and many colourful birds.

We also pass many of the homes of the students from the school who are keen to show us their own businesses many of which are raising chickens or growing crops. We also came across a former student who now has a bakery and provides bread to the local villages. He bakes twice a week (hence saving on logs) in his mud oven connected to the house and fortunately his bread is far less sweet than normal bread out here.

It is the rainy season so the scenery is very lush and green, walking through plantain or banana plantations, papaya and jack fruit trees, stacks of fired bricks and many beautiful views over the valley. Down the bottom is a large swamp and since there has been a large amount of rain recently it is still flooded in parts. Having been on an 12km walk the other day, with home less than a km away, we came across a knee high puddle… which is when skirts become very useful. The parish fortunately has a very distinctive pointy tree that can be seen from a long way away and so it’s an easy place to head back to.

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Comments

[katy]

Very cool...I love the photos.