Blogs from Jinja, Eastern Region, Uganda, Africa

Woke up lazily; as I wasn’t sleeping that deeply unfortunately, and got up had a quick rinse and went for breakfast. The coffee was decent, breakfast yummy and Sahara and I sat there (all the other girls had gone white water rafting already) and were just ‘in the moment’, where so many of us long to be. Looked at our watches to see that it was already 9:05 (we were to meet the kayakers at 9) and went “Meh, African time” and finished our coffee overlooking the scenery of the Nile river before sauntering over to the starting point. We met Abraham our guide, Sahara was going Stand Up Paddle Boarding (SUP) and I was kayaking as each of us loved those 2 sports, and we could work together speed wise. Got down to the dock, ... read more

Today was Safari day. It started out great. We got up early and had breakfast. Chapatti with eggs (similar to a breakfast burrito. Chapatti reminds me of thick Swedish pancake. It's basically a wheat and water mixture that is fried with some spices. We headed out for the park straight after breakfast around 6:30... Best time to see the Animals. At the entrance we met our guide. His name is Savior. Who knows if that is his real name or just his English version. In my past experiences of traveling many of the people I have met change their birth name to something that is easier for Westerners to pronounce and remember especially when they are involved with a job frequently used by foreigners. Savior was hilarious and he reminded me of Nelson Mandela. He spoke ... read more

20 June: Jinja, Uganda Today was our day of white water rafting on the Nile. so exciting! Off at 8AM we stopped by the rafting place for briefing, life vests, and helmets. We were then off with a take away breakfast of fruit and tortilla rolls ( I had just the fruit). While in the truck, Samantha and I were seated in the back with two guides. I was talking to Ben about working with the rafting company and his life in Uganda. He was excited that if he did well this year, either this August or next, he may go to Colorado which was fun to talk to him about having been from there. We arrived at the river an hour and a half later and set up to raft. In our raft we had, ... read more

It has been an interesting December in Uganda. From what we saw Ugandans don’t really do a build up to Christmas, which was quite refreshing on reflection although it was quite surreal walking down the street in the blazing sun to occasionally hear Jingle Bells being played. Now we have been here for over four months, I think we are starting to understand the culture here. Well I say understand, I mean realize how things work. During December I did a fair bit of work with Softpower Education. This was the charity I went worked for with my in-laws, we dug a trench in the October sun. I was helping out in a school each afternoon that caters for children with disabilities. There are around 35 of these children who board at the school, along with ... read more

Sorry for the delay, don’t worry Ness’s blog is coming, we have just been busy the last couple of weeks, so it’s me again! So two weeks ago I went on the Three Stone Health Preventive Training course. It was brilliant to see Alfred (one of the trainers) wearing a Welsh tie – he didn’t have a clue where it came from or what it was, but brought a smile to my face! As we drove from the Guest House to the village we saw Muslims outside each mosque having special services for Eid. As we passed a rather large outside service, Charles (the person from the village hosting the training) stated he needed to stop and buy the beef for the lunch. Next thing we knew the service was over as most people had got ... read more