Blogs from Western Region, Uganda, Africa - page 26

We are up early as we need to be at the Ranger Station by 8am. We have breakfast (Victor is quite concerned when we turn down a large cooked breakfast) pack our bag with the lunches they have prepared for us and it’s a short 5 minute walk to the briefing point. BORING FORMALITIES We watch a bit of gorilla video until everyone is there and then we get our first briefing where it is explained the circumstances in which we may or may not receive any of our permit fee ($500 USD) back. 1. If we have a cold or are unwell and we do not depart we get 50% back 2. If we do not see any gorillas we get 100% back 3. If we get half way and realise we are physically unable ... read more

The sisters - just down the hill from the parish are based a group of medical missionaries - two of whom are from Ireland, in their late seventies and not lost their accent one little bit! I think the missionaries have been based here for a few decades and have set up a number of fantastic different projects to support and help the local community, some of which include: A food programme - distribution of food weekly to HIV sufferers, although open to everyone in effect it is only the poor sufferers who come to collect food since the richer families would not be seen receiving aid; Child disabilities - following a survey in the local area they found that some 850 children suffered from some sort of disability and that was just in half the ... read more

Football’s everywhere and no it’s not just because it’s the World Cup in under 2 months, but throughout Africa you can talk to anyone about Premiership football and instantly break the ice. It a great topic of conversation with hotel staff and taxi drivers and followed just as closely as fans back home. So great a tool for uniting people, it is used throughout the continent to promote and encourage education for children. The favourite players always come up the same, with the big names being everyone’s idol but my favourite has to be Wayne Looney!!! (the Ugandans have trouble with the l and r, as in Rwanda, whereby they switch them over pretty much the entire time!)... read more

It all started with me breaking the toilet handle - i've been told since i was young that i don't know my own strength and broke things in CDT at school but to snap the metal loo handle in half was a first! I was heading today to my next project, a secondary school near Masaka so i went to the taxi park to find a taxi - normal hatchback car on it's last legs that takes up to 14 people (!) along the dirt tracks of Uganda. I'm told 14 is including some kids with at least 4 in the front, one even sharing the driver's seat whom he has to lean round to change gear! I found a taxi straight away and being the first to arrive i nabbed the front seat, but unlucky ... read more

Scrawled while making the journey from Kabale to Buhoma (at Bwindi Impentrable Forest National Park) Hills quilted in a patchwork of greens and browns by terraced crops. If I could find the quilt's corner I would be tempted to pull at it, creating new folds of land and revealing what lay underneath this blanket. Nature harnessed, stitched and restitched communally by countless people across the land and through generations. Is the earth warmed by it, or suffocated? I think the latter - the quilt is pinned down firmly and trapped nature denied freedom. Kids on the side of the road, wearing dirty bodies and ragged clothes, filthy and torn. Hands outstretched, demanding money. Our socioeconomic differences evident in our absence of their accumulation of dirt, snot and malnourished pot bellies; in the completeness of our clothes; ... read more