Blogs from Western Region, Uganda, Africa - page 5

We spent the day with Norah‘s house with her family. As guests, we sat in the living area while the family prepared the meal. The good thing for us was Norah had invited her auntie’s kids (Jethro and Joseb) and their cousin Lena to spend the day at their house. While waiting, we taught the kids to play go fish and concentration. Jethro was very impressed with our bridge shuffle and spent time practicing that as well. When it was time to eat, the amount of food that came out was insane and Norah’s mother kept piling it onto our plates. It was delicious but so much and the explanation of which they prepared on coal stoves verses actual fires out back overwhelmed me. The entire family had spent all day preparing the meal. Norah’s mom ... read more

In Fort Portal the gateway town for the Kibale Park we find the Dutchess restaurant/hotel. Run by a Dutch couple the LP considers this to be one of the best restaurants in the whole of Uganda. Not wishing to miss this opportunity we stop for a light lunch and then are delayed as - no surprise - after lunch the Rav 4 won't start. We call the hire company and within 15 minutes a local mechanic arrives and after some good diagnostics traces the problem to a poor transmission connector. This meant that the electronics dig not detect that the transmission was in Park so disabled the ignition circuit. He easily fixes this, but leaves me a wire so I can short this out just in case we have the same problem again. It turns out ... read more

Today is THE reason we have come to Uganda, to track Mountain Gorillas. There are only about 1000 Mountain Gorillas left in the world and about half of these live in the Bwindi Impenetrable forest where we are now. Other places where you can see them are Rwanda and the DRC, different countries but very close to Bwindi. The only way to see them here is to buy a permit from the Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA). There are only about 100 permits available each day and as they cost $600 per person it means that this isn’t a trip for everyone. In addition, the official line is that the permits are over-subscribed (ie hard to get), nothing is guaranteed, it's often wet and the trekking to find the gorillas can be tough, so tough in fact ... read more

I have been in Uganda now for 2 days and I already feel settled - it does feel like a home away from home. I have also already settled into my lovely soda addiction! Once I arrived from Entebbe to Mbarara I felt a rush of relief as I thought "okay this I know". The sights, the sounds and that very distinct Mbarara smell flooded me with memories. This town can be unforgiving but it can also bring you amazing opportunities to see the good in people. I am excited to continue our collaboration with MUST and I myself (along with the new students this year) had a formal tour of the hospital. Many things have changed since 2 years ago and I am happy to see they received more funding to expand certain wards like ... read more

We stayed in the Rafiki Guesthouse for three nights, Jan. 10-11-12. Eleven members of our group went gorilla trekking on the 11th. Our group of seven would go on the 13th. So we had two days to ourselves to prepare for the trek and recharge our batteries. The owner of the guesthouse had a number of tours planned for us - coffee plantations and the like, however Monica and I were quite content to clean our laundry and explore the town on our own. We had lunch a couple of times at a wonderful little place called the Coffee Pot. African coffee certainly is wonderful. So dark and rich. We also had lunch at a kind of guesthouse called the Traveler's Lodge. Very nice indeed. The food was great and the history of this place says ... read more