Advertisement
Published: September 26th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Traditional Ugandan Dancing
These girls were awesome. They were dancing with several pots on their heads. Highlights:
- Crispy chapatis from our local market
- Getting allot of hugs from the babies and PCA kids
- Visit to Jinga and having a Nile beer on the Nile
- Witnessing an awesome hail storm which caused our local road to look like the river Nile
- Watching and listening to the amazing performers from Ndere Centre
...................................................
We have been in Kampala now for 6 weeks now but somehow it feels like we have been here forever. I know this as we have made several "friends" in the various local shops including the local market near our hotel. We have met Rion and Ivan who we term "the chapati boys" who we believe cook the best chapatis in Kampala. (A chapati for those who are not familiar is a flat bread fried in 3 inches of oil until golden.) The boys manage to cook them slightly crispy to our liking. We are sure the locals find it rather amusing for "mazungus" to purchase dinner from the local market with calls of "mazungu...how are you?" being heard everytime we go.
I continue to volunteer at both PCA and the babies home.
The kids from PCA
The chapati boys
This is one of the boys cooking chapatis at our local market we go to for dinner, are back at school so I have been visiting the home at around 5pm each day to see them after school. They all go to different local schools so arrive home at various times. I was speaking with one of the girls (Gladys approx 14 years) who has described her typical day to me. She gets up very early and needs to be at school at 7am. It takes her 40 mins to walk to school each day. She gets home most nights after 6pm. She then typcially does her chores like washing her clothes (hand washing....there is no washing machine!). Then it is time for revision of home work, dinner and then bathing (cold water in a bucket). Bed time is typcially after 10pm each night. She also attends school 6 days per week (Saturday until 1pm). It is not an easy life.
During the week we also made a visit to the PCA Outreach Program that is held every Wednesday and Friday afternoons in a community building in one of the city slum areas of Kampala. The purpose of the program is to provide support, counselling and medical assistance for the boys who live in the slum
The hail storm
This is a view of the road just around the corner from our hotel. If you look closely you will see hail. The road became a river. areas. The day we went approximately 15 boys attended. The boys ages ranged from approx 8 to 18 years. These boys live on the streets and have no family only each other. A couple of the boys were very ill and arrangements were made to take them to the local hospital. The boys speak little english and they all wanted to know our names and where we were from. A good news story is one of the boys we met (Andrew) is now being sponsored by a volunteer and has only this week started boarding at a local school.
As our friend Jacqui's time in Uganda was coming to an end, we decided to spoil ourselves and go to a place callled Jinga for 2 nights. Jinga is a district right on the river Nile and it's claim to fame is that it is actually situated at the source of the Nile. We booked accommodation at an amazing place called The Nile Porch. We stayed in permanent tented accomodation that literally overlooked the river Nile. As we sat in our chairs outside our tent drinking a Nile beer on the Nile, we could watch the white water rafters and
Our permanent tent
Our tent overlooked the river Nile. Notice the hammock! kyakers go by. As you can imagine it was a very relaxing 2 days but this cannot be said for the way we arrived. We took a matutu from Kampala which is a local Toyota taxi van that the locals catch around Kampala and also to other districts of greater Kampala. It was the cheapest way to get there but the most uncomfortable. The vans are licenced to carry 14 passengers but the drivers (who are crazy) tend to squash as many people in as they can.
The only other significant event has been a hail storm that hit without any warning. There is normally rain every afternoon but it normally ends after half an hour or so and then the sun comes out again. But on this day the rain kept coming and coming and then to our surprise huge hail stones. The road around the corner from our hotel was like a river. It was amazing to watch.
Until next time...hope you enjoy the photos!
Kath x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.074s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0413s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Jacqui
non-member comment
Cool.
Aww Kath, that is awesome! Love the blog and the pics. The ice cream man still makes me giggle.... Hope you are having a great time in Murchison. Don't forget to take lots of photos for your next blog! Miss you girls. xxx