In the morning we went to the local market, where we bought scrubbing brushes for the mural at school and tried to avoid looking at the fly-covered meat carcasses and stretched innards at some of the stalls. We then went to some tourist shops selling local goods and bought some bags and instruments. Steph got a chance to show off her haggling skills, unlike Jess who couldn’t even get a shilling off! We had some delicious cakes and smoothies at Flavours before rushing off to get back to the hotel in a taxi at 1.25 (when the taxi to take us to the party was due to arrive at 1.30!) to get ready.

When we got back to the hotel we quickly changed into smarter outfits, and waited outside for the taxi. We forgot that everyone runs on Ugandan time, so waited an hour before the school bus arrived to take us to the Senior 4 Leavers’ Party for girls from Nakanyonyi. The bus arrived at the Source of the Nile hotel and we were ushered over to take lots of pictures with the girls, who had suitcases full of clothes and some changed their outfits 10 times during the party!! We felt slightly underdressed, as they were all wearing sparkly dresses and shiny heels. 

Since some of the girls had not yet arrived, we were invited to pass the time watching some of the girls ‘miming’, where they lip synched to their favourite songs while dancing. We were surprised to find some of their dance moves were quite provocative, and they had clearly been influenced by some western music videos! They kept insisting that we join them, but we felt quite uncomfortable and decided to take a short break from the party and visit Jinja’s number on etourist attraction- the Source of the Nile.
We were charged 10000 shillings for the privelege, as we were ‘Non-Ugandans’, 8000 more than Ugandans had to pay, and the same as someone driving a bus or lorry! However, we all found the Source a spectacular sight, and also got a chance to look at the monument dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi.

As soon as we arrived back at the party, we were served food, which was a delicious traditional Uganda meal, similar to the food, which we had eaten at Fidah’s. After this, we took some more photos with the girls and then chatted with the Divinity and History teachers, Christopher and Jeffrey, about life in England and their desires to take a Master’s degree at an English university. 
When the headmaster announced that the first bus shift back to Nakanyonyi would soon be departing at 7 o’clock, we danced with the girls enthusiastically- albeit badly- for the last 10 minutes.

After the first shift left, the music stopped and we sat down to chat with some of the girls waiting to leave on later shifts- the bus couldn’t take all of them at once, as there were 160 girls there! We chatted with two girls who told us about their favourite American and English TV shows- ‘The Vampire Diaries’, ‘Twilight’ and ‘Merlin’ among others. They asked us about all the latest celebrity gossip, like who Rihanna was dating, and were keen to learn our opinions on certain celebrities- Kristen Stewart, Miley Cyrus, Emma Watson etc. It was encouraging to see that we shared very similar interests and how open-minded and independent the girls were. That said, one other girl was surprised, almost to the point of disbelief, to learn from Jess and Mr T that the world was in fact round and turned on its axis! 

After a long night chatting and dancing with the girls, we were exhausted and hired a taxi to take us home.

Jess, Steph, Imogen and Fiona