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So about 2 weeks later and 2 trips to Jinja and a lot has happened to talk about! We traveled to Jinja on 12th November for Molly's 18th birthday. After setting off here and enduring the 3 hour bumpy journey to Kampala we set off on our first Boda Boda to GardenCity which is a large shopping centre…but very full of white people! After spending a fortune in a beautiful African Shop…I say a fortune but it was actually about ₤10 although in my shilling mindset 30,000/= is a lot! We then bumped into some of the other volunteers and went to Pizza Hut for our fist western meal in 2 and a half months! It was so good! We all then set off to Lugazi which is about and hour east of Kampala to Molly and Justine's project where we stayed the night all camping outside their project. Their project is soo different to ours as they don't even have a building to teach in and the school is literally right outside their house. They only have 20 students ranging from p1 to p7. It was lovely to see everyone again although I had possible the worst night sleep since arriving in Uganda as we pitched our tent on a slope and I spent the whole night sliding down onto Becky…much to her delight!! The next day we all set off for Jinja to a hostel called backpackers which was really lovely and I was majorly impressed with the free English tea! We just spent the day relaxing and swapping experiences before heading to dinner in a lovely restaurant and started searching for a place to go out, initially finding a club called Babez, which as the name suggests was a tiny bit sleazy with some serious African grinding! (we left that one very quickly!) we headed to a bar called Casino's which was playing some questionable live music before heading to Jinja's main club Sombrero's. Entrance was 5,000/= which is around ₤1.50 and we had an awesome night dancing and didn't get back in until 4am!
The 5 hours home the next day were interesting but we were both really glad to be back in our project and were literally mobbed by children when we arrived which was really nice although slightly painful!
This last week at school has been exam week for all the secondary children so we have been working hard making sure they all pass otherwise they have to resit the year. I have been teaching English and English Literature and most of my classes did really so I was very pleased and it felt very rewarding to see my work pay off. Although we have exams to mark school was quite boring with all the children revising hard so on Thursday Becky and I headed off to Kampala for Jinja take two!! We again stayed in a hostel with some of the other volunteers. We heard our first bit of English news in a few weeks from a crazy Ugandan lady who ran a small shop at the hostel about Price William and Kate's engagement! She was extremely excited and wanted us to take her to England for the wedding! She also made Becky try on endless pairs of shoes and didn't seem to mind that we weren't going to buy just wanted to guess the size of her feet! We then went out in Kampala on Thursday night which was an interesting experience setting off in a massive Boda convoy to a bar called O'learys an Irish bar which was full of white people who all seemed over the age of 40 and I felt very odd…the only good thing was the money they had all dropped on the floor! We then headed to a bar/restaurant/club called steak out where it was apparently rock night so we heard some pretty shocking music from Kelly Clarkson but it was still a good night although unfortunately resulted in two stolen wallets.
19th November - Rafting Day!!! J
We were picked up by a free shuttle bus to take us to Jinja which left at 6.45am (definitely the earliest start since arriving!) and took 1 hour to take us for one side of Kampala to the other! There are so many street sellers on the pavements that the pedestrians walk on the road then the cars and people can't move so resulting in gridlock!
On arriving we were provided with a massive buffet breakfast then we were life jacketed and helmeted up and lathered in suncream and heading off to the Nile for the White Water Rafting! We had 4 groups of 7 people and the rafts were unloaded by some incredibly toned men…some of us girls had a very plesant surprise! And we were off rafting! We had an hour of training and some swimming down some gentle rapids before we were into the big stuff! We traveled 30km of the Nile in the day which included rafting down Bujagali Falls and a 5m high waterfall. We only came out the boat a couple of times when they flipped the raft and I literally thought I was going to die!! I spent so long underwater without air it was very scary but fortunately I came back up again! It was such a good experience although an extremely exhausting day! Fortunately none of us got too many injuries although a few bruises (I got a massive one under my arm from being pulled into the boat) and sunburn! Sunburnt knees were very common and sunburn and eczema are definitely not a good combination! Lunch whilst rafting was pineapple and biscuits on the nile watching the stunning scenery…including several bathing Africans and a rather disturbing view of a white mans bare backside washing on a rock…nice! At the end of the day we were taken back to Bujagali Falls campsite for a buffet BBQ which was amazing! And had gorgeous views of the Nile. That night we were all so dead we spent the night sleeping and eating!
Saturday involved a serious lie in! and we spent the day lazing at the hostel playing pool and chatting and comparing injuries and sun burn! We also discovered many aching muscles which we didn't know existed! At 4pm we were picked up and taken to the Nile for a booze cruise which for 15$ involved and all you can eat buffet (which was amazing!) all you can drink alcohol and a boat trip up the Nile to Lake Victoria. It was such a good trip and absolutely beautiful. We all had an awesome time and stumbled off the boat slightly tipsy at 7! Then back to the hostel to sober up…or keep drinking and we went back out to Sombrero's for a night out!! Needless to say there were a few hangovers on Sunday but a fab birthday for Blair and Gregg J but we all definitely have the traveling bug…looking forward to Rwanda next week!
On Sunday Becky and I travelled back to Mubende for the last week of school. I very excitingly had a set of exams to mark on Monday morning but other than that we have spent the week relaxing, washing clothes and chatting to students who are very excited about going home for the holidays. We went to Mubende on Tuesday to post some parcels and the Rosie and Keziah came to visit from Mityana which is about 45mins away. The came to stay the night and we showed them around the school and the children were very impressed with their Lugandan speaking! Today we have a dance for the end of term which me and becky have organized for the students which will be good and then they leave tomorrow which is very strange! However next week we are traveling to Rwanda to renew our visa's and see some of the country…so more news to follow from that! Photo's coming soon J
Naomi xx
- comments
Dad Great you've managed to blog and lots made me smile. Love the photos too looks like the booze cruise was through some amazing scenery. Take care of your hand! Love you and look forward to some snippets from your travels xxx
Nana & Grumps glad to see your still having a great time even if a little hazardous at times makes life here seem quite dull.Looks fantastic scenery- look forward to the next episode. Lots of love Nana & Grumps