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Hello again.
So this time I have better time for writing. Thea and I have gone up to the Danish development worker and his wife to use their computer and internet. So there are a lot of new pictures as well.
The past couple of weeks have past by so fast we almost didn't notice. As said we had a long (!) and amazing journey to Arua last weekend. The two danish boys, that are part of the group, are staying in Koboko, which is in the far northwest corner of Uganda. They were on a luxury weekend in Arua and we decided to join them. Very nice weekend. As i might have written we had a very long and adventurous drive to Arua, but on the way back we just took a bus. It was such a beautiful ride, but even though the busses may look new and smart from the outside they are still as s***ty on the inside, with metal things sticking out trough your seat and so on. If there is one thing Uganda is good at it is to build bumps on the road to make people drive slowly (they are everywhere, even in the middle of the savannah where there's 20 km to the nearest houses) and if ther is one thing the bus can't do it is to slow down. So every time we drove over a bump (and that is very often) we would be thrown into the air and either bump our heads against the ceiling or crash our backs on the hard seats. Not so enjoyable, but we made it to Kigumba. From there we took the worst-looking matatu I have seen to this date. The driver had to start it by putting to wires together and when he couldn't start it people had to get out and push the opposite way of where we were going because that was down a hill...
The last week has been very nice and quiet. Monday evening we had dinner with Ivan, our coordinator, who came to see us and to make sure that everything was okay, and of course it was. We had dinner at one of the few 'western' restaurants in Masindi, 'The court view hotel'. That is also were our rotary meetings are taking place by the way... The Rotary Club has assisted in arranging a 'Dental Health Project', where dentistry students from Mulago Hospital in Kampala comes to Masindi to check and treat the people for free. On Friday, which was the last day of the project, the dentists were going to Masindi Prison and Thea and I tagged along because we thougt it would be nice to see the conditions at the prison. It seemed very nice, it is a very big area and there are flower gardens and fields where the inmates are growing all kinds of crops. The inmates are all wearing the same Pajama-like uniform. It is bright yellow with narrow blue stripes and some of them are lucky to have a matching (boelle)hat. We got the permission to go and talk to the 32 female prisoners, who were kept to them selves in a corner of the prison. There were 5 children as well in the ages between 1 week and 3 yrs. A lot of them spoke Kiswahili so we had to use our, by now, a bit rusty kiswahili to introduce ourselves. We were told that a lot of the inmates haven't been to trial yet, but they are just in prison waiting. The problem is that there are not enough judges in Uganda, so they have to wait for one to come by Masindi.
Saturday we went to Hoima, where 4 other volounteers are staying. The matatu drive from Masindi takes about 1,5 hours on a really bad road, but it is very beautiful because you pass by the green hills and the huge fields with sugar canes (Kinyara, the biggest sugar factory in Uganda is located just outside Masindi). Once in Hoima we changed vehicle and got into a very small car, Laura and Anne Sofie's 'father' had borrowed to drive us to Lake Albert. It was a long drive, about 2,5 hours, on a bad and very (!) dusty road. The lake was huge and the village we arrived to seemed dead. The lake was completely still and grey and the landscape around it was very dry and kind of grey as well. (you can see in the pictures). And the people had sad grey faces. They were not used to mzungues so the children were so extremely excited when we showed up!
Today, we have rested. Tried to sleep late but I think it's impossible because of all the weird noises that all the weird birds make. When we got up we were alone in the house, Prossy had gone for prayers, and we made a very big nice breakfast. (normally we eat very little for breakfast.) And when we found out there was power the morning was complete because we could listen to music. There is almost never power anymore, so we are very excited when we try to turn the light on and it actually comes on! Joy!
Tuesday we are going to Kampala. Wednesday we are river rafting on the Nile in Jinja and on thursday the annual MS-conference starts and that is going on untill sunday. It will be so nice to see the other volounteers and have a good time, we heard there's supposed to be a crazy party saturday. We are looking forward to that!!
Bye for now
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