Its been a little while since the last blog and since then a fair bit has happened, so prepare for a big blog… On the weekend of the 12th most of us volunteers ventured to Jinja for Molly (one of the other volunteers) 18th Birthday. Naomi and I left on Friday 12th mid-morning and made it to James and Isabels for around 2pm, ready to pick up Naomi's bank card. After that we headed down to Garden City (posh shopping centre) to enjoy a bit of pizza at Pizza hut and have a long look around Banana Boat which is an amazing (but expensive) crafts shop, with little elephants and tribal books and beads and scarves and bowls and more little elephants-you can imagine how excited I get. We unintentionally bumped in Sarah, Ashley, Richard and Mikey (other PT Volunteers) in Garden City; so we all traveled to Molly and Justine's Project in Lugazi together. Molly and Justine were very good hosts and provided some tasty tomato pasta for all 14 of us volunteers crashing at their pad. Most of us were in tents, Naomi and I stupidly managed to position our tents horizontally on a hill so fairs fair being as I am twice Naomi's size, I got bottom of the slope and had Naomi rolling onto me for most of the night. I was also freezing (yes, freezing) because I couldn't be bothered to carry the chunky sleeping bag so bought my bed sheet instead-bad idea. So all in all it wasn't the best of nights. In the morning we got banana, bread and peanut butter-yum; ironically it was my first taste of peanut butter. Then I used a long drop for the third time and we all headed off to Jinja by 9:30. We got to Backpackers in Jinja by around 11 and had a warm welcoming of free tea and coffee! The Backpackers in Jinja is really nice, I felt right at home. We sat around until evening eating and chatting, I had a delicious BLAT (bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato). After stuffing ourselves full of food we headed out for a meal in a mzungu, boda convoy- always an entertaining ride. Most people had food and then we headed off to hit Jinja clubs. The first one we entered was called Casino and wasn't very good with the dance floor occupied by a cheesy and very bad live band. Sarah and I went in search of a better club (which happened to be in the same building) and had a right good dance for a good couple of hours. I have no shame in dancing in Uganda, I have developed my own little style which Naomi loves to imitate-I probably look like a right fool but I have a good time so that's all that matters! After that Sarah and I boda'd off in search off a rolex (chapatti and omlette with cabbage and tomatoes and stuff), then we went to the next club called Sombreros and the other volunteers arrived shortly afterwards. Sombreros was packed and had really good music, although there was a rather round Indian man that insisted on grinding with the boys and just stood and stared at us when we were dancing. We danced for hours and hours, to the point where we were absolutely knackered, we tumbled back in around 4ish and had a good nights sleep. In the morning we all headed back our separate ways; whilst in Kampala Naomi and I popped into Owino Market and bought some loose tops (hide the ever expanding bellies). Owino is a pretty hilarious place to be with every other man shouting 'I love you' or 'will you marry me' or 'Miss Uganda' at us, we even got asked if we were Congolese, much to our amusement. When we got home around 7ish we were both shattered and I went to sleep for 3 hours before supper. I felt really rough whilst eating supper and promptly after finishing I ran to the toilet and was very sick. I am still unsure of the cause of the sickness; whether it was the alcohol consumed at the weekend or the fried grasshoppers I tried just before supper-more likely a mixture of the both!

The following week of school was exam week and after the billions of revision exercise I had given to S1 and S2 I really hoped that more that 20% would pass! Both S1 and S2 had their Maths exam on Tuesday; straight after they had finished their papers I started marking. Although some of them made really stupid mistakes on easy questions they generally did a lot better than last time. In S2 18 passed, a huge improvement on the 3 that passed in their mid-terms. One lad called Fredo who I had been helping out lots at prep and who had done all his revision exercises, went from getting 9 out of 30 and near the bottom of the class to getting 48 out of 70 and 3rd highest-I was very proud of him, so bought him a pack of Coca cola playing cards for all the effort he had put in. Fredo's brother, Robert in S1 also did amazingly well getting 99% so he also got a pack of playing cards, but his were American Dollar ones. For a grand total of 15 pence I think the cards were a good buy.

On the 17th I decided to travel into Mubende, just for a little trip really as I had given up all hope on Mums parcel ever arriving. But I walked up through Mubende to the Post Office just in case it had arrived and it had! I was very excited that after a month and a bit it had finally made its way to Mubende-the hold up was because it had got torn on the plane so they had to be all official and re-package it in Kampala. I happily made my way back to school for a bit and then made my way back home to open my parcel with Naomi. Later I went back to school where I decided to share one of the big packs of wine gums mum had sent and I literally got mobbed! I felt like I was getting attacked. I was also wearing the jacket mum had sent me in the parcel and all the school children kept saying 'ooh you smell lovely and fresh' -the joys of washing powder and a washing machine.

That Thursday Naomi and I headed back to Kampala again as exams were on all week and we had done everything that we could do at school. When we got to Kampala we dropped our stuff off at Natete Backpackers and hopped on a Boda to Garden City. I had a bit of a craving for chocolate so after doing a full body spray from the perfume testers I bought some chocolate ice cream, a chocolate croissant (heated) and a Cadburys crunchy chocolate bar. Fully satisfied we went back to backpackers where a lot of the other volunteers had arrived; for the rest of the afternoon we played pool-which I am actually alright at, although both my hands are wrongly placed on the cue apparently. There were 13 of us volunteers at backpackers in total and we got ready to enjoy the night out to celebrate Gregg's 19th. Before we went out in Kampala I ended up having a good sing along with a guy with a guitar at backpackers. The boda convoy left backpackers and we ended up in a place called Steak Out, which was pretty huge with a couple of bars and dance floor and food all in an area under hutted areas-it was very nice. Unfortunately it was rock night and the music was pretty shocking with the likes of Kelly Clarkson and Taylor Swift! We wanted Ugandan music, its much easier to dance to than Taylor Swift and sounds a lot better! Anyway, we still had a good night, although poor Gregg got his wallet stolen on his Birthday and Richard also got his Pocahontas wallet stolen but managed to somehow go to the police station and find it with his bank card still in it and only sh30000 gone (less than a tenner) and ironically the guy that stole his wallet was also called Richard! We got back in at 4:30 to then get up at 6:30 to catch the free shuttle bus to Jinja included in our White Water Rafting package. The journey out of Kampala was pretty hellish as we managed to get stuck in the morning traffic, we didn't move for about an hour! We then picked up some scantily clad Germans from Garden City, they were literally wearing hot pants!-talk about cultural sensitivity! We were all in shock when they got on the bus. We also picked up another 4 of us volunteers along the way. We got to Jinja Backpackers for 10:30 and all stuffed ourselves full of pineapple, bananas, toast, eggs, watermelon and pancakes as it was all inclusive. Then all life- jacketed and safety helmeted up we hopped straight onto a truck (like a carnival float truck) and got driven to the start of our rafting journey. We were split into groups of 7, I was with Naomi, Molly and Sarah and 3 Australians; we ended up with an Australian guide, which was quite lucky as one of the Ugandan guides was an actual nut. We think he actually might have been insane; he flipped the raft over basically as soon as his lot got into the raft and then jumped about on the upside down raft waving his arms around, shouting in his crazed army style voice! White water rafting on the Nile was pretty amazing, we went down rapids with fairly terrifying names like Silverback and Jaws (well they were scary at the time). The first time our raft got flipped was in rapids called 50-50 and as soon as it flipped and I hit the water, my helmet flew off and my paddle went walkies-going to be honest I was actually terrified, I got pulled under the water continuously and it was horrible! I ended up floating way further down than the rest of my raft and had to get in one of the other rafts for a bit, until my raft had caught up. Apart from that slightly terrifying experience the rest of the rapids were awesome and we also did a nice bit of swimming and a lot of exercise along the way. Along the 30km we paddled we also got to view the amazing scenery and the likes of Ugandans washing in the River with their little radios booming away; we also got to see the not so amazing sights including an old white man randomly standing on a rock washing his bottom- just the thing we all needed to help us concentrate before some rapids-not. By the end of the rafting we were all pretty knackered and most of us resembled lobsters although we had all generously applied sun cream throughout the day! Naomi's hand had been bubbling away along with her eczema and is now really sore, I was pretty lucky and managed to escape with a red nose cheeks and chin (all the bits that stick out form my face as Molly pointed out!) We then all got back on the truck and were taken to the Explorers Campsite, where we got the most amazing BBQ and the best meal I have had so far in Uganda. I apologise to those who have had enough of me talking about food. Anyway there were kebabs, pasta, salad, rice, curried potatos, veggie burgers, chapattis, bread buns and most importantly mayonnaise-we all filled ourselves to the brim. I also had some lovely passion fruit fanta. We all got back to Backpackers and just showered, moisturised all the sun burn and relaxed and were in bed by 12. Next day we once again relaxed and then at 4pm it was time for the booze cruise on the Nile. Once again there was amazing food-I won't go into details and as much alcohol as you can drink. The view on the Nile with the sunset was beautiful and along with the half glasses of gin and whiskey that were being consumed we all had a pretty amazing 2 hours. As we left the boat Molly hilarious managed to carry about 7 bottles away with her shoved in every possible pocket! We then went back to Backpackers for a while and out to Sombreros-it was a very good night, although Gregg got his camera stolen and Ashley got her phone stolen. We were back in at 4:30 once again and all had a good giggle before we went to bed. Next day we headed off our separate ways once again, Naomi and I got back at 9pm to a warm welcome from the children who gave us a huge group hug, which was lovely.

Tuesday night Keziah and Rosie came to our project to stay for the night and much to our surprise our shower head works!! So for nearly 3 months we have had a shower and just thought it didn't work. (Admittedly because upon arrival I tried to push the button instead of twist it so just assumed it didn't work! Whoops) It was lovely to see them and they left late yesterday afternoon.

So after that very long and detailed blog I hope you are all updated on what has been going on. Naomi and I have organized a dance for today for the secondary school children, as they are leaving tomorrow so that will be good fun and we have 70 baloons to blow up. We are leaving next Monday and heading for Rwanda with 10 of the other volunteers for our Christmas travels, as our visas need to be renewed by December 1st. Right that's all for now, hopefully there will be opportunities to write blogs whilst traveling, though they will most probably be a lot shorter and less detailed than this one. Hope everyone is enjoying the ever nearing festive season-it feels so far from Christmas here in Uganda; no Christmas advertisements, boiling hot weather and the few Christmas songs I have heard are remixed with a Ugandan reggae beat over the top!

Much love

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