For me 2014 started with the other half of our school holidays which was another long month off. Originally we were very ambitious and agreed with about ten of the other volunteers that we would spend the start of the new year with a cheeky girls holiday in Zanzibar and travel through Kenya on the way there. Unfortunately, because we have not yet received our work permits we could not follow through with the plan. Instead myself and Georgia decided that we should create a secondary project that would benefit our community in the the village. The idea that sprang to mind and what we both thought was a perfect project was to redecorate our middle class nursery which we had spent the past 3 months working in. This was ideal because the state of the classroom really wasn't a very nice learning environment. The windows were caked in thousands of spiderwebs, the children had drawn all over the walls and the previous paint had become dirty and discoloured.
After meeting up with our operations manager George (from
Edirisa UK) and discussing the idea we had, he also agreed that it would be good for us to take on the project. Later on that week we went into town and bought all the paint and brushes required. Georgia and I started the process by de-cobwebing the walls and windows, washing the walls and then finally we started painting. After 2 and a half weeks of hardcore art work we finished the nursery and it was such a proud achievement. The walls are now bright yellow and cream with the upper and lowercase alphabet running under the board, a caterpillar number line, shapes, the world map and nursery songs nicely painted between a mango tree and some butterflies. When teacher Miriam saw the work we had done she was so overwhelmed and it was so nice to see a little change that we had made benefit others. Although, now teacher Emily from top nursery class has asked us to paint her classroom so we said it's a project that we'll carry out in the Easter holidays.

Once we had done the nursery we decided to hire a car and go on a road trip with four of our fellow volunteers Rukin, Lauren, Jess and Abi. We travelled up to Kampala to meet the people who we were hiring the car off. Steph was designated driver so once we had the keys we set off on our first destination to uchumi supermarket which is basically like a giant tesco, it has all the different types of cuisines you could wish for and to us it's heaven! In our spur of excitement we did a big food shop for the car journeys then set off en route to backpackers where we were spending the night before our long drive to Sipi falls. On the drive home it was dark and driving through central kampala is very tricky, nobody acknowledges any of the other vehicles and the mind set is make a decision and exit quickly. So me being in the front with Steph had the role of the navigator, when we came to a cross road Steph changed lanes a little last minute, suddenly a traffic policewoman in a high vis jacket was blowing her whilstle and hollering us into a free lane. We stupidly thought that she was helping us out directing us into a free lane so when we started to drive forward she ran over. To cut a long story short she said that it was inconsiderate driving and could cause a crash so unless we slipped her 100,000UGS (£25) we would have to receive a ticket. Obviously Steph didn't want a ticket because it could've potentially resulted in points on her license so we opted for giving the woman the money which no doubt went in her purse. Very corrupt.

The next morning we set off early for Sipi Falls. One of the girls Jess had done some research using the East Africa guide book and booked us into The Crows Nest accommodation which she said had private baths overlooking the waterfall. After a long, stuffy 6hour drive we were looking forward to unwinding in some tranquil baths with a magnificent view. Although, once we pulled up to the crows nest the car went quiet as pure disappointment spread through us all like an infectious disease. The accommodation was literally several wooden shacks that looked like they hadn't had guests for a good 20 years - and no, there weren't any private baths! Luckily we all laughed about it in the end and ended up staying there for 2 nights which I must say was actually enjoyable.

On the Tuesday we set off at the crack of dawn for Pakwach a little trading centre outside of Murchison falls national park, where we planned to spend the night before entering the park. A little b&b run by locals had been suggested by a driver we met called Frank, he said that it was a really nice place to stop off for the night and it was cheap which was just what we wanted. Result! So when we rang to book I thought the woman said it was 5,000UGS (£1.20) per person per night, so obviously we thought wow that's cheap but we were also quite worried to what we would turn up to. When we pulled up to the b&b the place looked luxurious and we thought there is no way that this place is five thousand shillings. A lovely member of staff came to great us and said it was actually 75,000 each.. Ooopsy my mistake. In the end she showed us cheaper rooms that had en suites which we decided to take because Jess had been throwing up from some unclean water that she'd drank at Sipi.
In the morning we were supposed to leave for the park at 9am so we had enough time to do a game drive and the Nile water safari. Unfortunately, Steph had been throwing up all night because she had drank the unclean water as well. So a couple hours later Steph manned up and got behind the wheel although I felt incredibly sorry for her because she looked so unwell and had SULO (Sweaty Upper Lip Alert). Because of this, once we were in the park I took over driving whilst Steph rested. On the drive to the red chilli camp where we were staying we drove past herds of elephants, tonnes of antelope and the odd warthog. Once we got to the river Nile we had to wait for the next ferry to leave to take the cars to the other side, it was at this point that Abi announced that she didn't think she had much money in her purse after paying for the park entry fee. We told her to check and she had a shocking 10,000 shilling which is the equivalent to £2.50.. Only Abi! Once we got to red chilli to check in it turns out the person who took our phone call didn't actually book us in... Could this road trip get any better? Never before have we ever had such a string of unfortunate events. Luckily there was space for us in two bandas and one tent.
After all the stress Georgia and I went on the Nile water safari boat trip for three hours where we got to see wild crocodiles, pools of hippos, elephants, monkeys and loads of different tropical birds. That night we enjoyed free meals and a camp fire, when we went to bed the manager informed us that there was a giant hippo grazing on the grass of the tents because at night they come onto land to eat and retreat back to the river at the break of dawn. So when we went to our Banda the hippo was literally ten metres away from the door just munching out, it was incredible I can't begin to explain. Hippos are massive - like double the height of an average human. We stood watching in awe for a good ten minutes. At 6:30am we left for our game drive with our tour man Sam in the hope to see some lions or cheetahs in the early sun. Unfortunately that didn't happen. But we did manage to see giraffes, buffaloes, loads of elephants, hippos, different species of antelope and monkeys. We drove so close to the giraffes that they actually ran away, it was like something from the avatar film! You don't get to see giraffes run in the zoo, and Georgia spent the whole time "beefing" because it was something she dreamed of seeing when she was younger.
It was a sad moment leaving red chilli because it was such a nice place full of lovely people but soon enough we were on the road back to Steph's project in Kiahura where we were stopping off for a free nights accommodation. When we got back to base we quickly had showers then picked up her house mates Jody and Bella so that we could drive into the village for a food shop. We all squished into the car and Steph turned the key but nothing was happening, the ignition wasn't even turning on. The car broke down there and then. Just our luck. The following day Georgia and I set off back to our project because we had to finish the nursery and we'd only paid for seven days in the car.

So all in all we had a very eventful Christmas holidays but I wouldn't have changed a thing it was all so much fun!