Hello again… Part 2 of my travelling blog. The holidays have been split into two. The first half we went to Rwanda and Western Uganda. After Christmas, a big group of us all decided to head off through Tanzania and head towards Zanzibar. What a trip it's been!

After getting back into Kampala, Me and Kieran headed back to Project in Gombe. We Spent a lot of time just relaxing and getting ready for Christmas day (Of which we did our fair share). We found out about a Christmas cup.A local football tournament with 8 teams in a tournament and we could play for our team who were in the Semi-Finals the day before Christmas eve (23rd Dec). Sure enough the day came, we played but within 5 minutes we were 1-0 down L However after a long period of dominated, weeventually won 3-1 with myself scoring twice to make it 2-1 and a freekick being scored in the last minute to make it 3-1. It was one of the best moments of my life to see the whole team run towards me at the corner flag after I scored the second goal to take the lead, just because of how much I could see it meant to them and me. So, the Final was set for Christmas day (Yes the final had to played hours after a christmas dinner!). We spent the run up to Christmas just eating alsorts. We've even learnt how to make chips and pancakes so those were nice treats and over the christmas period we even indulged ourself with Honey!
Christmas day…. I was awake at 5am, not because I was so excited, but because the familyhad asked us to make eggy bread, which they love may I add, for breakfast and it had to be ready for 7am. As soon as I finished, I hit the hay again until 11am! I woke up, Had a nice chat with the family who I'm sure had a great day without me and we started cooking. Our duties was to cook Pilau Rice and Chips and we made them in time to sit down for lunch at 2pm. It was one of the most filling Christmas dinners ever! Not only was there rice, chips and matoke, but there was also about 6kg of pork, 4kg of beef and 1 chicken which was killed and cooked that very morning! So much meat and it was so tender it really was a feast! After, we were invited to a Catholic priest's house and sure enough an hour later we were sitting down to our second Christmas dinner! I was so full I could barely walk afterwards and we had a game of football to play. We got to the game… Firstly I scored, only for it to be given offside despite the fact I ran from behind the defender (Yes I'm still bitter about that decision to the day haha) and we did end up winning though 1-0 thanks to a cracking 25/30 yd freekick in the top corner. Worthy of winning any christmas cup if you ask me! So we celebrated for a bit and were awarded our trophy and prize. Any ideas what the prize may be? Money? No. Trophy? No. Bull? Yes. Goat? Yes. Our prize was a bull. The idea is we have a celebration party a month later where you slaughter the cow and have a feast. Which is meant to be 29th Jan so if any of you guys want to hop on a plane and I'll see you there! We did also play a game 2 days later as like a champions challenge game against a team in Kampala in which the mayor turned up to watch us. Luckily our team won convincingly, 3-0 with yet again myself scoring twice. Unfortunately the game had a sour ending with a guy being unfortunate and breaking his arm in a tackle which was quite a shame. All in all, the Christmas cup was quite a highlight of the christmas festival, so much so we emailed 4-4-2 and I've been told we're actaully mentioned in the magazine somewhere. Shaun Maclachlan and Kieran Conroy-Mckeown are in fourfourtwo! The other main highlight personally was watching the joy on the family's faces when we gave them presents. We spent about 10 quid in total but that meant we could afford several new clothes each for them and the joy on their faces and the pictures from that day willl stay with me for a long time. Nothing beat watching Sam (7/8years old, wqere not sure) grinning whilst wearing his new shorts and Spongebob squarepants top, Nelson smilling with his shoes and Curious George T-shirt and James and Patricck (The Reverend) wearing their new Jurassic Park top and Shirt respectively. They really appreciated it, and It felt so good to give knowing that it's possibly the frist christmas presents they've ever had.

New Year I spent in watoto Church doing an all night worship session with about 3,000 people which really was incredible and one of the best ways I've spent the new year with total strangers but feeling at home because of what we had in common… and the worship, well it was just buzzing all the way from 8pm - 3am!

Since then… We've done quite a road trip around Tanzania and it is a lot bigger than I first thought! I've done some calculations for you….
- We've travelled over 4,000km
- We've travellled for over 100 hours (about 1/5 of our total time spent in Tanzania)
- Visited 8 towns (More if you include zanzibar itself)
- 1 Bus breakdown
- 1 Bus Crash
- Travelling for over 24 hours for one journey
- Visited 2 mountains (Kilimanjaro and Meru, I would've loved to climb them if it didn't cost about 600 - 1000 quid)
- Spent one week in Zanzibar
- Spending about 100 quid in total for all our travel costs.

So that's our 3 week road trip around Tanzania summed up in a few facts for you. Travelling down to Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar (which cost about 40 quid). Then we spent 2 nights in the enthralling Stone Town where you really emmerse yourself into local culture, the highlights of stone town is discovery 50 tz shilling coffee (about 3p) and finding out the bureau exchanges aren't right and making money on the Saudi Arabian Riyal. We bought 44 Riyal at 350 tz shillings each and then went across town and sold them for 384 shillings each making a tidy profity of 1,500 tz shillings , about 80p! We spent a day going to Jozani Forest where we tracked the Colobus Monkeys of which we ended up in the middle of a family of about 65 all around us in the trees above us, at one point being inches away from my face, so tame but an awesome sight to see them running all around you swinging from branch to branch. We then headed north for 5 days, to actually enjoy the beaches. We spent 1 day snorkelling in Mnemba Atoll which is a coral reef conservational area off the coast ofzanzibar which was cool with all the coulourful fish and coral and turquoise blue waters. We just lazed about all day, sleeping, eating, swimming in the sea so warm it was warmer at night that an indoor swimming pool at day!, Sunbathing, reading etc. It literally was the most relaxing tim of my life, and the views, oh the perfect white sand beaches stretching on for miles, the Dhow boats and fisherman in the morning collecting the fish, the perfect blue ocean…. I don't know what more I could ask for really, it was almost close to perfection. The only thing I would've changed was the fact I was in the sun for an hour but I had my headphones on so now I have a nice running white line(where the restof my chest is tanned) all up my chest from where my headphones were… but it's a funny story so I don't mind showing it off! From there we headed up to Arusha and Moshi where we got some pretty decent views( although the cloud blokced a big part of the peak) of Mt Meru and more importantly Mt Kilimanjaro although the best views came on a clear morning on a bus journey where you could see the snow capped peak which was a great view. From there we slowly made our way through Tanzania and back into Uganda, our home. I've never felt so releived and Glad to be back in Uganda. So I celebrated my return by going out and buying 1 nba shirt, a nike t-shirt and a nice hollister t-shirt, all for 12,000 Uganda Shilling which is about 3 pound 50 (the computer doesn't have a pound sign) so all in all I'm glad to be home. Going back to our Project today on the 27th Jan. Start teaching again on Monday for 3 months. You probably won't hear from me In a while but I hope I hear from you with lots of letters!
It's been quite a journey, best experiences of my life, but I'm glad to be home and can't wait to get back to our community.
Take care, God bless
Shaun x
p.s. the photo at the top is almost exactly what it was like on Zanzibar!