Murchison Falls

 These are supposed to be the most spectacular falls in West Africa, so anticipation was high.

We decided to go with the Red Chilli Company, which has a rest lodge in Kampala. We had a fairly uneventful if long and bumpy bus ride in to the capital, just as dusk was falling, we had to walk a little way to exchange money etc, however it was the most terrifying experience so far, it is just a chaotic mingling of people, stalls, bicycles, taxis and huge coaches all vying for every square inch of space, there is little definition of road, pavement etc. At one point there was a huge coach trying to leave the bus park, across which there was a row of boda boda (motor cycles) through which pedestrians were crossing and across which the normal traffic was crawling along.  The coach decided it was time to leave and just kept ploughing through, albeit very slowly, the boda bodas were trying to scramble away, leaving the pedestrians (that was me) to be pushed into the flow of other traffic, I just held on to the boda until I could see a gap to get out.   

The rest house even though it was still in Kampala it was very quiet, it has flushing toilets and hot showers, the best.  We joined a disparate group of other travellers, which is always fun and set off for the north.  It takes the best part of a day to get there and we were grateful for a really comfortable camp, with proper beds, we were warned not to keep food in our tents as both the warthogs and hippos have a sweet tooth or two.  The camp was founded by a British ex diplomat, Steve Willis, who was killed in 2005 whilst helping a marooned raft, by the LRA, the company still provides funds to support water projects etc for the local community.  It is strange to think that such terrible conflict was waged in this beautiful area so recently, from which both the human and animal populations are still recovering.

The tour consisted of early morning game drive, with a dawn crossing of the Nile.  

We were fortunate to see lions, including one female with a kill, elephant, many waterbuck and other antelope, hippos and my particular reason to have this safari, giraffe they are so graceful, the last one we saw leaving the park appeared to have a broken leg.  I also saw a one eared antelope, and other limping badly, I guess these are the survivors, for the time being anyway.

In the afternoon, we took river trip 17 km up to the falls, we had seen the foam generated by the turbulence even as we got on the boat, the river is so wide here, wider than Lake Albert in places, even now at the beginning of the rainy season when it is at it’s lowest.

We saw more elephant, swimming this time; hundreds of hippos and some 3m crocs.  We eventually approached the falls and were able to climb out on to a rock to get a more central view, they are tremendous, 6000l/s through a 6m gap.  We couldn’t get too close because of the turbulence generated.  

We had a gentle cruise back and I thought it appropriate to have a Nile Special on the Nile.

The next morning we went on a walk to the top of the falls, we could hear them even as we arrived, as we got closer I could feel it in my chest.  I am not sure the photos do it justice I have video which is better but can’t upload it until I find a broad band connection.  

It was definitely the highlight of the trip although seeing all the game in their natural habitat was fantastic too.

New Venture, Help Needed

Further to my previous post on out ‘African Evening’ we have had an enthusiastic response to setting up a water skiing school.

One of the major local industries here is brick making, the local soil is clay and all around the area, this is dug out, individually moulded into bricks.

 

They are first air dried and stacked

Then they are restacked into a kiln for firing, there are two holes in the base which are filled with eucalyptus wood, the whole is encased with mud and fired.

 

Theses are generally made and constructed by the road side for easy access for potential purchasers.  They are also often made in situ; the clay removed for levelling a site or digging foundations, is used to make the bricks for the house etc, as is the case in the new class rooms, see previous post.  This cuts out all transport costs and middle man.  The bricks are not of the highest quality or consistency but are more substantial than the wattle and daub which many buildings are still made of; which are subject to rapid degradation during the rainy season, but easily repaired during the dry.

The consequence of all this activity is that there are many deep pits by the road and indeed right up to the boundary of Uganda lodge.  

These are of course filling up with the rain, so we see potential synergy by creating a Cable Waterskiing Centre, particularly as we have the services of a qualified instructor. 

 If you feel you can support this venture, please donate using the above links, we are particularly looking for a cable system rather than boat as well as skis and boards.
I may have published this a little prematurely, british time, but you get my drift..

Ruhanga Beaders

Ruhanga beaders

 Some of you will be aware of the Meldreth Beaders (or possibly not unless you are on thread!) and it was an aim of mine to create a twin here in Uganda.

A group of ladies already meets to produce local crafts for sale at their stall on the side of the road here in Ruhanga.  I hope to expand their market by developing their skills in basket making and weaving more easily transportable items for volunteers to buy, and perhaps bringing back to the UK for sale with profits returning to the project.  The group are also part of a saving circle in which they can save any surplus profit to plough back into materials or create another business, perhaps become a solar sister as mentioned previously.

We meet on Wednesday afternoons, to share our craft skills and have a giggle too, unlike Meldreth Beaders; the strongest beverage is tea, although I expect the craick will be equally as raucous.

the finished product

Available at a store near you soon

An African Evening

George, the headmaster, of a neighbouring private senior school invited all the volunteers to his home.  He acts as advisor to our school and has been assisting in providing to teacher training to address the fast expansion of the school in the last term.

We set of in good time to arrive at his school up the hill, we saw a newly constructed fish pond which is used in agricultural studies and fish should be ready for harvest in April, so I look forward to that as we haven’t had any fish here since I arrived.  

We then went to the school which is for 16 to 19 year olds, which if they complete the national exams they can go on to university.  We had an interesting question and answer session, explaining all our work experience.  We have a life guard in our midst, as land locked Ugandans, don’t swim or have many swimming pool, the purpose was difficult to explain, but when it came to describing what a water skiing instructor does… well the best we could come up with was rollerblading on water!

We were then treated to a performance of the school choir, which was fabulous, the pitch, rhythm and harmony was perfect all seemingly effortless and delivered with sincere enjoyment, there was a traditional welcome song, gospel music and a finale of a tribal song and dance, with innovative drum and pipes from what ever was around.  Just real good fun. I am sorry I can't upload a video so you can get the full enjoyment

We were then invited for a ‘cup of tea’ at the head masters house.  We arrived to be introduced to his immediate and extended family.  We had tea, biscuits and yellows (little sweet bananas).  The house is situated further up the hill in the plantation and vegetable gardens commanding and amazing view of the hills all around, further from the road and so really peaceful.  It soon became apparent the there was a lot of other activity going on, with two fires lit and cooking various dishes, pealing and chopping of many ingredients and another two fires burning in the cooking banda.  As the house is so far from the road, there is no electric power and so although the house is beautifully appointed and furnished, food preparation is still done in a traditional way.  Propane gas is available locally and is used for lighting, but it is a steep hill to  carry many gas canisters up and eucalyptus wood is readily available nearby.

Georges family comprises of at least three generations, and in the youngest, several pairs of twins.  Each member seems to have there own job and each gets on with it with ease, some chopping wood, others vegetables, cleaning pots and others cooking.  I know when I am trying to put together a family meal, there are times I feel it is necessary to hide all sharp implements to prevent internecine warfare braking out.  Here all was running so smoothly, which is essential as darkness falls and there are so many fires and sharp implements about, axes, pangas, skewers, as well as the normal knives etc we would expect.  The boys were preparing BBQ bananas over a charcoal burner, and the were stuffed with Cadburies dairy milk chocolate!  Hence the interest of all the small children in preparation of this dish

The Cooking banda  and inside

We had a lovely time sitting around the fires watching and occasionally helping with the preparation, chatting with the children and grandma, showing them photos of  gorillas, zebra, warthogs, hippos which they have never seen, even in their own country.

  Grandma loved having her photo taken

We then went indoors, to eat; the amount of food was mountainous, (the photo was taken as I was going for seconds) but the flavours were so marvellous.  All locally produced, except the chocolate.  Mashed plantain, something like mini kumquats, ground nut sauce, sweet potatoes, maize meal rice, meat stew, bean stew……. And the banana desert perfect, when ever I try this the bananas remain hard and the chocolate melts and runs out.  How do they do this in the dark, over open fires and charcoal.

We had a wonderful evening and when we left in the dark, we hadn’t expected to stay so long and so had no torches, we were escorted by most of the family, down the hill across stream in the rain, with grandma at the back wondering why we were going so slowly!

If anyone does ever venture in this direction, George and family do have rooms available to extend this African experience, you can email georgekaramira@yahoo.co.uk.  It will be a really uplifting and warm welcome from the whole family in the most beautiful and peaceful setting.

Solar Sisters

I think I may have mentioned that there are frequent power outages here, but as I type, we haven’t had one for a couple of days now and so I guess it will go any moment now, particularly as is getting more humid by the second, or is that another hot flush, no I think it is the next storm brewing.

Back to the point; we are on the main road from Kampala to Kabale and Kigali on Rwanda and so are on the main power route too.  Villages only a couple of kilometres from the road do not have power and so rely on paraffin for light, wood and charcoal for cooking and heat.  There are few appliances which require any power except of course the ubiquitous mobile phone.  It is the technology of choice for all; they use it for music, radio, games and camera.  However in order to charge them they have to go to the local trading centre, often a couple of kms walk up or down hill, pay Ush 500 and wait 2 hours for it to recharge, which they will have to do every couple of days, funds being available.

The lamps

We hosted the introduction of Solar Sisters by Evelyn Namara, from Kampala, who was born in the region, and speaks the local language, which is funded by an American  NGO, which is providing a business opportunity to village women to start a business selling solar lamps and solar lamps which can charge mobile phones.  It works by providing a sample of each which the women can demonstrate to the rest of their community, secure orders and send the cash via mobile network and retain part of the profit themselves, they costs are ush 40,000 (£12) just for the lamp and ush 120,000 (£36) for the phone charging version.  These are very significant sums for women to find, but the benefits are that they is safer that candles or paraffin, brighter, cleaner saving about ush2000 per week on paraffin and not having to carry it from the trading centre; but with the 120,000 version they can also start a business charging phones at ush500 at time. 

There was a lot of interest from the women invited and all took away some samples; a number of men also wanted in on the scheme, but it is being reserved for the women to give them some economic autonomy and increase safety in the home.

More information can be found at    http://www.solarsister.org

Women with their lamps

I hope that they manage to make the scheme work; however there is a strong expectation that ngo’s will provide these things for free with no expectation of any input from the Ugandans.  It is very hard to find a way to get the local community to work with and build on the resources provided by the muzungo’s (white people) and NGOs.  I will follow with interest how this works  .

The most perfect place

Lake Bunyonyi

I have been here a month now and realised it was time to explore a bit more of the country and recharge my batteries.  With had a four day week end due to further elections and International Womens Day (why do we not celebrate this in the UK?, another blog entry I think)

It is always a challenge to move from A to B and so we waited for almost two hours outside the lodge for a bus, the hitched a lift to Ntungamo and waited more than an hour again, but eventually we were off.  We arrived in Kabale and treated ourselves to coffee and cake, sitting on a breezy balcony, feeling very civilised.  Then came the scary bit; the boda boda ride down to the lake.  It is many years since I have been on the back of a motor bike, and it wasn’t a happy experience then, I like to be in charge of the steering and more importantly the breaks.  We negotiated a rate and thought it would be one bike each, but no it was both of us on the back of the same bike.  Actually I felt much better about this as it had to go a lot slower with the weight.  In fact it was a great journey, a long way up hill slowly and then a long way free wheeling to the lake.  I have to admit that my legs were still a little wobbly when we dismounted and my thighs are still in spasm.

The next part of the journey challenged the upper body coordination, a dug out canoe to paddle 2km up the lake to out island retreat.  Worth every paddle stroke.

Byoona Amagara Island Retreat is run as a not for profit ecofriendly retreat.  It has amazing open fronted goedomes to sleep in as well as the cheaper bunk house accommodation we were staying in.  It uses solar power and so there are no generators and it is sooo quiet.  Lake Bunyonyi me and the lake of hundreds of small birds.  And it is certainly true, the come in all colours, pink, blue, green, orange, black white and any mixture of all, including of course the LBJ.  The beauty and tranquillity of the area is more than I can describe so I will let the pictures speak for me.

Another major highlight was the food and wine, yes red wine and cheese and avocado and cray fish and pizza…….  And all this for less than £15 per night.  It is free to for the canoe to get you there but you have to pay to leave; I am not sure that have it the correct way round!

 

I will return