In denile at the Nile!

June 17th

To follow up on my last post...We had a meeting at the foundation with all of the mentors. I saw the woman that we had helped before and she sat down to talked to us. We actually got ssshed by Rev. They are trying to get ready for their big Winner's Society elections. They have this club that meets in every school called the Winner's society. Once a year they hold general elections for all the schools and they elect a president. I think it will be interesting and fun. I'm looking forward to talking to some of them. Hopefully they won't be too shy.

Andrew and I made our final plans to go to the Nile. Dusting decided not to go, to save it for another time, so Andrew said he would go with me.

June 18th
Nile Day! I woke up super early to work on the proposal before I left. I couldn't stand not doing any work for a day, but I restricted myself to 45 minutes. After that I packed all my things. I felt like I was getting ready for a safari. I packed all sorts of things like I was going into the bush for several nights. I guess it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

Of course we got a late start, there was a mix up on where we were supposed to meet. But we got on our way. We hit a traffic jam before we even got all the way out of the city. We took the public transportation, and they were driving down all of these dirt roads to try to bypass the traffic. I was worried that I was going to be carsick. That's actually one of my big fears while I'm here, that i'm going to get sick and throw up on all the people in the taxis.

Anyway we finally got going once we got out of the city. We passed many farms on the way to Jinja. Mostly tea and sugar cane. Jinja is the name of the town built around the mouth of the Nile. We passed through one of the national forests called Mabira forest. I fantasized that we would see a group of gorillas while we were driving through, but it didn't happen.

Finally we started getting close to the city and traffic started to slow down again. About a kilometer from the Nile traffic came to a complete halt. At least by this time some of the people had gotten off the taxi so we weren't crammed in there. We decided that we would catch a boda the rest of the way since they never seem to be bounded by traffic like everyone else. They just wriggle they're way on through the traffic. They even get up on the sidewalk if necessary.

Once we caught a boda we began to make progress again. We crossed over the Nile to get to the west bank and it was beautiful. It was everything I hoped it would be: cool breeze, clear fast-moving water, lined with all kinds of bright green foliage. Wide enough to swallow your focus.

I was trying not to embarrass Andrew with my excitement. We continued on down the road and traveled along the Nile to get a set of falls that were further down. They turned out to be much further down than I realized, and along the way the boda got a flat tire. I guess he had been hopping too many curves. Luckly he was able to handle the vehicle safely and get stopped, but by this time we were out in the middle of the country agian (it doesn't take long). We had to wait for another boda to come by and pick us up.

We finally reached our destination,Bujagali Falls. It was beautiful (I took pictures of all these things, but I don't think that I will be able to upload them until I get back). The big thing that I wanted to do was to put my feet in the Nile, so we looked for a place to get close to the water.

Andrew is like a nanny goat. He is always worried about me falling or stepping into traffic or slipping or anything. He's always nagging me to be careful. The whole time he was like "be careful stepping down... make sure you go slowly... be careful the algae is slippery ... the rocks are slippery...keep and eye on your things you might loose them, ect." I don't mind it, I actually think it's rather funny. And nothing happens until he makes a comment on it. If anything I'm more careful than he is. He almost fell himself into the river because he was stepping on rocks covered in algae.

Anyway, we worked our way down to the very edge of the water. I asked him if crocodile's hang out here, but he said that the water was moving too fast for them. It makes sense I guess. I took my shoes off and sat on a rock and let the water run over my feet. It felt so good. I expected it to feel cold, but it was quite warm. I was tempted to go for a swim, but I didn't bring a swimsuit. We stayed around long enough to get our fill of the view, take pictures, and take pictures for other people. There were a few other people seeing the sights but not that many. The people that lived close by were washing their clothes in the river. There were also pipes running from the river up to people's homes. I guess they have gravity pumps to get fresh water, although I'm not sure how clean it is to drink. You probably still have to boil it.

We caught a boda into the town of Jinja. It was so different from Kampala, I couldn't believe it. Apparently the majority of the town was built in the 1940s so it has a very interesting architecture to it. It doesn't seem to have been devastated by the different wars. All of the roads are in really good condition, traffic is minimal. It is just a quiet small town. Perhaps this why it appealed to me so much. At the same time you could still get pizza and cheeseburgers. It clearly had a Western influence. I suspect that it may be a vacation spot for some people, and I can understand why, it was absolutely gorgeous. We stopped in a cafe to get lunch. By this time it was 4:00, and I was getting hungry since I hadn't had any lunch or very much breakfast.

Then we went to the mouth of the Nile. When we got there I was really upset because it was 10 K shillings for non Ugandans, but only 1 K for Ugandans, but then I realized that it was only five dollars to me and then I relaxed. I'm starting to think only in shillings now.

The mouth of the Nile was equally as beautiful with the same picturesque landscape. People offered to take us on a boat ride, but just to see it was enough. They had an old abandoned bridge that you could walk on out over the river. We took lots and lots of pictures. This time we saw some people swimming in the river. It looked like so much fun to me. We hung around for a while. I didn't want to leave at all. It was so nice. I don't think Andrew wanted to leave either, he was enjoying himself as well. He told me that he hadn't been there since he was very young.

I was very sad when we got on the bus to leave. The good news is that we were able to take a bus back instead of a taxi. They're much more comfortable. The traffic was still bad coming back, but I was able to doze most of the way. We met up with Dustin for a while, and then went home. I was very tired by the end of the day. However, I went to sleep so content.