Murchison Falls

The Nile as you approach Murchison Falls. In some ways the lovely green valley reminded us a bit of the Tamar except the trees are wrong and then we spotted this big crocodile!!

Me at the top of the falls getting wet.....was Rob saying 'back a bit..back a bit!' ???

The regulation photo of the rainbow over the falls. We drove to the top to look down! The noise of the water and the spray was amazing.

We went to see the bottom of the falls on a boat trip. it is very green in the valley with the spray from the falls. Oddly another couple on the boat who were also volunteering in Uganda were living in Launceston and he was one of the people that set up the CFE in Saltash....small world!

We stayed at Paraa Lodge - the view from our room. Did you know more people are killed by hippos in Africa than any other animal?!! This one was grazing happily early morning maybe looking for the swimming pool which was being rebuilt!

Murchison Falls National Park is the largest protected area in Uganda. It is in the far northwest and had some security problems but seems OK now. It has many giraffe. We drove in through forest north of Budongo where the charity has a project and this part of the park is savannah.

This is the ferry from one side of the Nile to the other! While we were waiting for the ferry there was some excitement, the game rangers spotted a dead hippo floating like a huge inflatable toy down the river! It had obviously been in the water some time going by the smell that wafted across! The rangers jumped in a boat to inspect it and came back saying it had been speared.

Staff Outing!

The In-service teachers left last week and the college staff then had a module writing workshop. We spent last week trying to write the subject modules for moderation by Uganda Martyrs University. It has been really hard work and I am still working on the Communication and Educational Technology one with help from another tutor who also teaches the subject. I will also have to write some of the Special Needs Education module but haven't even started that! Pre-service students started drifting back to college during the week asking, 'Did you have a good holiday, Madam?' I suggested that asking tutors if they had had a good holiday was not a good idea as we haven't stopped since they left!!
We did however have a staff outing on Saturday. It was a very typical Ugandan affair! We were told transport would be provided at 10am. The tutor organising the trip did say that it was 'African time' so I knew we would not leave on time! We sat in the staff room reading the newspapers, doing crosswords and some did exam marking. We drank tea and coffee and finally were told the transport had arrived... at 12.00!! The problem we were told was that they had booked three matatus but there was not enough money so after protracted negotiation we were only having one! Matatus seat 14 and there were about 30 signed up for the trip! Not to mention we were also taking the college 'sound system', 4 large speakers plus all the extra bits...computer keyboard, electric cables etc. etc. On top of that there were crates of drink, sodas and beers, plates and of course food. They love their food here in fact if money 'goes astray' it is said 'the money has been eaten'!! Food consisted of twelve large cooking pots with food prepared by students in the Home Economics department.
At 12.30 the first group set off, including me with a large iced cake on my lap! The trip took about 40minutes and we arrived at a beach on Lake Victoria about half way between Kampala and Entebbe. It was a beautiful piece of parkland with green grass stretching down to the lakeside, huge trees with red-tailed monkeys jumping about and lots of birds. I was sorry I had not taken my camera but other places near the lake I have visited have always been a bit 'tatty and tired'! We tumbled out of the taxi, cake intact! We went to a thatched banda with the first food pots only to be joined by another group who had also booked in. We were sent to another banda and then spent time looking for a power source...remember the sound system! Some of the trees had fluorescent lights hanging in them with wires sticking out of broken sockets. Electricity here is pretty scarey...the students attatch the bare wires for the TV (no plug) to the socket by using the plastic top from a biro stuck into one hole and then they stick the wires in the other two.....it frightens me every time I see it but that's how they are used to plugging things in!! Anyway power was found and the sound system sparked -literally- into life. In the park next to us another party was going on and they also had loud music blaring so it was a sort of competition to out do each other! Such a shame in such a lovely place...it would have been so peaceful watching the birds by the water! The matatu had departed to collect the rest of the party so eventually everyone and everything arrived. Lunch finally happened at just after 4pm!!! It was a good spread:- fried chicken, fish, goat stew, bean stew, spinach,green beans, carrots, potatoes,yams, tomato salad, cabbage, chapatis, rice and a sort of gravy called soup! It was piled high on the plates and we ate with our fingers. There was beer and sodas and then we cut the cake. People danced to the music and sat on the grass chatting, The principal attended not wearing her nun's habit much to everyones' surprise. The first group left around 6.30 as the sun set leaving the younger staff members to finish off the beer and hopefully be picked up by the returning matatu! I shall hear about the rest of the evening on Monday!! We have attended a number of functions since we arrived and this one was very typical....non-existant time keeping and huge amounts of food (usually the same dishes) along with loud music! It was good to be out with the staff outside work having fun! Sadly no photos but others had cameras so I expect to see those...probably awful ones of me 'dancing'!!

Sipi Falls

Once we had left Henry and his family we went back to Jinja. Although we have visited Jinja several times we had never actually been to the source of the Nile. We saw where the Nile starts its three month journey of over 4,000 miles to the Mediterranean.

The next day we set off to Lacam Lodge overlooking Sipi Falls half way up Mount Elgon. It was an amazing place on the slopes of the mountain with the most incredible views across the Karamoja plains.

The first waterfall we could see from the camp, the top fall was a three hour walk up the mountain so we opted to walk to the second fall which was an hours walk!

I walked to the another camp called 'The Crows Nest' which was 4,000ft and again the views were breathtaking. The photo shows the thatched roofs of the bandas at Lacam Lodge above the fall on the right of the picture. Our guide George (watching Rob Sketch) took the photo of us looking up at the falls! We are so lucky to have this chance to see such beautiful places.

Taking Henry home!

Students go home!

Henry looking smart in his suit ready to go home.

On May 1st we went back home to the village where one of the students we have been helping by paying some of his fees and providing money to buy the resources he needed for teaching practice. Final exams were over and we arrived at college to collect him, his trunk, mattress and a bunch of matoke (green bananas). Other students were piling into matatus (taxis) with all their gear. What a welcome we received! His family live very near Lake Kyoga and the Kenyan border about four hours north of Kampala. All the family and neighbours came out to meet us and then we were invited into a traditional hut with a 3-piece suite and a table squashed in and Henry's father said a prayer and made a speech welcoming us. They served us sodas, hard boiled eggs and nuts and then each family member was introduced and shook hands. We were then taken to see the crops they grow on their plot of land and the goat project that they are setting up to support the family. Henry has 3 brothers and 2 sisters. We then had lunch! They brought many bowls and serving dishes with potatoes, rice, matoke,chicken, goat, a salad of carrots, peppers and avocado and what they call 'soup' a thin vegetable stew like gravy. The very odd thing was that having brought in this feast and said another prayer, all family members left and we were there on our own!! Do we serve ourselves and eat?......will Henry or his Mother or Father join us?.......should we wait?......we looked at each other.......!!!! Luckily our driver Joseph who we know well ,returned from changing the flat tyre on the car and explained that we should eat as the custom is for men in the family to eat together, women to eat together and honoured guests (us!) to be served separately! The food was very good, far more than we could eat and I hope the family would eat what we left. That sort of 'spread' is definitely not the usual fare! We had taken some money as a gift towards the goat shed roof but were also given a copy of their project funding request for 17million Ugandan Shillings!! A bit more than even us 'muzungus' have to spare.

The village

The rock!

The goat shed without roof.

Quote from the covering letter: It is indeed a pleasure to be with you today in our family. Surely, your historical visit shall never be forgotten. God is indeed great.Indeed our guest, on behalf of this family, allow me to deliver a note of appreciation for accepting to travel all the way from Kampala to what I can proudly refer to as your second home.Surely our dear guest, it is hard to get the exact words worthy or equivalent to all that you have done for us.

Our meeting with the family was in some ways strangely formal with well organised introductions and the children only allowed to peep into the hut to see these strange people! Henry and his brother took us to see an amazing volcanic rock in the bush about 100m high and about 500m long! Then we returned to say goodbye to be given a woven basket with g-nuts (peanuts) they had grown and some embroidered serviettes and tablecloth. Henry's mother giggled and shrieked both on our arrival and departure, hugging me and laughing as I kissed her cheek!


The Family


We then set off to stay a night in Jinja before going to Sipi Falls which I will write about in my next entry.

Teaching Practice

A few pictures of some teaching practice students in a school near Lake Victoria not far from the college. The compound is better than many I have visited with plenty of space and some swings for the children to play on. It is however on very low lying swamp land and is prone to flooding if the level of the lake rises. Kampala has many properties built on swamp levels and they regularly flood. This is the foundation or 'baby' class and this one has only a few pupils. The students here worked hard to produce some colourful charts and teaching aids to help their teaching. The number cards are made from old cardboard and soda bottle tops. Balls, skipping ropes and dolls are made from polythene, palm leaves and banana fibre. There are no ready made resources in most classrooms.

Another school where I was observing in baby class had 40 pupils squashed on benches in a 'lean to' wooden shed on the side of the building. The young boys and girls are still pretty amazed to see a 'muzungu' (white person) and come to touch my arm to check the colour doesn't come off!! Some days I am stroked by many small black hands and scruitinised very closely! It is very funny and I feel sorry for the poor students trying to teach. In this class I went along the benches so they could all shake my hand so we could get on with the lesson!

At break they all run off to get their 'porridge' made with maize meal, looks and has the consistency of polycell wallpaper paste! They always offer me some but I had some once and that was enough! It is a hot filling mid-morning snack for them though, many families are very poor and have a very poor diet. At college the students are fed 'porridge' for breakfast and break, posho (another maize meal delight, white and solid and tasteless) with beans at lunch and supper. The fruit here is abundant and for us very cheap but it is never served at meals. If they want fruit they have to buy it themselves which is a luxury most cannot afford.

Teaching Practice is over, the external examiners came last week so I hope most of the students have passed. They now have a couple of weeks to revise before their final exams.

I have designed a simple sheet on the computer which I hope the college will let us use as the 'Examination Seating Plan'. Last year I was amazed when they gave me paper and a ruler so that each invigilator could draw a plan of the exam room and fill in the student code numbers for each exam. The cultural paper has four parts(music, art/craft, R.E. and P.E.) and you have to do a plan to go in each envelope of answer sheets! So I hope my 'inovation' of a pre-printed pro-forma is accepted which will make it a bit less tedious! I only hope college has a bit of money to print them out............watch this space!!

Easter at Lake Mburo

We spent Easter weekend in Lake Mburo National Park. It is a lovely park, the only one with a complete lake within its boundaries. The tents had en-suite shower etc. and when we wanted a shower Apollo came with a jerry can of hot water which he tipped into a bucket and hoisted it above the tent! There was a open thatched dining/sitting area where they served three meals a day not to mention the odd beer or glass of wine!

We went on a number of game drives and although the park does not have any lion or elephant we saw many different antelope.

These are Topi.

The park also has Impala. Other places we have visited have Uganda Kob but in this park they have impala (Kampala is named after them).

Here is a picture of my favourites,

Waterbuck.

We also saw lots of warthogs, zebra, bushbuck and hippos in the lake. The weather was very un-ugandan! It was so cold and windy on the Saturday evening that the boat trip to look for crocodiles was cut very short. The lake was so choppy the people in the front of the boat were soaked! Then on Sunday we had booked a guided walk in the bush but it rained all day!! We had to go in the car!

These dung beetles were amazing! Two lovely metallic green beetles about the size of the end of your thumb co-operating to roll this ball of dung! Well I thought it was pretty clever, anyway!!

It was a lovely weekend.

One year on!

We have been here now for a year, I cannot believe how quickly time is passing!! Here are some photos of our field trip to Budongo Forest to one of UCUs projects.

A trading centre where we stopped to buy provisions to take to the research camp. The butchers where we bought meat!
The banda at the camp - in the forest and below the 'facilities' a bit of a trek in the night!!!

Budongo Forest is in the north west of the country not far from Lake Albert. They are researching how to stop the animals eating the village crops and so stop the villagers killing the Chimpanzees and other monkey species (black and white colobus, Vervet, Blue and Red-tailed) all of which we saw at close quarters.

The research camp is in an old, abandoned logging station. At least they have stopped felling trees there. Much of the forest has already been destroyed. We stayed for the weekend and I was able to track chimps with the researchers while Rob visited the test sites for growing crops the animals do not like. They plant tea and chillies, which they do not like, around the maize and banana crops to dissuade the animals from eating them.

Tracking the chimps was amazing.

The only problem was that I was so
excited being so close my photos were pretty terrible! The female kept looking back...to check we were still keeping up??!!