So it’s been a while since I last posted, sorry to those who rely on this to ensure that I am indeed alive. I had some pretty bad travel sickness last week, but I was back at it on Friday. We learned how to transplant onion plants on Friday, and they’re looking great now! Overall, the garden is looking fantastic, and it’s awesome to see our hard work paying off.
On Saturday we decided that since we were at the midway point in our trip, we had to do something touristy and experience other aspects of Uganda. So on Sunday we packed up to head off to Kampala for the night before taking the 6 hour drive out to Murchison Falls for safari. The journey there was interesting enough, as 3 vulgar Canadian girls were paired with 4 young girls who had been in Uganda since February with their church and somehow thought Besigye (the opposition leader) was the president. They were all reading a book entitled “Freedom Fighter: God’s Heart for the Broken”, about a Christian missionary and her quest to “save Africa”. These ideals are exactly what reproduces and further embeds the colonial discourses of Africa as being helpless, and, as this woman implies, broken. We were really interested to see what these girls thought, so we asked them “how are they broken?” – their reply was simply a shrug and “I don’t know”. It was then that we realized that this trip was going to be weird.
So we finally arrive in our campground in Murchison Falls, and it is Mzungu central! We are so accustomed to greeting everyone excessively and dressing modestly, as per the culture here, and it was a crazy shock upon arrival to see girls in short shorts and skimpy tank tops, and no one asking how anyone is doing, or how their day is going. We ended up just sitting with the people who worked there, and having a great first night!
The next morning (Tuesday), we left for our morning game drive at 6am, where it was 4 hours of giraffes, elephants, antelopes, hippos, crazy birds, buffalos, warthogs, etc. We even got to see the king of the jungle, 2 male lions, which is really rare for that site, so we were really lucky! After lunch, we went on a boat cruise up the Nile which was awesome. Saw some more hippos (they were EVERYWHERE), lots more elephants, and some crocodiles! Also saw some eagles, which were awesome and so majestic. As we were approaching Murchison Falls, we saw the site where Ernest Hemingway got into a plane crash with one of his lovers, which was pretty cool – although most of the people on the boat had no idea who Hemingway was (sorry Carter Chaffey).
Later that night we were exhausted from the day’s activities, so we decided to go to sleep early. As we were getting out of our tent to go brush our teeth, however, we met 2 friends who had decided to visit our campsite – and by friends, I totally mean hippos. We had learned a few things about hippos upon our arrival, one being that they do tend to graze at the campsite at night (we didn’t believe that at first), and that if we do encounter a hippo, to keep our distance, not to make any sudden movements, turn off our flashlights and don’t take any photos. Little tip – the only thing that can kill an adult hippo is another adult hippo, and hippos can definitely outrun a human. So we slowly retreated into our tent and peered out to watch them graze. Pretty crazy experience.
So after 3 days surrounded by Mzungus, we were very excited to arrive back in Mukono just in time for our regular Wednesday pork night with our 2 favourite people – Leslie and Moses. It was great to get back to our house in the village, and get up early this morning to get back to work! Moses was taken aback by how hard we were hoeing the ground – we actually really missed the work we have been doing, so it’s good to be back. No more leaving Mukono for us for the next 2 weeks!
Well I know this doesn’t really have that much substance, but I will write again this weekend! Much love to you all, I’m off to check some Canadian news to see what the idiot in power is up to now (we’re all scared to come home)!
wakawakaafrica 