Friday 2nd April 2010 - Hi everyone this is Jackie calling
Day 8 of our adventure in Africa.
It is now time to leave our guest house in Mbale to go to the Kingfisher Safari Lodge in Jinja where the bees are the size of your thumb and the dragonflies are the size of your hand. It is about 110 kilometres away, and I am rather sad to be leaving Mbale but glad to be leaving the rooster that has no respect for the people who want to sleep past 6.00 in the morning. We all had the usual breakfast of bananas, pineapple, omelettes and the sweet bread that they have here in Uganda. It was also time to settle up our bar and laundry bills, the most painful part of our stay!
We were all excited about the three hour journey ahead and the mood was buoyant at the prospect of visiting the source of the river Nile, and it was good to know that we would meet up with the children from Kavule deaf school again here on Saturday.
It was a pleasant and uneventful journey until we approached the dam at Jinja. I was sitting at the front of the bus and had been taking photos on the journey. The bus was pulled over by army officials, wielding guns!!!!! I was approached by a soldier who confiscated my camera. Although I was holding the camera he addressed my husband with the words "Hey white man where are you from?" I replied "England" and he asked "What's it like there?" to which I replied "Cold". He then insisted on seeing what pictures I had taken of the dam as apparently this is an offence (maybe for security reasons?). We were held up for around ten minutes where a heated discussion between Rodgers our driver and Livvy the head of Mityana School took place. Fortunately I hadn't yet taken any photos of the dam. My camera was returned to me and my husband was addressed by the soldier again with the words "White man don't do that again you must get the 'highest' permission to be able to take pictures".
After this fiasco we continued on our journey to the wonderful Safari Resort for two days of relaxation. After a lovely lunch all the team chilled out by the swimming pool and enjoyed a little personal time. We were unaware at this stage that we would not be getting a good night sleep. After a delicious evening meal we sat around with drinks and cocktails and were treated to the most wonderful show of lightning. The thunder was so loud and the lightning so bright and varied. My husband and I sat down by the lake in total amazement for about an hour watching the show and listening to all frogs and crickets until the ants drove us away. The storm raged all night and we all thought that we would have no roofs left by the morning. Gillian, the only member of our team slept through the night undisturbed!! I don't know how she did it.
Tomorrow we are all excited at the prospect of taking the kids to the source of the Nile as the trip to Sipi Falls was such a success.
Uganda has been, so far, the most wonderful experience and Winston Churchill was right to call it the 'pearl' of Africa. Coming from Northern Ireland I am really tickled that they call potatoes 'Irish', we are obviously famous as far as here!
Speak to you all soon
Jackie
It is now time to leave our guest house in Mbale to go to the Kingfisher Safari Lodge in Jinja where the bees are the size of your thumb and the dragonflies are the size of your hand. It is about 110 kilometres away, and I am rather sad to be leaving Mbale but glad to be leaving the rooster that has no respect for the people who want to sleep past 6.00 in the morning. We all had the usual breakfast of bananas, pineapple, omelettes and the sweet bread that they have here in Uganda. It was also time to settle up our bar and laundry bills, the most painful part of our stay!
We were all excited about the three hour journey ahead and the mood was buoyant at the prospect of visiting the source of the river Nile, and it was good to know that we would meet up with the children from Kavule deaf school again here on Saturday.
It was a pleasant and uneventful journey until we approached the dam at Jinja. I was sitting at the front of the bus and had been taking photos on the journey. The bus was pulled over by army officials, wielding guns!!!!! I was approached by a soldier who confiscated my camera. Although I was holding the camera he addressed my husband with the words "Hey white man where are you from?" I replied "England" and he asked "What's it like there?" to which I replied "Cold". He then insisted on seeing what pictures I had taken of the dam as apparently this is an offence (maybe for security reasons?). We were held up for around ten minutes where a heated discussion between Rodgers our driver and Livvy the head of Mityana School took place. Fortunately I hadn't yet taken any photos of the dam. My camera was returned to me and my husband was addressed by the soldier again with the words "White man don't do that again you must get the 'highest' permission to be able to take pictures".
After this fiasco we continued on our journey to the wonderful Safari Resort for two days of relaxation. After a lovely lunch all the team chilled out by the swimming pool and enjoyed a little personal time. We were unaware at this stage that we would not be getting a good night sleep. After a delicious evening meal we sat around with drinks and cocktails and were treated to the most wonderful show of lightning. The thunder was so loud and the lightning so bright and varied. My husband and I sat down by the lake in total amazement for about an hour watching the show and listening to all frogs and crickets until the ants drove us away. The storm raged all night and we all thought that we would have no roofs left by the morning. Gillian, the only member of our team slept through the night undisturbed!! I don't know how she did it.
Tomorrow we are all excited at the prospect of taking the kids to the source of the Nile as the trip to Sipi Falls was such a success.
Uganda has been, so far, the most wonderful experience and Winston Churchill was right to call it the 'pearl' of Africa. Coming from Northern Ireland I am really tickled that they call potatoes 'Irish', we are obviously famous as far as here!
Speak to you all soon
Jackie
