We have arrived in Egypt! Our first flight in nearly four months. Anyway here are a couple of journal entries to keep you going.
12th October - Nile River Explorers Campsite, Jinja
How do I describe today! Well this morning Bec and I went for a walk primarily heading for a lookout over Bujagali Falls. Anyway it doesn't matter where we thought we were going as we never got there.
So we leave the NRE campsite and head out through the village past the chipati stalls and boda bodas. We head in the direction of the 'Soft Power' sponsored arts centre. The road almost immediately reduces to a three foot wide path, for pedestrians and bicycles. On either side of the path are huts with mud walls covering a wooden frame and either tin or thatched roof. Surrounding the houses are banana trees, pea and coffee plants plus jack fruit and and pawpaw trees. Also I can see maize growing too. After a short while we past the arts centre and picked up our first escorts, a couple of boys playing with an old car tyre. Within a few more steps a dozen or so more children joined all fighting to hold the muzungus hands. So with at least fifteen children in tow we continued through the village guessing the direction of the waterfalls at each intersection of dirt paths. I think the ages of our new friends must have been from 2 to 12 years old. Some were brothers and sisters and all we good friends each taking turn to hold the muzungus hands. I managed to arrange my six so that we spanned the path with bigger ones on the outside holding hands with the next biggest, who held hands with the smallest, who held on to me.
They understood some swahili and we quickly exhausted our vocabulary on them. Their english was excellent.
Every-so-often the children would swap places and Bec's lots would exchange with my lot, obviously to check out the differences between muzungus. Eventually I broke free of my clan and had a go at rolling the tyre down the path. I could hear a scream of excitement from behind me and a lot of pattering of feet as they chased after me.
We also let them try on our sunglasses. The look on their faces was priceless. Sheer wonder. You have to remember these pretty much have nothing apart from family and the clothes they are wearing. Some of them don't even have that, one unfortunate lad I was talking to had lost both parents and was really an orphan. I think he was about twelve years old. He didn't go to school as he probably lived on his own or with his siblings and had to grow food on his parents plot of land. I let him hold my hand and gave a comforting squeeze. I didn't know what else to do. His parents probably died from malaria or AIDS.
One other lad had trousers on that were way too big and even with a knot in the waist band he still had to hold them up with one hand all the time.
They were a happy bunch though with some occaisonal tears as one would get run over by the tyre or step on something sharp, probably accacia thorn. Eventually we decided to go back as we were a couple of villages away from where our contingent lived and the smallest one looked very tired. Bec and I took turns carrying her back to the village. On our arrival back at the village I don't think the mum was too pleased that her daughter had strayed so far or was gone for so long, but she was home safe and sound. We left our troop of new friends by the village water pump and departed around the corner behind the banana trees to frantic waving and cheerful goodbyes.
With smiles on our faces we returned to the campsite for a refreshing drink (coke - were are addicted to it) before heading back out to a local restaurant. We sat in the tin roofed hut with mud floor and wooden planking for walls and sat on a home made bench probably made of an old pallet. We choose matooke, green bananas and maize sort of mashed together, and a bean sauce. It was really tasty and the huge portion cost about 1500USh or $1.08 Australian or 43p.
We also have been trying chipatis with various fillings such as omlette with tomatoes, cabbage (which I am surprisingly fond of) and avocado or sweeter versions like bananas and local honey. All very tasty and even cheaper at 100USh or 83c Australian or 30p. I think we are going back for chipatis for dinner and desert! They do a banana and nutella version.
As for us how are we shaping up? Not bad, some days are better than others, overall it is a fantastic brilliant experience. On the gear front, apart from our continual conversations on what we will leave behind in the UK and my increasing lost list, everything is holding together. The tent seems to vary in size, but is generally too small, our sleeping bags too hot and sun screen costs and arm and a leg!
