Uganda

Pemba and Zanzibar

smhnash — Sun, 2 Jun 2013 02:52:00 GMT

Hello again,

So we gave up our plan of crossing Tanzania by 48hr train, to get a crowded local bus for 6 hours and an extortionate taxi to relax on lake Tanganyika for 2 days and then cross into Malawi and Zambia before coming back by taxi/bus/train/camel/bicycle!

Instead, we decided to spend a month on the beach!

We started by taking the ferry across to Pemba island, a large island just north of Zanzibar. We found a nice place on the South of the island to relax. We took daily trips out to the sand bar and beaches, read books and were force fed lobster for 9 days. It was lovely, deserted and very peaceful. We took a trip to Masali island to snorkel on the coral reef and saw lots of fish similar to the Red Sea.

We then spent 5 days in Stone Town in Zanzibar, a lovely quiet Arabic influenced town with a white sand beaches, narrow streets, tiny shops and bazaars.

Then on to the East coast to Jambiani beach where we have been for a few days for beaching, swimming and walking amongst the palm trees. Its been quite nice (I'm trying to down play it to not cause jealousy). We are back in just under 3 weeks and despite the lovely surroundings we are both looking forwards to being home.

We should have time for one last blog with some good pics.

Love to all, Si xxx

hello

just a short one from me as Simon has already said what we have been up to. Been having a lovely time relaxing, playing in the sea and attempting to get a tan before we get home. simon however did not mention my highlight so far, I got to stroke a giant tortoise!!!! Never been so excited, I'm only sad I can't upload the pic as we are writing this on my I phone and the pic is on my camera. Anyway they are amazing, nearly as big as me, live to over 200 years old, the one I got to play with was born last century, how cool is that! Anyway all vey exciting!!

We have another couple of weeks enjoying the sun now and hoping we can bring it home with us. i can't quite believe our trip is nearly over, it's been an amazing adventure, but thankfully still a bit more adventuring to be done...

hope all is well at home love Helen xxxxx

Ps. Never visit dar es salaam unless you have too, we were there for 4 days waiting for the boat, dirty shithole are the only words I can use to acurately describe the place

Photos: Pemba and zanzibar

smhnash — Sat, 1 Jun 2013 01:22:00 GMT

Tanzania Safari

smhnash — Tue, 14 May 2013 02:07:00 GMT

Hello

After about 5 leaving do’s including a lovely one at my bosses house we finally left Rwanda! Crossing the border was fairly pain free apart from Simon having a small digestive incident and we made our way to Mwanza on the shore of lake Victoria where we took a couple of days to recover before our safari.

On Simon’s birthday we got up early and headed for the Ndabaka gate of the Serengeti, where we met our guide and vehicle for the safari. We then begain our safari, driving through the western corrdior seeing lots of animals pretty much form the start, zebra, Elephants Giraffes snakes lots of fancy birds and wilderbeasts. That evening we got our first glimpse of lions and leopards so were very lucky! We camped in the serengetti that night which was cool, lots of weeing outside of the tent so as not to get savaged by lions. We then spent the next day or so exploring the sergengeti going south and then north seeing lots of lions, hippos, hyena, jackles and a reappreance of the leopard cubs.

After camping for two night we went to stay in a lodge and were pleasantly surprised to find that as it was low season and the lodges had cropped their prices so much not only were we pretty much the only guests but were staying in $400 a night lodges! The serengetti was amazing you could see for hundreds of miles on the plains and it was bigger than the whole of Rwanda!

After the Serengetti we headed to Ngorogoro crater, seeing over a million wilderbeast on the way prepapring for the migration. Ngorogoro was pretty amazing, it was like a whole world inside of the crater with a lake, forest plains and more wiildlife than the serengetti just in the one crater. We spent a morning there and saw lots of lions, the rhino, hyenas and the flamingos on the lake which was cool. In the afternoon we drove to lake Manyara and chilled out at the pool before the next days game drive (it’s a hard life!) Manyara was cool, we saw more flamingos and lost of primates, Vervet monkeys, baboons and the black monkey and also elephants, giraffe and hippos. In the afternoon we did a short walking safari and saw the wilderbeast and thankfully no lions…eeek! That night we camped again and did wonder why we had decided to camp when a $400 lodge was actually the same price, but back to nature and all that!

Lake Tarangire was the last destination for our safari which was a bit different and full of Elephants, giant Baobab trees and swarming birds!! Our time on safari was amazing but who knew standing in a truck all day could be so tiring, on arrival to arusha I think we weerre probably aleep by 8.30!!

We were hoping to put loads of pics on here of our adventure but the usb port appears to not be working so we will add those in the next couple of days.

We have been in Arusha for a couple of days which is pretty much minging and are off on a 10 hr bus journey to Dar es Sallam tomorrow then we hope to get the train down south and visit lake Tangainka!

I hope all is well at home

Lots of love

Helen XX

Hi all,

I will only write a short message today. Safari was awesome as Helen has descibed, especially the Ngorogoro which was like something from ‘The Land that Time Forgot’, will hopefullly show some pics soon. Birthday was great though a bit surreal while camping in the middle of the Serengeti, surrounded by elephants, lions and with hyena and mongoose living in the kitchen!

We are off now to the South of the country and will hopefully be getting the train from Dar down to Mbeya on the Zambia border, then a few days on Lake Tanganyika for a canoe safari and maybe visit the chimps in Gombe.

Hope all is well with you

Lots of love

Farewell Rwanda

smhnash — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:00:00 GMT

Farewell Rwanda

Tomorrow is our last day at work and we set off for Tanzania on Thursday!

I can’t believe how quickly our time has whizzed by in Rwanda, I guess it is the routine of work in an office. I think working in Rwanda is what I expected from volunteering in Africa. We have met some lovely people, managed to achieve some things and felt appreciated for the work we have done so all in all a great experience ( very different from CTPH).

At the end of last week we went and did some work in the field. Simon did some teaching and we both did a nutrition and disease survey in Nyanza and then Nyungwe. It was all very interesting, visiting the Batwa community, if not a bit tiring....

After the work we travelled to Gisakura (also in Nyungwe) and stayed in the guest house there for a couple of nights. On Saturday we went in to the forest which was beautiful, passing through tea plantations and then visiting a pretty spectacular waterfall. The walk was really nice, 4 hrs and not too many steep hills, much nicer than the weekend before.

Tonight we are heading to our final pub quiz at an Italian (sol e Luna) we won the quiz last week (no thanks to me!) so have had to set the questions for this week. Tomorrow we are going for dinner at my boss’s house for a final send off and then we leave the land of a thousand hills for somewhere a bit flatter and possibly a bit warmer I think!

We will both leave Rwanda with fond memories and hope to visit again one day...... we also leave in our wake a broken computer with no functioning internet so blog posts will be a little shorter from now on-done by I phone unless we can locate a computer, it all seems to just be wifi and bring your own devise these days!

Anyway I hope all is good at home and we will post some more after our Safari on the Serengeti, exciting!!

Lots of love

Helen xxx

Hey there, just sitting at the office for the last time finishing the reports from the surveys we completed in Nyungwe of the Batwa community and the final report for my nutrition survey in Uganda (40 pages long!).

Will be sad to leave and Rwanda has been a great place to work, with great people and some lovely countryside. Looking forwards to Tanzania and will be there and in the Serengeti just in time for my birthday on the 5th May.

Hope you are all well, lots of love to all and will be in touch soon.

Climbing Bisoke

smhnash — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:59:00 GMT

Last week was a nice week, with the memorial finished things seemed to lift a little. We went to two leaving do’s one of a couple of fellow volunteers who were returning to the UK and another of a giant Congolese man who was leaving one of REDO’s partner organisations. The first was fairly loud with lots of fish brochettes (kebabs) and Mutzig and the other was slightly more sedate with a buffet and a whole roast goat with lots of speeches in French that I didn’t understand and then lots of awkward silences where we weren’t sure whether we were waiting for another speech or allowed to start chatting again. It was great to be out with our work colleagues though and getting to know them a little better and to see the difference between a work leaving do at home and in Rwanda. In Rwanda it’s a quite affair with good food, you are expected to pay for nothing and get dropped at your house afterwards. At home it rarely involves much food but does involve copious amounts of alcohol, a journey home you don’t remember (and in fact are not sure how you got back)and finding lots of credit card receipts the next morning from buying shots at the bar!

We were meant to be on a field trip later in the week to Nyungwe but that is now this week so we decided to go to Volcanoes National park at the weekend for a gentle stroll up the smallest volcanoe. I really thought that it wasn’t going to be that hard (we did quite a lot of walking up steep hills in Bwindi) but how wrong was I!!!

I don’t think I have ever done a hike (or more accurately a climb/scramble) like it, even in my 5 times of trekking in the Andes. We set off at 6am to go to the park and after all the faffing around actually set off walking at 9am. We set off with another group that were going to Diane Fossey s memorial and in our group there was just me and Simon and one other guy. After an hour of uphill walking we were already a bit tired but had just reached the point where the Diane Fossey group left us, apparently this was where our climb started ( I thought it already had done about 45 minutes ago!)

After about another half an hour of climbing up what was almost a vertical slope of ankle height mud I asked the guide if it was like this all the way, fully expecting him to say no, I was disappointed to hear his reply was yes. I then thought/hoped he was joking but he wasn’t!!! another 2 ½ hours of climbing up and sliding down mud- think climbing vertically in sand, with huge rock steps every now and again andafter several times of saying I couldn’t make it we reached the top – 3700 meters! Thankfully we were lucky and despite the rainy season we saw the Crater Lake and a lovely view of the park from the top. I like to think it was worth the all the pain but given the option again I think I would pass on the view......

We didn’t get a break at all on the way up and apparently only 10 minutes was allowed at the top for a few biscuits! Then the way down, which I thought, would be a bit easier but went on forever and was possibly even harder. Simon likened the whole experience to the time he climbed Ben Nevis with a hangover..... After 3 hours of pounding the legs and arms (7hrs in total) we finally made it to the car at 4pm.We headed back to the hostel we were staying, pretended we had enjoyed the trip to some of the guests and then pretty much crashed out. The next day we got up late pottered around a bit and headed back to Kigali.

Today I can barely walk, I almost had to jump on a moto taxi to work (my walk is only 20 minutes) as my legs just won’t work and I have tennis elbow from leaning on my stick all the way down ...I can safely say that will be the last volcanoe I climb...... When I was telling my boss Damascene this morning, he said he had done it in 2009 and never wanted to do it again...my sentiments exactly! We are going to opt for the canopy walk in Nyungwe this weekend, nothing longer than an hour for me.....

Hope all is well at home

Lots of love

Helen xx

Pain...............lots of pain, that’s all I can say, beautiful view but lots of pain and we are still exhausted 2 days later.

It is a beautiful place in the North of Rwanda, all hills which are terraced with banana trees and with scatterings of lakes and volcanoes, I just think we might have been able to appreciate it just as well at 2000ft as at 3700ft. Actually had some altitude sickness effects and we were both quite giddy on the way down, like being slightly drunk.

Anyway, enjoy the view at our exense and I will give a bigger report when we get back from Nyungwe.

Lots of Love............Si

A quiet week in Kigali

smhnash — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 04:40:00 GMT

So this week we have mainly been doing this.....

This week has been genocide memorial week in Rwanda so has been a very quite week for us and has coincided with no power almost every evening this week so we have been spening alot of our time as above in the evenings. The mood here has been a bit sombre as you can imagine and we have spent quite a bit of time in our new flat.

Sunday was the main memorial day and was market by a procession form the presidential palace to the stadium outside of our house. Our flat mate was invited to attend and so went along to the service but we decided to stay home for the day. The rest of the week has been only half days in the office so we have spent quite a bit of time at home reading in the afternoons and watching films when the power has allowed! and we were a bit naughty and decided to spend an afternoon by the pool as the weather has still been good.

Today we went to a craft market and bought a few bits and bobs of toursit rubbish and then went to a film screening of 3 films about the genocide which was a bit eye opening for me.

Tomorrow the official memorial week is over so we will be going out with some friends who are leaving next week for dinner and drinks and next week we will be out and about on field tips and hope to get to Nyungwe forest for the weekend.

Lots of love

Helen

Hey there, as Helen says it's been a bit quiet this week but has given us a chance to catch up on some sleep and settle into our life here. It's a nice clean, quiet city and we now know our area quite well (a newly developed, modern area around the national stadium andthe airport called Remera), we have been into the centre a few times and are out of town again next week as we visit the areas to the East.

We have also been planing the next part of our trip starting in May, we will be leaving Rwanda and heading East into Tanzania, visiting Serengeti and the Ngorogoro Crater before hitting Dar es Salaam and deciding then where to go next. Maybe investigate southern Tanzania or cross the borders South into Malawi, Mozambique or Zambia (or we may just stay by the beach!).

We are just back from watching some thought provoking movies on the genocide, has been a somber week and was good for us to see what people are thinking about the geocide after 19 years. Some sad moments but also some hopeful ones.

Anyway, enough from me, we have a couple of weeks work left to do and then things get interesting again,

Lov to all

Simon

Life in Rwanda

smhnash — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 02:02:00 GMT

Work in Rwanda, week 2

We have now finished week 2 of our work in Rwanda. This week has been good, with a bit of work in the office and a trip to volcanoes national park to carry out a survey with the beekeepers there. The park was very beautiful, hills, volcanoes and a lake so it was a very nice work outing and we will definitely be heading back there for some trekking. The survey was to assess the beekeeping processes and what needs to be improved so that the honey and processes are of the standard to be able to be exported, so you may see Burera honey on the shelves in the next couple of years..... We also got paid for the survey which was a bit of a bonus!

We have found a nice flat now in Kigali with a small room for rent, sharing with a girl who is working for the world food programme. The flat is in a great location, in Remera which is a 20 minute walk to work and in a good place for shops and restaurants. We moved in at the start of last week and it is definitely nice to finally be settled for the rest of the month, to unpack our bags and feel like we are living here for a bit.

Last weekend we went to Gisenyi which is on the shores of Lake Kivu. The place is small but very pretty and we enjoyed some nice walks and book reading and just generally chilled out and made the most of the sun before the rains really kick in. The trip there took 3hrs on the local bus and Gisenyi is in the far west of the country (in fact we almost crossed the border in to DRC without realising..ooops!) so you can imagine how small Rwanda is....not that much bigger than Cornland! So we are hoping to get out at the weekends and see some of the other areas.

We have also discovered why Rwanda is called the land of a thousand hills, I don’t think there is a piece of flat land here, the landscape is just of thousands of rolling hills! Rainy season has also been pretty good in that so far this week it has rained only for half an hour today so it not quite the torrential downpours I was expecting but I’m guessing they are to come.

This weekend will be quiet as it is the start of the genocide memorial week. Yesterday we went and spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool at Hotels Des Mille Collines (Hotel Rwanda if you have seen the film) which was lovely and then went around to the flat of some fellow volunteers for dinner. Today is the memorial parade which is at the stadium just opposite our flat so we will be keeping a low profile and enjoying our new flat.

I think that is all for now

Lots of love

Helen xxx

Hi there,

So Rwanda seems nice so far, it is a small and beautiful country with rolling hills, lakes and volcanoes. Kigali is clean with good roads and lots to do and our flat is nice with a large lounge and we have been able to cook for ourselves for the first time on the trip.

The people we are working with have been great so far and very helpful. We have met with a group of expats all working with the same agency as us, though in different parts of town and even went to pub quiz with them on Monday! We are living in one of the nicer parts of town just opposite the national stadium and near to some nice restaurant while still remaining about 10 minutes walk from work, so pretty perfect.

I have 3 jobs now, the first with REDO (Helens group), teaching hygiene and sanitation to the Batwa (pygmies), the second with Benishyaka (orphans and widows from the genocide) organising a nutrition programme and the third for HFLM (don’t know what it stands for yet!) doing health screening for the street children and orphans who get sick lots.

We are out at a house party last night, so a little hung over, but we will be having a quiet week this week during the genocide memorial so should be well rested.

We had a nice trip away on Thursday in the Volcanoes Park (famous from Gorillas in the Mist), a really beautiful area on the Uganda border with lakes on one side and volcanoes on the other. We are due to work in another of Rwandas parks next week as we survey the pygmie populations in Nyagunwe Forest.

Will keep you informed. Love to all,

Simon

Photos: Kigali, Gisenyi and volcanoes

smhnash — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 01:40:00 GMT

Goodbye Uganda, Hello Rwanda

smhnash — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 04:51:00 GMT

Okay,

So when we last sent a blog we were in Uganda and now we are in Rwanda! Its a long story but I will try to not make it boring.

Half of our time in Uganda was to be spent in Bwindi Forest and the other half in Entebbe (just next to the capital Kampala). CTPH had not managed to find me (Simon) any work to do there and we were starting to get more than slightly pissed off with them (for multiple reasons that we can tell you about in person).

We got the oportunity to seek our fortune in Kigali (Rwanda) and decided to take it!

Our last week in Bwindi was great, we had enough time to finish up our work there, I finished off my nutrition survey and gave 4 teaching sessions on nutrition and hygeine to various local groups including the local youth organisation and the empowered womens group (Ride 4 a women).

We had a big party on the last night and will be sad not to see our local friends Joseph, Solomon, Aggrey and Alex as well as Denis, Eveleyne and Jessica. They were a great bunch and we will miss them.

We are now sitting in a hotel room in Kigali, hoping to move into a nice appartment next week just next to the Italian retaurant in the picture. I managed to get 2 jobs today, one working for an environmental group also involved in supporting the pygmie population and the other a group working with ophans and widows from the gencide in 1994. Shoul be fun and involve som trips into the countryside.

Anyway, thats enough from me, over to Helen..........

We are very excited to be in Rwanda after a fatastic couple of months in Uganda.We were not so excited about the prospect of continuing work for CTPH(as Simon says we can tell you all about it when we get home) and living in Entebbe which is lovely but very sleepy and quiet with not much to do and so jumped at the chnace for a second adventure in Rwanda.

I am now working for REDO (rural and Environmental Develpment Organisation) who work in conservation educating the local Batwa, doing tree planting and other local schemes. My main job is going to be working with their beekeeping collectives to help them make this in to a sustainable business! Knowing nothing about business or bees this is going o be a fun new experience for me an I hope I can actually do something useful....! Today I have been learning all about beekeeping and next week I will be travelling to the Volcanoes National Park to meet some of the bee keepers.

First impressions of Kigali are good, it is a very clean city, seems well organised and a bit more together than Uganda but its only day 3 so we will see. The rains have started here so not much sun for a while, may decide to chase the sun down to southern africa after this as we get enought rain in conrwall!

Anyway we will be back to regular blogging now we are in a city again!

Hope all is well with everyone

Lots of love

Helen

Photos: goodbye Uganda, hello Rwanda

smhnash — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 04:06:00 GMT

Bunyonyi and Queen Elisabeth Safari

smhnash — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 01:37:00 GMT

Hi Everyone,

We are just back from our weeks holiday and had a great time. As you could probably tell from our last blog we were a little in need of a break and the week off came just in time. Work had been a bit frustrating in the previous few weeks and CTPH are struggling to fund our work so we were getting a bit annoyed with them and life in general. When things don’t go right here, you can feel a a long way from home!

Anyway, we headed off South from Bwindi towards the Rwandan border and were dropped off on the shore of Lake Bunyonyi. It is a large lake with 29 islands and we had booked to stay on one called Bushara Island.

The boat trip across the island was lovely as the lake was completely still and we were to spend the next 5 days in a tree house on the south side of the 500 metre long island. The treehouse was very peaceful, with great views and we spent the next few days eating, sleeping and swimming in the lake (happily free of Bilharzia!).

We even went on a canoe tour past punishment island, where teen pregnancies would be dumped to die, we also visited Sharps Island and Leper Island. Sharp was a doctor who set up a leper colony in the 1920s (on Leper Island of course) and his island was laden with English Thatched cottages, gardens and even a tennis court (bear in mind that it is only 150 meters long!)

We left the island on Thursday and headed north to Queen Elisabeth National Park. This part of Uganda is much hotter and is surrounded by flat Savannah and mountains in the distance.

On our first day we booked a boat trip along the Kazinga Channel which runs between Lake Edward and Lake Albert. There were Hippo’s, Elephants, Buffalo, Colobus Monkeys and hundreds of birds.

The next morning we were up at 6am for an early game drive in the park - as the sun came up we saw herds of Ugandan Kob, Buffalo, Hyena, Waterbuck and finally some lions. We found a mated pair who were hiding in some bushes, the male roaring at us as he defended his mate.

The next day we just planned a short walk in the woods (Kalinzu Forest) nearby but when they arrived we were told there were chimpanzees nearby and we could track them for a limited fee (about £20). We set off into the forest with a local guide and within 10 minutes had found a lone male chimp eating berries in a tree. Above him was his leaf nest where he had spent the night. We watched him eat and scratch himself for half an hour before heading off to locate the rest of his troupe (normally around 20), they were nowhere to be found but we met troupes of red-tailed monkeys, L’Hoest monkeys and Black and White Colobus monkeys before finding him again on the way back as he hunted for Zafara ants.

On our way out of the forest we stopped off at a pool for some sunbathing and then on the way back we met a herd of elephants trying to cross the highway. We watched them for about half an hour as the matriarch tried to shepherd the infants across to safely while cars flew past at high speed (they made it of course).

We have just arrived back in Bwindi now and have a busy week planned with more surveys and Helen is finally getting some cash to renovate the camp, over to you Helen………

I think Simon has just about covered it, but missed out one of the most important things….for 5 days we actually had a flushing toilet….yes a real one you can sit on and not see your own poo! So other than all the highlights Simon mentioned, Lions, Hippos, Elephants and Monkeys there was also the flushing loo…. We had a lovely 10 days holidays enjoying the wildlife and sun and have just arrived back in Bwindi which is now also hot and sunny and it was nice to come back to a lovely welcome from the team…feels a bit like coming home…. Hello bucket loo in all your finery!

Hope all is good with everyone

Lots of love Helen (and Simon!) xxx

And yes Ross, Simon is a bit grubby but I’ve managed to trim the red beard so he looks slightly less vagrant like….

Photos: Byunyoni and Queen Elizabeth

smhnash — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 01:08:00 GMT

Off on our hols!

smhnash — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 04:16:00 GMT

Good evening from Uganda!

We have just finished another working week! A tough Friday, 3 meetings and a ride on the back of a boda-boda?

We’ve now finished and are relaxing for the evening with a Nile special (beer), we are off tomorrow for a weeks holiday. First off to Lake Bunyoni a few hours South from here to relax and swim in the lake, maybe canoe or walk around the lake but probably just read some books and do nothing.

After that we are off to Queen Elisabeth National Park, a small park with Elephants and Lions, hopefully do a safari drive or a walking safari. Then back work!

Work has been good, just finished a meeting with our community volunteers who educate on hygiene in the villages. Spent a while teaching them about malnutrition and how to prevent it as well as how to identify children with malnutrition and when to send them to hospital.

Almost finished with the nutrition survey, last few villages had nearly 40% malnutrition levels in the under 5’s. Gave some education sessions in schools and village groups so good few days.

Had to stop work on Wednesday as a boy had murdered his mother in the village we were due to visit, then the next day was the funeral so no work then either as all the villages attend.

Actually managed to go out for a romantic evening on Valentines, went to one of the expensive safari lodges, had a lovely dinner and relaxed in plush luxury (before returning to our tent with en-suite bucket!)

Anyway over to Helen.........

A short post from me today as I’m sat drinking a beer on our first evening of holiday! Had a fun week enjoying Bwindi, went out on a forest walk, saw lots of monkeys and swam in a very cold waterfall! Very much looking forward to relaxing by a lake and going on safari and hopefully having some pizza...food is somewhat lacking in variety here..!

Hope all is well with everyone

Lots of love Helen xxx

Kyogo and Congo

smhnash — Sat, 9 Feb 2013 01:42:00 GMT

Hello

So after the excitement of seeing the gorillas this week has been a little more chilled out. I have spent time around the camp here with the odd visit for a nice beverage at one of the fancy lodges and also a run up there, on which we were joined by about 20 kids! Meant I had to keep going so it was good exercise.... We also went on a bar crawl of the lodges at the weekend as one of the guests staying here had a car which caused great excitement!

Yesterday we walked to the Congo which was an epic walk! We went to do a nutrition survey in a remote village called Chogo which involved 2 hrs walking up hill up a mountain with Alex form CTPH who walks even faster than my dad.....I practically had to run to keep up with him and almost didn’t make it! The view from the top was amazing though we could see right over the Congo and only a few hundred meters from where it starts in the forest.

The village we visited called Kyogo was at the top of the mountain and really pretty but isolated from most things, it a two hr walk carry in stretcher to the nearest hospital and water is collected form holes they dig to collect rainwater and food is hard to come by so quite a few cases of malnutrition. The school was just an old church that most children cannot afford to go to and they have no books just a chalk board and most people cannot read or write there so I am hoping to help Alex out with fundraising for the school, so might be asking for your help!!!

Anyway, relaxing day today and maybe a walk at the weekend

Lots of love

Helen xx

Hey there,

As you see from all the lovely pictures, we have been busy, he climb to Kyogo (proounced Chogo) was brutal, both of us nearly collapsed before the top. The survey was great, Heln working in one team with her translator Innocent. I was working with Alex and this meant we coered more houses over our 2 hour period. I have just finished my report of the village and we found a 40% malnutrition rate in the under 5 population which was high and related to the isolation and poor education of nutrition and disease.

We are hoping to go back to help with the problems there but are a bit afraid of the climb!

Otherwise things are going well, we are off walking in the forest on Sunday to see the monkeys and to swim in a waterfall. Hopefully the weekafter we are off for a week holiday in Lake Bunyonyi and then to the Queen Elisabeth National Park (lions and elephants)

Hope you are all well

Lots of love

Photos: Nutrition survey and congo

smhnash — Sat, 9 Feb 2013 01:30:00 GMT

Gorillas in the mist

smhnash — Sun, 3 Feb 2013 01:17:00 GMT

Hello

We have had a busy week this week. I spent Wednesday in the lab poking around with Gorilla poo to see if there were any parasites, which was fun. Saw a few different parasites and got to wear a fancy Jacket and mask which was cool.

We had a massive thunder and lightning storm and got stuck across the road in the bike shed where another of the guests staying at CTPH had set up the bike scheme I mentioned in a previous blog.

The main event f the week though was that we finally went to see the gorillas! It was all very exciting, we had to get up early and walk up the hill to be on standby for the permits so we were not sure if we would actually get to go but in the end we were assigned to go and see the Habinyanja group, which has about 17 members.

We started off with a short drive and then a 2hr uphill trek through the mountains to the start of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. We then had about half an hour walk in the jungle before we reached the trackers and then the gorillas. As you can see form the pics we got be very close to the gorillas, you are meant to be 7 meters away but it was more like a few. We were able to watch them for about an hour and saw them all relaxing and eating and the little ones playing. We also saw the Silverback who was huge! It was such an amazing but surreal experience being so close to the gorillas who were so relaxed in our presence. Definitely one of the best wildlife experiences I have ever had and now I want to go back and see them again to take it all in properly without being so excited!!!

We are pretty tired today form our long walk as it was 1 ½ hours back so have spent the morning doing washing (exciting!) and popped to a local market.

Next week we will be doing more of the same, nutrition survey, hopefully some poo and also some fundraising stuff and then another walk in the forest next weekend but sadly no second visit to the gorillas $1,000 means it’s only something you get to do once!

Hop all is well at home

Lots of love

Helen xxx

Hi again,

So, as Helen said, it has been an interesting week. Work has been pretty much delayed due to heavy rains and meetings at the hospital but the main event was the gorilla trekking.

Started in the dark at 6am, meeting at the trekking headquarters then short drive to the North of the park and a 2 hour trek up into the forest, some beautiful views and then we stumbled upon the gorillas.

They had been feeding all morning and were taking their afternoon siesta, most of the adults were just lying around chatting while the infants were playing and climbing trees.

We got to stay with them for about an hour, sitting about 4-5 metres away, watching them eat, play and communicate amongst each other, occasionally looking over curiously but mostly just ignoring us as we jostled for view and snapped away with our cameras.

Really amazing experience to just watch them peacefully go about their day, lazing around seemingly oblivious to our presence. At one point the blackback male who was behind us walked past within a metre while grunting to the massive silverback in front of us. Felt like being in the middle of a really macho conversation, with deep booming noises passing back and forward.

The infants were very cute, one of the smallest decided to try some tree climbing and spent about 5 minutes handing from a branch while spinning around (will try to put the video on the blog).

Exhausting day but well worth the trip, will be trying a shorter trek next weekend to see the monkeys and then off the Queen Elisabeth park the following weekend.

Hope you are all well

Lots of love

Photos: Gorillas

smhnash — Sun, 3 Feb 2013 00:46:00 GMT

gorillas in Bwindi

Weekend In Bwindi

smhnash — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 23:02:00 GMT

Hey All,

So, we have been here a week now and starting to settle into a routine. Up at 8am woken by the sounds of insects and birds. Wander through a forest path to the dining hut and wait for our eggs on taost. This gives the water just enough time to heat up for a shower (water heated in a pan over a fire). Then a shower in the tent, in scalding water and then ready for a days work.

I head off out into the community (there are about 7 villages within walking distance), Helen sometimes comes with or is working in the camp or visiting the local lodges. After a few hours walking around the villages, stopping at houses and asking mothers about illness in their children or problems with water or food shortages, I head back for a short lunch, write up a brief report then more of the same int he afternoon.

Back for 6pm when its just getting dark, dusty and hot from walking. Another shower and some good dinner then relax with a beer and some of the locals come around for a chat and a bit of a laugh.

Off to bed and watch a bit of TV on the laptop, currently Avatar and Downton Abbey to remind us of home. Gotto go but more to follow...

Internet access not great here, so may have to write in bits and pieces......

So thats our daily Mon-Friday routine, on the weekend we took a bit of a walk around town, about 20 shanty looking shops on either side of a dirt road, selling anything from Barberry bags (thats not a spelling mistake) to bottles of soda and tins of jam. Every other shop is to top up airtime for phones. We walked down to the river and sat watching the world go by, then went for a walk out over the surrounding hills with some friends and one of the local doctors.

It's a nice, simple way of life here, you can see where everybodys water and food come from, speak to anyone openly about their problems and laugh happily with anyone in the street. Small town life where everyone knows everyone.

This coming week we will be continuing our survey as well as hopefully going off to see the gorillas. Helen is looking to help bring in some funds for the programmes here as well as looking at refurbing the camp we live in. She's hard at work and I'm waiting for a meeting with the hospital administrator so I get to do the update, hopefully she will be back online soon

Will keep in touch, all our love

Simon and Helen

Hello I'm back! Been on the computer most of the day so will do the next update! Have been having fun joing in the local ladies sewing and seeing the ladies above (dancing in the photo) learning to become mechanics and ride bikes!! hope to see teh gorillas soon. lots of love xxx

Bwindi Impenetrable forest

smhnash — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:21:00 GMT

Hello

We have finally arrived in the jungle hurray!

After a hideous 14 hr bus journey, in which the bus stopped about every 100 meters for the last 5 hrs, we finally arrived in Buhoma vllage, Bwindi. After we had got over the trauma of the bus (and vowing not to take the bs back!) we settled in to our tent! The tents are actually quite nice, very spacious, comfy bed, hot bucket shower (on request) and even the loo isn't too bad (as long as I don't go in after Simon - pretty standard) its a bucket with a seat that looks a bit like a toilet and provided teh aim is on target all is good!

We had a nice day relaxing on Sunday, which ivolved a nice walk up to the top of a hill to have a drink in a fancy lodge! Bwindi is lovely, a bit like a tropical lakedistrict but without the lakes. All the stories of cold and rain appear unfounded so far, it is very hot and sunny, but cool at night which is perfect.

We started 'work' on monday which involved going to visit the new site to which the gorilla camp will be, we veiwed it form a distance and decided to hike up there one morning this week when its less hot. We popped in to UWA (ugandan wildlife Authority) to meet some of the guys who work there as CTPH works in partnership with them. We also enquired about our gorilla trekking passes and will probably get to see the gorillas week afetr next, very exciting!!! if we don't see them in teh village before, they come down quite a lot aparently.

After failign to get teh internet to work yesterday. Today I have been doing computer stuff which is a bit boring and hard to do when there is so much exciting stuff to do out and about, so I spent the afternoon dropping off leaflets at the lodges and had another nice drink in a fancy lodge.

Loving Bwindi, I think it will be a nice place to be for 2 months and even picking up a bit or rochiga, the local language!

think thats it form me Helen xx

Hey All,

I have just arrived back from a day out in the community. Myself and Alex (a local Ugandan) have visited 2 communities within 30 mins from the lodge. We visited 12 households in each and sat down with the families and asked about nutrition and diseases in the community, investiating any sick people and advising the comunity on nutrition and hygeine. Has been good to see how people live here and looking forwards to going out tomorrow with Helen to continue the survey.

Last night we popped into the hospital next door and helped out the Scottish couple who are just starting to work in the in-patient deartment. Helped to diagnose virl encephalitis, malaria and a suspecte cerebral TB case, interesting diseases out here!

Life here is good, the tent is already starting to feel like home and we are in the centre of the community, not far from town, shops and the hospital. We wake in the morning to the sound of insects and open the doors of the tents and see only trees!

Should be a good 2 months, we will be continuing the nutrition assessment for a few weeks en will start training the local health workers to educate on mass. Will aslo be going out to work in the other community hospitl on Thursday and mybe treking across the forest to visit the communities on the other side of the park.

Looking forwards to relaxing this wekend and maybe trekking to the peak of the mountains here or down through the rivers. Have already een lots of monkeys and brds but keen for a sighting of the gorillas.

Will let you know more soon

Hope you are all well...........Simon xx

Weekend at the Zoo

smhnash — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 04:53:00 GMT

Hello

We are back from our adventures at the zoo! We ha a fun weekend staying amongst all the animlas and even got to naming a few (below is a picture of brian the otter who lived with Sheila, next to the shoe bill, eric!). It was an exciting place to stay apart form the 15 minute walk in the pitch black through the zoo to reach our bandas on a saturday night after seeign a local Jazz band!

We ae sort of getting in to the swing of things with work, although we are both still not quite sure what we are meant to be doing but we are going to the Jungle at 4am on saturday morning so very exciting! We will be living in a tent in Bwindi impentetrable forest for the next couple of months which is suposed to be the most beautiful area in Uganda so we are looking forward to it. Hopefully the beautiful sceanary ad seeing the gorillas will make up for shitting in a bucket for 2 months.....

We are going by local bus which takes 10 hrs which should be interesting and will be getting our trekking permits hopefully to see the gorillas in teh next month. We will also be visiting Queen Elizabeth National park as part of my work (to look at their Telecentre) and the local communities as art of simns (think I will be his glorified PA for a few days!).

We hope to keep the blog up to date whilst we are there but they currently have no internet or water so who knows!

Lots of love Helen xxx

Hi again,

You must be loving this blogging business by now! Never even looked at one before starting this one but it's quite fun really. Sitting in Entebbe (lovely calm town on the edge of Lake Victoria), drinking a Nile Special (Beer) and thinking about our past week.

Zoo was fun, staying in a conical house surrounded by bugs and animals, listening to the lions roaring (normally at about 8pm), walking to work through the zoo before its open, being chased by rogue, blue testicled monkeys!

Work is getting a bit more settled. The public health officer who told me there was no current public health programmes working at the moment has now left, leaving lots of oportunities for me to pick up! Sat in a meeting for 2 hours today helping to plan Uganda's response to various outbreak diseases.

Have had my nutrition assessment of the Bwindi community approved so will be planning to walk around the communities in and around the park (with Helen is she's avilable) doing a nutrition and communicable diseases assessment of the population.

Anyway, that's enough talk about work, looking forwards to heading into the jungle and getting back to basics, sounds like its very basic at the moment!

Hope you are all well

Lots of Love............Si