After breakfast we strolled into Jinga town stopping first for yet more money. You get it when it’s available! Besides, we spent a bundle on this trip; 100,000/= each way for transport, $95 each (credit card) for rafting and 130,000/= a night for the room, very nice by any standards with a large bathroom and a great deck. Then we found a hair salon cum disco that was willing to tackle Connie’s hair. It actually came out good as she wisely supervised the cutting of the bangs. You can’t expect much for $5.00
Then we searched out the Welcome Home Orphanage where Mandy, the head from the US (or Australia) showed us around. There were sixty-one kids up to four years old, nice children and seemingly well-cared for. If they are not adopted here, they go to another orphanage where they continue schooling and learn skills they can use in Uganda. The place is unbearably fundamentalist Christian and only like-minded folks are considered for adopting. But they have a lot invested in the children so they deserve to have a say. There are probably worse fates than growing up with the religious right, although few come to mind right now.
We scurried back to the Palm Tree for a last wash-up and a taco salad for lunch and were picked up on schedule by Gregory for the 2 ½ hour trip back to Entebbe. There have been a lot of gnat-like insects around here, lake flies we are informed. Tonight there were funnel clouds of them all around and you could actually hear the little rascals. So we went inside and battened down the hatches. A headline in today’s paper announced that 500 Ugandans die from malaria everyday. Another said that four fisherman were killed by a hippo and two leopards took out several more Ugandans. And then there is Kampala! Only in Africa