Today marks the end of our third month in Uganda. We are at the halfway mark in our JGI volunteer program and one quarter of our trip is over. Could it possibly be a full year since we returned from New Zealand?
The reason there have been no entries recently is easily explained; nothing has happened. We spent Sunday and Monday painting. I also built a villager-proof cover for the rubbish pit and trimmed and re-hung the doors at the center so they now both open and close.
We are still a curiosity to the local kids, doubly so since Ben and Stuart (he’s a Scot, hence the ‘u’) are here. They approach us as one would a dog that was both wagging its tail and growling, not sure if we will smile or yell. So we waited until they were relaxed and then we screamed and roared and gave chase. Goodness, they are fast. We all laughed.
Connie and I made an errand run to Masindi yesterday, disappointing in that Maggie at the Shell station hasn’t produced our order. But we stocked up on cheese and veggies and even bought a frozen chicken and some hotdogs (sausages?) Of course we had fish and chips at Sally’s.
The road work continues. The 5 K they have graded and rolled is wonderful but the area under construction is a nightmare, erasing any time gains from the good section. Another drawback is that the other vehicles now travel at suicidal speeds even though the packed earth is slicker than ice after a rain. When you ride a motorbike it’s always good to have a bail-out plan.
Moses, Ben and Stuart just stated – and proudly, I might add – that they have about one hour left on the mural. That should about finish up the mural and we will once again have the place to ourselves. Connie absented herself when the real detail work, the finishing touches, began and did our laundry. I met with Kara on some Roots & Shoots ideas then followed her on the bike to the Sugar Works to use her computer to work things out with our bank for the wire transfer.
The real news was the arrival yesterday afternoon of an American couple and their six-year old son Kelton, he of the enormous blue eyes. They camped here last night and went on a chimp walk with Vincent this morning. Gary is a prof at Wake Forest and Jill is from Castle Rock, our home town! I am sure we have seen her dad at the rec center.
Wake Forest, it seems, encourages students to do things abroad like hiking in the Alps and has their teachers go along. But on this trip Gary and Jill sandwiched a teaching stint in Vienna between a visit to Thailand and Vietnam and six weeks in East Africa. Kelton is an innocent beneficiary and can handle his own in the adult travel conversations. Even the Americans you meet traveling off the beaten path are a cut above. We sat around our picnic table until after ten (yikes!) talking and again before they left for Murchison Falls today. Their Toyota Rav 4 rental is setting them back $90 a day making our motorcycle purchase seem like a wise investment.
