So it’s been over a week since I’ve updated my blog, and this is the longest silence my blog has ever had without a warning, (a fact I was ignorant of prior to my mom’s observation).
We finished up in Kasese on Friday, and drove back to Mbarara that afternoon. We’ve now spent over 1.5 months in that city. Kasese as a town received some pretty sad reviews from both the Lonely Planet and Brandt guidebooks. And while those observations were pretty accurate, the town has a certain wild west charm to it’s dirt streets and it’s slew of Ugandan restaurants (but no western, Chinese, Indian or other exotic foods).
But I have to admit that I have a new appreciation for Mbarara. This town is far larger, busier, has better restaurants (and therefore better food), and most importantly, seems more lush and tropical than Kasese. And while it’s more tropical, it’s also cooler, likely due to greater humidity. An apt comparison would be Kasese is like Kamloops (in the rain shadow of the coast mountains) drier and hotter in the summer, and Mbarara is like Vancouver (greener, cooler and bigger – but no ocean in Mbarara).
So I feel like I’m back in a much nicer setting, and it’s doing wonders for my mental state. I’m not sure if it’s the greenness, or the Canada house setting which seems more like home, but I’m far more relaxed, and far more motivated.
For those interested, we met our deadline with three days to spare, and we’re hoping to submit another proposal before we head for four days off at the end of the month. The five original projects have been pared down. As mentioned previously, one was impossible from a design perspective (despite my best efforts), one was impossible because there is no road access (though I still intend to write the proposal conditional on the road being built), and two were not expensive enough, so we will have to combine them.
We had a target of three for that district and we’ve achieved two. But frankly we don’t have the time, (I’ve only got a month of work left) to get a third, so we’ve switched to the Mbarara district for the last month, because we need to find a project in this diocese or Acts will get kicked out of Canada House.
But all of that was inconsequential to the Kampala marathon! Seven of us headed out from Mbarara on Saturday morning. Four of us (Wes, Andrea, Naomi and I) to do the half marathon, two of us to catch an emergency flight out (the camp boss, Bern has a detached retina and is flying back to Vancouver for an operation, and his wife is accompanying him), and Tim, the Acts regional director/coach.
Prior to my arrival in Uganda, I was lucky to be connected with a fellow BCer who happens to be teaching at the prestigious Kabira international school. Some of the current enrolled students include the King of Toro and the princess of Bugamba (there are several kingdoms in Uganda). I was lucky enough to be able to stay at her place on Saturday night. Also went to a BBQ on Saturday night and had an impression of what it would be like to be an expat in Uganda. All of the well traveled nations were represented; Australia, France, Neatherlands and Canada. In terms of people attending, it seemed identical to BBQs in Vancouver. Conscious of the race, limited myself to one beer and went to sleep at 10pm.
Got up the next morning at 5:30am, had a quick breakfast and headed of to the start of the race. Something beautiful about waking up before dawn, but the beauty isn’t worth the sacrificed sleep. Crossed the start line at 7:15am.
I have to admit this was one of the most unique ways of seeing Kampala (well, not so unique I suppose, there were reportedly over 10,000 running, most were doing the 10km). Having hundreds of Ugandans cheer you as you run through the smoggy haze. Running through neighborhoods on busy streets you’d normally be terrified of passing through in car. Not to say it wasn’t still thrilling, they didn’t shut down traffic, this is the main city after all. In fact, only on a few streets did the runners have complete security. In other places you had to be pretty nimble in dodging the cars, and one round-about at kilometer 18 was still in full operation. I had to stop two cars to get through that one.
One of the highlights was being offered a bag of white powder at the water station at kilometer 15. The guy ahead of me took a handful and brought it to his face. He seemed to get a real boost from the stuff, so I had to give it a shot. Glucose! Just like icing sugar. The shot lasted about 3 minutes, and then I felt worse.
I’m proud to say I...completed the course. And while I’m not certain of the time, I think it’s somewhere between 2:15 and 2:30 (there were two clocks when I crossed the finish line). I’m going with 2:15. Also, Tim’s friend measured the course the day before with his car and found it was actually 24km and not 21km. I’m not sure I believe that, but it does make me look better.
And yes, out of the four runners from Acts, I was the slowest. But I would like to point out that I’m also the oldest by six years...and my arthritis was acting up.
Anyway, now back in Mbarara searching out new sources and putting the finishing touches on the Kasese proposals. Heading back to Kampala for the off and I’m hoping to either do some whitewater rafting or kayaking.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Landmines and $10,000
We’ve spent four of the last five days at the guesthouse of the Kagando hospital. Kagando is a church run hospital in a lush valley to the east of Kasese, it’s approximately 30km from the border with the DRC. (But that doesn’t mean it’s in any danger from the tragic civil war occurring there, the Ugandan People’s Defense Force is in firm control of the border – so mom and Liz, please don’t fret).
We spent Friday tracing the low elevation source and possible pipeline routes, but as it became apparent when we went over the calculations that night, it won’t be possible to take that water anywhere useful with a pipeline. It’s strange, but we could actually take it further with a roman aqueduct than we can with modern plastic pipes, makes you wonder about technological improvements.
We were not the first ones to investigate this source as a possible GFS. The diocese had hired a private consultant four years ago to come up with a design and cost estimate, i.e. exactly what we wanted to do. However, the result of that report was a design bringing water to some 10,000 people. Curious as to how I could be so wrong, I took a very detailed look at the design...and found that a crucial line in the calculations had been deleted. This line would have changed all the subsequent calculations, proving the system wasn’t feasible.
So basically the report was incorrect due to one unintentional error (or perhaps it was intentional? – no consultant likes to come back to a client telling them a project isn’t possible – likely wouldn’t get paid as much!). The real kicker was that the diocese paid the consultant 17,000,000 Ush, or ~$10,000 for the report. Which made me immediately feel like I’d earned my keep here. Especially if I can put together three of these reports (without those kind of errors) before I leave.
Speaking of designs, Yona had put together a design for the project that we’d hiked up to some three weeks ago. This is the project that’s a three hour hike from the nearest road. In his design, he used steel pipe for some 2 km instead of plastic. I asked him why he would use a material that’s four times more expensive, was he worried about there not being enough soil to bury the pipe? Nope, he didn’t want to bury the pipe because he wasn’t sure if there were any landmines in the area from when the ADF where there in the late 1990s.
However, I should note that he completed the design some six years ago, and since then a Unexploded Ordinances (UXO) team has gone through and cleared the area. But you can bet, this will figure prominently in my proposal; no road, 3hr hike, and chance of landmines.
We are heading back to Mbarara at the end of this week so we can drive to Kampala on Saturday. Seems I may have mistakenly signed up for a half marathon. I don’t really like running, really don’t like running in large crowds, and the longest I’ve ever signed up for before is the 10km Sun Run. So I wasn’t really sure why I wanted to do this, other than I had nothing else planned for that weekend. And besides, how hard could it be?
So I’ve been training, and yesterday went for a long run deep into the valleys of Kagando. Everybody stares as I run by, except for the kids, who stare, and then start running with me. This is less motivating than you might think because they seem to run faster than me. It’s especially annoying because they’re generally between 2 and 5 and they shouldn’t run that fast.
Because we’re heading back to Mbarara on Friday, this week has generally been spent wrapping up the projects we feel good about, or thoroughly discarding the ones that don’t make the grade. I think I prefer this part of the job. Perhaps it's beacuse I finally have that feeling that I might finally be getting somewhere?
We spent Friday tracing the low elevation source and possible pipeline routes, but as it became apparent when we went over the calculations that night, it won’t be possible to take that water anywhere useful with a pipeline. It’s strange, but we could actually take it further with a roman aqueduct than we can with modern plastic pipes, makes you wonder about technological improvements.
We were not the first ones to investigate this source as a possible GFS. The diocese had hired a private consultant four years ago to come up with a design and cost estimate, i.e. exactly what we wanted to do. However, the result of that report was a design bringing water to some 10,000 people. Curious as to how I could be so wrong, I took a very detailed look at the design...and found that a crucial line in the calculations had been deleted. This line would have changed all the subsequent calculations, proving the system wasn’t feasible.
So basically the report was incorrect due to one unintentional error (or perhaps it was intentional? – no consultant likes to come back to a client telling them a project isn’t possible – likely wouldn’t get paid as much!). The real kicker was that the diocese paid the consultant 17,000,000 Ush, or ~$10,000 for the report. Which made me immediately feel like I’d earned my keep here. Especially if I can put together three of these reports (without those kind of errors) before I leave.
Speaking of designs, Yona had put together a design for the project that we’d hiked up to some three weeks ago. This is the project that’s a three hour hike from the nearest road. In his design, he used steel pipe for some 2 km instead of plastic. I asked him why he would use a material that’s four times more expensive, was he worried about there not being enough soil to bury the pipe? Nope, he didn’t want to bury the pipe because he wasn’t sure if there were any landmines in the area from when the ADF where there in the late 1990s.
However, I should note that he completed the design some six years ago, and since then a Unexploded Ordinances (UXO) team has gone through and cleared the area. But you can bet, this will figure prominently in my proposal; no road, 3hr hike, and chance of landmines.
We are heading back to Mbarara at the end of this week so we can drive to Kampala on Saturday. Seems I may have mistakenly signed up for a half marathon. I don’t really like running, really don’t like running in large crowds, and the longest I’ve ever signed up for before is the 10km Sun Run. So I wasn’t really sure why I wanted to do this, other than I had nothing else planned for that weekend. And besides, how hard could it be?
So I’ve been training, and yesterday went for a long run deep into the valleys of Kagando. Everybody stares as I run by, except for the kids, who stare, and then start running with me. This is less motivating than you might think because they seem to run faster than me. It’s especially annoying because they’re generally between 2 and 5 and they shouldn’t run that fast.
Because we’re heading back to Mbarara on Friday, this week has generally been spent wrapping up the projects we feel good about, or thoroughly discarding the ones that don’t make the grade. I think I prefer this part of the job. Perhaps it's beacuse I finally have that feeling that I might finally be getting somewhere?
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Our First Proposal (draft)
So we’ve finalized our preliminary design for the Bwesumbu GFS. It will have two glorious components and stretch over ~15km. It is designed to feed a current population of 6,000 and a 20 year population of 10,000. The materials alone will cost ~$200K, and while that may seem like a lot, we’re really looking for that magic figure of $250K, which, when everything else is tallied together, will represent for Acts the maximum funding they can seek from CIDA.
As this is the first CIDA proposal we’re ever written, we’ll be depending heavily on the higher ups at Acts to take a close look at it, and hopefully correct the errors we’ve made in our inexperience. But still, I’m quite proud of the design and proposal.
We’ve basically spent five of the past six days on this proposal. But it’s our first, so I’m hoping the rest will be easy. In fact, I’ve already completed the designs on two more systems. What originally took me five 10hr days now takes me 4-6 hrs. So nice to notice the improvement. But it’s also reassured me that I didn’t go into the wrong field. It’s fun to do for a while, and certainly seems to yield more immediate, concrete results than environmental consulting, but spending your life looking at spreadsheet calculations would drive me mad.
So now that we’ll have one down, we need to send off two more similar proposals in the near future, and while we have candidates, none of them seem clear cut. One is a three hour hike up. A second already has some water coverage, and the source isn’t high enough. And the leadership of the third is either absent half the time, or drunk. Which, while entertaining, doesn’t lead to a high degree of confidence in community participation in the project. So while we ended the month with five potential projects, three of them leave a few things to be desired...
Ah well, such is life with NGOs I guess...
On Wednesday we drove to a new part of the district, also in the foothills, but in a deep valley. While the other places we’ve visited all have spectacular views of the eastern rift valley, this one was completed surrounded by hills with the resulting effect that this place looked cut-off from the rest of the world. Cool, but I swear I heard a banjo playing in the background.
It was the first time we’d gone out in the field since we’d gotten back, and we’d forgotten how hard it was to get food out there. Most of the time we skip lunch because as soon as we arrive in a community, we’re surrounded by the locals. Most of whom accompany us for the duration of our time there. So when we pull out our biscuits or samosas, we either have to share, not share and guiltily eat in front them, or sneak off and quickly eat the food without appearing to be eating.
So we’ve learned to eat little at lunch, which usually means we’re starving by 3pm. But this time we were in luck. We finished our assessment in the early afternoon, and were able to stop at a trading center to get Rolexes for a very late lunch. A rolex is a chapatti (or chapat as they call them) and fried egg, rolled up (hence the “rol” in rolex). Out of the many foods I’ve discovered in this country, this has to be my favorite. The second most delicious would have to be the banana pancakes, which are made from sweet (yellow) bananas and cassava flour. The common ingredient between the two is grease. Hmm, grease.
As this is the first CIDA proposal we’re ever written, we’ll be depending heavily on the higher ups at Acts to take a close look at it, and hopefully correct the errors we’ve made in our inexperience. But still, I’m quite proud of the design and proposal.
We’ve basically spent five of the past six days on this proposal. But it’s our first, so I’m hoping the rest will be easy. In fact, I’ve already completed the designs on two more systems. What originally took me five 10hr days now takes me 4-6 hrs. So nice to notice the improvement. But it’s also reassured me that I didn’t go into the wrong field. It’s fun to do for a while, and certainly seems to yield more immediate, concrete results than environmental consulting, but spending your life looking at spreadsheet calculations would drive me mad.
So now that we’ll have one down, we need to send off two more similar proposals in the near future, and while we have candidates, none of them seem clear cut. One is a three hour hike up. A second already has some water coverage, and the source isn’t high enough. And the leadership of the third is either absent half the time, or drunk. Which, while entertaining, doesn’t lead to a high degree of confidence in community participation in the project. So while we ended the month with five potential projects, three of them leave a few things to be desired...
Ah well, such is life with NGOs I guess...
On Wednesday we drove to a new part of the district, also in the foothills, but in a deep valley. While the other places we’ve visited all have spectacular views of the eastern rift valley, this one was completed surrounded by hills with the resulting effect that this place looked cut-off from the rest of the world. Cool, but I swear I heard a banjo playing in the background.
It was the first time we’d gone out in the field since we’d gotten back, and we’d forgotten how hard it was to get food out there. Most of the time we skip lunch because as soon as we arrive in a community, we’re surrounded by the locals. Most of whom accompany us for the duration of our time there. So when we pull out our biscuits or samosas, we either have to share, not share and guiltily eat in front them, or sneak off and quickly eat the food without appearing to be eating.
So we’ve learned to eat little at lunch, which usually means we’re starving by 3pm. But this time we were in luck. We finished our assessment in the early afternoon, and were able to stop at a trading center to get Rolexes for a very late lunch. A rolex is a chapatti (or chapat as they call them) and fried egg, rolled up (hence the “rol” in rolex). Out of the many foods I’ve discovered in this country, this has to be my favorite. The second most delicious would have to be the banana pancakes, which are made from sweet (yellow) bananas and cassava flour. The common ingredient between the two is grease. Hmm, grease.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Morale musings.
It’s amazing how fast time flies here. We ended last month with five potential projects, and now we’ve got a deadline of November 20th to have on proposal completed entirely. And while this seems like ample time, I’m already getting stressed about how we’ve lost the first week of November. Granted, we only got here two days ago, but still, this seems much more important than most other jobs I’ve had before.
It’s seems important, though the state of some previously completed GFS systems makes me wonder about how useful our completed GFS systems will be. Case in point, we are hoping propose a new GFS system that runs in parallel to an 18-year old system. The 18-yr old system was originally designed for 36 taps. A number of illegal connections has bumped that number up to reportedly 100 taps (I say reportedly, because, of course, nobody knows how many taps are on the line). Of these 100 taps, only 20 taps work. After surveying the line yesterday, it has become apparent that the reason the majority of the line doesn’t work is because of lack of maintenance rather than any other major issue. Maintenance should have been taken care of by the community, but it would seem to be a classic case of tragedy of the commons. The community has formed a water committee which is empowered to collect money from the people to repair the taps and sections of the line that need maintenance. But obviously the maintenance has been non-existent, or at least minimal to the point that they are now begging NGOs to come in and fix the line.
Unfortunately, that seems counter to the whole “sustainable development” philosophy that Acts and likely CIDA and most NGOs seem to be aiming for. If the community can’t keep an existing line in good repair, how is our line going to be any better?
So of course, this leads to the whole question of why bother? Having worked for the past eight years, I’m used to massive amounts of money being spent to bring a relatively small amount of land with a relatively small amount of contamination into regulatory compliance. So in comparison to that, I have a very clear idea of how useful this work and money will be.
Unfortunately, my teammate Wesley is just out of university and is young (I can’t believe I’m describing someone else as young here – the true indication that I’m starting to mature? Nonsense!) and idealistic. So he’s been more affected by the neglect of the current systems and how nothing to seems to last and that nobody seems to care. He also understands that it’s more complicated than that, but that hasn’t assuaged his creeping cynicism. And here I thought I would be the one who was cynical. Almost as counterpoint, I'm finding the whole exercise rewarding, and have a very clear picture of how I'll be helping people. Blissful naivity?
Anyway, on Wednesday we headed back up to Kasese after meeting briefly with the Mbarara district water engineer (who, amazingly, seems to be even more disorganized and ill-prepared than Kasese). We arrived Wednesday afternoon and have been spending the last two days gathering information to complete a proposal for a GFS project that would bring water to 10,000 people. I’m hoping we can complete the design, cost estimate and proposal this weekend, but that might be ambitious. Either way, it'll be a computer oriented couple of days. Which is good because while hiking about the beautiful hills is nice, I don't really feel like my presence is of any value. The design stage is where I start earning my keep.
It’s seems important, though the state of some previously completed GFS systems makes me wonder about how useful our completed GFS systems will be. Case in point, we are hoping propose a new GFS system that runs in parallel to an 18-year old system. The 18-yr old system was originally designed for 36 taps. A number of illegal connections has bumped that number up to reportedly 100 taps (I say reportedly, because, of course, nobody knows how many taps are on the line). Of these 100 taps, only 20 taps work. After surveying the line yesterday, it has become apparent that the reason the majority of the line doesn’t work is because of lack of maintenance rather than any other major issue. Maintenance should have been taken care of by the community, but it would seem to be a classic case of tragedy of the commons. The community has formed a water committee which is empowered to collect money from the people to repair the taps and sections of the line that need maintenance. But obviously the maintenance has been non-existent, or at least minimal to the point that they are now begging NGOs to come in and fix the line.
Unfortunately, that seems counter to the whole “sustainable development” philosophy that Acts and likely CIDA and most NGOs seem to be aiming for. If the community can’t keep an existing line in good repair, how is our line going to be any better?
So of course, this leads to the whole question of why bother? Having worked for the past eight years, I’m used to massive amounts of money being spent to bring a relatively small amount of land with a relatively small amount of contamination into regulatory compliance. So in comparison to that, I have a very clear idea of how useful this work and money will be.
Unfortunately, my teammate Wesley is just out of university and is young (I can’t believe I’m describing someone else as young here – the true indication that I’m starting to mature? Nonsense!) and idealistic. So he’s been more affected by the neglect of the current systems and how nothing to seems to last and that nobody seems to care. He also understands that it’s more complicated than that, but that hasn’t assuaged his creeping cynicism. And here I thought I would be the one who was cynical. Almost as counterpoint, I'm finding the whole exercise rewarding, and have a very clear picture of how I'll be helping people. Blissful naivity?
Anyway, on Wednesday we headed back up to Kasese after meeting briefly with the Mbarara district water engineer (who, amazingly, seems to be even more disorganized and ill-prepared than Kasese). We arrived Wednesday afternoon and have been spending the last two days gathering information to complete a proposal for a GFS project that would bring water to 10,000 people. I’m hoping we can complete the design, cost estimate and proposal this weekend, but that might be ambitious. Either way, it'll be a computer oriented couple of days. Which is good because while hiking about the beautiful hills is nice, I don't really feel like my presence is of any value. The design stage is where I start earning my keep.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Lions rock
What a great weekend. However, before I begin, I would like to advise everyone that despite the renewal of the hostilities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I am ok. In fact, I’m not even in the DRC. I am also not in one of the numerous refugee camps that are located in the eastern DRC and so have very little chance of contracting cholera, though if I do, I am currently within 5 minutes of a large and well equipped hospital that likely has an electrolyte solution in storage that could be given to me intravenously.
Seriously though, I’m surprised and delighted that some of my reader’s (re: my mom and my girlfriend) know about the conflict in the DRC. While I know details about the Rwandan genocide, I was largely ignorant of the civil conflict that’s been taking place in the DRC since 1996. It’s been called the African World War, and at one time sucked in six surrounding nations at a toll of 3 to 4 million lives. But I was largely ignorant of this conflict, possibly because other conflicts happening around the world dominate the news? Or possibly because it was just another conflict on a seemingly perpetually war-torn continent far away?
So I don’t know if other conflicts around the world are starting to wind down, or if they’re simply getting boring, but it’s nice to see the misery in Africa is starting to grab some headlines again. It would, of course, be nice if the headlines were about the latest improvements, but I’ll take what I can get.
Anyway, if you’ll recall, my last update had me heading off to Ishasha Plains to see some lions. We left Friday morning and arrived at the park by 4:30 that afternoon. Went on an evening game drive and to my delight, saw two lionesses. Unfortunately they were just lounging on the ground, but thanks to the presence of a guide we were able to go off-road and get within twenty feet. Which was cool until one of them got up and came over to check out the van. I mean I know a van is pretty solid, but there were moments when I wondered how wise it was to be trapped inside a sardine can with a large predator outside. Finished the drive by checking out a python which was lying beside the road digesting a baby antelope.
Camped that night on the plains, which previously seemed like a good idea, but after seeing the lions and the python, I had some rather...active...dreams. My fellow Acts companions, also sleeping in tents, didn’t appreciate the muffled yell of “help” I shouted in my sleep at 11:30pm. Apparently three of them didn’t get back to sleep after that. I would like to note that none of them came to see if I was ok...
The next morning, got up at dawn and managed to see two male lions on the same circuit we completed the previous night, though again, not in trees. Still, a lion is cool no matter where it may be, so we were counting ourselves lucky as we headed out of the park. But just as we were leaving, we finally saw them; two lionesses lounging on the bottom branch of a massive sycamore tree. They made the branch look very, very comfortable, but were kind of funny when one tried to get past the other to get off the tree. Didn’t look like any king of the jungle then. Still, this is possibly one of the most anticipated things I’ve been looking forward to since I arrived in Uganda. Now that I’ve seen them, I feel like I can finally go home. Once I’ve completed a proposal of course...
The group dropped me off at the town of Kihihi and continued on their safari while I headed back to lake Bunyoni to take a few chill days in a relatively cheap, yet kind of luxurious setting. It took me nine hours, three matatu rides, two boda bodas (the first boda got a flat tire half up to the lake, leaving me stranded effectively in the middle of nowhere with night fast approaching, but another boda came by ten minutes later) and a boat ride, but eventually I got there.
I’d forgotten how nice and serene the setting was. And also how there was very little to do. Once I’d sailed around the island, tried out the rope swing and finished my two books, I decided to head back. I’m now back in Mbarara, and likely going to start work on more design even though we technically have tomorrow off as well – it just seems like the most appropriate thing to do. Besides, vacation without some sort of fast physical activity seems to bore me.
Cooking my favourite dish tonight, spaghetti with a side of crickets. I felt bad cooking the crickets as they were still moving, but their legs had been taken off so they couldn’t jump anymore. One of the interns likened the morality to eating shrimp. They were delicious though. Similar to pumpkin seeds.
Seriously though, I’m surprised and delighted that some of my reader’s (re: my mom and my girlfriend) know about the conflict in the DRC. While I know details about the Rwandan genocide, I was largely ignorant of the civil conflict that’s been taking place in the DRC since 1996. It’s been called the African World War, and at one time sucked in six surrounding nations at a toll of 3 to 4 million lives. But I was largely ignorant of this conflict, possibly because other conflicts happening around the world dominate the news? Or possibly because it was just another conflict on a seemingly perpetually war-torn continent far away?
So I don’t know if other conflicts around the world are starting to wind down, or if they’re simply getting boring, but it’s nice to see the misery in Africa is starting to grab some headlines again. It would, of course, be nice if the headlines were about the latest improvements, but I’ll take what I can get.
Anyway, if you’ll recall, my last update had me heading off to Ishasha Plains to see some lions. We left Friday morning and arrived at the park by 4:30 that afternoon. Went on an evening game drive and to my delight, saw two lionesses. Unfortunately they were just lounging on the ground, but thanks to the presence of a guide we were able to go off-road and get within twenty feet. Which was cool until one of them got up and came over to check out the van. I mean I know a van is pretty solid, but there were moments when I wondered how wise it was to be trapped inside a sardine can with a large predator outside. Finished the drive by checking out a python which was lying beside the road digesting a baby antelope.
Camped that night on the plains, which previously seemed like a good idea, but after seeing the lions and the python, I had some rather...active...dreams. My fellow Acts companions, also sleeping in tents, didn’t appreciate the muffled yell of “help” I shouted in my sleep at 11:30pm. Apparently three of them didn’t get back to sleep after that. I would like to note that none of them came to see if I was ok...
The next morning, got up at dawn and managed to see two male lions on the same circuit we completed the previous night, though again, not in trees. Still, a lion is cool no matter where it may be, so we were counting ourselves lucky as we headed out of the park. But just as we were leaving, we finally saw them; two lionesses lounging on the bottom branch of a massive sycamore tree. They made the branch look very, very comfortable, but were kind of funny when one tried to get past the other to get off the tree. Didn’t look like any king of the jungle then. Still, this is possibly one of the most anticipated things I’ve been looking forward to since I arrived in Uganda. Now that I’ve seen them, I feel like I can finally go home. Once I’ve completed a proposal of course...
The group dropped me off at the town of Kihihi and continued on their safari while I headed back to lake Bunyoni to take a few chill days in a relatively cheap, yet kind of luxurious setting. It took me nine hours, three matatu rides, two boda bodas (the first boda got a flat tire half up to the lake, leaving me stranded effectively in the middle of nowhere with night fast approaching, but another boda came by ten minutes later) and a boat ride, but eventually I got there.
I’d forgotten how nice and serene the setting was. And also how there was very little to do. Once I’d sailed around the island, tried out the rope swing and finished my two books, I decided to head back. I’m now back in Mbarara, and likely going to start work on more design even though we technically have tomorrow off as well – it just seems like the most appropriate thing to do. Besides, vacation without some sort of fast physical activity seems to bore me.
Cooking my favourite dish tonight, spaghetti with a side of crickets. I felt bad cooking the crickets as they were still moving, but their legs had been taken off so they couldn’t jump anymore. One of the interns likened the morality to eating shrimp. They were delicious though. Similar to pumpkin seeds.
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