Merry Christmas and Uganda
Trip Start
Aug 08, 2006
1
8
14
Trip End
Jun 12, 2007
Kampala,
Uganda
Friday, December 22, 2006
01 Mama and Magda
The last couple of weeks have been pretty interesting as I have finished up assignments, traveled to Uganda, and said goodbye to friends who were here for only one semester. It's exciting to have been here for so long and I look forward to even more experiences in the next semester.
Kampala, Uganda
Uganda is amazing. The landscape is beautiful with greenery everywhere. The transportation is fun - boda boda motorbikes, the people are so friendly, and the weather was great, almost cold! Armed with the theory that Uganda was closer to the equator and therefore hotter (Prof. East, I should have asked for your advice!), my friend Sarah and I boarded the plane for Kampala last Monday with our tank tops and shorts. We had been talking about going to Kampala since the beginning of the semester but hadn't really found the time. I was especially interested in going because I almost decided to go to University there instead of in Dar (luckily I didn't because the University was out this semester because the professors are on strike). Sarah wanted to get out of Tanzania and had heard about the white water rafting at the source of the Nile.
We arrived in Kampala late Monday night and took a cab to a friend's house, the brother of a friend from Dar es Salaam. We spent the next day exploring downtown Kampala and visiting Lake Victoria. At Lake Victoria, we watched as people boarded the boats to local islands and talked to ten 18- 25 year old Ugandan fisherman who were really interested in what we were doing there. We also saw these giant dinosaur-looking storks that live on port. They were about 4 feet tall and really creepy looking, although no one seemed to notice them except Sarah and I who were extremely frightened when they flew overhead (pictures attached). While in Kampala, I expected to use my Swahili some but apparently it is not good to do so. During Idi Amin's dictatorship in Uganda, he tried to force people to use Swahili instead of the native Luganda. The people did not accept the change and still associate the language with that repressive regime. Sarah had to stop me every time I tried to thank someone because I am so used to saying thank you in Swahili, "Asante."
The next morning we woke up at 6:00 a.m.
02 Rachel
and headed to the Game superstore to meet up with our ride to Jinja to go white water rafting at the source of the Nile. It was a little rainy that day, which made it pretty cold, but we were still really excited. There were 10 other people rafting with us. We were split up into two groups -- the ones who wanted the most extreme ride and those who wanted it to be calmer (not that white water rafting is ever calm). Unfortunately for Sarah, I volunteered us for the extreme ride. In our raft, we had three UN peacekeeping soldiers from Pakistan who are stationed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a German traveler, and our Ugandan rafting guide. We were a little frightened when our guide told us that there are Crocodiles in the Nile but supposedly they stay away from the rapids. The trip was a lot fun and everyone made it out alive, although there were a few cuts and bruises. After rafting, we headed up to the hostel, which was definitely a haven for extreme kayakers and rafters as everyone did both and loved to talk about it. We found out that staff from the company that we went with had recently made the first trip by raft from Uganda to Rwanda (4 weeks) and in 2004, made the first source to end trip up the Nile from Uganda to Egypt (4 ½ months).
The next morning Sarah woke up to find out she had been bitten by something. She had a red swollen bump the size of a baseball on her leg. One of the other guys in our bunk, an extreme kayaker, happened to be a surgeon and told us an awful story about a guy who had been bitten by a spider on the neck a few weeks before. The area around his bite has swelled up and then rotted off, leaving a large wound on his neck.
03 Fajita night
I guess at this point we should have gone straight to the hospital but instead Sarah wanted to watch to see if it got any bigger and we carried on to Sipi falls for some waterfall viewing and hiking.The Sipi falls area was beautiful and we stayed way up in the hills with a gorgeous view of the waterfalls. It had taken us five hours by bus to get there and the area was pretty remote. The hostel called for a local doctor from a nearby hospital to come to check out Sarah's leg. He gave her a shot of cortisone (right in the hostel lobby in her bottom) and some other anti-histamine. He didn't say what it was that bite her but was sure she had just had an allergic reaction.
The next day we went for a hike to the falls. Throughout the day, we were invited by several locals to view the local circumcision ceremonies. Apparently, we came to Sipi during circumcision week. All of the 16 year old boys in the area were to gain their manhood. They were paraded down the street all day by family and friends, then all night the family celebrated, and in the morning the boys would line up to be circumcised. They would then spend two weeks alone in a hut recovering. We decided that it might not be appropriate for us to attend.
The following morning we headed back to Kampala and had Sarah's leg checked out by another doctor because it had been growing. He told her that she had been bitten by a tetsy fly and that the swelling would start to go down once the medicine kicked in. We were very relieved that her skin would stay on.
That night we stayed with another friend of a friend in Kampala and checked out a night life a bit. It was pretty fun. In the morning, we headed back to Dar to finish up the semester.
Comments
You Never Know
Hi, Jessica-
Boy, you just never know what you're going to encounter, huh?! Merry Christmas and Happy 2007!
Monica
PS I'll Rotary president in 18 months! You'll have to come speak then ;-)
Maribou storks and snow in Uganda
Thanks so much for msg from Kampala, Jessica - and the pictures were the first I have seen of there in 20 years!
As for the maribou storks, they are the scavengers of the forest and savannah. Ugly to be sure ... but quite a sight as they go about their work picking clean carcasses and devouring road kill!
As for Uganda weather, being on the equator is one factor, on the shores of Lake Victoria another. But the key factor to a wonderful climate is the altitude of 4000 ft above sealevel.... Cool evening year round!
My Christmas in Uganda story.... We drove to Kabale in SW Uganda very close to the Ruwenzori Mtn and the gorillas - and we had made plans to spend 3 nights including Christmas eve at the govt run lodge there, and we were staying in our own cottage.
It was cool - we put on our best safari clothes for Christmas eve dinner. It was a very British Christmas dinner with turkey/goose (?) plum pudding, etc. And when we got up to walk back to our cottage, IT WAS SNOWING!!! There was definitely an inch or so of snow on the ground until mid morning. What a surprise! A white Christmas on the equator!!!
Enjoy your East African holiday! Hope it is as memorable as ours was.
M. East
Happy New Year...
Hey there, so good to hear from you yesterday. Took me a second to figure out it was you hence the delayed excitement. Good to hear you're doing well. I see you're taking advantage of every opportunity available. Not sure how thrilled I'd be about white water rafting, mostly because I can't swim to save my life. Anyway, I hope you enjoy your New Years celebration and the upcoming viists. Come back in one piece, i.e. no crazy bug (or worse) bites.
P.S. Cute picture of Rachel.
P.P.S. What do you think of the Red Sox signing Matsuzaka? Do you know about the whole ordeal?