Now where did I get up to... Oh yes Safari. Not that that
was almost a month ago or anything...
Monday morning dawned on the first day of Safari and we
made our way there. It would actually take a good day to actually get there,
due to certain difficulties and bumpy roads. The night spent at a side of the
road inn was amusing though and Jon had a mini club in his room. After passing
a smaller waterfall, which was very pretty, on the way we eventually got there
and straight away came in contact with the wildlife. You might have seen the
video of the Giraffe that (literally) crossed our path, if not it’s on graces
profile. As well as this we saw warthogs, monkeys, elephants, and a whole bunch
of heard animals. It’s safe to say though that ‘When I was a young wart hog!’
was our theme song for the trip and the name given to the very friendly warthog
at the place we stayed. This was called ‘Red Chilli’ and I highly recommend it,
although tent situations where... interesting we basically stayed in the
restaurant whenever we there. The food was amazing, no offence to Ugandan food
but the reason for this was because it was westernized. Anyhow the next morning
saw us heading down the River Nile on a boat (I took the easier way Mark), and
staring at wildlife filled banks. We pretty much saw all the animals on that 4
hour return trip, stopping at Murchison falls, and it was very relaxing just to
be able to chill and let the world go by.
I woke up the next day and, just like that I was 19. It’s
still strange to think that you can go to bed 18 and wake up 19, or 15 then 16.
Anyhow that’s what happened and (as tradition here) I managed to start it well,
by getting thoroughly socked with water.
More animal watching which included being surrounded by a good 18
giraffes. Awesome. Headed back after that though, however stopped to feed
monkeys Doritos on the way back, bit of a waste if you ask me (the were chilli
heat wave).
The next week or so literally consisted of sorting out
the aid in the container to give to the sponsored kids going back to school. Oh
and going to Chosen after a long period of absence.
On the weekend of the of the 31st the gapers and
Alex went to Uonimos (basically Ugandan version of Dominos) in which we had a
great time spilling ice cream everywhere. On Saturday Anna and I went to a
fellowship with LT which was a really nice encouragement based arrangement. The
next day we performed at a church called Universal with LT and only found out
after that it was a dancing competition. In Anna’s words –good. The week
following we where back into the full swing of things going to visit a woman
called Victoria on the Monday (See Graces blog –honestly she sums it up
brilliantly) and Chosen on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Chosen was a little more unusual then normal as I now
have P2 (the sort of equivalent to Year 2) and they are very very cheeky. That
and the idea that they were running low on teachers, having let 3 go and only
hired two plus introducing another class. So an interesting class with no
teacher... Yay.
Next thing we knew we were in Rwanda to renew our visas.
Well that’s totally inaccurate because we do remember the 11 hour coach
journey, not that it was boring but there’s only so much you can do when you
feel car sick if you read. When we got there we were astounded at how, lacking
in dust it was. It was so clean. The bodas we got had their own helmets for the
passengers (even though none of them ever fit me) and the roads where empty. In
all honesty the largest number of cars we saw in a row was probably 5, and that
was only once! Rwanda was another place that included a lot of good English
food. Even though I’m still dreaming of a Big Mac, between there and Safari I’m
sorted for a little while longer. On Saturday the 8th February we
went to the Kigali Memorial Centre. It was tough, it kinda couldn’t not be. One
thing that hit me the hardest though was the idea that I could easily share a
birthday with someone born HIV+ and through rape that happened amongst that
organised massacre. Anyhow onto more of
a cheery subject we met a lot of Alex’s family which was really nice and we
went to his church on the Sunday. Jon and I, finally, saw the Hobbit in a
really nice cinema (before you ask, because I’m sure you were going to, it was
EPIC) and we also got to go to a craft market which was a slight variation on
the ones in Uganda.
Rwanda, to sum it up, was awesome.
Friday the 14th (yes, Valentine’s day) was the
day our children’s club started up again. Susie and I were at Blessed word and
it was great to see loads of kids, even on the first week back. We divided them
into teams (because it worked well at Gosham) and I was the leader of the
Tigers. Go Tigers! Yer, we lost.
We are now on our first proper, proper week back into the
routine and, well it’s Monday so I can’t tell you much about the week. Today
though it’s been great as we managed to get permission to go into a hospital
relatively nearby and it was really nice to see and chat with the patients
there and they seemed to appreciate it when we prayed with them.
I update Smile Charity Uganda’s page much more often then
I do this so if you are interested please ‘like’ that page.
A massive thank you to everyone for the prayers,
presents, birthday wishes and just generally awesome. God has certainly been my
strength, especially recently when we’ve had tough schedules but he’s reminded
me again and again just how good he is. I am really hoping to grow even more in
my faith while I’m here so that is my prayer request in this post. If you have
any, please send them my way. :D
Love you all.
