Jinja trip

This is me and Rashed at Gandhi's monument
This is me at the source of the nile(titanic style)
The stadium(they show premiership games on the big screen inside and people go to watch)
Me at falls
Tom our driver and i
The rapids
Intense moment
Anwer and I
We did look fetching in our life jackets and i took the opertunity to run baywatch style
Dust gets everywhere and in my eyes

Well on Friday as I was sitting in my office my Indian podrey Anwer pops in and says “Sunday,10:30,Jinja,?” I reply with the obvious “Yes” and that’s it sorted, my first trip to Jinja. I worked over the weekend on my film until Saturday night when suspecting a busy trip I get an early night and head to bed about 10ish. I am woken at 11:30ish and I answer my phone but it still says answer what is going on indeed! Soon I hear a small indian voice spluring out words I cant quite understand and I realise its anwer not answer, he asked me to meet him in GardenCity I declined the offer and that we were now meeting at 9.30.
I awoke at about 7.45 to my by now becoming annoying alarm on my phone. I was up and ready within 15mins leaving me a ridulous wait…I had the last of my honey loops with plenty of milk and about 3/4 of a glass of apple juice but I shant bore you with the small details.
Mytatu into town 700shs
Breakfast and drinks from shoprite 4600shs
BodaBoda to microcare 3000shs
Knowing everybody is ripping you off because your white….Priceless
Well I arrive at microcare at about 9.25 and we get ready to flow. Its just Tom, anwer and i at the moment. We head to the hotel where rashed is staying. Its some big fancy place so me and anwer stroll in and its full of indians because of aga khan or something I cant make out anwer to well at the best of times let alone when he is whispering. We head up to the buisness level the very top and its all very marble and fancy and for $75 a night its rather cheap!! He is having breakfast still so we head off to anwers apartement.
Anwer lives in a tower block pretty much in the middle of kampala. It’s a very asian area but its quite nice, we get his stuff and head back to the hotel and we pick up rashed(I may spell is a multitude of different ways due to the fact I do not have a clue how to spell it)
We head off to jinja and straight away into trafic but Tom soon gets us around it and were off, the road there is fine and rather smooth with just a few strange holes and when I say holes I mean pits, like 10X10metre holes just waiting for the queen but that’s a different story. We make our way through the dust and the first thing of interest has to be the national stadium its massive and totally out of nowhere
We soon arrive at Bujagali Falls(click on the name to see pics) and it is very impressive, the amount of water gushing through is immense and you can see how it gets to the med from there. We took a boat ride around the different falls and saw a lot of birds and village people. It was all very pleasant compared to the rampaging waters all around. We got back and watched this strange one legged man dance up a pole….indeed
We then headed into Jinja town for some lunch. After filling up we headed to the source of the nile river. It is above the rapids. We took few photos there and then took a boat trip across to the Kingfisher Click here if your interested in seeing it.
We stayed there for a while swimming and relaxing with about 100 indians so about one family, they have just completely taken the whole hotel over there was only two people not including me who wernt indian, very strange.
We headed back to the source on our boat and saw a massive monitor lizard sun bathing. When we got back we saw Gandhi’s statue and plaque as some of his ashes were scaterd at the source of the nile due to him liking water I think.
We soon left and were on our way home, we hit the kampala traffic 20km away from kampala!! That’s how bad it is here, everybody goes home to their villages at the weekend and then all want to get back in for work on Monday. Luckily for us Tom had a special thing called no patience which means he just overtook the traffic and we got to kampala pretty quckly. We saw a number of intersting factories such as the Nile special brewery which creates one of the many disgusting beers that Ugandans like to get drunk on. We were dropping off rashid and there was a very nice white range rover but no cigar as it wasn’t a sport then I got a lot of shouting and swining of hands from anwer as he said something about Aga Khan which as far as im aware muslims don’t really like so we meeped the horn a lot of him to move and he did after a while and so we drove after them under instructions from anwer, im doubt it immensly that it was the actual aga khan but had something to do with it anyway. I then was left home and that was the height of my excitement for that day.

General last few days

Well the last few days i have been rather busy. Over the weekend the Project trust people came up to stay with their leaders James and Isabel, that included Roddy and Callum. As a tradition when they come up to Kampala they arive at MicroCare and then we race bodaboda's to GardenCity and go straight to ranchers.
The weekend was good and the best bit had to be the England V's SA, we watched it at the American club where there was alot of English and only one 7ft tall SA who kept shouting out "Come on de Boka" in a loud SA voice or would sing "Habananananananana" indeed. Most of us of course suported SA and it was great to see the English beat :D.
It was good to meet some of the other Project trust people but i only really chated to Abe who is half indian quarter itallien and the rest something else plus english, he is very far away and his partner Gefory is rather posh and so has the sense of humour of a rhino. The weekend went quickly and it was back to work. I spent most of this week processing 1911 medical forms into different groups. This was a very slow process but it kept me occupied and i felt it gave me a good perspective on the two sides of medical camps rather than just the fun trip.
Today i had to go to a warehouse with Wilbrod and we stuck microcare stickers onto blue plastic gerry cans that we are sending up north to flood victims so they can collect and purify water. Wilbrod then took me out to lunch and we went down some backstreets and through the slums to find "Jols Joints" which clearly was the most classy of the joint spots in town. We walked through the cage style entrance and found a lovely table to park ourselves down. After banging the table(the ugandan way of saying please can you take my order) a small lady comes out Wilbrod then askes her in Lugandan for whatever were going to eat as i was told we were getting pork and fish(nile perch to be exact). We get some passion fruit which is so gewd out here and then we are told well Wilbrod is told that the electricty is off so they are going to be using a coal fire to cook it and itl be another 30mins before IT is ready. We sit and chat about alot of things CHOGM(google it if you dont understand),Uganda,Government and Kenya to name but a few of our general topics. 30mins later and the pork arrives and indeed it does taste like pork sort of its like leather to chew and has the same meat percentage. There is also some advicado's and if you know anything about me i dont eat the slimy fruit but i decided when in rome! Wilbrod gets some salt out and puts it onto his advocado yes just for you mum i shall repeat that he puts salt on his advocado im not talking a pinch either. I do the same of course "When in rome" and realise that he really has the right idea it tastes great! I also get this strange white vegtable called catster or something its definitly got carbohydrates but severly lackes any taste what so ever!
Also there are some vegtables smartly named "Greens" i doubt thats the real name as it tasted like spinach. Soon the fish appears and it really is A FISH its just deep fried. Its a Nile Perch and its quite big. It tastes great and eating with your fingers(yes i did was my hands)makes it taste even better. We proceeded to pull it apart munching down massive chunks of fish and sending it down the litres of pasionfuit juice and all for the amazing price of 14000shs(£4). As we sit a muzungu walks past and i give him the "Muzungu, How are you?" in an african accent the africans love it :D
Thankyou Wilbrod for Jols Joints Yum Yum!
Peace out
Love to all
Big shout out to a certain David Shaw, he knows who he is and i know who he is and thats just special!
Here is a picture of me from Kisiizi i was their White Ape god!

Kisiizi

Hey all
Im just back from Kisiizi, what a place! I was looking forward to the trip for a while because of the two uk boys Roddy and Callum who were down there and I had heard from the so much about the area and I was excited to see what they were getting up to and doing in the back end of beyond. We headed off on Saturday which meant I had to get a mutatu into town for 700shs, the day started bad I put my hand out when falling towards the backseat of the taxi and of course inside the seat was a nice large piece of sharp metal which sliced my hand open yes aids was my first thought but it wasn’t to bad. I arrived in Kampala centre and I had no money what so ever, I had even had to borrow 200shs off Matt just to get into town, I made my way to the nearest Stanbic and withdrew some of these mighty shillings and off to shopright! I dropped my bag off at the bag security drop and I got a smile out of the security guard he obviously remembered me from the last time I was there and that added to the fact I was white clearly was over bering for him as he had a little chuckle to himself. I headed straight for the bakery it was about 8:30 and I was starving, as with all times that the shopright is busy nobody works the counter to allow for the Ugandan favorite pastime of queing. I Finnaly got some service and got two strange apple pastry things, I grabbed a mango juice drink and headed for the counter. I had my money checked as per usual and headed out to get my bag. I got my bag and another smile from that security guard, indeed. I headed out and found the nearest bodaboda, to the kisoro air strip gewd sir and away we headed.
I arrived at MicroCare hq at about 9ish, Anwer was already busy working on something.
I then proceeded to wait as with all african anything I had to wait and wait and eventually at about 11:30 we left. Me and Anwer were in the backseat with about 40,000shs worth of snacks and drinks that we picked up at payless, yes the shop names are that imaginative here. We were off and next stop was Masaka for lunch, I had plenty to look as we drove along but I couldn’t help but over hear anwer’s music was that who I think it was? The backstreet boys? After being offered a earphone I soon realised that indeed my small indian buddy was lisening to the backstreet boys and Celien dions greatest hits remixed, what a surrel journey I thought to myself as we took photos of riduclous things and each other lisening to various classic hits with a 5ft indian 28yr old IT technician in Uganda….well that’s a head full.
We arrived in Masaka for some lunch its about 3ish and this place is rough, there is a buffet which me and anwer skip due to matoke and what seems to be goat and instead ordered ourselves some chips and chicken with passion juice to wash it down. We head off hopefully we shall be in kisiize at about 8-9 I think oh how little I know.
We arrive in mabararara(well I know it has a lot of a’s and r’s)at about 7-8ish and I am told that we are staying here for the night due to a number of issues 1) Our driver cannot see at night 2) The road is very dangerous at night with gangs 3) It is against MicroCare rules to drive at night. We stop at the Dena guest house oh so very classy, the towels are solid and water is a luxury out of the taps. Anwer and I leave to check out the sights and sounds. Anwer seems to know where he is going as we soon get lost and I feel a little out of place, usually in Kampala you will see the odd white person but oh no not in mabararara I feel It maybe the least white friendly place I have been to yet. We find a nice place called City Top resturaunt(indian of course) and head in as with everything in Uganda we soon have a surreal experience well I know I did, out of the kitchen comes an indian man who comes to talk to Anwer oh yea you know it just turns out to be a cousin of his! That’s they way Uganda is just like wha? Things happen here that you’d only expect to happen in Lack or somehere in deepest darkest Fermanagh.
We has a nice meal here, I had Chicken Punjabi and Anwer had chicken curry, I got some weird things ordered for me by anwer which were rather nice and the garlic nan bread came out in a strange shape(hopefully I will upload a photo of it) We then headed to the local hub of excitement, Anwer then asked me if I wanted a massage and a steam bath I did hope he meant not from him but neither the less I was confused, this soon subsided when I arrived and noticed the large sign “massages and steam baths” I accept the small indians joke. We headed into the bar and then out again via the back door and down some stairs and indeed there it was a steam bath and massage parlour open at about 10pm, I soon realised then that it wasn’t a joke but I thought you know what lets go for it, unfortunetly anwer wasn’t to keane on joining me and I was even less keane on heading into a steam bath with about 100 black people in the most un white friendly place I had been in so we skipped the idea and headed to the pool table in the bar to play some pool and watch the R.O.I V’s Germany football match while we drank what was suposedly disguised as beer. We were soon joined by our 40yr old driver Wilbrod, he is from kenya but came to Uganda soon after old idi left. He is some character and soon embarised us with some Ugandan dancing matched with some terible music. We continued with our pool and even had a few competitions with some Ugandans I eventually lost to an old fella. We headed back to Bena Guest house for some hopefull sleep for our big day tomorrow. We didn’t get much sleep as the cleaners and gaurds talked and cleaned all night for no gewd reason. We headed off and now there was no stopping us from getting to Kisiizi. We arrived at the boys house in Kisiizi and it is quite nice with beautiful views of the surrounding mountains.(they are more hills but kisiizi is so small everything is over exagerated). The boys werent there so we head to the Microcare office in the centre of Kisiizi, the great thing about kisiizi is that it is tiny, it takes about 10minutes to walk from one end to the other. The boys were at the Microcare office looking after the internetcafe, was gewd to see them and after exchanging plesantreys we all got onto the MicroCare pickup, I say onto as there wasn’t enough room in the cab so Anwer,Callum and I sat on the roof and back as we drove along rough jungle roads to get to a local medical centre where Donata the nurse who was with us was having a meeting with the local medical workers. The four of us Callum, Roddy, Anwer and I headed up the hill to get a better view of the surrounding beautiful valleys. We got to the top and realised there was a church soon there was about 30 kids around us staring and edging closer and then running away as soon as any of us moved, these kids had never seen a “white ape” before and so were scared of us but in a playfull sort of way. We had a lot of fun playing with the kids them running after us and then us chasing after them. We soon were away back down the hills to Kisiizi but this time Roddy joined us on the back of the pickup.
We got back to Kisiizi and we headed round to the round house which as you can imagine is very descriptive regarding the shape of this small 2bedroom house. We then decided to walk to the waterfall after watching it from the round house we wanted to get a closer look. It was about 200metres away from the roundhouse and a nice walk across a field was all it took. On our way back we were surrounded by kids who soon started to play a sort of tip the can sort of game, we headed back up to the round house to watch the games unfold. Soon though we got a little bit to much into the game and eventually decided to go down and show these amateurs how its done!
Callum, roddy and I had an awesomely messy time crawling through grass,climbing trees,running,jumping,rolling and generally being kids as we managed to actually beat some of the kids and made ourselves very proud about being 10yr olds. After that extensive exercise we said out goodbyes and headed for showers! Dinner was great and at the rose guest house which is part of the round house. We then had a great night of cheat which ran late into the night, I then went to stay with the boys in the west wing. I had been given a range of reports of lack of sleep in the boys house due to a number of factors and I soon found them to be true. First off no electricty not gewd. I then got into bed and luckily Roddy had told me there was mice in the room so I didn’t feel as freaked out when I heard loud chewing. The monologue chewing soon put me to sleep, I was then awoken by christine’s baby savana who even tho being ridiculosuly cute is able to wake the whole house up. Then the myth that is goat lady singing began and to no surprise is kept me awake too not it being about 5 the water pump is started and it just so happens to be right outside my room! What a night! No wonder the boys are glad of my sofa in Kampala. I head down to the Rose Guest house for breakfast which was cereal sausages and boiled egg. After filling up it was off to the microcare officeto fill the Microcare pick with gerry cans. Me and roddy headed into the office and saw a small child standing outside he starts to scream and his eyes get wider and wider as he sees us coming closer. Whats is wrong I think and before I know it he has jumped head first down the walkway to microcare towards the bank with a drop of about a meter the child then proceeds to scream and attempts to crawl away as the parents watch and do nothing, there is nothing we can do and we conside the posibility that the child may fear us some how. We are later told that the parents tell their children if they don’t behave that the white ape will come and eat them, poor child, he was the scared two more times once by Roddy and his lack of common sense and once by Callum who had missed the whole kurfuffle as he was teaching a class at the time.
Callum and I head off with Willbrod and another man who I don’t know and with 100gerry cans roped onto the pickup roof and back we head off into the back of beyond. We arrive at various holes in the hedges where we are meet with random drunk men who clearly have nothing better to do than to be drunk at 10am. I took various photos of the handing out of gerry cans and many a happy new gerry can owner. We arrive home to get a well deserved lunch at the Rose Guest House, a yumi combo of chicken rice and chips.
To night we go for the quiter option and stay at the roundhouse to play some more cheat and scraggy marry which is donkey but by using a queen instead, exactly english ey?
I stay at the Roundhouse tonight which means I actually get to sleep! I stay in a cosy room with Anwer,separate beds! We get up early to get breakfast showers and get ready to go.
I say my goodbyes and we discuss the plans for Friday as the boys are coming up to Kampala this weekend then its into the MicroCare pick up and away we head, next kinda general stop Kampala!
We arrive after a ridculous 9hour trip(it takes 6 in a bus)
All safe and well
Back to porridge
Love to all
Guy



This is me in a garage in Kampala just before we left.


This is in Mabara where we played pool, the disgusting beer here pushs me to Guinness.


This is of the Mountains on our drive to Kisiizi on the Sunday


This is the main centre of Kisiizi and Roddy


This is one of the Kisiizi waterfalls


Here's me at the waterfall, yes same tshirt as yesterday due to the rule if its dirty and your gona get dirty wear it.


This is a terible photo by Anwer of Roddy, Callum and I playing tip the can with the kids but you cant really make out anything.

I shall try and upload more photos at a later date but at the moment it takes way to long to upload merely one

FortPortal medical camp

Hey all
Well its been a while since I last updated this and a lot has been happening.
I went away to Fort Portal on the 2nd October to work in a medical camp there with hema cement.
We set off at lunch time on Tuesday and got down there at about 4pm. It was a nice journey and got to see a lot. I was staying in a lovely house all to my self with a beautiful view of the mountains and rainforest. We traveled to the hima cement clinic where we unloaded a large amount of drug supplies and loaded some screens onto the landrover roof for the medical camp. I filmed some of the Doctors and nurses talking about what they do, how many people attend and what they treat at the Hima Clinic. We then headed off for the medical camp which was in the middle of nowhere. It took us about one and a half hours to get to the camp through rainforest and dirt road the whole way. We got to see a lot of baboons though so it was worth it. We arrived at the camp which was just a small school with about four classrooms and a few out houses with no windows. We realised it wasn’t going to be much fun with 15 long drop toilets and a predicted 1500 people coming for treatment. After we sorted out where the different treatment rooms would be places and where ques would be formed we headed back to FortPortal for dinner and some well needed rest as we were to be up at 5:30 the next morning to be at the camp for 7. An early awakening and it was freezing! The region of Fortportal is the coldest in Uganda and I understand why! We head off and on our way we see more babboons lots of familys scampering away into the dense forest. We arrive at the camp and there seems to be endless numbers of people. The hima cement people are trying to organise everybody into ques around the football pitch. We get to work straight away and start unloading the drugs into the pharmacy, we also start to set up the screens in the various rooms. I did a lot of fliming this first day of all the people and also of the rooms and people being treated, when I get home I shall show everyone the video but at the moment it is slightly hard to upload large files onto internet. Well I helped out as much as I could between filming and taking photos. I worked in the first medical room where people had their general medical details taken, I took over from lindsay for a while and I weighed people, I honed in on my sign lanuguage skills and managed to get people to understand the basics of standing on scales as I recorded their weight. It was actually a lot of fun and I got to look after a lot of babies while I weighed their mothers. A few babys were cute a few were very scared as I shall explain why later in kisiizi bit. We worked very hard and at the end of the day over 4000 people had been there to get treatment. It then began to rain at about 5 and because all Ugandans are afraid of the rain they all ran inside so we had to end the day there and come back tomorrow. We headed home after working for 12hours straight and it felt strangely rewarding and I was really excited about the next day. We headed back to FortPortal and then over to the mountains of the moon hotel, this is the very fancy and exspensive hotel which the Hima cement people were staying in, they invited us up for dinner on them of course so lindsay agreed willingly. We arrived and the place was designed like some sort of Austrian lodge, a lot of wood and large open fires. The hotel is an old colonial place which has been updated and is actually very tastyfully done if on the wrong continent. The influx of europeans into Fort Portal has had a big affect on the arcitecture of the hotels but the actual city still is african.
We arrived the next day and realised that not only had most of the people slept in the school that night but even more people turned up. The pharmacy the day before had been struggling to keep up with the demand so me and lindsay headed over to the pharmacy and started to make up small packs of different arrays of drugs that the different sections (windows) needed. I spent a lot of time doing this which seems boring but was actually quite enjoyable, I also spent a lot of time filming again. This day there was about 2000. Over the two days we also had VCT which stands for Voluntary Care and Treatment, it is to test for aids and we tested about 700 people for this which was really great as a lot of people are still ashamed to get tested due to the fear of stigma regarding the disease.
The journey home was not much fun as I felt quite sick the whole time but I managed to go to sleep and so stayed vomit free since goodness knows when.
I am very sorry about how late this blog is but also about a severe lack of information, I do realise that I have written twice asmuch for one day at didi’s world as I have for a week in FortPortal but I have become rather busy recently and so you may lose some stories and a few weeks here and there but that leaves me a lot more to tell you all when I get home.
Hope the wonderful Fermanagh is as wet as ever and for you who have gone further a field I hope all is well at your various Uni’s or polytecs for you extra special friends :D
Love to all
Guy