Two Years On - And Our Final Blog Post

Since we got back to the UK (in June 2010) we've been meaning to do a final blog-post to update you on our last few weeks in Uganda, and on what we've been doing since we got home. I know it's a bit late, but things have been very hectic since we got back to Liverpool.

The last few weeks in Uganda were pretty busy as we had our friends Craig and Marianne over to visit us, as well as exams to write, invigilate and mark, a flat to pack up, and lots of loose ends to tie up before we left Mbarara.

It was lovely to see Marianne and Craig, who made it over to Uganda despite all the flight disruptions caused by Eyjafjallajökull deciding to erupt and BA staff deciding to go on strike.  We travelled to Lake Bunyonyi, Kalinzu forest (to try and see chimpanzees), Queen Elizabeth National Park and Lake Mburo National Park, as well as spending a few days in Mbarara.

With Herbert and the Herb-Mobile on the way to QENP

Our trip to Kalinzu forest was not as successful as we'd hoped, as the chimps led us on a mighty trek through the forest and didn't even come and say hello! I managed to fall head-first into a ravine, although miraculously, I didn't break anything ( I knew my extra padding would come in useful one day!).

Queen Elizabeth National Park was fantastic as per usual - we even saw a leopard, but didn't manage to get any photos as it was dusk at the time. We saw tree climbing lions, and a pride of lionesses with cubs in the savanna, which was amazing.

Lake Mburo was great, and we managed to persuade Herbert (our friend and driver) to come quad biking with us, which he absolutely loved.

Quad Biking with Herbert

After an enjoyable day's quad biking, we set off on our journey back to Mbarara. On the road out of the National Park, we came to a massive puddle. Herbert was worried that our 4x4 would get stuck in the puddle, so he waded through the puddle (nearly up to waist height) and thought it would be okay for the vehicle.....unfortunately the vehicle had other ideas, and got stuck in the middle of the puddle! This caused much hilarility for the nearby villagers, who came out to try and help us, to no avail. Eventually, after about an hour and a half (and Jason falling over in the puddle) we had to be towed out of the puddle by a UWA vehicle.

The villagers tried to help us

Pondering what to do!

During the time that Craig and Marianne spent with us in Mbarara, Jason's colleagues from the Institute of Computer Science threw a farewell party for him at the Lakeview Hotel.  It was quite informal, and (thankfully) speeches were kept to a minimum - it was great to see how much Jason's colleagues appreciated the work he had done for the department. There was a really nice buffet, lots of beer and soda, and dancing afterwards. A good time was had by all!

Jason receiving a gift from Theodora Twongyirwe, Director of ICS

Jason and I at the ICS Farewell Party



Jason and Evarist enjoying the party



Our next 'goodbye party' was organised by the Pharmacy Department and Faculty of Medicine, and held at the Agip Motel in town. It was a lovely evening, and I was touched by the effort people from my department had made to organise it. More gifts were given to us, including several more wall plaques and some very unusual cow-horn drinks coasters. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of the dinner as our camera had given up the ghost by this point!

The final party we had before we left Mbarara was organised by ourselves, to say thanks to all the wonderful people we met during our time in Uganda. We invited colleagues, friends from the area, and fellow VSO volunteers from our 'Cluster'. My colleague Lawrence and his wife Kate had kindly given me a bolt of brightly coloured African fabric as a leaving present, and arranged for their tailor to make me a traditional outfit for the party.

Me with Lawrence and Kate in the traditional outfit they kindly had made for me

We had a goat-roast (the goat was thankfully already slaughtered and chopped up before it arrived at our compound!), and asked the 'Mzungus' to bring a side dish each. We spent all afternoon making chapattis by hand, as well as vegetable kebabs and lots of guacamole from the huge avocados available in Uganda. Jason had to go to a 'Pork Joint' to buy some pork, as the men who were coming to cook the goat were muslim and wouldn't cook pork (luckily, Shivaun had another barbecue we could borrow to cook the pork on). We thought we had far too much food, but it all got eaten.

The meaty BBQ

Anyone Hungry?!

Jason with Christine (one of his students)

After the food, we all moved inside the flat (the Ugandans were freezing sitting outside!). Our VSO friend Shivaun, who also lives in town, had baked us a spectacular chocolate cake - complete with sparklers. We also introduced the Ugandans to barbecued bananas, with melted chocolate inside (not sure what people made of them though!).

We got presented with even more gifts, and it was pretty emotional saying goodbye to all our friends and colleagues.



Jason with the plaque presented to him by his students, Martin and Phaisal



Lawrence liked the book we gave him

Christine gave Jason and I a Hat and Bag made from Banana Leaves

Jason with the ICS Guys

 A couple of days after our party, we reluctanlty left Mbarara and set off on our journey to Kampala. We said our goodbyes to the wonderful staff at VSO Uganda, and headed to the police station to do 'fingerprints' to prove we had committed no crimes during our time in Uganda (I somehow doubt the efficacy of this though, due to the smudging of fingerprints, and the lack of computerised records!).  Our flight plans were changed slightly, due to the British Airways strike, so we ended up flying home with KLM.

I felt numb when we left Uganda - really sad to be leaving everyone there, but looking forward to seeing family and friends back in the UK. We had to change planes in Amsterdam - it was so surreal to be in Europe again...I couldn't remember how to use a self-service restaurant, and was slightly overwhelmed by the choice of things to eat and drink (and the extortionate prices!).

We were met at Heathrow by my wonderful parents, who came armed with a bag of treatsize Cadbury's chocolate bars for the car journey home....yummy! It was nice, if a bit bizarre, to be back in the UK, and we spent a couple of days in Northampton before going back up to Liverpool. We had some really upsetting news a few days after we got home - my lovely Gran passed away, at the age of 97. We managed to see her in hospital a couple of days before she died, and she went peacefully.

My Gran, Cecilia Windram, at our Wedding in Feb 2009

 Obviously, our first couple of weeks back in the UK were pretty stressful. Along with the upset of losing my Gran, we both had new jobs to start. Jason had been lucky enough to land a job as a Deployment Consultant with iSoft, via a phone interview, which started the Monday after we arrived home. I started work as a Locum Pharmacist a week after we got back. In hindsight, we should have given ourselves a couple of weeks to settle in before we started working, but we were stony-broke so didn't really have a lot of choice! It was very strange to be back at work, and after a few days, our time in Uganda seemed like a distant dream. We soon realised that most people weren't particularly interested in what we'd been doing in Uganda, which we found quite disheartening.

Life carried on as normal for a while, and then we had some more horrible news in October. Jason's Dad, Ron, got rushed into hospital and passed away a couple of days later. It was a terrible shock for everyone, especially as Ron was still relatively young at 64. It's still difficult for everyone to come to terms with.

Jason's Dad, Ron, at our Wedding

We've been back in Liverpool for nine months now, and we are so glad that we took the plunge and went to Uganda with VSO. It's certainly given us both a different outlook on life and broadened our horizons. Although life in Uganda for us could be frustrating at times, we miss it a lot. Life back in the UK is so hectic, and there seems to be so little time to get things done. Everyone has such busy lives, and meeting up with friends, and even family members, can take months of planning. We feel a lot more tired after a days work here, but are enjoying our new jobs on the whole. Gone are the days of a two-minute walk across the road to work - Jason frequently works away in Barrow-in-Furness, which is a two-hour drive away.

One thing that has struck me, as a pharmacist, since we got back is how ungrateful people in this country are about the health-care they receive. Doctors and hospital care are free of charge to everyone, as are all drugs for the majority of people (apart from people who work, who have to pay £7.20 per prescription item). But I hear people complain every day that the health-service is terrible in this country, and I have been sorely tempted on many occasions to give people a piece of my mind and remind them that many people in the world do not have access to even the most basic healthcare - but I think it would go in one ear and out the other!

We miss Uganda so much, and the friends we made there. We still keep in touch with some of our old colleagues, and are hoping to go back to Uganda for a holiday early next year.

We would definitely tell anybody who gets the chance to do something like we did to JUST GO FOR IT!! It's so easy to make excuses not to do it, and it is a daunting thing to do, but at least we will not spend the rest of our lives regretting not doing it. 

We have the most amazing memories of Uganda, and those are absolutely priceless.

Travels with Chris and Pete: 27th December 2009 - 8th January 2010

Our friends Peter and Christine came out to see us on the day my parents left, and we started another little tour of Uganda with them. They arrived pretty late in the evening, so didn’t get to see any of Uganda until the following morning, when it was absolutely bucketing down with rain.

.

Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe, in the rain!

The first stop on our trip was a town called Jinja, which is where the source of the Nile is. We stayed at a lovely place called Nile Porch, and had tents with a fantastic view of the river. It was great to relax on the veranda (complete with hammock!) and watch the sun set over the Nile.

We went down to the source of the Nile, and I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was nothing like I had imagined! We went on a short boat trip which was pretty nice although the guide didn’t speak much English (it was just as well that we had taken our driver Herbert along with us!).

We discussed going white-water rafting the next day, but Chris and I didn’t really fancy it, so we decided to go on a quad-bike ride around Jinja instead. It was fantastic, as we drove around the local villages, by fields, and eventually down to Bujagali Falls (which is probably not as impressive as it was before they built the dam). All the kids we drove past were so excited to see us, jumping up and down and waving. I think the adults we drove past in the villages thought we were a bit mad, especially me and Chris, and just seemed to be laughing at us – but it was all great fun.

View from our accommodation at Nile Porch

Sunset over the Nile

Quad Biking!

Bujagali Falls

After Jinja we had to go through Kampala to change vehicles, as we needed a big 4x4 rather than the Green Machine, and then we started the long long journey up to Murchison Falls, which took about 8 or 9 hours.

We were staying at a place called Sambiya River Lodge, which is over the other side of the river to where you do game drives, so we had a very early (5:30 am) start the next morning. We had to get a car ferry over the river, and then we began our first proper safari with Pete and Chris.

Ferry across the River

Murchison Falls is a HUGE national park, with an area or 1,340 sq miles (3,480 sq km), and during the course of our morning game drive we covered over 150 km. The landscape is completely different to Queen Elizabeth National Park - more like proper savanna, and you could see for miles. Murchison Falls is the only place in Uganda where you can see giraffes, and we were lucky enough to see quite a few of them. It was amazing to see them, and they do look quite strange with such long necks! We paid for a UWA ranger, called George, to come on the drive with us, as the park is so big and he has more of an idea of where to find the animals. We'd all been hoping we would see some lions, and we weren't disappointed. - we found two lionesses sitting in the grass relaxing: they looked so cute that you couldn't imagine them being heartless predators.

Amazing view of the Savanna (courtesy of Pete)

The Lionesses

Giraffe

The following day, we went on a boat trip along the river, and up to the Falls. We saw lots of hippos, elephants and massive crocodiles. We had booked a guide to take us on a walk up to the top of the falls, which was a brilliant idea. The falls don't look that impressive from the boat, as you can't get very close, but when you walk up to the top, you can appreciate just how amazing they are. I didn't realise there were actually two waterfalls (Murchison Falls and Freedom Falls) - we would never have seen Freedom Falls if we hadn't done the walk.

Huge Crocodile

Baboon and its Baby

Murchison Falls

Tired but Happy after our walk

View of the Falls from the Boat

After our stay in Murchison Falls, we moved on and went to Fort Portal. We stayed in a place called the Rwenzori View Guesthouse, not far from the town, run by a Dutch-English couple. The accommodation was great value for money, and the food was excellent. Fort Portal is in an area full of crater lakes, and Herbert suggested we have a trip to lake Nkuruba, which is apparently Bilharzia-free (meaning you can swim in it without getting some horrendous diease!). We stopped of at a place on the way, known as the 'Top of The World' which has 360 degree views of the area - pretty breathtaking.

Lake Nkuruba was beautiful and has lots of Colobus monkeys in the trees surrounding it. We had a swim, then went to the restaurant to introduce Chris and Pete to local Ugandan cuisine. We had posho (made from maize flour), matooke (steamed green bananas), irish potatoes (ordinary potatoes), chapattis, beans, beef stew, guacamole - we were so full afterwards! The place is run as a community project, and we were treated to a show by a local dance troupe, which was really impressive. The funny thing was that the girls were all dressed in traditional clothing, except for a Liverpool Football Club scarf tied aroud their waists!

View from the Top of the World

One of the Crater Lakes

The Dance Group at Lake Nkuruba

We drove from Fort Portal to Queen Elizabeth National Park. We had decided to stay at a new place called Bush Lodge, just outside the park, but overlooking the Kazinga Channel. Most of the accommodation in the national parks is ridiculously expensive, but Bush Lodge is very reasonable. You have a luxury furnished tent with a toilet inside, and a funky outside shower area. You really feel as if you are in the bush, especially as the hippos and warthogs keep you awake all night being noisy.

Our Tent at Bush Lodge

The Showers

We went on an early morning game drive, which wasn't that exciting - maybe we'd been too spoilt in Murchison Falls. We also went on the boat trip on the Kazinga Channel (which we did with my parents), and it was just as good the second time around. On our way back to Bush lodge, we saw a rather excited (!) bull elephant crossing the road.

We drove through a fishing village, and were surprised to see an elephant there.  Apparently her name is Maria, and she's a wild elephant - she just doesn't like hanging around with a herd.  She wanders between the fishing villages, and gets nice treats like bananas (and coca-cola) given to her by the villagers. It was a strange thing to see - a semi-tame wild elephant - but nobody is forcing her to live like that, it's her own choice. All the villagers seemed genuinely happy and excited that she was there, and nobody was exploiting her, which is good I suppose.

Maria, the Wandering Elephant

We had booked to do chimpanzee tracking in Kyambura Gorge on our last day in Queen Elizabeth Park. It's a spectacular landscape, and we were lucky to see chimps within two minutes of starting our walk. Unfortunately, we didn't get any decent pictures, but we spent about an hour watching them. The chimps here seemed more badly behaved than the ones in Kibale Forest, as they were throwing things at us from the trees! We then went for a walk through the gorge, although our guide was the most unenthusiastic UWA ranger we'd ever met, so it wasn't perhaps as good an experience as it could have been.

Kyambura Gorge

After the tracking, we made our way back to Mbarara, where we spent a couple of days before Chris and Pete headed back to Liverpool. We were really sad to see them go, as we'd had such a wonderful time travelling around the country with them, and would miss their company.

Peter, Jason, Herbert, Christine and Anna with the 'Herb-Mobile'

Ishasha and Queen Elizabeth National Park: 20th - 23rd December 2009

We travelled from Lake Bunyoni to Queen Elizabeth National Park via the outskirts of Bwindi Inpenetrable Forest (home of the mountain gorillas). We were very excited about going on 'proper' safari and maybe seeing things like tree-climbing lions, elephants, leopards etc.

Pretty soon after we entered the Ishasha sector of QE National Park, we came to a tree which had two lionesses sitting in it, shading themselves from the sun. They looked so peaceful, even cuddly and friendly, although when our driver Herbert got out of the vehicle, one of them got up and started walking along the branch, having a look at her potential lunch. Luckily, Herbert made it back into the vehicle before she had a chance to get too close!

Sleeping peacefully in the tree

Hmmm....What's for Lunch?!!

What you looking at?

We stayed at Ishasha Wilderness Camp, which was beautiful and had uber-efficient staff - the tents had bush showers in them, which the staff would fill with hot water on demand, to your exact temperature specification. It was the first really luxurious place that Jason and I had stayed in for a while, completely different to our flat in Mbarara.

The following morning we set out on a game-drive (thankfully not too early!). We saw lots of elephants, buffalo and antelopes.

Elephant eating the leaves from an Acacia tree

After all that, Jason said he really wanted to see a male lion (which is apparently quite a rare occurrence). We were driving along and Dad told Herbert to stop because he thought he saw a lion in a bush right next to the road - we were laughing at him, saying it was probably just a rock or something. Herbert thought he meant a bush somewhere in the distance, and got out of the vehicle with his binoculars (which he didn't need because the lion was less than 5 metres away!). Luckily the male lion was a scaredy-cat and he ran away into the distance. We got some brilliant pictures and video footage of the lion, and it made Herbert's day that he'd got so close!

Scaredy-cat lion

After the game drive we drove to a place called Katara Lodge, which is just outside the national park. It's a stunning setting for a hotel, on the escarpment overlooking the rift valley. The accommodation is in thatched cottages, each with a private balcony. The cottage is a timber frame with tent-material over it, so you can open the front of your cottage and get amazing view of the savanna below. Each cottage has a private balcony, and the management are planning to put wheels onto the four-poster beds so that you can sleep out under the stars on the balcony.

One of the cottages at Katara Lodge

In the evening we ventured up to the restaurant area for dinner, and saw a spectacular sunset.

Sunset from Katara Lodge

We had a lazy morning the following day, and left for the Mweya Peninsula after lunch, where we had booked to go on a boat trip along the Kazinga Channel.  On our way there, we saw a herd of elephants crossing the road in front of our vehicle - all very exciting.

Elephants Crossing

View of a fishing village on the Kazinga Channel

The boat trip from Mweya was probably the most touristy thing Jason and I had ever done in Uganda - the boat was packed, and in some ways it felt like we were on a boat trip on Lake Windermere or something. However once we set off, the boat trip was fantastic. We saw elephants drinking from the channel, hippos and buffalos cooling themselves down in the water, crocodiles, monitor lizards, and loads of birds. The boat is manned by Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) staff, and they give a commentary about all the wildlife you see from the boat - they are so knowledgeable, and it amazes me how they can spot tiny animals and birds from so far away.

Elephants and Buffalos in the Kazinga Channel

Fishermen heading out to Lake Edward

After the boat-trip, we headed to Mweya Safari Lodge, where we stayed for one night. It is on the Mweya Peninsula, and has beautiful views. Some of the animals even come into the hotel grounds - there was a waterbuck grazing outside our room, and we also saw some mongooses (or mongeese?!). Mweya Lodge has fantastic facilities, and we really can't fault the place - except for the fact that it feels a bit corporate, and you could be anywhere in the world. Having said that, the service was excellent, and the food was delicious - especially the desserts!

View of the Mweya Peninsula