Murchison Falls

So...after the project presentation, an exhausted team of six Americans and one Brit piled into the luxury matatu (with seats covered in plush fake giraffe skin) and drove off. To Murchison Falls, to the luxury (pretty comfortable by English campsite standards, and absolute luxury compared to Bugala) accommodation...complete with flushing toilets and running showers (freezing cold, but real showers, nonetheless)...that was the Red Chilli campsite:

Rest Camp is a good word - when we weren't out on game drives we did a fair bit of resting, napping, sleeping...though never as much as we'd have liked. Still, can't have everything perfect!

The first day we just walked to the falls: awesome! So much water surging through such a small gap. We walked right up to the falls for our team picture...

It's just occurred to me that we look like we're practically *in* the water. We're not - what the picture doesn't show is that we're standing on firm rock a few (short) metres away... :o)

The next day, it was up early to go for a game drive.


Adam on the roof of the van - no it wasn't especially comfortable up there on the metal roof rack - but the view was amazing, and so was the thrill of being out in the open air, so close to the wildlife...
...like this bull elephant which we came across, just 5 metres from the road. He's not brushing his teeth, just eating.

Proof, if you needed it, that I really was there, with the wildlife...

Project Trip to Bugala

The power here at eMi was disconnected last week, but yesterday, after 8 days without power (other than a generator, run during office hours) we were reconnected! Much rejoicing. We (the girls, anyway) celebrated by watching 2 more episodes of BBC Pride & Prejudice last night...

Reinstated power means I can finally update my blog, and show you all some photos from my trip...

Amazing Grace Christian Assembly (AGCA) were the ministry that we were working for.

This is the house that belongs to the Pastor's family, and the bamboo structure in front is the church. They used to meet in the front room of the house, but the congregation has grown and is too big for that now, so they built the church out front. We stayed in the house - it looks quite nice from outside, but has absolutely no fittings inside - just bare rooms, with a few beds and chairs brought along specially for us...

..and the occasional chicken in the guys' bedroom...

...laying the odd egg in a cosy nest of sleeping bags... :o)

This is the pit latrine, round the side of the house.

Note the ingenious contraption for washing hands - as demonstrated by David...

The first few days I spent out on site, surveying, with two other team volunteers. This was one of the clearer areas of the site - the more dense vegetation to the right of the picture was more typical - you can maybe see why it took us three days to survey a mere 10 acres...

This is the 'survey crew' and the surveying gear... The guys were fantastic and I had a great time - despite having to wear a skirt (a woman wearing trousers would have offended the locals) which hampered progress through thick vegetation! I wore trousers underneath, which thankfully protected me from the worst of the termites and thorns. Though the first day I didn't think to tuck them into my socks and learned what it was like to have 'ants in your pants' - what Americans call pants, that is...

On our final morning we presented, to the local community, the Master Plan that we'd been working hard on all week. Here are a few of the local kids 'presenting' a few of the drawings...