Back at eMi...

My first Uganda birthday...

Very funky card and present from Jo - which she got in Mbale...

..and my desk as it was at the end of the day, with all the flowers and cards and gifts...including the tinsel tiara and the medal I had to wear for lunch...This doesn't include the blueberry muffins which Julie and Trish got up early to bake for my breakfast, or the yummy chocolate cake that Jessica, Sophia and Maddie baked for lunch...Americans certainly know how to bake! :o)

A terrible (but unfortunately the only) picture of Ian, myself and Stu at the *really* nice Chinese restuarant in Kampala, where we had a joint birthday meal. The delicious dinner was finished off with a complimentary fruit salad served in beautiful carved-out watermelon bowls...

...and birthday watermelons...very cool...

Namirembe Cathedral - on one of the seven hills in Kampala. Big and very English-looking.

Amanda, Julie and Jessica at the top of the (many steps) up to the cathedral. If you look carefully you can also see Trish... :o)

Murchison Falls, continued...

...the last blog post wouldn't let me add any more pics, so here's a new post...continuing with further proof...

...this time that I actually did ride on the safari van roof rack... :o)

This is the team at the end of the game drive, with Jimmy our guide - who carried a rifle around with him - don't know that it made me feel more secure - it looked old and rusty, I wondered if it even worked...

In the afternoon we went on a boat trip up the river and saw hundreds of hippos, and lots of crocs, water buffalo, waterbuck, Goliath Herons, and other animals...I even spotted a few elephants.. We also got a close-up view of a mother and baby hippo that night just after we'd gone to bed, when they wandered into the campsite and walked round our tent munching on the grass!

The Uhuru falls (same ones that we walked to on the first day) as seen from the boat. Our guide told us that the white foam was toxic waste, but our team water experts, Janet and Brent said it was just a natural, harmless, organic foam that was produced by the churning of the water as it passed through the waterfall.

A crocodile...remember that crocs teeth are 'out' (i.e. are visible when their mouths are closed) and alligators teeth are 'in'...

One of the many baboons that were to be seen at the boat and ferry landing stages. It occurred to me that maybe this was where the American phrase 'butt ugly' came from...

One of the chimps we saw on the early-morning chimp trek on the last day...they were high up in the trees...this is actually a photo I've borrowed from someone else on the team, who had a high powered zoom camera...

This is the whole team, back at eMi, Kampala, with Pastor Fred of Amazing Grace. The photo is taken on the office balcony - yes, we do have a great view (though this photo doesn't do it justic at all) - we can even see a bit of Lake Victoria, how cool is that?! :o)

Some more photos from the project trip. The little boy in the foreground is Jamurai - his english was minimal, but I had a lot of fun playing football with him, and cuddling him...aww...

Trish and I giving Olivia, Christine, Robbie and some of the other local girls an English vocab lesson after church...

The little chap on the left brought a gift of jackfruit (a big fruit with green bumpy skin, which (I think) tastes like hubba-bubba...) for me, 'the muzungu lady' at the end of a long day of surveying. How sweet is that?! :o)

Janet, our project leader, with some of the local kids...

Charles wearing my cap: Charles was a kid who turned up every day we were on site, to help carry stuff, bring us guava and jackfruit, and just watch. Like most of the kids, he didn't speak much English, but we still had fun with him. Mugisha (our Panga (machete) man, wit, and unofficial interpreter) told us that he was 15...the cap makes him look older in the picture, but he didn't look more than about 10 to me, but then again some of the kids here are small...