Second Anniversary!

Yesterday was 2 years since my first blog post and one year since my Happy Anniversary post. Then I took the opportunity to look back over the year covering the period working my notice, training, packing and fund raising for VSO and my first 9 months + in Uganda.

The second year has been a full year in Uganda with 2 trips back home, once for a month over Christmas and the second for the wedding in June. Both are covered by blog posts and pictures.

This year I've only managed 38 blog posts instead of the 45 in the first year and have had nearly 1,600 page views bringing the total to a respectable 3,600. This will be the 84th blog post and I plan to post 100 overall. Over the past year the most popular post has been 'So, What's it Really Like' posted on 3rd August last year. I obviously struck a chord as the post has nearly 300 page views!

As well as the 2 trips home highlights of the past year have been:

• Our day out in search of a shoebill in late July
• The partner meeting in August including a very interactive day on finance
• A weekend in Lake Mburo to celebrate my birthday in September
• A week away on a road trip around the north and east of Uganda in October, including spending our wedding anniversary at Sipi Falls
• A residential training week for partners in Kampala on 'Integrating Programming and Finance' in November
• Ann and David's visit in February and our holiday week in Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth parks
• Completing the grant monitoring at the end of March
• An Easter break spent exploring Kampala
• Barbara's visit in May and June and our holiday week travelling to the South West
• Numerous partner visits with colleagues where we worked hard and then relaxed over a meal and a drink in the evenings

Now our thoughts really are turning towards the next chapter. Where will we be and what will we be doing in a year's time? What are we going to do to earn some money? 

But there are still 3 busy months left in Uganda with more training sessions on core cost budgets and cost allocations, follow up visits to partners and writing up my learning and experiences to pass on. Then there is all of the packing and clearing of our flat in Uganda. So plenty still to do! 

VSO Annual Forum and Return to Work

The VSO Annual Forum was later in the year this year, at the end of June rather than the end of March. This was because of the change in the VSO Uganda Country Director, but it was perfect for us as we had one day of rest after our flight home then three days at the forum.

The schedule was the same as in 2014 with a first day for our partner organisations as well as the staff and volunteers, the second day of activities for staff and volunteers and a final day of team building and fun. This year the focus was around the VSO Uganda Country Strategic Plan consultations. We all had an opportunity to consider the direction of the Uganda office over the next few years in line with the overall strategic direction agreed by London.

For the final day this year we had a morning of team games in the VSO compound, including a photo treasure hunt in teams. The afternoon was free to rest and recover then we spent the evening at the Ndere Cultural Centre. I went there in my first week in country and then again just after Glen arrived. However, recently volunteers have been arriving in ones and twos so many haven't been to the centre. We had a very enjoyable evening, a chance to mix and catch up with people and a show that meant a lot more now that we are more familiar with the different regions and cultural identity of Uganda.

The pictures are not great as I was struggling to get the right amount of light. Without the flash the pictures were bright and colourful but out of focus, with the flash they were in focus but dark. I had to include the final photo of the girls carrying the pots on their heads. They add more and more pots to the stack on their heads while continuing to dance.

After all of the excitement we were glad of a quiet weekend. Then on Monday it was back to work. The week seemed to go very slowly but the days are counting down and there is so much still to achieve.

Alastair and Rhian's Wedding

The highlight of our trip home was the wedding of our son Alastair to Rhian. It was a lovely day. She looked stunning with a beautiful dress and her hair up. She was accompanied by 3 page boys, 2 flower girls and 2 bridesmaids, a lovely wedding party. Alastair had 3 best men including his brother and 2 friends from university. It was a good plan as the team were able to ensure that the wedding went smoothly.

The wedding was at a beautiful Norman church on the outskirts of Oxford. From there we walked along the tow path beside the Thames to the reception.

We had all of the traditions of an English wedding, photos, speeches, food, cake and dancing.

Wearing the dress from Uganda, bought last October in Mbale

Sharing a joke with one of the best men

At the end of the evening they left for a hotel in Oxford through an archway of sparklers onto a waiting river barge.

It all made us feel a bit homesick and we would have happily stayed longer. However, the plane back was booked for Monday so we returned to Entebbe feeling a little jaded. We're now looking forward to our return home at the end of the placement in October and an opportunity to get to know our new daughter in law.

A Short Trip Home

We flew back to the UK 2 weeks ago for a short holiday including Ali and Rhi's wedding in Oxford. We had a wonderful break and the wedding was a fantastic day everyone enjoyed.

Alastair picked us up from Heathrow feeling a little jaded after our night flight. It wouldn't have been so bad but the builders opposite the flat had decided to lay the concrete floor the night before. This has to be laid down in one piece or there will be a weak line which may break but they only had an old, small, cranky and very loud concrete mixer so it took 21 hours!

We spent Saturday seeing Ali and Rhi's new flat and shopping for our wedding accessories. It was a great chance to catch up and plan for the following weekend. I would be wearing one of the Ugandan dresses I bought in Mbale last October so I needed a hat, shoes and bag to go with it. We found nearly everything including a white shirt for Glen and returned to the flat for lunch.

We travelled back to York on Saturday evening on a TRAIN! It was the first train I had been on for nearly 2 years. The journeys I make for work to Gulu, Lira, Soroti etc would be so much quicker and more comfortable if there were trains.

On Sunday we took my Mum out to the seaside at Filey for a late birthday trip. Unfortunately we chose a very cold windy day. It was lovely to see the sea and we all enjoyed a Sunday lunch on the way.

We had 3 more days in York and spent the days shopping and sorting out admin and the evenings meeting up with friends and family in and around Poppleton. We brought back 2 suitcases full of the things we want to keep and managed to squeeze most of this into the store. It's going to be a voyage of discovery when we get to unpack it all.

We enjoyed exploring York again and taking pictures of some of our favourite places.

On Thursday and Friday most people travelled down to Oxford ready for the wedding on Saturday. I arrived on Thursday to stay with an ex VSO volunteer from Gulu. It was great to catch up with what we've been doing in Uganda and Oxford respectively for the past 5 months. We went into the centre of Oxford on Thursday evening to meet up with Alastair and Rhian and several of the wedding party for a street food market in the castle area.

On Friday morning Mum and I had a tour of Oxford with the father of the bride, who had studied there. Then later in the day Glen arrived with his mother. On Friday evening we all went to a restaurant on the outskirts of Oxford for a huge family meal and planning of the big day. More on the wedding in the next blog!

Rowena the Remarkable RAV

On Saturday we returned from another of our road-trips around Uganda, this time with Glen's sister. Over the 9 days we were away we drove 1,600 km = 1,000 miles on a round trip which took us to the extreme South West of Uganda and then back via Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP) and Fort Portal.

Once again our little RAV4 coped with everything we asked her to, including sections of murram track around Bwindi and in QENP, degraded tarmac with multiple pot holes, mud, roadworks, steep climbs and drops and animals in the road, including some elephants just outside the park!

Our only problem with the RAV on this trip was a puncture when we picked up an old piece from someone's gearbox. It was fixed in the local village in very scenic surroundings and a complete lack of the modern tool kit available to the tyre workshops in the UK.

Over the past 18 months with our RAV we've tackled:

• Stickly mud during a rain shower. This covered the tyres so that grip on the track was non-existent. Glen said afterwards that it felt as if the wheels were completed detached. 
• Roads with so many pot holes there was hardly any road at all

• Ugandan roadworks, the road is not closed, you just drive straight through the roadworks

• Kampala traffic!
• Cows, goats, elephants, bodas, bicycles and pedestrians all over the road
• The Nile ferry at Paraa. We have seen many vehicles struggle getting on and off this beast, but no problem for Rowena (and Glen!)

Our RAV4 will be 21 this year and has over 300,000 km on the clock but somehow she just keeps on going, with a lot of help from Glen and various mechanics all over Uganda. When our sons visited a year ago Alastair named her 'Rowena the Rattly RAV' but I think she deserves a better title - 'Rowena the Remarkable RAV'

Mountains in the Mist

We've been away from work and Kampala for the last 9 days as Glen's sister Barbara has been visiting and we have been touring Uganda with her. We travelled to the extreme South West near the borders with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The scenery is beautiful in that area with mountains and forests. The area is also home to around half of the world's population of the endangered Mountain Gorillas. Several of the habituated groups live in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. Barbara was keen to join a trekking trip to see the gorillas and we were very happy to explore a new and beautiful area.

The mountain gorillas featured in the book and film 'Gorillas in the Mist' although the gorillas followed were just across the border in Rwanda. Barbara met the gorillas and we all saw plenty of mist. We were there for 4 days and saw several glimpses of the mountains peeking out from the cloud and mist.

 View towards Mount Muhavura

 Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Lake Mutanda

On our fourth day we travelled back down to the town of Kisoro. This is only around 10km to the Rwandan border and you can (sometimes) get a good view of the 3 volcanos that form the border, the Volcans Mulhavura, Gahinga and Sabinyo. Mount Sabinyo has 3 peaks and if you climb to the 3rd peak you can stand in Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC on the summit. Sadly we had neither the time nor the energy to do the climb as the summit is at 3634m.

 Mount Muhavura

Mount Sabinyo

The height and cloud cover keeps the temperatures in Bwindi and the Kisoro area a very comfortable 5 degrees or so lower than in Kampala. But the view on the occasional clear day must be very spectacular.

An A-Z of Uganda (Part 2)

So to continue from where I left it 2 weeks ago.

G
Greetings
Greeting someone properly in Uganda is far more important than saying 'please' or 'thank you'. You should never start speaking to a colleague or a boda driver or someone in the bank or a shop without first greeting them and asking how they are. If you know someone well then you also ask if they have had a good evening or weekend and how their family are.

Goats
Along with chickens and cows, goats are seen in most villages and along the roadside. They are very good at clambering apparently impossible banks or ditches to find a particularly attractive clump of greenery. Goat also features heavily on local menus as a cheap easily available meat. I'm not particularly keen as it's often very bony and grisly.

In the highlands they are easily mixed up with sheep as the 2 look surprisingly similar unlike our fluffy white sheep in the UK.

Grey Crested Crane
A beautiful bird and the symbol of Uganda, appearing in the centre of the flag and on the national crest. They are not particularly common but we've seen them around Kampala and on the shore of Lake Albert in the Murchison Falls National Park as well as in the Wildlife centre in Entebbe.

H
Health Centres
While we've been in Uganda we've learnt to really appreciate the NHS in the UK. Through VSO I have extremely good health cover but for many people, particularly in rural areas, it's a different story. In the area of West Nile I visit from time to time there is only one Health Centre III serving a very large area including many villages. Very few people have any form of motorised transport and the roads can be impassable in the wet season so most people can only walk, or at best cycle, to reach it. Even when they get there an HCIII will often only have a nurse available with the nearest doctor in Nebbi town. Is it surprising that women don't travel for ante natal care and give birth at home in their villages with only traditional supporters and without medical back up?

I
Independence
Uganda gained independence from the UK on 9th October 1962. This is commemorated in many places with the date written on the wall outside the parliament building in central Kampala and in many towns and villages around Uganda. Each year the date is celebrated with a public holiday, parades and feasts. The president attends the celebrations in a different place each year.

The independence monument in central Kampala

J
Jinja
Jinja is probably one of the best known and most visited towns in Uganda after Kampala. The road from Kampala to Jinja is one of the busiest in the country and the journey of around 80km can easily take 3 hours. As well as connecting two of the largest towns in Uganda it is also the main road to the border with Kenya.

Jinja is well known as the place where the Nile leaves Lake Victoria and starts it's long journey to the Mediterranean. Just north of Jinja are many rapids giving some of the best white water rafting in the world. The main centre for rafting used to be at Bujagali Falls but a hydroelectric dam has turned the rapids into a peaceful lake. This is still the area where many of the lodges and camp sites are situated and people who want to go rafting are transported further downstream to the Kalagala Falls.

K
Kampala
Kampala is the capital of Uganda and our temporary home for our 2 years here. It's an interesting city with many contrasts. Just over a year ago there is a blog post on Kampala dated 11 May 2014.

To be continued ...