Home away from home

After a month-long jaunt around East Africa with Libs, Livy & Ollie, I'm back in Jinja for a few more weeks before I get "expelled" from Lords Meade and have to jet back home to the UK... so what have I been up to? A fair amount, probably too much if I'm honest, but it's all been fantastic & I'd like to tell you about a few highlights. I'll try and follow with some photos next time, but until now, you'll just have to rely on my colourful & vivid imagery...

We set off on the 25th April and headed straight for the Kenyan border at Malaba (eastern uganda)... after a minor hiccup in which we discovered ourselves trying to re-enter Uganda (without having actually left yet) we found the exit point, emigrated, immigrated, and there we were, being assaulted from all angles by a barrage of pushy "walking forexes", boda-bodas, piki-pikis and vendors of other various fruity produce. We had arrived in Kenya.

The highlight for me in Kenya was mountain biking in the Hell's Gate National Park - a vast expanse of government-protected land that serves as a home to countless zebra, buffalo, impala and giraffes... we were lucky enough to have the ENTIRE park to ourselves, and wasted no time in making a (rather rash) decision to cycle the "buffalo circuit", a 14km loop taking us through some of the most spectacular regions of the park. I cannot even express the feeling of ultimate awe as we rounded the first corner and were confronted by gigantic majestic cliffs, totally clear blue sky and herds of zebra grazing freely among the rolling plains. It was incredible. We did manage to get ourselves hopelessly lost, however, but this didn't come to our knowledge until we found a sign directing us towards the buffalo circuit and telling us that it was another 12km back to the main gate... The following day, we all felt like we had been beaten mercilessly by our bicycles, except for Ollie, who felt remarkably sprightly... that may have had something to do with him being the only one to back a bike with working suspension. But as always, pain fades from the memory leaving only the good parts, and those good parts were bloody amazing!

I've got to dash now, but I'll try and continue this tomorrow with our journey from Nairobi to Mombasa in an original colonial-era sleeper train...

Love to the masses

Miles

A Photo Reel…

G’day my trusty followers…. as they always say, a photo says a thousand words, so I’m going to give a bit of a montage so that you can all get the experience of the amazing safari my mom and I took out to southwestern Uganda to see the mountain gorillas…

View from our hotel in Kampala

Namirembe Cathedral

Sandy, our legend driver who barely went without these 3D glasses we gave him throughout the entire safari

Driving through the rolling hills of southwestern Uganda we met dozens of kids who loved to say hi and have photos taken with us.

Could it look any more like an African safari??? This was our accommodation at the Buhoma community, just inside the main entrance to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

Comparisons with Arnold Schwarzenegger have been drawn…

Our porter, Romina. The porters all live in the local villages and are optional to hire – we were all encouraged to use them because it helps the local community and encourages the indigenous people to look after the forest rather than cutting it down. I couldn’t quite work out whether we were being blackmailed or not…

Intrepid adventourists.

Big grandad silverback

And here’s the dude chilling, the “player” as was described by our guide. He’s definitely too cool for school.

This gorilla could’ve charged me if he was feeling wild – we were told that in that event we had to eat the surrounding foliage to show them that we aren’t a threat. Luckily it didn’t happen.

We got as close as 6m to the gorillas - the tracking was the most amazing experience ever!

And we couldn’t resist a bit of clowning around.

We saw baby gorillas tussling, then rolling down a hill to their mother who began to groom them.

Wouldn’t want to meet him on a dark night…

Overall, the experience was awesome and totally worth the money.

Our next stop was the Lake Bunyonyi to R&R for a few days and experience some culture…

The lake was really beautiful, and we really got to see it from all angles after spending one night on an island out in the middle of it and one night on a shoreside resort. Bushara island (where we stayed) was just like something out of Swallows & Amazons or Swiss Family Robinson, with lush vegetation, towering trees and canoes to hire out and paddle yourself (we spent a good half hour just spinning around in circles before getting the hang of it.)

This was the local market down at Rutinda jetty.

And these kids were jet set to watch a 3D movie (although I don’t think they quite realised that).

Having spent time in their midst, I felt at one with the gorillas, as you can see from my accurate facial expression and typical body language often seen in these majestic giants.

Does what it says on the tin.

This shows the town centre of Kabale.

And we were glad to see that progress is being made on the Ugandan roads after spending 4 days being jolted around and having our brains bashed out by the innumerable potholes that plague the road network.

When we stopped at Lake Mburo National Park we saw Impala, monkeys,  and a multitude of birds.

Wild cattle (???) at Lake Mburo NP

Then on our way back to Jinja we crossed the equatorial line, and had to stop for a few snaps.

So although it got off to a rocky start (what with mom’s flights being delayed by 28 hours and her journey spanning 3 days) our safari was exciting, intriguing, and relaxing in all the right places, and I couldn’t have hoped for a better experience seeing the gorillas. Thoroughly recommend doing it if you’re thinking of coming out to Uganda, Rwanda or the DRC – the forest that borders these three countries serves as a habitat for around 273 mountain gorillas – over half the worldwide population of these powerful and mysterious creatures. We booked through “Advanced Tours” – more details can be found on their website at www.advancedtours.ug

Who’s the king of the jungle???

What’s been going on???? I’ve not been doing such a great job keeping you all updated lately… there have been numerous complaints… on the other hand I’m glad to see that my blog is actually being read by a trusty few. Thanks for reading guys, and I hope that some of what I write may reach out to you and inspire you to think about doing something similar yourself… volunteer work is so rewarding for all parties involved, and it’s a lot easier than you think to get involved. Too often, people look at all the problems in the world and want to help, but it’s all just so overwhelming, so they sit back and do nothing about it. What I say is, every little helps. Buy an African family a goat. Sponsor a primary school student’s fees. Travel to an 3rd world country and simply visit with the locals, talking to them and learning about their culture. Showing an interest alone makes these people feel valued, and in turn could be the most valuable way you can help. Just think about it.

 

So what have I been up to? Rather a lot, so let me begin with Lords Meade. The term has been barrelling along at full pace, and it’s hard to believe that it is nearly over. All my teaching is complete until after their spring break, which runs between 23rd April – 23rd May, and it’s all flown by so quickly. My Senior 5 Maths class (that’s the equivalent to the first year of 6th form ie AS levels) have been steadily improving, not just in their mathematical abilities but also in confidence. When I began teaching at Lords Meade way back when, I was shocked by how quiet the students were in lessons, and how unwilling they were to speak out in class to answer a question or ask for help. Now, when I ask whether they understand, it’s wonderful to receive either a resounding YES! or to see a few hands shoot up and ask me to recap on some of the new material. The teaching has been a challenge, particularly because I only covered most of the maths last year, and am having to re-learn everything abreast the students, but overall I’m glad that I opted to teach some of the older students as well as the younger, where I’m kind of able to just wing it on the day, because all that material is just second nature after all these years. One of the other classes I’ve been teaching is Senior 1 music – a brand new introduction into the curriculum this year, and still very much in the early stages. It’s actually very fun to teach in that slightly less formal environment, because with the A Level maths we’re on a pretty tight schedule and there isn’t a lot of room for experimentation. In music, I teach theory and staff notation, because out here in Uganda their methods for transcribing music are very different from those we use in western culture. Notes are not the familiar blob on a stick; instead the Africans use “do re mi fa so la si do”, a system that I still haven’t fully come to terms with yet. In my lesson on the musical clefs, I got them to think about the pitches of different sounds and try to decide which clef that sound would go into. It was hilarious to hear them trying to classify different animal sounds, especially when one boy put up his hand and excitedly said “COW – MOOOOOOOOOOOO” in a deep baritone, then when I asked him which clef that sound would sit in he proudly proclaimed, “Treble Clef!!!" I didn’t mind because really, what mattered was that they had broken out of that pattern of dictation and transcription more akin to a university lecture, and much  less helpful for a group of bright young 12/13 year olds. They were loving the freedom to get involved and express themselves; something I’ve been trying to encourage the students to do ever since I began working at Lords Meade. The choir is also moving from strength to strength, and as you can see in the picture below, it’s not only the WGS students who want a piece of the action – Jenny, Tom & Joe have all been helping out too, and we’re now planning for an end of term concert to show the rest of the school what we’ve been getting up to over all this time.

 

In my free time I certainly haven’t been keeping idle – last Friday my mom arrived in Uganda after an epic 2 day journey that involved an unscheduled overnight in Kenya and 2 separate flights which set out for Nairobi and turned back due to technical problems… what a way to be introduced to Africa! T.I.A. indeed!!! When she eventually arrived she was still smiling, and we immediately set off on our safari out to south-western Uganda. Saturday we road-tripped for 13 hours with our driver Sandy, who turned out to be the biggest legend ever. He became very attached to a “spectacular” accessory we gave him at the beginning of the safari, and some very amusing photos ensued – you’ll see what I mean when I put them online.

Saturday night we arrived at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park after our very long drive through endless climbing mountains of lush flora and fauna. Every single kid we passed on the road had another demand for us, ranging from the expected “GIVE ME MONEY!” to the downright strange “I offer you my pen!!!”. Evidently the latter child didn’t have the strongest hold on our British mother tongue. My mom responded by feeding them cookies in a way I found very reminiscent of past experiences at the West Midlands Safari Park… then we realised once again that we were going on the real thing, and were bowled over by the awesomeness of it all. Our accommodation was a real traditional canvas safari tent in the middle of the jungle – made even more magical by the fact that we never saw it in daylight, seeing as we were up and out the following morning at 5am!!! There was a 2 hour drive out to the point where our trekking would begin, because Easter Sunday was the day we were going to see the great giants; the african mountain gorillas! They rule the roost in the park, so we literally have to start our tracking from wherever they decide to sleep that night. The forest & mountains that encompass Bwindi also cross the border into the DRC and Rwanda, and between these 3 countries are located about 273 mountain gorillas – over half of the worldwide mountain gorilla population. I’ll leave this story to be continued next time… did we, or did we not see the gorillas??? You’ll have to wait and see…

Birthday Bunjees to the Links

Boy, have I got a lot of catching up to do… I haven’t blogged for 2 weeks and so much has happened since then, it seems more like 2 months! I’m going to make this one a recreational post, because we’ve done so much fun stuff in our free time, followed by an entry more related to Lords Meade and the volunteering side of our time in Uganda.  Moving way back to Wednesday 17th March, we had another birthday in the Busoga Trust Guest House, this time Joe’s. On his birthday a lot of us were busy in the morning and early afternoon, so we didn’t really kick things off until 3, when we all moved to Adrift to finally do the Nile High Bunjee, a terrific drop of 44m off a scaffold into the foaming Nile. We’d been waiting to do the bunjee for quite some time, and it was the perfect occasion to jump – we kicked off with the birthday boy, who tandem-jumped with Dom. Next out of the hat came Sophie & I, who had also decided to do a tandem jump. After they bind your ankles together it’s very difficult to move, and when they ask you to start shuffling your feet towards the drop it’s fairly petrifying. For the tandem jump, I was on the right hand side; left arm around Sophie, right arm clinging to the scaffold for dear life, so when Jack (the bunjee manager – aka the guy who pushes you off the edge of a 44m drop) said we could give a wave to our friends, I had no idea where he thought that hand was coming from, because I sure as hell wasn’t letting either of mine go!!! After a quick talk telling us not to let go of each other if we didn’t want to end up like the balls in a Newton’s Cradle, we got the call of 3…2…1… Bunjee, and we were over the edge and into the abyss!!! The adrenaline rush as you fly vertically downwards is incredible, and I would thoroughly recommend it to any traveller who passes through Jinja.

 

The very same weekend, we also did white water rafting down the Nile, and if you thought the bungee was scary, you’ve got another think coming! Grade 5 Rafting was one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced in my life, and so, so much fun. The best moments were on a rapid called “Chop Suey”, which most of the teams didn’t do, but our instructor obviously thought would be educational. It was the third part of a set of rapids that started with a lot of vicious looking rocks, chucked us down the sheer drop of a waterfall, and then required us to paddle for our lives until our arms were numb, just in order to get us to a place on the river that the current didn’t want us to be in, so that we could go through the most dangerous rapids of the day. Awesome. Almost immediately, half of the boat fell out right in the middle of the most intense part (including me). I instantly regretted not trying a bit harder to cling on, because the river was dragging me straight downwards and pummelling me like Mike Tyson as I fought to get to the surface and breathe. It was so scary, and it felt like I was underwater for ages, even though it was probably only a couple seconds.  The day of rafting was soooo enjoyable and exhilarating, and the meals were the best food we’ve eaten on the whole trip, which is really saying something in comparison to the Busoga bistro! Breakfast on Sunday was full english with weetabix, coffee, juice & tea… need I say more??? Rafting the “White Nile” definitely gets a thumbs up from Miles!

Jinja Golf Club…

Yesterday Tom, Ollie & I stopped dithering about an idea that had been brewing for quite a while and hit the Jinja links! What a day it turned out to be! Despite the fact that there was a very obvious storm brewing, Ollie brandished his beanie, Tom tucked in his socks and I buttoned up to the tip top of my polo shirt… we definitely looked the part as we arrived with our set of guest house clubs. Immediately, we were beset by a few guys who wanted to caddy, and typically, they weren’t going to take no for an answer. We did graciously refuse though, until we made it out to the first tee-off and realised that we had no idea on earth where the green was. Cue the caddies running back over to us and offering their services once again, and this time we were obliged to accept if we had any self-respecting desire to complete the course. Our Ugandan caddies, Dan & Phillip, turned out to be really nice guys, and gave us a lot of pointers as we played through the holes… when the torrential rain cleared up it turned out to be a really nice day, and we couldn’t have hoped for a more idyllic setting than right next to Lake Victoria. As we were golfing, we even saw a few monkeys playing around, and had to scare them off when they started trying to nick our balls! Here’s a few photos of us in action…

 

 

So, thanks for stopping by, and check back soon for another instalment!

Joining the HYT Family/Kampala

The Ugandan’s have a very individual (and confusing) way of letting you know that they haven’t seen you recently, and that they have missed you… so I have to apologise for my absence from my blog over the past week, I have indeed been “lost, veeerrryyyy lost”.

On the other hand, I have done so much over the past 7 days, I’ve hardly had time to stop and think – after starting Paul off at Lords Meade last Saturday…

I spend the weekend unwinding after the intense and stressful preparations that had preceded his admission to secondary school. Monday was a national holiday – Women’s Day – so we had an extra day to relax, although it did entail a very painful evening where we were all forced to endure “Twilight, New Moon” the movie… at least my opinion that it would be an awful film is now justified. For dinner Connor and I cooked a mean “G.I. Shepherds Pie”, which was acclaimed as one of the best meals we’ve eaten so far. I was thoroughly astounded once again at my new-found abilities as a chef, although I’m not sure how much of the appreciation was fuelled by the massive hunger brought on during the 3 hours it took to prepare!!!

The rest of the week was incredibly busy, but let me start with Friday morning, when I woke up feeling as stiff as a board, very dirty, and immensely happy about it. It meant that Sophie, Rachel, Marianne, Tom and myself had spent a week living out in a Ugandan village, working for a charity called HYT (Haileybury Youth Trust) on their “One Village At A Time” project, helping in the process of totally re-modelling a secondary school called 3R’s. It was by far the most rewarding week so far, and I feel really lucky that we had the opportunity to go and experience rural Uganda in such an intimate way…

The Journey

…and Arrival

When we arrived we were introduced to the headmaster, John 1, deputy head, John 2, and workman, John 3… I obviously don’t stand a chance of ever being offered a job there!!! All the people were very welcoming, and we instantly felt at home. The students taught us African drumming and we taught them salsa dancing, then I went and played in a massive game of volleyball with the HYT construction workers.

HYT is a charity linked to Haileybury school in the UK, started by Clement Atlee, an alumnus of Haileybury school and British Prime Minister after Winston Churchill. They used to do alot of work in East London, but in recent years have transferred their efforts over to Uganda, and have begun the “One Village at a Time” project that I mentioned earlier. Tom and Marianne are the  ambassadors this year for HYT, and together with Helen, the HYT supervisor out here, are doing fantastic work improving 3R’s school, as well as furthering the reputation of the charity (which recently achieved NGO status).

During our stay we learnt to make the ISSB (Interlocking Stabilised Soil Block) bricks, using a Ugandan-designed machine…

As you can see, you have to throw your entire body weight on the lever to compress the brick, and it’s very tiring work, but at the same time fun, especially at the other end when you flip the lever over and the brick pops out on a pedestal, like something out of Indiana Jones. I did get some bad blisters off the machine, and redefined the meaning of pain as I cleaned them with antiseptic hand gel, which I realised was practically pure alcohol. Oh the burn! During our stay we hiked over to a local primary school, where we found a pond with turtles in it…

 

…crossed over….

…found a massive anthill…

…entered the school having given no reason whatsoever for our visit…

 …and were then expected to give speeches in front of all the students!!!

You’ve gotta love Uganda!!!

On Thursday we were taken to a nature reserve with an amazing waterfall and a totally unpronounceable name. The tour guide didn’t really speak much English, so we were quite baffled/intrigued when we found a small ravine with two tents at the bottom, outside which were planted stakes with human hands fashioned out of metal on the end. Rachel was straight in, calling up that it was “hands guys, it’s definitely voodoo.” We were thrilled that we had found witchcraft and black magic, but then I got a translation from the guide and it turned out to be a tourist attraction, which was frankly a bit of a letdown. He did show us a cave where people really did used to practice witchcraft, and there were some human jawbones there, as the Busoga people believed that the human spirit resided within the jaw, so the bones had healing properties… We then asked whether the guide subscribed to such beliefs, and he looked at us aloof and said very matter-of-factly “I am just a tour guide.” I presume the intended answer was “no”. Sadly, my camera battery had run out by this point, so I don’t have any photos to show you, but we are planning on going back to the site to camp in mid-April and I promise I’ll deliver then.

In the meantime, here are a few photos to conclude our stay in Lugazi…

The view from our room…

Which you can see here…

And here we are enjoying the evening with some of the workers

 

Over the weekend we made a road trip to Kampala, the capital of Uganda. It was so great to start travelling around the country, because we all now really feel like Jinja is our home, and naturally we want to break out of that bubble… so we went to watch some of our friends play rugby against the Kampala Pirates, and it turned out to be a very entertaining match…

Things got off to a great start, with our team (Jinja Nile Rugby Club) scoring a cracking try. They really fought for it, before eventually slipping right through the defence with a couple tricky passes and feints. In the end they managed to land it smack bang in the middle of the goalposts, and Brook was able to make a very smooth conversion – we were going crazy in the stands, as you can see below…

In the end though, things started going downhill and the final score was 40-7 in the pirates’ favour, although the match got called off 10 minutes early after too many players got sent off… it all started when Joe, the coach, got into a scrap with another player, punched him in the face and promptly got shown the red, then in the next tackle instead of going for our player’s legs, the guy simply laid into him with his studs, and the match erupted into a full-scale brawl! No one got injured, but it was hilarious to watch, and all the Ugandans were just cheering for whoever threw the most punches. A woman next to us screamed “Number 1, I’m disappointed in you, we wanted to see blood!!!” Now all our Ugandan players have gone on strike because they aren’t getting paid and our Mzungu players are all rafting with us next weekend, leaving only Nial, an Irish guy, as the remaining player for the match next Saturday. I think it might be the end of an era…

But in any case, none of that was going to stop us from having a great night, so here we all are on the balcony of our Kampala hotel (before going out)…

and I’ll leave the next portion up to the imagination until morning…

when we were all still alive and ready to escape the loggerjam of mayhem that is daytime Kampala traffic and return to Jinja, home sweet home.

 

This week I’m going to be incredibly busy back at Lords Meade, leading up to the launch publication of the very first school newspaper on Friday 26th March. I’ll keep you posted!