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…