We had a great stay in Akagera, although the game lodge was undergoing refurbishments and having a small problem with running water (meaning there were only certain times of the day you could access it and the swimming pool was only half full), the beautiful setting, good food and attentive staff more than made up for this.We did have a minor disagreement with the general manager over bank charges on an international transfer but this was quickly resolved in our favour and didn’t mar our stay in any way. I’m definitely planning on coming back here once their refurbishment plan is complete and they’ve sorted out their waters but I won’t be paying by international transfer.🤣

On Friday morning we set off early to cover the four and a half hour journey from Akagera National Park in the East to Volcanoes National Park in the West in our quest to explore more of this most beautiful country and perhaps find Gorillas. The journey took us back along the same roads we’d travelled three days previously, through Kigali then on to the unchartered Western territory towards the Ugandan and DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) borders.

After we’d navigated the ever busy roads of Kigali and were climbing steadily towards the mountains of Volcanoes National park we both started to feel hungry and in need of a stop, stretch and comfort break. The scenery, if possible, was even more beautiful here and we passed the usual constant traffic of extremely overloaded motorbikes, bicycles, women and children going to collect water or take produce to market. We still cannot believe what can be fitted on a motorbike, pushbike or human head and are constantly amazed by each ones capacity. Our record for the motorbike is three adults and three children or three adults, two children and a goat. The pushbikes carried everything from numerous water receptacles to tonnes of bananas but probably most impressive was a double bed complete with mattress and tools to assemble. This might not be quite so remarkable if it wasn’t for the gradients they were pushing them up. Rob estimated some of them at up to 20% and they seemed to continue for miles in a car let alone pushing a bicycle up them.

Anyway, I am totally digressing from my (possibly favourite so far) lunch story.

Not a lot looked hopeful as we passed little clusters of houses in this fairly remote area but after about ten minutes we saw a cluster of red buildings with red Coca Cola plastic tables and chairs outside. It was called the Sheraton bar and looked fairly promising so we decided to pull over.

As we got out of the car a young man came out, we asked him if they were open and he confirmed that they were and could provide drinks and food. He sat us at a table and we enquired what was available to eat and drink. Drinks, as usual, were fairly straightforward. His English was quite limited but for food he listed chicken, goat, rabbit, fried potatoes and several other items which we didn’t clearly recognise. Being my usual unadventurous self I opted for chicken and fried potatoes and Rob, equally lost by the translation, chose the same.

As he was walking away, rather than going towards what we could see was the kitchen, he detoured via his phone, made a quick call before descending some steps, rolling up his sleeves and scrubbing as if for a major operation. Rob and I watched with interest while pretending not to and speculating as to why he didn’t yet seem to have placed our order.

After several minutes of washing, our host eventually approached the kitchen. Rob was facing that direction and observed him converse with the chef before a large machete was selected and careful sharpening commenced. I meanwhile, was facing the road and saw a teenage boy approaching the gate with a lively cockerel under one arm. I nudged Rob to bring his attention to the latest arrivals asking him to please tell me that the restless bird wasn’t our lunch.

As the teenager approached the kitchen our host walked towards us explaining that lunch might be a little while as there was some preparation to do. Unable to contain the question I asked him hastily if the colourful, very much alive cockerel was to be our lunchtime fare. He assured us that it was and wouldn’t take too long.

In one mind and as quickly as possible (being very aware of the cockerels proximity to the machete) Rob and I explained what a dreadful hurry we were in as we needed to reach Ruhengeri before dark. The fact that it was still before one and we were well over halfway through our four and a half hour journey luckily escaped him and he informed the cockerel courier that his charge had gained a reprieve and sent him back with a small spring in his step.

Our host was very understanding particularly when we left him a large tip along with payment for our drinks. As we took our leave he pointed out the telephone number on the large entrance sign and told us to call ahead on our way back so he could ensure our chicken would be ready.🤣🤣

I know I’m a farmer’s daughter and have seen the odd cockerel killed before on more than one occasion (Steve – if you’re reading this then you’ll know at least one time I’m referring to) but mine and Rob’s loss of appetite was unanimous. We just couldn’t face having made eye contact with our lunch on his way to our table and were happy with our decision.

We continued to Volcanoes National Park with rumbling tummies but lots of laughter as we recounted the different stages of our lunchtime adventure and unfolding realisation and enjoyed the even more beautiful, mountainous views.

Life feels very good! 😊 Each new experience, even the not so good ones, make imagining coming home even harder. Still we don’t have to think about any of that for a long while yet.

Of course there are some things we’re missing, definitely Joe and Ellie and the rest of our families, friends and pets but it’s different to any other time. Being busy all of the time, going to new places, adjusting to new routines, all of it is making time fly by. I can’t believe we’re coming into our sixth week already – and no Jen, we’re not coming home to you early.🤔

Right, back to the topic in question – Akagera National Park. Coming to Africa, we did think we might go on a safari but having loved our one in Kenya so much five years ago and knowing how expensive they can be, it wasn’t a priority. During our first day in Kigali, while we waited for the rain to stop, we got to looking at what else we might do in Rwanda and found their National Parks. Next thing we knew we’d booked a car, done a little research and were on our way East.Rwanda is stunning, I am not usually a good road trip companion but when there is never ending beautiful scenery and a continuous flow of humanity to watch then the road trip takes on a whole new dimension. I have also decided, after 30 years of being his passenger (apart from when he’s had a drink or two and is relaxed enough for me to drive) that Rob is a very good, possibly even excellent, driver.

The first two hours of the journey flew by and although it became a little more bumpy for the last half an hour we arrived safe and sound to Akagera Game Lodge.

The view from our room looking out over Lake Ihema, the second largest lake in Rwanda, was amazing at every time of the day.Although we could easily have stayed in our room all the time and watched the sun set and rise over the lake we had some self driving safariing to be getting on with. At 5.30am on Wednesday we were up and raring to go, all ready to drive the whole (over 100 km) length of the park and back.

I won’t bore you with too many details of the safari but for 40 dollars per day we got to drive all over the park to see what we could find. The hippos, zebras, warthogs, different types of birds, monkeys, baboons, several types of deer, buffalo and crocs were abundant. Our highlight of the first day was a whole herd of elephants crossing our path as we had nearly given up hope and were on our way home. Some of them were unbelievably gigantic and we watched as they all crossed including a couple of mothers closely protecting their babies. When we assumed they’d all finished and had disappeared into the bushes, what we presume was the matriarch came back and waited in the road. Unsure what to do we continued to watch as one final, small elephant with an extremely shortened trunk and an injured back, left leg limped on to our path. The older elephant waited, nudging it with her trunk until it too had crossed and was safely in the bushes, before turning and following.

We thought our elephant excitement was over until we started off again and met a lone, very large, bull elephant. We gave him some space as he walked along the path ahead of our vehicle and stopped when he stopped. We waited as he looked over his shoulder at us and proceeded to slowly turn and walk towards us. Rob’s hasty reversing obviously removed the threat and after a couple more steps in our direction he veered off into the bushes seemingly happy that he was in charge.

Our second day, after not quite such an early start, was similar to our first with the absence of elephants but the inclusion of a giraffe. You definitely have to work harder here than in Kenya to see the animals but when you do it feels even more rewarding. We were slightly disappointed to see no predators but still loved the whole, very different experience. Rob again excelled himself as a top off road driver, navigating paths that our poor little rav 4 was definitely not built for and some that definitely hadn’t seen any other vehicles in a long while. For 98% of our time in the park we felt like we were the only ones there and when we did see another vehicle it was very briefly before they disappeared down an alternative route.

Our second day highlight was a sunset boat tour on lake Ihema and specifically the abundance of birds and being chased by a hippo. We had an amazing couple of days and I would highly recommend this as a brilliant budget safari.

Waking up on our second day in the Elevate Suites and both now feeling back to full fitness we decided it was time to try climbing another mountain. Luckily for me this one only stands at just over 1800 metres and requires no overnight camping. In fact Mount Kigali can be climbed in just a couple of hours which suited us fine.

After a morning of making arrangements for our next few days, including hiring a car, the car arrived. Although it wasn’t the newest or smartest of cars it was 4 x 4 and was relatively clean, nothing was actually hanging off and at 200 dollars for the week was extremely cheap.

We loaded in what we thought we might need and set out for Rob to practice the unique driving skills that are needed in Africa to avoid all the other two legged, two wheeled, four legged, four wheeled, crazy and sometimes apparently suicidal road users that crowd all levels of their roads.

Although we had no sat nav and no service to get any on our phones we had downloaded clear instructions from my phone and screen shot them – what could possibly go wrong?

Firstly, the aforementioned road users lived up to their craziness and within about ten minutes of leaving the hotel we were the car behind a crash between two motorbikes and a pedestrian. We tried to give those involved a few seconds to pick themselves up and remove their belongings and vehicle parts off the road but soon realised this isn’t the Rwandan way. We did see all four of those involved get up but then amid shouts and blaring horns realised that we were the perceived problem and had to move on. Rob carefully picked our cars path around the strewn debris before continuing slightly shell shocked, on our way.

About forty minutes in (to a twenty two minute journey) we realised that none of the instructions, I had carefully screen shot from my phone, corresponded to any of the road names of present day Kigali. We reverted to plan B, Rob’s gps on his phone. This proved much more effective and within twenty minutes we were parked and on our way. Within forty, the beauty of the small mount, the cheerfulness of the school children accompanying us as they made their way home and the singing and sounds of celebration from the local church had made me almost forgot our directional disagreements and Rob’s harsh words 🤣 and start to enjoy the climb.

Despite the intense heat we had a lovely walk up the mountain admiring the views and the teenagers who lived near the top and just took this daily commute in their capable stride.About half way up I joked with Rob that I couldn’t wait for a cold drink at the bar at the top. Bearing in mind that we hadn’t found cold drinks barely anywhere in the whole of Uganda and there seemed very little on the mountainside apart from lots of very pretty bungalows nestled amongst the trees this seemed highly unlikely.

Our hopes rose however when we were overtaken by a young man carrying three crates of beer and soft drinks on his head. Rob and I looked at each other hopefully and continued with increased vigour.

The views over all of Kigali at almost every point in the climb were spectacular and my photos really don’t do it justice – you’ll have to come and see for yourself.😊After a couple of very short stops (I said I needed to take pictures of the scenery but we all know that’s an excuse to catch my breath – you’d need to too if you were married to the human equivalent of a mountain goat) we reached the top.

The views, as promised, were even more beautiful – especially the one below.There was a bar with unbelievably cold and refreshing drinks that lifted our energy levels and our spirits even higher.We spent a happy half an hour enjoying the rest and refreshment before realising that we needed to get down and if possible avoid rush hour. Although I’m not on Jen’s scale (you know what I mean Bennett’s) of nervous passengers, the earlier accident had definitely taken its toll and getting back to the hotel as quickly and safely as possible was a clear priority.

The walk down was swift and uneventful apart from the bonus company of several monkeys who’d come out to enjoy the late afternoon sunshine.

We arrived back safe, well, still talking and ready for a good nights sleep ahead of the next days adventures.

We had booked three nights at the Elevate Suites with the option of staying longer if we so wished. It was lovely, after the excitement of the long day of travelling, to arrive, eat and retire to a large, comfortable, well equipped and relatively quiet room for a good night’s sleep.

Our plan had been to just take a couple of days to relax, allow Rob to get over his illness and decide on the next steps to exploring Africa. When we both woke up refreshed and eager to move, after our recent sedentary days, our plans changed, momentarily……..

We went down to breakfast

The sun was shining and we planned our day. Rushing up to our room we got ready, threw raincoats (just in case), phones and money into a bag and were down in reception, handing in our key and ready to go by 10.30.

We had planned to walk to Kigali’s Genocide Memorial because although we knew it was over an hours walk we were definitely up for it after too much sitting and travelling. We’d also discovered that, the first Sunday of every month was a car free day in Kigali – how lucky were we to choose just that day for our stroll through the city. Not very as it so happened…..

As we stepped out from under the entrance canopy of our hotel the first raindrop fell. ‘I’m not just going out to get soaked,’ – ☹️guess who?? 🤔 We stepped back into the foyer while I made my usual efforts at persuading. Eventually Rob agreed that we had good raincoats, it was only light rain, we’d put them on, start our walk and it was bound to dry up in no time. On the coats went, out we stepped just as God decided to turn his shower on to its top power shower level.

Hurrying back in for a second time, much to the amusement of the hotel’s security and receptionist, we abandoned our plans until the rain eased and resumed plan A to arrange the coming weeks. We were sure we’d be out on our walk in no time.

I have discovered that the illusion I was under for so many years of it not raining very much in Africa is completely wrong. I’m sure that there are some areas that they really are short of rainfall and are desperate for some heavy showers but as it so happens, wherever Rob and I go, apart from Kilimanjaro (where we were told to expect heavy rain, were well prepared, and never got a drop) it rains.

In Zanzibar, heavy rain showers, Kampala, hours of torrential rain, Rwamwanja, you saw the video as we arrived – that continued for two days, Mbarara, just a brief shower and now Rwanda!!! It came down in torrents until about 1.30, when we had almost given up hope but finally set out for the Memorial.

The walk was fairly uneventful, about half way Rob started to complain of needing the loo so we eventually stopped at Kigali’s version of McDonalds. I honestly don’t know why, it certainly wasn’t to do with the tempting smells or the look of the place but we decided to eat here.😬😬 If nothing else it gave us a topic of conversation for the rest of the walk as Rob wondered what it actually was that he’d eaten. 🤔😂

Eventually we arrived and were totally unprepared for the effect of the memorial.I don’t know why we were so ill prepared. We were 24 when it happened and both vaguely remembered the news reports at the time. We also knew that over a million Tutsi’s had been killed in 100 days, shocking statistics but just statistics until you’re there, seeing the pictures and hearing/reading about so many personal experiences.

seeing thousands of photos of children who never made it to adulthood.

The memorial doesn’t point any obvious fingers or dwell on who is to blame but we couldn’t help feeling responsible for having been alive at the time, knowing so little about it and doing nothing to try to help. Five thousand soldiers would have been enough to control the massacre, apparently there were many more French soldiers there at the time but they were deployed on other tasks and nobody gave the order for them to adjust their deployment.

As I said, the memorial doesn’t dwell on any of this. I have been reading A Sunday at the pool in Kigali and We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. Both books give various accounts of the genocide with opinions on what happened and why. Until now I thought that death was the worst that could happen…..

The memorial overall is a place of hope and from our limited experience this feels reflected throughout Kigali. People have found a way to move forward even with their awful memories, their lost children or total lack of an older generation. Many say they have learnt to forgive because what’s the alternative?

There are over 250 thousand bodies buried here with many other smaller memorials all over the country.

It was an extremely thought provoking, desperately sad and emotionally exhausting afternoon but as we walked back around Kigali in the dusk, talking about the atrocities and the situation which had led to it, we were greeted with lots of smiles, good afternoons, how are yous and childish cries of Mzungo. We felt very safe, welcomed and hopeful.

I’m so sorry for suddenly inundating you with updates but because our bus to Kigali yesterday, that should have arrived at 7am, that we were informed at 4.15am wouldn’t come until 8am had broken down, it didn’t arrive to us until midday. We therefore had quite a bit of time on our hands. I’ll hand you over to Rob to explain the pleasures of our one night in Mbarara and our bus journey to Kigali. Don’t forget the border crossing or the crazy taxi driver Rob.

We had to leave Rwamwanja a day early to get the overnight bus from Mbarara – or so we thought??

Our loyal taxi driver Loy took us on the 4 hour journey. The first hour of which was along the usual dusty, bumpy, hole/rut ridden road (??) closely avoiding our fellow road users consisting of children going to school, adults, cows, goats, the occasional stray dog, pigs, bodas (scooters), and push bikes. All of us seeking a reasonably smooth piece of road. (I will stop my complaints in the UK regarding our roads).

Considering the potential risks involved with all these different road users we didn’t see many accidents. I am quite a calm passenger and even I had to close my eyes at times to some of the manoeuvres Loy was doing.

After our first hour we then hit tarmac all the way to Mbarara which was a welcome change.

Mbarara was the first large town we had visited since Kampala and proved to be just as a manic as we got there during rush hour (terrific).

We first had to find what we thought was the bus station. We needed to find this to ensure we had our tickets for the following days journey to Rwanda. We went up and down a series of roads until in discussion with Loy we realised that we needed to find a petrol station that served as the bus depot. Eventually we found the petrol station that had a tiny booth where we got our tickets -next task to find a hotel.

We visited one hotel and as I waited with the car Emma checked it out. She came out and with a shake of her head I knew that it was bad. We then went next door to the Hotel Kash. We were taken around the back of the building which looked a bit dodgy but certainly no worse than Rwanwanja Country Retreat (RCR) – I still laugh at this name which sounds idyllic and lovely ??

Any way by comparison Hotal Kask had WiFi, electric when we wanted it, hot water – pure luxury!

We dumped our bags and headed downstairs for our evening meal. My highlight of which was cold beer, something else that wasn’t available for the last few weeks.

We then went to bed. We woke in the early hours as we didn’t realise that we had a nightclub next door. The music went on till getting onto 6am. This wouldn’t have been too bad if it wasn’t for the locals leaving the club around 5:30 followed by someone carrying out what sounded like DIY at that time as well. Added to that we got a call from the bus company at 4:30 to tell us that the bus was arriving at 8 am not 7 as we were first told. Just as thought we had a bit of rest bite at around 6am a car alarm went off! All in all a great night sleep!

After breakfast we made our way to our bus collection stop. We got there to be told the bus had made its way out of Kampala and then had to return so wouldn’t arrive until 12pm. TERRIFIC- only 4 hours to kill. We went for a walk around the nearby golf course and then true to form in Uganda it chucked it down. We ran into the nearest cafe and stayed there pretty much until the bus arrived.

The bus- we had booked first class seats? The bus was pretty much bashed on every panel. I did laugh when I looked at the drivers dash to see that it had been completely burnt out some time ago. Burnt plastic everywhere- bit of a worry.

The journey would take about 3 hours to the border of Rwanda. My seat proved to be interesting as it had a habit of dropping back on its own and me ending up on the lap of the person behind. I made my best excuses and apologies as I could.

Eventually we got to the border. This proved to be one of the most stressful times of the trip. We were given no notification as to what to do here. Everyone got off and we followed and queued assuming we were getting our visas – nope, just a stamp that we were leaving Uganda, our first mistake. We got our passport stamps then looked up to see no bus- oh dear we thought (or words to that effect!).

Nervously we walked in the direction of Rwanda where we hoped our bus would be passing by a health check station that gave us the all clear. Beyond this we eventually found our bus with all the luggage removed. We queried this and were told it all needed checking and we needed to get a visa. We then queued for a while at visa desk. Got to the front and were told wrong desk. Went to another desk and eventually got our visa. Were then told we needed to pay at another desk. Bearing in mind we had come from Uganda and had just entered Rwanda the obvious currency for visa payment would be US dollars right? WTF! Another queue to the fedex to change our shillings to dollars. Meanwhile Emma took over queuing for our 4 bags to be emptied and checked before going back on the bus. Once we had the dollars we then had to return to our first queue to get our visa which by now had stretched to some length. We had been queuing for some time when the bus attendant grabbed our passports# and visa info and barged his way to the front of the queue as the bus had to go. This went down well with the others in the queue but by then I’d had enough anyway. Visas were then stamped and we were frogmarched to the bus and onto Rwanda. Whole saga was absolute African chaos (that typically we should be used to now!).

We then made our way to Kigali (capital city of Rwanda) in our executive coach !!

When we arrived we were pretty much man handled off the bus as we gathered our luggage and I was approached by a local taxi driver who we agreed a rare to take us to our hotel.

The drive proved to be one of the worst o& our trip. The guy was a nutter. No right of way. No clearance for bikes or pedestrians (we nearly took 2 out on a pedestrian crossing). With relief we eventually got to our hotel and went to dinner straight away.

Elevate suites and Kigali is the next blog…….

(or sage as Grandad used to call him)

I forgot to say…..

Rob has finished a whole book – it may be the first novel ever since I’ve known him. He officially started and finished Dan Brown’s The lost Symbol (932 pages) and has now started The Game of Thrones series. There are seven books so that should keep him busy for a little while.🤣🤣🤣

Where to start……?

We have had such a week!! I am lying in bed in a place called Mbarara. It is 4.15 in the morning but despite the fact that we’re in a lovely, large, comfortable bed with room to move, electricity, a proper loo, warm(ish) water and no insects or lizards for company for the first time in about 10 days, I can’t sleep! My mind is on full alert and crammed with all of the things we have experienced, everything I take for granted and all of the circumstances I would love to improve.

After leaving Kampala on Saturday around midday we set out for Rwamwanja. There were 6 of us making the journey, three employees of Xavier Project – Ed (the founder of the project and the designated driver), Dexter and Chrissie, myself and Rob and one other volunteer, Katie – a young (and lovely) English teacher from near London. We had a great journey travelling right across Uganda from East to West and seeing so much of the country. The last hour however was blighted a little by some of the heaviest rain I have ever experienced.

We had a couple of stops for food and fuel and arrived at our destination, the grandly named Rwamwanja Country Resort around 7pm.

I’ll try not to dwell too much on our accommodation, were Rob awake I would let him give you his insight as, the way it worked out, he got to spend a lot more time in it than I did, suffice to say it was not really what you might expect when you hear, ‘Country resort’. As usual, Rob barely complained or mentioned the rooms shortcomings.🤔🤔

On Saturday we went to visit our place of volunteering. The project is called Tomorrow Vijana and is a twenty five minute drive through the refugee settlement along some of the bumpiest tracks which become lethally slippy after heavy rainfall. Rwamwanja Main Street.

Tomorrow Vijana is an initiative to help adult Congolese refugees learn English, tailoring and Computing skills in order to increase their prospects. They mostly speak local dialects such as Lingala or Bantu and French. In order to trade or gain employment outside of Rwamwanja they need to speak English. The initiative was first set up by Matthias who taught himself English before starting to teach others under a tree. It is now supported by Xavier Project who helped in the provision of the hub – a building consisting of two large classrooms, and two smaller rooms, one a library – in urgent need of new resources and the other used for various things including storage of the sewing machines.Outside of the hub with some of my level 2 English students.

Inside the main classroom

Rob with his Vincent Kompany lookalike in the smaller middle room.

On a Saturday the hub is opened up to younger children for various activities, we spent some time playing with the children before going to see a nearby farm where the Xavier project are hoping to buy some land in order to set up an agricultural training college alongside a working farm. On Sunday the three Xavier project workers were off to do some investigation of a sponsored event they are hoping to organise tracing the route the refugees must take to travel from Congo to Uganda. Katie, Rob and I decided to head in the same direction to explore Fort Portal and the beautiful, waterfalls, caves and crater lakes nearby. It was an amazing day with beautiful weather and some of the most stunning scenery imaginable. We also had the added bonus of meeting Baboons on the way as we drove through Kibale National park and finding a restaurant for dinner that just played Kenny Rogers. A perfect end to a perfect day!😊

Monday morning found us all at the hub and thrown in at the deep end to teach various lessons. We could not have asked for a better welcome from all of the staff but especially Eric who teaches computer skills and became our driver when Loy was exhausted after our day out on the Sunday.Katie outside the hub with Loy, Eric, Joseph and some students.

We also had the best welcome from all of the students. It was so amazing to have so many students, varying in age from young adults to over seventy, with so much intelligence and so many different life experiences, crammed into such a small space, sharing chairs and desks yet so eager to learn.I cant imagine what the students have gone through but when we were talking about the verb to run and asked them to make a sentence using the past tense, one student’s answer gave us a little insight.

‘When the soldiers came, me and my family ran.’

I was so glad to have Katie and Rob alongside me at first,especially as it is a long time since I’ve studied English grammar and Katie was the expert! Unfortunately Rob only lasted a day before he was struck down with a very bad dose of man flu, hence his spending three solid days in our room. His quote,

‘Still I did have the company of mosquitoes, ants and lizards!

Oh and the occasional dung beetle

Happy days!’

Katie was also only there for Tuesday’s lessons before she returned to Kampala. By then, after some rapid lesson planning on the Tuesday evening I felt more confident and was very happy to go it alone. Thank you so much Katie – I tried to include all of the different teaching methods/learning activities you suggested. I hope I did you justice.

All together, it was an absolutely amazing week, I would love to have stayed longer but had to return Rob to some creature comforts to restore his health and good humour.

I will return – probably with a different companion, (Ellie or Gill – you’re probably my first thoughts as I know you would both cope well with any adversity, be energetic and compassionate and embrace the experience) to hopefully continue where I have left off.

The people of Rwamwanja are amazing. Any time I thought about how I’d like a hot shower or electricity I had to pull myself up quickly as to everyone else around us our living conditions were absolute luxury. Despite their many hardships, wherever we went we were constantly greeted with waves, handshakes and welcoming smiles. We met more new friends on one trip into the village than I have ever met in my thousands of trips into local towns at home. The constant cries of Mzungo, howareyou? (Which is obviously the first words every child in Uganda is taught and yes howareyou? Does come as one word) were truly lovely (if a little exhausting after answering for the hundredth time) and we constantly felt like the most important and celebrated guests.

Thank you to everyone, especially Eric and Loy. Eric’s words about nobody being able to think about self improvement when they are so hungry or thirsty and their basic human needs are not being met, will stick with me. I know we need to do something to help but I’m not quite sure what yet. Following the massive amount of faith we saw from the refugees – May God guide us.

Sorry for such a long blog but it’s been a while. Rob has some video footage he will add later. Love to everyone at home. Xxxx

After an early breakfast and a short flight to Nairobi we had a four hour wait for our flight on to Entebbe.

Nairobi airport was a dream come true with duty free chocolate everywhere. I hadn’t had chocolate in over three weeks so was very proud when I limited myself to a bag of Daims and a bag of Dairy milk. I even avoided the buy two get third free on bags of Dairy Milks – I’m regretting that a little now.

We whiled the time away between flights in a Chinese food and chocolate haze and were soon on our flight to Uganda.

Entebbe Airport was not quite as enticing as Nairobi but as our driver was ready and waiting for us this wasn’t a problem. We drove from Entebbe to Kampala and arrived at our guest house at about 7.30pm.

After a full day of travel we were both excited to arrive, have a meal and a shower and have an early night ready for our first day with the Xavier project the next day.

The driver dropped us off and we were met by two young men who helped us in with our bags and showed us to our separate rooms. We explained that we would like to share but were told this wouldn’t be possible until the next day so settled in. Rob wanted to take a shower straight away but discovered there was no hot water. This was the beginning of our having to get used to a run of cold showers – I’m sure it’s character building.🤔

The building was massive with lots of corridors and rooms around a central staircase. We set out to find out if we could get some food and eventually found a young girl in a prefab by the gate who took us to ‘sister’. We realised that we were staying in what had been a convent and was still run by nuns.

Sister was lovely but advised us not to leave the guest house after dark, she kindly arranged food for us and by about 8.30 we were fed, cold showered and tucked up in our separate beds.😴

We spent Friday in Kampala, exploring a little, meeting some lovely people from the Xavier project and finding out a little more about their work. Ch

Children in art workshop in Kampala

In the evening we went out to an amazing restaurant where a band were playing live music. The band practice on the same site as the Xavier project offices and unwittingly provide music for the children who access the project to dance to during their breaks. Their music plus an excellent steak and lovely company ensured a really good evening culminating in us all hitting the dance floor and our latest night since reaching Africa.

On the Saturday around midday we set off on the next leg of our journey right across Uganda to the west and the Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement.

After the disappointing anticlimax of our cycle ride (NB Rob said he may never cycle again) we have had two of the windiest days Zanzibar has ever seen.

This has meant even more enforced relaxation (we’re getting very used to it), a fine covering of sand over everything we own but on the plus side the best waves ever!!!!

Up until now the waves have broken about a mile out to sea on the coral. One day we did attempt to walk/snorkel out there but after an hour we still didn’t reach it so came back. With the high winds the waves still broke on the coral but had also built up enough momentum to create a large second wave literally right outside our hotel. Rob and I spent a happy hour in them Tuesday afternoon enjoying the contrast from our veritable millpond until we both got a little shivery and ran to be first in the shower.

We never got to snorkel around Mnemba Island due to high winds but did enjoy a little just off of the coast which showed us some stripey fish, some black fish and some fat ones (we are both clearly fish experts).

We were very sad to leave our lovely little bungalow

And the beautiful beach

Our lovely room

And the great food and drink

in the lovely restaurant.

If we’d have realised what we were moving to we might have never left……

Three days have passed since our last catch up and we have generally continued in a state of continual relaxation. Hours of snorkelling in the sea and long walks along the (endless) beach have been the pinnacle of our exertion with several breaks to lounge by the pool or drink at beautiful bars along the way.

We have also taken up darts as a leisure activity. I haven’t played since I was much younger, it was one of my favourite pastimes to participate in with my dad and has really brought him to mind. He was highly competitive, occasionally a little bit of a cheat and would always make any game of 501 or 301 into a maths lesson. His methods of subtraction were far superior to mine even though (as he would always remind me) he only went to school for five years. My mental maths hasn’t improved greatly but luckily I now have Rob!

Netflix is still featuring highly in Rob’s agenda

and I have found the perfect place to read the 12 new books I’ve downloaded. A double hammock underneath a coconut tree.😊

Before we move onto the topic of the title of today’s blog I just want to mention football.

Every evening, from 5pm onwards, you cannot move outside our bungalows or on the beach without encountering football. It seems like every local male between the age of 10 and 35 congregates at one of the pitches to play the full hour and a half match before their evenings commence. The beach matches are definitely more casual whereas outside our bungalows the games are well structured and even have a referee.

They also attract quite a crowd.although the seating is fairly unconventional.

That’s enough from me – over to Rob for his specialist subject of cycling.

We casually booked 2 bikes for a trip down the beach today – Sunday.

After our usual two course breakfast and having packed a rucksack for the trip we were told the bikes were ready.

When I first looked at the bikes I thought they were for a child, Oh no they were ours.

The photo below doesn’t really give a true picture as to how bad they were. Handlebars were short with some grip in places, saddle seemed to be at incline (which would later prove to be painful), significant brake rub ( I later disconnected the brakes). Bent crankset. Gears just about worked.

Anyway we set off on what can only be described as one of the hardest cycle rides I’ve ever done.

We searched for flat, hard sand to ease our pain.

I did log the ride on Strava but would rather forget about it. Lots of pain, sweat and tears.

I later found out they one of the wheelers completed his 100th 100 miler today which would have been a dream compared to the 16k assault on the beach we managed.

Just before we go, two things to add.

Happy Birthday today to Gosso, hope you’ve had a fantastic day.

Well done To Ellie for (finally) passing her second year. We’re very proud!!