Car Fun
on Sabrina and Geoff Slide in Kamwenge (Uganda), 17/Nov/2010 17:50, 34 days ago
At the end of October, we went on a trip to Bushenyi with our colleague Edith, to visit her mum. We had cancelled several times due to petrol shortages, so were very excited when we eventually set off with Edith in her car. In true Ugandan style, we were late leaving Kamwenge and then had to stop on the way to go to the bank and to pick up supplies. As darkness fell Edith said the quickest way to get there was to drive through a swamp near to her home. We felt confident in her car and on the mud road until she mentioned that she had been stuck in a particular part of the swamp before; no sooner had she said that than we ground to a halt surrounded by water!! It was pitch black by this time and we could see nothing but stars. Fortunately Edith was able to call a neighbour on her phone and eventually 9 men with hoes and pangas arrived and tried to dig us out. Four hours later the car was free and we were able to continue to her home.We had a lovely weekend visiting Kitagata hot springs, meeting her neighbours and enjoying Ugandan hospitality, although the car also had a puncture and the bumper almost fell off on the way home.In Uganda, everyone comes to help when you break down!Walking to the hot springs - the river had overflowed after heavy rains!Sabrina’s brother and sister-in-law, Adrian and Grace, together with their son Owen, then arrived in Kamwenge, having had a whistle stop tour around Uganda first. It was lovely to show them Kamwenge and they visited some of our schools, met our neighbours and fell in love with our muddy, rocky, and occasionally ‘virtual’ roads!!! The 5 of us set off to Masindi where we visited our friend Bollus and then continued to Murchison National Park, where they treated us to a stay at a luxurious safari lodge as well as a trip to the Falls and a game drive before they went home.The only way to see the animals - although Geoff fell off when the vehicle reached a 45 deg angle!3 elephants, 3 giraffes and the NileThis blog update would not be complete without commenting about our electricity - or lack of! Kamwenge will be the proud possessor of a new hydro-electric power plant in early 2011, but in order to connect it to the existing grid, the power has been switched off between 9 am and 7 pm every day except Sunday for the last 6 weeks - and sometimes they forget to put it on again at night! Even though the workmen seem to finish work by 3 pm every day. Still as one of our guides said– 'T I A' – This is Africa.