Habari from Uganda!

 0245... what a godforsaken hour...

especially when bedtime hadn't been until at least 2330 and that was post a stretch of night shifts.

But in order to gain... sometimes you have to lose and in this case losing a few hours kip was well worth it (I may not be saying that by the end of this blog.)

Some of you may think (correctly) that I had just got back from a trip, and I couldn't possibly be on a plane again... but having landed back from Morocco on Monday, a few days off to recover from a 30 mile sand dune trek in the Sahara and unpack, a few nightshifts and a repack and I found myself on a plane again, back to Africa to teach Newborn Life Support in a hospital in Uganda with a few madwives... I mean midwives, Sam Flemming, Claire Carter (RBH collegues and occasional participants in the CraZy) and Gillian our leader (a midwife from London). 

We left behind a very cold UK in search of warmer climbs at 0630, having shown our numerous documents (Yellow fever and Covid certificates and our Visa) and stood around waiting for what seemed like forever. Security was a breeze and we were soon sitting in departures, drinking hot choc and eating an exceptionally good ham and cheese toastie.! A good start!

We boarded the plane for a quick hop over the channel to Amsterdam where we then had to walk a few miles or so it seeemed to our next gate where we awaited our second and longest flight of the day. Boarding went quickly and I found myself in am aisle seat... I was grateful for the legroom later.

Myself, Sam and Gillian settled in for a flight which me and sam had guessed would be about 5 to 6 hours long... we actually majorly misunderestimated how big Africa is amd the fact that we were first flying down to Rwanda before going back up to Uganda escaped us. In reality it was a 7 hour and a bit flight. I rewatched Top Gun Maverick (excellent), R. I. P. D (also excellent), nearly finished book 1 of 3 of the trip... tried unsuccesfully to snooze and then got a bit bored of the whole thing.

Time eventually passed and we touched down in Kingali, Rwanda where we sat on the plane, waiting for some to disembark and others to board. During tgis little stop, my horizons were broadened by tge nugget of information imparted by the flight crew... Rwanda does not allow plastic bags into the country. How forward thinking! Back uo into the air for flight number 3 which fortunately was another up and down hop of 40 minutes.  And so we arrived in Uganda!

The usual palava of customs wasn't actually too bad and I have a nice stamped visa in my passport as reward for my tiredness. We breezed through baggage claim and out into the warm night air, to be greeted excitedly by Claire, who had already flown out, seen the gorillas and done another Safari... not jealous at all.

It was a short ride to our very nice hotel amd poor Sam drew the short straw to bunk up with me! We sat on the porch sipping our cokes, nice and warm (sorry UK friends and family) and listening to the crickets

I, of course, started as I meant to go on, pulled out my torch and went for a little hu t around for living things. I was almost immediately rewarded by spotting a couple of cute geckos, blending in perfectly with the colour of the walls and scuttling away from the bright torch light. Sam despite all her protestations of how she wouldn't join me on any night walks, became curious at a very loud noise and we went in search of the culprits, which turned out to be 2 small frogs who sat obligingly for their close up.

By this point it was gone midnight and even I reluctantly put away my torch and dove into bed under the mosquito nets.

Sam, disappointed by the notice about plugging in appliances, left her straighteners untouched in her bag 😂

I already like Uganda and I'm excited to see what the coming days bring...  I already have a plan that is forming about a trail and my bike for the not so distant future.... 

Dream.... Plan... Do!