Uganda Day 10...

 It was an early start this morning, up at 0500, a quick breakfast, a last look at the bats flying from tree to tree and a last goodbye to the kids hanging around. James was driving us back and we loaded our cases into the minibus and headed out of Freda Carr for the last time, at least for now.

We bumped down the potholed road and got onto the main road to jinja. We had time to stop at the Source of the Nile (the blue nile). The journey to Jinja passed quickly.. on a reasonably good tarmac road and chatting away. 3 hours passed and we were drawing up to the car park at the source of the Nile.

We were greeted by Victor who persuaded us that we had enough time to do the 2 hour boat trip. My last chance to see a snake! I was told it was difficult to find them (no shit) but possible so fingers crossed. He did promise that we would see some Nile monitor lizards. These lizards are massive growing up to 7ft in length. Very intelligent animals and very powerful. Fingers crossed for those too!

We walked down to the river, past the Mahatma Ghandi momument. I didn't know, but Ghandi's ashes were scattered into the river here as per his last wishes. We clambered into the boat and off we went.

There has been a dam built downstream of the source and when they built the dam they killed all the crocodiles here, so there are no more crocs to see, or hippos for that matter. The dam has also caused the level of the river to rise obscuring some waterfalls on the river, which now look like little rapids, rather than a drop down. The electricity formed by the hydroelectric dam is sold mainly to other countries which at least brings some income for Uganda, though perhaps they should sort their own electricity issues first!

We went off and immediately Victor pointed out some pied kingfishers hovering over the water and then diving to grab a small fish. They were my favourite of the 4 types of kingfisher as they were most different from the ones we have at home. We saw cormorants diving for fish, more bloody herons, egrets, storks, a pair of fish eagles (which were impressive even when you aren't that fussed about birds). A bit further along a couple of vervet monkeys jumped in the trees and a red tailed monkey scrambled down a tree trunk. The sun was right in our eyes and our cameras so it was hard to take good photos of what we saw.

Then we saw our first monitor lizard! Just sitting basking on top of the bushes... totally unconcerned with the boat floaating past. He was a smaller one, or perhaps a female. We floated on..

another monitor, again on the top of the bushes... this one we spooked and a rustle of greenery and he was gone. Very cool to see them though! We then motored over to the Source... basically it was bubbling up and you could see the movment of the water around created by the spring under the water. Next to the source was a hut with a tourist shop... the hut was on stilts, it had formerly been on dry land but since the dam was built had gone underwater. There were many nice things in the shop but I restricted to being ripped off to 3 fridge magnets... I only bought them here as I wasn't sure whether we would have a chance to buy anything as we were at the airport very late and this was our only real stop (or so I thought).

We hopped back in the boat and went cruising along the bank, past fushermen with their nets and lines.. then I spotted movement in the water... another Nile monitor! No! an otter!  African clawed otter... what a find. It dived underwater and we scanned the surface waiting for it to pop up again... another quick glimpse as it surfaced, then gone. No pics and Sam didn't see it at all. It didn't resurface where we could see it and so we moved on. More kingfishers, they were everywhere! More herons, more egrets, more cormorants. No snakes. Bloody birds!

We trundled back to the shore, hopoed out the boat and then ran the gauntlet of little shops... I only was persuaded to buy a bracelet or 3! I felt bad not to buy something in every shop as they didn't seem to have many tourists here.

Back onto the minibus for the long bit of the drive. We found out that we were headed i to Kampala to meet up with a member of the Kampala Rotary club. We groaned a little at that. We knew the traffic in Kampala would be hell and it seemed a bit unnecessary to myself, claire and sam... we kinda just wanted to go to the hotel and relax a bit before heading to the airport but as we were guests of the rotary we had no choice. Into Kampala we must go!

It proved to be a really bad choice. The traffic was really really bad... think London in rush hour x4... on steroids!

We sat in a massive traffic jam for at least 20 minutes, looking enviously at the bypass which seemed almost empty.

We eventually arrived at the shopping mall and cafe and met up with a gentleman from Kampala rotary. He was very nice and treated us to a nice refreshing drink. He thanked us for our contribution in teaching at Freda Carr and we talked about another rotary project mooted for a couple of years time. But inside I was screaming. Time was getting on and I was worried about the traffic which was building up into rush hour.. Kampala style. Insane!

After nearly 2 hours.. we got back into the minibus and crawled along...

Time was running out and we decided to go straight to the airport, it seemed to take forever and we were all a bit tired and fed up by that point. The heat and the fumes from the traffic were getting to us.

Eventually the traffic eased a bit and we got to the airport, unloaded our bags and said goodbye to James with a generous tip for his servuces for the week as well as gifts for his kids and grandkids and some leftover fruit and veg that we hadn't used.

We walked into the airport, through all the initial security and then checked in our bags, a lot lighter and fewer than the way out.

We then headed towards the main security line and got through very quickly. Then we sat to wait. It didn't seem very long until we were called for boarding. We had had time for a drink and some crisps and a very quick mooch around duty free and the other shops. Turns out the fridge magnets were almost as expensive as at the source of the nile.

We boarded the plane for the long leg to Amsterdam and settled in. Not much legroom and I sat and watched a tom cruise film, not top gun again though I was tempted. I tried to sleep with my head on the tray table and maybe dozed a little throughout the flight. Another film, Everest and then we were there! Our turnaround time for the flight home was about 1 hour, which was tight anyway... it got even tighter when the security belts stopped workong and we were pushed onto another belt after waiting around a bit... then we watched in dismay as all our bags, except Claire's were selected for further searches. Gillian tried to get thw security men to hurry as our gate had come up on the boards as closing... but it wasn't their job to care about our next flight and frankly trying to get them to hurry would probably make them take longer, so I stood there patiently as they searched forst Gillian's, then Sam's, then my bag.  By the time they had finished with mine, Gillian and Claire had started going to the gate, which seemed like miles away and Sam, who had waited for me, and myself began running. This was not ideal. We charged through the airport, overtook Gillian and Claire and carried on to the gate, now very hot and very out of breath. We got to the gate and they were still boarding. We waited until we saw Claire and Gillian coming into the boarding area and then got on the plane, coughing and spluttering. It had beem close.

The flight to the UK was a quick up and down, and soon we arrived to a cloudy and very very very cold UK. I was freezing!

It was good to be home though and we said goodbye to Gillian and Claire and went our separate ways. Sam's husband Paul had come to pick us up and we headed back to their house where I had left my car.

Freda Carr, Grace and all our new friends suddenly seemed so far away and the experience we had just had seemed so difficult to impart to others. What happens in Freda Carr stays in Freda Carr... only because it is very difficult to explain what the experience was like...

I hope I have given you a flavour of what life as a nurse in a rural hospital in uganda is like, the challenges they face and the miracles they perform every day. I hope I have imparted the challenges that the people face on a daily basis out there and made you think about how lucky we all our here to have the basics such as running water and electricity. But above all I hope I have brought a little bit of Grace and Freda Carr I to your hearts.

In a couple of years, I plan to ride through Uganda to raise money for LHS, some of which I hope will go to Freda Carr and help towards setting up the neonatal unit there. I hope to go back then and meet up with the friends I have made there. In the meantime there are other plans and other challenges to face... stay tuned to facebook for updates.

Fight the Fear, embrace the randomness and above all..

Go With The CraZy!