The Pearl of Africa...

… is how Winston Churchill famously referred to Uganda, and based on our most recent travels, we understand exactly how he felt.

Last week we went down to the far southwest corner of the country to a Lake called Bunyonyi. The lake is nestled in a group of variously green colored hills from the dark green of the old forests, to the light green of the grasslands, all continuously dotted by the radiantly, fluorescent green matooke (banana) fields. The locals work their fields while the little kids run up and down the dirt paths laughing and playing. The camera sometimes captures the beauty as it really is, but most of the time does not do it enough justice. Bunyonyi, sittting at about 6000ft, is home to numerous large and small islands and there are two modes of transportation available, the dugout canoe and a few tourist boats with outboard engines. Half of the eleven of us paddled one of the dugout canoes to where we were staying, an island called Bushara, which is practically the only spot that still has all of its old growth forest.

The irony in the beauty of the surrounding hills, unfortunately, is the wholesale clear-cutting of a majority of the old growth forests for fuel and timber purposes. Every square inch of available land is now used to grow food, which makes for a spectacular landscape of multi-colored, terraced fields, but at the same time leaves it vulnerable to massive erosion. Bushara Island has a circumference of about 2k and hidden within the tall trees are 15-16 luxury camping tents complete with beds, a patio, an eco-toilet and even an outdoor shower that they will fill with hot water upon request. Every site is isolated and has a great view of the lake. Lynn and I both agreed that this was the most peaceful place we had ever been as all you ever hear are the birds and some occasional drumming calling the people to church on neighbouring islands.

The great thing about this lake is that we were able to swim in it due to the lack of things that would kill us such as waterborne diseases, crocodiles, and hippos. Best of all, though, was the rope swing which started from a high wooden platform and forced us to swing across the walking trail through a channel cut in the reeds and finally whipped us to a nice high jump into the water. Our group sustained only a few rope burns and one foot-dragging face plant into the water.

On Saturday morning we took a boat to a swamp at the far end of the island- only one large hill away from the Rwandan border- to see many different kinds of birds and quick glimpses of the lake otters. Africa tends to turn the most normal person into a completely nerdy birder and although I continue to deny that I am becoming a birder, I do enjoy using the strength of my camera to zoom in on some pretty amazing winged creatures. We ended up seeing 24 different kinds in only two hours.

As you can see from the pictures, the water was perfectly glassy the whole weekend- only adding to the grandeur of the place. The small island (below) with the lone tree is called Punishment Island, which is where they used to exile woman who committed adultery. Lynn amusingly quipped that she could mess around all she wanted in this place because it would take her no more than 10 minutes to swim back from the island each time.

The second adventure I speak of involved an assignment I am doing for school. The assignment is to assess a community project and since I already have connections at the UN Millennium Villages Project (MVP), I chose their school feeding program for my assessment. A short background is MVP was borne out of the Millennium Development Goals, which was a pact made in 2000 by the leaders of 192 countries to eradicate poverty by the year 2015. In 2006 MVP was created and 12 villages from all over sub-Saharan Africa were chosen as sites to implement a model development program. One of the villages chosen, Ruhiira, happens to be 45 min. from Mbarara and the main office is here in town. I have been volunteering there for a couple of months trying to help them with some inventory management problems, hence my connection. MVP is a huge project so I chose one aspect, the school feeding program, which I found most intriguing. There are 21 schools feeding over 11,000 students in the program and on this past Thursday I was able to ride along with the MVP education officer and the head driver as they delivered food to 11 of the schools in one of the two sub-counties.
Imagine the bumpiest dirt road you have ever been on and then imagine that we drove for ten hours in a truck filled with 5 tons of food on these roads, up the sides of mountains, through endless banana tree fields, and past settlements that surely had seldom or never seen a white person before. I unfortunately did not bring my camera on this outing (I will next time), but it was some of the most extraordinary landscape I have ever seen. Most schools were perched on the tops of these giant hills with views that western developers would die for. One school looked across an entire valley with the border of Tanzania at the far end.
The kids would gather around the truck while the food was unloaded and mostly stare at me in wide-eyed wonderment as I would ask the headmaster some questions. Some of the less shy girls would come and shake my hand, curtsy, and say “pleased to meet you”. It was very cute. The advantages of the feeding program are twofold as it allows more children to attend school knowing they will receive two hot meals, while at the same time allows the parents to spend more time growing food, some of which they can now sell for a little bit of income. There are many challenges also, but I will not go into detail as my main focus for this story is the beauty the place.

Africa is a huge, diverse place and we are lucky to be living in the tiny pearl that is Uganda.