We spent the weekend on the picturesque Ssese Island, with white sand beaches and perfect sunsets. We spent the night in a tent, so of course I packed my sleeping bag, as I wasn't expecting a proper bed! I also love the irony that all week we don't have electricity, yet we had a light in the tent! Like most places though, this was only for a few hours in the evening. It's so dark without though, as there is no light from anywhere else, and I had a bit of a half asleep panic! I woke up in the middle of the night, and it was so dark it looked the same whether I had my eyes open or closed. For some reason, in my half asleep state, I thought I was outside and everyone had left, so started shouting, "Does anyone have a torch? Harri?! Harri!" I've no idea why I picked on Harri! Jo, in her sleep (she doesn't remember doing this), sat up and shone a torch at me, but then I decided I didn't need one. I swear doxy is sending us all crackers; we've all had such crazy dreams!
On Saturday evening, we had a lovely boat trip and watched the sunset out on Lake Victoria. As there were about 12 of us and only 4 paddles, we ended up just using the motor, but not after being laughed off the beach for our inability to get moving. I'm currently trying to load some pictures onto facebook, and will try to get some on here if I can work out how. The sunsets on both nights were absolutely gorgeous, and Kate painted one of my photos of a man paddling a longboat through the sunset, with the water orange from the sun. It's such a beautiful place.
After the boat ride and tea, we had one of the weirdest nights out I have ever had, and that's including broken generators on Cat Ba Island and the infamous Beach Club etc., haha! The night began at Mirembe Resort, where we were staying. We were all having a few drinks and all was well until I joined Carla, Tom and Brad in their variation of a drinking game, which they had named 'Mattias', after the Frenchman of the group. Trying to saythe right part of 'Six Mattias hopped across the pond', at the right time became far more hilarious with each round, and by the time we left, I'm ashamed to admit that smirnoff ice had done it. Yes, smirnoff ice. I blame the doxy and altitude. Honest.
We got the matatu driver who was with us for the weekend to drop us off at Habitat, apparently 1km down the beach. It has to have much further than 1km! As we walked into what felt like a barn, there were rows and rows of people sitting down, watching a half-naked woman dance onstage. It was just men watching; there were loads of women too. Henry, the bartender from our resort, had also joined us, as had Ken, Abe and Godfrey. He just announced "bar closed!" and left with us, haha! He assured us that later on in the evening, people would move the chairs and dance. We weren't convinced, but he was right and, sure enough, out came a teeny tiny disco ball. By the end of the night, Sami and I had accidentally weed in the middle of the club (we thought it was a discreet corner outside but it turns out it wasn't actually that discreet!), Jon had run away from a hooker called Happy, and Alex had apparently told a girl he was 17. Weird times.
The following day, we woke up to rain. Eventually it turned to drizzle, and I went for a little jog down the beach. On my way back, I saw a monkey and got literally a few paces away from it! I was so gutted I didn't have my camera (Kate was using it to paint from), but I got talking to a French Canadian woman, who was with a group playing volleyball. She invited me to play, probably assuming I at least knew how to. They were all really good, and I blatantly made my team lose! I was terrified of serving, but that was the only time I seemed to be able to clear the net! I was terrible, haha! So they taught me the rules and how to hit it, and we did a few practice shots. Eventually I got a shot over the net, woo! Haha, funny times.
We went for the 6pm ferry back to the mainland, but it turned out there hadn't been a ferry all day. After waiting around for a few hours, including 40 minutes at the meat stick stand because he kept sevring Ugandans who had just pushed in, we finally got on, but Tom had to stay another night because we were only allowed one vehicle on due to the backlog. I felt like a refugee, crammed on a ferry in the dark! There were so many bugs though, and as we left, behind huge lorry, the floor was covered in layer upon layer of flies! Urgh! It felt like we were wading through them!
After a great weekend, it was back to work once Tom got back on Monday. To our absolute horror there was still some sanding to be done! It's so mundane and feels like you're getting nowhere, but we're onto painting now! =D Just finished the bogey-coloured stage this morning, after staying until nearly 7pm last night. We're putting the zinc coat on this evening, as it had to dry for 6 hours. Then we will be painting in the mornings until Saturday, I think.
So pleased to have an opportunity to come to Masaka today and stock up on some bisuits, as the cooks really don't seem to have grasped the idea that we now have 3 extra people with us. Or that we'd scrapped posho from the menu. Yesterday's lunch: posho and pumpkin. We have all agreed that we perhaps need to cut down our daily nutella intake though, as it's really not lasting very long and is expensive!
Getting really exciting for travelling now, although I can't imagine losing 3 members of the group. The vague plan is to head down the Kenyan coast after we leave Jinga (our trip at the end of the project), down to Dar es Salaam and to Zanzibar, and then bus it back to Entebbe for the 8th August, stopping in Moshi on the way back, at the base of Kilimanjaro! I think we are also going to look into how easy it would be for us to stopin Cairo for a few hours on the way back, since we have 8 hours. We'll have to see though.
Hope John is having a great birthday! :)
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