Uganda and more

Well, after the excitement of all those blogs being counted it went quiet for a while! Sorry for the silence. The pace of life is fast here at the moment (not what you normally expect in Africa!) and we are hurtling towards Christmas with barely time to stop and think! So… I should fill you in one what’s been happening with the Wisbeys…

Since we left you we have been travelling (and more). Thursday 12th November saw us flying (yes you did read correctly – FLYING!) to Dar with MAF. It was the first time for us to fly from Mbeya and we concluded that it was greatly preferable to the bus – no surprise there! Also, it was our first time flying in a small plane (13 seater – I think) and though I was a little anxious that I would get travel sick we both had a fabulous time! You get such an amazing view of the Tanzanian countryside and mostly new territory as the flight path did not stick to the main road (the Tanzam highway). It was incredible to arrive in Dar in just two and a half hours compared to 13 hours on the bus! Anyway, we were brought down from our high(!) by the stickiness of Dar, no air-con at the airport due to powercuts, and our plane to Uganda being delayed by three and a half hours! We finally got there though, just a little tired.

We really enjoyed our nine days in Uganda. Entebbe is lovely – very green due to almost year-round rain (a contrast to the dry and dusty Tanzania we left at the end of the dry season), has an amazing number of bird species and is situated on the shore of Lake Victoria. It was interesting to explore a little of a country that though neighbouring Tanzania, in some ways seems very different. How strange (but also nice and easy!) that everyone spoke some English and when we did think we heard Swahili it was Luganda (that shares many words and phrases with Swahili)! We stayed in the guesthouse at the office and were able to spend some time in the office to see how the work (especially Literacy) is going there. Everything felt very different, especially as the work has been going on there much longer so is further on with many more nationals heavily involved. We were also able to take a trip to Kampala, the capital that is not far away, with our colleague Doug. Though the big city is filled with traffic and fumes it was nice to be able to frequent a coffee shop, a burger joint and some malls! For a short break Matt and I spent two nights at a lovely place by the source of the Nile at Jinja. It was great to really ‘get away from it all’ and just watch the Nile flow by. This was our first holiday as ‘just the two of us’ for several years so we really enjoyed ourselves! We left on Sunday 22nd after having a good break and a real insight into the work in Uganda.

The time away wasn’t quite over then though as we had one special day in Dar to celebrate Matt’s 27th birthday. As the day itself would dawn on the return bus journey we filled the day before it with lots of fun things such as swimming, shopping and eating out (all things we struggle to do in Mbeya!). I think it would be safe to say that Matt enjoyed himself and it made up for the usual bus-ordeal on the 24th! This certainly was a come-down after the MAF flight on the way but at least I wasn’t being sick like last time!

Now the time has flown since we got back with days in the office to prepare for our upcoming Basic Literacy workshop next week, trips to see the newly installed coordinators and being ill (again!). I think we are mostly prepared for the workshop, despite my illness absence of late and we all look forward to seeing the Basic Literacy preschool teachers again for a week of reviewing, improving materials, learning more about their languages and some new introductions to the program (materials-wise!). We hope the review workshop will go as well as the teaching workshop in June did and that we can have some good discussions about the teachers’ progress and the path ahead, packed with lots of ‘audience participation’! Please think of us as workshops are always full-on and there is much to be covered. After that come more trips to get the coordinators started well and then we will have a well-earned break at Christmas!

Photos from this trip are now online. Click here to view them.