Uganda at Play

When Winston Churchill declared Uganda to be "the pearl of Africa" he pretty much nailed it. What a beautiful country and a beautiful people. Despite the fact that our hotel in Kampala had a metal detector and armed guard (as did places such as health care clinics), the capital city felt safe and friendly. The countryside even more so.

Walking around the village of Ishaka and through the lush, vibrant, tropical hillsides, the yell of "Hey! Mazunga (whitey)! How ah youuuuuuuu!" was always accompanied with a smile and was often sang more than simply shouted. Even in 2010 we were a novelty, only seeing 3-4 other whites the entire time we were in Ishaka, but the novelty quickly wore after a few days as we spent most of the time when we weren't volunteering being out and about and taking walks through the village.

We were also lucky enough to have our last weekend in Africa free of obligations. On Saturday, it took all of about 10 minutes to decide to hop in the car and cruise up to Fort Portal, the jumping off point for a series of magnificent, untouched crater lakes. This part of Uganda sits at an elevation of about 5,000 feet, and we rolled through the countryside (ok, jungle-side), enjoying the views, more shades of green than I've ever seen, and a quick dip in Lake Nkuruba - a lake surrounded on all sides by vegetation (and at least one side by colobus monkeys).

The rich, almost hidden, day-to-day life that unfolded before us as we wound our way through this remote area was as fascinating as the landscape. Children waving, entire families walking the dirt roads to church, bikes with more bananas than would seem humanly possible to carry bouncing along the uneven ground. . . we could have stayed in this scene forever.

We were a bit dejected when we finally hit a paved road after spending time in this enchanted forest setting, but we quickly perked up when we got to see a bit of Queen Elizabeth National Park. Already having had our fill of game drives and hours in the car in Kenya and Tanzania, we saw a bit of the park by boat and enjoyed a much different perspective as we once again witnessed some of the great animals of Africa.

Then it was a couple more days of volunteering, a quick trip to Nairobi where we spent our last day visiting an elephant orphanage and an open-air city market before an amazing last meal (we have no problem finding things to do to fill our time), and all of a sudden it was sadly time to start the 30 hour trip back home and say goodbye to Africa.

For now. . .