Sipi Falls

Sooo I last posted on Thursday. Let's see what i have done.

Thursday Night: the three residents (Natalie, Mary, and Rachel) from Wisconsin arrived LATE Thursday night in a PACKED car. Doug had to pick them up since something happened with their driver, and he had a million errands to run in Kampala, so in addition to all of their stuff and lots of donations they brought, they had a ton of other stuff and were all smushed in like a clown car. Stuff literally kept coming out of the car when they arrived. Ridiculous.

Friday: The girls started their day by doing orientations of the stations at the clinic. I spent some time in the morning beginning to go through the Peace Corps language manuals (of Lumasaaba, the local language),so that we can make a brief language guide to provide to future volunteers that come here. At 11 the last part of the CHE training started. Doug and I mostly split it up, I honestly don't really remember what we talked about. I had made up manuals for them from the last part of the information that Doug had copied in Kampala, so it was that stuff. I think like more women's health and stuff. Anyway, that took up most of the afternoon. The girls got to see me in action (teaching!) and get a feel for the Ugandan style of teaching. Patrick introduced the CHE's to them about a million times in typical Ugandan fashion, so they definitely got a feel for Ugandans love of ceremony and formality of occasion. Friday night... we as usual did nothing, but I sat around with the girls and talked. They are super keen on doing a TON of traveling (except one, who I think is concerned with costs, understandably), which I hope they can fit in considering they are only here for three weeks.

Saturday: We went to Sipi Falls on Saturday. What an adventure. So we took the boda-bodas to Bubulo (town a bit less than halfway to Mbale where you catch the Mutato, or small taxi bus to Mbale). They were pretty skeptical of the bodas, particularly the lack of helmets. I find them pretty exciting, but then again, I am planning to bungee jump in Jinja and Sam and I already scheduled our cage diving with Great White Sharks for South Africa, so I guess I'm more of an adrenaline junkie :) We got to Bubulo and couldn't get a mutato for the life of me.. I pretty much was the navigator since, you know, I had gotten via public transport to Mbale ONCE. So we just took another Boda into Mbale, and arrived totally covered in dirt. Then the girls had to change money, which was a nightmare since the banks mostly all close at 12 on Saturday, and we got there a little after 1 (we had to wait for Lisa to get up to give us specifics on how to get there and where to stay, and I felt bad waking up her early on a Saturday, so we didn't get on the road until after 11). Anyway, I found a bank where they could change money, I hit the ATM (surcharge free, thank you upgraded TD Bank account!). Mary and I went to the MTN store next while the other girls waited in a LONGASS line to change money. Well at the MTN store it turned out that they had changed their policies since two weeks ago when I got my internet plan. To get a USB internet stick for their laptop, Mary had to get a copy of her license and get passport photos taken, then we had to go back and try to get it. Turned out to be more expensive that we thought, so we just got 1 for them to share on their two laptops. Mary had an iPad, but they didn't have any microsim cards at the MTN store in Mbale. All of this made me VERY glad that Emma took me to the store in Kampala to set up my internet. VERY GLAD.

Finally we had everything we need (and after the great Diet Coke hunt of 2012, which I told them there was no diet coke to be had in Mbale, but they did find some Coke Zero. Me, I am loving the sugar of regular good ol' RED COKE - Gary will get that reference). So it was time to find our ride to Kapchorwa, which is the closest city to Sipi Falls, and they drop you off at Sipi on the way there. I had the number of Moses, who is one of the guides out at the Crows Nest, the hostel where we ended up staying, so he sent someone to find us and drive us up there. So after all of this, at about 3:30 we made it up to the Crows' Nest.


View of Sipi Falls (the lower falls) from our room at the Crows' Nest. We hiked to the lower falls with Moses that afternoon.



Then that night we had dinner at the lodge, met some really cool travelers while we were there. This one couple from the UK had DRIVEN all the way down here. You can check out their blog (actually really cool) at overlandbirds.com

Sunday: Sunday we got up early and hiked the upper and middle falls with Moses. Just amazing views, pretty steep hiking though.



This one is of the middle falls. From left to right: Me (DUH), rachel, mary, and natalie. It was really awesome. This part behind the waterfall was man made, and there are man made caves there too, that Moses told us all about. Moses was a very informative and awesome guide, he really knew his stuff, and his English was great so we really lucked out to have him as our guide for the whole time. We then took a mutato back to Mbale, and then had lunch at a sort of Indian restaurant that I hadn't been to before. Chat n' Chino was closed which sort of bummed the girls out since they couldn't get on the wireless internet then. I ate myself silly at the restaurant on "Spaghetti bolognese with garlic bread". This was like rice noodles with beef and some cheese on top in a kind of indian sauce. it was really good but not italian AT ALL. Garlic bread was white bread with chunks of garlic on it. Interesting as well. The mutato back to Bubulo was a typical level of crowdedness so the girls got their first taste of that and then a boda ride back up here to Matuwa where it started to rain en route. OH PERFECT. Just kind of chilled out, and attempted to watch Superbad, but no one paid attention as we all ended up using computers and reading books.

Monday: Monday was the CHE school outreach. We left a little after 11 and hiked about 4 km (it certainly felt longer!) up to the school at Bunumuntsu. It was like straight up the hill out my front door (I think I've posted pics of this), and then across and around this mountain and some others that are attached to it, I guess. The path we were walking on was way too treacherous for a boda even. It reminded me of a skiing traverse, like when you ski horizontally across the mountain to get to another area of the ski area... Dad will understand this one. At the school, we split up the 4 of us, and each went with a CHE and into a classroom where we gave a talk about general health, sanitation, personal hygiene etc. Part of my work here is supposed to be further organization of this program, since each CHE kind of went into his classroom by the seat of their pants and just winged it. A more cohesive, organized curriculum will ensure that the kids learn everything we want, and that they don't get double info or anything left out. It was just a very long day. We also went over to this other village that isn't within the CHE's jurisdiction but it is one of the villages that we are hoping to add to the program. There were a few patients there that definitely needed to be referred to the clinic - 3 of the 4 showed up today. I'll write more about the patients we saw today later (hopefully tomorrow!). I'm just tired of writing right now (I actually went for a run tonight!) and Lisa just made passion fruit cocktails (fresh passion fruit with sprite and vodka), so its time to stop for now!



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