Bungee Jumping the Nile

Nile High Club

Last weekend 17 of us from SIT met up in Jinja at the source of the Nile and went white water rafting and BUNGEE JUMPING! It was the most adrenaline-filled day of my life, and I have never been on such a natural high!

The day started for me, Eileen and Sam in Kapchorwa at 1:45 am (after a night of no sleep) when we had to get up to catch the 2 am taxi to Jinja. To our surprise, though we had warned the hostel staff of our early morning departure, we were locked into the hostel. We knew the taxi would leave without us if we didn’t get out in front on time, so we frantically snuck into the bar part of the hostel and hopped over the bar to see if we could open it another way. No luck. Then, we realized the back of the hostel had a garden with a fence. We hopped the fence and sprinted the long way around, just in time to catch the van pulling up in front. For the entire time we’ve stayed in Kapchorwa, Sam and I have woken up at about that time every night to a taxi honking its horn for about 15 minutes. We finally were able to experience the other side of that when we drove around Kapchorwa to all the passengers’ homes and honked outside their house until they came out. Not a fun way to wake up.

The ride to Jinja took about 5 hours and there were still stars out the entire ride as we tried to sleep. When we got there, it was still dark and we didn’t have much of an idea where to get dropped off. We guessed “Jinja center” would get us somewhere. Once we were dropped off, at a random gas station, we asked a few boda drivers if they could take us to the “rafting place”. Unfortunately, our friend in Kampala was the one who had organized the whole thing, and we had very little idea of where to go. For a lot of shillings, the boda drivers took us to A rafting place, which of course, since it was 5 am, was locked and closed. Stranded on a dirt road in the dark in Jinja, we decided we’d find a hotel to have breakfast at until the rest of our group got there around 8. After a few failed attempts at finding a hotel (one of which included being chased out of someone’s home by 6 dogs and a man with a gun) we found the nicest hotel I’ve ever seen… in Uganda. We ordered breakfast and drank about 4 cups of coffee each. We were a giggly, overtired, over-caffinated mess by the end, and so ready for our Nile adventures. We found out from the hotel staff that our rafting place was different from the one we had been at earlier, so they helped us get bodas to the right place.

When we met up with the rest of the group, who we hadn’t seen for a few weeks, we realized just how much our social skills had plummeted from being in rural Uganda. It also probably didn’t help that we hadn’t slept and were shaking from drinking so much coffee. We all got suited up for rafting and hopped on the raft!

I’ve been white water rafting before, but it was in Maine and the rapids were much less intense. Our guide was great and taught us how to handle all the different rapids as we drifted down the Nile. The first set we went through were class 5, and we flipped over! When the water was calm, we were allowed to swim by the boat, which was nice. The water was so warm! I asked about crocodiles, and our guide said not worry, they’re vegetarians in Uganda. Yeah… okay.

After rafting, they provided us with a huge Mexican lunch. It was delicious, mostly because it was something different and because we were so hungry after white water rafting. It’s a workout! Then we headed back on the bus to the base camp where a bunch of us were going to bungee jump.

Bungee jumping was the best part! There was a tower next to the base camp that reached out over the water. I wasn’t that nervous until I started climbing the stairs to the tower, but I knew I wouldn’t chicken out. I was the first to go out of our whole group. I put on a harness and then sat in a chair on the end of the tower, where a guy strapped my feet together and tried to distract me by talking about where I was from or something. I had to hop to the edge and hold the roof with my hands. The scariest part was right before I jumped because I looked down and realized that I’d be free falling all the way down. So, I looked up at the sky and then he counted to three and I jumped.

We were told to jump out with our arms spread. You could go feet first or head first. I decided to go head first J The initial fall was the best part! It was probably a 4 or 5 second free fall and it was the coolest feeling ever! Completely free! I fell until I almost hit the water and then the bungee pulled me back up. My body was twisted and jerked around, but I was so limp that it didn’t even matter. The whole thing took about 4 minutes, and then I was caught and brought back to land by a raft below. As soon as it was over, all I wanted to do was go again. Unfortunately, my funds would not allow this, but I am already looking forward to the next time I get to go bungee jumping.

The last week of my practicum flew by. Joseph had a lot for me to do at KACOFA including helping the UN WFP (World Food Program) loan 200 tons of maize into trucks. Don’t worry, I wasn’t the one lifting. I got to tally the number of bags as the lifters loaded the four monster trucks. On Tuesday, Joseph brought me to his house to meet his wife and three adorable daughters. I was very impressed with their beautiful home up on the hill. It’s so high up that we could actually see KACOFA from their back porch. They made me a huge meal and chai and gave me a tour of the neighborhood.

One of the greatest parts about being in Uganda is the connections I have made. The people are so incredibly warm and hospitable. Joseph’s wife told me next time I come to Uganda, I must stay with them. The cool thing is they’re not the first family to offer that to me! I am constantly giving people my email address and phone number (though my number here will not work in America). I have real intentions of coming back here someday, but I do have a hard time answering when people ask me when I’m coming back. I wish I could tell them “next year” or some definite answer, but I can’t. Joseph told me he wants his girls to keep in touch with me so they’ll continue to be motivated in school enough to hopefully study in America for university.

I am now back in Kampala. Life has instantly picked up speed just from being in the city again, but it’s nice to be in a more civilized area again. It was sad saying bye to my friends at KACOFA and in Kapchorwa, but it is also nice to be back and surrounded by familiar faces in Kampala.

I have attached a bunch of pictures from the past few weeks below. Videos to come… 

Practicum Photos

A monkey outside our room at Crow's Nest

View from our room at the Nest

Sam sitting outside our dorm at the Nest

Inside our room

Traditional plow, Mt. Elgon

View from the boda ride down Mt. Elgon

Me in front of one of KACOFA's sorghum fields

Joseph

A little town between Mt. Elgon and Mt. Moroto

KACOFA offices

The view of Kapchorwa from our hostel

Eileen's homestay mom, Juliet and baby sister, Prisca

Sam and Eileen on our hike to the cave

A machette, a stick and a live bat the kids caught (choose your weapon)

Hiking through Upper Tegeres, district of Kapchorwa

Me, Eileen and Sam

About to jump

Weeeee!

Safely in the raft

The Nile

At the base lodge, hyped up on coffee

The rafting crew

The view from behind Joseph's house

Joseph's youngest daughter

Joseph's home

Loading maize into trucks for the WFP

Inside the KACOFA storage room

200 tons of maize

View from out of my window in Kapchorwa

Our hostel

Our favorite convenient store, "New Jambo"

A sample of the water at our hostel

This is what we got when we ordered "rice and greens". Mmmmm

Rural, Rural Uganda

Takwano!  

Takwano is “Hello” in Kupsabin, which is the language spoken in the Kapchorwa region. I feel like my Luganda is getting rusty really fast now that I am not surrounded by Baganda. Unfortunately since I have already taken my language exam, I will probably never exercise my Lugandan skills again. Reminds me a little of high school.

I think after three weeks here this small town is getting used to seeing three muzungus around. However, the level of harassment has heightened as we’ve gone further into rural Uganda. If I don’t find a husband before I’m 40, I’m moving back here where lots of men want to marry me.  Just kidding. We have been making good friends with the hostel staff, the clerk at the general store down the street and the internet “café” owner (I say “café” because it is literally a room with 4 computers separated by wooden boards, no beverages included).

Our hostel has turned into a dorm-like living area. Sam and I share a full-sized bed, equipped with a bright blue canopy-style bug-net. Because we have no choice but to do our own laundry, we rarely have clean clothes and our sink, shower and toilet don’t work between the hours of 7 am and 9 pm. I’m getting pretty used to the food though. Rice, chapatti and muchomo (fried beef) for every meal is past the point of old and has become appetizing again.

My internship has not picked up much since the last entry, but I went on a really awesome site visit the other day with Joseph. He knew I wanted to interview a farmer/member of KACOFA, so he planned to take me down to one of the biggest farm plots on Thursday. When I got to KACOFA, I expected to see Joseph ready in a car, but he waiting for me on his boda. It took an hour and a half to get to the farm and the whole way we were driving down a very bumpy and windy dirt road DOWN Mount Elgon. It was so steep that Joseph had to ask me to get off and walk a few times, as the boda might flip over with our combined weight. Really safe. Luckily, the views were absolutely unbelievable the whole ride. It’s days like that which remind me why I’m here and why I decided to spend my practicum time out east. Having to stop the boda in the middle of the road because a herd of cows is crossing the path makes me smile every time. Unfortunately, I chose to wear a skirt that day, which made for an uncomfortable ride for the two of us as I had to hug his waist the whole combined 3 hours down and back up the mountain. When we got to the farm, Joseph first showed me the fields where they grow barley, maize and tomatoes. Even though it’s the rainy season and has been raining two times daily, it’s still a lighter rainy season than normal so crops like maize and barley are suffering in the flatlands below Mount Elgon. Because of this, KACOFA trains farmers to grow different types of crops so they have an alternative source of income. For the particular region we were in, the most appropriate crop to grow was tomatoes. I found out that this farm alone supplies most of the tomatoes sold in Kampala, which I thought was pretty neat!

Mt. Elgon faces Mt. Kadam, which is in Moroto, Uganda. It is a BEASTLY mountain that can be seen from almost every point on Mt. Elgon. Since the early 1900’s there were groups of people who would come to these areas in the flatlands between the mountains (where I was) and cattle rustle. They would come at night to the villages and steal their cattle and kill the villagers. As a result, these areas were completely abandoned and only began to be resettled in the past 5 years. Because of this, the land has not been touched for more than 70 years. KACOFA is very proud to own so much of this land because of how fertile and rich it is. Only 1/50^th of it is actually being used at this point because people are just beginning to inhabit the area again, but they will continue to expand with time. As the village is so young, the homes are primarily temporary and look the same: circular mud (cow dung) huts with grass roofs. I love them1

With the frequent, violent rain storms Sam and I have been laying low and watching movies in our hostel in our down time. We had bought a few seasons of whatever pirated American shows and movies we could find being sold on the streets of Kampala before we came. We have now watched Veronica Mars (half of) seasons 1 and 2, Community seasons 1 and 2, How I Met Your Mother seasons 6 and 7, Coraline, Hugo, and a Disney package of Shrek, Madagascar and Toy Story. We were also excited to find a hidden stash of movies on my lap top  (which is my Dad’s) including: It’s Complicated, Lost in Translation, Notting Hill, Wimbledon, Star Wars episodes of Family Guy and a few British version episodes of The Office. Score! Thanks Dad J

Aside from watching TV last weekend, we went to visit our friend Eileen, who is living with a family in Kapchorwa. She lives up in Tegeres, where I lived during my rural homestay with Sam. Eileen’s homestay mom, Juliet, was so excited that we were visiting and prepared a feast for us of home-slaughtered chicken and a massive plate of rice. Even though I think both my tastes and standards have changed since being here, the meal was delicious. After eating, we went on a hike to the caves near their house. We were accompanied by about 30 of the neighborhood children. I think they just wanted a good laugh, and to show off as they ran up the hills in bare feet and we struggled behind them in flip flops. The cave was SO COOL. It was filled with huge bats (which the kids like to knock down with rocks and show me up close… kind of scary), cow poop and pools of water. Juliet told us that back when the cow hustlers would come to areas of Mt. Elgon, farmers would bring their cows into the caves at night to hide.

Aside from practicum and our few adventures, I have been electronically communicating with my friend Jessamy (who is spending her practicum in Gulu, Uganda) in coordinating our trip to Kenya. After the program ends in a few weeks, we are spending ten days in Kenya before heading back to America. Updates on our plans, coming soon!

That’s all for now! Katabon (“thank you”) for reading!

P.s. Pictures to follow in a week or two when I am back in Kampala. It's too difficult to upload them with such slow internet.

Off-Roading Uganda

I am currently sitting on the porch of my cabin, looking over a valley and Sipi Falls. My campsite is called Crow’s Nest and it’s located on top of a mountain in Mt. Elgon. Mt. Elgon is a mountain range in the east of Uganda stretching to the border of Kenya. The whole region is called Sebei, and the town (only “urban” center for kilometers) is called Kapchorwa. Because the Crow’s Nest lacks electricity, I have had to wait until now to charge my computer. It’s nice not having the option of internet and electricity at “home” now, except that we will need it when it comes closer to the time when we need to write our practicum papers, so we are considering shifting locations. Also, the commute to our work places every day is far and therefore more expensive. Our daily stipend would allow us a lot more food and spending money if we lived closer to Kapchorwa, so we’re looking into a few other hostels. I will be sad to leave Crow’s Nest because of its amazing location, but we’re so close that we’ll be able to get out here on weekends for hiking and exploring. The showers in town will be an improvement as well, even though at this point I’m pretty sure I have used every type of bath that exists.

Sam and I left for the east on Friday morning. We took a 3 hour bus ride to Mbale and then took a taxi to Sipi. One funny moment happened on the taxi on Friday. As we got closer to Sipi, Sam and I were the only passengers left on the taxi. At one point, we passed three police officers, holding the arm of a cuffed criminal. Ugandans have big hearts, and of course, knowing how far the police station was, the taxi driver stopped and let the four men onto the taxi. The cuffed man was so excited to see two muzungus in the back of the taxi and climbed over every row to sit next to us. He shook our hands with his cuffed hand and proceeded to ask us questions about our where we come from and what faith we are. He sang some Christian church songs to us and told us that he used to be mad, but now since he has met a missionary, he is fine. Questionable. When we got to the police station and stopped, he told us “well, this is where I get off”. Sam and I were trying so hard to hold back our laughter.

I began my practicum on Monday after taking a very expensive boda ride past the city to my work site. I got a tour of KACOFA and a brief on the history from my supervisor, Joseph. Joseph is the Extension Manager of KACOFA and has been really helpful so far in assisting me with my research. I was able to get a much better picture on the business, so I will do my best to explain to you what they are and what it is I am doing with them. KACOFA (Kapchorwa Commercial Farmer’s Association) is a business that is funded by USAID programs. In 1999, it began with 27 members as a training program that taught local farmers improved farming practices for coffee, barley, maize and sorghum.  Today, there are 6 districts involved and a total of over 6,000 members. KACOFA buys crops in bulk from structured groups of farmers. The crops must meet certain quality and quantity standards to enter the facility before they can be weighed, processed, packaged and stored. The bags of grain are stored until the demand is at its peak (not during the growing season) and then sold to different partner buyers such as WFP (World Food Program) or Ugandan Breweries. I’m finding that there is still a lot of room for internal development, but I believe the business has a lot of potential and possibility to be used as a model for future commercial agriculture businesses because of its success so far. I will be working with KACOFA directly 3 days a week for 4 weeks and conducting “outside research” 2 days a week including interviews with external stakeholders. I’m interested mostly in the challenges KACOFA faces, the ways in which they plan on meeting these challenges and the areas of potential growth. It’s exciting that I found KACOFA because at its current stage, I think that my research could actually be of value to the business in the future.

I’m technically a part-time intern at KACOFA, but they are more interested in helping me with my research and teaching me about KACOFA than letting me work for them (I don’t think they have anything for me to do), so I mostly act as a shadow. I’m not complaining! On Tuesday, I sat in on a board meeting with Ugandan Breweries representatives, journalists and news reporters. Because KACOFA is so new, they’re still in their initial growth stages, and so at this point, the press is very important for their business. After the meeting, we drove two hours out into rural farmland and visited a few farms that sell their crops to KACOFA. The whole time, we’re practically off-roading on dirt roads, winding through small villages and up over rolling hills. When we got out a couple times to take a look at some farms, we got to hike around the hills and it was amazing how far I could see into Kenya. All around Mt. Elgon, the land is flat, and you can see quilt of green, brown and red vegetation. I am so bummed I didn’t have my camera! Today, I sat in on a meeting with an organization whose name I forget. They were working on implementing a project with KACOFA to help them develop internally and become more organized. At first, I felt like I was just there to listen and take notes, but the board members kept asking for my input, so I started giving them ideas and suggestions. I didn’t realize how much my “Project Planning and Management” course at UVM taught me.  I was found so many flaws in the way the meeting was organized and the way the project was supposed to be implemented. It was hard not to completely tear it apart, but I think my little bits of advice were helpful for now. It felt good to be able to participate in such an official discussion in a foreign country.

Sam and I have loved our lifestyle out here. We’re been making an effort to walk, run and hike as much as possible in order to burn off some of the matooke weight we’ve put on. With our stipend money, we’ve been living off avocados, tomatoes, green peppers, jackfruit, passion fruit, bananas, rice and beans. We’ve also been able to cook eggs, greens and roast g-nuts for ourselves using Crow’s Nest’s kitchen.  It’s been nice to have some more control over our exercise and diet. Another great thing about the Crow’s Nest is that it attracts a lot of other muzungu travelers. We have already met three different travelers and been able to spend some time with them and hear their travel stories. They’ve given me some great advice and inspiration for trips I will take in my future.

Luckily the heavy rain season has not hit yet, but we have gotten a few storms so far. They’re fun to watch roll in from so far away with huge bolts of lightning and I like the sound of the rain on the tin roof at night. However, the clouds have made it so that the sky has not been clear at night for star-gazing.

This region of Uganda does not speak Luganda, so I think I’m getting a little rusty. Hopefully I will pick of some of this language, which name I forget, to share with you!