Late New Years Post
06 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
Blog written on January 30, 2011:
Dearest Friends and Family,
Just quick note – my internet modem has been giving me problems for a while, so that’s why I haven’t been online at all, which is terrible for me because it makes my life so boring lol! And it makes me even more lonely, I’m making up for the past month with one or two blogs. And I soon should have skype set up so that we can skype each other which would be super cool! Note: Modem fixed on Feb 6th. On with it! ——
First of all HAPPY NEW YEAR (Issokomwaka!! I have a hunch that 2011 is going to be on of the most amazing years of my life, and I hope that 2011 will go just as well for the rest of you!
So, for New Year’s weekend, myself and a group of about 16 people from my group total travelled to Jinja and met up at Biasara Hotel. [Note: After next week we will become veterans in the PC Uganda because a new group is coming next week, with a bunch of Education Volunteers.] It’s a cheap place for a single [26,000 shillings, 12 dollars] and a double [36,000 shillings, 16 dollars]. The rooms are clean but they expect you to give up your bed sheets at check out at around 9, which is incredibly annoying and is now an inside joke for all of the people. We always sleep 3 to a double (or more) and 2-3 in a single.
Remember, we are still volunteers and our PC monthly salary is a small amount compared to an American Salary. So, living in Uganda at my site is fine on the PC allowance, but when wanting to do tourist-y things, they know they will charge American prices and that people will pay, so it’s hard to live on unless you don’t go visiting friends or [going to muzungu restaurants, Bungee Jumping ($65), Rafting the Nile( $95), Hotels with a pool ($35 - $150), safaris ($45-$500), going to see the gorillas ($500)] whatever than it’s hard to do fun things to regain my footing with my friends from time to time.
Anyways, we had a good lunch and dinner at nice muzngu restaurants, then headed to the nightclub with about 10 people around 9 [other people went to the Nile View Casino, where you can’t see the Nile from haha] We danced for a while then went back and hung out on the roof of the building, it’s the tallest building in Jinja which is about 5 stories high.
On New Years Eve, we were recovering from the club the night before and pretty much relaxed until Dinner. Then, for dinner we made reservations at this nice place called 2 Friends Hotel. We have a spectacular dinner and I think everyone was happy. We went back to the hotel and were having drinks on the roof. And from the room, 11 people went back to the club for New Year’s, but the “Fireworks Five” – including myself – stay on the roof and hung out and got to see 3 sets of fireworks going off at once, in all different directions. Now, they weren’t as amazing as Fourth of July fireworks but still great. This was the first year since the beginning of college at UVM that I hadn’t been at a club or psytrance party in NYC for New Year’s, but I will be continuing that tradition upon my return home in 2012 [or maybe at a psytrance party in India or Thailand?]
The next day all 16 of us got a private hire matatu to take us to this paradise island in the middle of the Nile, called the Hairy Lemon (the island was once owned by Irish people who named it after a Bar in Dublin, that my friend Chelsea has actually been to). Once you get to one side of the river, you ring the gong. Now I was expecting a big Asian gong, but it was just a tire rim and I was a bit disappointed, because I made sure that it was clear to everyone that I was going to ring the gong and no one else. I called it just because I organized the entire trip to New Year’s in Jinja and made sure there were spots for everyone to sleep and made the reservations for everyone at Hairy Lemon, as you can’t just show up unannounced because they provide all 3 meals for you and they need to make sure they have enough to feed the group. But one Congolese man and one Ugandan man came across the river to pick us up on canoes, and to make sure our shoes didn’t get wet they picked us up out of the canoe over their shoulders and took us to land. This was incredibly funny to see the macho-ish of our group getting picked up and tossed over someone’s shoulder. The food was delicious and they just installed hot showers and flush toilets, which was great. And the staff there was an Aussie and a Brit and they were really cool and showed us the coolest places to swim.
It was a beautiful day and we spent the day swimming in the Nile and chilling in pools of water made in between rapids. Then, all 16 of us hiked through the Nile to the nearest set of rapids and we parked ourselves on one rock and took pictures of us there. Then, we floated back to the Island and had some dinner and drinks with some really cool Swedish people. They have a 2 chill out areas which have hammocks, beds, and carpets in the shade so we had a place to hang out since most of the beds are dormitory style, except the one I slept in which we rented out for 4 people. And I didn’t put any sun block on for the day that I was there so I had one of the worst sunburns of my life, probably since the last time I went to Florida when I was a kid. But it was fun peeling my skin off haha! And it certainly did not get rid of my farmer’s tan but made it worse as you can tell from my pictures!
It was like a little paradise and probably the most beautiful place I’ve seen in Uganda so far. My friend’s pictures from the Southwest of Uganda also look beautiful, but I haven’t made it there yet. The Busoga region is definitely one of the hotter regions of Uganda, plus Northern Uganda. The southwest is a bit cold. And now I am used to being in this hot weather so when I went to training in Seeta (near Kampala) and it was raining and 60 degrees I was freezing and missing my Kamuli/Busoga weather! It doesn’t rain much in Kamuli during the wet season or the dry season. It’s a pretty dry place with only Lake Kyoga to the north (80 km), so that doesn’t affect us. So anyone who wants to visit, I wouldn’t worry about the dry season / wet season, it’s just much much hotter during the dry season! It hasn’t rained in Kamuli for at least 2 weeks, but when I was in Seeta it rained almost every day.
But in a still pond of water flowing upstream through the island on the Nile, they had set up water Volleyball net in the Nile. That was really fun to play with everyone because it’s so hard to move quickly and not fall in when trying to hit the ball when the water is up to your knees. We had breakfast and lunch there, which was well needed after so much volleyball, swimming and sun. And then, as much as we felt like tourists for those few days and didn’t want to leave paradise, we all went back to our respective sites that afternoon, knowing that we had just had a wonderful New Year’s Celebration! Everything went perfectly according to our plans and even some better opportunities popped up in Jinja which made it all the more better!
Hope your New Year’s was as good as mine! I wish you the best at home in the US and be grateful this year for what you do have!
Love you all,
DPop [my new nickname here]
