Day 16 - Bujagali Falls

Today was very relaxing, although I slept in WAY too much. I went to bed around 1am and got up the first time around 9:30 am, on my own. Unfortunately I was so dang relaxed in my bed on a nice saturday morning that I kept closing my eyes. 11:30 am finally rolled around and I got out of bed, I was not happy with myself. I felt groggy and knew that that feeling would be with me the rest of the day.

We all decided to go to Jinja today and go to Bujagali Falls. Jackie, Ashley, and I had already been a week ago, but I was happy to go with the new group and check things out again. It’s gorgeous there so it wasn’t that bad... ;-) We struck gold when getting a taxi. First we were waiting for taxis to come up so that we could catch them in groups and meet everybody over there. While waiting, a man approached Jackie and told her that he would take us all to Jinja and back for 4000 USH each, 2 ways, AND he would take us directly to the falls and wait for us until were ready to go. We saved a ton of money with that deal, around 8000 USH each because we would have had to take boda bodas out to the falls from Jinja which would have cost 4000 each way. This time at the falls we found these two boats that take people on a small tour around the river and a couple of the islands in the middle of the river. They were asking for 5000 each, Jackie offered 3000 each because we had so many people going, he accepted. I almost didn’t go because I had my computer in my backpack and didn’t dare get on the boat with it in case we went over board. Jeff and Dan ended up staying so I left my bag with them, I was excited I got to go. We took two boats. Jackie, David, and I were on one, the rest were on another. The water temperature was absolutely amazing. We all wanted to go swimming, and had plans to, but time was cut short. We got off on one of the islands and walked up the way a bit to find a plot of corn growing, a mud/grass hut, and a witch-doctor... yes, a witch-doctor. We’ve heard some pretty psycho stories about those dudes, you definitely don’t want to get too involved with them.

If you can believe it, I didn’t take my camera on this trip, I couldn’t believe it, I was so mad. There were so many shots that I could have gotten that were beautiful, but oh well, it’s over. I’ll be back though for sure so it won’t be too big of a deal.

We finished at the falls and made our way to a place where we could go swimming. Unfortunately, the driver didn’t really know where to take us after he said he kinda did. We ended up at some resort that was incredibly nice, we were all blown away. There was a pool in the back as well as cabanas where you could spend the night for 120 EUR which is about US $190. It would be fun, but not worth it to us volunteers because we live so close and can visit whenever we feel like it. We took a bunch of pictures and wondered around for a bit before we packed it up and headed for Embira Forest. We got there and there wasn’t much light left. We ran into some other muzungus who were staying in this little hut out there, they said it had been a great experience. They said they went out looking for monkeys all day and didn’t see any, but when they got back to their hut the monkeys were everywhere above there heads jumping everywhere, I got excited about that. We sat and talked with them for about 20 minutes, by which time the light had left and it was time to return home. We piled in the taxi and had front door delivery service, it was so great. We plan on doing that taxi deal again in the future because it was a good price and it’s so fun to be with everybody in the same taxi.

When we got back we decided to watch a movie. Nobody could decided on what to watch so we looked at a bunch of pictures before and then finally decided on “A Beautiful Mind.” Only 20 minutes into the movie and people were filtering out. The others that remained fell asleep. The only ones awake were Lesli, Jeff, and myself. We finished the movie and I loved it! I had never completed the movie before so I was glad to finally finish it. It was pretty touching and heart wrenching all at the same time. I kept trying to imagine if I were like that or if my dad was like that, I don’t know how I would handle it. I’m just grateful for my mental health... well, as much as I have anyway.

After the movie Emily, Jeff, Lesli, and I stayed up for about 3 1/2 hours until 2:15am talking about all sorts of things, mostly deep doctrine things that we had always wondered or were curious to see what others thought. It was great to be with others that believe what I believe. That’s one more things that helps me feel good about being here in Africa. Not only do I see these people as my friends and I enjoy their company very much, I know that we are one in faith and that is so powerful and helpful to me being here. Until tomorrow, I’m way tired.