Today was an easy day. We slept in for an 8:00 am departure time. We stopped to see some birds along the way, then drove through part of the Lake Mburo park. We only skirted the edge of the park because we made some modifications to our schedule and wanted to get back to town. We even got out after a little while and walked through a field where we saw lots of zebra grazing with some farmer's cows! The farmers aren't allowed to mess with the zebra in their fields! Pretty wild. We also saw some other animals. There are eland in this park, but they're apparently very shy and hard to find.
Wooly-necked stork
more pied kingfisher
Wahlberg's eagle
On the way out of Lake Mburo, we started having a little car trouble. After stopping at a garage for a few minutes to try to fix it, the cure still wasn't in and Gody determined that it wasn't safe to continue. Kalema handled it like the professional she is. Without missing a beat, she arranged another driver. We transferred only the things we needed for the rest of that day to the new car and driver, and were on our way with hardly a hiccup!
With our new driver, we made it to Kayabwe, the town where they celebrate being on the equator, kind of like Mitad del Mundo in Ecuador, but a whole town instead of a park in town. We stopped at a local restaurant and ordered, then went to the "tourist" spot and took pictures. I now have photos of myself with one foot in the Northern and one foot in the Southern Hemispheres in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres! Kind of neat if you think about it!
The tourism people frown on exposing tourists to local foods before the trekking is complete because of the possibility of traveler's diarrhea. Our treks are all complete, so I ordered the equivalent of the sampler plate with groundnut sauce. OMG! It was all soooo good! Rice, matooke (mashed steamed bananas), sweet potato, irish potato, ugali (steamed maize cake), and cassava (yucca). There was also an avocado. And you can't forget the groundnut sauce in the bowl! Yes, lots of starch, but...
We then made our way to the school. The Lungala Education Center serves children from ages 3-12 (ish), running classes that are basically kindergarten and elementary school equivalents.
They have seven teachers (with two current openings) and 128 students, some of whom walk up to 10 km (5-ish miles) each way. Kalema and Nicholas founded the school on some property donated by the community and with the help of some donated labor, but donations only go so far. Kalema also supports the school with proceeds from her tourism business. They do a wonderful job. You can see that the children get a very good, basic education, even though there is a shortage of books and student consumables.
They have a mostly-functional well for water, a rudimentary kitchen, and primitive toilets.
They try to grow food, and they feed the children meals (which is sometimes the only healthy meal the children have).
They have one piece of playground equipment that is loved by all the children.
They have many needs, including that they would like to have another building so they can take more children as well as more teaching and student use materials. This school is in Mpigi, a small village outside Kampala. It is the only school in the community, a community that has fallen through the cracks and is not well served (or even served at all) by the public education system. If anyone would be interested in donating to help support this school, please let me know.
By the time we finished touring the school and playing with the children, Gody was back to take us to our hotel.
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