Wow. What a crazy weekend. Really, I just have no idea where to start. We traveled as a group to Jinja (the source of the Nile where we spent a weekend toward the beginning of the semester) for some Nile adventures... a.k.a. white water rafting and bungee jumping. It was CRAZY. Really, there is no other word.
I had been rafting before in the States, but I am pretty sure it was nothing like this. We opted for the all-day class V rapids, which is kind of strange to think that the Nile, which is incredibly calm in some areas, has class V rapids. But let me tell you, it does, and they're intense! After a grand 5-10 minutes of orientation (no joke, it was the shortest orientation ever... and most of it was consumed with giving us life jackets and helmets... but those are pretty important, so its all good) the 25-ish of us and another 15-ish other people piled into open trucks for the drive from our hostel to the river. Then it was time for organizing into rafts-- our raft, "team henry" (Henry was our awesome Ugandan river guide) consisted of Laura, Megan, Tim, Kelsey, and myself. Pretty sweet raft if you ask me.
The river was flat at first, and we got a little bit of still water practice before attacking the rapids. We learned all the commands from Henry-- easy forward, backpaddle, hard forward, lean in, and my personal favorite, "GET DOWN!" We also got a few more words about saftey on the river, including about the safety kayaks that followed us all the way down the river. Nathan, a guide in a different raft, was showing us how to grab on to the kayak if we ended up getting rescued. He showed us a handle on the front of the kayak and said, "don't pull this handle." We looked at him, some people a little confused, and he explained by saying, "if you pull this [insert guide's name here... I can't remember] will not like it. His cover will come off and he might not be wearing any clothes" Haha even though all of the kayaker's were wearing pants... but it gets better. Allie, stop reading. This is PG (maybe PG 13?) rated. Then he said, "and you will see his black mamba and be jealous. You don't want that image for the rest of your life." Yeah... our guides made the trip entertaining :) Seriously though, they were the coolest.
We also practiced fun things like tipping the raft rightside-up for when it gets flipped and attempting to get back into the raft once you are in the water, which believe it or not was the hardest thing we learned. Our final test... swimming (or rather floating) through the first class I rapid. Luckily we all survived :)
We all jumped (or rather flopped) back onto the raft to get ready for the big ones... which we conquered like we were professionals. One of the rapids that we went on was called 50/50 (meaning you have a 50% chance of flipping), but we were literally the only raft that didn't tip. We told Henry that they needed to re-name the rapid to something like 95/5. Really, we were a little disappointed-- they were great fun and got our hearts beating rather quickly don't get me wrong, but as we watched ALL of the other rafts flip upside down, we wondered when it would be our turn. But it was coming...
A while down the river we went on this intense rapid and flipped completely over... exactly what we had been hoping for :) But during the time I was in the water, I wasn't exactly smiling. It was so intense. I really have no idea what happened... we flipped over, I was under the raft at some point, and then an undercurrent dragged me from under the boat and I was under water. During our little safety talk at the beginning of the river they told us that downtime in the Nile is about 10 seconds... meaning you could stay under that long (but probably not longer) before the life jacket brought you to the top. So there I was, under the water, feeling the weight of the rapid all around me, my lungs already starting to burn. Anyone can hold their breath for 10 seconds, I thought... 10 seconds isn't that long. I started counting... 1...2...3...4...5...6...7... the first 7 seconds went by pretty fast and I thought, "I can do this"... 8...9... suddenly the last 3 seconds felt more like 3 minutes... and then I felt the top of my head surface, and I flung my face out of the water to gasp for breath before getting dragged back under and pulled further downstream. Funny thing? I loved it. Well, maybe not around that 9th second, but afterwards I did... when I was back in the raft. Before we went, some people who had gone before told us that this rafting trip was one of the scariest things they had ever done... and that they seriously thought they would die. All we could say was: "yes! lest do this!" Haha. We have serious thrill issues.
Our other flip was a little less terrifying, but definitely fun. The good part was that I held on to the safety rope around the raft the whole time so while there was still a lot of getting thrown around, I wasn't under the water for near as long... and I didn't have a long swim fighting the current to get back to the raft. That was nice. We lost Tim on that rapid though... but a Kayak picked him up and put him on another raft until we got far enough downstream to meet up with them.
So all together we tackled something like 12 rapids, 4 of them class V, and it was one of the most fun things I had done... until the next day...
Sunday was bungee jumping day. Crazy. I went bungee jumping. On the Nile. Ahh! When we first got to the tower, I was terrified, and pretty sure I would chicken out if I didn't pay quickly. Once I gave them my money there was no going back. We all climbed up to the top, and I watched a few people go in front of me. Before I knew it, it was my turn. The man who ran the company was Australian, and luckily his voice had a way of calming my nerves (hurray great accents!) He asked me if I wanted to hit the water and I replied "yeah," sounding way more confident than I really was. "You sound pretty sure of yourself," He replied, "Want a lot of water?" "Uhhhh... maybe just an average amount"
I stood on the scale and the figured out how much rope based on my weight and I sat on a little chair while they wrapped my ankles with a towel for comfort and a strap to hold me to the bungee cord. As a Ugandan man tied me up the Australian, Jack, explained a few things... "When you hit the water, make sure your hands are in front of you and your head tucked in. If not, its a guaranteed two black eyes" Ouch. That didn't sound fun. Feet tied together tightly I jumped to the edge of the tower... and SLOWLY lowered my hands. Before I knew it he was counting down from three and I had no time to think before jumping face first off the edge.
It was an exhilerating and thrilling experience... really there are no words to explain it. You feel like you're flying and falling, all at the same time. Suddenly my hands hit the water, but it wasn't enough warning, and my eyes were still open. I plunged into the Nile up to my ankles, and then was jerked back up, contacts swirling in my eyes (thankfully, they stayed in my eyes... and my shirt, which I thought for a second was going to get left in the Nile, stayed on my body). After bouncing in the air several times I got lowered down into the raft where two more Ugandans untied me and paddled the raft to the edge. Defintely the experience of a lifetime... and I'm alive to talk about it :)
I have a video of my jumping experience... but sadly it won't load... maybe another day!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
sipi falls-- the beauty of Creation
After our rural homestays we met up with everyone and some of the honors college students at UCU to stay at a little "resort" for debriefing and to see Sipi falls. It was BEAUTIFUL. We went on a hike that lasted pretty much all day to see the waterfalls, including climbing on the mossy, wet rocks to get behind them. Sooo much fun!
Laura, Megan, Nichole, and I.
The waterfall was sooo amazing.
Yeah... this one I'm not sure about ;)
At the second waterfall that we went to there was a little place up the stream to go swimming. It was soooo cold, but very refreshing.
Probably the coolest swing I've ever seen... the view was AMAZING!
I decided to take advantage of one of the only days I wasn't wearing a skirt... and climb a tree :)
Laura, Megan, Nichole, and I.
The waterfall was sooo amazing.
Yeah... this one I'm not sure about ;)
At the second waterfall that we went to there was a little place up the stream to go swimming. It was soooo cold, but very refreshing.
Probably the coolest swing I've ever seen... the view was AMAZING!
I decided to take advantage of one of the only days I wasn't wearing a skirt... and climb a tree :)
Monday, March 9, 2009
pictures!
My sister, Phyllis, in Kapchorwa town.
One day Phyllis and I walked in to Kapchorwa town, which was about 6-7 Km. from our house... a long but BEAUTIFUL walk. On the way home we got followed by all these kids who really wanted their picture taken.
Once upon a time... I killed a chicken.
Jeremy with our neighbor, Esther.
My sister, Rachel, finishing up plucking and cleaning the chicken (that I had just killed)
The sweetest stove I've ever seen. It was built up out of the same dried cow dung mixture as the whole kitchen hut. The green banana leaves in the right pot are wrapped around the matooke.
Jeremy with the balloon that I had just given him. He played with it ALL day and cried when it blew too far down the hill to reach :(
I thought that this tree was awesome! I wanted to climb it, but my dad didn't really like that idea.
Jeremy and a neighbor, Vince, enjoying the pop rocks that I brought. They were so cute! The would shove a pile in their mouths and then run around the yard yelling, "pop pop pop pop pop!"Friday, March 6, 2009
Kapchorwa
Sorry it has taken me so long to actually get an update on here! It has been a crazy week coming back to life at UCU, and for some reason posting to the bog hasn’t worked out with the Internet either. But I am crossing my fingers that it works today!
A week ago we piled into vans to start the 5 hour drive to Kapchorwa, a rural village in the Mbale district towards the East. It was a week I will never forget, and a week that is not easily put into words on a blog. Everyone in the family that I stayed with was really nice, but the week was still hard and made me miss all of you and my family in Mukono more than I ever could have imagined. My Dad, Patrick, was great—he actually talked to me, asking questions about America and sharing cultural stuff about Kapchorwa. The only problem was that he was gone working a lot of the day, and I was left at home. My Mom’s name was Violet, and she was also very nice. She had just had an operation for goiter, though, and was still recovering, so I didn’t really have very much of a chance to get to know her. My little brother was one of my favorite people in Kapchorwa. His name was Jeremy, and he was 3. He didn’t know any English, but that didn’t even matter much. All day he would say “Liw-a-beff, choo,” which translated means “Elizabeth, come,” and so I would follow him random places around the compound. I also had two “sisters,” who were actually my Dad’s nieces that were around to help out while my Mom was recovering from the operation. There names were Rachel and Phyllis, and they were both about high school aged. Sometimes they seemed talkative and we would talk and laugh, but most of the time they just talked in Kupsabiny to other people who stopped by for a few hours.
A few crazy things that I did in my week that I NEVER thought I would do/ a few things I could have imagined but were pretty interesting anyway…
1. I slaughtered a chicken. For those of you who are weak in the stomach skip the details and go down to the next bullet… but for those of you who are interested here’s a little bit more. I literally stepped on its feet and its wings and sawed off its head with a dull kitchen knife. Sick. I never thought I could do it, and my family thought it was REALLY funny that I was so scared. But I did it and I even helped pluck off the beak and feathers at the end.
2. I ate the gizzard of the chicken I just killed. That was interesting too. It wasn’t too bad, just a little too chewy. They always serve the gizzard to guests. Hospitality is huge in the culture, and I am pretty sure that if chicken’s had ten gizzards they would still give them all to the guest. I thanked God in my prayer for dinner that night that he made chickens with only one gizzard.
3. I ate. A lot. Like more that you could possibly imagine. Remember the part about being really hospitable? Yeah, that definitely came in to play with the food. My family served me sooo much food all the time, and I would try so hard to eat it because it would be really rude to refuse. Sometimes I wanted to cry when they put food in front of me! After I would eat a huge meal, my dad or sister would ask, “I add you more?” But sometimes it wasn’t even a question, it would just be, “I add you more” period. End of discussion.
4. I helped “smear” our kitchen hut. Houses/ huts in Kapchorwa were generally made out of mud and dung. So I guess every once in a while as upkeep you have to re-smear the floor of the hut. This consisted of hiking up the giant hill that our house was on to the cows and collecting some nice fresh (still warm) cow poo, mixing it with some sand-type stuff, smearing it all over the floor, and waiting for it to dry. Definitely an experience I will never forget! The amazing thing is that once it is dry it doesn’t even smell.
5. I carried things on my head. Lots of things in fact… well, mainly just two—jerry cans of water and matooke (aka giant bushels of plantains). As far as the water goes, I would go with one of my sisters nearly every day, and most of the time 3 or 4 times a day to walk about 20-30 minutes up and down this big hill to get to the well for water. It was definitely tiring, and they wouldn’t even let me carry the biggest jerry can! As far as the matooke… my dad, like most in Kapchorwa, grew lots of matooke, a lot to feed the family but some to sell also. One day it was really windy and the wind was knocking over all of the trees. “Come, we go,” my dad said, and I followed him to go and harvest some of the matooke so that it wouldn’t fall off in the wind. We chopped at the tree until they fell and carried them to the road on our heads. They were going to take them all to Mbale to sell.
6. I listened to the radio 24/7. This was definitely something I did not expect, due to the fact that there was no electricity, but my family LOVED the radio. It began blaring at 4 or 5 in the morning, and usually didn’t get turned off until 10 or 11. (I don’t think my family ever slept). The music was definitely interesting… my favorite sequence consisted of a song in Swahili, Point of Grace, Lion King, and Kelly Clarkson, all in a row. No one but me thought it was funny.
7. I milked a cow. I wasn’t very good at it, but I had several times to practice. We milked our three cows twice a day, which provided enough milk for #8.
8. I drank the same amount of tea that got thrown into the bay at the Boston tea party. Ok, this might be a slight exaggeration, but I don’t think it is by too much. Literally anytime was tea time in Kapchorwa! (The milk mentioned above is because African tea is different than we think of in the States. It is loose tea leaves brewed with milk an tons of sugar). One day I counted how many cups of tea I drank…. 9! The main reason that you always drank so much is because every new home you visited served the guests tea. The day that I drank 9 cups of tea happened to be the first day that I was there and my dad paraded me around to visit nearly all of his family.
9. I talked American politics. This was kind of interesting, because I honestly don’t talk politics that much even in the States, but in nearly every conversation (at least with the men, not so much with the women) it came up. It was kind of funny the range of knowledge that these men had about America. Some of them knew more than I honestly did about the election; others of them asked me if Switzerland was close to where I lived in America.
10. I was present. This, really, is the biggest thing that I did. Looking at all of the above things, it looks like I did a lot with my week, but really, when it comes down to it, life in the village (especially during the dry season like it was when we were there) is far slower than life in America or even in Mukono. There is an African proverb that says, “Presence is the debt that we owe to each other.” More than anything, this is what I learned in Kapchorwa, and while it sounds incredibly easy to sit and do nothing but just “be present,” I learned that it is one of the hardest things to do. Some of the time we chatted in English, which was GREAT, but most of the time my presence in Kapchorwa consisted more sitting than chatting—either because they all spoke in Kupsabiny or because we just sat without even saying much of anything. More than anything else, this is what made my time in Kapchorwa so difficult. It is hard to be so close to an incredible community while being so far removed from it. During my time that I was missing all of you so much, I was praying hard as well—thanking God for all of the relationships he has given me.
I tried to upload pictures... only three worked. Hopefully I can get the others up here soon!
My Mom, Violet (left) with one of my Dad's mom's (center, explanation-- my Dad's dad was polygamous), and a neighbor (right)
My little brother Jeremy with my Dad, Patrick, in the cave that was behind our house
A week ago we piled into vans to start the 5 hour drive to Kapchorwa, a rural village in the Mbale district towards the East. It was a week I will never forget, and a week that is not easily put into words on a blog. Everyone in the family that I stayed with was really nice, but the week was still hard and made me miss all of you and my family in Mukono more than I ever could have imagined. My Dad, Patrick, was great—he actually talked to me, asking questions about America and sharing cultural stuff about Kapchorwa. The only problem was that he was gone working a lot of the day, and I was left at home. My Mom’s name was Violet, and she was also very nice. She had just had an operation for goiter, though, and was still recovering, so I didn’t really have very much of a chance to get to know her. My little brother was one of my favorite people in Kapchorwa. His name was Jeremy, and he was 3. He didn’t know any English, but that didn’t even matter much. All day he would say “Liw-a-beff, choo,” which translated means “Elizabeth, come,” and so I would follow him random places around the compound. I also had two “sisters,” who were actually my Dad’s nieces that were around to help out while my Mom was recovering from the operation. There names were Rachel and Phyllis, and they were both about high school aged. Sometimes they seemed talkative and we would talk and laugh, but most of the time they just talked in Kupsabiny to other people who stopped by for a few hours.
A few crazy things that I did in my week that I NEVER thought I would do/ a few things I could have imagined but were pretty interesting anyway…
1. I slaughtered a chicken. For those of you who are weak in the stomach skip the details and go down to the next bullet… but for those of you who are interested here’s a little bit more. I literally stepped on its feet and its wings and sawed off its head with a dull kitchen knife. Sick. I never thought I could do it, and my family thought it was REALLY funny that I was so scared. But I did it and I even helped pluck off the beak and feathers at the end.
2. I ate the gizzard of the chicken I just killed. That was interesting too. It wasn’t too bad, just a little too chewy. They always serve the gizzard to guests. Hospitality is huge in the culture, and I am pretty sure that if chicken’s had ten gizzards they would still give them all to the guest. I thanked God in my prayer for dinner that night that he made chickens with only one gizzard.
3. I ate. A lot. Like more that you could possibly imagine. Remember the part about being really hospitable? Yeah, that definitely came in to play with the food. My family served me sooo much food all the time, and I would try so hard to eat it because it would be really rude to refuse. Sometimes I wanted to cry when they put food in front of me! After I would eat a huge meal, my dad or sister would ask, “I add you more?” But sometimes it wasn’t even a question, it would just be, “I add you more” period. End of discussion.
4. I helped “smear” our kitchen hut. Houses/ huts in Kapchorwa were generally made out of mud and dung. So I guess every once in a while as upkeep you have to re-smear the floor of the hut. This consisted of hiking up the giant hill that our house was on to the cows and collecting some nice fresh (still warm) cow poo, mixing it with some sand-type stuff, smearing it all over the floor, and waiting for it to dry. Definitely an experience I will never forget! The amazing thing is that once it is dry it doesn’t even smell.
5. I carried things on my head. Lots of things in fact… well, mainly just two—jerry cans of water and matooke (aka giant bushels of plantains). As far as the water goes, I would go with one of my sisters nearly every day, and most of the time 3 or 4 times a day to walk about 20-30 minutes up and down this big hill to get to the well for water. It was definitely tiring, and they wouldn’t even let me carry the biggest jerry can! As far as the matooke… my dad, like most in Kapchorwa, grew lots of matooke, a lot to feed the family but some to sell also. One day it was really windy and the wind was knocking over all of the trees. “Come, we go,” my dad said, and I followed him to go and harvest some of the matooke so that it wouldn’t fall off in the wind. We chopped at the tree until they fell and carried them to the road on our heads. They were going to take them all to Mbale to sell.
6. I listened to the radio 24/7. This was definitely something I did not expect, due to the fact that there was no electricity, but my family LOVED the radio. It began blaring at 4 or 5 in the morning, and usually didn’t get turned off until 10 or 11. (I don’t think my family ever slept). The music was definitely interesting… my favorite sequence consisted of a song in Swahili, Point of Grace, Lion King, and Kelly Clarkson, all in a row. No one but me thought it was funny.
7. I milked a cow. I wasn’t very good at it, but I had several times to practice. We milked our three cows twice a day, which provided enough milk for #8.
8. I drank the same amount of tea that got thrown into the bay at the Boston tea party. Ok, this might be a slight exaggeration, but I don’t think it is by too much. Literally anytime was tea time in Kapchorwa! (The milk mentioned above is because African tea is different than we think of in the States. It is loose tea leaves brewed with milk an tons of sugar). One day I counted how many cups of tea I drank…. 9! The main reason that you always drank so much is because every new home you visited served the guests tea. The day that I drank 9 cups of tea happened to be the first day that I was there and my dad paraded me around to visit nearly all of his family.
9. I talked American politics. This was kind of interesting, because I honestly don’t talk politics that much even in the States, but in nearly every conversation (at least with the men, not so much with the women) it came up. It was kind of funny the range of knowledge that these men had about America. Some of them knew more than I honestly did about the election; others of them asked me if Switzerland was close to where I lived in America.
10. I was present. This, really, is the biggest thing that I did. Looking at all of the above things, it looks like I did a lot with my week, but really, when it comes down to it, life in the village (especially during the dry season like it was when we were there) is far slower than life in America or even in Mukono. There is an African proverb that says, “Presence is the debt that we owe to each other.” More than anything, this is what I learned in Kapchorwa, and while it sounds incredibly easy to sit and do nothing but just “be present,” I learned that it is one of the hardest things to do. Some of the time we chatted in English, which was GREAT, but most of the time my presence in Kapchorwa consisted more sitting than chatting—either because they all spoke in Kupsabiny or because we just sat without even saying much of anything. More than anything else, this is what made my time in Kapchorwa so difficult. It is hard to be so close to an incredible community while being so far removed from it. During my time that I was missing all of you so much, I was praying hard as well—thanking God for all of the relationships he has given me.
I tried to upload pictures... only three worked. Hopefully I can get the others up here soon!
Carrying Matooke.
My Mom, Violet (left) with one of my Dad's mom's (center, explanation-- my Dad's dad was polygamous), and a neighbor (right)
My little brother Jeremy with my Dad, Patrick, in the cave that was behind our house
Monday, March 2, 2009
I'm back
Well, I'm back in Mukono after a crazy 10 day adventure in Kapchorwa, a rural village towards the eastern border with Kenya. My time with my family was one of the hardest weeks of my life, but also one of the most incredible opportunities. I don't have time to tell you all much right now, though, because I am back at UCU and realizing that I am a little behind on all of the homework that I should have done before I left. (i.e. I have a pretty big history paper due tomorrow that I haven't started!) Sometimes I forget that I am actually in school while I am here. Anyway... I'll do my homework and try to get a post up here with stories and pictures in the next day or so.
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