Hello!…Kirsten here:
I can’t believe we have been in East Africa for less than a week; we have done so many exciting things and our jamii is bonding better than ever! On Sunday, we had our first day of adventure; a scavenger hut into Kampala. To our surprise, Britt and Zik sent us off into the busy city ALONE! But with some helpful advice and tips from our worldly-experienced leaders, we managed to get there and back in one piece. The scavenger hunt enabled us to learn some history and mingle with the locals, which helped us get over the culture shock. We also experienced our first taste of local food while in the city, which consisted mainly of rice and a meat/vegetable sauce; it was delicious! Following our long day in Kampala we went to N’Dere; a traditional African show of dance and music. It was breath-taking! The highlight ofthe show for me was when the entire audience (over 100 people) were invited on stage to dance and sing – Zach, Dan and Britt started a ‘cha-cha’ line that EVERYONE joined! It was fantastic 🙂 On Monday morning, we left the Backpackers Inn at 6:30am and headed to Jinja for Class 5 white water rafting on the Nile river. We were split into 2 groups – the boys in one raft, girls in another – and there was a safety raft and rescue kayakers just in case we fell out of our rafts (which was bound to happen on Class 5 rapids!) After 2-3 hours of rafting, there was a beautiful, calm stretch of the river where we had lunch – fresh pineapple and tea biscuits – and jumped off the rafts for a swim in the Nile. For e, the experience was almost surreal; I couldn’t healp but imagine all my friends at home – busy at school writing papers and stressing over tests, whilst we laid in the African sun eating pineapple and swam down the Nile. After lunch we continued the last part of our rafting experience then headed back to a hostel in Jinja for a relaxing night, ending with a video of our white water rafting journey! On Tuesday morning, we met up with volunteers from Soft Power Education and took a walking tour of some of the projects they are currently working on. One of whihc was a preschool. We were welcomed to the preschool by tons of running, smiling children who were so friendly and beautiful. We stayed at the preschool for aout half an hour – playing games and taking pictures with the children before visiting the Soft Power Education education centre then leaving for our 6 day project in Bubugo. We arrived in Bubugo at 11am. We are staying at a school while we paint 2 of the classrooms and the outside of the building. Yesterda was our first day of work and our first day of Kiswahili lessons! We started the day at 9am and split into 2 gours – one did painting first, one did Kiswahili classes first. After lunch we all continued with painting and managed to finish the first base coat of the building. Today the group is continuing the work while Britt and I do some chores in the city of Jinja. We are all so excited to see the finished project and to learn tons of Kiswahili for Tanzania.
Talk to you soon!
-Kirsten
