The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

My Easter holidays got off to an inauspicious start. On the drive to the airport, the front left wheel came off my little jeep. I watched in amazement as it innocently bounced along beside me before colliding with a bus shelter. Providentially, I was on the outskirts of the city at the time, and so was not moving too quickly. The irony lay in the fact that I had been on-route to a garage to leave 'Jesus is Lord' in for a service when the incident took place. My Ugandan travelling companions arranged for a pickup truck to haul us the rest of the way and so we arrived eventually though not in the style that I had anticipated.

That little drama out of the way, I continued on my journey without further incident to Zanzibar via Nairobi. Zanzibar is an island in Tanzania, off the eastern coast of Africa, in the Indian Ocean (see the map above of my route). It is a low-lying island of coral formation with an area of about 1658 sq km (about 640 sq mi). I spent 8 very enjoyable days in the company of Andrew, Ali, Michaela, Louise, Jenny, Rachel, Ruth, Sarah and Sue though not all at the same time as people arrived and left at varying points through the fortnight. Most days we sunned ourselves on the beautiful beaches, gazed at the turquoise water and grinned at our good fortune.

One memory that I will cherish from the holiday was our swim with the dolphins. We went out in a small boat with snorkels and flippers at the ready; eyes peeled for any sign of the creatures. Every so often a shout would go up and we would change direction, speed towards the sighting and launch ourselves keenly over the side of the boat. On a few occasions we got quite close and were able to watch the school swim synchronised beneath us. One of our shipmates, a rough looking giant of a Swiss man caught sight of a jelly fish and hurled himself back into the boat, never to venture into the water again for the entire trip. Our 'tour-guide' assured us that what we were seeing was not jelly fish, just jelly-fish-like organisms (very Monty-Python!). Our minds not quite at rest - but certainly dozing off - we carried on and were rewarded for our efforts with some quite close sightings.

At the end of 8 days, most of the others wanted to get home to Dodoma (the capital of Tanzania) for varying reasons. I went along as well as I had never visited mainland Tanzania before. While there are many similarities between Tanzania and Uganda, there are many differences also. The Arab influence can be seen everywhere and as Swahili is the main language of the country, it is not so easy to engage the local people in conversation.

After a few days there it was time to head back home to Uganda. I caught a 7 hour bus journey to Dar Es Salem, a ferry back to Zanzibar Island and a flight the next day to Entebbe.

I was a 'bit' disappointed to learn when I got back that the school is still not ready to take the computers. In fact no progress had been made while I was away despite assurances that the room would be finished. As always the problem is money; though a recent new generous donation from Microsoft will hopefully help out there and speed things along. 

When returning from a holiday one always likes to be healthier than when one departed for it. Unfortunately I caught Malaria somewhere along the way and am only now beginning to feel human again. I have been on Quinine all week, one of the positive side effects of which is constant light-headedness. 

So that's the Good and the Bad; what of the Ugly. Click here to see .....

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