Alexis came to visit this weekend, and in her honor we explored the area around Nkokonjeru a little more thoroughly this weekend. After a leisurely breakfast complete with french press/cafetiere (there are some Brits here now, so my vocabulary is expanding), we took a long walk out to Lake Victoria guided by Abraham, an American who's been in Nkokonjeru for a year now.
Though Lake Victoria's more touristy destinations aren't too easy for us to reach, the edge of the lake near Kikwayi is only about an hour's walk, more if you're as slow as we were. We headed down the dirt roads to finally arrive at a little fishing village that couldn't have had more than two dozen residents. Most people don't actually stay in the village, but go down there in the mornings to fish.
Some of the fishermen agreed to take a few of us out in a boat for a short ride. The boat couldn't fit more than 4 of us, so we drew straws for the privilege. Heehyun, David, and I all lucked out, plus Byron, one of our new British friends.
Right to left: Byron, David, Jade
The lake was a pleasure to ride on, and I could have happily been rowed around it all day. Byron and I tried to knock the boat over, much to Heehyun's dismay. At last, though, it was time to go in--probably for the best, since most of us forgot to put on sunscreen before leaving and no one was completely unburned after the day was over.
We hadn't actually done any fishing the first time out, which we had expected to do. Since lunch time was drawing near and there wasn't any other prospect of food nearby, we asked the fishermen to take us out again to actually catch some fish. This time, they could only take two, so Amy, our other new British friend, and I went.
The fisherman used a net to catch the fish, rotating the net through the water. Every once in a while the part of the net that came out would have a fish, and he would untangle it and throw it at our feet. We were just commenting on how lifeless the fish seemed when the fish started jumping around at Amy's feet, startling us both.
When we'd caught 6, we came back in. The fishermen said it would take about 45 minutes to cook the fish and rice for us, so we settled in to wait. They put us in the local church, which had just enough seats for us, and the local pastor came in to fill the wait by talking to us about Uganda's manifold problems.
Heehyun, David, and Amy
We ate the delicious food with our hands. When we were done, we got a group picture with the people who had so generously opened their village to us.
Back Row: Alexis, Abraham, Amy, Byron, David; Front: locals + Heehyun
The next day, Alexis and I hiked to the top of the cell phone tower and back. When we arrived, we came bearing pineapple only to find the rest of our friends in an epic Settlers of Catan game. We cut up the pineapple and watched for a while before Abraham arrived, suggesting we go out to Ssezibwa Falls.
We took a long, very dusty boda ride out to Ssezibwa. I'm told the dust on my face was particularly amusing, but after being made fun of for a couple of seconds I found a way to clean it off.
The falls were beautiful and peaceful, if not the most impressive landmark in Uganda.
After appreciating them from afar, we climbed to the top and watched the water tumbling down.
While waiting for some more bodas to take us back, we could smell vanilla being prepared nearby. Evidently, there was a big vanilla boom a few years ago when the vanilla crop in Madagascar was interrupted by outside events, but most of the farmers in Uganda who switched to vanilla missed the boom. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the source of the vanilla scent, though we did find some farmers who were growing it.
The bodas took us back to Nkokonjeru at last, and though I thought I had escaped the dust it turned out I still had it all over my face. A very busy weekend, though we stayed in the village (more or less).
More pictures from the weekend up here: https://picasaweb.google.com/Jade.Lamb/DMLIUganda
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