Wednesday 18/6/2014 to Tuesday 24/6/2014

Wednesday 18/06/2014 I cant remember anything on Wednesday as it is now the 24/06/2014 I am writing this blog so ill put all the days together to make it easier for you lot to read it. Thanks for your continued support in my volunteering I am thinking of all of you as im here in the sun. I hear there is trouble in Kenya at the min and my flight home goes through there so i will look in to the security around that closer to the time. Its one more month to the day I will be returning to England.

Thursday 19/06/2014 In the eve we went to see a music festival/show where we went to the local town to see several popular artists perform. The place was packed and a wallet was pick pocketed from one of our volunteers even before we got inside. In the wallet was bank cards and lots of money even after being warned to take only cash with us for this very reason. Fin left his wallet in his pocket but took all his cash and cards out and put it in his back, so his fake wallet also was pinched. Later in the night after a few beers and a lot of dancing we managed to get ourselves on stage in front of about 400 people. It was a great night bar the wallets. John took a picture from stage but also later on his phone went missing.

Friday 20/06/2014 We had another market today which was lots of fun and very busy. There is a lot of fund raising within the lodge that goes on and un noticed from the outside. We are currently raising some money to help the scouts go on a trip to lake nabyioko.
Saturday 21/6/2014 We set off for lake bonyonyi with all the volunteers 25 in total. It was a great time of chilling swiming and playing cards.
Sunday 22/6/2014 Today Emma and I swam to the island again and I swam back while a few canoos thought it fun to tie them selfs together like a raft and make it back as a group.

There were a few interesting conversations from some of the new volunteers. We was talking about the age some one becomes an adult and I said legaly its 18 so molly being 20 asked so does that make me an adult! just found out the question mark button on this key board dosnt work so apologies. Another quote is from Jess who had a few drinks and was rolling around on the grass who then asked was this real grass. Maybe these are you had to be there moments but oh well.

Monday 23/06/2014 We traveled back from lake Bonyonyi in the early afternoon and stopped off at the supermarket to get some pizza supplies which we will have tomorrow night.

Tuesday 24/06/2014 Rich and Emma left this morning which was a sad time but it happens to the best of us. They have another 5 months of traveling before they get married in England which I am looking forward to.
Rich and I got some children to paint their hands on our table which I will gloss another day to its easier to keep clean.

Some of the school uniform that has been donated here has been handed out to the children to stop them from walking around in damaged cloths. 

The rest of this morning we have collected fire wood for the pizzas we are having tonight!!! its going to be better than last time as the dough is already rising back at the lodge.

Tuesday 17/2014

Kim a volunteer who was here for 9 weeks left this morning. We took pictures of her and the group of us which have got quite close as friends. She put her hand print on the wall as expected from any volunteer and left at 11 am.

The group of lads here have spent 3 days or so making a table for the food hall for the children. It looks lovley I don’t deny but Rich and I desided to make one and we painted it before lunch. Start to finish it took us about 3 hours to make. We have painted it white and will get the school children to put their hand prints on the top of it as decoration.

We are still fund raising from the volunteers for all the money Rich and I have spent so far. We have been collecting bottle lids now for about two weeks and are organising a poker night tomorrow night. It will be £2.20 buy in or 10,000 shillings and half will go towards a prize fund and half will go towards the projects here at Uganda lodge.

Jordan and rose have been organizing anther lodge Olympics which will take place this Thursday I think. It will be so much fun with so many of us playing in the games.

This afternoon we are all off to town to watch a music/dance show to mark the opening of something or to celebrate something we are not quite sure but it will be fun and we will have food there also.

Monday 16/6/2014

After having a great weekend away it was time to put up the final poles to the climbing frame for the tier swing. Proved difficult as all the carpentry had to be done at the tops of the poles which were about 2.5m in the air but by the kelp of climber keith we managed and bolted it all together. We looked for the tier swing to find out some one had taken our rope and used it to tie down the luggage on the safari jeep. 

These is a volunteer here that hired a boodabooda for the day so I got to take it to town and get another 42 m of rope for £3.60 and I drove it back home. Half way through driving I wished I had some glasses on to stop the bugs flying in to my eyes and causing my eyes to water.

Today we have had 8 new volunteers arrive 6 is a group of girls and 2 of which are a cupuple which have been here last year working on a water project.

John one of the lads here knew a family form his last visit that was going to cook for us. Ten of us went and had some great food. Beef, spageti, rice, matoku and cabbige.  I had my first taste of jack fruit and desided it tasts like gone off bananas so didn’t take too much of it. 

A guy here has erected a 17 ft pole for a basketball hoop. &ft is in the ground and 10 ft is out. He dug to deep he hit water and as we are quite high and he was so close to an old sespit it could have only been one thing. A lot of the volunteers here worry that this pole is dangerious as he didn’t cement it in the ground and it is so heavy it took 6 large lads to pick it up. Lets hope it dosntrott too much in the ground and fall on to a kid.

Sunday 15/6/2014

Hey people. Today was mostly spent traveling back home to Uganda which I was looking forward to. We crossed the boarder with no issues and went and got some grocery shopping done. I got some stuff to make more pizza and flapjacks we are planning on doing these next Tuesday when we come back from lake Bonyoni.   

The main reason we went to Rwanda is because we wanted to make sure the electricity wouldn’t fail us while watching the world cup on some decent tv. The food was great we had Chinese, Indian, stake and tradition African food all in one weekend.

Our swings back at the lodge are already wearing through the rubbish rope so we got some chains to make more substantial swings that wont brake for a long while.

Maras the local chef came to the lodge and cooked us some more rolex’s which are just fried chipaties and omlets roled together.

Saturday 14/6/2014

This was a day of relaxing and strolling around some shops in town. Emma read in her guide that there was a Muslim quarter within the city that was a good visit. When we got there it was pretty much the same as most places in Africa with just a few more mosques . We had the chance to go and walk around one but I was very disappointed. The buildings were all run down and mainly empty with not a lot to see. There was a school attached with only a small number of students and they studied a lot in silence.

Our guide took us to see a craft market where you can buy all of the normal crafts found in Africa. In the craft market there was about 25-30 stalls each looked the same as the last with exactly the same stuff on sale.

I managed to haggle my nephew Joel a drum which just fits inside my bag so he has a birthday present when I get home. I love to buy Joel loud toys because I get to have fun with him and when it gets too noisy I also get to leave him playing away with no fuss.

Friday 13/6/2014

A few tears were shed by some of the volunteers in the genesidemeuseum. I wasn’t so emotional this time as I knew what I was to expect. This time we visited a few more places and given a more in depth insight of how it all started and what happened the years running up to the genocide.

 There was one building we were taken to which marked the start of the killings. 10 Belgum special forces had their weapons removed and taken to the main army barracks in Kegali where they assumed they would be safe. They were put in their offices and the Rwandan army stood outside and shot at them. Armed with just two hand guns they survived in this small building for 7 hours until a grenade was thrown in and ended the lives of the solders.