First weekend in Africa

What an incredible week it has been! I have met some incredible people, volunteers from NZ and Ugandans alike. The locals here call us muzungu’s, meaning white people. They yell it on the streets everywhere we go, the children yell it when we arrive at the school and they all yell it when they want your attention. We’ve gotten so used to it now we call ourselves muzunga’s now. Not something we should translate and bring back to NZ that one.....

This weekend we were super lucky, we had been invited to a traditional Ugandan wedding, which the locals made so much effort for us to come. So we dressed up in the traditional outfits that we hired off locals and went to this wedding. It was a 10am start time. I would like to share with you.... that we waited 7 hours and 26 minutes for the bride and groom to appear. No joke. No exaggeration. We spent the whole day sitting down on these plastic seats, listening to this glaring music that was so loud it made us want to cover our ears. There was a slight bit of entertainment where lines of people would dance out of the house, kneel in front of the MC and get given gifts. We got the gist of it after an hour or so. Despite the sore bums, it was actually really cool, and the very long wait and anticipation for the bride to show made seeing her that much more exciting. It was an honour to be part of such a beautiful event and they were so happy to see a whole back row of muzungas there! Even though the language was in Lugandan, we knew when we were being talked about as they would laugh and all stare at us. Something we would just laugh at too!

The weekend was finished off with white water rafting today for those game enough. We drove out to the river Nile where we were met by this beautiful bunch of people that took us rafting for 14km down the river. We went through 5 rapids. Three level four, One level five and one section of the end of a level six rapid. It was insane. I have never been through anything like it! Baby face was our instructor, he was picked up off the river when he was fishing one day and this job has changed his life. This afternoon was a reflection afternoon, a group of us had a gym workout at Nigo’s gym. A very cool place that has very creative weight systems, making the most of what he’s got. He started it by putting cement in empty drink bottles as hand weights. Afterwards we had a massive dinner with everyone from the group - this is the first night everyone has been all together as two volunteers arrived today. Despite Laura already leaving for back home, it was an epic evening having such a full table.

Later this evening we had small group sessions where we get to go in depth about our experiences so far, our thoughts about the culture and really talk on a deeper level with each other about what we are going through and witnessing. It was really cool, we covered the differences between our lives and their lives here, traits and values that differ or are the same, as well as general things that we had seen or experienced throughout the week. It was a great way to end the week and kick start a week ahead of hard work. Looking forward to it! The plans for Kkoba school, that we are building, are incredible! It makes me so excited to hear and see what all our money is going towards - an incredible school setup that is going to help so many children. Check out the construction blog post for more about what we’re doing on the school!

Muzunga’s time to sleep now x