Jinja and Nakavundira

Last weekend we visited Jinja, which is famous for being at the source of the Nile River. Lauren, Gloria and I rafted the first 18 km of the Nile River on Saturday. The guide said that on the certain rapids the raft would almost certainly flip, and the best thing to do was to grab your paddle in one hand, the safety rope on the raft in the other, and hold your breath until the raft gets through the rapid. We only flipped twice, albeit once going through the rapid called "The Bad Place". This was decidedly safer than some extreme sports people do in Jinja. For example, while we rafted Dan watched people jump in barrels and tumble over Bugalogi falls.
(Here's a video someone got from the company we used; they do the same rapids we did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_RlTSwTy-8 ).

(For the record, Uganda is installing a second dam on their section of the Nile, and it will flood the top half of the rapids we ran. In my opinion, these were also the best rapids of the day; they were large enough to be exciting, but none of them were terrifying enough to be called "The Bad Place". So if east Africa is on your travel itinerary sometime in the next couple of years, make sure you raft the Nile!)

The day after rafting, Gloria and I ran the half marathon in Jinja. Most of the other runners were Ugandan, and although one local man insisted that Ugandans had a reputation for being out of shape, I disagree. It wasn't until about the 15th kilometer that i really hit the wall, but when I did I hit it hard, and I had to do a slow jog/walk for the last 6 km. Gloria finished the race running, which is very impressive since this was her first road race.
Along the way Uganda Scouts (like Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts in the US) handed out water, wet sponges, and handfuls of sugar. Let me tell you, this sugar was the best thing I had tasted in my entire life. After the first water/sugar point, I was dying to get to the next, which was a grueling 5 km away. And keep in mind, this was a very grueling, hot, sunny, midday, on-the-equator 5 km away, which made the sugar even better.


While we were rafting and running, some termites decided to build a nest in the wooden work shed that Duke students built last summer. Ignitius and I tried to dig up the queen and kill her, but she evaded us. We next caught a chicken, which eats bugs like termites, and tossed it on the pile of termites we had unearthed. It ate a few, but then left for its own chicken reasons. The termites were finally exterminated by the resident ants, which discovered that unprotected termites made tastey food. Nkokonjeru may not have Terminex, but they have dedicated ants.
(The above picture is part of RASD viewed from the work shed. Biomass charcoal briquettes are in the foreground).



This afternoon I established a compost pile at a primary school called Little Angels. Ignitius came to translate, and he did a great job of getting the crowd of little students to listen and work on making the compost. The word in Luganda for compost is nakavundira, and the children at this school decided this would be a good name for me. It's usual for a Ugandan name to have a literal translation in Lugandan. Ignitius' last name, Bwoogi, means 'sharpness'. It just happens that my name should mean 'compost'. I suppose my Ugandan name would be a lot worse if I was educating students about latrine sanitation or bio-gas harvesting. With this in mind I'll count myself lucky and hope the kids keep paying attention to the things I have to say, whatever they decide my name should be.



Since we've been in Nkokonjeru we've lost power four or five times, but usually only for several hours. Although this means we're helpless as we watch our laptop batteries drain, it doesn't compare to a power outage is in the states. Here we just light candles and LEDs and keep on with our lives. One great thing about losing power is the stars become even more spectacular. During outages, the nearest human lights come from the small city of Mukono, something like 30 km north of here. I'm waiting for the next full moon, and hoping for a clear sky and power failures.