Big city vacation

As I am writing, I have been in Uganda for exactly 37 days. As of last thursday we had spent 24 of these days in Lira. I have already grown to love Lira, and it is really starting to feel like a home to me. But on thursday November 3rd it was time to leave the little town and travel to the capital Kampala. Since then Håkon and I have spent some very fun days (and some less fun days(all days can't be very fun(some have to be less fun(that's just the way it is...)))) with all the other Norwegian Hald-students in Uganda.

These days have been packed with things to do, and Håkon and I have almost not had any time to sit down. I am obviously joking - Håkon and I have been chilling, as always ;) But we have had a partially packed program, and in case you're not already sick of this blog post and would rather look at funny pictures on artige.no, you can now read about some of the things that we have been doing these days.

Thursday November 3rd: We arrived in Kampala just past midnight, and we spent the first of several nights in the palace of the ActNow-girls Vegge (Benedicte) and Jørgensen (Helene). We enjoyed a delicious supper together with our hosts and the other guests, namely Hananger (Hanna Charlotte) and Bjerknes (Benedicte), who were visiting from Mbale. Nothing mentionable happened this evening, except that Vegge was reeeally overtired (as we say in Norway) and spent half of the evening laughing her brains out (of reasons that none of us were able to understand).


Friday November 4th: The next morning it was time for a great mzungu-visitation to Miles2Smiles, the kindergarten where Vegge and Jørgensen are working. This kindergarten hosts around 200 children every day, and it's mainly the children of single mothers who don't have any other places to put their children while they are at work. These kids were amazing. They at least melted the heart of this "viking". The second we walked in the gates of the kindergarten they came running towards us, hugged us around our legs, reached for our arms and pretty much looked like it was the happiest day of their lives. Lovely!
The reat of the day we went sightseeing around the city, and ended with a delicious chinese dinner together with the formentioned + Hanedalen (Miriam), Jensen (Seline), Haugen (Synne) and Lilleberg (Hanne).


Saturday November 5th: This day Jørgensen, Vegge, Hananger, Bjerknes, Hanedalen og Jensen went to a wedding and left us villagers alone in the big city. I guess this went down the way it had to, and Lilleberg and Sakseide of course managed to crash with their bodaboda. Chill down, Mom, it was a very undramatic experience. A car came up on the side of the bodaboda and just nicked us on the knees. One sidemirror was smashed. No stress, fun experience...
Other than that, it was a very uninteresting day. Or... We met a Ugandan that could speak swedish. That was pretty cool;)


Sunday November 6th: Oh boy! This day was so cool that it deserves it's own section further down in the blog post. Heyhey, no cheating. Read the whole blog post in the referred direction, and no one will be injured...


Monday November 7th - wednesday November 9th: These days were so uncool that they don't deserve anything at all. We were bored and waiting for thursday...


Thursday November 10th - friday November 11th: These days the FOCUS-people (that is Sakseide, Dugstad (Håkon), Solås (Malin) and Raniwalla (Maria)) spent at the Global Leadership Summit. This is a global leadership summit (go figure...) hosted by Bill Hybels and the Willow Creek Association. I dig Bill Hybels! So I was obviously excited to hear that he was in Kampala to host a leadership conference that I was going to. Cool... It was a small downer for me when I learned that they were really broadcasting the conference from somewhere else, probably somewhere in the United States. But hey, it was a good conference anyway. I had a good time.


Rafting in the Nile

Yes, you read correctly. Sunday November 6th 12 Norwegians spent 4-5 hours of their day to do grade 5 white water rafting on the longest river in the world. Sakseide, Dugstad, Solås, Raniwalla, Jørgensen, Vegge, Hananger, Bjerknes, Hanedalen, Jensen, Haugen og Lilleberg (some group of people...) expectantly aligned along the banks of the river, ready for what they hoped would be an adventure that they would never forget. And they were not disappointed. It really was a 25 kilometer long adventure. As opposed to the typical Norwegian rafting experiences where you have some extent of action the whole time, this was as much a wonderful paddling trip along one of the most beautiful rivers of the world, as an action-filled rafting experience. We had all in all 8 rapids at grades 3-5. A journey through one of these rapids could go a little like this: 1) paddle hard straight into the rapid 2) get down and hold on! 3) the boat flips around and you are sent back and forth between waves, gasping for air 4) you calmly and peacefully float out of the rapid with a wide grin on your face. In between these rapids we spent our time chilling, take a dip in the water from time to time, peeing in the Nile (yeah, I did) and delicious food breaks with biscuits and pineapples. Sad to say it, I don't have the pictures from this wonderful experience just yet. Of course we had photographers with us on the trip, and we have ordered the pictures for our raft, and as soon as they arrive in Lira they will be posted on GSI. I don't think you quite caught, dear reader, just how awesome this day was. Just to make it completely clear to all of my readers: It was awesome...

Thank you.