More mountains climbed

It’s been quite a steady week at work with some of the days being taken up with jobs I’d describe as the rear end of administration and efficiency. Re-sorting the patient records in the reception to ensure they can be found quickly when needed does not have a whole lot of glamour (even if I wear my cool socks (thanks Tim Saunders), but does give a small amount of pleasure when its all done (I’m sick, I know). The job did highlight a few concerning flaws in my grasp of the alphabet such as a repeated urge to place ‘L’ in front of ‘K’ (okay, I’ll move on). Anyway, against such a background there have been many bright instances to keep the week ticking by.

One such highlight; it's close to comfort...

Most anticipated of these was the opening of the bank accounts last Friday. That’s right, I haven’t gotten confused, this definitely qualifies as a bright point. The other day when we were given numbers for the accounts, it turned out they’d been blocked a few days later. Continued stalking and harassment on my part had produced few results and then, finally, on Wednesday, Vincent had the brainwave of phoning IT support! It turned out there was a part of the form he hadn’t filled in… ideal. So, after just over two months, the two accounts are finally opened! (I had hoped to go on to write about how exciting it was that I’d gotten the suit that I’d been waiting for, and I was told I could get it last week and I went and… I was told to come back later, wonderful (Still under 2 months though so I shouldn’t complain too much))

Another highlight of last week was Mzungo Games Night. The dominant feature of the evening was dinner, with Ali making some splendid lasagne with salads followed by lemon drizzle cake plus the company was pretty decent. Such was the scale of dinner that we only had time for one game (which Dan lost badly, very very badly) but it was a good trade.

Saturday rates among the top days in Uganda so far; get ready for an overly detailed breakdown! Dan, Sam and I had arranged (at a local curry house on a Friday night man date that featured excessive amounts of garlic naan) that it was finally time to climb Wanale (the big lump lurking in lots of my photos of Mbale). The plan was to set off at 9am as a compromise between leaving early to dodge the rain and leaving late to allow for lie-ins. After I finally left the house in the trusty pick-up at 9:10, I stopped to pick up our lunch, chapattis en masse. Unfortunately, after I stopped, I couldn’t start again. Knowing the trusty pick-up has a habit of running out of fuel due to multiple users and a long defunct fuel gauge, I bought some fuel but this didn’t do the trick. Unfortunately, the boys were even further behind schedule, so we didn’t set off from that spot until 10:15 (locals will only help push if you pay them which I just can’t bring myself to do on principle). None of us had climbed the hill before, but someone had vaguely told us where to start from. We couldn’t find that so decided it was time to get seriously adventurous. We parked in a school playground (that isn’t the adventurous bit) and set off with the mountain dead ahead. It’s remarkably hard to walk anywhere off the beaten road without somehow gaining an opportunistic guide in this area, but we made clear that we didn’t have any money budgeted for guides which dispersed the crowd of young assistants pretty efficiently.

Spot the path

The route we took was absolutely brilliant, we’d turn corners or emerge from tropical canopies of banana leaves to see ever-increasingly-phenomenal views of the hill. However, as we’d decided just to head toward the bit we wanted to climb, the route got pretty steep. Thankfully it hadn’t rained the night before so we weren’t slipping around too much. The lack of any signposts made decisions a little more tricky but a mixture of local advice and democratic decision-making found us a great route to the top. Only as we neared one of the waterfalls did the route get seriously more difficult, increasing in angle and the distance between footholds whilst decreasing in grip. We slid our way up the hill (special mention goes to Dan who did the majority of the slipping but managed to last until the very end of the walk before he ended up landing on his butt), pausing for breaks for photos that happened to coincide with moments of breathlessness (it was the altitude, honestly). We reached the top and were about to crack out the chapatti and sausage for lunch when it started to chuck it down. The tree we’d chosen for shade now served for shelter until it got heavier and we retreated to the edge of someone’s metal roof. The wife came back, surprised (pleasantly?) to find three mzungus huddling under the edge of her roof, amongst the beans that were hanging there to dry. She kindly invited us in but, up on the top of the mountain (see how it’s changed from a hill) people’s English isn’t so good. All of us regretted our woeful progress with Lugisu and opted for appreciative tones of voice whilst thanking her via English and hand gestures interspersed with some few bits of Lugisu and Swahili.

Once the rain had cleared, we moved on toward the waterfall we’d come to see. The view from the top was amazing due to the distance of the plain beyond and the sheerness of much of the mountain; someone seriously needs to move here and set up a paragliding business. After starting lunch perched atop the rock above the waterfall, the rain came back for another go at us. Unfortunately, this time there were no nice roofs nearby. We opted for a nearby copse of trees and tried vainly to hide from the rain (I may have not brought a coat). After it had persisted for more than ten minutes we opted for the huddling technique and stood cheek to cheek to cheek until the worst had passed and our photo taking could resume.

We stood atop the waterfall with the plain rolling out before us and prayed, claiming the area for Jesus and breaking the hold of Satan (child sacrifice is still common in the area); it was an amazing opportunity.

As two of us had stuff we needed to get back for in the late afternoon, we decided to cheat and take bodas back down the hill. Unfortunately, the rain had turned the paths that cross the mountain to the road down into slip and slides (Dan was again a little bit comical but we were obviously also concerned for his safety (when he fell on his butt, the locals laughed… we tried not to)). We headed down the hill on an amazing road that followed the falling curves of the hill through little villages and past waving children. There may have been some falling off bikes involving Sam and myself when a driver tried a little too hard to climb a bit of road, but it counts as a life experience.

The day ended with Dan’s stir-fry and two games of Settlers before the boys got to give me another push start so I could get back home in the pick up.

Other highlights of the week to race through are being given £40 by Halifax (I love you Charlotte from the internet banking help department) for messing me about with international transfers, singing with 5 others from work at the front of church yesterday, having about 80% of my skin peel off onto various floors over the process of the week, and walking through town with three machetes - much fewer people said hello…

I’ve shifted my flight home so can now confirm that I will be back in the UK at 12:50 on the 6^th of February. I’m getting used to the idea, but have been unable to stop myself counting up the days (11 weeks today). It’s obviously quite a big change to the initial plan (and I’m happy to reimburse (up to 50%) any sponsors of my silence who were trying to secure not hearing my voice for an even longer period), but I’m feeling increasingly excited about starting the next bit of life and not too guilty about leaving work here early; I won’t have managed to become totally redundant, but most of me won’t be too missed…