A long trip north and a short trip south...

A long trip north....

Last weekend, I travelled to Kidepo Valley National park in Uganda's remote northeastern corner, on the border with South Sudan and Kenya. It has some of the most amazing landscapes I have ever seen with rolling savannahs, incredible views of mountain ranges in all three countries and is seemingly uninhabited.  During our game drives and safari walks we saw hardly any other vehicles and very few people. It does, however, host 77 mammal species and around 475 bird specie (including 56 bird of prey).

One of the reasons very few people visit Kidepo, is that for many years,  travel to the park (except by a very expensive chartered flight) was long considered dangerous and difficult. The road via Gulu was closed for almost 20 years because of the Lord's Resistance Army. The alternative route through Karamoja posed the risk of travellers becoming entangled in inter-tribal cattle rustling (and, with it, unsupervised AK47s!)

The complications across both of these routes have now been removed and the areas are safe to travel. In addition, the roads were improved (to some extent...) as part of the park's 50th anniversary in 2012, making the park more accessible.

We took route via Gulu on the way there, which was around a 11 hour drive.

Stopping for burgers and pizza in Gulu

After leaving Gulu and heading further north, the scenery became increasingly beautiful and this was our view on arrival at our camp in the park, as the sun was setting:

We stayed in bandas:

and had various visitors to our camp, including zebras:

patas monkeys:

and a family of warthogs:

There was also a shell garage at the camp!:

We spent two days in the park with our very cheery guide, Sam:

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On the first day we went on an early morning and a late afternoon game drive:

The park in the early morning sunlight

An oribi

Waterbucks

We saw a herd of elephants, including some baby elephants. The mother elephant, however, being protective of her babies, took a dislike to the safari vehicle in front of us and charged at it! They drove off pretty quickly. We found this all quite amusing (until we remembered that we had to drive along the same track...!)

Kidepo apparently has the largest number of buffalo of anywhere in Africa. This is not a surprise as they seemed to be everywhere and, at one point, we were encircled by them!:

A monitor lizard

We saw several lions basking in the sun. These were brothers and sisters, from Tim's pride (Tim being their Dad) and are aged 3 years old.

We soon noticed that the male lion looked quite thin and poorly. The following evening we saw the same lions again, this time lying under a tree (known as a "sausage tree"):

By this time, a guide had been out to see the lions and was of the view that the two male lions were suffering from TB. The following day they were to be treated (done by a stun gun, from a distance to knock them out, and then several injections). We watched the lions for quite some time and it is amazing how they seem completely unbothered by us in a vehicle nearby, staring and taking pictures.

We saw some amazing birds during our time in the park. I couldn't quite capture them on my camera. However, my favourite was the  Abyssinian Ground-Hornbill. I've stolen a pic of this from the internet...(all the other pics in this blog are real though....!!):

On our second day, we went on a three hour walking safari:



All of us on the walking safari

Me on the walking safari!

We were told lots about some of the brilliant flowers and plants. Here are a few of them:

Whilst studiously avoiding any buffalo (who go slightly crazy when confronted by a human on foot), we did manage to get really close to several animals. Standing opposite a giraffe and her baby was pretty incredible:

and we walked towards these zebras:

"Zebra crossing" (I don't think I'll ever tire of that joke...)

In the afternoon we drove to the north of the park, to try and spot some ostriches and go to some hot springs.... We did spot a number of ostriches in the distance. The hot springs were, however, a bit of a disappointment (kind of more like a sulphur puddle...)!

More remarkably, in the early evening, we climbed up a rock (I say climb, I think I was crawling...) with a cool box and some beers to watch the sun set over the park. Our guide had to lead the way as he said lions often sat on the rock...

 

Our safari van from the top of the rock

On day four, we headed back to Kampala, this time via Karamoja. We stopped on the way at Kaabong, not far from the park and the home of some of Juliana's family. They were very welcoming and hospitable and served us chicken with lemon and salt (a surprisingly brilliant combination). They also gave us gifts to take back to Kampala, including fresh mushrooms, lemons, eggs, nuts, necklaces and two live chickens. So we had two extra passengers for the remaining 14 hour drive.

The route back was longer than on the way up and we were slowed down by a few storms (and at times, a slight uncertainty with directions...), but it did give us the opportunity to travel through Karamojo, which was stunning. We travelled through vast, semi-arid plains, with villages home to the pastoral Karamojong people, similar, in many ways, to the Maasai of Kenya.

 After a stop and a curry in Lira, we arrived back into Kampala at sometime after midnight..

A short trip south

Much less spectacular and nearer to home (about 10km from the centre of Kampala), the weekend before, I went to Ggaba to check out the fish market and auction and take a look at Lake Victoria.

These really quite ugly birds are Marabou Storks and are very common in Uganda. Here they are waiting to pounce on some fish:

We watched as the fishing boats came in:

and then the fish was auctioned, to be sold at markets and restuarants across Kampala:

We then walked to nearby Muyonyo. Years ago this was famous for hosting royal yachts and, thought by the explorer Speke to be the "Cowes of Uganda". It is slightly less impressive now, but the resort nearby named after Speke, was a nice place to spend the afternoon relaxing (and getting a little sunburnt) by Lake Victoria:

I blogged a bit about Hands for Hope and what we do in an earlier post - see here. Now I've been working here for a couple of months, I thought I would write a bit more about the organisation and also what I've been doing.

My role is to manage the day to day running and development of Hands for Hope. This means managing the staff (there are 17 staff and I manage the social work manager, the head teacher and the administrative assistant), the budgets and finance, overseeing the various programmes and projects and looking at how we can fundraise and develop the work we do. 

We are half-way through the first term of the year. As I've previously said, we run a nursery across two sites and then fund children to attend primary and secondary school. We have also supported some young people to attend vocational school, studying catering, tailoring and motorbike mechanics.

However, Hands for Hope does much more than this; we deliver a whole range of work that helps to support the most vulnerable families living in the Namuwongo slum. I've already posted about some of this work, but below are examples of some of the things we've been doing.

I went to our Saturday programme, which we run every week. We partner with the Sound Foundation, who run singing and African drumming and dancing lessons for the children:

The children also take part in reading and art:

A competition to draw the best Uganda flag!

We work to improve the health of the residents in the slum. Life expectancy in Uganda is just 53 and it is likely that the life expectancy of those living in the slum is even lower. As well as partnering with a nearby health clinic to ensure the children and families we work with receive healthcare, we also  run a programme of outreach events on areas such as malaria, sanitation and HIV/AIDS. Two weeks ago we ran an event with The Ian Hutcheon Clinic for Children, on ear health and deaf awareness. The children received free ear checks and also had their faces painted!:

One of the nurses was telling me that they had seen several children who had ear infections caused by cockroaches climbing into their ears whilst asleep... (most of the children in the slum sleep on the floor).

The birth rate in the slum is very high, with mothers often living in a single room with at least 5 children. A few weeks ago we ran a session with Marie Stopes on family planning:

We also deal with individual medical cases. For example, we are currently helping a little boy called Mark to have a kidney transplant. No hospitals in Uganda carry out transplants and so we are fundraising for Mark to undergo his transplant in Nairobi. All being well, this will take place in June.

We run livelihood programmes for women and young people, to support them to set up sustainable businesses. Through our candlemaking programme, we train young people to make candles and these are then sold to visitors and, when we can, at markets etc in Kampala. We have recently developed a partnership with a social enterprise called Good Glass, which recycles glass (that would otherwise end up in landfill, streams or ditches) and make them into household items and ornaments etc (see here). Our young people have been commissioned to make candles for some of these glasses:

Robert with his good glasses!

We also support women to set up small businesses. Here is Maama Gilbert starting up her charcoal selling business:

 

(often women are known as "Maama (then the name of their firstborn)")

The social work/ outreach team support individual families with the issues they face and we meet weekly to discuss individual situations and how we can support families to resolve them. We hold a termly parents meeting. This term's meeting took place last Friday:

Hands for Hope are supported by many individuals. We have recently welcomed Bernadette and Kerstin from Germany, who are volunteering with us for three months. They are studying a degree in child development at Dusseldorf University and have been helping out in the nursery and at the afternoon programme. 

All of our children are sponsored by individuals paying a monthly donation (we are still looking for some sponsors for this year's baby class at nursery). A number of sponsors work for British Airways and come and visit us when their fleet heads to Entebbe. I've been showing round a number of BA staff over the last month. They kindly bring out donations and things we might need that are difficult to come by in Uganda (jaffa cakes were my favourite!). 

We were visited this week by Dan and Kari from the States, who ran a fantastic yoga class for the children (probably one of most amusing and chaotic things I've seen since being here!):

Some of areas of work we are currently developing include a programme for children with disabilities. These children are exceptionally vulnerable as, to some extent disability is still a taboo here. Disabled children are often regarded as shameful, kept indoors and can be neglected. The issue of disabled children accessing education in Uganda has actually been in the UK press this week. See an article here. Hands for Hope have identified 22 disabled children, they have been professionally assessed and we're looking at how we can support them further. We've set up a parents' support group which is now meeting regularly.

We've also looking at how we can do more to support refugee families living in the slum. At a meeting we held last week in partnership with the Refugee Law Project, many of the families attending had fled the Congo and were living in the slum, without having gained their refugee status and so without the rights and support they are entitled to.  

Hands for Hope have almost raised enough funds to buy our own building so we can house our two nurseries together and have more space to deliver community activity and outdoor activities for the children. Tammy (the previous administrator who did a fantastic amount of work to raise the funds), Joe (the director) and I have been to visit a couple of potential sites. 

So there's lots going on and, although sometimes hearing some of the families' stories and seeing such poverty regularly can be difficult, being with children every day is rewarding and lots of fun and I'm really enjoying the job so far.

If you would like you can get regular updates on what we're up to by "liking" our facebook page here

A trip to Murchison Falls (and a lot of pictures of animals and waterfalls...).

Last weekend, I went on a three day trip with Red Chilli to Murchison Falls. Flanking the Victoria Nile, Murchison is about 300km northwest of Kampala and the national park is the largest protected area in Uganda, covering around 5000km sq. There were 7 of us on the trip, from various countries (UK, US, France and Argentina) and all either working or volunteering here.




Kurt, Leah, Douglas, Dev, Danni and Simon

Much of the first day was spent travelling but this gave me chance to see a bit more of the Ugandan countryside and we arrived at Murchison Falls by early afternoon. Before arriving at the camp, we took part in a guided walk around the top of the falls -

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spot the rainbow...

We stayed at the Red Chilli Rest Camp in safari tents:

View from our tent at sunrise

We shared the camp with a family of warthogs (hippos were also frequent visitors apparently) -

We were given strict instructions to leave any food or anything with a sweet scent (including cosmetics) at the bar and not in our tents to stop the warthogs from barging in! Despite following these instructions, the family did take quite an interest in mine and Dev's tent and one point we were cornered by the door by two warthogs, which was slightly unnerving... (Unnerving for us. A mildly hilarious photo opportunity for everyone else!).

On day two, we took a "ferry" across the Nile to the north bank:

and spent the morning on a 4 hour game drive:




Buffalo!

The Ugandan Kob

A lonely elephant enjoying the early morning

Jackson's hartebeest

A Rothschild giraffe

A herd of buffalo heading to the nearest watering hole....

....and we drove in their path!

View from our truck, with the Nile in the background

We were lucky to see seven lions, including four lion cubs. The lion cubs were tucking into a recently killed buffalo. You can't really see it on the photos but they all had bright red lips from the blood!

The male lions lie around chilling, whilst the females hunt!

Looking out for fresh buffalo.

In the afternoon we went on a four hour boat cruise along the Victoria Nile to the base of the Falls. Along the way we saw lots of hipps, elephants, crocodiles, birds and other wildlife:

Hippos!

An elephant enjoying a drink.

The elephant and the hippos!

A crocodile grinning.

On Sunday, on our way back to Kampala, we stopped off at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. In 1970, there were around 300 black rhinos and 120 white (called "white" because of their wide mouths - the name got slightly lost in translation!) rhinos in Uganda. By the early 1980s both had been poached to local extinction. The last white rhino was shot in Murchison Falls in 1982 and no black rhino has been observed in Uganda since 1983.

Founded in 1997, the Rhino Fund Uganda is an NGO dedicated to reintroducing the rhino back to the national parks of Uganda. The Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary is a 80km sq fenced enclosure and the only place in the country you can see rhinos. Initially countries such as Kenya and the US (Disneyland!) donated several white rhinos to the Uganda. There are now 15 white rhinos living in the sanctuary and once there are between 30 and 40 (it will take a while - the gestation period for rhinos is 16 months...) half of them will be reintroduced into the wild.

Before beginning our rhino tracking we received a safety talk. This went along the lines of; rhinos are quite blind but have excellent sight and sense of smell and they do occasionally charge tourists (they weigh up to three tonnes and can run up to 45km an hour....). We were told that, should a rhino charge us, we should climb the nearest tree (!) and, if there were no trees nearby (there really weren't many trees) we should hide behind the nearest bush (my preferred option...)

We walked for a short time and then saw one rhino dosing under a tree:

A bit further on, we were really lucky to see ten rhinos (including two babies):

After a bit of time, they started to stir and one of them stood up:

Shortly after this, the remaining nine all stood up at once. This is unusual as it was the middle of the day and generally at this time rhinos just sleep and graze. A few of us looked around for the closest bush! However, they were just a bit squashed, all trying to share the same shade and half of them walked over to another tree nearby. This was quite incredible to watch:

After lunch and a quick look at some of the other wildlife and animals in the sanctuary (my favourites are below) we headed back to Kampala.

An African starling.

An African Grace!