Our time was up and it was time to say good bye to all our new friends and a completely different world. As fate would have it, we left in the middle of the Saturday time with the Children of Peace. We knew it would be hard to leave but leaving in the midst of a hundred or so orphans who we had come to love would be tougher than we could handle.
They gave us the usual grand ceremony saying good bye through songs and dances and the tradition is to always say “See you tomorrow” to people you don't want to say good bye to who are actually leaving right now. So they were all saying “See you tomorrow”.
As we waved to hundreds of kids, teachers and people in the community... every one of them had a place in our heart... it was just too much. The girls bawled for an hour and the men... well, there were no actual tears that were witnessed but on the other hand, neither of us would face anybody for several minutes despite the girls attempts to look into our eyes. We admit to nothing...
The night before we left, the local Pentecostal church decided to hold a hootenanny or something. They thought that the non Pentecostals would benefit from their religious fervour if they turned the loudspeakers out towards the rest of the community so we could hear their loud worship service and the ranting of their very, very enthusiastic pastor. At about 3 am., in the midst of my internal debating about joining them or going on a rant of my own calling the church into repentance for their inconsideration. By this time, I had worked up a full sermon based on the second most important commandment: “Love thy neighbour as thyself” followed by a few nasty quotes from the epistles of Paul about living peaceably, etc... Anyways, it started to rain so they stopped and we'll never know whether the congregation was spared the sight of my dancing to the bongo drums or my religious indignation.
The end result of the above is that most of us passed out in the car on the way to Jinja where we planned to raft down the Nile. When we got to our destination, we had landed back into the world of Mizoongo excess. It was a backpacker type of place with a happening and very outdoor bar. It was Saturday night so this bar planned it's less spiritual version of its own hootenanny. This one went on to about the same time. The next morning I woke up early and went and surveyed the remains of the riotous evening and found 3 pairs of ladies underwear and one bra...
I say all this to explain that I was very sleep deprived when I stepped into the raft. Maybe that's why I agreed to go with Paul into “Aggressive” rafters category. It may also explain why I was well on track for setting a record for the number of times a rafter fell out of the stupid raft into all manner of froth which is something similar to water except you don't float in it...
They carefully explained to me what I should do in case you fell out. Feet pointing downstream, hold on to the raft if possible, don't gasp for air when you come up, etc... They might as well have taught me how to play pool while submerged in a large washing machine. Point my feet downstream: hah! The only thing that new what direction was what was my life jacket which, fortunately, knew the way up. As for gasping when you come up... riiight. You go 20 or 30 seconds not knowing which way is what or if you will ever see another sunrise... and you come up into something that's more air than water for a fraction of a second and you gasp gentle reader, ...you desperately gasp at any wisps of hope of survival. This means the inhaling and drinking of more of the raw waters of Nile than is advisable from Health Canada.
Gentle reader: I'm sure you know where this is going by now. My famous question to the burly Aussie guide at about mid day when I had fallen into the raging waters five times (Several class 5 rapids, a 12 foot waterfall... I even fell out on a class 2 rapid much to the consternation of the leader): “Gee, do people get sick after falling in so much?” The lecherous leader was not so inclined to give me a serious answer since he was much more attentive to the other bikini clad customers -but he kindly threw back his reply: “Naw. Not a problem mate.” I wondered how he would know because this company picks you off the river, gives you a right skookum barbie and then hurries you off into the bus to Kampala. Once you're in Kampala, they don't have to worry about you. Now it's the responsibility of the unfortunate hotel and the Kampala sanitary sewers to look after your needs...
Anyways, before we went onto the Nile, we had a beautiful dinner (with meat!) in a restaurant overlooking the river. In the middle of the supper, Paul (our 17 year old) made a short but formal speech to us saying that in spite of the fact that he did not want to come to Africa... he gave us an eloquent and heartfelt thank you and acknowledged that it would be one of the best experiences of his life. We were flabbergasted. Diana and I could only glow. The trip exceeded what we had only hoped for. The kids had completely bought into the work and into the community in which we had found ourselves. These third world needs were now no longer conceptual. These people we had met were now their friends and they were in dire need. It has impacted them (and us) in a way that has changed our very outlook on life.
They gave us the usual grand ceremony saying good bye through songs and dances and the tradition is to always say “See you tomorrow” to people you don't want to say good bye to who are actually leaving right now. So they were all saying “See you tomorrow”.
As we waved to hundreds of kids, teachers and people in the community... every one of them had a place in our heart... it was just too much. The girls bawled for an hour and the men... well, there were no actual tears that were witnessed but on the other hand, neither of us would face anybody for several minutes despite the girls attempts to look into our eyes. We admit to nothing...
The night before we left, the local Pentecostal church decided to hold a hootenanny or something. They thought that the non Pentecostals would benefit from their religious fervour if they turned the loudspeakers out towards the rest of the community so we could hear their loud worship service and the ranting of their very, very enthusiastic pastor. At about 3 am., in the midst of my internal debating about joining them or going on a rant of my own calling the church into repentance for their inconsideration. By this time, I had worked up a full sermon based on the second most important commandment: “Love thy neighbour as thyself” followed by a few nasty quotes from the epistles of Paul about living peaceably, etc... Anyways, it started to rain so they stopped and we'll never know whether the congregation was spared the sight of my dancing to the bongo drums or my religious indignation.
The end result of the above is that most of us passed out in the car on the way to Jinja where we planned to raft down the Nile. When we got to our destination, we had landed back into the world of Mizoongo excess. It was a backpacker type of place with a happening and very outdoor bar. It was Saturday night so this bar planned it's less spiritual version of its own hootenanny. This one went on to about the same time. The next morning I woke up early and went and surveyed the remains of the riotous evening and found 3 pairs of ladies underwear and one bra...
I say all this to explain that I was very sleep deprived when I stepped into the raft. Maybe that's why I agreed to go with Paul into “Aggressive” rafters category. It may also explain why I was well on track for setting a record for the number of times a rafter fell out of the stupid raft into all manner of froth which is something similar to water except you don't float in it...
They carefully explained to me what I should do in case you fell out. Feet pointing downstream, hold on to the raft if possible, don't gasp for air when you come up, etc... They might as well have taught me how to play pool while submerged in a large washing machine. Point my feet downstream: hah! The only thing that new what direction was what was my life jacket which, fortunately, knew the way up. As for gasping when you come up... riiight. You go 20 or 30 seconds not knowing which way is what or if you will ever see another sunrise... and you come up into something that's more air than water for a fraction of a second and you gasp gentle reader, ...you desperately gasp at any wisps of hope of survival. This means the inhaling and drinking of more of the raw waters of Nile than is advisable from Health Canada.
Gentle reader: I'm sure you know where this is going by now. My famous question to the burly Aussie guide at about mid day when I had fallen into the raging waters five times (Several class 5 rapids, a 12 foot waterfall... I even fell out on a class 2 rapid much to the consternation of the leader): “Gee, do people get sick after falling in so much?” The lecherous leader was not so inclined to give me a serious answer since he was much more attentive to the other bikini clad customers -but he kindly threw back his reply: “Naw. Not a problem mate.” I wondered how he would know because this company picks you off the river, gives you a right skookum barbie and then hurries you off into the bus to Kampala. Once you're in Kampala, they don't have to worry about you. Now it's the responsibility of the unfortunate hotel and the Kampala sanitary sewers to look after your needs...
Anyways, before we went onto the Nile, we had a beautiful dinner (with meat!) in a restaurant overlooking the river. In the middle of the supper, Paul (our 17 year old) made a short but formal speech to us saying that in spite of the fact that he did not want to come to Africa... he gave us an eloquent and heartfelt thank you and acknowledged that it would be one of the best experiences of his life. We were flabbergasted. Diana and I could only glow. The trip exceeded what we had only hoped for. The kids had completely bought into the work and into the community in which we had found ourselves. These third world needs were now no longer conceptual. These people we had met were now their friends and they were in dire need. It has impacted them (and us) in a way that has changed our very outlook on life.
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