7

Today I woke up once again to the sound of the swarking ibis and the nuns singing mass at 7am. It’s quite a useful alarm in the week but you’d think they’d have a lie in on a Sunday. Beautiful sunny day, me and C-M are at the pool that belongs to the Danish cafe church – so nice!!!

On Friday I got a burn on my calf getting off a boda-boda, it turns out the petrol pipe is quite hot. Fortunately it was on the way to a nice cool swimming pool at Tropica Inn so it got about an hour of cool water soaking. Got some lovely big fluid filled blisters so I asked the doctor I’ve been with what to do and he said I should drain them with a sterile needle. That was fun and the other medics had to watch because we like that kind of thing. The swimming pool is really nice. There was the odd bug in it and the water was a little bit murky but nice and big and cool. Maribu storks flying overhead. When swimming underwater with my eyes closed I still have a bit of childish fear that I’ll meet a crocodile/hippo in the deep end but I didn’t so it was ok.

I did meet a crocodile and hippo yesterday at Lake Mburo. We went with the medics, the 4 Irish nurses who came on Monday and the 4 Irish nurse/midwives who moved on last weekend – nice to see them again, we had some laughs! The crocs are really big we went really close to one on the boat and then rode over it when it swam underwater which was a bit scary. There were loads of gorgeous sea eagles and loads of other birds. Lots of hippos and we saw zebra, buffalo, antelope things, monkeys and wart hogs. I thought wart hogs would be friendly as per Lion King so I went near one to get a photo with it but then it turned on me and I saw that it had big horns so I ran away. So if you ever meet one there’s a tip for you.

I love Africa, love being here. The whole time yesterday we were like “We’re on safari in Africa!!!” Can see God here all over the place. Just driving round seeing the people and kids and houses and all the birds and wildlife and yesterday there was a massive moon. And see people from desperate situations like the mother in shock and the baby who was starved to death coming back to life. There’s a lot of tragedy here and sadness but God is breathing new life so there’s so much hope. The pastor at church was talking about the spiritual climate of a place and he said when he goes back to Denmark he feels choking but when he’s in Uganda it feel like breathing air again.

It’s brilliant to have stumbled upon the Danish cafe church. It’s really small but really filled with the Spirit. The pastor has been speaking about spiritual warfare- really great talks, lots of stuff to think about. On Thursday a man from the church gave us a lift home in his pick-up truck with an open back. 5 of us climbed into the back and stood up holding onto the bars – SO scary going over the bumps and potholes- SO much fun!!

Moving onto paeds tomorrow and we’re going to do the odd day in the community but for now I’m going to dry off and then watch England beat Germany (obv).

Love to you!!

Christine