Bumps, Bombs & Burials

After my rather upbeat message at the start of June...things started to go a little down hill.

June became a memory of bazaar medical issues. I won't go into details...lets just say several bumps and a lot of knifes, syringes and pieces of string were involved. By the end of June I'd tallied a grand total of 16 doctor appointments!

Medically things started to improve as July crept closer. However, my upbeat spirits were brought back down as Rose (my placement partner) received the news that her step-mum (Mama Allen) had passed away. It was a very traumatic shock. She had been ill for 3 days. On Friday the 25th of June I traveled to Mitiyana to catch the end of the burial. Possibly one of the most moving nights I've had here. I stayed up very late talking to Mama Allen's sons; Richard, Vincent and Joseph. Eventually I lay my head down to rest between dozens of women in gomezes sleeping on the floor.

The Football World Cup definitely brought my spirits back up. I managed to watch EVERY single Holland match in my local video hall. The atmosphere was brilliant!!! A tiny tiny screen (that switches off whenever it feels like) surrounded by 200 young men...and one white girl. When Holland got through to the final, I knew we had to celebrate in style. Several friends and myself decided to go and watch the final in a stadium (called The Rugby Club) in Kampala.

My weekend in Kampala was....how to describe it....absolutely mad. On Saturday night we stayed up all night singing and dancing with two hilarious Canadian soldiers. As the sun rose in the morning, we concluded that the best course of action would be to jump into a pool with all our clothes on! A genius hang over cure. It was also the perfect send off to our soldier friends who hopped onto a plane back to Afghanistan at lunch time.

After a lot of sleep and fatty food we started to prepare ourselves for another crazy night: THE WORLD CUP FINAL! At lunch time I met a woman who told me about a Dutch owned club that was screening the match. Cheese on sticks, jolly Dutch tunes and mad people dressed in orange. We couldn't miss it! A change of plans brought us to 'Iguanas' that night. After one of the most dire matches I have ever witnessed, a drunk Dutch man started screaming at the front of the club "GET OUT!!!!!" We all thought he was being slightly over emotional about the Spanish goal. However, when he grabbed my arm and screamed "THERE IS A BOMB IN HERE, GET OUT NOW". We started to take him slightly more seriously. About 300 depressed Dutch people trying to squeeze out of a tiny door. It was very very manic! By the time we'd left the building we heard rumours from all directions "25 people are already dead", "They are targeting football fans", "3 bombs have exploded". We were very very puzzled. Bombs in Kampala? One of the safest cities in Africa? We chose the best course of action and hopped into a taxi that brought us straight back to our hostel. At around 1 o'clock in the morning I received a panicked phone call from my sister. The news had already reached international headlines. It gave us all an opportunity to clarify what was actually going on. We sat in silence and shock for several minutes when we heard the bombs had gone off at 'The Rugby Club'. Not only were we supposed to go there...many people we knew did go there. The news the next morning was not comforting in the slightest. Horrific pictures of blood stained chairs and torn apart corpses were printed in every newspaper. We were still processing the fact that it could of been us.

When I arrived back in Jinja I met by placement partner Timothy. He greeted me with a big hug and a 'Congratulations!' I was a little confused and replied ".....but we lost" he responded "Congratulations for being alive". A comment that made me comprehend and appreciate my blessing.

I'm glad to say I'm all safe and sound and back in my village. Aside from all the drama, we've made some great achievements in our community over the past month (I'll tell you about them next time) AND I just found out I got an unconditional offer from SOAS to study 'African Studies'!