Back to Uganda

I apologize for the lack of blogging recently. Despite finishing my exams on the 7th June, I still had a fair bit of work to do until I could relax. The dissertation process has now begun. I'm gradually getting past the denial phase of thinking I actually cannot write a dissertation to realizing that it is possible, despite my tutor's helpful comment of saying 'fools rush in where angels fear to tread', following her comment of 'why did I ever agree to let you do this topic?'....

Last weekend entailed a camping trip to Spitten Farm in Evesham for an NFI conference, which was perhaps the most laid back conference ever, consisting of 3 morning meetings over 3 days, leaving the rest of the day to simply relax and enjoy great company. It was a quality weekend - the perfect ending to another academic year. One quite cool occurrence of the weekend was bumping into a girl who I met in Uganda this time last year, who I haven't seen since. She's going back again this summer, so I'll see her there again, which is cool. It's funny to think that you can live in the same country as a person but spend more time with them in another country than you do in your home country...

On Monday I was meant to be going horseriding in the Cotswolds with my flatmates for Sarah's 21st birthday present, but they decided they wanted to spend time with all our friends rather than just the 4 of us, as everyone was leaving uni on Tuesday. So instead, we went to Longleat Safari Park for the day. Highlights of the day were:

*** Watching the mischievous monkeys rip car ariels and windscreen wipers off

*** Sharing car space with deer

*** Playing football with a cool 2 year old

On Thursday, I made the journey back to the Bay with MJ Wicks, and have spent the time since getting ready to go to Uganda tomorrow.

Last night I went to the Fine Art Degree exhibition at KIAD, which was a quality evening. My old friend Mark Thorne had some of his work on exhibition, hence going there. There was a quality folk band playing who were amazing. It was lovely to watch children and adults dance around to the music, completely uninhibited, although this lack of inhibition in the adults was probably influenced by the free alcohol, rather than just a childlike willingness to dance in front of anyone!

As mentioned before, I am off to Uganda tomorrow for a two month trip, which is very exciting. Lizzie and I are taking a team of 9 girls out to a village called Lungujja on the suburbs of Kampala to work with a school, which was established by an amazing man called Pastor Stephen. The adventure might also include a trip to Rwanda; it's pretty much impossible to imagine what this would be like - quite possibly harrowing and devastatingly sad.

We don't have electricity where we're living, so I don't know how often I'll be able to update this, as I'll have to go into Kampala, but I do plan on sending e-mails when I make it to an internet cafe, so if you'd like to hear what I'm up to, and find that I'm not updating this, just let me know and I'll add you to my e-mail list.