Agnes' Children's Care

The past week has primarily involved the making a documentary for Agnes’ Children’s Care, an orphanage in Maligita, 30km outside Jinga. It was wonderful to visit the orphanage for a day to learn about how it works, meet the kids and find out how they have come to be in the orphanage. I also met Agnes, a lady with a wonderfully warm African heart and a vision to help the orphans.

I visited about 6 other similar orphan care projects in and around Jinga before deciding on making the documentary and felt that Agnes’s Children’s Care was doing a fantastic job and most in need of any kind of financial assistance. Agnes, together with two other matrons, are responsible for 50 children, mostly orphaned by the devastating affects of HIV and AIDS. They do their utter best to provide for the children but it is difficult to feed, clothe, school and accommodate 50 children without any sort of funding. I was touched by the caring nature of the people at the orphanage. I will return today to give them the copies of the documentary. Agnes has various overseas contacts she plans to send the DVD’s to in order to hopefully gain a little more financial assistance.

Apart from the documentary, I have been doing a bit of kayaking most days. Living on the water’s edge means that it is quick and easy to get a quick run down the river in. It takes about one and a half hours to kit up, get on the water, bumble down about 5km’s of river (including 2 grade 5 rapids and a few grade 4’s) and catch a boda boda (motorbike) back to the campsite. What a life.

Today I am heading back down to the Hairy Lemon, an island in the middle of the river 25km downstream. I will stay there for about 4 or 5 days, enjoying the excellent nearby play waves and a bit of a holiday within a holiday. There is no electricity down there and limited phone signal so I will be a little out of contact for a few days.

The Pearl of Africa

“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” Aldous Huxley

I have now been in Jinga for a couple weeks. Jinga is the playground of Uganda and likes to think of itself as the adventure capital of Africa, picking up new adrenalin junkies as quickly as Vic falls and Zimbabwe is losing them. There are a couple big white water rafting operations and a kayaking company running tours on the spectacular grade 5 rapids. Mountain biking, bungy jumping, jet boating and quad biking are all on offer here! it is understandable why the people of Uganda refer to their country as "The Pearl of Africa". Kenya attracts mainly upmarket tourists, who fly in for safari package holidays, so I did not see many other tourists while riding across the country so it has been a little strange to be constantly surrounded by young thrill seeking tourists.

My first few days here were mainly focused around trying to find some work on the river, doing filming for the rafting trips and cutting DVD’s in the evenings for that day’s clients. It turned out to be a little more tricky than I had hoped, most of the guys doing that sort of work here are free lance and only work for short periods of time but all the spots are taken at the moment and I arrived just as the busy season ended so things have suddenly quietened down substantially. Never the less, I will continue to try as I have been told I should be able to get a bit of work here and there. Next I had to sort myself out with some kayaking gear, I worked out that it would be cheaper to by a boat etc. than renting if I were to kayak for more than 7 days so that’s what I have done. I got quite lucky with a boat that fitted but broke the paddle I bought the first time I used it and am still borrowing a paddle until I can find another one for a reasonable price.
My first day on the mighty Nile was exhilarating and terrifying all the same! I had not done much kayaking in the last two years and was a bit apprehensive climbing into the boat and preparing to tackle what are arguably some of the biggest commercially run rapids in the world. I made it to the end without a swim and that was enough for me but I did realise that I was going to have to get a little bit of practice in before I could feel confident enough to work as a video boater. When doing filming for the raft companies you need to be 100% sure of what you are doing as you always go down the rapid first to set up, meaning there is no one at the bottom to save you should you take a swim and you also have to be able to eddie out of some of the rapids midway through to get the best shot. In short, you have to be good!

I have now spent a fair amount of time on the river but have had a few swims, which always batters the confidence. All the kayakers, mostly British, generally hang around together and collectively decide what section of river to run each day as there is always increased safety in numbers on the river. Last week all 11 of us all took a little trip down to an island in the middle of the river about 25km downstream. We stayed at the Hairy Lemon, which is a secluded retreat popular with the kayaking fraternity as it is very close to a famous play wave known as Nile Special. We spent 6 days there kayaking twice a day and not doing much else.
The ride to the Hairy Lemon was an adventure all in itself; I strapped my kayak and gear on to the back of the bike, atop the normal excessive load. It protruded a good deal on each side but after seeing some of the little 100cc scooters here carrying anything you could possibly imagine, I did not even feel as though it was that much of an achievement. I made my way tentatively back into Jinga town, across the dam wall and down a good tar road for about 30km, asking every local I saw for directions to the Hairy Lemon. I was sent down the wrong dirt track on more than one occasion and ended up bumbling along the Nile river bank on some tiny little tracks that invariably turn into footpaths before disappearing altogether. Eventually I came across a truck from one of the rafting companies that was heading down to pick up some of that days’ rafting clients so he showed me the correct road and I eventually got to the Hairy Lemon.
After a week practicing on a world famous play wave I was starting to feel a little more confident, it is quite a difficult wave to get on to as you have to use a ski rope that is fixed to a pole from the bank to ferry out to the correct position on the wave to begin surfing. I got to grips with the rope after a day or so but that was not the end of the challenge, the wave is very powerful and it’s extremely difficult just to stay on the wave. Towards the end of the week I found out just how powerful when I caught the wrong edge on my boat and had it whipped from beneath me so quickly that my shoulder popped out of its socket. Luckily it went straight back in but having to make two rolls afterwards did not help and that was the end of my play sessions on Nile Special. I took a few days off kayaking to try and let it heel. It was still quite painful after the first two days and I was unsure whether I was going to be able to do any more kayaking at all but luckily it has gotten a lot better and I managed to get back on to the water yesterday and had no problems with it.

During my time off the water I spent some time catching up with a bit of admin, doing a bit of writing and managed to visit a few child care centres to have a look around and see whether it might be worth doing a documentary for any of them. Unfortunately there was not a lot going o at the centres I visited but there are so many around Jinga that I hope to try and find one that might be able to use the positive exposure to create more opportunities for the kids. Hoping that can be next week’s mission.