A long drive and a long drop

The day began with us packing up ready for our drive back to Kampala and the speed and efficiency of packing and moving is now incredibly impressive. We were actually 15 minutes early this morning and this gave us time for a leisurely breakfast of eggs, samosas and sweet, sugary bread before heading over for our postponed football match.

We headed to the computer room to blow up the new balls that we had brought with us, ably assisted by Moses and Francis. We thanked them with two Gloucester tops kindly donated before we left Cheltenham. The boys did not know how rare their tops were having been donated by the clubs official stash by matron Lizzie's son in law but they certainly looked good wearing their rare kit.

As we walked onto the pitches, basketball and football were already in full flow and we set up some rugby games and Fenella, Genevieve and Katie started a netball game whilst Niamh and Charlie headed over to start a volleyball game.
Jess and Tom migrated between games whilst Charlie, Jamie and Alastair joined in the hyper competitive football game.
Each pupil had some goodies to hand out to pupils; arts and craft kits, bracelets, clothes, trainers and even more Gloucester and Dean Close kit.
Clothing was causing a stir as the pupils gathered around to try and persuade us that they were 'worthy' of the clothing. Many were wearing the random 'Round the clock' T Shirts that marketing had given us and we had handed out yesterday to stand out performers in the talent show.

The netball game seemed to gain a refree from somewhere and as Charlie handed out some games bibs to the football coach, they were quickly used in the football game whilst the new basketball we had bought was used eagerly by the basketball players which now included Bishop Amos' children. They were back over here from University in South Korea and Kenya and they could not resist joining in with our impromptu sports morning.

As 8am turned to 9 and then 10. It was time to amass the troops and head back onto Rosa. Fenella and Genevieve had to be reluctantly dragged away from their dance session where they were showing their more Westernised dance moves including Genevieve's moonwalk.
Final hugs and goodbyes were had; Charlie's prize Chelsea shirt was given to a boy that was playing netball and Caleb then called us together for a final prayer.
We stood in a huge circle, Charlie and Niamh did well to not start a hokey Cokey. Caleb and Kosam led us in prayer and song.
Caleb was given a prized Dean Close set of cuff links and we got on Rosa to drive down the Nyakatukura Drive for the final time. We were waved off with some pupils shouting out 'we love you' and one boy waved particularly hard. Eduard had just said that he was so grateful as we paid for his school fees from our donut and candy floss money and it was a stark reminder that all this fun also had a real serious meaning to it. Caleb told us that the pupils had been inspired by our fundraising and they had also put away a few Ugandan shillings to try and one day pay for a child to go to school. Caleb used an example of a person that he had met with no legs who had taught himself to dance. Caleb had asked him how he had worked so hard to dance and the man said that he danced so that he may have the chance to dance for the Lord forever.

We sung our way out of Ibanda. With Tom having said that it may have been the best morning that he had ever had.
Songs from Moana, Frozen and The Little Mermaid all echoed from little old Rosa and around the luscious green hills of Ibanda.
Our long journey back to Ibanda was accompanied by DJ Charlie and after a couple of hours, it was clear that a toilet break was needed.
We stopped at a little petrol station where some of us got off the bus to relieve àourselves. Just like any travelling trip, talk of toilet motions and regularity become common placeas we make sure that we are using bottled water to brush our teeth and remembering to take the salad out of burgers etc. But the scream that came from the girls toilets told us that something different had happened here that broke the toilet habit comforts that had built over the past week.
On closer inspection,the second worst toilet that we had ever seen (a toilet at Nasca Lines in Peru is the worst but that is from a different blog a long time ago now), had just had a mobile phone dropped into the open long drop.
To be fair to Genevieve, she quickly retrieved it and we spent the next 30 minutes cleaning the phone and decontaminating her hand. I would love to elaborate and go into details here but I am sure that the images in your head are already bad enough and pretty accurate.
However, Genenieve is a real trooper and she bounced back quicker than a freshly cooked millet mash.

The remainder of the drive went quickly considering we again had an 8 hour drive and the singing became less whilst the sleeping increased.
We battled Kampala traffic again and reached our brand new destination - the landmark hotel. It us in the embassy district and right next to the rather impressive Oxfam HQ.

As we drove past the US embassy they were hosting a party that we calculated was a late independence day celebration for the other embassadors.

The new hotel was lovely and we are staying next to the 'Save the children' representatives. The hotel was searched out by the brilliant Alex Musoke after our middle day at Speke was unable to be moved to prevent a 12 hour drive from Nyakatukura to Murchison.

As we all sit around in the hotel restaurant, the tiredness is obvious but there is a clear joint buzz between the experience down in Ibanda and impending Safari tomorrow. The buzz has somehow continued for over two hours (which is how long we have been waiting for the food). Imagine a Ugandan version of Manuel from Fawlty Towers pretending to be a bar man in one outfit before changing into a waiter outfit to take our orders and then head back into the kitchen to cook in his chefs outfit. He is a delightfully friendly man but the wait has been longer than a speech at Nyakatukura. This group have gelled and mixed in a way that African challenges are met with good humour, smiles and giggles. 

Tomorrow is another long drive but this time the long drop will be the impressive Murchiston Falls.