Alliance HS Events and Netball Coach (July 11th?)

Hope Academy had visitors from a neighboring Alliance High School in Kyazanga, which is about 20km West from Kyetume, a few weeks back. The visitation, as the locals call it, included an afternoon of extra-curricular activities such as debate, netball, and futball. This was quite a serious event, so the kids ended up spending the morning preparing (setting up a tent, moving desks and benches, clearing and weeding the grounds, setting up flag poles, etc.).

We first started off with the debate and the motion was "The Coming of Europeans to Africa did More Harm than Good." We were given the option of choosing which side of the motion we were to support and thus we opposed the motion. Now just as a side note, we have debate every Thursday after school and the kids (no matter the topic) always seem to work the issues of abortion, prostitution, and homosexuality into their supporting evidence….always fabulously entertaining for us volunteers, or muzungus as we’re so often referred to. So, thinking that it was just our students that managed to bring up these important issues, we were all quite surprised to hear a few of the Alliance HS kids join in on the fun. Apparently the Europeans brought the idea of prostitution, whereas women sell their bodies like vegetables! Ha. Anyway the debate went swimmingly and it was on to netball.

Apparently it had been deemed that I was qualified to coach our netball team, perhaps because I was playing with them every Saturday, or maybe it was because I have a background in basketball….not sure, but nevertheless, I needed to learn the rules and fast! Since our internet has been completely unreliable I ruled that out as a reference and just began playing with the girls every afternoon and forcing them to speak English, not their native tongue of Luganda and any infractions resulted in the loss of ball. After a few days of this I was familiar with the rules, but still didn’t have any idea of how to "coach" these girls, so we just scrimmaged everyday….fabulous strategy, I know! A side note, netball is similar to basketball as you shoot a ball into a circular hoop, but the similarities end there. The court is divided into 3 sections and there are 7 people on the court for each team at one time. You essentially have 2 people who can shoot, 1 helper to those shooters, 1 center, and 3 defenders. There is no dribbling and in fact you can’t move after you’ve received a pass, except for a pivot foot. There is also no contact….there goes my advantage! Anyway, it’s a good time and we ended up playing quite well despite the fact that they were extremely tall, and the festivities ended in a 4 – 4 draw.

Finally, was the futball match. Hope prevailed and beat the other team 2 - 1 in an exhillerating match! I know next to nothing about soccer, so we'll just assume it was exhillerating....

Lake Mburo & Mbarara (Early July)

So I have a lot to report since I've been inactive in the Internet world as of late....

This little trip took place in early July shortly after my trip up North:

Two of the girls, Jen and Kayla, and I decided that we needed a weekend away, so we thought we would go on a mini-vacation over to Mbarara and stop by Lake Mburo National Park on the way over. Mbarara is about 90km West from where we’re currently staying and Lake Mburo is just a minor detour along the way.

So we hopped a mini-bus to Sanga and ended up hiring a personal driver to take us through the park for the day. It’s not a very big park, but a park nonetheless. As soon as we passed through the gates we had to stop because a zebra was in the middle of the road. We were literally 20 feet from it and it just stood there staring at us and we, back at it, all the while snapping photos of course! These creatures are quite stunning and I would almost compare the sighting to that of a unicorn. You know you see them in pictures, but it just isn’t the same. Along the drive to the main registration sight we saw many more.

When we got to the camp it was decided that we would take the boat tour and then hire a park ranger (geared up with an AK47) to accompany us on a drive through the bush. Both events were pretty sweet as we saw a lot of wildlife including: hippos, crocodiles, impala, zebra, water buffalo, topee (sp? – a sort of deer/elk like animal), vervet monkeys, African river eagles, warthogs, and several other species of birds.

After the day of safari we headed to Mbarara to relax. We met a gang of LDS folks from Montana who had suggested that we stay at the Lake View hotel (running water and all!). So off we went, and boy was this a welcomed respite from the bush! It was definitely the nicest hotel I have seen here yet, and not to badly priced either. So we pampered ourselves, and by this I mean ate pizza and took steaming hot showers and called it a night!

The next day we woke up for breakfast (yeah! A real breakfast) and then proceeded to explore the city/town for a few hours and then back to the bush. Overall a pretty darn good 2 days!