R & R on Bushara Island * (see footnote)

We had a most enjoyable long weekend on Bushara island, on Lake Bunyoni, with Jenny’s family and visitors from England – this was even though everyone (except Malcolm so far) came down with ‘tummy problems’, which had been picked up in Kisoro.


Bushara Island is about 50 miles from Kisoro on Lake Bunyoni. It is in a very picturesque and peaceful setting, being one of several islands on this large freshwater lake.




There is no tapped water or electricity on the island and it is managed as an ‘eco-tourist’ site with accommodation being in cottages or tents. It does boast a restaurant which, considering the remoteness of the island and ‘Africa’ offers a wide range of well cooked food – it was difficult not to put back on all the weight we’ve lost in the past 4 months (though the ‘tummy problems’ will have helped!).




‘Bunyoni’ means ‘place of small birds’ and one of the features was the number and variety of birds that live on the island, and try and share food with us.

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It is one of the few freshwater lakes where it is safe to swim, as it is free from ‘Bilharzia’, a rather nasty parasite that lives in most water in East Africa. Not to miss the opportunity Irene did swim the mile to a neighbouring island which in the past was a leper colony when this disease was still a problem.




The sign this week comes from one of the ‘composting’ toilets on Bushara Island. (basically a deep hole in the ground and no flush). The bit that caught our eye is the final sentence, which we assume is deliberate.



We returned to Kisoro to pack up our things for our 2 week trip to England starting on Thursday for David’s, our eldest son’s, wedding


* ‘R & R’ stands for ‘Runs and Regurgitation’ rather than ‘Rest and Relaxation’.


You know you live in Africa when…

... an ambulance rushes to the carpentry workshop, not to tend to a casualty but to collect a pile of wood

… a poinsettia plant is taller than you are

Missing - Swiss Miss

We’d been asked to look after a Swiss visitor from Tanzania.

Malcolm quickly brushed up on what he knew about Switzerland – will she speak German, French or Italian. ‘Willkommen’, ‘Bienvenue’, or ’Benvenuto’? We also tried to remember if we’d met her in Tanzania. We were confident we wouldn’t know her as we hadn’t met any Swiss people in Tanzania.

It was therefore a surprise when Robyn arrived. We did know her, only she’s not Swiss but from New Zealand. We then realised that in the same way we might get confused about whether someone is from Zaire, Zambia or Zimbabwe, Africans get confused by other countries, such as Switzerland, Netherland and New Zealand.

We last met Robyn on our last day in Tanzania in 2009. She was the last person we said goodbye to then, and the first we have as a guest in our house here. She works at the Theological College in Dodoma and had come here for 3 weeks during her holiday to experience work in another Diocese.

So we have had an enjoyable time catching up with her and showing her around Kisoro. (We will only be with her a few days as this weekend we are going for a break to an island on Lake Bunyoni and next week we return to the UK for our son’s wedding so we needed to make sure she could find her way around here and know where to get supplies).

The highlight of the week has been a walk up a nearby extinct volcano with The Bishop. Although the view was not as good as it could have been because of the misty conditions it was still pretty spectacular. As with most of the land in Kisoro the sides of the volcano were all being cultivated, even the crater in the middle.

But, we couldn’t call it a peaceful walk. As normally happens when white people go for a walk we were soon followed by a crowd of children all keen to know what we were doing, to look through our binoculars and to see photos of themselves on our cameras.

The ‘sign’ this week is another from the Compassion Child Development Centre we ‘featured’ on 10th December. What appealed to us is that shows that Ugandan’s concern about health, but this time next to pictures teaching children to count is a warning against drinking and smoking.

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You know you live in Africa when….

… you are ecstatic to buy the last small bottle of HP Fruity sauce for more than £2 from the local shop

… you ask the shop-keeper for plaster filler to fill holes in walls, and he says he has none. You then notice boxes of ‘Polyfilla’ but he explains that is for cracks in walls, not holes.