"We have a small challenge"

Ugandans never seem to have a problem. We have never heard them use the word 'problem' – but instead they often mention 'small challenges'

On Saturday morning Irene feared the worse when Malcolm said she had a 'small challenge'. As it turned out she was probably right to be worried! In this case the challenge was that she had 45 minutes to get packed ready for a taxi to take us away for 2 nights to celebrate her birthday.

We enjoyed the weekend at Nkuringo Safari Lodge on the far shore of Lake Mutanda.

The Lodge is about 10 miles away accessed by an unmade road which winds its way around the mountains and along the shore of the lake. The driver warned that the road is 'bad' but other than avoiding one or two piles of earth and a few rut-holes we arrived safely.

The Lodge is situated on a promontory jutting out into the lake, and has stunning views of the Virunga mountains beyond Kisoro. The accommodation was in luxury tent style 'bandas' which are common in such sites, and the food was excellent. When we arrived the Lake was as still as a 'mill-pond'.

And than the rains came. After all, it is the rainy season.

After dinner one of the German guests came into the dining room, absolutely sodden and covered in mud. He has been out in a hired car during the day, and on the way back had been stopped by a landslide covering the road. When the car tried to turn around, a second land-slide had blocked it in.

The next morning, on Irene's birthday, we woke to find we had been cut-off as many land-slides had blocked the road back to Kisoro. As we were staying a second night this would not have mattered too much to us, except it stopped our son, daughter in law and friends joining us for a birthday lunch. The sadness was that several off the houses built in the banana plantations on the hill above the road had been washed away and we were told about 13 people had been killed.

And then the 'small challenge' of how do we get back to Kisoro on Monday?

Answer – we cross the Lake to the Kisoro side by boat. A much more relaxing way to travel, and a much more reliable option than waiting in the hope that a tractor from Kisoro would clear the road.

We also celebrated Irene's birthday with a buffet 'help yourself' meal at Traveller's Rest Hotel. The Hotel should have been full, but it too had been affected by the land-slides as no guests had travelled to Kisoro. Still – that meant more food for us!!!!!

Sadly (for us) , on Thursday, David and Sarah flew back to England having spent 3 months volunteering at Potter's Village home for Vulnerable Children. They had a safe journey – except for the 'small challenge' of a puncture on the way to the airport.

As for Malcolm..... he went to the border crossing to Rwanda to see David and Sarah off. After they had crossed the border and were transferring their luggage to the Rwandan taxi he stood at the barrier chatting to the armed guards. Naturally, he leant across the barrier to give David a fatherly hug goodbye, and was a bit confused when a guard came across to say something. As the taxi moved away he found out that it is a criminal offence to touch someone across the barrier, and that he would have been arrested if he was Ugandan.

Now that would have been a big challenge!!