SeNile and Die?

It’s Easter – and time for a few days away.

We went with Corrie to a lodge on the banks of the River Nile. One source of the Nile is at Jinja on Lake Victoria which is a beautiful part of Uganda to visit.

 We would like to say how active we all were. In fact, the ladies were very active, including swimming several times a day. Malcolm just sat around enjoying the view.

As a reward for all the exercise we all shared in some Easter chocolate. At least the ladies will have worked the calories off.

Corrie set herself a target of doing a large jig saw. There is nothing like sitting outside doing a jigsaw overlooking the Nile.

 

One creature which did not need to feel guilty about being lazy was a small sun bird which had built a nest by the swimming pool. She kept busy by getting food to feed her chicks.

On the way home we were overtaken by a coffin on wheels. You never know when you might need one.

This weeks proverb from the BBC Africa web-site is from Sierra Leone:  "No matter how beautiful and well-crafted a coffin might look, it will not make anyone wish for death"


PS. Despite the title, see you next week?

Palms, Eyes and 'airs.

Every 3 months we go to the service at the local church to give an update on a relevant health issue. This week (Palm Sunday) Malcolm went with Frank, a nurse who runs the eye clinic. Frank gave them the good news that specialist opthalmists would be visiting on Tuesday to run an ‘Eye Camp’ where people could have any problems with their sight investigated. Malcolm gave the bad news about the cut in funding by the US Government to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS (see last week’s blog).

On Tuesday a crowd of people came to the Eye Camp. Because of the number some of the basic tests were carried out ‘al fresco’.

Another ‘al fresco’ event was when Paul had his hair cut by his wife, Tania. Paul looks none to pleased to be photographed.

 

One of the largest birds in this area is the Malibu Stork. We spotted this one on sitting on a small Termite hill.

 

If you want to see what the hospital and area looks like from the air the following link is to a video taken from a small ‘drone’ this week. The video lasts just under 14 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-McNaVGuDQ&feature=youtu.be

This week’s African proverb from the BBC web-site is from Senegal: “Tomorrow is far”.

Doing It With Coviction

Its been Sarah’s final days here.
 

 

The Hospital has a Ministry Team which visits a number of the prisons in the region, This week Sarah went with them to a low security open prison (just one murderer and one rapist) to speak at a short service.
 

All of us spoke with Sarah talk about the parable of the Prodigal son. Fortunately we all managed to escape! (from the prison, not the talk)

 

We had an ‘escapee’ at our house. A couple of birds have built a nest in our verandah and hatched 2 eggs. One of the fledglings had a bit of a hard landing on its first test flight but seemed to recover OK. He and his brother left the nest for good the next day. 

 

We then had a day away ourselves with Dr Corrie. On route the ladies took the chance to do some more bird watching.
 

 

Then there was the chance to try out some of our swimming skills

 

This week’s African proverb from the BBC Africa web-site is from Cameroon:  “As man has learnt to shoot without missing, the birds have learnt to fly without perching”