Cultural show at Ndere Centre: Miriam (STEM-Staff) brought Maggie, Iric and me to a cultural show some time ago. This was just so cool and interesting! I really wish I could dance like that… Well, Maggie got the chance to show some of her moves and Eirik also showed some of his talents on the stage. We had so much fun, and got confirmed that Uganda is very rich in culture.:-)

Impressing dancing!

Maggie learns some moves...

...and so did others!:-D

How do they do that?!

This is really crazy!

And now it was Eiriks time to try out his skills...

...1...

...2...

...3!

Dancing with the candles

All of the dancers gave us a really good show... Thank u so much!;-)

News!!

Maggie and Joanna have moved from their host family to a Hostel closer to town! It’s quite big differences from living in a family to be by ourselves, but I really think this will be a good experience for the both of us.:-) We're really looking forward to live here the last 2months.:-)

Here we're having our first meal at our place...

Bananas, water and popcorn!

Margrethe 22years!! :-D

On Sunday Margrethe turned 22 years, so we had to celebrate this day with lots of different things. I’ll let the pictures tell the story… ;-)

Our fantastic B-Girl!

Birthday-lunch at Fang Fang with Per & Janki

Maggie got both birthday song and a fruit basket from the Staff at the restaurant...
She enjoyed it a lot! ;-)

The three of us went to the top of "House of Communication" where this nice guard showed us the view over Kampala City

To the party the Maggie didn't know anything about:

Justene and Ken

Joel, Miriam and Janki

What movie should we watch...

Our wonderful host; Prince William

Miriam is enjoying a magazine

But suddenly in the middle of the movie, the power went...
So then we had to do something else...
Candles...

...and games! :-)

Our hosts for the evening; Prince & Robert are bringing the cake

Cutting of the cake... It was SO hard!

I hope u had a good day Maggie... Happy birthday!

To the east - Again! :-)

Saturday 9. feb to Monday 11.feb we went for a Staff-trip to the east. We are visiting the regional offices and this time it was the east that was to get a visit from the Central Focus office. It was our training secretary, Eddie, a Focus-staff called Rebecka, a student called Denis, Margrethe and I that went to the east – Mbale, Soroti and Tororo.

The trip was not for tourism, but for visiting associates, the regional offices, Christian Unions and attending meetings and trainings.

The east was so different from Kampala, there are smaller cities, more nature (forest and mountains), a lot warmer, fewer people and less traffic.

Maggie and I also spent a night at Lisbeths house, this was really great. ( For those who don’t know her, Lisbeth is a student at Hald too, in the program at Strømme Foundation) Thank you Lisbeth for hosting us!:-) We also came to her practice place, at CRO in Mbale where they take care of streetchildren; give them education and food. This is a really great work they are doing, and many kids are getting a good future by attending CRO.

Lisbeth at her office at CRO

Our transport... A small, white and fast little thing

Maggie, Jo & Mt. Elgon

Can someone please tell me the meaning of having this gate??

In the middle of “nowhere” we found this taxi in the middle of the road. We took some responsibility and pushed this burned taxi of the road with some help from locals.

At our trip we visited many different people, and this is how the outside of the door looks like when we were visiting someone.:-)

Some visits were shorter than others so we just waited in the car… but were they actually shorter??

Having fun in the car :-)

Denis

Jo & Mag

On our way back from Mbale we went through Tororo and Jinja, and came back to Kampala in the evening. It was a really busy trip with lots of hours spent in the car, but I really enjoyed it and it was nice to see the regional office in the East.

Tororo with Robert!

Friday 1.feb to Sunday 3.feb went Margrethe, Robert and I to Roberts hometown; Tororo. (For those who don’t know him, Robert went to Hald last year and stayed in Stavanger.) We went with an ordinary taxi with 15seats and 16 people, lots of stuff and little of space. For 4hours we sat through bumpy roads, hot sun and lot of dust.

"Vifte Maggie"

In Tororo there is the famous; Tororock which we didn’t have time to climb, but it was beautiful to look at. I really enjoyed to see some mountains again.:-)

Other things we did in Tororo was to go to his village and to meet his family. It was really great to meet them and to see how they were doing. It was a very hot day with a lot of sunshine, and this we really felt at our skin… it became a bit red… hehehe…:-) On our way to Roberts clan, called Abakoya, we sat a new record in people in one taxi with 15 seats… 26persons on 15seats. (but about 6 of them were children.) So like this we sat for about 1hour, and it went surprisingly good!

"Hallo i ruten"

On this trip to the village we saw many new and interesting plants, like cottonplants and coffetrees, but the plant that was the most interesting was the “pineapple-plant”. I have never seen a pineapple-plant, and have been thinking a lot of this lately… “Is the pineapple growing from a tree, a bush, from the ground or on a plant?” And yes, I got the answer… just see my picture.:-) (and I’m sure am not the only one who have been wondering this ;-)

Some kids along our way... They love the camera! :-)

We stayed in Tororo for 2nights, and went home a bit tired, but a lot wiser about the life in the village, plants and Roberts hometown.