Lake Bunyonyi

This week has been good, although it’s been a bit weird without Matt, Melanie and Michelle, who have all gone their separate ways for the holiday. As for me, I’ve been hanging out mostly with Nancy and doing whatever needs doing (which is mostly typing – the one skill Ugandans lack). Last Friday, Nancy and I visited a hospital near Canada House in Mbarara (where I’m staying this week). First, we went to the maternity ward, which was dim because of a power outage (they are very common here), and passed out little toques that some kind people in Canada gave us to hand out. One of the women we visited had just given birth to twins, but, if we understood the matron correctly, one was in the emergency room because he had been born with his intestines outside of his body. They didn’t expect him to make it, which was sad.

Next we went to the children’s ward to pass out knitted bears and dolls, again given to us by people from home. Most of the kids had leg problems, and many had castes on one or both legs. When we arrived, the kids and their parents were all huddled around a TV watching King Kong. They we squealing and cheering and carrying on, though littlies in the front were watching silently with wide eyes. Nancy explained to me that most of them came from villages far away, and so they had likely never seen a television before. Although they were fascinated by the movie, they did agree to pause it so that we could hand them their toys.

I spent most of the rest of the week with Nancy, Bern and David on Bushara Island, in the middle of lake Bunyonyi. It’s about a three-hour drive south of Mbarara. David told me that the landscape near Bunyonyi is much the same as Rwanda (which makes sense, because it’s so close) – extremely hilly and green (Rwanda is known for its a thousand hills). Bunyonyi was beautiful. River rafting was my favourite activity in Uganda, but Bunyonyi was my favourite place to visit. When we arrived at the lake, we took a little motorboat to Bushara island, where David was greeted like a long lost relative. Many years ago, ACTS was involved in starting Bushara Island’s one and only hotel/campsite, and, together with the church nearby, ACTS still plays a role in its management.

The island was beautiful and peaceful, with wildflowers, a crystal clear lake, and a variety of birds that I had never seen before – yellow weaver birds (which look like finches), bee eating birds, speckled mousebirds (which eat mice – an incredible feat for such a small bird – I’d have thought the one I saw would difficulty flying with a mouse in its tummy), turquoise headed sunbirds, kingfishers, and blue flycatching birds with white, fan-like tails. We all had fun trying to spot the most birds. Nancy, Bern and I also took a dugout canoe out for a paddle on the lake when it was sunniest. I insisted that we check out Punishment Island, which was a pitiful little reed-filled pin-prick in the middle of the lake. I had heard from someone that, many years before, people used to chuck unmarried, pregnant women on the island, leaving them to die or get picked up by old men who didn’t want to pay the bride price. Some of them allegedly drowned trying to get away (most women didn’t know how to swim back then… well, actually, most women in the lake area still don’t know how to swim. It’s only in the last little bit that bazungu (plural of muzungu, white people) have been teaching the lake kids how to swim so they don’t drown on their way to school. But swimming, as I understand it, is still frowned upon for girls). 

Anyway, after I had heard about this island, I decided that I would swim back from it to prove I could have escaped. So I jumped out of the boat before Nancy and Bern could react and started swimming for Bushara. They paddled along behind me in case I got tired. I didn’t. It took me a little less than half an hour – a nice swim. It was only after I got back from the island that David told me that none of the women on Punishment Island had ever actually died. Their lovers almost always came to rescue them in dugout canoes after dark. One guy told me that missionaries who tried to rescue women on the island were often insulted for trying to interfere – the women waiting there would say something like “go away – I’m waiting for somebody else to rescue me.” I thought that was funny.

Now I’m back at Canada House in Mbarara. David and Bern left early this morning for a meeting in Tanzania, and I stayed with Nancy to help her with her scholarship stuff. Today we went out to check the progress on construction at Murago School, and to buy some land for a family Nancy knows. Other than that, there’s not much to tell, so, until next week!