FOUND - TARZAN'S BIRTHPLACE

Big birds in the top of the trees overlooking Lake Victoria

A nice hotel on the edge of Lake Victoria where we met the Jackson's for dinner after Zone Conference

Look over the top of the roof and there is Lake Victoria.  This is a beautiful setting and we had dinner on the veranda

We went to "Wild Waters" for our 40th anniversary.  Here are the actual trees that Tarzan spent his life swinging around.  (We think).

Unbelievably, no one we ran into was familiar with Tarzan.  But to our eyes, the evidence is indisputable that we've seen this place in the movies - that this must be where he lived.

It's not easy to get to, WILD WATERS is a little resort on an Island in the middle of the Nile River.  Some one has bought it and turned it into a very nice resort with beautiful cabins that look out to the Nile River.  There are several companies that offer River Rafting trips down the Nile.  

We took a little canoe out to get there.  The current is pretty strong, so it takes a lot  of strength to row

The resort is tucked away in Tarzan's hideaway

The hut with the Thatched roof  (on the shoreline) is actually one of the cabins in the Resort that turns out to be one of the most plush retreats we have ever seen.   A man from New Zealand bought the Island and has made it a beautiful get away place.  The price to stay there is very expensive, but it would be a great adventure.  We ate lunch at the restaurant

You can walk along the boardwalks to the various cabins, and admire the trees that the once famous Tarzan swung through

We are on the canoe going across to the center of the Nile to the little Island called Wild Water

Some one had planted Banana trees in the middle of the pineapple grove.

A view of the more calm part of the river

Coming closer to the hut.  Looks like Tarzan's hut, but it isn't.  These are beautifully decorated luxury cabins with monster showers and furniture.  One whole side of the room will open up to a deck over the River.  There are even big bathtubs you can sit in on the deck to bathe in the morning....(if you like sharing your bath with the bugs...)

This shot is taken from inside the restaurant looking out to the River.  It is beautiful scenery.

The owner of the Resort bought the actual boat used in the movie African Queen with Humphrey Bogart.  He says he will launch it in a few weeks.

With the Harris's at the restaurant overlooking the River and White Water

view from the table in restaurant.  There is kind of a little swimming pool in the forefront

So the Harris's say; "just sit on the Rock and we'll take your picture..."

So then a big wave comes and drenches us

At farewell dinner for the Barlows. They have worked hard in Humanitarian

Zone Training.  Which is different than Zone Conference, but it still means I have to cook for this group

These guys sit in a lot of meetings

This poor guard has to sit at the outside entrance of the restaurant where it is very cold for her.  I think it got down to 73 degrees F.  Good thing she had a parka

Visiting Mary.  These are her grandchildren in front eating lunch and there is Elder B in the back drinking her fresh fruit "Jamba Juice".  These boys are her grandchildren

I don't know why they have to eat on the porch with their hands.  Maybe so it is more convenient to pat the dog, chicken or cat while you eat.  They are eating the staple menu of Posche and beans.  (Posche is either a corn meal or Cassava meal mixed with hot water till it looks like mashed potatoes, but maybe a little more startchy.)

Mary Shows her ingredients for her Jamba Juice.  She is in our Self-Emplyment class and is wanting to start her business

I don't know what the big prickly fruit is but it looks like a pear when you cut it open

Posche and beans, and you eat with your hands

The members wash the floor of the chapel every week using something like Ajax.  It is a challenge to keep the red dirt off the floor

It is so great to attend the weddings.  Usually they are for couples that have been together for many years and sometimes they have a family already.  But these two wanted to get baptized so the wedding culminated with them feeding cake to each other which they learned from some missionary here.  They don't have these customs.

HEL-UP IS ON THE WAY

I saw these boys playing soccer at the church while I was teaching keyboard lessons.  As soon as they saw me start to take my camera out of my purse they quickly posed for a team picture as fast as lighting.  I hadn't even turned on the Camera yet and they were posing here.  The boy in front with the red shorts showed me how many times he could bounce the ball off his knee, he did it 175 times before he dropped the ball.  I recorded it with my camera. The other boy in the orange shirt wanted to break his record, and I have him filmed doing it 245 times.

How would you like one of them on your soccer team at home?

These kids came over to the church while we were having our YW/YM activity and the guard had to keep shooing them away.  Finally Sister Thayn gave them all balloons to entertain themselves outside the gate of the church.

I don't know why, but the children love to have their picture taken showing off, and the adults hate it.  I guess that is typical in every country.  I have to offer to pay the adults.

One the cutest things they do here is the pronunciation of their words.  They pronounce every consonant separately. So here at the activity we had some caterers that we hired to HEL - UP us with the food.

We hired a catering service to give the kids lunch at our Youth Conference.  These are the caterers waiting for their job to start.  It was a very hot day in the sun.

Our event was at the Walukuba chapel which has huge grounds and a nice outside basketball court where we set up the food, the sound system and the dancing.  The community uses it as a public park and so the church had to hire a 24 hour a day guard to protect it from all the vandalism.
We gave the kids at the activity a snack of doughnuts (or what they call doughnuts, and it is more like fried bread with a hole in it) and lots of juice.  We then had a very nice lunch for them of rice, potatoes, motokee with gnut sauce (which is kind of purple) beef in gravy, and chapata. They said that is the best food they have ever had at an activity. I think there was also some  beans but I can't remember, I didn't really eat the food because of you know, (the water is only filtered in certain places). I had cut up some pineapple for dessert for them also, which is what they consider a great dessert.  Later in the day we gave them a cookie and a banana.  The food for the whole day cost us about $1.25 per person total.  We did not do T-shirts or wrist bands or anything fancy for them like we would have in the states because there just is no money for anything in these small branches.  The kids don't expect anything even though we would have liked to do something.
The District payed for buses to transport everyone, so we told them we would pay for the food through the mission.  I got clearance from the mission president first before we offered, but when we turned in our receipts the financial secretary refused to reimburse us.

 Oh well it was worth it to see these kids have a little something, they have so little and they have probably never eaten this much food in one day before in their lives.

At Youth Conference.  We divided into groups and had discussions and then we met all together in the chapel for testimonies and talks.  

We all gathered at the lawn to learn some activities

We had some great Young Adult leaders, all BYU students here for a few months working with an international organization.  Lucky us they had all been EFY councilors at one time and shared their talents with us.  They organized the activities for the day and had a blast teaching them games and dances.  Afterwards the kids told us they had never had such a fun activity.

I am sorry you can only see the back of the District YW president, Sis Lafafa.  She is absolutely the most gorgeous lady  and her husband is the BP of Mpummede.  She works for the church and goes to Kampala every week for the whole week, so she comes home on the weekend and was conducting the activity

From this picture you see some funny hair colors.  It is quite the rage here for the girls to do a weave with string into corn rolls, or just wear the string as hair.  I told the ladies that the reason I can never remember their names is because they keep changing their hairstyles.  They use all colors of string in their hair, and sometimes they wear wigs.  Sometimes they straighten their hair.  They do all kinds of things with their hair. 

Don't even try to find anything as mundane as a name tag in Jinja.  After searching every stationary store I finally got some masking tape and used that for name tags.  All the businesses here are stocked with items that are second-hand, most likely overstock or donated items from manufacturers in the US and China.  Even canned goods in the stores are expired. There are so many items that we take for granted that do not exist here.  Name tags,.... and also I spent a day looking for O-rings for a flip chart for Primary songs.  Nope, no such thing.  I used the hooks off my curtains, and it worked great.  They look more like key chains sort of.

The kids here were so excited about the activity.

Another view of the opening exercises.  This chapel in Walukuba has been here for about 10 years and the members are very strong.

I know this is such a random picture, but it is so striking to me to see trees here.  They are so perfectly gorgeous that sometimes I wonder if they are fake, like how do they grow so perfectly.  Also the whole expanse of foliage is always so random and inexplicable.  Everywhere you look there is just one thing the same growing.  A tree, a bush, a bunch of grass.  I don't get it, usually if one thing grows, there is a whole patch of the same thing near it, but not here anywhere.  All the plant life is random.

These little bananas are very sweet and never go bad even when they turn black.  We buy them all the time.  I served them as a snack at the activity

I had to cut up all the pineapples for dessert for lunch.  I sure miss my Cutco knives.

we found this in the apartment when we moved in.  IT WORKS!  A little rusty but we use it.

showing off my missionary tan line

This is a great car wash....  Not sure what they charge, but it is full time employment for these entrepreneurs.  They love to scrub that red dirt into the paint job.

The only thing here that isn't expensive is the fresh produce from the farmers market.  I got all this for about $12.  The carrots are very sweet, and the pineapple and lemons are mild, not so acidic as we're used to.  I also bought 25 pounds of potatoes for about another $5.

WE'RE GOING TO TURN RED

This is Smith with his younger brother Thomas.  They are the kids of our housekeeper Christine.  We were visiting her neighborhood today trying to find a kiosk where she would be able to start a business.

I was wondering why they paint the chickens, and I heard two reasons.  First,  some people keep the chickens in the market because there isn't room in their house and they don't want them to get mixed up.  The other reason is because the Eagles don't recognize them as food.  Go figure.....

Christine talking to Elder Ballstaedt with her children, Smith and Patricia.

These were painted blue!

This fellow makes a living by repairing clothing.  He works out of a kiosk right on the street.

I wanted to get a good picture of the front of the store where the clothing repair shop is, but people don't like their picture taken so I had to pretend I was taking it of Smith.

I am so disappointed that my camera has such a slow shutter speed so I always miss my pictures, but this is such a typical thing to see in Uganda.  The women all carry the kids on their backs...I mean like EVERYWHERE.

This is Sister Sally.  She is the wife of George our night guard. With her little girls.  This is their home in the background.

This is a place called the "Source of the Nile".  It has a spring that you can see swirling which the natives say supplies the Nile River with it's water.  It is very beautiful even though you can only see it blurry.

This house is right next door to us.  They are the noisiest family ever, and they have all kinds of animals that the kids tease all day.  It looks like a nice house, but they still do their cooking outside.  It also has no electricity or plumbing.

Every morning I go outside for a walk and have to trip over all the chickens and baby chicks everywhere.  I never saw so many animals roaming all over.  

This is the view I see every morning as I go out for my walk.  It looks so lovely and peaceful each day but them thar hills are full of snakes and other critters.  It is beautiful in the misty morning.

Sister Jackson came to Jinja with some friends from the USA and we visited the Weavers.  They have these big looms and they make beautiful cloth.

We went to the Source of the Nile.  Sister Harris on my right and Sister Jackson on my left.

The Nile in the background.  You can rent a boat and go out but we didn't have time this day.

More views

More views of the looms at the Weaver

More...  Notice the sewing machines are push pedal.  No one depends on electricity here for anything.

more

more.....

We had zone training.  The Elders love to goof off like kids sometimes

Weird that the Weavers had my favorite yarns already pulled....were they thinking I was going to order something?

Showing off - notice the water bottle in his hand.  We threaten these guys if they don't drink enough water.

companions gettin' along...

You can tell the new Elders are the ones with while shirts - the rest of us have RED shirts that used to be white.

More playing around - showin off for the camera

Oh this shop behind Elder B is selling coal stoves.  Everyone makes their food in the coal stoves out the front door of their home.  They make their own coal out of wood.

The Ugandan women are so dedicated to washing clothes I can't believe it.  This is how they do it, they bend over at the waist and lock their knees.  They scrub and scrub and the water in the yellow gerrycans has been carted long distances by hand for them to do their wash.  They will spend hours each day doing the wash!