act 6 scene 1

ants

Army ants are organised little things. They build bridges out of themselves and they have a heck of a bite. On Friday a colony of ants moved from one place on the base here to another. Hundreds of thousands of ants formed a massive convoy that ran across the base for several hundred metres, running close enough to accommodation blocks to be a hazard that you did not want to walk across. Should you step on or near this ant train they would quickly scurry up your trousers and let you know how unwelcome you were.

We were playing some games on Friday night when a large bug about the size of an iPod shuffle flew into our midst. It was promply killed and kicked outside of the door of the room - pretty much routine around here. Only 20 minutes later we discovered the bug covered in a mass of ants feasting on this huge bug.

What happened later was as shocking as it was incredible - skip to the next paragraph if you are squeamish. Earlier in the week a cat had given birth to a litter of kittens. Unfortunately they had strayed into the path of the ants and all five kittens were literally eaten alive by thousands of these little ants. The power of nature is incredible.

rafting

After much musing I decided to invest two weeks pocket money on white water rafting a section of the Nile. One of the most amazing rafting trips in the world, it contains a number of grade 5 rapids - the biggest thrills that you can raft commercially.

In the morning, before we got into boats, we set the tone by doing a 44m bungy jump. We then sunlotioned up and jumped into a raft complete with life jacket and helmet. Our guide was a lovely guy from Finland with the name Jussi. He told us all the commands he would be shouting and then deliberately overturned the boat in order to teach us how to get back in.

The first rapids were pretty tiny affairs that you didn’t really notice and then we came up against the first major waterwork. The boat flipped in the middle of the rapid, I hit some rocks with my leg and had breathed in so much water that I was practically drowning. The water current eventually took me out of the rough water and the guy in the safety boat pulled me out of the water and allowed me to ungracefully replace the river water content of my lungs with oxygen once more. Definitely a fear for your life moment.

Only a little later did we hit a rapid called “Total Gunga”. This was a lot of fun with a great start. Just as my confidence was getting up that the raft wouldn’t flip again I felt it going and this time took a large lungful of air. It was a lucky thing that I did as I was promptly dragged underwater into a plunge pool - the light from above dwindled as I was sucked into the depths of the rapid. We were warned about these and told to curl into a ball and let the currents take us. Instinct however told me to swim for the rapidly disappearing surface and it took me a second or so to suppress this. All this time I’d been holding onto my paddle as a precious treasure and I was proud that I still had it when I eventually bobbed up to the surface. Jussi was righting the boat when I arrived back in daylight and I was far further from death this time so could swim and jump aboard. Awesome.

There were many more rapids throughout the day, but for the rest we managed to stay afloat. The afternoon, however, brought another excitement. Soon after lunch (which was amazing) we were paddling along a large section of the Nile and a thunderstorm started to roll in from behind us. A thick dark cloud sucked up all the light leaving us with a sliver of bright white clouds in the distance where the sunlight still penetrated. It was utterly eerie and stunningly beautiful at the same time.

We paddled on as the temperature dropped like a stone, taking the occasional break to jump in the comparatively warm Nile (20 or so celsius).  Then…  it started to rain.  In Africa it doesn’t spit so much as suddenlypour down buckets of water.  We took shelter against an island and jumped in the water until the boat with the sprayjackets turned up.  Jussi eventually managed to convince us to get out of the gorgeous water, don spray jackets and paddle onwards - as he said “the only way out is down”.  I’m not sure what he made of our feeble attempts to sing various hymns and songs - they made us feel better.
As we continued to paddle the lightning periodically illuminated the sky and thunder rumbled across the sky.  A kilometer or two later there was a bright flash of lightning accompanied by a clap of thunder that you could feel.  I was on the wrong side of the boat, but the others could see the lighting strike the water only 50m or so away.  The rain continued but no more close encounters with lightning appeared.

A few rapids later, we were getting out of the water and hopping onto the bus back to the start for the real highlight of the day - a steaming hot shower (not just a trickle either).

church

We went along to the Abundant Life church in Kakira this Sunday and the team did the sermon, testimonies, drama and dances.  It was a really good morning that I found really encouraging.  It went really well and I was so proud of the team.  I’m really confident about doing a great job when we get down to Kitwe.  We went to Kakira market after both services (one in Swahili and the other in Luganda) and bought rolex which are a chipati (like thick tortilla) wrapped around an omelette.

finally

Sorry that my updates have decreased in frequency - the Internet here is unsurprisingly slow and fairly rare.  You need a combination of electricity, working internet and being in the right place in order to suceed!