Craft Market and Rafting on the Nile

It has been a few days since I have posted.  Thanks to everyone for the comments.  I have really enjoyed reading them.

Sunday was a bit of a rest day which was nice.  I went to church with Pat and Cara Aylard who are the only Canadians on staff here at eMi.  After church all the eMi staff along with myself and some other visiting volunteers from the US went out for lunch to a nice Western style restaurant.  Then Pat & Cara took me to the craft market which was really nice.  I was able to buy a few souvenirs, however I didn't get too many as I didn't want to have to carry them around with me everywhere.

Patrick, who I was surveying with had to return home unexpectedly, so I didn't go to Gulu as planned on Monday.  Instead, I believe I will be going on Thursday with an intern who is arriving tonight to do the survey.

Today I crossed another thing off my bucket list.  I went to Jinja to go whitewater rafting on the Nile River.  I never told my Mother I was going and she is going to have a bird when she sees the pictures, but I can assure you Mother that it was completely safe.  The outfit is run by some Australians and they adhere to all international safety standards.  Millions of people do this every year.  It was definitely an adrenaline rush.  Our guide Juma was hilarious.  He said we shouldn't be scared since Moses went over those same rapids in a basket. . . I wonder if he really did.

One of the guys in our boat asked the guide if the locals thought we were crazy for going over the rapids.  And he said no, what they really think is crazy is that you come all the way from Mzungu land and spend what for them is 2 months wages to float down the river. 

There were 4 guys in kayaks going alongside the boat to rescue people if need be.  They were so good and crazy in the rapids.  They would flip their boats on purpose in the rapids just for some extra fun.

 Here we are at the start of the expedition.

 We definitely ended up in the river on this one. . .

 I stayed in the boat on this one but two of my team mates did not.

 It was so exciting going down here.

 At the finish

My team mates.  Juma called us Team United Nations since we were all from different countries.  Juma is not pictured.  From left to right, one of the Ugandan staff members, a dental student who was born in India grew up in New Zealand and now calls Adelaide Australia home, a guy from North Korea whose name is something like Jian Sing Ho or something, Jay from North Korea who is studying Civil Engineering, me, and Iris from the Sichuan Province in China.