Suffering for the Lord in Jinja...well, maybe not suffering.

I have been absent from my blog due to a "working" vacation in Jinja. The other American professors and I decided to find a new spot to grade papers. An hour and a half later we found ourselves in Jinja, a slightly smaller town off Lake Victoria and the Nile river. There is a rather economical resort just outside of town that we stayed at. The first of our three day vacation was perhaps the most productive for me (the others did a much better job at working under those conditions). After lunch, we sat under the canopies and graded our respective assignments with occasional glances upon the serene beauty of Lake Victoria that stretched before us.

Lake Victoria's serenity (with the little boat we took a ride in in the background)

Eventually, we gave up and spent time talking over afternoon tea. As the sun was setting we partook of a dinner meal. I was ecstatic to get coconut chicken curry! At the moment, coconut is perhaps my favorite flavor and I was not thinking I would get much of a chance to have any here in Uganda. Getting to bed that night in our little hut was made difficult by some very loud neighbors -- two frogs that insisted on sharing their conversation with us.

Our hut/room is just ahead, slightly to the left.

On Saturday, we went into Jinja to do a little shopping. Michelle, one of the other teaching professors here, scoped out the town for coffee, artwork, ect, so she lead us around the main strip to share her discoveries. One of these discoveries included a really cool coffee shop, The Source. It is a Ugandan run Christian store with a gift shop, internet cafe, and training center. They use their profits to support other work they do in the community. At the shop we experienced the miracle of an amazing peanut butter cookie and some excellent coffee! Ugandans are not known for their baking prowess, but even by US standards this cookie would have been delicious. Diane was bold and asked for the recipe, then gave it to me for use while I'm here :).

Here I am with my roommate, Bernie :)

After the coffee stop, we walked down to an art studio that Michelle found. I ended up buying two small canvas paintings depicting, in my view, a place of serenity -- the river with the sun setting behind the shoreline's trees. Several other shop stops along the way left our vehicle full of our purchases. I mostly got a few items to decorate my home with. When we could spend no more, we returned to our resort for a swim. The sun was quite warm in the afternoon, so swimming in the pool felt lovely.

On Sunday, we went for a short boat ride on Lake Victoria. Our tiny boat mostly cruised the shoreline for us to take in the amazing, bright-colored Ugandan birds. Unfortunately, they move rather quickly, so our pictures cannot accurately capture their features (still, these pictures deserve a separate post, so you will see them at a later time). Following the boat ride we went into Jinja for our final coffee, some good bread, and a late lunch at Bansari Restaurant. Bansari is a REALLY good Indian restaurant which left us quite full of the happiness that comes with excellent garlic naan, paneer korma, and chicken tikka masala, among others. Following our meal we headed back to Mukono, immediately understanding our vacation was over and it was time to get back to work :)

Kind of a dark picture, but the moonlight was beautiful while we were in Jinja!