Whatsup everyone,

So I am writing from a jungle campsite alongside Lake Bunyoni in Uganda, near the border of Rwanda. It has been a pretty crazy few days so far. Paige and I met up with our group on the 27th and have been making our way towards the Impenetrable Forest from Kenya since then. I’m the proud recipient of atleast 6 concussions since then, since the roads are a little less than satisfactory and often toss you against the wall with some extreme force without notice. We’ve stayed in some amazing places so far. On our 2nd nite we stayed at a lodge/campsite that was hilariously amazing considering its location and the fact that I couldn’t think anyone would ever stay there. It also had to most elaborate bar in a cave, and needless to say we, and the resident cattle, were the only ones there. We also stayed at a great campsite overlooking the Nile River at Jinja where we will go back for some classV rafting in a week or so.

Our first night was a really great experience, camping in Lake Nakuru National Park where we saw a leopard and many rhinos (which are so unbelievably huge) up close. That night I made friends with a group of Kenyan boyscouts who were camping near us, and they offered to make me a citizen of their country and even named me Oyukeke. That night they invited us over to share their fire and to entertain us. So they played African games, did some acting and best of all did an incredible traditional African dance for us. It was incredible to see, and great to have a genuine African experience that didn’t end in the people asking us for money, although the next morning they came over to take pictures with all the white girls and were blatantly staring down their shirts in the pictures, but hey nobodys perfect right.

This part of the trip only has 8 people on it, and fortunately (or unfortunately im not sure) no senior citizens. By far my favourite person would have to be Armin of Austria. Think Mr. Bean with an Arnold Schwarzenneger voice. He is incredibly accidentally funny and has kept my laughing the entire time, although I don’t think he knows why. Among other things he has leaned out our bus screaming “sto-oooop, sto-oooop” when we passed a goat on the road so he could videotape it, incredulously demanded a reason for why the Kenyan boyscouts didn’t have a dvd player to watch the videos he would send them, and berated the poor bastard that showed us how water spins different directions on different sides of the equator saying that he must be a “mystical magician warlock”. All in an Arnold voice. It’s great.

Anyways, I am really loving it obviously. The landscape in Uganda especially is so unique and so amazing. But then, you always come crashing back to earth when you see the most amazing scene of green rolling hills and mountains juxtaposed with the most ridiculous poverty, mud huts with tin roofs and almost-naked children with huge bellies. There always people who excitedly wave at us as we drive past, most of whom do so genuinely, but then there are always a few that then use that as a lead-in to reach there hand out to ask for money or just toss up a middle finger. So it is very sobering to be here, to realize how lucky we all are, but it’s an important experience. But hey, atleast I got to watch Monday Night Football in the middle of a jungle right? Send some messages, much love, dunc