Johnnyboy Ties the Knot

Last week, John and Moira married. We had the pleasure of going back to the US for a week to join in the celebration. It was a phenomenal week. You'll get a better feel for how it went by looking at the photos than by reading my words, I think. Congratulations to the newlyweds.

Madagascar Series: Ile Aux Nattes

For the last leg of our journey in Madagascar, we visited Ile Aux Nattes, which, as mom likes to call it, is an island off of an island (Ile Saint Marie) off of an island (Madagascar) of Africa. It is a tiny little island, and can be walked around fairly easily. However, the inhabitants are extremely nice, and so are the lodges there. It was very nice to kick back on the beach for a week or two, compared to our very busy schedule for the week before. While there, we did a fair amount of snorkling, swimming, and relaxing, as well as some adventurous hikes. In my opinion, it was one of the highlights of the trip. The water was the perfect temperatue; it wasn't so cold that you didn't want to go in, but it definitely cooled you off. On the final day on the island, the owner of the bandas that we had been staying in, who we had befriended, took us to Ile Saint Marie, which is much bigger, and much more industrialized. Contrary to Ile Aux Nattes, it is bustling with people and there are hundreds of road-side kiosks. To get there, you have to take a ride in a pirogue, which you paid like a taxi. Well, that's all for Madagascar.

Adventures with Johnjoe and Ollie

Over the spring break at ISU, Johnjoe, one of my mom's old friends, and his 15 year old son Ollie decided to take a vacation to Uganda from the UK. While they were here, we were able to take multiple safari drives in Queen Elizabeth and the two of them and matt, dad, and myself went rafting on the Nile. Even though all of this is old stuff that we have done and seen before, Johnjoe and Ollie were mesmerized by the animals and activities that are simply not available in the UK. On the Queen Elizabeth trip, we were able to see many of the main animals that they wanted to: Baboons, cool birds, chimpanzees, water buffalo, alligators, hippos, and cob (similar to deer). However, we weren't able to see some very interesting animals such as giraffes, zebras, gorillas, or any cats (lions, leopards, cheetahs, etc.) Even we haven't seen any cats here! I wish we would! Anyways, then we took the same rafting trip as the first time that dad and I went. This was with the other 5 father-son couples. It was just as fun as I remembered, and is still one of my favorite things to do here.
This will probably be the last post until summer so see you then.

WWW (Week Without Walls)

Hello everyone, sorry I havn't posted for a while. But, I have new topic that Thomas might also talk about. It is called Week Without Walls. This is when each grade in Senior school goes on a fun trip to different places around Uganda. My grade, Grade 6, went to Mpanga Forest.

One weird thing about Mpanga Forest is that there are signs everywhere saying "beware of safari ants" (Safari ants are like big fire ants). The thing about these signs are that they are true. Almost everywhere you go there will be a line of these safari ants. So we were forced to wear rubber boots.

Also, I found out a new species of monkeys, red-tailed monkeys (luckily they didn't throw a rock at me). These monkeys fight each other pretty much 24/7, they never stop. For example, you'll be eating dinner and there they are, fighting in the trees.

To finish off this trip really helped my teamwork because everything we did, we did in groups. Luckily my group was filled with mainly my friends. Although a few people didn't get so lucky.

Madagascar Series: Vakona Lodge

I know this is beginning to sound like a broken record, but again I am sorry for the lack of posts. And pictures can be seen in the slideshow on the sidebar. Here we go...
After the reserve, our driver, Alan, continued deeper into the forest. Near the heart of the forest, their was a very fancy lodge in which we stayed for the next three nights, called Vakona Lodge. This lodge was like a four star hotel. Each cabin was two floors, with huge beds, and every cabin was about half of the price of the lodges in Uganda, which are not nearly as nice. Also, the food was excellent, and the restaurant was a nice place to enjoy a relaxing dinner. Each day we went on a different safari into the rainforest, or we visited the lodge's reserves. During the first safari, we saw a few lemurs, but they were all very similar to the lemurs that we saw at the first reserve. But, unfortunately, we were unable to make contact with them. The second day, however, we got a close-up view of the largest lemur in existance; the Induri Lemur. These lemurs are huge, but are still just as nimble as the others. They have deafining cries, and are fascinating to watch. We probably looked at the same three lemurs for about 45 minutes to an hour... They have similar colors to the Northern Lemurs, which are mostly white, but with patches of red, orange, and black. Finally, during our last day at Vakona, we visited each of their reserves. The first reserve held lemurs, and again allowed you to touch them. This reserve, instead of only having the Common Brown lemurs, also had a Mouse lemur and Fukaka lemur. The mouse lemur is the size of a mouse, hence the name, and also has a cute little face, also like that of a mouse. The Fukaka lemur stands on two legs when it moves, and can hop around. There are some funny pictures of that one in the slideshow. I'm not sure whether or not I explained the Common Brown lemurs in the previous post, so I'm gonna explain them again. Common Brown lemurs are a shade of brown, and the most agile lemur that we saw. Finally, the last reserve was like the size of a zoo. It held snakes, Fusa, which hunt lemurs and are quite scary just to look at, even though they are the size of a cat, and Nile Alligators. Also, in between both sides of the zoo, there was a large river, which gave the alligators room to swim. In order to cross this gorge there were numerous bridges which linked both sides. However, these bridges made you feel like you were in an Indiana Jones movie, with boards breaking off, bridges just wide enough to place one foot in front of the other, and, those bridges that were wide enough comfortably, there was so much wobbling that you felt like you were going to fall at any second. It was quite scary. Anways, after the three nights in comfortable beds, safaris, and the most pressurized shower that I have been in in about 3 years, we continued on our Christmas journey... to the beach.
TO BE CONTINUED...

Service Summit Africa: Jane Goodall

The school hosted a Service Summit for schools around Africa, and even from places like Dubai and China. It was designed to give students ideas for community and service projects, and most of them were environmentally-based. I did not participate, but my family hosted two students from Dubai. They were very cool, and stuck around for about 2 or 3 nights. At the end of the Service Summit, Jane Goodall came to the school to give a speech and take photographs. I presume everyone knows who she is? Anyways, she was very inspiring, especially to my mom.

Lake Bunyoni

We finally decided to try out a lake besides Lake Nyamirima; Lake Bunyoni. It was beautiful, and the campsite was located on an island right in the middle of the lake. The things that we did were pretty much the same as at Lake Nymirima: Wake up, swim, eat, swim, eat, relax, swim, eat, play games around the campfire, and sleep. It sounds pretty dull, but the relaxation is awesome. we would go there more often than Nymirima (which we have visited like 3 times) but it takes more than 8 hours to get there, which is not ideal. However, it was a lot of fun and well worth the drive.