Today was our last full day in Uganda. Tomorrow we will head over to a local market and have lunch before we head for the airport and a long long ride home. Today we went across Lake Victoria to the Bethany Village Orphanage in the morning, and back to Buloba to visit some sponsor children, put up some rain catches, and the woman were able to speak with a group of local woman. It was a very refreshing and uplifting day.
Tonight we had a wonderful last dinner at the guest house with our friends from 60 Feet. It was so great to have the two K’s over for dinner (their first names are Kelsey and Kirby), and I think we all enjoyed some casual discussions, along with African Renewal Ministries who came over as well. There were so many things we experienced on this trip that need to be followed up on, things that God pulled together for our team that became a great start. We understand as a team we probably can’t change the world, but we can continue to take some small steps forward that will collectively make a difference.
Tomorrow we head to the airport for our 11pm flight. Our flight leaves about 2pm Central Time on Thursday, and if our flights are on time, we should be back in Auburn late Friday afternoon. This trip has been incredible to say the least, and God put together a team that had so many different individual gifts and talents that only God could have brought us all together like this. As we head home we have so much to reflect upon, so much to process, but we trust in God to take care of the details and to use this trip to fulfill a purpose that will glorify God.
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One of my favorite parts of this particular trip was getting to go across Lake Victoria to the Bethany Village Orphanage (see this post on the orphanage). Of course to get to Bethany Village, we had to cross the lake. Lake Victoria is the second largest lake in the world (by surface area), the largest lake in Africa, and is the source to feed the Nile River. Obviously being the largest lake and bordering three different countries we only put eyes on a tiny little sliver of Lake Victoria on this crossing. We were also able to see the shoreline from the Botanical Gardens in Entebbe, Uganda on the way to the airport but I’ll save that for another post. The Lake Victoria we crossed was an amazingly peaceful place. Almost all traffic on the lake was from local fisherman, many who mainly paddled across different parts of the lake while they fished. There were no high-speed motor boats, no large commercial fishing vessels, just us and a few fishing farmers.
One aspect of crossing the lake that was unmistakable was the view we had of the air quality in and around the lake and outward towards Kampala. Not just in the air above us but the water beneath us as well, which was covered in a thick mix of green algae. The photos below were basically right out of the camera but they highlight the water and air quality in that particular area on that particular day. Historically the areas surrounding the lake from Kenya to Tanzania to Uganda have had to deal with pollution on different levels and “is mainly due to discharge of raw sewage into the lake, dumping of domestic and industrial waste, and fertiliser and chemicals from farms” and from factories who dump their waste directly into the lake untreated. [1] I am certainly no water or air expert (and there actually are water experts going on our next trip) but I know what pollution does for photography. It’s great for incredible colors at sunset and sunrise, and nearly colorless at midday like most of what was shot below. It does make for an interesting surreal mix of beauty and a 1970′s Los Angeles feel.
The crossing for us took about 30-45 minutes. As we traveled parallel to the banks we could see small villages all along the way, each having their own routine and way of life. On the second trip over to Bethany Village we took a shorter crossing and landed among the local fishing boats of the area shown in the last two shots below (notice the water in the closeup of the motorboat). As usual the most incredible part that day were the people we met on the lake and at the orphanage.
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We have been in this drought for some time now, it seems like years, because it has been. For about the last 5 years or so we just have not had any steady rain at all. The best evidence of the drought, at least on our property, is our pond. This is basically a 2 acre pond that is rain fed. From the feet shot you can see it is dry as the Arizona desert. From the shot of the pond area, almost the entire view of the photo should be under water, in fact I am basically standing where the water should be. Anyway, I know it’s not the most photographic Friday Feet but it’s what this summer is turning out to be like on our side of the world. We could really use an active hurricane season where we get some nice slow moving weak storms over and over again. I know the fish shot is kind of gross so I left you with my moms yellow flowers blooming like mad in this 100* weather.
Coming up soon, some uber cute shots of my nephews in their Chick-fil-a cow costume for their annual photo contest. It was quite something to shoot people in cow costumes in 100* weather. Have a good weekend.
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Today’s photo of the day is something I love to photograph, barbed wire. There are so many different aspect and ways to photograph barbed wire, and almost all exhibit some type of feeling of simplicity (at least the kind found in fields anyway). This particular shot was something normally hidden in higher water, which no doubt took many fishing lures in its day.
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The photo of the day today comes from a local lake, but the title caption isn’t exactly accurate. It was a nice quiet few minutes on the lake until this public lake patrol told us we could only take our kayak (our Dagger Axis) out on the water if we were going to fish from the kayak. I told him I didn’t want to fish today and he then told me we would have to leave because they only allowed people who want to fish. The crowds you can see were overwhelming, but we also won’t be going back to this lake any time soon either.
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Last night we went out to Chewacla State Park for a very quick trial run to test out the Dagger Axis 10.5 Kayak. This boat is much smaller than our previous kayaks but is very stable, easy to maneuver, and tracks quite well. We got to Chewacla too late to give it a real good testing but it was nice to get out on the water for a short time and to see the sunset together. It was a beautiful “fall” sunset, full of mosquitoes and 95*F weather, but as you can see from the photos it was well worth the trouble.
There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of review information about the Dagger Axis around the blogosphere but from a first impression it certainly gives a lot of bang for the buck and is one of the only kayaks that can seem to adequately cover both white water and recreational or touring flat water. From past experience you really can’t get a good feel for how a kayak handles until you have sat in one all day and paddled for hours (or miles), much like riding a street bike for the better part of 40-50 miles at a time. Hopefully the weather will cool off soon and we can do a little paddling during the day without having heat stroke. For now, here are a few pics from the launch (I’m the one with no hair), and one from the lake.
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One of the things I probably dis-like the most about blogs is having to clean house, but, this weekend I went through the tedious process of implementing a new design, updating all the categories for each post, and changing some previous posts to display the full size images this design will accommodate. I really think that much of the details in photography is lost in viewing small images, so, for those still on dial-up, I apologize now. From this point forward I will be displaying my images on up to 900px wide in some cases, like the image below of Lake City lake in Colorado (although I will try to keep the file size as small as possible).
The image above was taken in August of 2005 in Lake City Colorado. There is an overlook on the forest road where you can stop and hike up the side of the mountain. Image data: Camera, Nikon D2X, ISO-100, Focal length 35mm @ f/16
This is one of those scenes that has probably been photographed a million times but is still so beautiful that you just have to stop and take a shot. This particular shot I did do a bit of hiking off the main road. I climbed up to the top of the ridge overlooking the lake and the most gorgeous colors appeared.
I rarely think the best shot is in the foot pegs of the tripod that just left (or where everyone else tends to take the same shot), and in this case I was greatly rewarded. The drive from Creede to Lake City is one of the most wonderful drives found in the country, so if you ever have a chance, take the road right out of Creede and take a slow drive over several passes until you drop down into Lake City.
Happy Labor Day to everyone.
