Monday 14th December – from Kampala to Bwindi

A very interesting day indeed! We left our hotel and drove to an airstrip to fly to Bwindi, which is in the south-west of Uganda, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. The airstrip was little more than a dirt track. Some of you know that I was always worried about this part of the trip in case the plane wouldn't take off due to our [my] weight! Here's the plane.....

To get it in the air, we had to leave most of our clothes behind, carrying only one very small bag each! I managed to hang on to my laptop so that I could carry on with my blog!

I just managed to get into the plane. Here's the view of my legs!

I have some amazing video footage of the take-off and landing, but my internet connection won't let me upload them tonight. Perhaps later in the week....

On arrival we met up with our other colleagues from California and drove to the bank.

Next we went to a secondary school. Here's the background. Providing education for children is fundamentally important to ensure that society has a chance to develop and to avoid social breakdown. Our host, Hamlet, has managed to set up three successful primary schools in the local area. These are private schools and pupils are paid for mainly by sponsorships coming from people like you and I in the West. Problem: when the kids come out of primary school, their only choice is no school or try to enter a state funded school. However, these are not great. Hamlet has set up a Secondary School and a College (up to degree level). Westerners are attracted by the idea of sponsoring a little child; but it's not so appealing to sponsor a teenager or a young adult. So, Hamlet's aim is to make the Secondary School self-funding. The school is located on a large site. The kids have planted coffee plants and pineapples. In theory, sales of the coffee beans should provide enough revenue to fund the school. That's where our business skills come in. By running the school as a business as well as a school the kids will learn business and entrepreneurial skills at the same time as receiving an education.

Here are photos of one of the school buildings and Hamlet holding the first pineapple fruits. Behind Hamlet are the new coffee plants.

Next we went to the Great Lakes College, which teaches students from age 18 up to degree level. To attend a Business Studies degree course for 3 years costs around USD600, including tuition, lodging and food. This is a huge amount of money to the students' families. Additionally, in this part of Africa, the average woman has 9 (yes, nine) children! On the other hand, the Business Studies degree course is accredited to British standards. Compare USD600 with the cost of 3 years at university in the UK or USA! We made presentations to the students about business and Jonathan presented his Tough Stuff concept. The students were really enthusiastic. They gave us lunch. Yummy! The yellow one is roasted banana.

Afterwards we drove to the Silverback Lodge, which is a business started recently aiming to attract people who are interesting in tracking mountain gorillas. These creatures are quite rare and 75% of them are located in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. This Park has plenty of other amazing attractions too, including 90 mammal species and a huge number of forest birds.

Tomorrow morning we have an early departure. We're heading for Fort Portal, home of the Mountain of the Moons University and a new state of the art laboratory. The United States is helping to fund various health initiatives, including a new National Laboratory programme. Post Glover Lifelink supplies electrical laboratory equipment of a high standard and it has been approached to see if it can supply equipment. During the rest of this week I have a number of meetings set up to investigate this further.

I have some cool video footage, but you'll have to wait.....! While I've been writing the power has been turned off – it's only on for three hours in the evening – so most of this has been typed by candle light, with plenty of weird and wonderful bugs keeping me company – yuk!! So let's see if the technology will allow me to post the blog. Here goes................