School began over one month go after a short three week break. But due to the fact we live about three metres from our school which means constantly being hassled by children, I have only just managed grab the opportunity to sit down at a rare quiet and peaceful atmosphere to write this blog about how I spent my three week break in May.

In the previous school holidays all the way back in January, myself and my partner Roberta (and also with the help of our fellow housemate Charlotte) set at the task of redecorating middle class nursery. The teacher of that class, Miriam, was absolutely overjoyed with the final result and the kids really did have a much better learning environment, even if I do say so myself. Miriam's fellow nursery teacher Emily looked slightly green with envy at her classroom, so in May we put on our painting gear again and this time focused on hers.
The worst part of the whole painting process is definitely the beginning... Cleaning. Even though this time we were redecorating top class meaning one year older children, there seemed to be a larger odour of urine to deal with. But this was the least of our worries. As we made our way through the cleaning and towards the back of the classroom, there was also an increase in rat droppings. Nevertheless we powered on through sweeping away the poo and rest of the mess, naively thinking that the rat would have been long gone from the classroom. Therefore I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when we lift up a heavy bookshelf to move forward and a rat pops up in my eye line. After nine months in Uganda I have seen my fair share of rats, fear has been long gone. Instead Roberta and I laughed our heads off whilst chasing this rat around the classroom attempting to lead it to the doorway. It got out of the door safely but I can't say it was lucky after it stepped over the boundary... we watched it be chased after by a group of children who love 'playing' with animals.
The rest of the redecorating process was slightly less eventful, although we did get covered in cobwebs and see bugs I didn't even know existed, it was mainly a time for us to put our thinking caps on to find creative and different ways to decorate the classroom differently from Miriam's.
In the end we chose on the usual number line and alphabet which Roberta took care of whilst I painted a "how tall are you?" chart and a large map of Africa with all the countries included. Now, art is definitely not my strongest subject which meant that the map took me ages as I wanted to make it perfect. In the end I was pretty proud of the end result, I think I prefer this classroom.

Even though the classroom painting took up quite a bit of time, we were still leftover with the chance to go travelling again. One thing Uganda is most famous for is its mountain gorillas and the trekking you can do to see them in their natural habitat. It is an absolute once in a life time experience that I thought I wouldn't be lucky enough to get. But due to it being rainy season the prices were almost half the price so when my fantastic grandparents offered to pay for an early Christmas and birthday present I could not say no! We (Roberta, Jess, Abi and I) booked on for a three day tour including two nights stay in Bwindi National Park.
Even the drive to the park was incredible, not only were we in a car where we could actually have a seat to ourselves, but the car was following roads that skirted along the mountainsides which overlooked into the rain forests. This was beautiful in itself but with the evening light and the sunset it was even more stunning.

The day after we arrived in the park was our trekking day. The 21st May 2014, AKA the best day of my life.
Before we set off to do the trek we were given a briefing of some facts and information about the gorillas: in the world there are only 800 mountain gorillas left, Bwindi National Park holds 300 of them, almost half! The mountain gorillas that we were trekking we called the Nkuringo family and there are 12 in the pack. Before gorillas are allowed to be trekked by tourists they must go through the process of habituating (the gorillas not the tourists) this involves trained professionals visiting the gorillas and staying with them for as long as two years, playing with them and even eating with them, which includes munching on some leaves, only then are they deemed 'safe'. We were also told of other animals in the forest such as chimpanzees and forest elephants, which are very aggressive. Nevertheless I thought it would be pretty cool to see them! After we had been told all that information and given long sticks to help us on the journey, we we set off!

Trekking through Bwindi was like a scene from Jurassic Park. We slid down hills, jumped over lakes, panted up cliffs and waded through long grass. We had the helping hands of the guides so we could climb over the huge hills or to stop us from tumbling down the rocks and trust me, it was needed! Especially because the humidity was insane and there were creepy crawlies everywhere but even so, it was so much fun! Whilst we were all tripping about, the main guide Shabba was communicating over walkie-talkie with two trackers who had set off hours before us to help with the hunt for the gorillas. I was expecting to be trekking for hours and hours, but after only two hours we met the trackers Fred and George (no they weren't ginger) and were told to leave all of our belongings where we were and only take our cameras. The gorillas were over the hill!

Being amongst the gorillas in their natural habitat was even more spectacular than I could have imagined. When we first approached them there were three of the family playing around. One of them was only young and had a reputation for being playful. The reputation held up when Abi bent down near it to have a photo and it ran forward to her and grabbed her arm, then it continued to jump around us and grabbed my leg! It was crazy! All of a sudden however, the gorillas we were with started looking around before heading downhill into a valley. Then there came a rustle from the bush next to us and a huge silverback gorilla pounded out of it and strolled right passed us. The guides were saying "MAKE ROOM FOR HIM" but we were all just in complete awe of this King Kong like creature strutting along by. If we bent our knees we would have been touching him, it was an insane moment and I'm not going to lie... I did crap myself just a little! It made its way down into the valley as well so we followed. I could not believe my eyes, there were gorillas everywhere. A young one hanging in a tree, a mother and baby eating on the hill side, others just lazing around, there were around 9 in total, including two silverbacks. We were allowed an hour amongst the gorillas, which was an hour of following them around the valley, taking photos and not being able to believe my eyes. At one point the gorillas made there way back up into the mountains, as we went to follow one of the huge silverbacks (named Rafiki meaning friend) came pounding back down, eyes glaring at us and stomping it's fists on the ground. Once again the guides were like "GET BACK", and this time we did. One minute Roberts was at my side, I blinked and she was at the top of a hill behind me looking back petrified, it was hilarious!
After what seemed like only five minutes, Shabba was saying the dreaded words "tujenda" meaning "let's go" in their local language. We reluctantly took one last glance at the gorillas, tried to believe what we were seeing and headed away.
It was an absolutely amazing experience that I will never forget. Uganda has made some of my dreams come true, but this time it was definitely thanks to my grandparents. I don't know how I will ever repay you!