Gone Fishing!

This weekend was one of the best I’ve had on site since I’ve been here. Six of us decided to head north to our hydro-electric power plant to fish, barbeque and hang out. When we got there we saw some hippo tracks, some eagles, and may have heard a jungle elephant in the distance, but sadly, I have yet to see cool animals while I’ve been here.  It was still a lot of fun though.

Cool things I learned on the trip.

• Going fishing is code for, bring one fishing rod for 6 guys, no bait, no chairs but a lot of beer
• Africans, of any ethnicity, apparently like to take a million pictures of themselves, and their friends; which is good, because I never used to take pictures, and now I take a lot. Maybe I’m becoming African…
• According to my buddy Wayne, who was a Game Guide in South Africa, if a lion looks like it wants to eat you, apparently you should charge at it. This is because it is so used to be the hunter that if you change the rules of the game, and you charge it yourself, it’ll freak out and run off.  I don’t know if I’d be able to try it, I might just rely on being faster than a friend or two in order to get away.
• You can drink beer in a car, as long as the driver isn’t drinking himself. The driver can’t have any alcohol in his system, but everyone else can, which is awesome, I like this continent more and more all the time.

This river is notorious for hippos and crocodiles, which makes this group picture more manly.

Side shot of the river and across are the woods/jungle/whatever it is that is too thick to go through.

On the way out to the river.

Typical sunsets here.  A common phrase you will hear because of things like this “people here are rich in other ways.”

The hydro-electric power generator build in the 50’s, behind it is ours that we installed this year, and they look exactly the same, it’s crazy what the Belgians were able to accomplish here.

Our Muhindi Tarzan (African of Indian descent).

I feel like I am back in Texas in these pictures.

Back at the camp, we found these wild dogs. I wish wild dogs/puppies in the U.S. were this sweet and awesome.

I swear, the dog was smiling the entire time until this moment.

Apparently, because of this rebellion in the eastern part of the country, we’re not able to fly directly from camp to Uganda. Now we have to drive to Uganda, and then fly from northern Uganda to southern Uganda. Something about our license not getting renewed because of fears of weapons smuggling. It’s a pain, but the whole day is lost to traveling anyways, even if it’s not in a plane. So, it’s not a huge deal.

This weekend I’m hoping to go to Garamba National Park with a director on site, and the Senior Executive of my department. I’m really excited, for one, because I’ll get to know these guys a little better, but also because Garamba is supposed to be one of the best national parks in Africa.

I’ll have another blog post about all of that next week.

Thanks for reading, glad you all have had the fortitude to stick with my updates even after so many months of my being out here.

-Preston