TRAVEL | UGANDA | AFRICA | WEEKLY UPDATE

A Power Outage & A Roadtrip

My week in photos — Week 7— April 28–May 4, 2022

This week has been a little all over the place.

I guess some weeks are like that.

Last week as I was writing my weekly post, we were in the beginning stages of a 60-hour power outage. I was using the last of my computer battery and hoped to be able to charge it overnight, but when we woke up the next morning, there was still no power. I wrote a whole post about it.

It was certainly one of the longer outages that we have experienced while traveling. But power outages are a common occurrence, and they don’t seem to cause much of a fuss in these parts.

On the second day of the outage, since we couldn’t work on our online projects, we decided to go and do some exploring. Because my phone was dead, we didn’t bring it to take pictures. Of course, there were a bunch that I wish I could have taken, but we promised ourselves that we would make the journey again another time, in order to get some good photos. Thankfully we found a nice sunny day to do so yesterday when we were finished painting.

We took a road trip!

On Saturday we took a 60km journey down to Kikorongo to visit our friends there. We spent 6 months in that village last year, and we have also been promising them that we will come back. We will go back there after we are finished here in Ruboni, and we get our visa renewed.

There we have a mural project that is waiting for us to complete, plus we want to do more work with them around the community garden and continue teaching them about composting and home gardening, which we also started last year.

Our host, Jason, was so happy and surprised to see us! We had a really nice day catching up with him and found a few other friends in the village to say hi to as well.

We didn’t take any pictures on that day other than one from the back of the boda boda (motorbike) on the first leg of our journey (lead photo). It felt more like a personal trip and I didn’t feel like documenting it. Maybe it’s because I already have about 2000 pictures from when we were in that area last year.

It was nice to see how the gardens that we planted last year were surviving and to check in with our friends to see how everyone is doing. They have again been suffering from long droughts which will not change until they get more trees replanted in the area.

Thankfully there are numerous groups in Uganda that are working on that.

Time for some drawing.

I spent some time on a bit of an art challenge this week. My new publication Share Your Creativity had its first submission by another author, and her post inspired me to do some drawing. Learn about Neurographic Art by clicking below!

Fetching Water

We took a 2km walk further up the valley to Ruboni Community Camp to fetch some water. Actually, we took a few walks up there in the past week, but the below article documents our first outing. It was nice to revisit the place that we stayed at last year when we were in this area for 3 weeks. Plus we met the sweetest kitten!

We saw fairies!

While on one of our walks one day we came across a white flowering bush that had quite a few orange flying insects that were hovering above it. Somehow I managed to capture a couple.

Don’t they look like little flying fairies!?

We were just in love with them and watched them for quite some time.

Mural Progress

This week we are making really good progress with our mural at the community center. Most days have been sunny, so that helps a lot. Plus we finished a lot of the background last week, so now comes the fun details in the foreground.

I have been struggling a bit because we are using oil paint and the fumes are killing me. I realize we should have respirators, but it is just not an option here. We are thankful that we are outdoors, at least. But this will likely be the last oil job that we do. We just don’t like it!

However, the side of the building that we are painting will last for many years.

Basically, what we are painting is a representation of how we view the Mubuku Valley, where we are currently staying. We enjoy translating our vision of what we see, into a painting for others to view. We feel that when we do this, it gives the locals the chance to see their homes in a new light.

It’s hard to see details in these photos, but we are painting trees, gardens, crops growing and all sorts of fun things on the hillsides. Plus we will be adding birds, chameleons, probably a bee, a butterfly, and all sorts of fun details that will really pull people in.

We are painting this building right on the main road that leads down to the highway, so many people walk by and stop to watch our progress. As the details get sharper and sharper, so does the excitement in the air. It’s not normal for people to have the opportunity to witness something like this coming together in real-time.

We can now sense when there is a group of children that is quietly gathered (some not so quiet) behind us.

From our experience, Uganda doesn’t have a very big thing for aesthetics. So having artwork like this to look at is also not a frequent occurrence, and we feel that it will be a real treat for them to have this in their community.

As we normally do, we are putting our heart and soul into the project and we want it to be something that both us, and them, can feel proud of.

That’s about it for our last week. I hope my friends in the Northern Hemisphere are enjoying the throws of spring. I can feel the changing of the seasons in your writings and photographs and it reminds me of home. So thank you for also sharing your adventures.

Hope you all have a great week!

xo Jill

Thanks for joining me in my week of photos. Dennett accepts entries for this weekly challenge through her publication Weeds & Wildflowers.

Other writers that also contribute weekly stories are Anne | Erika | Jane | Eileen | Juan | David | Mia | Susan | LensAfield | Kim | Barbara | Diana | Barb | Sandra | Shruthi | Ellie | Pene | Olive | Gustavo | Penny | Scott | Sasha | Tracy | Lisa | June | K. Barrett and of course, our host Dennett.

I have put all of my weeks in photos into their own list:

Hi there, we are 2 Canadians, Jill and Chris from Artistic Voyages. We have been nomadic since 2017 living in numerous different countries, and experiencing the life and diversity of our planet on the ground and firsthand. We have now been on the African continent for over 2 years!

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