Day 8 - The Day Off!

Today was the much anticipated day off... Nine of us went kayaking, followed by lunch at the Jinja Sailing Club. For keen bird spotters, these few hours were a delight. In the first ten minutes we had seen more kingfishers than in our combined lifetimes! There were also cormorants, snake birds, pelicans, an ibis, an eagle and lots of kites circling above us throughout the few hours on Lake Victoria. We certainly didn't expect to see a gang of otters chasing a female across the river either! Paddling over the bubbling source of the Nile was an experience to remember... only 4258miles north along the longest river in the world to the mouth in Egypt! 
During lunch there was a spectacle like none I've witnessed before: literally thousands of bats flying erratically, only feet above us, appearing translucent with the midday sun shining through them from above. 
Afterwards some of us went into Jinja shopping, which again was an experience like no other; the sights, sounds and smells of the indoor market being a highlight!  Quite a few of us lost our ‘borda borda’ virginity too - returning to the hotel like true locals!
While some of us took the whole day off, a few went back to NVI to put the finishing touches on the classrooms, others went with the Jinja Hospice team to local communities to register new patients, and some went with their sponsored students to visit their families and experience some more of village life.
Finally, everyone convened for dinner at a local diner to finish off another fantastic day in Uganda!