Malaria Shmalaria

We woke up bright and early and grabbed some breakfast at the hotel. I have finally found the perfect breakfast buffet combo for me (1 sausage link, 1 scoop of baked beans, 2 pineapple slices and 1 fingerling banana). I top it all off with a cup of coffee and then a cup of African tea (milk + tea + ginger+ sugar).  It beats Wheaties any day of the week.

Our digs in Apac

Then we all piled into the van and headed toward the small village of Apac.  It’s an even more remote town. It was about a 3 hour drive to the town with the last half on a very poor dirt road laden with pot holes. By pot holes I mean craters the size of a small sedan.  Keep in mind that we are entering the rainy season and the daily showers have made the pot holes small lakes.  It wasn’t rare to see a mother duck and her ducklings swimming in the pot holes as we approached.  At one point during our drive we got stuck. Wheels were spinning and our van was at a treacherous angle, and it wasn't budging. In our brilliant ingenuity we decided to start rocking the van by leaning back and forth in our seats. Within a few moments the van started moving with the momentum of our bodies and we were out of the hole and on our way again.  The last third of our trip consisted of a lot of zigging and zagging to avoid the largest craters and bumping along through the small holes.

A new school being built by the Apac community

We arrived at our lodging just in time. I was getting a little dizzy from our swaying van.  It was pretty obvious as we pulled into town that Apac doesn’t see many visitors. We checked into a small hotel with  round, mud hut inspired guest “houses” named after different African countries. It was very simple accommodations with a small bed, bathroom and the all-important mosquito net. 

You see, according to the World Health Organization, Apac is the malaria capital of the world.  The mosquitoes mean business. Apac is settled on a large swamp and the flying insects are rampant.  Our contact in Apac, Steven, met us as we drove into town.  After we dropped off our bags in our room, he took us to see the nursery school and then the primary school that was under construction. That location was even more remote.  We are driving through tall grass just to get there. As we were walking the grounds of the construction site, a small audience started forming. There was a collection of 3 then 6 then 10 people watching us from afar. They slowly got closer and closer until Katie was able to walk up and introduce herself. They were just as fascinated by us as we were with them.

Katie making friends

Then it was time for two of our team members to leave us to head back to the states.  Anne and Chris grabbed their belongings and went with the 2^nd driver and van back to Entebbe to fly out the following morning. We were told that the trip back to Entebbe would only take 3 hours but luckily our trip leaders knew that 3 hours African travel time can vary greatly. We later learned that the trip back to Entebbe took 7 hours, but they made it there and were able to catch their flight out the following morning.

The rest of us went back to Pastor Steven’s home which is attached to the nursery school (Pastor Steven was our Apac contact and guide while here). They had prepared a traditional African meal for us that consisted of rice, goat, goat parts, and boiled potatoes.  It was all quite tasty aside from the goat parts (unless you’re a fan of livers, gizzards, etc – then it all would have been quite tasty).  Each meal is accompanied with African tea, which, as mentioned before is pretty much just pure milk and sugar flavored with some tea… so amazing. 

Ground nuts and African tea

After lunch we were asked to join Pastor Steven and his church congregation.  There were some introductions made, Scott spoke and then it turned into a Question/ Answer time for the Americans.  It was quite a social experiment.  They would ask a question about our culture and one of our team members would answer.  Then Pastor Steven would translate. However, his translation always seemed to take on a life of its own (i.e. Our 2 sentence answers was translated into 5 to 10 minute sermons).  There were even some additional laughs from the audience.  We caught on quickly. Pastor Steven liked to spice up our answers.  Who could blame the guy – he did have a captive audience and we obviously weren’t providing very funny material in our answers, so he had to improvise.  This Q&A session went on for two or three hours. We were even fed ground nuts & African tea as a mid-session snack.

So after that wrapped up, we headed back to his house for some dinner. This time it was greens, rice, chicken, cassava and of course, more African tea.

Dinner at Pastor Steven's!

Being the malaria capital of the world, we had to have a special chemical to spray on our mosquito nets. Prometherin is a life saver. There were indeed little blood suckers swarming our bed, but within minutes of spraying Prometherin on the net, they were dead!  It was a small victory before the 2^nd fleet of bugs came in the room.  Whether you’re in the USA or in Africa, nothing is more satisfying then killing a mosquito – don’t you think?