After Ross getting the word 'blog' confused with 'novel' and spending 3 days writing, rewriting, spell-checking and lengthening his masterpiece, today is the first opportunity I have had to write about day 4 in Hoima. He did redeem himself (along with the Sonny + Cher duo of Allan and Sorsha) late on the night of day 3 by writing an epic of a Christmas carol - adapting 'Santa Claus is coming to town' into 'Jesus Christ was born today'. This masterpiece, which I hear is now hotly tipped for Ugandan Christmas number 1, was to be performed later in the day.
Breakfast went as per usual with a few ants taking a bath in my coffee - but if I thought that the caffeine would wake me up, I was in for a surprise. For those of you reading , who are not accustomed to the Ugandan public transport system, it is better than any cup of coffee! Costing just 15p, Alton Towers can eat their heart out – our journey to Sunday Mass was the most fun ride ever!
Mass was outside led by the ever-inspiring Father Godfrey (who works for KISS) and parishioners congregated in 3 hastily erected marquees. In true Ugandan style, mass began 1 hour and a half after it was scheduled but was spiced up by a reading from Allan (I'm unsure how much the locals followed the thick Scottish accent), and me, Ross and John doing the offertory procession. Mass was good with a Father G homily and the cathedral choir singing.
Mass was soon followed by a choir competition which not only involved Uganda's best choirs, but representing the UK... us. What a delight for the many hundreds who had gathered – all the Hoima KISS kids were there too. We beautifully sang Away in a Manger (we sounded like angels) , coming a respectable 3rd place much to the shame of those 40-person-strong choirs who placed below us. The best was yet to come however with 'Jesus Christ was born today' proving to be a crowd pleaser and placing us 3rd yet again. Our talents were of such a high quality that we had media interest from all corners of Uganda - and BTV (Hoima's premier TV channel) bagged the exclusive footage and showed us on TV later that day!
The other choirs dragged on somewhat. Luckily for us, we had 100 amazing, excitable kids to entertain us. We had an absolute ball - apparently my hair was a thing of wonder and it was stroked, plaited and pulled out by several cheeky young ladies. None of our laps were ever without at least 1 child and it was so good playing with the kids even if the only English they spoke was 'I'm fine'. Allan, Martin and Sorsha went and brought some comedy tartan hats which you'll probably see featuring in the vast majority of our pictures for the rest of the trip. After a late lunch most of us went back to Millenium, meeting the village drunk who referred to Martin as his 'wife', on the way. Meanwhile, John, Ross and Allan went to watch a football match. A game of Monopoly and an early-ish night followed.
I really am having the time of my life here, Hoima is amazing and i cant wait to experience Kasambya as well. Batters has made the trip completely stress free and i cant think of a better place to spend christmas.
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