3 Days of Safari at Murchison Falls

Safari at Murchison Falls in January

In January we visited Murchison falls national park for safari with Ike’s parents. It was quite a hike - a full 9 hour day in the car on marum roads plus a stop to visit dear friends in Hoima along the way. When we pulled up to the ferry boarding area and saw the Nile River rushing by, it made it all worth it.

We stayed near the ferry which made for an easy drive to the lodge and a quick minute to change and make it to an outside dinner with muchomo (grilled/bbq meats) and a dessert table bigger than our entire kitchen in Bundi.

We did a morning game drive and a night game drive both with a UWA guide who was AMAZING, named Sarah. Seriously a real gem. A beautiful thing about Ugandans is their intuitiveness - they notice the details, check in on your wellbeing and generally want to be great hosts. Many times I heard Sarah asking Ike’s mom “are you ok mommy?” And she genuinely wanted to know if she was ok after spending hours sitting in the same spot in the car gawking at big cats, elephants and giraffes.

On BOTH the morning drive and night drive we saw lions eating their kill - Ugandan Kob. So primal (duh of course) and so interesting to watch. We were so close on the night drive that multiple times I saw one of the younger male lions look up at our guide Sarah on the roof of the car as if she was the next prey.

Another must is the boat ride to the bottom of the falls - a guaranteed time to see animals coming to the water to drink in the afternoon. Hippos galore, elephants spraying themselves, crocs hiding in the shade along the shore line, so many birds. Worth it. And the breeze and cold drinks are nice too.

Sadly there is rumor of Murchison park closing due to future plans for oil drilling. Below is the new bridge built to cross the Nile and truck our oil. This is heartbreaking for multiple reasons - where will the animals go if the park changes for drilling? Will they be protected? Will they have food? What happens to people who survive economically from the Safari business? And the bigger question - is it worth ruining the biggest national park in Uganda for oil drilling? Of course if I was the one profiting from that choice I would think harder about that answer but currently it’s an easy one.

Ok and the last gem of the trip was seeing Rhinos at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary on our way to Kampala to see the only rhinos in Uganda!

This was a trip of a lifetime and was so fun and special to do it with Ike’s parents!

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Day 1 - July 12th

I have desired to write about Jack and our child rearing experiences in general for a while and I frequently push it off and it just simply isn't a "right now" priority. Starting today, on what would have been Jack's 2nd Birthday, I am going to write daily (or try to) for the next 35 days in remembrance of the 35 days he lived on this earth. It will likely be unedited, imperfect, and intentionally raw - partially for the sake of time (I work, do school and we have a toddler in foster care ok?!) and partially because that is the theme of our story, imperfection (made perfect through Christ). Today, I want to talk about birth. More specifically, medically complex birth. I get asked often if I had to have a mandatory c-section - thankfully no I did not. But I also did not expect to go into labor at 35 weeks and 5 days either and I am certain that is the worse option here. We came home from a week at the lake with Ike's family and as we are getting into bed Ike s

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