Four Day Weeks

The past two weeks were four day work weeks for me. Tuesday, 30 September, was a public holiday to mark the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting. This was an interesting holiday because no one knew whether it would be on Tuesday or Wednesday until Monday night. The holiday is on the day after the new moon is seen, but it was unsure whether the moon would be seen on Monday or Tuesday night. It reminded me of having snow days when I was younger. You’d go to bed hoping it would snow enough for school to be cancelled, but you wouldn’t know until you woke up in the morning. Similarly, I didn’t know if I would have to go to work on Tuesday or not until I woke up that day.

The next Thursday, 9 October, was Uganda’s Independence Day. I spent this day at Bujagali Falls with Tess and Sarah, the remaining FSD interns other than myself. Bujagali Falls is a series of enormous rapids (grade V for you river folk out there) on the Nile River, and is the center of the white water rafting and kayaking industry in Uganda. It was nice to just sit and watch the river for a while. It’s quite impressive to see such a volume of water cascading over 3 – 4 meter falls.

Overview of Nile just above Bujagali Falls

The first rapid in the falls

More rapids downstream. The river is braided here, so the falls in this photo are from another section of the river coming back into the main stream.

One of the more impressive rapids. This photo does not fully capture the scale of the river.