Monday, November 12, 2007

The Source of the Nile

This Saturday I was feeling a little tired and sluggish, but in one of my better decisions I decided to go golfing with Jimmy, one of my buddies who is here for 16 months. There is a club in town that has a nine hole golf course overlooking the Source of the Nile, and Jimmy and I set off for the Source with four golf clubs, three balls, and some broken tees. When we arrived we were given a caddy. His name was Alfred, and he had shoes that his heels were sticking out of, and a shirt that was buttoned once at his naval. He carried our four clubs while we carried our drinks and hacked at the course, and when we would hit a good shot we would get a quiet but elegant "splendid" out of him. It was a hilarious and wonderful time, and I actually played well, probably inspired the scenery. Half the time we were playing under a rainbow, and when I noticed it I said, "Hey Jimmy, look a rainbow," and he responded, "Oh look, the River Nile," in a voice as though he was thinking, "How bout that." It was really quite hilarious, and it put the awesomeness of the situation into perspective.
After the best spent ten thousand shillings (a little less than six dollars) in all my time here. We walked down to the a bar on the water where Lake Victoria changes into the starting point of the longest river in the world. I got a coke, and we sat down on the rocks on the bank to watch the sunset. No sooner after we sat down did the locals come up to us, and sit right in front of us completely blocking our view. They then persisted to offer us these leaves to chew on, which I assume were something like cocoa leaves. After refusing that, they then struck up a conversation distracting us from what we came to do which was sit, shut up, and watch the amazing beauty of Africa. Whenever I go to the Nile, I am wowed every time. And the African sky is something to behold; you just need to take the time to look up. Flocks of different kinds of birds were flying over the river to settle for the night on an overpopulated island in the middle of the water that was probably covered in bird poop, but looked awesome as every inch was covered with birds. Once the sun went down we walked back into town, and grabbed a bite to eat at a nice restaurant before returning home.