Easter with Cynthia in Mbale

Up the mountain, down to the bottom of Sipi Falls

Mbale is 8 hours bus ride from Gulu, near the border to Kenya.   Joyce and I visited Cynthia who recently arrived from Manila.

Love the hammock

Cynthia is a teacher-educator under the UNICEF program, and she enjoys some perks that the rest of us Filipino vols do not have.  Because of the nature of her work, she has a car with a driver, has internet and cellphone allowance and travels regularly around Uganda.  Cynthia is just oozing with talent and varied

View from her main door

interests.  She was a university teacher back home, has a masters in theology, took up fine arts and baking, likes sewing, composed songs, managed showbiz talents, plays musical instruments, goes mountain climbing and rappelling, and perhaps many, many more.  Right now, she lives in a school campus where

Useless as windows remain closed

her window screens are useless because the carpenters just cut the screen to allow her to reach the shutters, her doors squeak, and goats can enter her house if the door is unattended.  Her accommodations are newly-built and superb, but suffer from the poor workmanship of Ugandans.  Cynthia is barely 3 months in her job but with the many activities that she is doing, she won't

Barbecue in the rain

probably notice when her two years volunteering will be up.  Two things I enjoyed most during the Easter holidays at her place:  Lounging in the outdoor hammock that she brought from the Philippines.  It is for military use; very sturdy and comes with a mosquito net.  And her and Joyce's outdoor cooking of pork barbecue.  Since there was no grill, they used a window screen that got detached when someone sneezed. 

As usual, I washed the dishes.

Lucky Cynthia, with her 4 x 4