Sue, Alex, Melissa and Rachel (Mel and Rachel are two Canadian Occupational Therapy students here on a placement) weren't working on Friday so they went up early and Tenille (from America who is doing a neurosurgery placement at CURE) and I joined them there on Saturday morning.
After arriving at the bus stop at 6am to catch the 'Express' bus, we pulled out of Mbale at 7.45. So far, so not express. But at least I didn't fear for my life once during this journey.
I had barely put my bags down when Alex grabbed my arm, frogmarched me over to the bar exclaiming excitedly, "You. You are gonna love this" (forcefully thrusts me in front of giant tv screen)
"Look! Rugby! Even at this time of the morning. They're mad on it. They're showing the Wales Italy game later! (Doesn't wait for a response, grabs my arm and frogmarches me back out)
"And look! Look - rugby people!"
He was looking very pleased with himself and eagerly pointing at the rugbyinafrica.org trucks which were driving down from London to Cape Town teaching rugby along the way whilst jostling me forward in their direction.
This was the second time he'd been right in one weekend. It was my Ugandan Mecca.
Rugby isn't big in Uganda. But considering they're in the Ugandan Rugby Union's top league, it still surprised me that the Jinja Nile team were planning on going ahead with the big game against the Sodolin Mongers (really) with only 11 players!
So after a hasty registration with the Ugandan Rugby Union, the Rugby in Africa lot stepped in and saved the day for the Jinja Niles!
(Apparently they are frequently a few players down for each game but play anyway - there's dedication for you!)
Thirty minutes after the supposed kick off and whilst their opponents and subs were warming up and running round doing very professional looking drills and barely sweating in 30 degree heat, the Jinja Niles were casually tossing a ball around every now and again whilst waiting for one more person to turn up to play for them and complete the team.
Someone did turn up. An Australian called Scott who had never played rugby before - only Aussie Rules!
The game was nothing short of hilarious.The Niles were like the Mighty Ducks!
I don't even think anyone who played knew what the final score was and I don't think anyone particularly cared to be honest. The boys were just glad to be off the pitch and I was glad to be on my way to watch the Wales Italy game.
As I got the beers in, Alex secured prime position seats right in front of the screen and that's pretty much where we stayed for the rest of the night except a quick trip to the chapatti shack outside.
The photos I took suggested the night wasn't sedate.
My headache the next day told me it wasn't.
X
Ps - I still can't work putting photos in order and with captions on this. Any suggestions?
No comments:
Post a Comment