Saturday

Starting off with a sleep in with nobody going up the mountain for a run, a true start to a cruisy Saturday - But, it didn’t last.

The Painting crew, being Dale, Glen, Jim, Meagan and Brooke struck disaster when they discovered a flaw in the roof space of the Uganda Youth Support [YSU] Building. Thankfully, the engineer of our crew, Anche Geuze assessed the building and is working on plans to come up with a solution.

Team members Albert, Ben, Pete and I [P. HULLS] headed to ‘The Village of Hope’ for a bible study being led by the leaders in the village. After a couple songs and wonderful testimonies, Sharron lead the study in Genesis 37 about ‘Joseph the Dreamer’.

Both teams headed back to ‘Subbi House’ for Juliettes fantastic salad rolls [seriously good] and fuelled up for the game of the century – the Mazoongoos [That’s white folks for everyone at home] V Ugandans. At some stage, the fittest and older member of our team, Jim returned from his daily hike up ‘olusozi rwenkiima’ [Monkey Mountain] – This guy doesn’t have rest days.

After a couple hours of chilling, we all headed down to ‘Jinja Christian School’ for the soccer match. Fortunately, we had a couple of locals on our side too – one being a member of a local soccer team. We also had Albie ‘the kiwi’ on our team – he was selected as a professional soccer player back in NZ, so we had a strong offence for our team.

The whistle sounded and the first 30-minute half of the game was on! The mazoongoos held up well providing a strong defence to the agile African players. However, the locals scored a goal late in the first half and the visitors were yet to score.

Two quick goals were scored by the locals early in the second half and things were looking grim for the visitors. Spirits were still high and same-same with talent. Many close goals were shot by offensive team members Albie, Glen, Ben, Dale, Julius - our local soccer professional and brilliant catches from the mazoongoo’s African goalie.

The mazoongoo’s were losing 0-4 until Julius scored a goal in the late second half. This triggered a typical Aussie response from two members of the team, Dale and Phil. They lifted up their shirts, put them over their heads and ran around on the field howling. Some of the locals laughed, others wondered if they needed their heads examined. The final result was 1-4, the locals winning by a landslide. Both teams shook hands and went on their way back home.

Sodas were cracked open and soft tissue injuries were assessed and looked after by our talented physio’s Ben and Albie. Albie’s assessment of Anche’s injuries were She’ll live, that’s the main thing’.

After dinner, all team members slept soundly for a morning of singing at church in the morning.