Staff Retreat to Murchison Falls

We had the privilege of going with all the World Renew Uganda staff on a retreat to Murchison Falls National Park about a month ago already.  We stayed on the edge of the park at a hotel called "Chobe."  It was a very nice place and gave us opportunity to see lots of animals right from where we ate and slept.

Here are pictures of the staff.  We really enjoyed spending time with them and there was a lot of laughter.  Unfortunately, although I had a few eager people, we didn't have enough confidence to do my team building activity that I wanted to do.  That was, we should pull a hippo out of the Nile together.

We ended up missing our game drive, but driving through the park we saw lots of animals anyway.  The reason we missed our game drive was because of this accident near our hotel.  This is what happens when you go too fast down a road that has elephants crossing it.  He tried to brake when he saw an elephant near the road, but was going too fast and flipped.  Nobody was hurt.  Amazingly, our skilled World Renew friends were able to flip his vehicle over and get him on his way.

We took a boat ride down the Nile River as we did 5 years ago.  Here is a picture from then and from now.  Do we look older?  I think I have less hair.....

And some other pictures:

The Nile:




Elephants on an airstrip:

A professional birder below.  She had a hard time not snickering when tourists around us would call waterbuck and hartebeests - "deer" and African Fish Eagles - "bald eagles."  She was very patient and even kindly taught people some names of species.

A hartebeest: