Oh to be a side dish!

Gwen, Miriam and I head to lake Victoria to go kayaking for the afternoon. Our guide is Abraham and we know immediately from the glint in his eye that he’s going to be good craic.

Life jackets are fitted and adjusted and we then have the very important task of deciding how we pair up in the kayaks. Given that we all know Miriam’s driving style, neither Gwen nor I are keen on having her as co pilot.  We agree to put her in the back seat where the damage will be limited but needn’t have worried because it quickly becomes apparent that she has no intention of actually using the paddle! She lies back, dips her toes in the water, trails her fingers in the lake, and generally takes time out to ponder and reflect. Meanwhile, Gwen is puffing and panting, sweating in the heat as she labouriously paddles across the lake.

It is glorious. The water is totally calm, the only movement being created by the dip of a cormorants’ beak or the rhythmic splash of a paddle. (Not Miriam’s, obviously!).  We reach the far side of the lake and take a rest as Abraham points out areas of interest and tells us the history of the local community. Our eyes light up when he opens the cool box and takes out Nile beers and gin and tonic. Still somewhat dehydrated from the night before, Gwen and I stick to the minerals but Mir welcomes a large gin and tonic, and rests back into her kayak even further to fully savour the moment. She is now practically horizontal and has abandoned all pretence of doing anything with the paddle. Poor Gwen is flexing her hands and rubbing her arms from the strain of her efforts.

‘How many wives have you?’ Miriam asks Abraham. He laughs and they exchange stories about men with many wives.

‘But how many have you?’ She persists.

‘ I have one wife’ he tells us. ‘One wife and three children. And many side dishes”

We explode with laughter but Miriam is only getting going.

‘So when you go out for a few beers’ she asks, ‘ and you meet one of your side dishes and you go and have sex with her, what does your wife say when you get home?’

‘She says’, and he pauses for effect. (This guy is good). ‘She says, welcome!’

We knew this one had a glint.

Miriam and Abraham spend the next hour or so in incessant banter, Gwen and I only fit to look on and laugh. We are, after all, busy with the paddles.

‘I’m a magnet’ Miriam informs Abraham. ‘I came here to get away from them all but they followed me here. I went to China and they followed me there too’.

Abraham advises her to move again but this time to keep her new location secret.  Gwen and I look at each other knowingly and without saying a word acknowledge the likelihood of that happening!

We finish our afternoon with several beers and Abraham joins Mir in a gin and tonic. We are sun burnt and some of us are tired, but we’ve paddled across Lake Victoria and stood at the source of the Nile; we’ve seen the monument to Ghandi where some of his ashes were dispersed and heard about the significance of the Ugandan crane, a bird of peace which is allowed to nest in any government buildings; we’ve felt the calm of the water and the current of the river, but as always, we’ve mostly laughed.

Life is good.