How many times do Tuininga adventures begin with...

"don't worry, Dianna, I've studied the map on Google Earth and I think there is only one section of the road that you won't really like...

....the rest will be great..."

And with this, my husband managed to convince me to take the family on a day trip up Mt. Wanale.

This is Mt. Wanale as seen from Mbale.  On the top right side are some radio towers and that was where the aforementioned road ended.  So that was our mission.

 The road up was not as terrifying as I had thought it would be by Eric's description.  Mind you, it wasn't really paved either like we thought.  In all fairness, once upon a time it had been paved and we could almost always see bits and pieces of tarmac, but I wouldn't have gone so far as to call it paved.

But the scenery was lush, green and streaked with waterfalls.

Alas, we made it!  And as soon as we arrived to this field that looked just right for a picnic, we looked out the back window and noticed a crowd of kids descending upon us.  The group also brought a sweet lady, Silvia, who was carrying her baby and as is often the case, she offered to show us around.  We let her and it was fun. 

She took us over the hill behind the towers and showed us all the fields.

They were full of beans, maize, peas, onions and coffee beans:

Suddenly we came around the corner and much to our surprise was another mazungu who was getting ready to parachute off the cliff.  When we walked up, I think we surprised him, as much as he surprised us.

He had quite the crowd gathered to watch. 

After a bit, he jumped...

He jumped over the valley that holds our new little corner of the world and a our hearts... Mbale.

After he was no longer in sight...the crowd turned their attention to the only other Mazungus up on the hill....us!  After a few minutes, we decided to leave and so the crowd followed.

We went up the path back to our truck... Rebecca...standing out because of her red-hair, handled all the kids swatting her braids quite well and was very confident in charging ahead in the crowd.

Then we jumped in the back of the truck and drove off...a hoard of kids running behind to wave good bye.

For lunch we found a "quiet" stream to eat by.  Within 5 minutes we had about 20 people standing around watching us.  Finally an older man came up to us and greeted us.  He was very happy to meet us.  He said, "You and I are the same.  Under both of our skin is blood, bones and meat.  Our people used to eat other people, but now we don't, because we know we are the same."  True that...

And then we happily shared our food and continued on our journey home... ;)