Day 335 - a few things about Uganda . . .

I love Uganda for many, many reasons - it's a fascinating country and would take me much longer than one blog post to articulate why I love it so much. I thought I'd take a few minutes though on this 'ole blog of mine, to share with you some things about one of my favorite countries that you might not know. So here goes:

* "U-gan-da or U-ghan-da?" A question that I've been asked by more than one person when they find out I'm going back. From what I know, you can say it both ways, but most people (including the locals I met on our last trip) would pronounce it "U-ghan-da." You can actually also pronounce it "oo-gan-da". Interestingly, I've also seen Uganda spelled "Ughanda".

* The two official languages of Uganda are English and Swahili, but there are a ton of different indigenous languages and dialects, and Luganda is pretty much the major language spoken in Southern Uganda

* Uganda's largest export is coffee

* 84% of the population is Christian

* Winston Churchill was the one who coined the term "The Pearl of Africa" while describing Uganda's beauty

* Lake Victoria (on the southeastern side of Uganda) is the third largest lake in the world

* At 236,040 sq km, the country of Uganda is slightly smaller than the state of Oregon in the U.S.

* Uganda achieved independence from the UK in 1962

* The movie "The Last King of Scotland" (which takes place in Uganda) was also filmed in Uganda!

* Uganda has about 2.5 million orphans

* Uganda is one of the few remaining places in the world where Mountain Gorillas reside (im fact, at least half of their population is in Uganda)!

* the average humidity is 80.3% (my frizzy hair would attest to that)!

* the average annual family income is $200.00 US dollars

* the source of the River Nile is in Uganda (near Jinja)

* the highest mountain range in all of Africa is in Uganda (the Rwenzori Mountains)


Those are just a few little interesting tidbits about the country I'm going back to in just a few short days!!