Our Day at Zero Degrees

Written by Stephen Cyzuzo Henrich

While our homes in New England were being blanketed in white followed by single digit temperatures, we spent the day at Zero degrees of latitude.

We, eight,(John the driver, Donna, Heidi, Pastor Rose, Bishop Theophile, Liz, Stephen and our dear Esther) all piled in the van for an hour long southerly trek to the world's Equator! 

At zero degree latitude we watched a demonstration of water circling a drain in both hemispheres and directly on the equatorial line itself! In the southern hemisphere, water drains counterclockwise. In the northern hemispheres, it is the opposite. This we all knew, but it was extremely interesting that it happens a mere 25 feet in each direction from the equatorial mark! Our guide demonstrated this fact by placing a small blossom in the bowl and we could clearly see the opposing spin. This is called the Coriolis Effect.

Then came the surprise that you only see on the equator itself! The blossom did not spin at all, but rather the water drains straight down and sucks the flower down the drain with a satisfying "vacuum plop sound". Interestingly, the equator only crosses 13 countries across the entire globe - including 7 in Africa alone! Gabon, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, and Sao Tome & Principe are the countries of the African continent that touch zero degrees of latitude.

We did some souvenir shopping in some lovely shops with the Bishop and Pastor Rose helping us to make the best deals. We bought some beautiful paintings from a local artist, Davik. We had a wonderful lunch right on the equator and then it was back into the van for the trip back to Kampala.

One of the other purposes of our day long exploration was to know the country and the unique Ugandan culture a bit better as we consider new cooperatives in this area with which to partner! Good news for this reporter as I will be longing to return here soon!

The evening was spent with many of our friends at the home of Pastor Rose where the best chef in Uganda, our friend Ramlah, prepared a sumptuous feast!

Tomorrow morning we jet back to Kigali for our last day in country. It will be sad to leave our family in Uganda not knowing when we might see them again. 

This has been another blessed day on our trip. The internet is not a national priority in Uganda, so we've been unable to post to social media or our blog site. You may be reading this a day or two late but ... that's Africa!