We Made It!!!

Well, we made it! Flight landed at Entebbe at approximately 8 am local (Friday). This flight it seemed most everyone managed to catch a few zzz’s. Nick appears to have recovered from his “events” from yesterday, so overall everyone seems to be doing well.

Entebbe – where the airport is located – is about an hours drive out of Kampala. Ti took us the better part of an hour to clear a health check station and customs before we could start rounding up all of the luggage. We were met by Kennedy, Matthew, Antonio and a couple of other gentlemen whose names I didn’t catch. These guys immediately introduced themselves and then took over loading all of our luggage and such into the bus.

For anyone who is not aware, Uganda was at one time a British colony, and as such has a lot of British traditions that linger. The most notable of these is that the driver sits on the right side of the car and drives on the left side of the road. Or at least that appears to be the intent. Like other third world countries – and downtown Boston, from my experience – the lines in the roads are meant more as an exception than the rule. Branden & I agreed that we’re not about to attempt to drive here – more than happy to be shuttled about by someone more familiar with the local rules. That is if there are, in fact, any rules!

As we were landing and driving into Kampala, I was trying to figure out where I had been that would be comparable in terrain. I finally landed on San Diego or Monterey in California. There is a lot of open grassy areas, plenty of palm and other trees, some beautiful flowers on occasion and generally quite pleasant to view. If anyone had visions of it being jungle or rain forest, you would be mistaken (I was before I started reading more about it). I’m frankly kind of amazed at the misconceptions I had prior to beginning this adventure several months ago. I assumed that it would be ridiculously hot and humid. Nope. It is humid, but I don’t think the temps are supposed to get above around 85° F the entire time we’re here. When we got off the plane (down stairways, of course) it felt very pleasant. Got a little sweaty inside the terminal as we were going through that process, but once outside again all was good. As a matter of fact, Katie just sat down and was complaining that she’s cold.
As we traveled through Entebbe and then Kampala, I was mentally soaking it in and comparing it to the closest city that I’ve ever visited in terms of socio-economic levels – Mexico City. There are areas of obvious poverty. In fact, by our standards, the vast majority of the area is very poor. The thing that struck me most, however, is that the people here seem to work harder at keeping things more tidy. I don’t notice as many wrecked cars and rusting machinery, etc as I did in Mexico City. As a matter of fact, I don’t notice as many of them as I do when I’m in Nampa, Idaho (sorry folks, that’s a family joke).

And then we arrived at our living quarters – the Emmaus Guest House. We are not roughing it, ladies & gentlemen. This place is much nicer than what we expected. We each have our own bed, complete with bug nets. The girls’ room has a bathroom complete with a tub, etc. Our room (Ken & I are sharing) only has a shower, sink and toilet, but still not bad. Clean, relatively new furniture, and the garden area behind it is beautiful with a well manicured lawn and lots of flowers and shrubs.
Most of the kids called home as we were leaving the airport – even if they were very short phone calls.

Well, I’m not sure how often or when I’m going to get internet access to be able to post this, but I’m jotting down my thoughts as we go along.

Update approx 6:30 pm

We left the guest house around 1 pm and went down to Kampala International University (KIU) for some lunch. The food here is obviously very different – lots of rice and beans, but the dishes are very flavorful and are providing all of us with some new culinary experiences. I have GOT to get their recipe for rice! We returned to the same restaurant for dinner. I believe the cafe here at KIU is called Mama Mumbasa's - And I hope I'm forgiven for spelling mistakes!

The students that we've been meeting are intensely curious about what our lives are like, and it is quite fascinating to learn about theirs as well. So far I've been speaking with lots of them from Kenya and one from Tanzania. I'm beginning to wonder if they actually have any Ugandans attending school here!

On the prayer request front, we'd like to ask for continued prayers for Nick. He had another bout this afternoon, and Lance & Kennedy have taken him to the hospital this evening, just to make sure he's okay. We'd ask that you pray for his health and recovery. The good news is that he's been getting lots of sleep.

Well, we're off on a tour of KIU so I'll wrap this up for now. I'm sure we'll all have lots of stories when we return!