London Pictures and Traveling Tales from Entebbe to Arua

7/08/2011

So I will try to recap the first day in Uganda…oh man! The flight from London to Entebbe was about 8 hours. I sat a little away from the rest of the team, but I didn’t mind much because we were all so tired and I slept almost the whole flight. I sat next to a Ugandan named Claire. She was very sweet and works in Kampala, but was coming home from a holiday in San Francisco. She works in an office that helps out in the Congo, but she said that she has only been there once. When I told her we were headed to Arua, her eyes got very big and she told me I was going a long ways.

Once we got to the airport, we walked down the airplane stairs and took in a deep refreshing breath of fresh Ugandan air. We arrived around 7:30 a.m., but found out that Ashley’s bag didn’t arrive. Ashley didn’t miss a beat and has been a good sport about it. Hopefully we will be getting the bag tomorrow! :)

 

At the airport, we met Lisa Fish, a wgm director in Kampala. She brought some friends for us to meet. My friend Rachel came! It was so good to see her and catch up! She has been having a wonderful time in Uganda (and leaving very soon if I remember correctly).

We piled into a van and added Jon to our group. Jon has been living here in Uganda for 3 months and he wanted to spend some time in Arua. Our drivers were Godfrey and Richard. We drove for about 4 hours, but then our van started having problems. We pulled over and tried to cool down the engine. We got our first experience of the Ugandan toilet (which was very similar to Asia) people are very gracious to us.

 We got into the van again, but we did not get very far. A belt broke and Godfrey had to hitch a ride to the nearest town to get a new one. So, we piled out of the van and sat around for a bit by the side of the rode. It must have been a hard place for vehicles, because opposite us on the other side of the rode another truck was being worked on.

There was a school right across the field from where we were staying. They invited us back to their school and their choir performed a song and dance for us. They were preparing for a competition. (No joke, this was pretty much straight out of my dreams J) It was amazing.

Godfrey and Richard got the van running and we headed for another 4 hour drive—(So the total drive took 12 hours total). We saw lots of animals right beside the rode: baboons, frolicking giraffes, munching elephants, and tons of hippos in a lake.

But we finally made it to Arua to Billy and Joanna Coppedge’s home for dinner around 8:00. After that we went down the rode to sleep at Scott and Meg’s. We were so blessed by them and happy to finally be here ;). They have been challenging and mentoring and guiding us the past few days. We are so thankful to be here. I will tell you more later.

Blessings,

Mer