#'I'm again writing this on my phone on another bus journey, so please excuse any bad typing, the driver stopped bothering to slow down for the speed bumps every quarter of a mile about 6 hours ago! This time we're on our way to Nairobi - we left Kampala at 8am, and it's now 8pm. I'm hopeful we'll arrive before midnight! It's been a beautiful ride and God's been answering prayers so far for the various members of the team who've felt ill at different points on the journey and everyone's managed to sleep and is feeling well at this moment - I'm now praying that typing this won't add me to that list!!
Time in Uganda was pretty hectic so I didn't get a good chance to sit and blog. I've been struggling to fit in regular personal devotions, so any spare bits of time I got this week were used for that. It's been a very different week to the time we spent in Rwanda, on many levels.
We arrived in Uganda on Sunday after a 4 hour coach ride from Kigali to Mbarara in South West Uganda. We were met there by our partners who had hired a driver and minibus for us - unfortunately designed for 12 people, and were were 15 including the driver. But in Africa, where there's a will there's a way, so all our rucksacks and cases got stacked (rather high!) On top of the bus, and we squashed in for the remaining 4 hours drive to Kassesse. On the way we stopped for lunch (at 3pm...) and had our first true experience of Africa-time this trip. In Rwanda, things were at most 30mins late. At the motel where we had lunch, it took over 2 hours for our food to arrive! We were keen to just finish the journey as we'd been hopeful we wouldn't need to travel much in the dark, so there was a lot of frustration around this - it was good preparation for what was to come! When we finally arrived at our hostel at 10pm, I crashed into bed as I was pretty shattered. The rest of the team were given a dinner of ugali (a stodgy white cakey porridge thing made from maize flour) and plantain (savoury banana) which I did not hear rave reviews about in the morning. Breakfast was two pieces of stale bread and a squishy banana each. I was initially grumpy about this, but actually felt really challenged that my gap year had really taught me the lesson that food is really functional, a part of survival. Anything more than that is an additional blessing, not a right - something I think we've almost entirely forgotten in the UK. When was the last time you at a bland meal you didn't like at all? We just don't eat it, pick something else, or complain until we find something better. There's nothing wrong with enjoying food (I'm a self-confessed foodie, and firmly believe that our sense of taste and ability to make good tasting food is a gift from God!) but I was really challenged about the extent to which we take this for granted, when its actually a blessing the majority of the world won't get tonight.
The following morning, we were informed over breakfast that the programme had changed (not the first or last time we heard that, I can tell you!!!), and that the school where we were going to do a child rights seminar was actually in the middle of exam period so didn't want a bunch of Mzungus disrupting their day. This meant that we would have slightly longer to drive round the national park that morning, and that we'd travel to Kampala that afternoon. No one was happy to hear this - the minibus is so ridiculously uncomfortable that we had all been glad of a day in between travelling to recover some strength before going again - not least because to make your bladder hold out that long on bumpy roads, you have to severely limit your fluid intake - two consecutive days of dehydration was not a fun prospect.
God did answer our prayers for a blessed morning in his creation, though, and we were lucky enough to see a lion, a leopard, a very rare species of forest hog (not to be confused with a wart hog, which we also saw!) Buffalo, Ugandan Jobs, Elephants, Monkeys and Water Buck. Despite this meaning that we spent the whole morning in the minibus, ahead of the afternoon travels, we felt so lucky to have seen all these animals. Its the first time I've seen a lion or a leopard on safari. The leopard was cool, but the lion was about 5m away - its beauty and power were very evident! I think this was my highlight! I feel like I now have a more vivid picture of Aslan in my head for next time I'm reading a Narnia book, or a better understanding of the name 'Lion of Judah' for Jesus. Cool stuffs :)
We then went to visit the Ugandan Christian Lawyers' Fraternity (UCLF) office in Kassesse. It was nice to see one of their regional offices and to meet some of their lawyers. However, this was another case of African time, and by the time our minibus had picked up our luggage and come back for us it was 3pm, and the 8 hour journey to Kampala hadn't started, and we hadn't had lunch! (Cue hungry, tired and grumpy team...) We stopped off for a quick lunch of rice and beans in town and then settled down for the journey to Kampala. We eventually arrived at midnight at the house of one of the UCLF board members, Titus and his family, who had prepared dinner for us. We were frustrated to say the least, because we knew the following morning was an early start and we just wanted to get to our accommodation, but we were blown away by their hospitality. Despite having to wait for us 5 hours beyond the arranged time, they were so so friendly, the food was amazing and it was a real joy to share food with them.
When we got to our hotel just before 2am, we were so blessed to find that there were actual showers, and on top of that, hot water!! For the same price as our hostel in Rwanda, we've been staying in comparative luxury. We'd been praying hard that God would exceed our expectations for Uganda because by this point we were all pretty shattered and demoralised.
I'm starting to get cramp so I think I'll finish this post here - in some ways I didn't want to leave it here cause it's been quite negative, but in another way its probably a more accurate record of how we were feeling at this point in the trip. Spoiler alert - it got a lot better, I've actually really enjoyed Uganda as a whole and we were again sad to be leaving this morning, but also excited to see what Kenya holds!
Prayer requests:
- That we'd settle into Kenya quickly, and that we'd get off to a better start than we did in Rwanda.
- Thanks that God gave us safe travels in Uganda, and this far
- Thanks that the team are still good friends and we haven't had any big arguments despite the tiring time we've had
- Pray that we'd be able to rehydrate properly tomorrow and wouldn't suffer from any lasting tiredness or illness from today's journey
- Please pray that we'd be really open to what God is wanting to show and teach us in Kenya.
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