Buloba//Day One

After touring Kampala Wednesday morning, we were able to drive out to Buloba Village that afternoon.  More weaving through traffic, and most of all, more orange dust.  The colors of this place are bright greens and all shades of orange.  The orange dominates.  It covers E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.  Cars, buildings, plants, and every man, woman, and child.  And by the time we left Buloba, after spending 4 hours in the village, we were totally covered in the orange dust too.

Here's some of the first things we saw and people we met:

  

This is Frank.  Also known as Crazy Legs by some of the people in my group.  ...And this picture explains why.  This is how he introduced himself to our group... by doing this funky-chicken-leg dance.  ...My team would leave me on the side of a random Kampala road if I forgot to mention FRANK.  

According to Pastor Isaac (photo coming soon), this not-so-little guy will make your skin burn and itch if it touches you.  Naturally, I hovered over and beside it so I could get a close-up.  Then I lost my balance and nearly landed on him.  But I didn't, so no burning flesh here!

While in the village, we all trooped down to a well and tried to pump water there, but the pump was broken.  So, we continued on, down, down, down to another well that was working and filled up the water jugs with water.  Once the jugs were all full, we began the long trek back up to the church.  What began as a happy trip down the red (orange) dirt trail turned into an entirely different experience walking back up the hill with jugs full of water.  Those jugs were heavy.  Very heavy.

This was the broken well.  But don't worry, engineers came and it's fixed now!

This was one of many houses we passed on the road (more like trail) down to the working well.

These are coffee beans in Jennifer's hand!  And did you notice the little hand?  That hand belongs to a little girl named Tracy, who didn't want to let go of Jennifer's hand even for one tiny minute.

This is Godfrey, who is over the African Renewal Ministries (ARM) program in Buloba.  I can't think of enough good adjectives to say about him.  Friendly, hilarious, great with the kids, caring, thoughtful, leader, organizer....etc.

These kids are old pros at this.

Godfrey carrying the water jug back UP the road.  Notice the tree?  It's a mango tree.  Mango tree. In Africa.  No big deal.

Here is Jennifer carrying one of the jugs.  Look! She has some serious air underneath her water jug.  Impressive.

Here I am carrying the water jug.  Not impressive.  And why do I make those faces?  Scary and unnecessary.  I am ceasing the weird facial expressions now.

Better expression, thank goodness.  The photographer Dan was kind in cropping the photo so that you can't tell how close the water jug is to the ground.  

Wimpy.  That's me.

I don't know how long that road was down to the well and back, but it took a long time.  And those residents (and kids) do it all the time.  Sorry I can't give concrete facts on this.  Just know this: the road is long and uneven and the water jug is cumbersome and, yes, that thing is seriously HEAVY.  Oh, did you notice what the stopper was on the top of the water jug?  This one was an old corn cob with the leaves still on it.  Other stoppers were wads of banana leaves or other foliage balled up and stuffed in the top of the jug.  Ingenious and resourceful.

'til I can get to a computer again and the power stays on and I can actually load pictures on the slow internet, over and out from Africa with love,

ab

25 hours/ 3 continents/ 4 countries

Greetings from Uganda!

Just a few things have gone on since I last posted.  Not the least of which is waking up to a rooster crowing, sleeping under a mosquito net, and running from roaches the size of small dogs.  No lie.  …Okay, maybe that is a tiny lie.  More like roaches the size of mice.  No lie---for real this time.  I have eaten breakfast at 1am, repeated that at 3am, and had lunch at 5am.  Then my body forgot that such a thing as time even existed.  And so I ate anything I could get my hands on, whenever I wanted.  And then my stomach decided to jump ship because it disagreed with this new plan.  But we’ll not go into all that.  I hear your sigh of relief.  You're welcome.

I feel the need to add this disclaimer to everyone that may be mad at me for not posting, or be shaking their head because they said all along that I wouldn’t post on my trip blog.  Well I have news for all you disbelievers-of-my-blogging-ability.   I have legit reasons for not blogging.  Case One - Tuesday Night: we arrived at Entebbe Airport in Uganda at 10pm, went through customs, and then through a dark parking lot to load our suitcases onto a van, a van that promptly whisked us away and sped off into the night.  It was fast.  And furious.  And I loved it.  I only got scared once.  Okay maybe twice.  Okay maybe thrice.  Okay maybe….   Case Two - Wednesday night:  We got back from BULOBA to the gorgeous house in Kampala that we stay (only sleep) in, ate a late (delicious) dinner of Ugandan beef, potatoes, rice, pasta, peas, avocado, and pineapple, and then played a few games of bananagrams, rummy, rummikub, uno, and blackjack and right when I was headed to write the post and load pictures.... the power went out!  And it didn't come back on for a long time.  So you see, I did my best.  I was at the mercy of 25 hours of travel and finicky electricity.  I rest my case.

Here is my team:

that's: rjdanjonathanamymejenniferdaviscaseyjosh

You're lookin' at a good bunch of folks, folks.   

So, after being in route for 25 hours, we slept for 4 hours, and then as I told you before, we woke up to the sound of roosters crowing, geese and cars honking, dogs yowling, and other totally ordinary and mundane sounds of the morning.  We ate a breakfast of white-ish eggs, some type of fried pastry-thing stuffed with black peas, toast, and bananas.  The bananas were worthy of a photo-shoot:

Just look how cute and tiny! It's okay, you can say 'awwww.' I know you want to.

After breakfast we were given a van tour of Kampala, the capital city of Uganda.  This is Eddie, our fearless and excellent driver.  After I got over my initial shock of flying down dirt roads or poorly-paved roads with boda-boda's (motorcycle taxis) intermingled with pedestrians and cyclists, I feel totally safe with Eddie as our personal chauffeur.  He can come within inches, no, millimeters, of other cars or people and maneuver the van expertly through, around, and in-between them all---without using the brakes.  We've been told, by people who know, that Eddie knows every back road there ever was or is, and I believe it.  

And here is some of what we saw on our tour of Kampala:

Scaffolding, Uganda-style!  It's insane. And incredible.