Hi there, this is my first ever blog so you'll have to forgive me if it isn't up to scratch. For the last week I have been in Uganda (which is just below Sudan) at the Africa Inland Mission guesthouse doing orientation and language lessons. There has been a range of guests here during my stay ranging from an American Church group who were staying for just a week through to old missionaries who were getting ready to head back to Canada for retirement after over 30 years of work out here. Needless to say the dinner time conversations haven't been too boring.
| The AIM Guesthouse My first day here wasn't that eventful as I was a little tired after travelling for about 15 hours and decided to spend most the day sleeping and stayed indoors. The next day, myself and one other arrival, a guy called Connor from Northern Ireland had to go into Kampala (Uganda's capital) and exchange some money into the local currency and get new sim cards for our phones. We were escorted by one of the AIM secretary's, an African lady called Rhona who could show us around. Travelling into Kampala involved taking a small motorbike called a boda boda down to the main road and then taking a taxi. The reason the motorbikes are called boda bodas is because they were initially used as taxi's from the border of Kenya to Uganda which used to be over half a mile apart. Driving on the main road into Kampala was quite scary as there doesn't seem to be too much road safety out here and the bumpers on the front of cars aren't there just for show. When we got into Kampala we got everything sorted out and then went for lunch in a shopping centre, as soon as we sat down about 8 waiters from different restaurants piled in all around us and started showing us there menus persistently trying to make us purchase their food. Having finished lunch we proceeded back to the taxi-rank when it started to rain a little bit. Rhona said that we should probably head towards some cover, but I thought that she was being a little silly and said that it wouldn't take that long to get to the taxi-rank. About a minute later it began to really rain, these drops weighed about five times as much as English ones and fell twice as fast stinging your face. The whole city seemed to come to a stand still as all pedestrians stopped under the shelter at the sides of shops and the cars came to a standstill as streams of water gathered on the road. We took cover. The rain only lasted about 15 minutes but so much water had fallen in that time that the streets were covered in puddles. Whilst making our way to the taxi rank Connors flip flop was ripped off his foot by a stream on the side of the road and travelled about 100 yards before I could retrieve it for him under the wheel of a car stuck in traffic, the lady inside looked rather surprised to see a mzungu (white person) outside her car waving a flip flop. That was probably the most action packed couple of hours I've had here so far. Other than that the only time I've been out was to go to church on Sunday, which wasn't too bad, the singing was great fun lasting about an hour although i didn't feel a little awkward with my hands as all the Ugandans had theirs in the air or swinging around. The sermon then lasted another hour or so and was relatively sound, although it is very different to our English sermons which have a much clearer structure and point to them. The other days have been spent learning language skills that I'm going to need over the next couple of months. I had expected to fly into South Sudan on Tuesday but due to problem with flights I am now going to be leaving early tomorrow morning. Prayers regarding safe travel and being able to integrate well into the village would be appreciated. -Wednesday 21st Sept Pictures of taxi rank and mosquito net.   |
