Friday December 15 From Muslim Twins to Lake Victoria

We were ready at 9:00, but for the first time this trip, Vincent called at 8:50 to say that he was running late. We walked on down to the reception area and waited until almost 9:30. Rain on Thursday and late on Friday, I was afraid I knew what this meant and I was right. Vincent had taken the van to get it washed. After a rain, that means both inside and out! So when we settled into our seats, we found them soggy, but only slightly so.

But it was pouring rain again, so we weren’t sure whether we were beginning a daily ritual of soggy shorts, or if this would be a one day event.

Only Grace and Joseph were in the van, and we dropped Joseph at the church. We were on our way to Michael’s house. Michael lives on the east side of Kampala out Jinja Road. It is several kilometers from the church, and a bit hard to get to in the pre-Christmas traffic. But we were there before 10:30, and we left the rain in downtown Kampala.

Michael was waiting for us at a shop near his home. He said he had been to visit his mother, who was staying near there. We road the short distance over more terribly rutted mud tracks to a long drive with a trench beside it. The trench held a very narrow plastic water pipe. When we got down the drive a bit, we could see that the drive ran past Michael’s homemade house and into a huge, very nice mansion that was still under construction.

Michael’s home sits between two very nice places. He is on a hill and has a great view of a rural valley with rolling green hills and crops dotting the bottom land. We parked the van and climbed out. His children came running to greet us, and Mebel, his wife, wasn’t far behind. We went into the house where fresh jack fruit and papaya awaited us. Jon had given Michael a small amount of money for his kids, and one of the boys brought us his new water pistol to examine. His youngest daughter held a cheap, white, plastic doll with all her little mite. Everyone was happy. The kids couldn’t stay away from us. Cathy, the oldest, had graduated from high school and she is awash in expectations for entry into university next August. We are sponsoring Mebel to return to university to get a teaching certificate, and she is as excited as her daughter.

We had much to do, so we couldn’t stay long, but it was very hard to leave. Michael’s home is a place of such joy, and the happiness is contagious, even for three homesick ole white guys!

We had children to see, so we pulled away, but Michael asked us to stop and greet his mother. She was waiting for us in a house behind the shop where we picked up Michael, along with three of his sisters. They were shy, but as happy as the rest of Michael’s clan. They wanted Jon to pray for a blessing on their house, and he did. I wish we could have stayed until they opened up a bit.

Jim had four friends who wanted to sponsor children, so we asked Grace to find four kids from the waiting list who really needed sponsors badly. She chose four who lived near Michael. The first was Hussein, who we met at the home of another sponsored child. We photographed all the previously sponsored kids and talked with them a bit. We met the father of one of the girls who had been having mental problems related to some witches who lived nearby.

Then we talked to Hussein. He was a tall, thin boy not as dark as many Ugandans. His English was perfect and we quickly learned that he had been out of school all last year because his grandfather, who had supported him after his parents died, had also died. He was living with his grandfather’s house girl, who had very little money, and no school fees. He was so excited about being sponsored. He followed us around, staying right beside one of us all the time. When we asked him what he planned to do for

Christmas, his English seemed to desert him, then he finally said he didn’t plan to do anything.

And then we learned that he had a twin brother who was in the same situation. The brother had gone to the village for reasons unclear, so Hussein said he would take us to him.

We stopped to check on several other children in their homes or in the market place, then turned east on Jinja Road. Traffic was terrible, but this traffic was liberally seasoned with very large trucks speeding much faster than the congested conditions allowed. We crawled along through market areas where shoppers stood shoulder to shoulder pawing through disorganized merchandise seeking bargains. We seemed to making no progress at all, and the mileage markers for Jinja showed our steady approach.

Hussein suddenly pointed to a minor road to the left. It was unpaved, but reasonably wide at first, but this quickly changed. As the road became narrower and more rutted, I suddenly realized we were riding with a teen named Hussein in a Muslim community. The road became two tire tracks in the mud, and we started watching our surroundings. A truck filled with workers sat in a field beside the road. As we passed, it started up toward us. Hussein directed Vincent into a courtyard surrounded by small mud and thatch homes. The truck pulled in behind us, but there was still room to pass. When we climbed out, the men waved to us.

Hussein ran down the street and returned a few minutes later with a boy that didn’t look a lot like him. He was darker and looked older, but the faces were certainly similar. His name was Hassan, and he seemed to have a very hard time believing what he was being told. He had obviously been working there in the village, and simply couldn’t believe that a van load of Christians was telling him we would pay for him to go to school next year! I’m not sure he ever did get it, but he listened carefully and seemed very pleased.

Hussein climbed back in the van and we drove slowly through the Muslim neighborhood back to Jinja Road. The traffic was no better going back to Kampala. As we crawled along, we talked to Hussein. Jim gave him a small bit of money to help with Christmas. After calling on a couple of more children, we left Hussein to catch a boda boda back to where he stays.

It was after 3:00 and we were starving, so Vincent continued down Jinja Road to the Hot Loaf. Jim and Jon said they would eat meat samosas if I thought they were all right. I told them I had eaten them successfully many times, so we went in to order. I ordered vegetable samosas then placed ordered one meat and one vegetable for Jim. The clerk said no vegetable, so I was lucky to get my two. But when the order came, she had meant she had NO vegetable samosas. I had nothing. So I enjoyed my grape-like Miranda Fruity while everyone else ate.

Vincent was in a hurry because he wanted to go to Entebbe next. It is about 40 km from Kampala to Entebbe, nearly an hour under the best of conditions. In the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy, it took much longer. But this is a beautiful drive with hills on one side of the road and Lake Victoria glittering on the other side. We made good time, and hurried to Vincent’s brother’s house, where we saw several kids that we had met last year.

We then drove back to Entebbe town and out to the lake to visit another girl who worked at her parent’s wooden shack store near the ferry across the lake. After I talked with the girl, Michael told me we were hoping to see two girls who live across the lake. He had called and left word for them to catch the ferry to Entebbe and meet us but they hadn’t done it. So Michael jumped in a ferry and headed across the lake, leaving us at the ferry dock with nothing to do.

But this was one of the most fascinating things we’ve done. There were men fishing for tilapia with worms and wooden poles from the wide earthen dock. They were having limited success with some small specimens of tilapia. They were also catching the occasional eel, which Grace insisted were cat fish! Huge cargo boats more than six feet deep and 60 feet long stood by the dock. These were used for transporting lumber. The ferries carrying people were jammed full, including one flat bottom ferry pushed by a thing that looked like a tug boat. The ferry was filled with fire wood, all sorts of produce, and far more people and bicycles than should have been aboard were the boat empty.

The bustle of the busy dock went on all around us. Boda boda drivers came out onto the dock seeking fares. Two boys paddled by with a large catch of huge tilapia. Two others were casting their nets in the shallows from a very small boat. Jon came up and told me I had a problem. In this, what could become the breeding ground for avian flue, a friendly bird left a large deposit on my shoulder. It was exactly in line such that had I not removed it, it would have moved from shoulder to chin at my first left head turn!

Michael and the two girls finally arrived. Scovia is now a young woman. She is tall and thin and friendly. Her English is good and she was anxious to see us.

Esther was a bit of a different story. We had heard that she wanted to leave high school and go to a technical course in tailoring, but when I started talking to her, a completely different story emerged. It seems she didn’t sit for her PLE when she finished P7. When she pointed this out to our former administrators, they told her to continue on and no one would notice. But it is time for Esther to enter S3 and her S4 exams are looming ahead. She can’t take them without her PLE certificate. Her mother was trying to buy the girl a certificate, but we stopped her.

Esther was scared and a bit confused. She definitely doesn’t want to quit school, but she didn’t know what to do about it. We worked out a plan: Grace will go to the primary school that Esther attended and ask permission for her to register for the exam. In the meantime, she will continue S3. Scovia will be taking the exam at the same school, so the two girls can study together. If all goes well, Esther will have her PLE and complete S3 at the same time next year and she will be officially ready for S4.

The wait had been long and it was growing dark when we started back to Entebbe Road. Traffic was much lighter, and we made good time getting to a small shop where two other kids should have been waiting. When it started getting dark, however, the two had gone back home.

We had one last child to see at a beauty shop on Entebbe Road. The boy was there with his mother who worked in the store. It was one of Marianna’s children, and he was very excited to be in the program. While I was talking to him, I noticed several Stoney’s in a refrigerated case behind where he stood. I finally had my first Stoney of the trip there! The boy enjoyed a Fanta.

It was 8:15 when we pulled into the guesthouse. We ordered as we walked in, then went back down only to wait for another 20 minutes. I ordered fried boneless chicken, a huge mistake for one who is starving because it wasn’t edible. It tasted terrible, squished when I bit it, and it was very tough. Even though I was hungry, I couldn’t stomach it, even after a number of tries.

So we went to our rooms, pretty much exhausted. I was too tired to write, so I watched Tanner’s copy of “Blade Runner: The Director’s Cut”!