SUNDAY JUNE 17 – OUR LAST DAY

There was no water at all on Saturday night, so no showers, no way to brush your teeth, not even a toilet!

A little before 8:00 Sunday morning, we heard the tank on the commode begin to fill. I hurried in and took an ice cold shower/bath using the spray thing in the bathtub. We also took advantage of the flushing toilet, then Lisa hurried in for her turn in the bath. The water stopped by 8:15 leaving Lisa with yesterday’s jungle dirt in tact and no possible way to get water.

The van was due at 10:00 so there was plenty of time to eat breakfast, but when we got downstairs, we found smelly water bubbling up through the floor behind the restaurant. We decided we weren’t very hungry – only a quick piece of toast that we made ourselves.

The van arrived promptly at 10:00 and we road to church through minimal traffic. Joseph asked me to tell everyone goodbye, so I did, then Lisa and Ray each thanked everyone and said farewell. Joseph ushered me out as soon as we finished and Lisa came along. He wanted me to talk to the church that is considering joining EPC, so Vincent quickly drove us to the new church. There were about 20 adults there this morning sitting in chairs borrowed from Kiwatule using the drums we bought for them three years ago. As soon as I started speaking, it began to rain, and again, it turned into a flood in a few minutes. Everyone had to move to keep from getting drenched.

The potential new members had very few questions about the EPC and what it stands for. Joseph told me they had been studying this for several weeks and they were ready to get the new church going. He said the presbytery would have a delegation come to the church in a few weeks to receive members and he expected all the adults to join.

It only took a few minutes to drive back to Kiwatule. David had finished his sermon some time ago and was waiting impatiently for us. A lot of our kids had waited for Lisa and me to return and they all came running to tell us goodbye. Many wanted one more picture, most with Lisa or me or both of us.

We decided to go back to the hotel to check the water situation. There was a not-right smell when we started up the stairs, but there was no water standing in the hall. And there was no water in the bathroom.

We decided this was enough, so we told the front desk we were leaving and everyone went upstairs to pack. We decided we would dump everything in suitcases and go, then repack at the new hotel. But even with this, it took Lisa and me a long time to get ready.

When we were finally set, the guys came up and helped us move bags to the van. Mr. Johnson himself was waiting for us at the front desk. He tried to tell us that the problem belonged to the city, that there was a broken water main, but he soon realized that we had figured out the truth about his sewer situation. He collected the cash and told us he hoped we would return. He didn’t charge us for Sunday!

The guys were in a huge hurry: they were scheduled to play the sponsored kids in soccer at 3:00. It was almost 3:00 when we left the hotel, and well after before we made it to the public soccer field where a large group of our kids were waiting. David had committed to playing in goal and Michael had bought him a pair of new-ish blue all sport shoes that went quite well with his blue shorts and shirt. The Kiwatule men’s soccer team all had bright yellow jerseys. Joseph said each team member had bought his own.

These kids were serious! Some loosened up by running the length of the field repeatedly. Two small groups of kids kicked rubber balls around. Our guys tried to stretch, and a couple of them even ran a few yards.

When everyone was ready, Joseph brought out one of the new soccer balls. There were three new balls, one for each church. The balls were donated by two ten year old girls from Ooltewah: Hannah and Olivia. Lisa and I have known Hannah since she was born and we had met her friend Olivia when Hannah entered kindergarten. Both girls knew about the Project. Both had watched videos about Uganda, and just before we left, Hannah brought us money the two of them had earned doing chores. Both girls play soccer, so they wanted us to use the money to buy balls if possible. They had enough to buy three balls. We’d gone to a store on Saturday and found that we had enough for very good, leather balls.

Everyone paused to thank Hannah and Olivia when the brand new soccer ball was thrown onto the field. The sponsored kids just stood there for a minute. They couldn’t believe ten year old girls in America would care enough about them to send their own money

It was a good game. Both sides played very hard and after 30 minutes, the score was tied at 0. The defense on both ends was very good. David didn’t have to make a single block, though he dove into the foot-high grass after a ball that only missed the goal by about 15 feet!

We were feeling a bit anxious because we had no place to go. Although we knew it would be very expensive, we decided to go to Hotel Africana for our last night. We have stayed at this hotel several times. I had stayed there part of the time last Christmas. It is a large, very nice hotel where we knew we could count on air and water, which should assure a good night’s sleep before our long flights home.

The desk clerk found two adjoining rooms on the 2^nd floor. Between us, our team, and the bell staff, we soon had all our stuff upstairs. The air felt great, but when David came in a few minutes later, he said he didn’t have the remote control for his air conditioner. Although the air conditioner would come on in fan mode, there was no sign of air. He reported the problem to the front desk and we went out for our last meal.

We decided to visit ShangHai one last time. Instead of our usual place on the patio, we were shown to a private dining room. We had the whole team, as well as Mabel who joined us after the soccer match. The food was wonderful and the dining room had a window air conditioner. All the Ugandans froze while they ate, but we really enjoyed the cool!

They took us back to the hotel after dinner. There was still no air in David’s room, so I went down with him to talk to the front desk. David explained that this was his sixth trip to talk with someone about his room. “But I am telling you that I am taking responsibility to fix this thing,” said the woman behind the desk.

“That’s what all the others told me,” complained David.

“But sir, they are not me! Your air will be on in no time.” We then watched the woman make a call. We could hear it ringing somewhere in the room behind the front desk. No one answered, so she left the desk. She soon returned. “Don’t worry!” she said. “You will be cool in no time.”

I went back to my room to work on the blog. David wanted to go to the Business Center with me to post updates, so I went to his room a few minutes before 10:00. Ray was sound asleep. David was fuming. There was no air!

When we got to the brand new Business Center, we found it closed. I told David it closed at 10:00 though there was no sign anywhere. For all we knew, they had closed at noon!

We went back to the front desk. The woman who had taken responsibility for getting the problem fixed was no where to be found! David got in line at the front desk, but I saw a woman I knew from an earlier trip. She was the cashier, and she was always unpleasant but she was also always right! So I went to her.

“Hello, we have a problem,” I said. She didn’t acknowledge me in any way. “I have stayed here several times, and you have always helped me before no matter what the problem. The air conditioner in my friend’s room is broken. Can you help him?”

The woman looked at me for a long minute. “Which room?” David gave her the number. “Let me call.”

“They’ve already done that!” said David. “There’s nobody there.”

The woman calmly dialed the phone and again, we heard it ringing behind the desk “I told you. . . “ said David.

The woman hung up the phone and came out from behind the desk. She walked down the hall and came back in a moment with the Maintenance Man. “I’ve already seen him,” said David. “He doesn’t know how to fix it.”

The woman calmly returned to her place behind the desk. She smiled at me and nodded. David and I followed the Maintenance Man upstairs, but not before I turned to thank the woman. Somehow, I knew the problem was fixed.

I went into our room and left David with the Maintenance Man. David was right, the man had no idea how to fix the air conditioner, but after tinkering for a few minutes, he led David and the drowsy Ray to a new room on the first floor.

We didn’t hear any more from David. Lisa finished packing the bags while I worked on the computer equipment we had brought for our team. It took a while to get everything ready, but we finally turned out the light. The air conditioner’s whir soon lured me to sleep.

SATURDAY, JUNE 16: SATURDAY SCHOOL AND A WALK IN THE WOODS

Saturday School makes it the best day of the week! Vincent was there at 9:00, and we were ready to go. As we walked out, I noticed a woman mopping the floor in the hall on the ground floor. Thinking back, I’d seen people doing this more than once. And I had noticed a very faint smell there, too.

We hurried to church where about 200 kids were waiting. Practically every child had at least one hand that had to be shaken and an unlimited number of smiles to endow upon whoever would look. There was another program, this one a bit less well organized. Some of the kids sang, and several were very good. And there was a drama that seemed to never end about some robbers who eventually die for some unexplained reason. Every time I looked out at the kids, there were at least half-a-dozen trying to get my attention. They wanted a wave or a wink or a grin, and I got back giggles.

There was something very unusual about Saturday School. For the first time I can ever remember, every child had a chair!

They asked me to talk to the kids and I did. I told them that there was a chance that I wouldn’t be coming back to Africa for a while, but that I would pray for them and thank about them all the time until we met again. I nearly broke down!

We distributed a number of mosquito nets to kids who couldn’t take them when we saw them at school, like younger kids who, we were afraid, might lose their net to a thief. So I stood up front and gave them out one by one. In the end, we had passed out about 270 of the 300 nets bought. We’re planning to give nets to Moses, one of our former employees, for his family. He lives in a terrible place with tons of mosquitos. And there are others around the church who also need help, far, far more than the few left over nets we have.

There were also some kids who we’d missed for one reason or another. We talked with them a bit and made pictures.

Around noon, we said our goodbyes and headed for the van. The kids were in clingy moods, so it was almost a fight to get away. They wanted us to stay and play and talk, and we wanted to stay, but there was still much to do.

One of Wayne’s sponsored girls is in a boarding school that only allows visitors on Saturdays. We picked up the girl’s mother and drove to yet another new part of the city through a market area and into a very nice residential neighborhood. The school was another one on a very large piece of land. It ran to the top of a hill. It was beautifully maintained and landscaped. The most interesting thing was here we saw girls in slacks! It wasn’t their uniform, but the school was obviously allowing it on Saturday. We went to the administration building and waited for the girl who was studying. They had told her that her mother was visiting, so our crowd really surprised her. We visited for a while, then the mother joined us in the van for the drive back to the Kiwatule area.

After dropping the mother, we drove downtown to Bon Appetit. This is a chain of Ugandan fast-food places and Vincent had chosen the best of the bunch. There were very few tables in the place, but Joseph managed to commandeer chairs for everyone. Each of us placed an order, then waited in line until it was filled. Lisa was first with a one samosa order. She was the last order filled and she had to wait for a time even after all of us had eaten. These places never have the food on the menu, you always have to settle for something else. They are crowded. Seating is so limited that you can hardly ever all sit together. Not my favorite place, though my two samosas (they filled my order in no time!) were pretty good.

Our next stop was Garden City. We had to exchange the money for the hotel bill. With fresh cash in hand, we went to Umuchi, the grocery/super store, and bought coffee for ourselves and a few others.

Our last stop on Saturday was to be the national forest. I have tried for several trips to get a trip here, but it has somehow never worked out. It dawned on me last year that they really don’t want to go to the forest because they are scared to death of it, and this trip proved my suspicions. We had dragged our feet until it was after 3:00 before we even started toward Mpigi. We drove through the Saturday market traffic and we quickly slowed to a crawl. Once things thinned out, Vincent flew! He was going so fast that he missed the turn. He stopped to go back, then decided to go on. He and Joseph had a sharp discussion in Luganda. It sounded as though Vincent had decided we should go somewhere else. Joseph told him to go back.

So we turned off the highway and followed a dirt road a mile or so through grassy land. There were a few homes along the road. They were not impressive. We came to a sign routing us to either the camping site or the visitors’ center. We turned to the visitors’ center and found two picnic tables on decks beneath thatched roofs and another house, this one brick and wood. We parked the van. There was a commotion overhead in the trees. We looked up and saw black and white colubus monkeys jumping from tree to tree. We walked in front of the visitors’ center to a map of the forest. A young woman came running up to us and asked what we wanted. She said she was closed, but we could pay our fee and still go in.

We followed her into the center. There were three sets of bunk beds in the main room which are apparently for rent each night. She took us into a small office and collected 5,000 shillings for each Muzungu and 3,000 for each Ugandan. She gave us a small map and told us to take the 2.5 hour base line tour. She said the rain the night before had made the other trails a bit messy.

So we left the office and walked into the jungle! The trees soared above us, some well over 60 feet high. And the air was alive with sounds – strange birds calling, disturbed trees where monkey’s jumped, a group of Ugandans and Bazungu going through the woods.

Within 100 yards of starting out, I looked down and saw a moving black line of termites at my feet. “Do not stop,” said Michael. “These move very fast and their bite hurts very much. You must keep going. Everyone tried to step over the termites and we all succeeded, except David. As we all hurried past, David stood at the edge of the termites and looked them while commenting to us. He finally did step across and as he did, he let out a yell.

“You must hurry and find it,” Michael said. “They will climb very fast up your leg.”

David kept yelling and jumping around. In the end, the termites made it to mid-thigh before he got rid of all of them. He offered to show any and every one his bites, but he found no takers!

Grace and Michael were both scared to death in the jungle. They seemed concerned that something would get them. At one point, Michael told me, “Vincent was in the very back behind everyone when I saw him. I do not know if he is still there.” He meant that something might have gotten him!

We saw two other groups: a group of fellow hikers and a woman and her two sons who were gathering sticks in the forest. She refused our request to photograph them and we realized it was because she wasn’t supposed to be there.

We saw a number of birds, but not the shoe bill we had hoped for. There were red monkeys deeper in the jungle. We saw all kinds of trees and ferns and a lot of unusual insects. David got a fabulous shot of a dragon fly with fluorescent blue wings. Ray was in heaven! He looked at leaves and picked up things from the floor. At one point he left on a side trail for a while.

Our friends eventually settled down and everyone had a great time. We walked in the jungle for about two hours. We wanted to finish the base line tour, but weren’t sure about the light once the sun started down. None of us wanted to be lost on our first jungle outing. The amazing thing was that none of our friends had ever been to this place. “I have driven past hundreds of times and did not know this was here,” said Vincent. I had been with him on a half-dozen such trips and every time I asked about the forest, he said there was nothing there. So we have now been on a real live hike in the African bush.

The drive back to Kampala was uneventful. Vincent drove a bit more slowly than the day before. Traffic was lighter because fewer people were coming into Kampala. There were many more on the streets, but at least they weren’t in cars!

We drove to Century Park which sits between Garden City and the Hotel Africana. At Christmas, I visited a Turkish restaurant on its opening day. The food was great and the man who ran the place very interesting. So I suggested we go there. The outdoor restaurant was crowded with people from all over the world! I ordered a mixed appetizer plate and a mixed grill for the Ugandan team. Lisa and I ordered a small version of the Ugandan platter and David ordered a lamb kabob with eggplant. Well, actually, he ordered something totally different, but he got a lamb kabob with eggplant!

The food was so simple, yet spectacular. The mixed appetizer was really a series of spreads for the home made Turkish bread. We had everything from cheese to yogurt to olives to humus on the plate. Lisa and I had a generous selection of beef, lamb, and chicken kabobs, as well as a piece of fish, fries, and rice. The Ugandans had the same, but MUCH more of it. They were slow to start on the food because they had never seen it before, but they soon decided this was one of their favorite places. David’s egg plant was the best I’ve ever tasted anywhere.

The meal was spectacular, but frustrating in that way that only Africa can frustrate. The waitress asked for drink orders. Lisa ordered Turkish coffee, thought better of it, and changed her order to Stony. I told the waitress I wanted the same, so we both got Turkish coffee! It was good, but not what I wanted that late at night. David’s order was wonderful but not what he ordered. So a great place, great food, and frustrating service. In other words, welcome to Africa!

The owner came by as we were finishing to ask if we’d enjoyed the meal. I told him I had eaten with him on his opening day and I was very impressed with the changes he’d made. He seemed very pleased, and seemed to try to place me, but couldn’t.

Vincent took us back to the hotel and we said goodnight to everyone. As we started upstairs to our room, we passed a Ugandan woman in her bath robe screaming at the desk clerk. When we got to our room, we knew why: there was no water at all. We had none for a shower or bath. We couldn’t even flush the commode! It was the hottest, dustiest day of our trip and we had no way whatsoever to clean up for church the next morning.

FRIDAY, JUNE 15: PRESBYTERY AT KASANDA

An earlier morning. Ray met us in the breakfast room. I was feeling a bit under the weather, so I didn’t want anything but toast. Ray was excited. There had been a storm in the night and the rain had brought with it a swarm of termites. The outside areas of the hotel were covered over by them!

The van arrived at exactly 7:30. Lisa and I weren’t quite ready, but we made it down by 7:45. We had our longest day ahead: the presbytery meeting at Kasanda, a rural village about 50 miles from Kampala.

Traffic was much lighter at this time of the morning, and we made quick time to the Hot Stop. We loaded up on samosas, meat pies, and our favorite strawberry coconut cookies. Back on the road, we cleared town in no time and re-traced our route to Mpigi. At the round-a-bout where the road forks off to Mpigi we stopped. Pastor Jimmy and two of his elders were waiting for us. So the van had the four Muzungus, four from Kiwatule, and three from Mpigi. Only 11 of the 14 capacity.

The drive to Kasanda is amazingly beautiful. We drove along ridges that gave us views of the valley below and we dropped down into papyrus swamps leaving us to look up at the undulating hills and ridges. With the rainy season ending everything was unbelievably green and bright yellow, red, and purple flowers shown from the top of trees. Living conditions grew steadily more depressing. We didn’t see the round houses from Jinja. Here, the people lived in mud homes with tree branches supporting the mud. Many had cracks in them that had to let in rain.

In the past, the road to Kasanda was under construction only a few miles from the Mpigi turn off. That project is finally done, so fair to good pavement now covers about 2 hours of the nearly 3.

But the last is still dirt, and although it is smoother than it once was, it is still challenging dirt. We passed an amazing number of people, cattle, and goats as we flew along the unpaved surface. Vincent tried to break every time he saw a bump and he was often successful in limiting the pain to all our backsides!

Even though they have owned property for half a year, we still met at the old property. The reed walls and thatched roof were exactly as I remembered it. As always, there were kids waiting outside to greet us and to play. We hurried inside because we had a very long agenda.

After a brief worship time, Joseph called the meeting to order. There were many things to discuss. A new church was asking to join the presbytery and the pastor wanted to be accepted into presbytery. This produced a very long discussion about the whole acceptance process. It seems their goal is to have 10 churches in the presbytery soon, so they felt it very important to establish procedures. Once that was done, they had to examine the pastor. Many of the questions had to do with his relationship to the church they all come from, John’s church in Ntinda. In fact, there were more questions about that than about this man’s beliefs!

Once this was over, it was time for the election of a new moderator and clerk. There was very much discussion about who should be nominated and whether Joseph could serve another term. Their initial minutes didn’t make the reelection question clear, so they discussed and decided only one term for a moderator without a break. After much discussion, it was decided that a ruling elder should be the next moderator and Daniel Kato from Kiwatule was eventually elected.

Michael could be reelected as clerk, but that wasn’t the way things went. A nurse from Kasanda pushed for the job and she beat Michael in the election by several votes. There seemed to be a very strong sense of wanting to get part of the administration of the presbytery away from Kiwatule.

There was another disturbing thing in the discussions. Several times, one of the rural attendees made reference to interference from outside Uganda and to money from outside Uganda. We were never mentioned, but it appears that some of the churches see us as a hindrance rather than a help.

We broke for lunch around 3:00. Pastor Fatuma had cooked for everyone at her house. Joseph had advised us to be careful about the food because he wasn’t sure about the water used in cooking, so we sat in chairs on the front porch of the house while everyone else went inside and ate Pastor Fatuma’s food. As we were finishing our cookies, Pastor Fatuma came out and tried to get us to come inside. We declined, so she brought out a plate full of fruit. We told her we didn’t want it, or any of the other food either, but she wouldn’t be deterred. She brought out a second plate covered with gray chicken and greens.
The fruit was awfully tempting, and we finally gave in and ate some. It was pawpaw straight from the tree and very fresh pineapple. I ate a bite of the greens because I love Ugandan greens. These had some sort of red leaf in with the green and the combination was wonderful. David finally ate a bite of the chicken, so I did, too. It was gray and it had the skin still on. And it had been cut through the bone in large chunks rather than in the pieces we know. But it actually tasted quite good!

After lunch, we rode back to the church. David was scheduled to speak on servant leadership, so they gave him the floor. While the other attendees read Bible passages about leadership, I could only think of all the water I’d been drinking in the hot sun. Like Lisa, I try to limit my visits to native bathroom facilities. Lisa, actually, is the master of this. I believe she channels a camel when we come to Uganda because she seems capable of going 24 hours without the use of a facility!

David gave the group something to discuss in their church groups, and I decided it was time for me to revisit the toilet facilities. It was partly made of wood and partly of metal, and there was a metal privacy screen across the door. It stood on a slight rise above the rest of the property, just enough of a rise to make you aware you are going up to the building and down when you leave. The roof is low, so I knew I would need to be careful or suffer Alan’s fate a couple of years ago, a nasty scalp cut from the roof.

So I went in and found an elongated slit rather than the traditional round whole. It smelled terribly and there were substances I didn’t want to think about around my feet, but I began the process of getting out of there. As soon as the stream hit the hole in the ground, there was a buzz and a black cloud flew out of the hole directly at my face. I was sure it was a bee nest or worse, so I yelled and turned to run. I cleared the door and the privacy screen before I realized I had done nothing whatsoever to make myself presentable before taking leave of the bathroom! I covered, spun around, and ran back into the toilet. The mysterious winged creatures were merely 30 or more huge horse flies. One took a liking to my beard and continued to try to land on it as I finished my business. As far as I know, no one saw any of this!

Lisa was surrounded by small kids over near the van. They were laughing with her in absolute joy as she taught them the Hokie Pokie. I made photos, but I didn’t have the video camera with me.

David was finishing up when I got back. As soon as he was done, Joseph dismissed us to go and look at the new Kasanda property made possible by a gift from Grace Presbyterian Church. The property isn’t on a road. It is down a very narrow path. A school surrounds the plot on one side and a farm on the other. We learned that the church was renting to the land to the farmer who owned the surrounding land as a way to make money. So the property still has not been cleared at all. In fact, nothing had changed at all since I was there in December except that we were told they had deepened the trench for the latrine to 40 feet!

When we got back the meeting had just ended. We went in where I was immediately hit by Pastor Fatuma. Fatuma is a widow and she has a daughter in the program. We had trouble earlier when she suddenly decided her daughter should be in boarding school. She signed the papers to make her a boarding student with no plan at all about how she would pay for it. This term, she had suddenly moved her daughter to a very expensive school. We have all explained to her repeatedly that she can’t move her child outside the Project’s approval because there is no way to fund this.

“If you move your child to a new school and it costs more, you MUST pay the difference between what the sponsor is paying and the total bill,” I explained for the umpteenth time.

“I know, but the people here won’t tell me what I owe. Can you tell me?”

“No,” I said. I was quickly getting tired of this. “Michael or Vincent will have to do this. Since they’ve told you the
amount on the phone twice already, I believe any of them can give you the amount. And remember, either its due on Monday or you need to pull your child out.”

I turned from her to see the new clerk. I offered my assistance if she needed it. “Elder Jim, I must have your phone number,” said the girl.

“You will have to work through Joseph or Vincent,” I said.

Pastor Jimmy also told us that his landlord is preparing to evict him from his church. He says he must buy the land to keep this from happening.

So in a matter of a few hours, I was hit by two of the three churches for money!

We climbed into the van for the long drive home. We now had a total of fifteen people, plus they had been shopping. We had a huge bag of sweet potatoes, a bundle of kasava, and I didn’t get a good look at what all else they’d bought. It was a frightening drive home. I was very sleepy, so I kept dozing off. Vincent was in a hurry, and he flew all the way home. He almost hit another van at one point and a cow at another, but we finally made it to the turn off for Mpigi. We left three of our gang there. The road into Kampala was at a standstill. It took us nearly an extra hour for the drive.

We didn’t invite any of the van for dinner. This time, it was only Lisa, David, and me in Indian Summer. There was a huge group of Muzungu there in front of us, so it took us forever to get our food. We weren’t very hungry so we snacked on kabobs.

THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2007: A NEW MEMBER FOR THE TEAM

We started at 9:00 once again, and the van was on time as promised. We made our way to a very large public school where Jaden, Dick and Cheryl’s sponsored child, attends. We had a bit of trouble with the head master not wanting to let us in, but he sent a teacher with Grace and told him we could see the boy if the boy wanted to see us. He took one look at Grace and wouldn’t say a word! She had to get Vincent to go in. The boy came out with him, but he was absolutely petrified! He didn’t want to look at us or talk to us. He would have run away if he could!

While we were waiting, the head master called me in, which gave me a chance to ask a burning question. Uganda has two public school programs: UPE (Universal Primary Education) and USE (Universal Secondary Education) which is a brand new program. The press here says that these programs guarantee that every student in Uganda can go to school free from kindergarten through S6. This school is a UPE school, yet we are sponsoring a child there. And the headmistress at another UPE school told me that any student in the area could sign up for school free.

So my question: if students can come to UPE free, why should we sponsor them?

“In theory, UPE and USE allow all students to go to school free,” said the distinguished, middle-aged head master. “The problem is that the government doesn’t fund it well. Right now, I receive 3,500 shillings (about $2.25) per child per term from UPE. I can’t run a school on that, so I have to be creative. I rent out school facilities for weddings. I make the children keep up the grounds so that I don’t have to pay for this. And I charge an administrative fee.”

“And the government allows that?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. They understand that we can’t maintain the academic standards they demand on the fees they pay us. They give us freedom to charge our students administrative fees, which are mandatory. And we are allowed to require lunch and uniform fees. So we use these things to supplement UPE.”

“Another UPE school told me that any child could come to her school for free,” I said.

The head master laughed. “That is because he does not know you! He does not know who you know!! He must give you the party line. And it is true that any student can enroll without charge. But they cannot continue to the end of term without paying these other fees. If they try it, they will be chased home.”

While we were in Uganda, we learned that USE payments had been delayed by the government, so the tiny sum promised for each child wasn’t being paid. I don’t know what a USE school could do! In any event, it appears that UPE and USE, while great in principal, are not working as well as expected!

From the school, we went to Joseph’s newly rented home. He and Lydia had moved a week before our arrival. They had been living in a new apartment and had really enjoyed living there, but the complex was having major crime issues. Their home had been attacked twice during the early morning hours in a one-month period. They had succeeded in turning the vandals away, but several of his neighbors hadn’t. They were living in fear every night, so I was very glad that they had moved!

Vincent stopped out front to wait for Joseph to open the gate. He started through the gates. There was less than three inches clearance on either side but he eased through. He pulled forward as far as possible, which meant the gate barely closed.

Baby Lisa was waiting at the glass front door. For some reason, she was licking the glass! She seemed to really enjoy it. Lydia came to the door when she heard us and unlocked it. She welcomed us in, and we all found seats in the relatively large living room. Lydia had pawpaw and pineapple for us as well as sodas. We visited for a while and Lisa entertained everyone with her toys. Then it was time to go.

We visited a few more children, then it was time to visit Nicholas, Joe’s sponsored child. He was a boarding student at large school in a very nice rural community on the outskirts of Kampala. Nicholas will finish high school next year. He is a very bright boy and a very hard worker at the church. He was so excited to see us! He had been told his mother was waiting for him, so he couldn’t stop laughing when he saw us. His English is excellent and he is a great example of what our program can do for a boy.

His school was far out of town, and it was late afternoon when we got back. Lisa was scheduled to speak to the women at 5:00 and I was to speak to the men. Apparently, our team thought that the fruit we ate at Joseph’s house was enough for lunch, but I told them I couldn’t possibly speak without a little more on my stomach. So we stopped at the Hot Loaf once again. Lisa and I ate samosas while everyone else at meat pies. It was a great snack, and we were ready to talk!

Vincent drove us to the church. There were very few people waiting, but it was still early: only 4:45. There was major news, however. Robinah, Daniel Kato’s wife had been getting ready to come to church when she went into labor. She and Dan now had a brand new baby boy!

It appeared that I would have a tiny group, so Joseph moved us into a tiny room in a building that is still under construction. Lisa got the church! We started with 10 people, and the room was fine, but the number grew and before I finished, we had 23 people. The walls were lined with chairs and the center of the room was full. There were even people around the corner on a tiny porch.

We talked about wives and we talked about money, the two things that seemed most on their minds. At first, I couldn’t imagine why they would want to talk with me about wives, but I suddenly realized that at 26 years of marriage, I was far ahead of every other man in the room. The questions were tough and we talked a lot about cultural differences. I really enjoyed my time. I hope they did, too.

Lisa took a different approach. She brought M&M’s for everyone as well as gifts. Her presentation ran several minutes longer than mine, and I stopped at 7:00! She had a great time talking with the ladies.

Daniel came into my meeting late. When we were finished, he asked if we wanted to go and visit Robinah. We all climbed into the van and drove a few blocks to a series of small brick buildings. We all climbed out and started towards what must be the main building, but we turned and went into a building at the back instead. A woman in street clothes met us and followed Dan to a small room. The paint in the room was stained and peeling. Robinah lay on a tiny cot with a clean sheet. She sat up when we came in. The newborn was buried under the covers. He was incredibly small. He was sleeping so he didn’t have a lot to say.

Robinah’s room had two windows and no screens. And there was no mosquito net to be seen anywhere. But she was glowing, so proud of her new soon. And the only thing she wanted to talk about was missing Lisa’s presentation.

We all road back to the hotel. I asked them if they would join us for a meal at Indian Summer as a celebration of Elijah, Dan and Robinah’s new son. I ordered a wide assortment of Indian entrees and everyone seemed to have a great time.

WEDNESDAY JUNE 13, 2007: ANOTHER RUN TO THE AIRPORT

It was Ron’s last day and he was anxious to spend a little more time with the books, so we planned to get him to the office as soon as we could. The trouble was that we needed Grace to help us find the kids! So we all started the day together.

More spread out kids and some that would have been major problems if Michael hadn’t gone out to get two kids. The mother of two of our kids lost her husband about a year ago and she had remarried a man in a far away village. Michael began the day with a two hour ride out to the village where he found the kids in school, then an equal ride back with a kid on his lap because the taxi was too full. After all that, the kids were too afraid to talk with us. Older sister finally woke up a bit, but the young boy just stared at us and shook!

Today, we saw the true difference between the educational opportunities for the haves and have nots. We visited Rebecca, sponsored by Bruce and Nancy, at St. Mary’s Secondary School. We had visited this school before when one of the Mubiru children attended there. This is a spectacular school, all brick and new and very beautifully landscaped in African flowers and shrubs. It was a problem getting access to the girl. We had to present a letter from the mother telling the school she could see us. We went through a fortified gate with an armed guard keeping watch then into the head master’s office for a long interview. After all that, the head master sent someone to get the girl.

Rebecca was unbelievable. She had changed from a terribly shy, backward young girl into a self confident young woman with nearly perfect English. She was so anxious to see us. David and I could remember when she had hidden from us.

This is one of the best schools in Uganda. In fact, the highest score on the high school exit exam was earned by a girl at this school last year. She is in this school because she is very, very bright. She receives financial help to go, but without our sponsorship, her mother would be unable to afford the amount demanded over the school’s assistance.

We also visited Francis and Alan, Charles’ and Martha’s sponsored boys, at their school west of town. These are two more of our longest sponsored kids and they are now together in a 3,000 student facility that we have visited almost every trip. We learned that the head master had retired, and that the new head master had sent Francis home because his fees were late. We waited a long time to find that Alan wasn’t in class because he was sick. Since this is a boarding school, we found him at his dorm. He came down and tried to talk with his, but he was felling pretty badly and only stayed for a minute.

This is another great school with an excellent reputation. It is a bit far from the city and that keeps its price low. We’d never had any trouble with the school at all, and as we road up to Alan’s room, I had a chance to explain very firmly that they had chased home a boy that had been with them for more than six years without a single interruption in his pay. I also pointed out that there were a number of other schools in Kampala, and that it was pretty easy to move a couple of bright brothers if we needed to. The man, an assistant head master, said he understood.

And then we went to the other extreme. We returned to Kampala and drove to the east side of town, a Muslim area that is very, very poor. The roads in this area would be barely wide enough for a couple of goats, but Vincent wound his way through. The roads were muddy even though it had been some time since our last rain. The houses were tiny hovels usually made of wood and whatever else might be found. The school was at the very end of the neighborhood. It’s construction was the same as the houses we’d been seeing. Our girl came out and we had a nice talk with her, then Vincent pulled to the end of the road to turn around. He ended up making a five point turn in a space hardly longer than the van. The space had a block wall on one side and a sheer drop of at lest 15 feet on the other!

We talked and agreed that we must find a better school for this girl. That will be a priority for the team very soon.

It was getting late and we wanted to have a quick lunch so that Ron would still want dinner. We pulled back into The Chef, the tiny grill we had visited before David arrived. We all knew the drill: we ordered whatever and chips from a menu behind the counter.

Ray and I ordered chops, the strange mystery meat combination Ray had eaten earlier that happens to be delicious. David ordered kabob, and I know he was thinking nice chunks of beef or lamb on a stick. Kabobs here, as I explained earlier, are different. They are made of chopped up meat like chops. They are a bit more spicy, and there is some sort of breading-like material on the outside that can only be described as hair! I got David’s picture when he saw what he had ordered. He was just a tad surprised!!

Ron wanted to spend a little more time working on the books, so we took him back to the office after lunch and Grace stayed with him. Jimmy was waiting for us at the church. His story is a sad one. When he was preparing to taking his exam at the end of the 11th grade (the S4 Exam) Jimmy admitted to his school that he had never taken the P7 exam that is required when one leaves elementary school. Instead, his father had bought him a set of results in a completely different name. Jimmy admitted he had never taken the test, and was immediately dismissed from his S4 class.

Gary and Terry, his sponsors, agreed to give Jimmy a chance to take his P7 test. The school agreed if he did well on P7 he could take S4 the following year. So he would only lose one year this way. But Jimmy was stubborn and Pastor John Mubiru kept telling Jimmy he could be a preacher without education. So Jimmy didn’t show up to return to school the following year.

The next term, he came back and asked to enter technical school for computers. His sponsors were ready to help, but again, Jimmy listened to John and didn’t show up. Last Christmas, he came back again and asked for the same course. Vincent tried to tell us that he couldn’t enter this course without a valid S4 certificate, but Jimmy wouldn’t listen. Then, when registration time came, he didn’t show up again.

So here was Jimmy at the church and I had to tell him that he had used his last chance. I told him I would put him back on the waiting list if he came in with an education plan showing what he needed to take, when, and how much it would cost, but that he had blown it for now. It was a very hard thing to see this strong young man in his early 20’s crying because he had walked away from an opportunity he really wanted.

Lisa, Ray, and I returned to the road. We had to meet Michael and the two kids I introduced earlier. We met them on the streets of Kampala and we all climbed in the van to keep from arousing too much interest. While we were there, we got a call from a man who is the guardian for one of our children. The boy is an orphan and he was sick. He had come to meet us directly from the hospital. He was still running a fever and obviously felt terrible. The man wanted us to increase our payments for the boy. Vincent will need to look into this.

Back at the church, Ron was wishing he had more time with Grace, but we were worried about the drive to the airport. David was scheduled to preach at 5:00, but when 5:00 came, there wasn’t a single person at the church. There was a huge crusade underway that night with Dr. Creffalo Dollar from Dallas speaking! David was disappointed, but Joseph said everyone had gone there.

So we left the church a little after 5:00. Ron was flying on a space available ticket so we wanted to make sure he had a lot of time to get his ticket set. We met a group of people from the church standing on a street downtown. They were on their way to the church to hear David. In fact, it turned out that more than 20 showed up, though they were all quite late. It was a bigger crowd than the evening before. Dr. Dollar, eat your heart out!

Lydia, Joseph’s wife, was with the group. She opened the van door and handed Baby Lisa to Lisa. She told us we could keep her for the night and slammed the van door. Baby Lisa was still not sure about us white people. She kept looking at us and would have nothing to do with us, but by the time we reached the airport, we were all great friends.

There was a lot of traffic downtown, but it soon thinned out. We had Ron at the airport by 6:15 for a 10:15 flight. I wanted Ron to come with us to dinner, but he insisted that he needed the time at the airport. His last Ugandan meal was a really bad fried chicken and chips meal at The Chef.

We left Ron with telephone numbers, said our goodbyes, and returned to the van. I know Ron wanted to do more with our bookkeeping system, and perhaps next time, it will work out that way. But Ron’s role was different this time. He was a special encourager to every child we met. So even though he didn’t get to refurbish the record keeping system, he gave personal encouragement to 240 kids, many of whom receive no encouragement elsewhere. That’s not a bad way to spend two weeks!

We faced the same strange traffic issues as we were leaving as we had faced earlier: we had to merge into oncoming traffic! Vincent, of course, handled it masterfully. We only had to go a block or so before the turn to the Windsor Lake Victoria Hotel. We were pretty late once again so there was no trouble finding a parking spot. Baby Lisa was in rare form by then, comfortable with everyone and entertaining all. Lisa and I had shared our pizza. Ray had one, too. David had fish, and everyone else had chicken!

We didn’t hear from Ron, so we figured he got on his first flight. We climbed into the van and hurried back to the city. It was another 13 hour day!

TUESDAY JUNE 12, 2007: A TYPICAL DAY WITH THE PROJECT

This was our first morning without Bill and we all missed his quiet good humor. Even David admitted that he missed his evening discussions with Bill. The team here appreciated Bill’s work with their Excel files, and they hope he comes back to Uganda soon. We all do, Bill!

The van arrived at 9:00. We climbed in and started our day at once. Once again, the children were very much spaced out and there was only one child per school.

We started the day at King’s College, which is really a secondary school. It was called King’s College because it was on a huge, huge, compound which was owned by the king. There was a 1950’s vintage palace and an impressive gate that we had to enter to get to the school. Grace said she had driven past this place many times, but she had never been inside!

One of our trips involved a long commute out of town on the road to Kasanda. We found a large, old school that was almost in need of repairs. We had driven all the way out here to see Steven, Stan’s sponsored child. We all walked up to the main administration building for one of the major surprises of the trip: the headmaster was a white British man. Steven wasn’t around because, according to the head master, he had simply wandered off that morning. So we had no child to speak with. We used the time to talk with the very friendly young head master. He told us he had come to Uganda to teach and was teaching in a public school when he was suddenly fired for reasons he didn’t completely understand. He packed up to go and had all his reservations in place, but when the day came, he simply didn’t go. He decided God needed him in Uganda for a while longer, and the very next day, he received a call offering him this head master’s job. He said he loved it!

We hadn’t made a lot of progress by lunch time at 2:00, but we’d certainly seen a lot of Kampala’s traffic mess! We decided to eat lunch at Shanghai Restaurant, one of my favorites here. We had a very nice meal for our group as well as Vincent and Grace for $8 each! We sat pm a screened patio and chatted in the cool afternoon breeze after we finished eating.

We continued slowly seeing kids in the afternoon. David was conducting a Bible study at 5:00 so we took him to the church a few minutes before 5:00. We met Michael, Larry’s sponsored child at the church. We first met this boy at his mother’s shop during our first trip to Uganda. He was a small kid who helped his mother by drawing patterns that she could then embroidery. Now, the boy is as tall as I am! He still helps his mother and he’s a good student. We had missed him at school because he was sick, and he was still feeling badly, so we gave him and his mother a lift home.

Steven, the boy who had been missing from the school on Kasanda Road, also came in. He wasn’t very excited to see us, and after he had seen us, I would expect he was a little less excited!

We saw three more kids during David’s study. We arrived at our last school as the kids started home. Vincent found our girl and we talked with her. She was very shy and didn’t say much, but her classmates started streaming by as we were finishing with her and they couldn’t keep quite! They talked and played and carried on for more than 20 minutes. There were no teachers to interfere, so the ones that were interested in us had the chance to interact!

We picked David up when he was finished. We drove back to the hotel and arrived around 8:00. It was only an 11 hour day! We celebrated with snacks in our rooms and our first real time on the Internet since we arrived.

Monday June 11: A Very Hectic Day

It was Bill’s last day in Uganda. We started at 9:00 like most days, but this one had a quick wrinkle. Joseph handed me his phone a few minutes after we started the van. It was British Air and they would only speak with Ray. They said they had our bag and Ray told them we would pick it up at the airport that night when we took Bill out.

We spent the morning pushing on with the kids. The start of the second week is when a bit of frustration tends to set in. We found 217 kids in the first week, but this was because we went to the big schools which have a lot of our kids. In the second week, we end up going to schools that are far apart to see only one or two kids, so the count, which was building at an astronomical rate in the first week, slows to a crawl in the second week.

This was our day to see the kids on the east side of town – the sprawling, very poor area along Jinja Road. This is the area where Michael lives and he knows it very well so we spent the day with Michael as our guide. Grace stayed at church along with Joseph. Bill spent the day with them working with Excel on their new computer.

This area is a maze of tiny dirt roads and Vincent doesn’t know it as well as other parts of town. As I said, much of the area is very poor and there is a large Muslim population. It is also incredibly beautiful. Much of the area is high up on a hill at the edge of Kampala where rural meets urban. The views of the undeveloped valley and swamp and the rolling hills in the distance are breathtaking!

One of our first stops was at a small school housed in buildings that would be questionable for farm animals. The child we visited, however, was very happy in her school and after she had her mosquito net, she was anxious to rejoin her classmates. Suddenly, the whole student body came past us with kids laughing and smiling and waving. They moved onto a huge open field and formed a tremendous circle. It was gym class and the kids began a complex chasing game. We watched for fifteen minutes, and it was still going strong when we left. The kids were yelling and laughing and having a blast.

Just before lunchtime, we drove up to the gates of a gigantic Muslim school. In land area, this was the biggest school we saw on the entire trip. There were at least eight separate buildings which included primary and secondary schools and dorms. At Christmas, Jim, Jon, and I met two Muslim twin boys who had recently lost their mother. Their father had been dead for a while, so they were completely alone. Michael heard about these boys through a teacher who lived in the community. She had taken the boys into her home, but she was a widow and couldn’t afford their school fees. When we found the boys at Christmas, they didn’t think they would be able to go back to school in January and they had a hard time believing that a group of Christians in America no less would help them return for the winter term.

The parents of these boys had struggled with schooling all their lives and one of the boys is in Senior 3 while the other is in Senior 1. We met the S3 brother near the gate. He was a completely changed young man! He was so happy to see us that he ran to meet the van. He pumped our hands and repeated the African handshake over and over again. His first question was, “Where’s Jim?” I told him Jim would visit again before too long.

The boy makes excellent grades and his English is perfect. He wanted to tell us everything about his school. We finally got him settled enough to walk the several hundred yards to the back of the property where his S1 brother was in class. We waited for him while he found the brother. This boy also glowed, though he was a bit more shy than his brother. After a few minutes, he grabbed my hand and asked if I would go and meet his teachers. He led me up a hill to a room with a sign telling everyone but teachers to stay out. He looked in twice, then grabbed my hand and led me in. He stood beside me and said not a word as a room full of Muslim teachers, several in flowing Arab robes, glared at me without a word. I stood there waiting for them to say something. When it was obvious that they weren’t going to, I said,” Hello, I’m here to visit this young man and his twin brother. I am from America, and we run a program that sponsors school fees for children who cannot otherwise afford to go to school. This young man and his brother are orphans and we learned of their problems during a visit in December. We are honored to have the opportunity to support them in this place.”

There was absolute dead silence as every person in the room looked at me. No one smiled. Finally, a man sitting near the front said, “You are welcome.” That was all. No one else said anything, so I thanked the man and backed out of the room.

When we were outside, I looked at the boy. He was glowing, apparently very proud to show off this representative of his sponsor. I thanked him for letting me meet his teachers and he smiled. I would later learn that Al Queda had set off a suicide bomb in Nairobi that day in a Western hotel. It made the hole experience even more unreal.

We saw 13 kids before 3:00 with two the largest number at any given school. Before we left, we pulled into Michael’s neighborhood. He wanted us to meet his father. I met his mother and sisters in December, but none of us had met his father, a retired secretary at a school we’d visited. We visited for a minute and made pictures, then went on to Michael’s house a little further down the hill. Michael has the last house on the dirt track, so his back porch looks off into the incredible valley.

At Christmas, I had taught a lot about money and savings. Michael had written to me a couple of weeks before the trip saying that he had listened. He owns his home, so he owes no rent. He decided that he would pay himself rent and save the money. He then took the money and bought bricks, then had a two room building built. Although the roof isn’t in place yet, Michael will soon be the proud owner of a building that he can either rent out or use as the starting place for the school his wife, Mabel, hopes to open once she finishes her Educational Administration Certificate. He was very pleased with the result of his first attempt to save!

Michael had another thing to show us. With a loan from the Project, Michael and his family finally had electricity for the very first time. “It will let my children work on their books at night,” Michael told me in his email announcing he had joined the electric age. His connection was ten days old when we visited.

We left Michael’s house and drove to the church. We hadn’t had time for lunch, but it was so late that we would never be able to eat lunch and dinner both. So we picked up Bill and drove to the hotel. David brought out power bars, and we all ate one to hold us over until dinner. Bill went up and gathered up his clothes.

We left the hotel at 4:30. David was scheduled to speak at church at 5:00. Bill’s flight left at 10:30 so we wanted to have him at the airport by 8:30. We figured if we could get David by 6:00, there would be plenty of time to eat along the way.

While David conducted a Bible study, I took Bill back to the van. Bill had been in Uganda for a week, but had not had the chance to visit a Ugandan at home. I had asked Vincent if we could go visit a sponsored child’s home in the area while David talked. Grace had just the place.

We drove the short distance to Najeera, another of these areas at the very end of Kampala. We wound around narrow dirt trails for about 15 minutes, then pulled up at a house I knew well. The woman who lived here is one of my favorite people in Uganda. She spent her early life as a witchdoctor before finding Christ through our old clinic. She is absolutely, totally full of energy and although she speaks no English at all, she is a delight to be near.

She was peeling vegetables when we pulled up but she leaped up as soon as she knew I was there. She screamed and hugged me over and over, then she grabbed Bill. Her house was built up a bit to avoid the flooding that plagues Najeera. There was a four inch step then a 17 inch step in order to get onto her back porch. She leaped up first then helped all the rest of us climb up. We entered a tiny room with four upholstered chairs and nothing else. A piece of paper thin linoleum lay at one end of the room, but it didn’t cover half the floor. We sat down and the lady asked us all kinds of questions through Vincent and Grace as interpreters.

Suddenly, she jumped up and went out the door. She leaped off the porch and ran down the street. She came back a moment later carrying a bunch of bananas. She put them on her plane coffee table and motioned for us to eat them. They were the sweetest bananas I’ve ever tasted.

We made her picture along with her daughter and grandchildren. When we started to leave, she reached up top of a crate standing in the corner and took down a green and beige sleeping mat. She handed it to Bill.

Bill took it as though it were scalding hot. “What do I do?” he whispered.

“I guess you take it,” I said. “It would hurt her feelings if you didn’t.”

“How could I take a gift from her? She has nothing.”

“I know,” I said, remembering how I felt two trips ago when she brought me a beautiful cover for mine and Lisa’s bed a few trips ago, “but she wants you to know how important this Project is to her. Her grandkids will probably have to sleep on the same mat tonight, but she wants you to know how important this is to her.”

Bill didn’t say a word as we drove back to the church.

David was finishing preaching as we pulled up. We quickly loaded the van and started across town to Garden City for a last Indian dinner. As we approached the mall, Vincent told us he was worried that we would be late if we stopped to eat now even though it was barely 6:00. We decided we could eat at a hotel near the airport.

The worse ride of my life began as we turned onto Entebbe Road. An ambulance came screaming down the middle of the road. Traffic on both sides parted a bit to give it room. And a dozen other vehicles squeezed in behind it into the small hole in traffic it created. Within a few minutes, it was obvious that the ambulance was en route to a major accident that had all traffic on Entebbe Road blocked in both directions.

Vincent started calculating and figured out that he could swing over to a parallel road. He doubled back on Entebbe Road and chose a fairly open cross street. But the parallel road was equally blocked. He tried again and found a heavily congested road, but one that was at least moving a little bit.

We finally merged back into Entebbe Road. Either the accident had been cleared or we were beyond it. It appeared to be the latter because there wasn’t much traffic. That changed within seconds however. A motorcade came up the middle of the road. It consisted of at least a dozen slow-moving cars. Vincent said it was the vice president. Traffic froze once again until the motorcade was well past.

After than, we remained very congested all the way to the edge of Entebbe when our side of the road was suddenly blocked by a sign pointing to the other side of the road. It said DIVERSION. A lower sign read HALF ROAD CLOSED. The signs meant exactly what they said. One half of a two lane road was closed for paving and we were expected to merge into the speeding, oncoming traffic. Vincent sat for a minute, then tried to ease in, a very disconcerting thing when you are merging with traffic streaming straight toward you. He inched in, but almost immediately, was forced onto the median by a large bus. He tried again and was forced off by a transfer truck.

He spotted a place to turn and we inched our way toward it. When he reached it, he swung across the oncoming rush and turned up a steep hill into downtown Entebbe. We drove slowly through the city along with a few other cars. But as we headed alone to the airport, it appeared Vincent had found a short cut no one else had thought of.

Bill wasn’t late for check in, but he certainly wasn’t early. Our drive had taken much more than two hours. Bill said his goodbyes. He found that he couldn’t fit in the sleeping mat without folding it, so he asked us to bring it for him. He was stopped after security and his bag searched. He waited for a long time for an agent, then again while the agent worked on his boarding pass, but he finally cleared through to Immigration. We lost site of him at that point.

Meanwhile, Ray, Lisa, and Joseph went downstairs to talk to the BA luggage folks. Lisa came back in a few minutes. They wouldn’t let any of them enter the ARRIVALS area without first going to the main security office in the DEPARTURE area. And they said since it was Ray’s bag, only he could go in. So Ray went to the security office alone while we watched Bill. We finally sent half of us downstairs in case Ray came out of ARRIVALS while the rest of us waited until Bill disappeared, then joined the others at ARRIVALS.

It took quite a long time, but Ray finally appeared at the ARRIVALS door carrying our bag! He said he’d had a bit of trouble. First, he’d thrown away his claim form, which they insisted they needed to see. He convinced them that the baggage claim form was enough. And it turned out that the bag had my name and not Ray’s on it. It was checked by Ray, but it had my name on it, and the Ugandan luggage people couldn’t understand that at all. But he kept arguing with them, and they finally let him have the bag!

We stopped for fuel for the van at a station in the airport grounds. Ron started gathering up peanut butter and bread for a late-night sandwich. I told him we were still going to a restaurant so he wouldn’t need any of that. We got back in the van and took off. There was now a lot of traffic coming toward the airport, so the head-on merging was very difficult. Finally, Vincent cut off onto a paved road. It was absolutely pitch dark and the road soon turned to mud. There were people walking all around, and there were at least three other vehicles with us. After about ten minutes, Vincent turned into a very muddy side road and stopped. He was lost, and there were five vehicles following him! They dutifully lined up behind Vincent making turning around impossible. After a few minutes, they realized he wasn’t going anywhere and they all turned around, leaving us out on this terribly dark road with a group of pedestrians. Vincent turned around and retraced his steps to the main road. We eased our way against the traffic, cutting very often to avoid an oncoming vehicle.

After we got away from Entebbe, the road opened up and we had no traffic all the way back to the city. We hurried to our hotel and said our goodnights. We met in Indian Summer a few minutes later for a late dinner. David, Lisa, and I split a bread basket while Ron ate a full meal.

We got to our rooms again a few minutes before 11:00. It was much too late for the Internet!

SUNDAY JUNE 10: CHURCH AND FISH!

We got to sleep in on Sunday; the van didn’t arrive until 10:00. There was very little traffic as we drove to the church and we were entering by 10:30. It was cloudy, which was unusual for this time of year because the rainy season should have ended in late May.

We went in and were greeted warmly by the congregation. We learned that the chair people were unable to meet our order, but that they had loaned us 100 chairs for the service. Everyone had a seat for the first time in more than a year!

As we started in, Joseph told me that he and I needed to take a ride in the van while David preached. He said that a new church was forming near Najeera and they wanted to join us in the EPC. He said he would tell me when.

The music was wonderful! Joseph had set up the service around traditional music, but there were no drums. I asked and was told the drums were in the office. Since the church now has a keyboard, they rarely use drums, so I figured they weren’t using them at all anymore.

Joseph asked me to talk about the chairs and to introduce the visitors. The congregation was so excited to learn that they would have another 100 chairs of their own the following week!

Joseph introduced David, then walked off the stage, motioning to me as he went. I followed him to the van where Vincent was waiting. The sky was a menacing gray as we drove through Kiwatule. We turned onto a side road, then again onto a narrow, rutted dirt road. We followed it down a steep hill to a swamp, then up out of the swamp to a house with a trail beside it that wasn’t big enough for a mountain bike. Vincent turned into the track just as it began to rain. We had to pass so near a house that I can’t believe the door handles remained attached to the van!

Vincent drove about 100 yards down the track and stopped. We jumped out and Vincent handed me an umbrella. The rain had turned from steady to downpour. We hurried across a small field to the church, two pieces of corrugated metal suspended above six wooden polls. The structure was attached to the back of a storage building. Twenty worshipers plus at least as many kids were waiting for us, and they clapped when we got under the roof. I met Pastor Elliot, a friend of Joseph’s. They had been studying the Bible together for some time, and Elliot decided that he wanted his new church to have some accountability in it so he chose to approach the EPC.

Six members of the congregation came forward to sing. Their voices were incredibly pure and the drummer was very talented. And the drums looked very familiar. Joseph saw me looking. “Yes, they are the drums you bought us. We have loaned them to them because they have none.” I never understand this about Uganda. It would have been easy to tell me this earlier rather than saying they were in the office!

Suddenly, the sky opened up and it rained as hard as I have ever seen it rain. The sky was visible through the joint where the two corrugated sheets came together and there were also several holes in the roof. I was suddenly drenched! We moved to the opposite side of the structure while the congregation moved their chairs up onto what was meant to be a stage. It’s a good thing this stage was higher than their seats because water was nearly ankle deep there. I tried to talk to them through Joseph’s translation as the rain grew harder still. The pounding on the roof was deafening and I almost had to scream to be heard. The blowing rain made being there miserable.

After my comments, Joseph made a few more, then Elliot a few more after that. Finally, Joseph said it was time to go. The field we had crossed earlier was thoroughly soaked. Several areas were badly flooded, but with careful navigation, my umbrella and I managed to stay in areas that were simply muddy and as slick as glass, not the place my feet need to be right now. But I made it to the van, and so did Vincent and Joseph.

I wasn’t sure how we would get out, but Vincent put the van in 4 wheel drive, and we pulled into the mud road without any problems. Once on normal mud, he drove as fast as he usually did and we arrived at the church just as David finished. We visited with church members I hadn’t seen since Christmas and Lisa hadn’t seen in three years! Kiwatule felt like home.

We’ve often laughed that the van is like the old Volkswagen at the circus that pulls up and lets up person after person after person. On Sunday, we saw an amazing feat. There were the six team members in the van with Vincent driving. Joining us were Michael and his wife Mabel, Joseph and his wife Lydia, and Dan and his very pregnant wife Robinah (which we quickly learned is never mentioned in Uganda!). That’s 13 in a van approved for 14 passengers. But Vincent wanted to take his kids home. He has twelve, and he squeezed every one of them into the back seat! That’s 25 in a van that holds 14!

We took Vincent’s kids home and waited for his wife, Aggatha. She finally came up the steep hill from Vincent’s house and we set off to eat fish. The flash flood had settled to steady rain now, and there were very few cars on the road. Vincent wound through town, then turned off at a road I didn’t recognize, then again into the road leading into one of the nicest resorts I’ve ever seen anywhere. It is also quite expensive. But there was bumper-to-bumper traffic between us and the gate and a huge sign welcoming people to a conference. We decided to move on.

We went to a much different resort, one where we’ve eaten many times. The ride in is disconcerting. It is a neighborhood of terrible poverty. The road is dirt and rutted and it is lined with tiny wooden shacks with people selling just about anything you can think of. There are always cows and goats in the street and the people never wave at all. There is a gate at the end of this street, and it swings open to reveal the resort.

Apparently the owner has started a large number of projects, from a six floor hotel which has a wall missing to a series of buildings right on Lake Victoria, each in some early phase of construction. The result of all of this is that the grounds of the resort look like a post-apocalypse movie set. Vincent parked by the kitchen, the only in tact building on the grounds, and we climbed out. There was an overwhelming smell of very old frying oil. We tried to ignore it as we walked past the open door. A waitress who never once smiled led us down to one of the unfinished buildings near the water. Joseph ordered a large fish and chips for all of us. David, however, was feeling sick and didn’t want one. Joseph made the order, however, so it was too late to cancel it.

Although it was still a bit cloudy, the rain had moved on, We sat under a metal roof in this unfinished building and watched the lake traffic. Everyone on the commercial ferries had on life preservers, something we had never seen before. We learned that this was the result of a sinking a few months ago where more than 30 people died. The government mandated life preservers after that.

Our fish finally arrived, three unbelievable trays of huge fish. They sat them in front of David and he quickly turned green! We asked for plates, but the waitress didn’t even acknowledge the question, so we began eating with our fish atop our chip bowl. The plates came as we were almost finished. As always, the fish was delicious, although mine was a bit too done this time. And as always, our team collected up every morsel that wasn’t eaten. They took the picked over fish home for their kids to eat.

As we walked out to the car, Bill stopped me. “I must say when I smelled that grease, I set my expectations very low. That fish really beat what I expected. I actually liked it!”

Traffic had really picked up as we started back into town. We crawled through the still damp streets until we reached our hotel. We said our goodbyes, and went up to our rooms. There was no thought of dinner. We were stuffed.

Our bag had not been delivered. The people at the front desk assured us that the manager was on top of the situation and we would have our bag on Monday.

Saturday June 9: Saturday School

We started at 9:00 as always and the van was right on time. It is about 7 miles from our hotel to the church, but it is a hard 7 miles. The traffic cutting across the edge of downtown can be murderous, but we were early enough to avoid the worst of the traffic and were at the church by 9:30. There were already more than 100 kids there and the number was growing rapidly. By the time their program began at 10:00, the number had doubled. There were two kids to a chair except for the younger kids who sat three per chair. Even with that, there were many kids standing or sitting on the dirt floor.

The program lasted about 2 hours. It consisted of songs by various groups, Bible verse recitation by the same two boys who always do this (but the other one won this time), speeches by everybody, and a play. I can say without hesitation that the music was incredible, outstanding harmonies, unusual African dances, and a mix of Lugandan and English lyrics. The groups ranged in age from kindergarten to high school and it wasn’t a case where older was necessarily better. And there was one tiny girl in a huge hat that felt she should dance with whatever group got up there!

After everyone who had ever thought about being involved with the program had spoken, I had to deliver the “heavy” message: that sponsors expect children to do well in school. That if a sponsored child wasn’t planning to study he or she should get out of the way of children who did want to study. That if a child continues to do poorly, I will remove them from the program. It got pretty quite when I said that! Afterwards, an 8th grade girl came quietly up to me and said, “Elder Jim, I will try to do better in Math. Please tell my sponsor that I will try harder.”

The last part of the program was the drama. John Bosco led the group. He apparently had written and starred in this creation about two guys that go around as friends. One claims to drop dead and the other asks people for money to bury him. Then they change parts of town and do it again. Somehow, a preacher gets involved and convicts them of their sins. They are saved and stop dying.

Then it was time for the mosquito nets.

For the last five years, I have been trying to figure out a way to buy mosquito nets for our kids. The best we were able to do was to by wool blankets one year and tell the kids to roll up in them at night. The nets were always much too expensive, but Joseph kept working to find a source. He let me know a few days before we left America that he had found them for only $6 each! We raised very little of the money needed to offset the cost of the nets, but we went ahead and bought them anyway.

About half way through the program, Tenywa came on stage to translate. Kathy was on stage working on the sound system, so I took the opportunity to step up and tell both in front of everyone that we had found sponsors for their university fees next year. Kathy’s sponsor continued her fees as before. Tenywa’s fees will be paid by a professor in Chattanooga. Tenywa was so excited he couldn’t translate and Kathy simply put her hands over her face and stood there. She didn’t speak or cry or scream. She just stood there!

For nearly an hour, Grace read the names of kids. The ones who were there (the vast majority of them) came forward and I gave them a net as well as pencils, crayons, and pens donated by BPC and tooth brushes and tooth paste from a generous dentist from Chattanooga. You would have thought the kids had received a million bucks!

When we finished, we had everyone hold up their nets. It was amazing to see 200+ kids with mosquito nets waving them in the air!

The program ended and Lisa and I made pictures of kids we’d missed at school last week. There were about 40 of them! Then it was time to deliver news to some of the kids. Francis, one of our kids, had never done very well in school. Reading was a major challenge for him. He asked us a few months ago about moving into a course at the technical school. We had approved this, but he hadn’t gotten the word, so we told him!

The other one was difficult. Daniel has also struggled with school in recent years. He decided to join his friend, Francis, at technical school. But Daniel’s sponsor didn’t agree. The cost of the course was very high, but also, she felt that Daniel could succeed in the classroom if he tried harder (his report cards carried notes saying he wasn’t trying). So she had turned Daniel back over to the waiting list unless he went back to his class. Daniel was devastated, and so was his mother. They said they would talk about it and then talk to me before I left.

The kids were great. They seemed so excited to see us, even before they knew there were gifts coming. They had worked so hard on their performances and for the most part, they did very well.

During the program, the fact that there were far too few chairs was very clear. A church in North Carolina had sent me with $500 and told me to use it to meet a need I found in Uganda. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the chairs were that need! The problem was the cost of the chairs was more than $800. So I asked our team, and Ron and Bill each contributed. Then David made up the rest of the money from a similar “as needed” fund from his church.

Joseph was ecstatic when he heard this! He said he knew exactly where to go and he would try to get them delivered Saturday night!!

David attracted a crowd by showing slides of his family on his computer to a large group of kids and adults. One of the adults looked at a family portrait and said, “Pastor David, your oldest daughter is almost as tall as you are!” The man was pointing at David’s wife, Chris!

Everyone boarded the van and we drove to Garden City. First, we exchanged money for the chair purchase. Then, everyone went to the Food Court for lunch. The Ugandans went for fried chicken or pizza. We went for everything else. Lisa ate a chicken and mint dish from a Persian restaurant (disgustingly sweet) and David and I ate kabobs from the same place (outstanding). Ron got chicken. I’m not sure about Ray.

After lunch, the van took David, Joseph, Michael and me back to the church for a meeting with the youth. Everyone else went shopping.

I had the easy part of the youth meeting. I was to speak to them about managing money. We’d done this with the adults during my Christmas visit, but everyone felt it would be good if we could get kids thinking about savings and managing their money. The SIFE team at Chattanooga State worked on a lecture outline for the kids, and I presented it.

David had to do a talk about sex. He did a masterful job building on messages we had been told the kids had heard before.

Then it was time for question and answer. I got most of them at first, then the attention turned to David. He had fielded the standard sex questions and was doing just fine until a boy stood up and went into a long, detailed, story about a young woman who had become lesbian to avoid AIDS, then decided that too was dangerous and was making very creative use of fruits. David nearly croaked when he heard it, but he kept his act more or less together and provided a reasonable answer. The boy wasn’t satisfied, so he retold the whole thing again. David repeated his answer, and asked for the next question!

The van came back just as we were finishing with tales of shopping success and a visit to Namerembe Cathedral while it was still decorated for a wedding. We all got in the van and returned to the hotel. Our hotel owner had promised us he would get involved with our lost bag. He said he would find the driver who had taken our bag away and see to it that it was returned on Saturday. When we got back, there was no bag and the wrong one that the driver had left was still at the front desk.

We went outside to Indian Summer for a small dinner. We ordered a couple of entrees and an appetizer to share, then snacked along for a while and chatted about the day. Everyone was amazed by the kids!

Our EASY day lasted only 10 hours!

A FEW WORDS ABOUT OUR HOTEL
Ugandan hotel standards at the high end of things are no different from anywhere else in the world. Uganda’s best would be very good anywhere.

But the mid-range hotel is a different animal in Uganda. Mid-range places should be clean and the staff pleasant. But construction standards and range of services might be a bit different than one might expect. Of course prices will be considerably less in Uganda than elsewhere, but in many instances, you get what you pay for!

Our hotel is fine. It is a five story, modern building. The first four floors are occupied. The top has a simple metal roof and is unfinished because eventually, the building will go higher. No two stairs in the hotel is the same. Some are much deeper than others. Some are as high as two stairs others smaller than ½ a stair. One stairway is curved so that the stairs at the wall are very, very wide and very narrow at the other end. EVERYONE falls on these stares!

Of our three rooms, two have bath tubs, and one has a small square structure where one must squat to shower. One of the rooms tends to have both hot and cold water in the bath. We’ve yet to see the first drop of hot water in our bath, but we have plenty of cold water. The room with the defective tub often has neither hot nor cold water.

There are no screens at all, so I am presently writing to you from my room. We have only flashlights because the overhead lights draw in mosquitoes in droves. There is no way to keep them out: there is a two inch gap around our balcony door and a grating above the door that isn’t screened at all. It also makes our room rather noisy. The bathroom is no better. There is a vent at the ceiling and it is not screened. So we have to use a flashlight at night in there, too.

We have a fan that works well. David’s broke last night. Lisa and I have a standard double bed. The guys have a double and a cot-like thing. They are like futons, but they are quite comfortable especially after a 14 hour day!

The staff is unbelievably friendly and they try their very best to be helpful. The restaurant is outstanding. The Internet café has nine computers. There is no pay phone, so they get $1.50 a minute for international calls.

So this is a place I would use again. It is very good by Ugandan standards. It requires patience and an understanding that when you get off the plane at Entebbe, you aren’t in Kansas anymore!

FRIDAY JUNE 8: MPIGI

FRIDAY, JUNE 8: MPIGI

There was a lot of rain on Thursday, which meant mud, which meant washing the van before the day started which meant our team was a half-hour late. But we were under way by 9:40.

Joseph and Michael accompanied us on the trip. Vincent drove. Grace worked on school fee payments at the office. Our first stop was the downtown version of Hot Stop. I didn’t realize our friend on Jinja Road had been so successful that he had opened a second shop! The selection was similar to the other store, and our selections were the same: a lot of meat pies and samosas, a couple of cheese pies, and Ray’s unusual hot dog. David decided to live on Power Bars.

The drive to Mpigi isn’t particularly long, but it requires a drive through the incredible traffic of central Kampala. This is something that has to be seen to be believed. There is no rhyme or reason to the number of lanes going in a given direction at any particular point in time. Every 3 foot gap between vehicles is instantly filled with a pedestrian, boda-boda driver, or bicyclist. Sometimes, tiny gaps are filled with men pushing huge carts filled with industrial materials. Other times, they are filled with bicycles stacked fifteen feet high with material. And many of the pedestrians are carrying loads on their heads. The most amazing of these was a man last week that had a stack of boxes on his head that stood taller than he did!

So cars in all directions. Motorcycles, bikes, and people everywhere. And almost no horns. Almost every vehicle has a diesel engine. No emissions are properly controlled. So in addition to the visual craziness around you, there are the stifling smells of the market and the overwhelming smell of diesel. Everyone cooks with charcoal or wood fires, so that adds to the mix. And there is always more dust than you would expect in a dust storm.

In a word, crossing downtown during the business rush (which lasts all day) is a bit like trying to drive through a smelly three ring circus!

Mpigi is south and west of Kampala, exactly opposite of Jinja. The terrain is much more hilly and incredibly beautiful. The hills are a green that must be seen to be believed: pictures simply don’t do justice. There are flashes of orange and yellow among the trees from various flowering varieties. As you leave the city, roadside stands for fruits and vegetables begin popping up everywhere. Every single tomato is stacked in a unique pyramid shape with an extra two tomatoes on top. And potatoes are also carefully stacked.

We followed the highway along ridgelines which yielded sweeping views. We eventually found a school. We had 19 kids to visit before we reached the church at Mpigi.

The kids out here were incredibly thankful because their parents were far too poor to help them at all. At a boarding school, we met Pastor Jimmy’s children (he is the pastor of the Mpigi church). Both have been recently moved to boarding schools and both are prospering well in their new homes.

Again, the children were simply amazed by us. They wanted to look rather than talk. Some wanted to touch. A few wanted to try to rub the white off our arms. All wanted to laugh. All wanted their pictures taken. When we showed them our digital results, their laughter was the purest you can possibly imagine.

The end of the drive to Mpigi is a harrowing thing. The paved road gives out about 15 miles before the turnoff to the church. This dirt road is not well maintained and there are potholes which caused our team to actually crack their heads on the van top.

Suddenly, Vincent turns into a path that doesn’t look wide enough for two bicycles, and it quickly is evident that it isn’t! But that never stops Vincent. He follows the track through a swamp and through jungle that touches both sides of the van. The tiny road winds past mud homes where mothers and their children come out to wave. It passes small coffee plantations and banana fields. And it suddenly turns up at an angle that is difficult for the van even when it is dry.

But the end of the half hour off road adventure is Mpigi Presbyterian Church. The building sits about half way up a steep hill. Getting from the van to the church is tricky, and we almost always have at least one fall. But not this year! I even made it without a wipe-out!

The church was waiting for us, but there were only about 10 adults there. This is one of the great problems of churches in Africa. In these rural areas, there is very little turnout for church services during the week unless you are willing to pay for attendance. That is a disgusting idea to most of us, but there actually is some logic in it. Many of these people live hand to mouth each day. If they don’t work on a given day, they don’t eat. So if you take them from whatever it is they do (farming, selling, gathering) they won’t be able to eat that day. You either have to pay them or feed them or both or they won’t come. I have a hard time paying, so I guess I’ll have to live with the results we are getting!

The numbers were small, but the ones who were there certainly made us feel welcome. They had several songs, then David preached. We visited a little longer after the service, then climbed back in the van.

We planned a detour to the equator on the way back to the hotel. Mpigi is very near the equator. The road, however, goes through national forests and it takes a bit to get there. The road is lined with drum manufacturers and sellers, as well as more fruit stands. It goes over hills which reveal sweeping views of the swamps in this area, and it drops down into the swamps for close up views.

Finally, we reached the equator. It’s easy to see, there are two huge circular white concrete ovals, one on each side of the road. The ovals are set to look as though a line passes through them – the equator. It’s the only silly tourist thing I’ve seen in Uganda, and it is worth the detour. There are craft shops here and a place to buy sodas. You can make a picture inside the ovals with one foot in each hemisphere. Since there is one on each side of the street, there usually isn’t a wait.

The amazing thing is there is always a man there with three funnels. For about $5, he will show your entire group an amazing thing. He will walk a few yards north of the equator and show you the direction water flows as it enters the funnel. Then he’ll walk a few yards below and show that the water flows the opposite way in the southern hemisphere. Then he will stop on the equator and show that the water doesn’t turn at all right on the line. He showed us that he could move only about a foot and we could see the water start to turn in one direction or the other depending on which side of the equator he moved.

On the way back, we stopped and at a drum maker and Ray bought a couple of drums. David used the chance to pass out some crosses. It is amazing to sit and watch these folks make drums. They are hard at work shaving out the drum frame, stretching and cutting skins, and attaching everything in a way that produces incredible sound.

Vincent made great time going back, but it was still well after dark before we entered Kampala. We decided to go eat at our favorite place in Uganda – an Indian Restaurant on top of the Garden City Shopping Center. The center is four floors of shopping, and it is being expanded to more than double its current size. On the top is this restaurant where you sit under the stars and enjoy not only the view, but also some of the best Indian food I’ve ever tasted!

I ordered once again, and we had everything from goat to chicken vindaloo and even a shrimp dish. The food was fabulous and the company even better. And the cost was under $8 per person!

On the way out, we stopped at an ice cream shop and everyone had ice cream. I had a scoop of tuti fruti (which tasted like vanilla ice cream with fruit cake preserved fruit in it) and crunch (which tasted like ice with an unidentifiable crunchy something in it that one hoped wasn’t bacon).

Even though we had everyone’s promise that our bag would be back on Friday, there was no word from British Air. Our hotel manager got all involved saying he would take care of this for us because he knew the driver. Whatever the case, he didn’t get it done and we still had a missing.

That night, the mosquitoes were so bad in our room that we had to stop using the overhead lights. Instead, we set up flashlights in the bedroom and in the bathroom, and it seemed to work. There were no buzzers at all that night.

THURSDAY JUNE 7: JINJA

THURSDAY JUNE 7: JINJA

The trip to Jinja is always a long and tiring one and this year was no exception to the general rule! But before the day began, we had to call British Air. They told us our bags were here! They would be delivered later in the day to our hotel.

The van arrived promptly at 9:00 and we were soon winding through the morning traffic. When we finally got to Jinja Road, we found massive construction underway. It was conducted in the usual Ugandan way: half the road was closed! This means there is two way traffic with only one paved lane!! And cars still try to pass. And boda-bodas (small scooters which serve as taxis and sometimes carry two customers as well as a driver) dart in and out of traffic in both directions. And, of course, people still need to cross Jinja Road, so they do causing the whole crazy procession to stop only milliseconds from killing the crazy jay walker.

We had 38 children to see in and around Jinja. We turned off Jinja Road within a few miles of Kampala onto a road that was dirt when we first began visiting Uganda. It is now surfaced and in good shape for a Ugandan Road. It winds through the country mostly through swamps and tiny villages that almost look like the old American West. All of these villages have a strand of connected shops on both sides of the road, but here, there are no saloons, only clubs advertising gansta rap. And there is often coffee spread out along the road where it is drying in the equatorial sun. It is simply dumped out without any barrier to anyone or anything walking through it, or worse!

The kids in these schools are much less accustomed to white people. They are ecstatically happy to see us, literally falling over one another to get a better look at the Bazungu (several white people). If we look at them or walk toward them, they squeal and run away until the ice is broken by a brave boy or girl who either lets us approach or approaches us. As soon as the group sees that the brave soul won’t be eaten, kids come from everywhere to greet us!

Near Jinja, we visited a secondary school where five of our students attend. It was immediately obvious that we were in a Muslim school from the head coverings all the girls wore and the long robes worn by a few of the male teachers. We still use several Muslim schools in rural areas because there are very few schools in many of the rural areas we serve. We’ve usually had pretty good luck with the Muslim schools because they have written policies of religious freedom. We even had one that allowed one of our boys to speak at assembly from time to time and to conduct prayer meetings under a tree during Muslim prayer time each day.

But this school felt much different. I was asked to go and speak to a group of six teachers lounging under a tree. They greeted me, but they were rude by Ugandan standards, and they seemed to be laughing at me. The kids as they moved about spoke only in brief whispers, and there seemed to be very little of the typical Ugandan student joy that seems to bubble up in every school in the nation.

When we started speaking with the students, they were very shy at first. None said instantly that they liked this school, though all eventually said this. Finally, a sophomore said what we had feared, “I must be very careful because if I am caught praying to our God, I will be cained.” She said this had happened to many children and that she had been cained herself for praying.

Once she spoke with us, the others opened up. One girl said the oppression was stopping her spiritual growth because she was afraid. Two others reported caining for praying or making a comment deemed Christian in a class.

We spent a long time with the young men and women in this school. Our girls did not wear head covers. When I asked why, I learned that the head covers were required and if they weren’t bought by week’s end, the girls would be sent home. Vincent paid for the head coverings before we left.

We started talking as soon as we got in the van. Vincent had been concerned that there might be a problem at this school, but the administration claimed to practice freedom of religion and none of the children had opened up to him. The problem was the only other schools nearby were ridiculously expensive or of very poor acdemic quality. We agreed that we would have all our children out of this school by the start of the next term.

Our route took us into the round-a-bout at the city limits of Jinja from due east instead of south. The round-a-bout was also undergoing massive changes. It had always been very pretty with a sculpture in the center and flowers all around. The center part had been torn up and a paving crew as working to pave the huge open area of the round-a-bout. There was only one crew working, however, and it appeared to be making very little progress.

We exited the round-a-bout and crossed the Nile River on the Owens Falls Dam. Vincent pointed out the new dam as we crossed, a dam that would replace Owen Falls and add much needed power generation for Uganda. We soon came to LingLing, the best Chinese restaurant in Jinja even if it is the only one. There was only one car in the lot, but this was because it was already after 3:00. We took a large round table in the garden. We were surrounded by flowers and tress and we sat under a thatched roof in case of rain.

We were very hungry and ordered a huge meal beginning with egg rolls and including an entrée for each person. We’d never tried the egg rolls, always ordering one of the excellent soups instead, but we were hungry today and so we changed things a bit. We knew we had made a mistake as soon as the egg rolls arrived. They were simply the largest egg rolls I’ve ever seen, and each order included two egg rolls! There was an excellent pepper sauce for the egg rolls and a very good duck sauce. When the two were blended, the result was incredible!

The menu here is completely unexpected. There are all the usual options available in US Chinese carry-out restaurants, but there are also fascinating options like goat with oyster sauce. I chose a mix of usual and less known dishes, and I couldn’t pass up the excellent goat dish! There was also an egg plant dish where the Chinese egg plant was cooked in a slightly hot vinegar based sauce.

We couldn’t eat one of the egg rolls, and though we tried desperately, we were unable to finish the entrees. Vincent packed everything away, however. He told us he would take the doggy bag to Michael since Michael wasn’t with us.

We got a call from Joseph during lunch. British Airways had called to tell him our bags had arrived and were en route to the hotel!

After lunch, we went to see children in the immediate Jinja area. We drove out a familiar road to the home of Steve and Vicki’s sponsored kids, a brother and sister. The girl was at home and she ran from us as soon as she saw the van. Her mother said she was sick. She had on no shoes because she said her feet hurt. Her feet were filled with jiggers, a worm that can penetrate the skin of bare feet and will continue to eat until it reaches bone. Her feet were knotty and swollen and she did appear to be having trouble walking normally. She had visited a doctor for medicine, and her mother said although the jiggers would take time to heal, she would feel well enough to return to school the following day.

Her brother, however, was not at home. We had checked at his school and they told us he had already left. But he wasn’t at home either. So we drove back to his school and found him in choir practice. He seems to be doing very well! In the past, he had seemed unconnected with school, but that was not the case this time. He also seemed very happy.

Our last stop was at a high school in Jinja proper. We have four kids there, and all four are good students and great kids. We put Samuel here in January after his grandmother died, and he seemed to be struggling with the change to a boarding environment. Alice, who has been with the program since the very beginning, was as loud and happy as ever, but she begged for a letter from her sponsors (we forget how much this means to our kids!!). She also said that the project leaders had told her that there wasn’t enough money for her to continue in boarding school. I told her not to worry about this.

It is true that we have had a financial crisis since a lot of families suddenly moved their kids to boarding schools this fall, but we have asked many sponsors for assistance. Hopefully, no needy student will have to change schools as a result of this, but some of the kids who are attending boarding schools for the prestige or for convenience will probably be forced out.

We finished here and drove through the sad streets of Jinja. This city, Uganda’s second largest, shows evidence everywhere of its former elegance. There are large homes and government buildings that have fallen deeply into disrepair. There are overgrown gardens, both public and private. The wide streets have very few cars. There are closed factories along the outskirts of town. We have met the mayor of Jinja, a very impressive young man with a lot of plans. I hope they succeed.

The drive home was a nightmare! It was already dark when we left the last school, so our entire ride home on the treacherous Jinja Road would be in darkness. Uganda allows transfer trucks to attach two huge trailers, and these vehicles are frightening when they roar past at very fast speeds. We saw a lot of these and other heavy trucks as we drove the highway, along with heavy vehicular traffic.

And about 15 miles out of Kampala, we found the road construction again. Merging over into one lane in the dark was truly terrifying! And beyond the first construction, we found very slowly moving traffic. It took over two hours for a trip usually finished in less than one.

When we got back, we found five of our six bags in the room along with a garmet bag that was old and dirty. Needless to say, it wasn't ours! We went to the front desk and they told us the drivier had first left eight bags for us, then returned and taken two away. The woman at the desk said one of the bags taken away was the black duffle we were looking for. She said she would call BA for us and the bag would be delivered that night.

We waited up until 12:30, but the bag never came.