Monday June 4: A Spot of Trouble in Uganda

Monday June 4: A Spot of Trouble in Uganda

So how did I get nearly a week behind on my blog? Well. . .

We slept great on the flight. London had exhausted all of us!

We landed at Entebbe without any problem, although it was pouring rain by the time we made it to our parking place on the tarmac. Even though departing flights have the typical boarding tunnel, arriving flights still park on the tarmac leaving passengers to trot to the terminal!

So we trotted in a driving rain. Lisa and I had raincoats in our carry on baggage, but Ray had nothing. It isn't a very long trot, so he wasn't too wet and it was so hot it didn't matter anyway.

Since we already had our visas, they let us enter the returning Ugandans line, which had only one other family in front of us. The Immigration officer was just plain friendly! So we were among the very first people at the luggage claim area.

The luggage unloading process is rather interesting. They bring one luggage container at a time and unload it. Then get another. So it takes quite a while to unload a full plane! I helped a woman grab every single black bag that came by, whether it was a garment bag or something large enough to carry a body. And each time she did the same thing: she opened the bag and looked in then asked me to help her sling it back up on the carousel.

So at least I wasn't particularly bored as we watch container after container unload and pull away. And finally, the horror set in: our bags weren't in Uganda! Not one of the six!!

Lisa went in and started filling out forms. Then they said Ray and I would have to fill out forms, too. This was terrible because they wanted to know what the bags looked like and what was in them. Since we had no idea which bags had been assigned to which person by the man in Chicago, we couldn't answer. I finally went out and found the guys and told them what was happening. When I tried to get back in, I had to be hand searched before they would let me in!

We finally finished and they told us we would have to wait at least until Thursday for the next British Air flight. In the meantime, we had done none of the things travelers know to do: we had no back up clothing. We had no medications, including Malarone for malaria or my medicine. We had few snacks.

In other words, we were up a creek!

We met our Uganda crew and they treated us as though we had never left. They were so excited to see Lisa, and they greeted Ray like a lost brother. Joseph, Vincent, Michael, Grace, and even Dan were there. The van looked good and the new engine sounded great as Vincent started it. The rain shower ended before we reached the van.

Ron had called us only about two weeks before departure saying he wanted to join us in Uganda. . . and he wanted to fly standby to do it! He had called on Friday to tell us he was having problems getting out of Cincinatti and on Saturday to confirm that he had made it out of New York. But we didn't know what had happened since.

It turned out he had called Joseph on Sunday night when he ran into some trouble. He had booked a room at a hotel, but they had rented his room! He had moved to another place in the wee hours of the morning, so our first thing was to meet Ron.

He was waiting for us at the Windsor Lake Victoria Hotel. It only took a few minutes for him to check out and we were on our way!

I had told them we wanted to hit the ground running, and they took me at my word! We immediately started going to schools. Lisa and Grace worried with the names and I made pictures. Ray and Ron talked with the kids and worked on getting acclimated to the new place. They were very encouraging to the kids and they had the time to work with them while we were trying to keep records straight and deal with the administration of paying fees.

We stopped for lunch at the Hot Loaf on Jinja Road, a favorite of ours. It is a bakery/deli run by a man who learned the business in Chicago. So we enjoyed samosas and meat pies for our first meal in Uganda, and all the team approved. Ray found he really liked a strange creation that looked like a weiner rolled up in pastry dough!

We went all day long and saw nearly fifty kids! Late in the afernoon, it was time to go to the hotel. We had tried to stay at the Kolping House, the fabulous guest house I had used at Christmas, but they were full for three noncontiguous nights. So I had turend our team lose to look for a place and they found Le Grande Chez Johnson Hotel, a place I had never seen or even heard of. So we didn't know quite what to expect as we drove into a part of Kampala I knew nothing at all about.

The white four story building sat on a hill adjacent to the center city of Kampala. There was a laundry and Internet cafe on the first floor by the entrance to the hotel. On the other side of the entrance was Indian Summer Restaurant!

We more or less filled up the small reception area. Had we had luggage, there would have been no place to stand! We quickly registered, then went up to our rooms. Lisa and I were on the first floor (floor 2 in the States). The other two rooms were on floor 3 (or 4 at home). The halls were bright and well maintained. Our room was a bit small. It had a double bed and a small table with one chair. We had a balcony with a good view and plenty of closet space, a first in Uganda. We had a very large bathroom that was clean and new. Although we had no shower, we had a bath tub with a European spray system. I was impressed!

We rested for about an hour, then met the gang again to go to Entebbe to get Bill. We decided to eat at the Windsor Lake Victoria Hotel. We had Joseph, Vincent, and Michael with us. Ray and Ron waited back at the hotel. We ate good pizzas under a tent by the beautiful Windsor pool.

We had to hurry to make the 10:15 arrival time for Bill's plane, but we arrived before the first guest deplaned. It was a good thing, because Bill was first! He seemed very relieved to see us. He had had to get up at 3:00 on Sunday to get to the airport for his flight, then he had a 9 hour lay over in Chicago. He used the time to take the train downtown and see Chicago, then return for a flight to Brussels. He had a very short layover there, then a stop in Nairobi before landing in Entebbe.

We let Bill sit up front so that he could experience night driving in Uganda first hand. He never did scream, but he nearly punched a hole in the floor searching for the break. And even though you know the whell is on the other side of these British vehicles, the tendancy to grab for the wheel from time to time is one that is very hard to overcome!

Ray and Ron were rooming together, so Bill got his room alone that night. We got to bed a little after midnight.

Lisa and I noticed that there were no screans anywhere in our room. We had a two-inch gap around our balcony door and two vent windows with no protection at all. There were mosquitos buzzing around our net as soon as the light went out. The power failed a few minutes after we went to bed. Without even the oscilating fan, we were roasting within seconds.

This went on all night. I didn't sleep at all, so I guess the good news was the mosquitos kept me company!