Wednesday, January 2: It’s STILL Uganda!

We’ve seen so many new things on this trip, so much change in only six months. It’s almost unbelievable that any place can change this much this quickly. It’s amazing what 7% economic growth and tons of money used for the CHOGM show will do. BUT

IT’S STILL UGANDA!

We stayed up most of the night catching up the blog and getting packed. Then we didn’t sleep much. It’s always a bit nerve-racking when it’s time to go. Most of it is knowing how much you’ll miss these folks and this place (even with all its foibles). Part of it is wanting to make sure everything is finished. And part is knowing you have a bill to settle and an airport to face.

We asked them to wait until 10:00 to come for us. That would give us time to eat, finish any last minute packing, and pay our bill. We got up at 7:00 as usual, even though I’d been awake for a while. We started our 3 hours of Internet time at 7:00 and I had the blog posted before breakfast. We had a half-buffet – fruit and juice on the buffet, and everything else by order. Everything was as it should be!

We went to the room and finished packing (yes, Jerry, we were finished before they got there). It’s a bit easier when you have 100 lbs of stuff and 4 bags to fit it in!

I went down to pay the bill. The desk clerk printed it out, and it was off by about 30%! I swallowed hard and started through the bill. The problem was simple. When we checked in, I signed a rate of 115.00 USH. Now, USH stands for Uganda shillings and they use a . where we use a , in numbers. So I saw 115,000 Uganda shillings per night. That’s $70 per night where we try to always keep it at $50. Lisa and I would pay the difference. I pointed the problem out to the clerk and she said I was wrong. Finally, she said, “Sir, we know we have a problem with our system.”

“But it’s your problem,” I snapped. “And I don’t have to pay for it!”

I took the bill and went upstairs to look at all the other charges. As I passed the coffee shop, Adrian came out and handed me a package. “It is from us,” she said.

I went up to the room and showed Lisa. She couldn’t believe it either. We decided to wait until Vincent came so that he could say that $115 had never been part of the negotiations. I called the desk and demanded a meeting with the manager that had bought us dinner a few nights earlier.

While we were waiting for Vincent, Lisa opened the gift from Adrian. It turned out there were 2, two medium sized wood carvings of Ugandan people. There was a note saying that they came from Adrian and the lady that cleaned the tables. We’d given both small cash gifts for Christmas. These carvings cost more than we’d given them!

When Vincent came, he said they had talked about $85 a night, which Vincent had never told me or we would have stayed elsewhere. He had said there was a great Christmas package at this hotel, and I thought the 115,000 per night was it. That is in line with what I have paid at Hotel Africana during Christmas, so I didn’t think anything about it being low.

So we went down to the manager’s office. He blamed everything on Vincent, but said he would make it right. He reduced the charge to $85 per night. I later realized that he had halved his loss from what it should have been. It would have been very hard to get the other half from him that day, even though the bill itself showed that the system was using USH to mean both shillings and dollars!

So we loaded the van and left. I doubt if we’ll ever go back there again.

Our first stop was Garden City. Vincent parked in the parking garage. When I stepped down, I noticed that my pants were wet at the left pocket. I thought the hand sanitizer I was carrying had gotten opened, but the rancid smell quickly convinced me that this wasn’t the case. The Internet connection at the hotel had quit at 2 hours 25 minutes, so we still had a couple of things we needed from email. Vincent told me Brussels Air, who we would be flying that night, had an office at Garden City. I wanted to make sure the flight wasn’t going to Nairobi (the newspaper headline said there were more than 300 dead, the borders were closed, and there was general unrest everywhere). And finally, I wanted to exchange some money.

Grace went with Lisa to the Internet café while the rest of us went to the airline office. It turns out this wasn’t an office at all, just a sign advertising the airline in a travel agency window. I went into the office anyway and the kind woman told me if she didn’t sell the ticket, she wouldn’t get involved in this. I asked if she would at least check to see if the flight was scheduled to land in Nairobi. She confirmed that it was.

I went upstairs and told Lisa. We decided we would call our agent in Chattanooga and ask her to look for a different flight. I left Lisa at the café and went downstairs to exchange money. We had decided to get a bit extra because we always have this terrible feeling that we will get to the airport and find currency exchange closed. This has happened only once, but since the van normally arrives at the airport running on fumes, it is always a concern. So I ordered $200 extra. This place always gives 50,000 shilling notes and that only. They are hard to break, but if you want some other denomination, you can go elsewhere. So today when I needed the 50’s, I get all 20’s, meaning I have 5 bills to each $100 instead of 2!

When I got back to Lisa, the Internet had crashed after only 11 of her 30 minutes!

We returned to the van. My first need was to figure out how my pocket had gotten filled with the questionable liquid. The mystery was easily solved. Vincent had taken the van to be washed and the arm rest was full of water. Vans are washed in a stream in downtown Kampala. The stream is used for everything and none of those things are very pleasant to think about. We always try to be so very careful about getting wild water on us in Uganda. I had just filled a pocket, then stuck my hand in it!

I asked to go shopping at the place we always go. We had promised a couple of purchases to people, so I promised them we would be finished in less than an hour. Vincent, however, chose a different market. This one is much larger, and it sits on the side of a 25 degree slope! So my cane and I had to climb up and down this dirt slope as we shopped. We did find what we were looking for, and we found everything quickly, so we drove to church.

Mabel was there to tell us goodbye. We spent a little time with her, then handled another project issue or two. I also called and left a message for our travel agent in Chattanooga asking if there was any way to change us to another flight. We also had another minor problem – the itinerary she printed for us didn’t have any hotel information on it. So if we couldn’t change flights, we were flying to Brussels and we didn’t know where we were staying! (Actually, I knew the hotel name, but not the address or the confirmation number).

Joseph said several people wanted us to visit them before we left, so we drove to his house. John, a young man who is training to become an officer in the church, lives a few doors down from Joseph. The street where Joseph lives is the perfect microcosm of Kampala today. The two buildings on the corner are both commercial – wooden stalls that aren’t far from falling down. The 1 ½ lane dirt road slopes steeply downward and is eroding quickly. The house Joseph rents stands inside an eight foot brick wall with a metal gate. Inside the gate is a tiny yard, barely, and I do mean barely (every time we started in, we were afraid we couldn’t get back out) large enough for the van. The yard is mostly dirt. The house is made of the same Ugandan brick. It has a small front porch made of concrete. The floor inside is concrete. There is a tiny living room, a dining room which also serves as a place for food preparation. There are two bedrooms and there is a kitchen, but it is rude in Uganda to ask about it. I’m not sure whether there is running water or if Lydia has to go to a pipe at the corner of the street. There is electricity which is working most of the time now.

Across from Joseph’s house stands a mud structure about twice as wide as his house. The structure has four cuts in it covered by cloth curtains. These are the front doors of four living units. Their floors are dirt. There is no electricity and certainly no running water. There is always laundry hanging here because one of the women has at least six kids living there. The oldest looks to be about eight. Some of these kids are probably nieces and nephews.

John lives two doors down. The house between is like Joseph’s but it doesn’t have a fence. We drove past it and parked beside the road in front of a brick house that is much larger than Joseph’s. It had a large porch and a bit more yard, but almost all of it dirt. I knew that John and his wife both worked, so I was pleased to see that he was doing very well. But when Joseph hopped down from the van, he didn’t go into the house. He walked around it. We got out and followed him. I thought he was going in a back door. But behind the big house was a structure like the one across from Joseph’s house – a flat, box with four narrow doors. This one was nicer than the one across from Joseph – the box was made of concrete and there were metal doors. We stepped inside into a living room that would hardly hold seven people. There were only five seats, the other two adults and the kids had to sit on the floor. The floor was dirt. There was electricity and John had a tiny television with terrible reception. He also had something very rare – a college dorm sized refrigerator. We didn’t see the rest of the house. I expect there was one bedroom and some form of kitchen with no running water.

And so Kampala’s boom. There are many more nicer houses and these are being built by leveling some of the old slum. But the builders of these houses are building terrible little structures for poor people to rent crammed into every square inch of yard space. So a step forward with the new homes and two backwards because the revenue producing shacks are no better than what the poor folks had before.

We stayed with John and visited for a while. He has a great sense of humor and his wife is very sweet. After a prayer, we left.

Our next stop was Pastor Elliot’s home. Again, we pulled into a yard in front of a nicer home. And again we walked past the home to a flat row of connected homes. This flat structure was made of mud and there was a strong smell inside. We sat on a busted couch in a room with only four seats. Elliot sat on a stool and his three kids sat on the floor. Elliot’s wife was at work. His oldest child was probably eight. They hadn’t missed a single chance to conceive. The children were sent to buy refreshments for their visitors. They returned with bottles of cold water, one short of the number of seated guest, and cookies. The savings that they had made on water instead of soda and buying one less drink than ordered, they had invested in cookies for themselves. This was a real treat for them. We sipped the cool water and talked for a while, then I prayed and Lisa photographed!

Beth has sponsored Nakaferro Rose since the program started. We knew that she had moved in with Joseph soon after the Project began, that she had lived there for about four years, and that he had put her in boarding school at that point because they were having behavior problems – the good ole Ugandan problem of “becoming stubborn.” We didn’t know anything at all about her home life, only that her family wanted her to go with Joseph. So I was surprised to find that we were visiting Rose’s home. We drove through the Najeera community into a rural area of banana fields and tiny huts. Vincent stopped the van in a cleared spot beside the road. We walked 100 yards through thick vegetation to a smooth dirt yard with a tiny mud hut in the middle of it. There were a couple of goats in the yard, along with Rose. She has grown into a teen ager now, a tall girl in that awkward stage. In all the times we’ve met her, she has never spoken without being asked a question. She wasn’t any more talkative this time, but she grinned from ear to ear, something else we’d never seen. She was very pleased that we had come to visit her.

Her father came out of the house and he was even more pleased! He welcomed us into his home. The living room was tiny but we all squeezed in. Vincent didn’t come in, so we sat three on a couch and me in a chair. Both were simply foam cushions covered by torn fabric. The wall behind the couch had been covered with paper – an old Newsweek magazine. They had begun covering the side wall with a large picture of Ashton Krucher and a pharmaceutical advertising poster of AIDS drugs. The other walls were dark flaking mud. I could see into the single bedroom. The narrow cot was covered with a wool blanket. I’m not sure what was under the blanket, but there was no mattress.

We talked with the man for a few minutes, then I prayed. He couldn’t stop smiling! And when we went outside and Lisa took pictures of his family (Rose and two other children. I don’t know what had happened to his wife), he was so proud I thought he might explode!

It was nearly 2:00 so we stopped at Taste Budz, a brand new fast food place. Joseph and Vincent were so excited. They had spotted this place which is next to a tiny hospital as soon as it opened and they had been planning a visit when we arrived. It was a brightly lit place with several tables inside and two out. The tile floor was new. There was ice cream at one end of the counter and a cooking area at the other. A waitress took our orders from a printed menu. Grace and Joseph ordered burgers (Joseph’s was chicken) and Vincent ordered liver. Michael found something brand new – chicken fingers (he was a little worried about finding claws in his lunch). Lisa and I had a great pizza – feta cheese, fresh tomato, and black olives. When we were finished, I asked the waitress to bring me change so that I could leave a tip. She brought the change, then leaned over and whispered to Grace. She told her that the Indian man who ran the place wouldn’t allow her to keep tips so Grace would have to meet her outside to take it. I gave Grace 1,500 shillings – less than a dollar. The waitress went out to serve someone sitting on the patio and Grace slipped her the coins. She was very pleased. This was probably more than she made in two hours.

It was time to leave Kampala. We made one last pass through the edge of the city, through gleaming new intersections where the round-a-bouts once stood. There was almost no traffic due to the fuel shortage. There weren’t even many taxis and no boda bodas. Some of the stations had 0000 posted as the fuel price. The stations with fuel had long lines waiting to buy it. The paper reported that the price of gas had risen 400% overnight.

Even though I tried, I was napping in no time. Vincent took us out Entebbe Road. I woke up when he turned onto a four lane dirt road that was well scraped. We followed it for a few minutes, then turned onto a narrow and less well maintained dirt road, then onto an even narrower one until we ended on the road to Joseph and Vincent’s mother’s house. There were simply two tire tracks running up and down over steep hills. The grass in the middle of the track brushed the bottom of the van. We had to close our windows because vegetation was hitting us on both sides. The track was in terrible condition. Several times, we drug the bottom of the van when we fell into pot holes.

Finally, we saw the three room brick home where their mother lives. This was my third trip to see this woman, but Lisa had never been. The mother lives with Joseph’s sister and her two small boys in this place. It stands on a hill above the track. There is an incredible view of a wide valley and a line of hills on the other side of it. There were houses stretching along the base of the hills. Last Christmas, the valley was completely untouched.

She wasn’t there when we arrived. Joseph and Vincent went into the house and brought out the couch and chair, the only furniture in the living room. Their sister brought out mats for everyone else to kneel on. Michael hurried up to the van as Lisa and I were getting out. “Hurry, you must come!” he said. “She is running, she is running!”

I hopped down from the van and followed him. He was right. This 68 year old grandmother was trotting through the banana plants. She was wearing a orange African dress, which means there were not buttons or zippers, just fabric folded in all sorts of ways (not very conducive to running). And she wore flip flops.

When asked about her jog, she said she had won a race in the village not that many years ago. She outrun Joseph, who, she said, drank too much water. We sat in the shade of the house and watched a family enjoy itself. We couldn’t follow much of the conversation, but there seemed to be a lot of kidding, a lot of laughing, a lot of love, and at least a gig of digital pictures!

Joseph asked me to come with him. We walked behind the house up the steep hill and passed the huge pig who was napping in the shade of a banana plant. A builder had started a house within 200 yards of their property, which was a little more than 3 acres. Joseph wants his mother to sell off part of the land and give the money to him and Vincent so that they can have a down payment on a house in the city. He said the rest of the family hadn’t approved this yet!

We walked down the hill, and it was time to go. Everyone climbed in and we dropped the family at various points along the way. We continued back to Entebbe Road, then on to Entebbe itself. We turned off the main road onto a familiar road now freshly paved. We followed it to the botanical garden. It was nearly 4:30, so I expected that the garden would be closing, but the man at the gate said they were open until 10:00. His gate, however, wasn’t opened. He routed us to another one. Apparently, this was the total of his job for the day; to sit in a small hut and tell people this gate was closed.

There were no monkeys playing around the entrance. This was my fourth visit here. There had always been a ton of monkeys! It only cost 2,000 per person to enter (just over a dollar), but we had to pay the same per camera. Video cameras cost more than people, so we kept ours in the van!

The garden sits on a long sloping hill that ends in Lake Victoria. We drove slowly down past huge trees and coffee and tea bushes. There was a large field of medicinal plants. Everything was newly labeled. The shore of the lake doesn’t seem to be part of the park. We drove beside the swampy shore line. A few people were walking here. There were also fisherman in small row boats near the shore and a couple of boys cutting reeds. We stopped after a few minutes and got out. And I knew where the monkeys were. A DJ whose microphone must have been a foot down his throat was screaming something in Luganda as very, very, very loud music shook the garden. They have opened a party place in the garden where you can go and eat fresh fish and dance while your ear drums burst! No self-respecting monkey would be caught dead here!

We turned up the hill away from the noise. The narrow road led through the park’s densest jungle. I left the group and started walking toward the call of some brave bird hoping a monkey might be hiding nearby. I didn’t see a single monkey, but I was able to enjoy a couple of minutes of the jungle before the others caught up. We turned off the road onto a narrow path. It was covered in large chunks of rock, a challenge for my cane, but one that it easily met. We walked through incredibly dense undergrowth. It was easy to see why one of the national parks in Uganda might be called the Impenetrable Forrest!

We came out of the “forest” and turned away from the van. Joseph was sure this was the way back, so I went with him. Instead, we came to the party place. A number of young Ugandans were spread across the shore of the lake. There were two wooden structures where the fish was being cooked. Apparently, the infernal sound was coming from one of these. Kids were dancing to the beat. The monkeys, the rightful owners of this peaceful place, had fled to parts unknown.

We followed a road away from this place, and ended up in a huge field running up the hill. There were tress, bushes, and flowers spread across the field. I found another jungle area and walked up a trail to a bench where I sat and listened for a few minutes. Even though the music was still the most prominent sound, there were birds and animals calling out to the setting sun. I sat beneath a huge banyon tree and Michael soon found me. He climbed up into the roots of the tree and Lisa made his picture.

Joseph called Vincent on his cell phone and he moved the van up to the road near us. We all walked down from my hiding place and climbed in the van. We had time for dinner, then we had to go to the airport.

The Imperial Botanical Resort actually adjoins the park at one end. We pulled into the parking lot and walked inside. We had eaten here three times during our summer visit. The place was totally changed. There was a new reception desk in a room that had been closed during the summer (which means there are now two reception areas!). We walked through reception to the restaurant by the pool. It was still there, but it was only a third its former size. The huge lawn had been filled up with a pool expansion (in the form of a separate pool) and a two story restaurant. We were directed to the second floor, where we were shown to a patio overlooking the garden and pool. I ordered Indian food for all but Michael and Grace who ordered on their own. The food was okay, but very bland.

We talked quietly about budgeting and being good stewards of what God has given us. Vincent, Joseph, and Michael already have plans about how they can better manage their money and we talked about them a bit. Their plans for a simple budget were very good. Joseph talked about trying to train his children by challenging them to take care of their soap each month. He is giving them a bar each and telling them they must keep up with it rather than coming back to the cabinet for more soap every time they want to. It’s a start!

I went to the bathroom while Lisa went out to get our traveling clothes. I had noticed an attractive young woman come into the bar near us earlier. When I went into the bathroom, she almost went in with me. I closed the door quickly. When I came out, she also came out of the ladies room and stood there in my way for a second batting her eyes at me. She took a seat by the bar and stared at me as I walked by. I had read in the papers that there were a lot more “sex workers” since CHOGM. I think I had just met one!

I changed into a long-sleeve shirt. I also replaced my boots with slip on shoes. Lisa did the same. Despite three calls, I still hadn’t heard a word from our travel agent (using this one is another travel mistake I won’t make again!!). I called Candy at church and asked her to find out about the hotel. It was now too late to change flights.

It was time to go.

We made pictures again, then climbed into the van for the final two mile ride. The guards at the airport seemed bored. They didn’t search us or look under the van at all. Even though the immigration area is completely new, they’ve done nothing to improve departures. We had to go through a security check at the door, then stand in line to wait for the baggage scanner. The guys had loaded everything onto a single luggage cart (free in Uganda, by the way). It was easy to unload everything onto the belt, but it was a real pain trying to load it back onto the cart. We had to get the bags from the security area to the gate, and we made it eventually. We had to clear another passport check (our third) and the nice lady there gave us an immigration form as well as a letter. The letter explained that the troubles in Kenya had resulted in shutting down the transport of jet fuel from Kenya to Uganda. As a result of this, our airplane could not refuel in Uganda. Therefore, we would be flying into Nairobi to get fuel there.

Okay, so here’s what this means. We will be boarding a plane that was fueled in Brussels for a flight to Entebbe. It has received no fuel since, which means it will be taking off again and flying about an hour on a tank that was intended to get it only to Entebbe. Then, we’ll land in Nairobi where the fighting is so bad that all fuel shipments have been cut off – they can’t ship fuel out, so we’ll fly 300 people on a jet into the war zone to get the fuel they can’t ship!

We were at the counter in a few minutes. We struggled, but we transferred all four bags to be weighed. I told them I wouldn’t need a wheel chair because this airport was small, but to please confirm the chair in Brussels. The woman first checked our bags through to Atlanta, then had to change them to Brussels, but it didn’t take long.

We had three hours until the flight left. I looked in a bookstore and Lisa made a few last minute purchases at a shop. We sat at the snack bar and snacked a bit on potato chips and a candy bar, but my chips were a bit buggy, so I didn’t eat very many. I called Candy and got all the information. Vincent called and asked us to call him from Nairobi. Then it was time to wait!

Our flight was scheduled out at 11:59. The incoming plane hadn’t arrived by then. We were finally called for yet another security check a few minutes after midnight. I wished I had the chair!

They’ve really changed this part of the departure area. There is still the security set up, which clears you into another room. And there is another room behind that where you actually wait. This room is much bigger than before, and there are at least three more back there that aren’t used. This huge waiting room is a bit of a mess. It isn’t clear how you get out of it, and the chairs are more or less randomly arrayed. So we took chairs in a corner out of the way of the crowd. When about 2/3 of the people were through security, there was a sudden rush toward the same door we’d come in. There was no announcement, but the flight was boarding.

There are new jet ways at the airport, but we didn’t use one. Instead, we had to go down stairs, cross the tarmac, and climb up stairs to the door. The flight wasn’t very full, so it boarded quickly. We were nervous about Nairobi, but also exhausted and we both napped along the way.

We landed in Nairobi without incident. They said we couldn’t get off and to unfasten our seatbelts! It took nearly an hour to refuel. A lot of people got on the plane in Nairobi, all Mzungus. There was a lot of activity at the airport, a lot of vehicles driving around on a perimeter road. We thought all was well, but then the cabin staff got nervous. There were people going up and down the aisles. They kept making people show passports and answer questions. Finally, there was an announcement – although there was concern that there might be an unticketed passenger on board, it was now resolved and we could take off.

And we did!

I'm writing from Brussels. We should be home tomorrow (Saturday) night. Jonathon is coming to pick us up in Atlanta, and we hope to be at church on Sunday!

Thanks for your prayers. This last bit wasn't a bit of fun!!

3 DAYS AT ONCE!

I’M SORRY, I FELL BEHIND! I TOOK A NIGHT OFF BECAUSE WE CAME IN LATE, AND IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO CATCH BACK UP! BUT IT’S HERE NOW, ALL 16 NEW PAGES, ALL THE WAY UP TO TUESDAY, OUR LAST FULL DAY IN UGANDA. ENJOY!!

Tuesday, January 1: Visiting

The hotel party continued until 2:00 and so I got very little sleep. But we were ready when Vincent arrived at 9:30. Our agenda for the day called for visiting in church member’s homes. I’ve done this once before with Dan. Everyone wanted to feed us bananas and sodas. We were all but floating and hooting like chimps before the day was done!

The pattern for these visits was always the same. We would go through formal Ugandan greetings and meet everyone in the house. Then we would be served bananas and soda. Then Joseph would say something about the family and pray for them. This year was a bit different: Joseph asked me to appreciate the family (that is, talk about what we thought was good about the family) then I would pray for the family in the coming year. Because I never knew exactly where we were going until we got there and because I didn’t know some of the people we were visiting very well, this was an incredible exercise in thinking on one’s feet and speaking extemporaneously!

Lisa and I had read in the paper that morning that the problems in Kenya, which supplies practically all the fuel for Uganda, was causing a major fuel shortage. There were pictures of huge lines at service stations in the paper. Vincent wanted to buy fuel first thing, so we pulled into a station and completely filled up, something I don’t know that I had ever done in Uganda. This station had no gasoline, but it still had diesel! The price had gone up more than 40 cents a gallon overnight!

We started by visiting in the home of some church members. Vincent drove down a terrible dirt trail and let us out. We walked along a path through deep grass and a few tall trees. We met several children carrying large yellow plastic containers, the favorite water container of Uganda. We walked down into a small depression. The area was thick with very healthy vegetation – a huge variety of grasses, ferns, and trees. At the bottom of the depression, a water pipe stuck out from a short concrete wall. A small child was filling a yellow jug while several others waited their turns. “Do you recognize this place?” Joseph asked. We were about 150 yards from the house where he’d lived for nearly two years.

We continued on the path through the dense vegetation and into an area filled with mud shacks. A woman I recognized from church came up to Joseph and dropped to her knees. There were six kids, another younger woman, and an old woman who had had a stroke. We talked with everyone through Joseph because no one here spoke much English. Joseph asked me to pray for them and I did.

Joseph led us to another cluster of very bad shacks. These were mostly made of wood. There was a stretch of two room units, all with pieces of cloth hanging up for doors. When we got closer, these units were the bottom of a U shaped group of similar structures. A small group was gathered around an old man in front of one of the units. While we were waiting for Joseph to tell us where to go, Moses came out of the group around the old man. We talked with him for a while, then with a woman there and finally with the old man.

Vincent had managed to find a way to get the van to this point so that I wouldn’t have to walk back by the watering hole. We climbed in and he drove a short distance to a brightly painted white wall. He stopped by the heavy metal gate. “This is where Florence lives,” Joseph said. “She is home now. Do you want to see her?”

Lisa and Kim met Florence a few summers back when they were all helping to cook lunch for a presbytery meeting. Florence is a teacher and she and Lisa really clicked. She doesn’t attend church at Kiwatule, in fact she is a member of the Church of Uganda, but she has helped Joseph financially since he started the Kiwatule church and she has been very supportive of our Project.

We went through a door in the gate and waited at the door until Florence came out and got us. She lived in a very large two story brick home. It looked almost new. She took us through the garage into a dining area then into the well furnished living room. She left us for a minute and her husband came in. He was cordial in greeting us and curious about why we were there. He is an auditor for the federal government, a function he once performed for USAID. While we were talking, there was a loud crash. He went out to check on it, then came back and said he had to leave to take care of a small emergency.

Florence joined us with Cokes, bananas, and small pieces of excellent fruit cake. We snacked while she and Lisa talked about everything! Finally, we had to go.

Vincent had moved the van inside the gate, so we got in and he took us to Grace’s house. The small girls were out and the two larger ones had just gotten up. They had been to an all night prayer service at the Kolo Air Strip, which is located just behind our hotel. Jane Francis was there and we enjoyed visiting with Grace. Lisa had never seen her home, a nice brick structure with two bedrooms and concrete floors. Grace wanted to make sure we saw her new refrigerator and she served us sodas and bananas. Jacinta was also asleep in the back and she came out a few minutes after we arrived. She had been with the girls at the air strip and she was still very sleepy.

We left Grace and drove to Justine’s house in Najeera. We met her on our first trip here. She is a former witch doctor and one of the most delightful people we’ve met in Uganda. Lisa had never visited in her home. She met us at the van and led us into her house. We sat down in a dark little dirt floored room. Justine speaks little English, but her enthusiasm is contagious even if we can’t understand her! Today, however, she was a bit more subdued. She had stuck a thorn in her hand and it had swollen up badly. Joseph said it was a common problem in the area and that Justine might have to go to the doctor with her wound.


We left Justine and drove out to Dan’s place. The last time we visited Dan’s house in June, he was living in the county. We had to park some distance away and walk about 500 yards to his home. There was nothing around him and he had a nice view of a densely vegetated valley.

There was nothing remotely familiar about what we found this time. A narrow dirt path led directly to his door. There were four completed homes standing at the intersection of this road and another one that had not existed earlier. A concrete slab had been poured for another home. The serene valley was now filled with small homes. And Dan’s house had doubled in size!

He led us past the huge brick kiln he has built. He is using some of the bricks in his home expansion project and he is selling other ones. Dan’s son had big news for us and he wanted us to come out back to see something. He kneeled down beside an enclosure that will one day become a closet and pulled up a small mixed breed puppy. His name was Police.

Dan took us into a large room which was serving as a living room-dining room combination. Robinah was there waiting for us. We all took seats, then Robinah had a young girl bring us Jackfruit. We visited for a while. They have such a good relationship! And their kids seem so well behaved.

I took Dan and Joseph outside and gave them the money from Grace Presbyterian Church for the church at Kassanda. We talked about how Joseph would manage the money and Dan would oversee the building of the new latrine at Kassanda.

Last June, Robinah had delivered their son, Elijah, while we were visiting Uganda. They told us that Robinah had taken him to the doctor yesterday. He wasn’t feeling well, and she learned that he has a hernia that must be repaired. They asked if we could help with the surgery bill. They were very frightened and we told them to get the details of what needed to be done and what the surgeon would charge. We would help them with it if it were needed.

We met a young woman who had come to their home from Mpigi. She had been forced to leave school after completing S3 because her family could not afford A-level fees. Dan asked us if we would look for a sponsor for her. We said we would and the girl beamed!

We were starting to fall behind in our schedule so we didn’t stay long at Dan’s place. Dan’s son met us at the door with Police in hand. He wanted a picture of him with his new friend.

As we were walking to the van, Dan and Robinah came up to me. “Elder Jim,” Dan said in a voice hardly above a whisper. “We, Robinah and I, have been discussing your gift to us. We have agreed on a way to spend this money and we want to make sure it is all right with you. Right now, Robinah or one of the kids must walk a long way down to the stream to get us water. The water there isn’t very good, so we don’t like to use it. The people in these places up the street are having water pipes run to the corner. Would it be okay if we used your money to bring water to our home? It will be safer for our family, it will make Robinah’s life so much easier, and that water will be so sweet. So this is what we would like to do.”

“Lisa and I think that would be a wonderful way for you to spend this money,” I said. They looked at each other and beamed, then they each thanked me profusely.

Our next stop was Vincent’s house. All but five of the 11 kids that live there were still visiting their families for the holidays. There was a new face among the kids, a gorgeous little girl in a bright orange dress. Vincent said that a woman had introduced him to this girl while he was working with the sponsored children one day. Her parents, who lived in the still-troubled northern part of Uganda, had told relatives in Jinja they couldn’t afford this girl and had dropped her with them. The people who received the girl didn’t want her either, so Vincent had added her to his huge family. I still can’t believe that 13 people live in this very small three bedroom row home! We were looking for a child for the Paralegal Association to sponsor and this seemed the perfect match!

It was a few minutes after 2:00 when we finished at Vincent’s house. Our appointment to meet the Chaplain of the Church of Uganda was at 3:00 at Namarembe Guest House. We decided to go directly there. We made great time crossing the city because there was very little traffic. Many of the taxis that normally crowd the city seemed to be staying off the roads to conserve fuel.

The Guest House looks exactly as it did when Austin and I stayed there two years ago. We parked and climbed the steps up to the patio restaurant. They had a traditional buffet and our guys could hardly wait to eat. Lisa and I decided to wait!

Onesimus, the Chaplain, arrived a few minutes early. He came up at the far end of the patio and stopped to talk with each group eating there. He finally made his way to us, and he greeted Lisa and me warmly. He seemed pleased to meet our team, and he welcomed them to call him if they needed him for anything. He was disappointed that I had not gotten my work permit. He is still very bothered by the way I was treated, and he sincerely wants to help me get this permit so that I can come and go freely.

We talked for a while about the Project and our visit to Uganda. Then I gave him the camera I had purchased for him. He was very pleased with it. Our team wanted all kinds of pictures. He said he had learned to smile very well during his recent trip to America! We agreed to meet when we return to Uganda in July. He couldn’t stay any longer because he had to attend a wedding, so he left us.

Our team was very pleased with Onesimus. Each one said he seemed to be a very good man.

I wanted to go for a boat ride on Lake Victoria! While the fisherman had told us last week that we could see crocodiles on an island just off the Kampala shore, I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case. Still, I know that this area is renowned by bird watchers and I really wanted to get out and see what we could see.

Vincent said he knew where we could get a safe boat to take us out on the water. He drove across town to the Speke Resort. This is the spectacular resort where Dan and I took everyone for Christmas lunch four years ago.

I would have never believed it was the same place had I not seen the Speke sign at the parking lot entrance. The attendant insisted that we had to pay 3,000 shillings per person for parking. Vincent argued with him that he shouldn’t charge us because we weren’t going to use the facilities at all, but the man charged us anyway!

The huge parking lot was packed and almost completely full. We found a parking place and walked down toward the lake while Vincent went to get boat ride details. The place where we’d eaten Christmas lunch, a large field on the edge of the lake with tents set up to keep diners out of the sun, was simply gone. A huge new restaurant stood in its place. Three new resorts separated us from the hotel rooms we could see from where we ate. We walked along a brick path beside a field where kids kicked soccer balls. Many people walked with us. After a few minutes, I realized what I was seeing. When we came for lunch that Christmas, almost everyone was Mzungu or Indian. Now, we were definitely in the minority: most of the visitors to the resort were Ugandans!

Vincent caught up with us as we stood by the lake enjoying the fresh breeze. The rates for a boat ride were incredible. A boat that would take 12 cost $295 per hour, and the rates went up from there!

We walked up from the lake to one of the new resorts and looked inside. A doorman came out to run Joseph and Michael away, but we weren’t interested in going in anyway. We continued up the hill past a huge variety of flowering plants. As we walked, we were met by a black man leading a pony which carried a very frightened young Indian boy on its back!

We came upon a two level restaurant that could easily seat 1,000 people, then we were at the stables. This was the only thing that hadn’t changed since we were here four years ago. There were stalls for about two dozen horses spread out in a half circle around an exercise area. A young foal was running in the area, kicking up its heels as it ran. His mother chewed grass and ignored him.

Most of the horses were in their stalls. I went over and started petting one. They all came over. They were absolutely scared to death of the horses, but they were very brave and everyone had at least one picture made with them petting a horse!

We walked back to the car. This had been our time for either a boat ride or a forest walk (a walk in the jungle). Although it was good to see the resort, I was disappointed that we had missed both of these things.

Early in the day, I had told Vincent that he could choose a restaurant for our last meal together. All day, I had asked him what he was thinking. He always said the same thing: “I’m still thinking!” As we drove back, I asked again.

“Which do you want: Indian, Chinese, Turkish?”

“I want what you want,” I said. “You have driven all week. The least I can do is let you choose a restaurant.”

He never gave us a hint about where he was taking us as we came back through the nearly deserted streets of Kampala. The service stations mostly had 0000 as their price for all kinds of fuel. He stopped outside a Korean restaurant that I had said I wanted to try early in the week. He had used his one chance to choose a place to pick a restaurant that he knew I wanted to try!

The street going past the restaurant was jammed with cars and the parking lot had only one remaining space. We took it and went inside. They were hosting a wedding in a separate room. We were taken into the restaurant and down a wide hall to a beautiful tatamai room. It was a modern room with the area under the table cut out so that one didn’t have to sit on one’s feet for the whole meal! I thought everyone would have great fun sitting in this strange room eating unusual food.

Lisa and I decided we should visit the toilet before we took our shoes off for the tatamai room. I came out first and found our guys moving across the hall to a conventional dining room. “We wanted to have a Lazy Susi,” said Michael.

Lisa came back in a few minutes. She was also disappointed about the tatamai room. We rarely have the opportunity to eat in one, so we each thought it would be fun. As we talked, we found that Michael thought there was too much air conditioning in the place under the table and Grace thought someone would come along and cut off her feet if she sat in such a place! She was really worried about this!

I ordered for everyone, a wide assortment of dishes and cooking styles for less than $11 per person. Our waiter was incredibly attentive. He even gave Lisa a bell she could ring if we needed him. He was with us nearly 100% of the time anyway!

We had an assortment of appetizers followed by six wonderful dishes, including a fried squid dish that was outstanding. Lisa ordered a special coffee that had to be brewed at the table. The percolator consisted of two circular glass globes. The one at the top had coffee in it the one at the bottom had water. We heated the bottom flask over a very temperamental sterno and wick flame. When the water reached a certain temperature, it all rose into the top globe where the ground coffee waited. When the temperature fell, the water descended into the bottom globe where it heated back up and the process was repeated. When it had cycled twice, the waiter said it was ready to serve. He brought Lisa heavy cream and sugar and she had a wonderful desert!

Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, and I know for certain that the company couldn’t be beat! We made a lot more pictures, then it was time to pack up the doggy bag and go.

We returned to the hotel for an evening of blogging and packing. It will be very hard to leave tomorrow!

Monday, December 31: The Year’s Last Day

No buffet and the breakfast folks were slow, so we were a bit late getting down. We went straight to the church where Daniel was waiting for us. Daniel had decided to drop out of school because he wanted to enter a technical program. His sponsor wanted him to continue with school and decided not to pay for the technical program. So Daniel hasn’t been doing anything for a year. Jane, his mother, and Mark, his brother, had both come to me separately saying that I had promised a sponsor for Daniel and yet he still wasn’t in school. I had carefully explained to each that I never promise sponsors, that I all I can do is promise to look for a sponsor. I’ve been looking, but haven’t found one.

So here was Daniel, and he immediately wanted to know why I hadn’t found him a sponsor since I had promised him one. I went through it all again, and he nodded a lot, and he left when I finished. I have no idea whether he understood.

We spent the entire morning working with the new computer. I spent a while on Excel skills and we discussed building reporting templates for the coming year. And we worked on checking account reconciliation. They are doing a great job tracking income and expenses, but they aren’t tying it all back to the checking account.

We finished a little before 1:00. I was tired and hungry and we had a meeting at 2:00 with the university students. So we drove down into Ntinda and stopped at The Chef, which is a local take-away restaurant. All our folks wanted liver, so Lisa ordered chaps and I ordered a kebab with chippata (Indian bread). I was confused about my menu. I was expecting a skewer of grilled meat, but instead I got the fried harry meat thing that Lisa wanted. She got several pieces of fried meat that we always called mystery meat in high school. It was exactly the same thing. So we traded. The fries were great and the other things weren’t bad even though we weren’t completely sure about either of them.

Back to the church to meet the students at 2:00. The problem was no one was there! Just before 2:00, one girl came in and the current students wandered in over the next half hour. We talked with them about the challenges they face and answered their questions about the Project and our help. Jacinta , who will graduate this October, was a huge help. She is taking a leadership role with the college students and she’s doing a great job.

I explained very carefully that we felt that providing their school fees and books was enough, that if they had true needs we could discuss them, but that they should work for their incidental expenses. As soon as I opened the floor for questions, one of the girls asked for a laptop!

Lisa sat by the door and intercepted the students that were late. We decided not to let them in! She sent them to the office to wait until we finished with the first group. This didn’t go over well at all, but I think our point about being on time was made!

As this first group was leaving, Jacinta asked to talk with me. Her first question was whether Dan and Lisa, her sponsors, would be at her graduation. Her second was whether Lisa and I would be coming. She seemed very disappointed that we wouldn’t all be there to see her. Her next questions were a bit disturbing. I had asked Vincent a month ago to talk with her about a graduation gift, and she had said she wanted us to pay for a graduation party. So she wanted to talk about planning that. She quoted an estimate for the party and it was almost as much as a term’s tuition! I had read that this is a major problem in East Africa, the idea that celebrating an event is so important that people incur debts they can never repay in order to feed their friends and families at a celebration! She put a little different spin on it, however. She said that these parties were so much a part of the culture that if she didn’t have one, people would not believe she had actually graduated. They would assume that something happened if she didn’t celebrate and that could make it more difficult to find a job! When I asked what she thought it might cost, she said at least 1 million shillings! (about $700) We talked more and she finally said, “Look, I would really like to have a party and it is very important to me. But I understand that it is different for you. And if you don’t think it is important or if the sponsors can’t afford it, I will be fine.”

This is an amazing young woman!

I told her Lisa and I would underwrite 500,000 if we ended up short.

The next group was a bit more interesting. Only half of the kids we expected showed up. These are the recent graduates who are expecting to start University in the Fall. Julius was there. He is a very bright boy, at the very top of his class in one of the hardest high schools around. And Recheal came. She has been studying tailoring, but now she wants a diploma in fashion design where she can develop her own clothing. Ian was also there. He only joined us about two years ago. I don’t know him very well, but he is very excited about going to college. Olivia was also there. Her situation is very unusual. She was accepted into a medical school program in the fall. She was expecting us to find a sponsor, so she borrowed the money to go. Now, the money is due and tuition will be due again soon. She was really panicked! We had been given some money to be used as needed, so we decided to pay off her debts with this money.

The students had no questions at all, so I finished with them in about forty minutes. Our next appointment was at 5:00 when I was scheduled to continue talking with the church about budgeting. About 4:00, Pastor Elliot from the new EPC church at Najeera came in. I had told the group I would give them tea if they came at 5:00, which I had immediately forgotten. Elliot was there to help prepare. We told him we would buy sodas for everyone instead, so Elliot got in the van with us and Vincent took us to a nearby apartment complex for a brief rest before the next meeting. We set up chairs and a table on a wide terrace looking over the Ntinda area. We had hardly finished when it started to rain. We moved to the bar area and it quit raining before we could sit down!

We sat at the bar and talked. Lisa and I drank Cokes while everyone else got fruit juice. We rested until 4:50, then Vincent drove us back to the church. As everyone was getting out, Pastor Elliot gave Vincent 1,000 shillings to help with the cost of the sodas. I stayed with Vincent and we bought 30 assorted sodas at a nearby market. It made us get started a little bit late, but no one was deterred from asking questions! They had tough questions, about protecting the budget when true needs arose, about how to save and what to do with what they saved, about how bank accounts worked.

By 6:30, the questions had begun to slacken off, so Joseph took over. He thanked everyone for coming, Michael stood up and talked about the effect of our shoes on his community. He said people were coming to his house every day to ask about his church, a place where people would give to buy things for children they didn’t know. This was opening doors for him to work with people throughout his neighborhood. Then Vincent asked if the Elders and Pastors would lay hands on me and ask for God’s healing on my legs. Joseph, Michael, and Elliot came forward and put their hands on me and prayed in a mixture of English and Luganda for my healing.

Our Hotel Manager had told us the other day to tell him which night would like to eat from the new Thai menu. We told him Monday at 7:30. So after the prayer was over, we hurried to the van and Vincent drove us back to the hotel. We cleaned up a bit, then went to the restaurant. We were alone once again! Not another table had anyone at it. They had spent more time on the decor, changing out table cloths, adding new wall hangings, and painting one wall bright yellow. The place looked great.

And the old menu had been thrown out in favor of a new one written on brown paper and tied up with ribbon. We ordered a big meal with soup, appetizer, and entrées. The soup came at once. This time, it was the right soup! Our appetizer didn’t come until the main dishes came. It was fried beef, a dish that should be spicy but wasn’t at all. The beef with holy basil was excellent, as was the green beans with oyster sauce, though neither was as hot as it should be. The Restaurant Manager came and asked about the meal, then the Hotel Manager came. We talked a bit, and I asked him about returning in July. He checked the rate that we were paying this trip and said he could beat that in July if we had at least three rooms. He told us to be ready for the fireworks extravaganza at the Sheraton at midnight. Our rooms would give us a perfect seat for watching!

We sipped tea for a few minutes. I called the waitress and asked for the bill. “The manager said there is no bill,” she said. I still gave her a tip.

We went back to the room and I tried to catch up the blog, but I kept falling asleep. We opened our windows a little before midnight. The hotel was playing loud music for a fairly good crowd of revelers. We could hear very loud music and DJ’s shouting at clubs on the other side of the golf course. At midnight, the Sheraton began shooting fireworks from their roof. They were terrible – puny, one color bursts that looked like rockets bought on the street.

Meanwhile, the Serena Hotel was starting a fireworks barrage that Disney would have loved! Two fifty foot tall trees blocked part of our view of the show, but anything shot in the air was there for us to see.

The Sheraton suddenly got its act together and began a truly beautiful fireworks program. Instead of booming flashes, they focused much more on sparkly numbers in all sorts of colors. I’ve never seen anything like these. Watching dueling fireworks displays was a wonderful way for both of us to end our year!

Sunday December 30: Church and Dancing!

A very wide cultural experience!

The buffet was back and it was as good as ever. We had plenty of time to eat and be ready when Vincent arrived at 10:00. He had us at the church by 10:15 (there is still very little traffic). Joseph asked me to preach today, so I was a bit anxious through four praise songs, John Bosco talking three different times, two choir songs, then another choir singing two. And about 11:40, it was time for me to start! I preached about being ready for the New Year, about not being constrained by how we thought God should solve problems, about moving when God leads.

Afterwards, there were meetings for both the men and women. I called Jody and made arrangements to meet her and Aaron for lunch. They said they could meet us at Garden City in 20 minutes. I told them we would be late, but there soon.

So Vincent and Joseph took us back to the hotel to change. We hurried, and made it to Garden City within 45 minutes. They were shopping at Uchumi so Lisa went inside and got them.

I asked Vincent to take us to Blue Mango (I think). It’s a pizza place owned by a Chicago couple. When they said they wanted pizza, I knew this was the place for them, and no one was disappointed! The pizza is wonderful, pizza that would feel right at home in the US. It has less tomato and more white cheese, but it is wonderful. Between the six of us and Patrick, who was a lot more animated today and really loved the pizza, we ate three large pizzas! Jody was also feeling much better. Lisa and I had bought her a few almost American food things at Uchumi.

They wouldn’t let us take them anywhere , so we left them at the restaurant. We started the other way. “Vincent and Joseph, do you have any plans?” Neither did.

“Is there some place you want to go?” asked Vincent.

“The tombs!”

So Vincent drove us to Kasubi Tombs, which were within two miles of Jody and Aaron’s place. There were a few cars in the lot, which was also the lot for a mosque! It was a little strange to be parking there.

The entrance to the site is a large thatched building, which is a replica of the guard’s house for the tomb, which is built like the king’s palace. We went in and through to the courtyard outside the gate to the palace/tomb. There was a sign directing us to get a ticket before entering. “Oh, that means when we finish,” said Joseph.

“It says before,” I said.

“Before you leave,” insisted Joseph.

So we left the building where tickets were sold and started into the site. A man immediately stopped us. “Do you have your ticket?” he asked. He sounded rather aggressive.

“No,” said Joseph.

“Can’t you read English? It says you must by a ticket.”

“We thought we could visit first,” said Vincent.

“Then it would say after visiting instead of before entering, wouldn’t it? Now go in there and buy a ticket!”

I hurried inside and bought tickets for everyone, but we had to wait about 20 minutes for the guide to get ready. We started through the gate, a group of about 20 Ugandans, two Bzungu, one guy on a cane. This wasn’t the guide Joseph and I had met last year. It was the young guy who had fussed at us earlier. He took us past the thatched hut that was being built last Christmas. He made no comment about it at all. And he didn’t stop to explain about the houses for the king’s favorite wives. The houses, however, were being renovated – new white paint and new roofs.

We had to take our shoes off to go inside. Vincent, who ran away last year, came in with us. Lisa and I walked sock-footed to the spear fence at the front of the room. Joseph and Vincent stayed at the back. “You must all sit in Buganda style,” said the guide. “That is, you must bend your knees and point them toward me. Everyone must do this, except for him.” He pointed at me. “He can keep his legs straight with his feet pointed at me and he can lean against the pole there.”

So I stretched out with my back against the pole while everyone else contorted into Buganda style sitting! The guide was okay. We had heard the story of the Catholic and Anglican martyrs from the perspectives of the two churches. He told the story from the perspective of the Bugandans, still the largest tribe in Uganda. He wasn’t at all sympathetic with the king. He was, in fact, really pro-Christian. And he was the grandson of the last king!

Things were much different in the tomb this year. For one thing, there were two neon strips which illuminated the entire area. So the sleeping wives of the kings were sort of visible as they lay on their mats. And one of the women had her radio, which was playing calypso music. And there was a man in there talking quite loudly to one of the wives. So the mystery and strangeness was all but gone!

Our guide told his story, then dismissed us. He went out with a large Ugandan group, ignoring all of us completely.

We made a few more snapshots, then went back to the van. Vincent asked if we would like to see where the Queen stayed during CHOGM last month. He said it was along the way, so we agreed. I’m sure it was, in fact, along the way to somewhere. I’m not sure that somewhere was our hotel! It was Hotel Serena, the brand new, huge pink luxury hotel that Vincent had showed us in June. This time, though, he let us out at the door and parked the van. Three busses stood in the drive. A woman was trying to route a group of very white Americans into buses. “Bus A goes to Namerembe, Bus B goes to Kolping House, Bus C. . . well, I guess it will go to both.”

“What if you get on the wrong bus?” asked a helpful young man.

“Well, don’t!” snapped the lady. “You know where you are staying, get in the right bus.”

“The Namerembe bus is full,” said another.

“Then get in C”

“I thought C was going to Kolping House.”

“It is, but it will go to Namerembe, too.”

“Will the Kolping bus go to Namerembe?”

I hurried inside! A group was coming out. They had heard none of the instructions and were arguing about which bus was which! From what we could tell, this group had flown in on the British Air flight that morning. They had attended some sort of kick off function there at the hotel, now they would go to their “real” hotels. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the leader when the Namerembe group saw where they were staying after seeing Serena!!

The place is absolutely spectacular, a world class property if ever there was one! It was completely pink outside, built in a modern colonial style. Inside, the walls were stacked stone. The lobby was open to the third floor. There was dark wood African art everywhere. And there was a snow village standing at the end of the main lobby. An older white woman with a Midwestern accent was shouting to two black girls from across the lobby. “Now don’t forget to bring your swim suits tomorrow.”

“Will we need them tomorrow?” asked one of the girls in a voice not much louder than a whisper.

“Well, you never know! We might be swimming tomorrow! So bring them just in case! You just never know!!!”

Vincent was looking at the beautifully stocked bar. We walked toward the door and he came with us. “Jim, sodas in there cost 7,000 shillings “ (about $5.50).

“That’s terrible!” I said. I stopped and looked back at Vincent and Joseph who had joined his brother. They were about ten steps back and losing ground in a hurry. “Are you sure they’re that expensive? Why don’t you ask. If they aren’t too much, I could use a Coke.”

They all but ran to the bar and came back with the news. “They are only 2,000!” said Joseph.

“That’s not too bad,” I said. “Let’s do it!”

We took a table outside. A waiter came immediately and took our orders. He disappeared inside. We were sitting on a patio above a tropical garden. There were no flowers, only incredible greenery in all the shades only Africa produces. There was a stream and foot bridges criss-crossing it. It was absolutely silent here, not 300 yards from the busy street. Our sodas arrived in a matter of seconds. Lisa also had a Coke and both had large bitter lemon slices in them. My slice was rotten, which gave the Coke a strange taste and sent me a very strong message about coming into the Serena for sodas! So I drank mine fairly quickly, then ordered another one to give the brothers a bit more time to enjoy this place they had only dreamed about. They took pictures of one another with their sodas. Joseph picked up a rate sheet. Rooms were $170 for a double during Christmas, which lasted until early January, a great deal if you’re spending that much for a room.

When I’d finished my second drink, we went back through the bar, across the end of the lobby, and out into the drive. Vincent insisted on getting the van for me. Lisa and Joseph went to the fountain at the front of the hotel to take pictures. While I waited for Vincent, black early teenage girls got in the automatic revolving doors. They were laughing so hard that they missed their stop, and as they started around again, the automatic door stopped trapping them inside. They were still laughing, so they didn’t notice they were stuck until three door men descended on them. One of the men freed them and the other two intercepted them when they came out in the lobby. All three escorted them back into the hotel. Vincent pulled up before I could see what happened to them.

Vincent was instantly nervous when he realized that Lisa and Joseph weren’t standing there waiting on us. He immediately pulled away from the door, then rolled very slowly down the drive until Lisa and Joseph came to the van. They hopped in, and spent the ride to the Metropole comparing photos of the fountain.

We had to go back to the hotel so that we could get our video camera. We had left it charging without thinking that when we took the key from the key holder, the power went off! We had very little battery for the camera, and we were about to need it.

In a weaker moment, I had agreed to go see the Ndere Dance Troup perform at a new facility not too far from the church. And I had invited everyone. At 3,000 shillings per person (about $1.50) I thought it would be a good outing for everyone here at the end of our trip. So we went to Joseph’s house. Michael and Mabel weren’t there. Neither was Agatha. But Dan and Robinah came, along with Grace, Vincent, Joseph, Lydia, and even Baby Lisa.

The show started at 6:00. I asked about food but Joseph said everyone would have to wait because there was no food there. We pulled up a very steep hill into the parking lot. There were a number of cars there, but it was already 5:50 so it didn’t appear there would be a great crowd. We went into a flat stacked stone building, the only one of its kind we’d seen. There was a sign near the door, saying that there was a guest troop there. So the price was 10,000 per person and the show didn’t start until 7:00!

I bought tickets for everyone then we looked at some anti-AIDS posters made by area students. When we’d looked at it, there was no more delaying. It was time to go in. We climbed the rest of the hill to a woman taking tickets. She stood beside the buffet, a huge spread of food that looked and smelled great. Trouble was there was no place there to prepare it, so it appeared to have been brought in from somewhere. There was no way to keep the food hot or cold, so I quickly decided that Lisa and I wouldn’t be eating!

The stage was outdoors. It sat in a pit with the seats spread up in tiers in a half-circle. We took our seats and prepared to wait an hour. The usual start time was 6:00 and a number of people started gathering. Since the announced time was 7:00, there were a lot of seats still open when men began to trickle onto the stage. They carried the strangest seating device I’ve ever seen. The chairs were wicker. The seating portion was round, it was shaped like a wok and open like a toilet seat! The men carried instruments, small and huge drums, stringed things in a wide variety of sizes that looked like Viking ships, and flutes. They kept wondering in until there were 20 musicians. Girls in white dresses with red, green, and yellow trim and dark brown feathery contraptions on their back sides took seats on the other side. A man in a gaudy yellow suit and hat led the band in warming up for a bit, then the show started abruptly at 6:30! I gave Joseph money for a bit of food. They bought three meals and asked for six sets of cutlery. They feasted on some sort of beef kabob thing and French fries as the show began.

There were 20 musicians and 20 dancers. These girls could really shake their backsides! The speed, angle, direction, and agility of it all was simply amazing! I do better understand the situation with church music today however. The drumming and general confusion induced by the music sounded a bit like highly amplified drum music with a distinct hint of train wreck!

There was at least a twenty minute delay between songs, and the yellow suit guy tried to keep the crowd loose while we waited. He was pretty much terrible as a comedian. Ugandans haven’t been laughing long, so I guess we can give him a break on warming up to his audience. There was also an older guy in a strange tree bark hat who only spoke very soft Luganda. The other guy made fun of him, and the people loved it. During the break, a tour bus came, along with a few other groups. The seats were all soon taken!

The second number was pretty much like the first. The yellow suit guy did a little more stand up and made fun of the hat guy. He had all the children come down, then he had them go get their parents and he danced with them. Then the dancers returned. This one was a strange looking thing that involved jumping high into the air and pulling up their knees. The effect of the high jump and long fall as a full coal train crashed was very unusual.

He did a full stand up routine this time. It was very strange. We had read that morning in a book we’d bought that Ugandans don’t understand the concept of racism, that comments about one’s colors or looks are common place and visitors need a thick skin. This guy proceeded to tell an incredibly long joke about God creating Eden in Uganda. He said God had a lot of black paint when he started, He’d made everyone white, but he planned to paint them all black. So he started with a tribe there in Uganda and made them very, very black. He used so much that He was afraid there wouldn’t be enough to go around so He used less on the Buganda tribe. But to compensate for the lack of blackness, He gave them huge noses! Then He moved to another tribe and He was running even shorter on paint so He made them lighter. But He compensated by giving the women of the tribe “very adequate seating assemblies.” He said it was impossible for these women to sit in a plastic chair without breaking it or at least becoming stuck! Then e moved to Asia and He was running so short of paint that He could only give them black hair. He went through a long piece about how funny Asians were when they spoke. He moved to Europe and said He had no paint for them, so He blessed them with the ability to communicate with very short words like “yes,” “no,” and “okay.”

Everyone laughed and no one seemed to take offense. So he invited all foreigners onto the stage to dance. This took at least half an hour!

Joseph asked to go then, about an hour and a half into things. I told him we weren’t ready. He said the next one would be best, and he was right. It was a dance where the dancers placed clay flower pots on their head and danced. They kept adding pots, until the singer had at least ten pots on her head while she both sang and danced! With 20 ladies with pots on their heads dancing around the strange, this was one of those moments you won’t soon forget.

Yellow suit kept on with some foolishness during this break, which was also long. Then everyone returned. This time the men did a lot of the shaking. Their costumes looked as though they belonged in Bavaria, white with yellow, green, and red trim. But they had a very complex set of bells from ankle to knee on each bell. If the train wreck could have been turned down a bit, I’m sure these bells were beautiful.

When this was over, Joseph and the others jumped up. It wasn’t over – Yellow Suit announced there would be an encore and he began a painful introduction of the twenty orchestra members. I have no idea what happened next. I was much too busy trying to navigate stairs, slopes, and a very uneven parking lot in the dark!

We spent nearly 3 hours at the event! We pulled into the hotel a little after 9:00. We hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, so we were pretty hungry. We went downstairs, but there was no one in the 24 hour coffee shop. Neither of us wanted grilled meat or Thai, so we went to our room and snacked on cookies and fruit juice.

We done it all from church to pagan dances in only one day!