Our trip started out as an adventure and after the last 5 days, I am confident that it will continue to be an adventure until the day we leave. To start off, Travis remembered halfway to Atlanta that his passport was still at school. Our flight was delayed an hour which made it possible for him to still be on time but the delay caused us to miss our flight from London to Uganda. They rerouted us to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. I had never heard of the city in my life but due to our 9 hour layover we decided to try and make it out to see the tallest building in the world which had opened about 2 weeks before. After 5 hours in the airport and a good ten miles of walking in circles we finally gave up our dreams of city life to enjoy the luxury of the airport hotel that British Airways had provided for us. Due to the jet lag, we had no concept of time. We stayed up all night in Dubai and slept all day on the flight to Ethiopia and on to Uganda.
Honestly, I didn’t freak out at all until the day before we left. I wasn’t scared of all the normal things like disease, war, or living conditions. God had preformed enough miracles for us to come on this trip that I was totally confident that we were supposed to go. For example, the day before we left, $2000 came in to the student missions office, which was the exact amount we needed for our stipend. Thank you to all of you who gave your time, money, and prayers to support us. You guys are incredible. So anyway, I wasn’t scared of any of those things but leaving places has always made my stomach turn. I don’t like missing out on the lives of the people I love. As I was dozing in and out on the plane, I would wake up and slowly, the realization that I was heading into the unknown and leaving everyone I knew behind would hit me. That time of hanging in the air, waiting to see what would happen next was the worst.
The second I set foot in Uganda, all my fears vanished and I fell in love. As we walked out to meet Willbroad, the director of the orphanage and Jared, the guy from the US who was going to show us the ropes, I was beside myself with excitement. All the months of planning, all the emails and stressful decisions came together to make this meeting possible and right then and there, it set in that all of this was real. We were in Uganda and these people who had just been names on a computer screen to us were now live, in the flesh, and in front of us. As we drove through the streets and met the rest of Willbroad’s family in the van, I knew that no matter what happened in the next 4 months, I would come back to this place.
The orphanage was even better than I imagined. The roads were bumpy and dirty but that was a given. The buildings are quaint but cute and the children are adorable. Many of them are on leave until next week so that gives us time to settle in. Willboard led us to our house, (yes, our OWN house) and showed us our rooms. Jared said we would have plumbing, electricity, Internet and a phone by the end of the week and so far, he has delivered. Oh, I forgot to tell you, we didn’t get our luggage for the first 2 days so I wore the same cloths for 4 days total. Ugh. We moved our stuff in and headed back to Willbroad’s house for a late supper. His wife, Milly, cooked us an amazing meal. Luckily, all of us love the local food and thankfully, it's cheap. Willbroad’s three children are 3, 5, and 7 years old and his sister, Viola, also lives with them. Their entire family has treated us so well and we have all become fast friends. Four Germans are staying here to do an evangelistic series and they have been such a riot. All of us speak English but we all have different accents so dinner conversations have been quite comical.
After breakfast on the 3
rd day, we went in to make a quick trip into Kampala. Jared and Travis decided to stay behind and work on the plumbing for our house while Krystin and I went in with Willbroad, his wife Milly and the Germans. We were jostling along in our van when all of a sudden there was a loud crashing sound and my side of the van slammed into the ground. I looked out my window in time to see our back wheel rolling off into the bush. My first instinct was of course, to burst out laughing, which I did. Soon the German women were laughing along with me and after an hour in the sun we were back in the van. There were 4 nuts on the front tires and 3 on the back ones. For those of you who are car challenged like me, there are supposed to be six nuts holding each tire to the axel. We finally got to the main road and right as I’m pondering how ironic it would be if the tire fell off again now that we are on pavement, there was another crash, the same tire in the ditch, but this time I didn’t laugh quite as hard. The whole town came out to watch as we fixed the tire and 2 hours later we were off again. Our quick trip into town turned out to be a 10 hour ordeal but Krystin and I learned a valuable lesson. Jared has taught us the phrase “TIA” meaning “This Is Africa” and I am slowly learning just how true that statement is. “Quick” always means “all day”, “fixed” always means “rigged” and “time” isn’t even a word in the dictionary.
A witch doctor’s lair is only about a stone's throw from our house by the lake and that first night, we fell asleep to the sounds of her drums and chants. At dawn, we wake up to the sound of this bird whose call resembles that of an owl’s woot mixed with a dove’s coo. I’m sure we will get used to all the strange noises at some point. As I am writing, the witch’s drums have just begun beating again and mosquitoes are sticking to my keyboard. All of it still seems surreal and I didn’t realize how many adventures we have already had until I started to write them down. But it isn’t all the excitement that has made me fall in love with this place, it’s the deep souls of the people and the simple beauty of the land have reached out and grabbed my heart. I’m sure culture shock will set in eventually and the novelty of living in a hut will wear off, but for now, I am more than ready to see what God has in store for us here.
