never a dull moment...

Nov 23

Well I suspected that today would be a short, boring entry because it was just a travel day, but I'm starting to learn that I should never expect an uneventful day here. Our driver from Kampala picked Matt, Amy, and me up at around 8:00 this morning. When we arrived in Jinja we requested him to give us a little time at a craft market that we heard was really good there. In only about 45 minutes time we did a sufficient amount of damage at the market...stocked up on some Christmas gifts!

We arrived in Kampala and met Rev James at what is becoming one of our favorite places to eat in Uganda - Javas! You can get all kinds of things there that you can't typically find like cheese and cilantro and real ketchup and most importantly...Diet Coke! So we had a delicious lunch then our driver took us to the bust "station" where we barely missed the first bus so we had to start a second bus which meant sitting on the bus in the heat for an hour until it was completely full. And by that , I mean they don't take off until every single seat in that thing is taken. We did, however make our own excitement...Matt and I ate our first grasshopper (we couldn't convince Amy to do it).

It was fairly awful...the taste wasn't bad. It was more...mmm...the texture. I could actually feel the different parts of it as I crunched it and it was a bit difficult to swallow. But how could you come to Africa and not eat at least one insect, right?!

Anyway, once the bus was totally packed, we took off (around 3:30). What was awesome was that when we hit the edge of town about 10 minutes later, we got stopped at the police check point and after almost TWO hours of sitting on that hot bus crammed full with people, we had to get a new driver (long story as to why...) but we didn't leave Kampla until after 5:00. It was a long, uncomfortable ride to Mubende. It was dark by the time we got there and when we arrived at around 7:45, there was this massive group of merchants standing outside the bus door putting baskets of food in front of our faces trying to get us to buy. It was pretty chaotic. We had to take "boda-bodas" (motorcycles) to another gas station...first experience on a "boda"...was really pretty fun! At the station, Reverend had to work at convincing a local driver to give us a ride to nearby Kikumuro and he allowed us to join the other in the car, which made EIGHT of us in a 6-seater car. After yet another really uncomfortable 45-minute ride, we finally arrived in Kikumuro where Bob met us in the truck.

He took us the rest of the way to Nyamarwa. We had a slight delay on the road because a semi truck had flipped completely over and that kind of accident causes major issues on roads as tiny as these.

We arrived at Kibbuse and had a super late dinner at 10:00. We hadn't eaten since 1:00 so we were a bit hungry.

What a day...left Mbale a little after 8:00 AM and didn't arrive in Nyamarwa until 14 hours, 5 different types transportation, and one grasshopper later. We should sleep fairly well tonight...