7:00pm: Have supper with Alexis and Jackie, a couple doing Young Life in Arusha, Tanzania…he is Congolese and she Tanzanian. We were also joined by an American couple doing Young Life at the local international school. We eat at a Western Hambuger place and I enjoyed a ‘foreign tasting’ cheeseburger, fries and a chocolate milkshake. Such a treat after a week of meats, rice and potatoes.
9:30pm: Get ready for bed…sleep on and off the next few hours…feels more like rest than sleep.
July 26th
2:15am: Wake up to get ready to go to the airport! Our flight is to leave at 6 am, but we need to arrive 2 hours before so our seats don’t get given away (that happens here)…and it takes an hour to get to airport so that’s why the early rise.
3:00am: A taxi comes to pick us up. We say goodbye to our hosts who got out of bed to unlock the gate and see us off.
3:30am: Taxi (traveling around 100km! with loud African music playing in the car) stops along side of the road as the trunk light keeps coming on. After much maneuvering of our luggage, the trunk will not latch…its now broken. We pray our bags stay still, especially as mine is on the top. He drops the speed to only 80 so as we fly over the speed bumps our things don’t go flying.
3:50am: We arrive at the Kilimanjaro Airport to find a group of about 10 people already waiting outside. To our surprise the airport isn’t even open yet!
4:50am: After waiting an hour in the early morning cold, the airport doors finally open and our flight is meant to leave in an hour!
Once in, our wait doesn’t end there…we have to wait for the security machines to turn on and then for an attendant to come to the desk. The first blessing was our bags were able to be checked through…mine to Entebee, Uganda and my parents through to London. Luggage is a tricky thing here and you PRAY like mad that everything firstly arrives to your destination and then intact! The second blessing was a good friend from Seattle, Jeff Vancil who had been at the conference the previous week was on our flight.5:25am: Wait in another queue (getting used to this!) for the immigration officer to come to work to check our passports.
6:00am: Board plane…on time, can you believe it?!
7:20am: Arrive into the Nairobi, Kenya airport and say goodbye to my parents! I will not be seeing until December when I return to Tacoma for Christmas.
10:00am: Arrive in Entebee, Uganda! I am overjoyed to find my bag and also my driver named Patrick who Hen and Harry had arranged to pick me up and take me to their town of Jinja. I didn’t have a firm idea of the length of my journey ahead. I had told Patrick that I would probably fall asleep in the car but the ride ended up being so eye-opening it was hard to shut my eyes. Its too difficult to capture everything I saw on that ride…basically it was pure AFRICA…people shopping, living life, animals wandering, children playing, men drinking, women carrying all sorts of objects on their heads, red dust flying, exhaust looming, cars zooming and tooting…and eye opening billboards like the one that showed a middle age Ugandan man on it saying “Would you let this man sleep with your teenage daughter? – So why are you sleeping with his? – Cross generational sex must stop with you.” (!!!) The car was hot and sticky as there was no air conditioning and my window was broken in the back.
12ish: Driving in and out of cars at over 100km! Just praying that I would arrive to my destination in one piece. At one point we are stopped in the road to stand still traffic. What is going on? It looked as if a terrible accident was ahead.
Where people injured? Would I be stuck on this road for hours with Patrick? Would we have to get out and walk…me the only white woman I had seen since the airport?! Just then Patrick overheard what was happening ahead and laughed…two big semi trucks were in a huge accident and one was a beer truck and beer bottles were all over the road…so many people were getting out of cars and buses to grab free beer. Finally about 10 min later we were able to get through the wreckage…I was so thankful!1:15pm: Arrive in Jinja to Hen and Harry Ferdinando’s home. My body aches and I am exhausted but grateful to get out of the car. They have been invited to a Ugandan catholic ordination party, honoring the brother in law of one of their new friends here named Apollo…we are to leave as soon as possible. As I am eating a quick lunch…my first meal since the plane that morning…I hear we will be leaving a bit later and I jump into bed for a quick cat nap!!
3:15pm: Leave for the ordination party…we pile into the Ferdinando’s forerunner. Along the way we pick up Apollo and his sister. Again, I am in a car (!)…as we continue to drive we eventually make our way out of the city and onto a main, non-paved road! We journey on this for nearly an hour and a half, not kidding!!! My butt is numb from bouncing and my eyes are hurting to stay open. The blessing was Hen and I had a great time to catch up on the journey. I think H&H thought it was going to be near by…but this was ages away and there was no turning back!
5:30pm: Arrive to a village church. Due to the fact we are white, we are surrounded by people who just stare at us or children who want to come up and touch us. I have been in these situations before but this was a little overwhelming. It was a big deal to the family that whites had come. The little service was surprisingly quick and then we headed back in the car to attend the ‘party’ (which was very much behind schedule…not a surprise in Africa).
6:00pm: On arrival we are shown the best seats. They had brought their couches from inside out onto the dirt. We were meant to surround the man being honored even though we had never met him before.
They were treating us like we were the center of attention and not the graduate!!! It was totally awkward…but hey you go with the flow when you are in a different culture. Our plan was to leave by 6 as the sun goes down right at 7 and its extremely dangerous to drive at night (we had a long ride home)…H & H have only done it once while being here. As you can imagine on these unpaved roads with no margins or lines, or street lights…plus people and animals walking all over the place!!! We find we are stuck, and need to stay a bit longer as they have prepared dinner for us. So we eat…and eat…and eat. I’m just praying that it sits well in my stomach.7:00pm: We finally get out of there…its almost dark. The journey home is LONG. Eventually after bouncing for a half an hour I feel as if I’m going to throw-up…there is no where to stop so I just close my eyes and pray I make it home!!!
9:30pm: We get back home!!! We made it in the dark, Harry did an amazing job driving. I slowly crawl out of the car praying I make it to the bed…I haven’t slept in 19 hours! We get to the door…and guess what?...the electricity is out. Oh joy. I feel my way to the bathroom and with a little flashlight that Harry gave me try and take out my contacts and brush my teeth. My stomach remains upset but I figure sleep is the best remedy.
10:00pm: GOOD NIGHT…from Africa…
Love you all! Bryna
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