How do I even begin to describe the
past few days? Traveling was crazy. It was very long, involved very
little sleep, and made me more tired than I’ve been in a long time.
Jet-lag was not really that big of an issue, but because of packing
and getting ready, from the time I got up at 7 AM Saturday to the
time I went to sleep here in Uganda at 1:30 AM on Thursday morning, I
got a total of 16 hours of sleep (over 5 days), so I have been very
exhausted. And, once we arrived here in Uganda, we were supposed to
have 48 hours of nothing but rest, but since our host missionary (Dr.
K) is only with us for two days now until he returns in February, we
got up and got going yesterday after a couple of hours of sleep.
A little on our first days in Uganda:
After getting picked up at the airport in Entebbe, we went to Kampala
to do some shopping for groceries and other things we need, drove
through Jinga and ate at a Chinese restaurant (I know, Chinese
restaurant in Africa, but it was actually really good), and then
drove to the school in Busia where we are living for the first little
bit of time. We got up yesterday morning and went to visit the
compound/house where we will be living the rest of the time we’re
here (which is actually very nice). After lunch, we headed to the
bike shop to pick up our bikes, which ended up being quite the
ordeal. Fifteen white people picking up fifteen identical bikes is,
I am sure, a very unusual sight here, so we attracted a crowd, which
only got larger when we stopped to try and adjust the seat height,
which was too tall for almost all of us. I think they really enjoyed
seeing us riding bikes (or for a couple whose bikes were way too tall
for them, trying to ride a bike). Then, we came back to the school
and had a meeting with Dr. K about anything and everything ministry
related until he returns in February. Finally last night, we went to
a little restaurant here and ate fried chicken and “chips”
(French fries) for our Thanksgiving dinner.
Our ministry is going to involve
several things here as we partner with the Helping Hands
Organization. We are going to teach English to both the teachers and
students here at the school for orphans that they have in Busia. The
students are already supposed to be learning English, but Dr. K is
really displeased with the lack of English-teaching that is happening
in the school. We will be doing bible studies for the men, women,
and youth here in the community. We have a lot of freedom in this
area to do what we want, as long as the studies are happening. We
will be starting several church plants in this area of the Busia
District as well as visiting many of the 68 church plants of the
Helping Hands Organization in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania for which
we will be preparing Music, Dramas, and Teachings. And finally, we
will be hosting teams as Dr. K brings them in through Helping Hands
and helping them get involved in ministry for the week or so that
they are here.
I’ll end with a few observations that
I’ve made so far:
-
The sun here is really intense. I
put on a lot of sunscreen yesterday, and I’m already getting
pretty dark (but no, Mom, I didn’t burn). Maybe I’ll be really
dark when I return in May-that would be a first. -
The mosquitoes here are really
vicious. I slept the first two nights without a mosquito net- bad
idea! My arms are covered in bites. -
The taxis are bikes with a seat
over the back wheel, and vehicles and bikes don’t yield to
pedestrians. They are bigger; they have the right of way. -
The word “Mzungu” is Swahili
for “European”, but throughout Central and Eastern Africa, it
really just means “White Person”. As you walk through the
streets, you hear a chorus of kids screaming “Mzungu!” and
waving at you. They will also say “How are you? I am fine” over
and over because that is, for many kids, the only English that they
know. Occasionally, it just becomes a chant of “How are you? How
are you?” -
The kids will just run up to you
as you’re walking through the streets and grab your hand and walk
down the streets with you. We were told yesterday “It is a great
honor for the children to hold the hand of a Mzungu and walk down
the street with them”. While I don’t like where this sentiment
is derived from (the superiority of Whites), it is very enjoyable to
have the kids come up and walk long with us. -
Because of 4 and 5, it feels like
we’re on parade anywhere we go. I would guess that as we begin to
get to know some of the people around here. At least, I hope that’s
the case. The attention we attract kind of bothers me/stresses me
out. I know this will be beneficial for ministry, but especially
yesterday while we were trying to adjust the bikes and going grocery
shopping, all of the attention was a little overwhelming, at least
for me.
And just fyi, since I wrote this blog this morning, we’ve had several bikes break down. They’re not the best, and we’re really wary to ride them just because we usually end up walking them anyway. And, the transition for life here has not been the easiest for myself or my team. Please just be praying that we might find our place here and settle in quickly so that we don’t have that weighing on us as we begin our work here.
