Welcome to the Pearl of Africa!!

Hey, do you want to know something cool? I’m in Uganda!! It’s still so surreal to stop and realize sometimes that I am actually here in Africa, but soooo exciting!!

It took me basically an eternity to get to my cute little house in Mbale from the time I left my house in Burley, but it was definitely worth it.  My flights went really well (as well as 8-10 hour flights can go) and, stopping in London was super cool.  We ended up with a nine hour layover in London so Carly (a girl on my team that I was traveling with) and I met up with some other girls who were on our same flights but going to Tanzania with HELP rather than Uganda, and went and explored London.  It was a process getting out of the airport and into the city, but definitely worth it.  London was everything it was supposed to be for me.  The second I stepped out of the subway station, I saw Big Ben and the London Eye (which I also saw from the plane). So cool! We wandered around some more and also saw Westminster Abbey, which was absolutely gorgeous.  London also met all of my expectations by having red telephone booths like in Harry Potter, having real British accents, funny little taxis, fish and chips, driving on the wrong side of the road with steering wheels on the wrong side of the car, red double-decker buses, and houses in neighborhoods that looked like Privet Drive from Harry Potter.  Mostly, it was wonderful. Also, the Heathrow airport in London was crazy big. And also made for rich people.  The place was full of expensive stores like Prada, Gucci, Dolce & Gabana, Tiffany’s, and every other expensive brand you could think of. So cool. 

And then, I went to a totally different world.  It was a huge change to go from the London airport to the one in Entebbe, Uganda.  You know what’s really weird? I liked the Entebbe one sooo much better.  Uganda is just so amazing.  I am only on my second day here and I have already decided that I am never leaving.  The landscape is so green and hilly (kind of like Virginia!!) and the contrast of the green with the red dirt is just beautiful.  It’ super hot and humid here and I feel like I will never be dry again.  Or clean.  But that’s fine. Our house is great.  It’s in one of the richest neighborhoods in Mbale and is definitely considered high-class by Uganda standards. And it really is nice.  There’s plenty of room for everyone and we have a huge backyard and three dogs!  Okay, I could ramble on and on about everything that I have already learned about Uganda, but maybe that can just come a little at a time.  Instead I will just tell you what I have been up to for the last couple of days.

Yesterday we started off with a scavenger hunt around town to get ourselves oriented.  We went and found all of the businesses and people around town that we will be going to a lot while we were here.  The last part of our scavenger hunt was to take a boda back to our house.  For those of you who don’t know, boda bodas are the main form of transportation here.  They are little motorcycles that can seat around three people and everyone uses them as taxis to get from one place to another.   To be honest, I was terrified to ride one of these things.  Ugandans are crazy drivers and the bodas just dart in and out of traffic and around people and potholes.  Scary. But my first boda experience wasn’t too bad, and I think I will be able to get used to it pretty quick. After our scavenger hunt, we hung around town for the rest of the afternoon.  

Last night I went with Sam over to the church for her piano lessons.  That was a lot of fun.  I taught her friend Pius who has already been taught a lot about reading music and just needs to have a little refresher course and practice some more.  He is leaving on his mission in June (or July) so we are going to make sure he can play the hymns before he goes.  I’m so excited!! He was so much fun to work with and it was a lot of fun to get to meet some of Sam’s friends from church.  It was a great day.

Today was basically the best day of my life. We started the day by going to the Namatala Slum, which is a huge slum just outside Mbale.  Going to the slum was the perfect representation of what we are here to do.  Uganda as a whole is a third-world country and the majority of people don’t have a lot of money, but the slums are where the true poverty is. The slums are pretty much what you would expect a third-world country to look like: tiny shacks with straw roofs, herds of super skinny cows and goats wandering around, children without shoes or pants, unsanitary water and latrines, and dirt covering everything and everyone.  I have always heard about and seen pictures of people living in these kinds of conditions, but seeing it myself was incredibly eye opening.  To interact with the people there and see them as real people made the whole situation a lot more personal to me than it ever has been before.  As eye-opening as seeing these living conditions was, it was even more eye-opening to see the attitudes of the people there.  These people literally have nothing and yet they are so happy.  Definitely something for us to think about when we are complaining about our silly first-world problems. 

We met with two different organizations while we were in Namatala today, which are both amazing, but I will talk more about them later.  My favorite part of today was the kids. The second we stepped off the bodas in Namatala we were surrounded with beautiful little African children yelling, “Mzungu! Mzungu!”  They swarmed us and grabbed onto our hands and hugged our legs and just grinned up at us. Honestly melted my heart.  The whole time we were walking through the slums we were surrounded by children holding our hands and talking to us.  I couldn’t believe how uninhibited they were to run right up to us and grab on, and then keep walking with us far from their houses and families.  It was so much fun though. I am so in love with every kid I met today, and just want to bring them all home with me! It was mostly the best thing of my life.  I can’t wait until we get to go back to Namatala.  I love African babies so much!!  

The rest of the day was wonderful too, but I am going to wrap it up for now.  I’m so excited to keep meeting with people and start work on our projects, and I will write more about those when I know more. Sorry I don’t have any pictures yet. I have been so wrapped up in taking everything in that I haven’t actually taken pictures of anything yet.  I assure you that there will be plenty of pictures in the next three months though.

Africa is incredible. I am so blessed.