Day 3 - Into the Villages

12/6/11

Day 3 – Into the Villages

Yesterday, I got to worship with the Water Missions team, before their weekly meeting. It was awesome to stand with believers in the faith and sing I surrender all and Amazing Grace. The team of people working here are awesome. There’s four Mzungus and 14 Ugandans! After lunch, we traveled into some villages along Lake Victoria. If you’ve never looked at the size of the lake, you’d be surprised how big it is. There are hundreds of villages around the lake. We only had to drive about 30 or 40 minutes out of Jinja, to get to Ntinkalu. It baffles my mind how close these villages are to civilization. We drove most of the trip on a dirt road through sugar cane fields. Along the way, we saw women picking up leftover stocks of sugar cane in the fields that have already been harvested. They carry their harvest on top of their heads, while walking the dirt road back to their village.

The dirt roads are easily washed away by rainwater, leaving huge ruts and massive holes in the road. So, we must travel slowly to avoid the meteor size holes that undoubtedly would swallow my VW bug alive! No matter how far out you drive, you will always find boda-boda’s taking people to their desired destination. I haven’t ridden on a boda-boda yet, but I plan on doing it before we leave!

As we drove into the first village, we watched as little children screamed “MZUNGU, MZUNGU!” as if they were announcing it for the rest of the village children. By the time we would park and open our doors, children surrounded our van with excitement. The first thing I tried to do was give them high fives. They just held their hand up back, as if I was a native American greeting them with a “How”. So, I would just high five them, saying “HIGH FIVE”, as I did it. They would in turn yell “HI FI” and giggle and want another one.

It was so humbling to know that they were excited to see me, a Mzungu, who had never been there before. I was the highlight of their day and all I did was show up. With us, we brought balloons and soccer balls to pass out. As I would blow up a balloon, they would giggle and scream “BALOO”. At first, I thought they were calling me Baloo, from jungle book, but I then realized they knew what the balloon was. These are no ordinary balloons, though. They were the large latex balloons, the size of beach balls. I threw the first on in the air, and immediately, they started to hit it up in the air, and all 20 kids were overwhelmed with joy. We repeated this a few times, and every time, one of the kids would just grab the balloon and take off! The rest would follow the balloon.

We got to see how far Lake Victoria was from the villages. Although they were along the lake, they were still a few miles away. Some parts of the villages had a water pump, while the rest of them were required to walk to the lake for their daily water needs. It was a good feeling to know that Water Missions had technicians working all day, piping water from the water source, all the way to the furthest village. Ntinkalu is just a week or two away from having safe water for everyone.

There is so much more that’s happening here, than you would think. It’s so encouraging to see what’s happening first hand. I hope that I, in some way, am giving you a taste of what it’s like here!

Grace and Peace,

Kyle

Day 2 - Arrive in Jinja

Day 2 – Arrive in Jinja

Last night, Darryl and I stayed in a Motel in Entebee. We didn’t get to bed until about 2 am. After breakfast this morning, we packed up and met up with our driver, Shalvin. Leaving the Sunset Motel, we drove back down the muddy clay road that we drove on the night before, only this time I could see everything. Buildings were all very run down and their yards were overgrown. Walls and barbed wire surrounded most hotels and restaurants. Along the side of the road I saw a small produce shack, where a young girl was waiting for customers. Another common occurrence was seeing goats and cows on the side of the road. Their owners will take them to a place to graze, tie them to a tree and leave.

Our drive from Kampala to Jinja was about two and half hours. Kampala was full of boda-bodas – pretty much kamikaze moped/taxi drivers with up to four passengers on them. They travel any direction on any road. I’m grateful for Shalvin. He’s practically a professional rally car driver and he knows the streets inside and out. He took us past a punch of awesome places, including the Nelson Mandela Stadium, Uganda’s National soccer stadium. Along the way, he pulled off near a market. Within seconds, children selling anything from cooked bananas to Fanta to mystery meat on a stick surrounded our car, trying to make a couple bucks.

We arrived in Jinja around 11:00 and met the Uganda Country Coordinator for Water Missions, Will Furlong. Will kindly welcomed us to the Water Missions Complex. (I’m not sure if it’s really a complex, but it’s surrounded by a brick wall and has a guard at the gate.) After getting a quick tour of the facility and getting acquainted, we went to check in at the hotel we’ll be staying at, the Nile Anchor Palace. Robert, the door/front desk/bell hop/room service employee, met us with a big smile. He was quick to grab as much of our luggage as possible and escorted us inside to give us our room assignment. He took Darryl to a presidential suite on the second floor, then took me to the king’s quarters on the first floor. I’m not sure if those are the real names of the rooms, but they were huge. My room had two queen sized beds, so I suggested that Darryl and I just share a room. It was more than enough for the two of us! After unpacking, we just relaxed for about 30 minutes, until Will arrived to take us to lunch.

Our lunch experience was pleasant. It was at a restaurant named “2 Friends”. The security was heavy there, as we had to get wanded before entering. The environment was awesome, but not a true depiction of Ugandan eating. It was specifically for Mzungu’s (aka white folk). I had pork chops with chips (French fries) and a Coke. It was good, but I’m looking forward to some local food!

After lunch, Will took us into downtown Jinja. It welcomes you with the sounds of honking taxi drivers, street vendors and the buzz of boda-bodas. There may have been a total of two stop signs in Jinja. Traffic laws are minimal, the rule of thumbs is “Big is Big”. If you’re bigger than the vehicle coming your way, you have the right of way. Most “bigger” vehicles are taxi’s the size of a minivan. Aside from busses that shuttle people from Jinja to other cities nearby. Every other building is a supermarket, and between supermarkets, there’s some sort of electronics or DVD store. I met another Mzungu in the market today, named Jeremy. He’s actually related to Andy Green, the Charleston Newspring pastor! It’s such a small world!

Leaving the city, we ventured into some more rural areas surrounding Jinja. It’s been raining, so we had to keep putting the truck into four-wheel drive, just to get through some of the muddy roads. We saw the “source of the Nile”, where Lake Victoria feeds most of the water into the Nile River. We hope to get onto the river at least once before leaving.

Now we’re winding down for the day at WMI. We’ll head back to our hotel soon, as it gets dark around 6:30.

There’s so much more that I’ve seen, but it’s hard to remember everything, and even harder to put some of it in words. The poverty here is saddening, and we haven’t even seen the worst. Over the course of our trip, we’ll be traveling into small villages where people have nothing. Our hope is to relay to you, just a little bit of what we see, so that you might also be motivated to make a difference in these peoples lives!

Grace and Peace,

Kyle