The first few days

I am in Uganda.  I am IN Uganda.  I am IN UGANDA.  I AM IN UGANDA!!!  I can’t believe I am finally here and settled in to my new home.

Travels to Uganda:

Man that thirteen hour flight from Seattle to Dubai was painful!  I kept getting up to go to the washroom, literally just to stretch my arms and legs.  Once I arrived in Dubai, I had a twelve hour layover camping out in the airport.  You wouldn’t have guessed it was the middle of the night at that airport with all of its hustle and bustle.  I still didn’t believe that I would be in Uganda until my gate number was finally posted…. Then I started to panic.  Where in the world was I going?!  I got on the flight and took some melatonin so that I could get a few hours rest before I arrived in Entebbe.  Side note: I had been up for over 32 hours already.  I woke up somewhere in the middle of that five hour flight feeling nauseous and with the chills.  There is nothing like feeling homesick when you actually feel like vomiting and are in transit.  To top it all, I was in the middle seat of the middle aisle, between two guys in nice suits.  I think it was a mix of over exhaustion, airplane food, and nerves that set it off.  I had to keep my eyes shut in order to contain my queasiness.  I just kept praying that I could make it off the airplane, through the airport, and along the 45min drive to Kampala without getting sick.  What a way to enter the country!  The plane landed and praise the Lord, as soon as I left the plane, I felt a million times better.  After I obtained my visa and picked up my bag, I found a guy standing there with a Watoto sign who would drive me back to Kampala.  He introduced himself as Peter and sure enough it was the Peter that I have been emailing for the past year for my Watoto application, which instantly made me feel more comforted.  He took me to the guest apartments that we would be temporally living in before they moved us to our permanent home.  After an hour’s sleep, some of the other students, who were out at church that morning came back to the house and introduced themselves.

First Few Days:

These first few days are essentially for rest and for us international students to get settled in before the program begins.  Friday is the first day of orientation for Watoto 360.  I live with seven other international students and there will be about forty-five Ugandan students as well in the program.  Yesterday, us internationals moved out of our temporary apartments into our gorgeous home!    I tried to attach a video of a tour of our house but it wouldn't load so I will post pictures later. In our neighborhood, there are other compound homes, a slum, a daycare, and convenient store all connected by a red dirt road.  Our family is made of students ages 18 to 25 which consist of three Canadian girls including me, four Americans (three girls and a guy), one Australian guy, and a Ugandan woman named Esther who will be our house mom.  She is so hospitable and caring and I say house mom but Esther would be maybe 30 tops.  I share a room with a really sweet girl named Hannah from Louisiana… who has met Miss Kay and Jayce from Duck Dynasty!  We have a sweet soft-spoken cook named Kayven and a groundskeeper named Solomon.  These past few days all of us have been getting to know each other by playing games and sharing our stories.  It is so incredible that God chose us individuals to be here in Africa for very different reasons.  I will learn so much from living alongside these people.

Esther shared with us a bit about what we will be doing in Watoto 360 and OH MY GOODNESS, it sounds better than on paper!  A little taste of what we will be doing: one week building, one week living in the Children’s Village with a family, one week in Gulu, visiting hospitals, baby homes, people in the slums, and prisons and so much more!

First Impressions:

The funniest thing we noticed was the literal brand names of regular products.  The names make perfectly logical sense such as drinking chocolate (hot chocolate), head sock (toque), and my personal favorite, fat spread (butter).  

I am slowly adjusting to living here.  Some things I find harder to adjust to than others like armed guards in front of homes, and stores or living in minority.  Although there are lots of stares as I walk around my neighborhood, there are also lots of smiles and waves, and small children walking alongside you to chat with you.  Esther told us that we shouldn’t feel uncomfortable by the stares because the people just love having our presence here.

Anyway, that is a little on my life so far.  I still don’t have my own internet access yet so I won’t have much communication in the next few days.  I will try to blog at least once a week and post pictures onto facebook regularly.  Congrats, you read the whole thing!

Peace and love