Uganda

Africa » Uganda » Central Region » Kampala
May 31st 2005

Published: June 20th 2005

Africa was always going to be the working part of the trip! We were heading to Uganda, Kampala to visit Watoto Child Care Ministries and then Rwanda to visit our Compassion children and that was about all of our planning!

We knew that we were in Africa from the first moment at the check in counter in Cairo. Kenya Airways had lost our reservation, despite the fact that we had seats allocated! So onto standby we go... pointing out that it is midnight! We were the first in a long line of standbyers - all of whom had the same story as us so we were feeling pretty good that we would get onto the flight! However we then got our next reality check that we were now in Africa - everyone behind us in the queue had diplomatic passports - they were all with the UN - and this gives them precedence over the rest of us plebs! so although technically we should have got on first, we actually got on last!!

Third realisation that we were in Africa - plane took off an hour late - this would have been fine except that we only had an hour window to transfer in Nairobi, Kenya which was very scary... so 7 hours later and we land in Nairobi - the next plane to Uganda is due to take off in 5 mins... so we run down the stairs onto the tarmac and sprint to the nearest airplane that looks promising - we yell up the stairs "are you going to Uganda?" "nope - South africa" so off we tear to the next plane - repeat conversation a couple of times until we find the one that we are supposed to be on - run up the stairs and tell the stewardess that we have left our bags on that plane over there so please wait till they get on this one! It felt like being at a bus stop except with really big buses!!

Anyway - we caught the plane and despite all odds, our bags followed us!! Not for the first time Africa was going to surprise us!

What was really nice about Uganda was that Watoto was picking us up from the airport - when you have been travelling as long as we have now, that is the best news that you can possibly receive - no haggling with touts and trying to maneuver your bags around a tiny taxi!

We got picked up and driven first to our hotel to drop our bags and then straight to church - in english!! So nice!!! we had a great time... any of you in Uganda in the near future should definitely check out Kampala Pentecostal church! the preaching was great and the worship was even better!

Our key objective (as mentioned before) was to visit Watoto and check out their child villages. In a nutshell, the organisation looks after aids orphans. As these kids have no parents (obviously), they are put into little houses of 8 kids, with one 'house mum' (usually a widow or single mum) to look after them. The house is placed in a village of similar houses, and all expenses are taken care of by Watoto. So that means food, education, health, etc. Watoto actually have their own schools, clinics, churches, etc as well. At the moment, they have 3 villages, with something like 100 houses altogether! That's 800 kids completely looked after.

We were here to check out Watoto, talk with them about their model, look at things like sustainability, quality of care, etc. Most of all, wanted to see for ourselves since it's always better than just reading reports. Were very impressed with what we saw, they have a lot of challenges to overcome and have done so brilliantly.

Watoto really spoilt us. We had a driver at our beck and call. They took us out for meals, drove us all over the place, and made sure that our every need was met. So nice to be given that treatment after 3 months on the road!! I think that they aren't really used to backpackers though - certainly our backpacks and our accommodation choice raised some eyebrows I'm sure 😊

Dave happened to get talking with them about IT, and it turned out that they had some needs there, so we spent about 3 days playing with their network and helping with their mail server. I got to spyware-proof all their machines, which seems to be dave's current mission in life.

One interesting thing about kampala was the red dust everywhere - the main couple of roads are paved but then all of the roads leading off those are red dirt roads and so there is red dust and mud everywhere!!! our clothes needed washing twice to get the dust out of them!

We also met some real travellers while we were there - people that were volunteering in rural villages during the week and came back to Kampala on the weekends to have a hot shower etc. For example, we met a guy from England who was working in North Uganda, helping communities with agriculture technology. He basically was living in a hut, sleeping on the floor, drinking from boreholes, no power, no running water, definitely no western-style toilets (hah!) and very basic food. Made us feel quite guilty - here we were bemoaning the frequent power cuts which forced us to use cold water and lose our ADSL internet connection that the hostel provided free of charge!

Speaking of the hostel - it was quite a cool place. We stayed in this standalone 'deluxe' hut which was actually really clean and quite nice! Beautiful 4-poster bed with a mozzie net (part and parcel of he african experience). The proprietor was an Aussie who used to be part of the SAS, and was now part-time hostel owner, part time advisor to the Ugandan government on anti-terrorism. John (the owner) was actually in Africa during the Rwandan genocide, and during that time, drove a bus in and out of Rwanda and saved something like 250 children!! He certainly had a lot of interesting stories to tell about Africa in general, although to be honest, I'm still not sure how many of them were embellished 😊

For those of you who are expecting food stories - well, Africa is not renowned for food! basically a plate of starch in a couple of different colours and a spoonful of beans - not incredibly exciting but then again it fills up your stomach!! So nothing interesting to report on that front.

The best food we had was actually at a friend's place - we visited a family (Mark and Susanna Barrell, Mark is Tracy Barrell's bro for those of you who know her) who were missionaries in Uganda. In spite of the fact that there was no running water that day, nor power, they managed to serve us a fabulous meal!! Yay!! Thanks Mark and Susanna..

We actually did ZERO tourist things while in Uganda. Kept ourselves very busy working at Watoto, visiting sites, etc. I think it was nice to be in pseudo-work mode after all that travelling. But we finally boarded onto the bus to head into Kigali, Rwanda. That my friends, is another story, which we will continue on our next blog!

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