Arriving in Mbale, Uganda

These posts are a bit out of order ... typical, right? :)

After our short stay in Jinja, we headed up to Mbale, which is northeast of Kampala, to meet up with Deb & Mike Gilbert, who are friends of one of Ryan's coworkers. It never ceases to amaze me when you start talking about traveling, even traveling to a very out of the way place, like Uganda, and inevitably someone knows someone who is there, or has been there. This is how it went with us meeting Mike & Deb. Little did we know they'd let us tag along and be their sidekicks for almost a week!! First things first - the ride up there.

We took a taxi. It is not like the yellow taxi cabs you might think of in NYC, though. It is a mini-bus, the same kind that we rode in for our safari in Murchison Falls, but the Ugandans cram these taxis as full of people and stuff as possible. It must be a game, I wonder what the prize is... other than as much fare as possible for only one trip. So we were driven down to the taxi park in Jinja - which is insanity, but doesn't even begin to compare to the taxi and bus parks in Kampala and Kigali that we have now seen - and as soon as we got out, we were bombarded with demands for where we wanted to go. We said: Mbale! And immediately a guy grabbed Ryan's giant backpack, weighing easily 60 pounds, and started to run away with it! Ha, so I started running after him, with Ryan in tow, and after several turns and a jaunt through the market, we made it to our taxi, they threw the backpack in the back and we climbed in. We were lucky - our taxi only had 16 people in it + 3 children. Remember, this is the same vehicle that fit only 10 in it when we were in Murchison Falls. Surprisingly, though, it wasn't too bad. I've heard some horror stories of being squished, people getting sick, etc. Our seats were uncomfortable, and of course the smell was not pleasant - but that is everywhere in Africa, I am finding, but otherwise, it was a fine ride. The taxi drove way too fast, and took the speed bumps like a champ, but it was ok. And it was only 8,000 Ugandan Shillings, or less than $4. I'll take it!!

Oh yes. The speedbumps. Are CRAZY. There seems to be no rhyme or reason, and it makes sense to have a speedbump or two when coming into a little village, to slow the people down - otherwise they'd go nuts with the speed, but there would be a row of like 8 speedbumps, and then long stretches of none. Apparently, some of them are illegal. I didn't know a speedbump could be illegal. I am learning something new almost every minute of the day here.

I took some video of the scenes along the road on the drive, just to show the little villages that we passed through on the drive. And of course the colors were amazing - the buildings all painted such bright colors! Of course with advertisements for MTN, one of the main cell phone companies in Uganda, and also Sadolin - the paint company here. Everyone here has a cell phone. And some have multiple phones. It is amazing. These people are living in the village with no electricity, no running water, dirt floors in their little huts and homes, no clean water, but they have a cell phone. I believe it has revolutionized people's lives here to be able to communicate like this. I saw a woman walking through the fields, in a traditional dress (I forget what they are called, but they are brightly colored fabrics, the skirt goes to the floor, they have outrageously poofy shoulders, a giant sash at the waist, and a head wrap), carrying a jerry can to get water from a stream or some other puddle of water, but she was talking on her cell phone. Amazing. Jerry cans are the containers that everyone uses to get water here - they are usually yellow, and you will see kids carrying them on their heads, woman carrying them, and also stacks of jerry cans on the back of bicycles and boda-bodas (motor bikes used for transport and as taxis). We took a boda-boda in Jinja. It was fun but probably not very smart, ha!

Ok, back to the taxi. After a few hours, we got to Mbale, walked around for a bit to get our bearings, and called Mike & Deb, who picked us up in their car! They also had with them Pastor James Masaba, one of the pastors whom they work with. We really had no idea what Mike & Deb were doing here, but now we know - they are missionaries here. They are from the Tampa area, and had a calling to come to Uganda and start a project called Light Village. They are essentially creating a sustainable village for the Ugandans in the villages near Mbale, to educate them on how to make and market goods, use alternative fuel sources to charcoal, how to be healthy and raise healthy families, and so many other projects. I could not keep track of all of their ideas and all of the wonderful projects that they will be starting in the Light Village, but I am so impressed by it.

That first afternoon they picked us up, they took us back to their house to drop off our stuff and immediately drove us out to the land that they have been given by the Ugandan government for their project. It's taken over a year to get this land, but on the day that we were there, they were getting the land surveyed so that the official documents could be drawn up and construction could be started - exciting! It is in a village called Lukonghe - I know that I'm not spelling that correctly, but it is near Sibanga, another village where they are doing amazing work with the pastors there, setting up a health clinic and holding lots of workshops for the local villagers. Here is some information about the Light Village, if you are interested: http://onecity.ws/Light-Village.

So after surveying the land, which is beautiful and has amazing views of the foothills of Mount Elgon, a goverment official came to meet with Mike and Deb to make the land deal official. We met lots of government officials in the Mbale and Manafwa districts, which would obviously not have been possible without our gracious hosts. We then went back to Mike & Deb's house to have some dinner and chat. We must have asked at least 5,000 questions while we were visiting them and they answered each and every one of them, and then some!!