first week in Kampala

I left Chicago Thursday afternoon (July 10) and flew into Brussels, where I had a 3 hour layover (12:30-3:30 am Illinois time, might I add). Then I flew into Uganda, arriving on Friday night. I was picked up by a taxi driver sent by the Red Chili Hideaway, the hostel in which I stayed. It was a pretty nice place and a good price. They had a restaurant there, which was very helpful in preventing starvation until I worked up the courage to attempt public transportation. I couldn’t sleep that night so I stayed up listening to audio books on my ipod.

Saturday (July 12), I did venture out of the hostel compound to find an atm (no easy feat if you have a mastercard) and a cell phone store. It was a successful, but surprisingly tiring adventure. That night, I had dinner with a couple, Dave and Rene, who were passing through Kampala on the trip of a lifetime. They were exploring the cities and bush of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. It was nice to have the company.

Sunday (July 13), I had the Red Chili call me a taxi (called a special hire, the vans that run like buses are called taxis) and my driver and I headed out to attempt to find Kampala Baptist Church. Here’s why: my contact in Uganda left for a month the day before I arrived (which I found out via her blog). Ben’s father’s friend knows a pastor in Detroit who was a missionary in Uganda for many years. The friend got contacts from the pastor, including the pastor of Kampala Baptist Church. I had no idea what time the service would start so I just headed out as soon as I was ready.

Well, my driver claimed that he didn’t know where the church was because there are so many Baptist churches in the city. But he picked one and it was exactly the one I wanted. I walked into the sanctuary about 15 minutes before the early service ended. Unfortunately, it was held in Luganda, so I couldn’t understand a single work. But fortunately, very few white people attend that service, so I stuck out easily as someone who needed friends. (The later service in English was relatively diverse). At the end of the service, a woman (named Jenny) approached me and introduced herself. Long story slightly shorter, she and her husband are long-term missionaries in Uganda and his parents, who were visiting, were missionaries in Pakistan. And they were all from Wheaton. I know that Wheaton is a pretty religious place, but what are the odds? So they brought me to Sunday school and invited me to their house for lunch. I also stayed for the English service, where I was introduced to other missionaries and Ugandans.

Susan, another missionary who has lived in Africa for decades, offered to pick me up, help me check out of Red Chili, let me sleep in her guest room, and drive me to and from UNAD on my first day (I am working with the Uganda National Association of the Deaf, both volunteering and researching for my BA thesis). Needless to say, this was both incredibly generous and incredibly helpful. Then yesterday (Tuesday, the 15^th), I moved into another home of missionaries relatively new to Uganda, Cindy and John. It looks like I will be staying here my whole time here. It is the PERFECT location because I can walk to everything I need: UNAD (which I didn’t know was within walking distance when I agreed to live with them), ShopRite (groceries, milk is sold in bags), Game (sort of like a Target), an atm of the only bank in Uganda I can use, a mobile phone store and numerous roadside stands where I can buy phone minutes, and the place to catch a taxi (like a bus stop, but unmarked) to go anywhere in the city. But the BEST part of living here is that they have internet in their house (most of the time). In Uganda, the power goes out very frequently, between every other day and every four-ish days, depending on the neighborhood in which you live. When the power is out, the internet does not work.

So Monday was the first day that I went to UNAD. I arrived mid-morning to the most pleasant surprise: a number of people who work for UNAD know American Sign Language, which makes communication much easier. I signed with a weird mixture of ASL and Ugandan Sign Language, and they continually taught me knew words in USL. This actually developed into a type of game where we tried to think of and use as many words as we could that were the same in ASL and USL. Two of the men took me out to lunch at a Ugandan restaurant. Honestly, I have no idea what I ate because they labeled all of the food on my plate in USL, so I don’t know the English words yet. One thing about Ugandans, they stare. And the sight of a muzungo (the word meaning white person that is constantly yelled at me by people on the street) and two deaf Africans must have been quite the sight. Because everyone wanted to watch. While in the office before and after lunch, I chatted with two of the employees and read through a different USL dictionary than the one I had been sent that was much more complete. I am going back tomorrow (Thursday) to meet with the woman who does the HIV/AIDS education for UNAD.

Today (Wednesday, July 16), I went with the first missionary family I met at church into town, the heart of Kampala. They drove over to where I am staying and we took public transportation from there, so I could learn how to do it. Public transportation is crazy. They pack 13-14 people into a van and drive into town. The people get off right before the taxi enters the taxi park because it can take 1-2 hours to get in there, even though they right by it. Although there is an organization to the madness of the taxi park, you would never know it at first glance. Google image: taxi park Kampala. We went to fabric stores and Aweno, a used-goods market. Stuff that is made in Africa often has “made in China” written on it because they think that makes products more appealing. The center of town is very crowded and you bump into 90% of the people around you. And more staring and shouts of “muzungo.” But everyone was really friendly and eager to engage us in conversation.

So that’s pretty much everything. I promise that none of my future posts will be this long. Please keep in touch. I do feel pretty disconnected from everyone and nights are a bit lonely, especially when the power goes out and I read all night by flashlight (stupid jetlag). But please don’t send e-mail with any large attachments because Ugandan internet just can’t handle it. I have a gmail account, sarahmarguerite@gmail.com, that I use to instant message. Once I have my schedule more set, I will post when I plan on being online and ready to chat.

Omukwaano (love), Sarah