My first few days in Uganda!

 

I arrived at Entebbe airport early on Friday morning quickly collecting my luggage (the only thing that has turned out to be quick so far…!) and went through to Arrivals expecting to see someone holding up my name, as my hotel had agreed to pick me up….however, after 45 minutes of waiting (realising now that 45 minutes to wait is not actually very long in African time!)  I give up and agree to go with one of the taxi drivers who insisted that he knew where my hotel was. However, it quickly became clear that he had no idea where he was going….. luckily I could text Rosie at home who looked up the address on the internet!   

 

Arrive at my hotel (pretty nice except for having to share my bathroom with a bat…) where I collapse into bed after no sleep for last 24 hours.  Kampala is not exactly the most attractive of cities and appears that traffic is often at a standstill….and there doesn’t appear to be a huge amount to do as a tourist.  However, I was able to meet up with some friends of friends and enjoyed some Italian food and a BBQ in a different and less congested area of town which helped with the initial culture shock!

 

I also managed to meet up with 2 other AFID volunteers who told me a bit about what their experiences had been like so far… this helped put my mind at rest as I was still slightly worried about how much use I was going to be to the NGOs given my  non-existent dealings with charities previously!

 

 On Monday I got the bus to Masaka – the nearest large town to where I would be working for the next 6 weeks.  This journey involved a 1.5 hour taxi ride into the centre of town – would be 20 mins without traffic … and then a 4 hour bus ride to Masaka along some interesting roads (they are currently repairing a large section of the road) and then a 5 minute ride on a small motorbike (which they call boda boda’s) with ALL of my luggage (3 rather large bags…) to a cafe where I meet Jamie (an American girl helping to project manage the NGO I would be helping).  Apparently we are going to be picked up at about 4 by the Fathers (2 priests at the parish where we will be going).

 

Time goes by…. 5, 6, 7, 8 and finally sometime after 8 the fathers arrive to pick us up! Now feeling fairly tired having got up very early, so looking forward to getting settled in.  However, first things first, we need to find petrol, it appears that all the local garages have run out of petrol or have got huge queues…. so after a fair amount of driving around we head to the nearby town and luckily find one without a queue!  This is followed by a trip to visit another priest at his parish on the way back and so by the time we arrive it is after 10.30, only about five and a half hours later than expected!

 

I am supposed to be staying with the Sisters (2 nuns from Ireland) but it is too late by the time we arrive, so I get a room at the parish with the priests.  Shown my room which consisted of a lonely bed and 4 concrete walls, not the homeliest of rooms!  I feel exhausted and ready to go straight to bed, but then followed some very late dinner… I was not in the best state to have my first try of rural Ugandan food….! Feeling slightly worried at that point that I might not be able to cope with this for 6 weeks, on top of this there is currently no running water – i.e. no flushing loo or showers.