Hello Africa

Day 3 (10/2) - Christian Life Church and Kampala Overview Day

For the first week in Uganda, we stayed at Kampala Kolping House, a guest house conveniently located across the street from Christian Life Church in Kampala. I stayed in a room with my Uganda buddy, Amanda. Our room, known as the "Happy Fun Room" was used for our nightly team meetings (yes, we used the mosquito nets):



Our bathroom:




We woke up the first morning and met our Ugandan liaison, Esther, and she led the way across the street to the Church. This was our first taste of daylight in Uganda. It was literally like we woke up, and all of the sudden we were in Africa. There were cars honking at us, people staring, random cows, goats, chickens, and turkeys everywhere, and we thought we might die trying to cross the road. It was a common joke that the top ten scariest things we have ever done in our lives are all crossing the street in Kampala. The traffic there is worse than here in DC. There are no lines. No stop signs. No stop lights. No rules. Every man (and cow) for himself. It suddenly hit us that we were definitely not in America anymore.

When we arrived at CLC, we were introduced to Pastor Jackson and Eve Senyonga, Esther's husband Pastor Ronnie, minister of prayer and intercession Pastor John Major, and numerous others. The gave us a tour of the grounds, showing us the studio for Top Radio and Kampala FM (the radio stations that they broadcast from the Church), the studio for Top TV (the Christian TV station they run), the Sanctuary, and all of the offices.

They had us give a shout-out on Kampala FM from the studio:





And they interviewed us for an article in The Guardian, a weekly newspaper.



We were able to pray with some of the Pastors and hear their needs, immediate and long term. Everyone was quite busy gearing up for the National Celebration, which would take place on Friday.

Afterwards, we headed to the city centre for lunch. This was our first ride in a taxi. Don't be fooled, taxis in Uganda are very different than taxis here in the States (they call private taxis 'Specials'). They are the primary mode of transportation and fit up to 14 passengers. You pick up your taxi from the taxi park and the driver waits for it to fill up with passengers before leaving.

A full taxi:



Waiting for the taxis to fill:



The taxi park:



A fairly small percentage of people have private vehicles in Uganda, but they do exist. The other popular means of travel is called a boda-boda. These are basically motorbikes with a driver and a seat on the back. If you need to get somewhere quickly, you grab a boda-boda because it can swerve through the traffic. However, I would not have come anywhere near a boda-boda in Kampala as I saw at least 3 get hit by a taxi.

Boda-Boda drivers waiting for charges:



Girl riding a boda-boda (I really just like to say the word boda-boda):



Market:





I would not recommend being in the construction industry in Uganda, this is their scaffolding:



Typical street in Kampala:



Ugandans love their Soccer:



(MTN is a cell phone air time company. EVERYONE has a cell phone.)

That night we met Laker (pronounced La-kay) for dinner at Fang-Fang Restaurant. Laker is an Acholi from Gulu in Northern Uganda (the town in which the Invisible Children night commute). We sat attentively listening to his stories of war and suffering. He has seen firsthand LRA abductions, attacks, and murders. I cannot even begin to retell his stories. But I can tell you that I cried.



At one point, Brooke joked that it was Laker's birthday. The waitstaff overheard and voila, at the end of dinner, they had brought this and sang to him. It was not his birthday.



Next up, Evangelism Day! And you will also get to hear more about Laker as he traveled with us to the North during our second week in country.