Uganda

December 15

I love my brother, Jon. What a joy to see him. He hugs me like he’ll never see me again or hasn’t seen me in year (which he hasn’t). It’s just soul-healing to be around him. He has airport privileges so he met me on the tarmac when I got off the plane. Everyone at the airport seems to know him and greet him with sincere affection. He has a way with people.

Kampala is the capital of Uganda. You need a 4-wheel drive to get around the side streets of this city. The main roads are paved, but when it rains they run rivers of red mud. The minor roads are red dirt with the deepest of ruts and it’s almost painful driving over them. Close your eyes and you could be in the heart of the bush. Every other day the electricity goes out for 24 hours. We have romantic lantern-lit evenings and use battery power or gas. The refrigerator seems to keep most items cold enough so as not to spoil and the freezer is kept quite high to prevent the frozen food from going bad, but generally, it’s not a wise thing to stock up on perishable food. (I’m sure this makes you cringe, Nick.)

I went to an ATM to take out money. Thinking that 100,000 shillings sounded like a lot, that’s all I took out on the first try. After calculating it, I discovered it was just $50. So I now have 250,000 shillings in my wallet.

Jon & Cher took me to the main local market. I have never been to a market quite like this, and apparently only saw a fraction of it. In the section we wandered through, it was about 99% “thrift store” items. Everything was second hand. Piles upon piles of clothes sold by individual vendors. I bought a few shirts & shorts, not knowing when or if my bag would show up.

I had my first real wine in a few months – a lovely Australian red wine. I have to say, that homemade wine we thought turned out pretty good in Saudi…it’s not.