We're home.

So - I know we kind of petered out at the end there, but with traveling, unpacking, jet-lagging, and getting back to work, its hard to do a conclusion justice.

That being said, I wanted to thank you all for following along. We were both really encouraged by the many comments and e-mails about the blog.

We'll try to put up a real followup soon, but in the meantime, I hope your appetite for Africa news is satisfied by this picture. This is Miley, an incredibly domesticated Cheetah. She was friendly, playful, and even affectionate - as this picture was taken she was purring. It was like playing with a spotted golden retiever puppy that can run 75mph and is actually a cat...

Miley is the Nairobi Safari Walk's own Cheetah. She is about 6 years old, and lives in a pretty nice Cheetah run - very long so she can run a little, but our experience showed us that she's more interested in playing with cat toys. BIG cat toys. We were able to meet her because our guide knew the keeper and was keen for a couple shillings on this side. It was worth the $0.90 'bribe' / 'offering' to meet such a cool animal.

Our picture is pretty weak because we had left the camera in our bag - we only had the crappy camera on my 3 year old Treo. Here is a link to a much better picture of our new friend - same cat, same zoo, just a different couple in the picture :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gnuhaus/2152189129/

Best to you all, and thank you for your support!

Andy

Did that really just happen?

We arrived in Nairobi after an uneventful flight on Thursday evening. Fred picked us up, made us dinner, then drove us back to the airport to pick up Louise. On the way back to Fred's house, I fell asleep in the car. I don't sleep in cars. That road was really bumpy. I was tired.

Anyhoo, yesterday was uneventful. We ran errands with Fred and Louise until it was time to drop us at the train station, and then we bid them farewell. The train for Mombasa left promptly at 7 (surprisingly), we ate dinner, and then retired to our cabin for the night. We watched the scenery for awhile, pushed up the screen on our window, and went to sleep.

And this is where the fun begins. Andy was sleeping soundly on the top bunk. I was not sleeping on the bottom bunk, convinced that the train was going to derail and we were all going to die at any moment. And then I hear a noise and see our Mac being lifted. At first I thought Andy was bored and had decided to play on it. And then I realized that actually there was an arm in our window. I jumped over, stuck my arm out the window, and grabbed onto the pants pocket of our thief as he was trying to get onto the top of the train. I had to let go, so I yelled for Andy, who ran into the hallway screaming "Thief," trying to find someone in charge. It took him awhile. They eventually stopped the train, but it was way too late. We spent the next seven hours in a groggy state of half sleep while we waited to get into Mombasa. And then as we were pulling into the city, the train stopped. Off the rails. 20 minutes from the station. Some lovely people offered us a ride to the station so we could make a statement. And there we sat, in the Kenyan police station, giving our statements to people who have never even heard of Apple.

When we finished, the police were kind enough to call a taxi. It took us to Nyali Beach Resort - the place we were told that we were staying. Not so much. Nyali Beach Hotel was 1 km away. Refusing to pay for another taxi, we told the proprietor that we were going to walk. With all of our luggage. And it's only noon.

But then things improved. The proprietor was nice and recommended that we ride with a resident expat that happened to walk by. Three dollars saved. The bellman at the hotel brought us wet, cool cloths. Then he brought us tropical juice. After we checked in, he took us to our room, where we proceeded to take long, warm showers at full water pressure. Lunch was delicious, the beach fabulous, and the pool really warm. Andy even went kite surfing. Ah. We have arrived in our tropical paradise.

And we're flying back to Nairobi.

Wrapping up in Kampala

Not too much to report today. We ran errands around town, visited the tailor for a fitting, and met an American woman who works for the Archbishop. She was lovely, and we hope that our paths cross again.

We were absolutely thrilled to meet up with both Sarah and Emmanuel after a week apart, and we went to an Italian restaurant to celebrate our last real night together. The food was the best that we've had in over three weeks. Sarah thought it was the best food she's had since moving to Uganda six months ago. Most of the meal was spent in laughter, and our plates were clean in a matter of minutes. We are seriously going to miss these people.

Sweet Kampala

Now that we've arrived safely back in Kampala, I feel like I can post just how harrowing the trip is - especially when completed in a baby car.

The road out of Kampala is rough, filled with potholes. With good swerving action, it's possible to avoid many of them. Several miles out, construction started. Except one of the first steps of construction here is to put humps every 10 feet for 6 km or so. It was okay, we were expecting it. We came through the humps thinking we were past the worst. Then the real potholes started. These are the kind that blanket the road and are impossible to avoid, and we got really friendly with the shoulder. Once past the potholes, the road to Gulu was excellent. Potholes were rare and we made up for lost time. And then came the road to Kitgum. Oh, the road to Kitgum. It was 107 km of red dirt road, mostly washboard, and full of pot holes, rocks, people, bicycles, and bodas.

You can imagine how much we were looking forward to our drive today. We'd had a request to take some students and their teacher with us to Kampala. We told them that we had to leave at 7, and would be gone at 7:15 if they were not there. And then we forgot to turn our phone off silent. Oops. We woke up at 7 and ran out the door to find breakfast and our travel mates waiting. We were out of Kitgum by 7:45 and in Kampala by 3:30 - really good timing considering. And all of those humps - construction had progressed and most were gone. The potholes on the way in to Kampala - filled. Praise. God.

If we had not already asked our watchman to clean our car, I would have posted a picture. Instead, you will have to imagine a blue Toyota Corsa covered in red dirt. As we drove back from dinner tonight, we discovered that our headights were not all that effective what with the coating and all.

After passing off our passengers, we took warm showers, put on clean clothes, and drank cold mango juice. The maid was recalled to do our laundry, and we went to the mall food court for a mojito and a fanta. As much as we enjoyed trying out millet, we really enjoyed our pizza for dinner. And then we came home to clean laundry and an evening to ourselves. God is good.

The next two days look full, and then it's off to KENYA. Time is flying - I can't believe our trip is over halfway done!

Sunday in Kitgum

The English church service this morning started at 7 am. The Luo service started at 8:30. For purposes of sleep and cultural experience, we decided to take on the Luo service. Young children came up to sit at the front throughout, and the first girl came with a baby tied on her back. She couldn’t have been much older than 8, and I could only wonder where the parents were.

At lunch, the Bishop’s wife suggested we visit one of the child-headed households that Good Samaritan funds had helped support. Five of us crammed into our baby car, and we drove to a “development” on the other side of town. I use the term development for lack of any other word. It was a collection of small huts filled with the kind of dirty children you only see on child sponsorship ads. As we pulled in, kids crowded around us – some half naked, two fully naked, few smiling, most staring. Out of the crowd, the Bishop’s wife and the Mother’s Union worker found two girls from the household we were there to see. They were around 7 and 9, the youngest two of five, and painfully shy. Their parents were victims of HIV/AIDS, and as I thought about their lives and those of their siblings – the oldest was 15 – I was hard pressed to keep the tears from flowing. It will take a long time to get the image of Winifred and Fiona out of my mind.

I came to Africa hoping that my heart would be broken. It has been.

Saturday

We got off to a late start today, slept in a bit, and then headed out to have breakfast with the Bishop and his family. Bishop was outside, so we spent some time walking around the compound, examining the various vehicles and looking at future plans for land owned by the Diocese.

Breakfast was different this morning – chapatti and omelettes were served along with our porridge and tea. Both were delicious. Bishop told us the terrifying story of his abduction by the LRA (if you’re interested, the story might eventually get up at www.kitgum.org), and then he moved on to tell us the story of how he met his wife, Margaret. A Ugandan and a Brit arrived as he was talking, and we ended up staying for hours. Before we knew it, it was 4pm and lunch was just being served. We were kind of amazed that we had spent an entire day sitting on the same couch, listening to stories and hearing about the current state of the Diocese and the predicted signing of the peace agreement in Juba. Exciting stuff, but so much for our plans for the day.
Sometime during the afternoon, power came back on. After lunch, we rushed to the building where we had been training, hoping to catch one or two people for training. No one. I suppose you can’t expect too much on a Saturday, after all. Eventually, the Bishop came, followed by the website guy. Andy walked the Bishop through e-mail while I prepared the website guy to do final touches on the newsletter. Now he’s training the guy to set up the website. Dinner tonight will be late, our talks with the Bishop will be even later, and church in the morning starts at 7. Please pray for our sleep – it’s hot and the animals on the compound are noisy all night long.

Friday: Multiple Lunches, Power Outage and Motorcycle Lessons

As we were discussing the design of the newsletter this afternoon, power went out. I think we were all a little relived to have a break, and Andy and I took the opportunity to take a nap. Then the Diocesan Secretary called to tell us that he was leaving for the weekend and not planning to return until after we depart. He was standing by the building that he shares with the Bishop’s chaplain as his living quarters, and so after saying goodbye, we naturally went over to meet the chaplain’s family. Apparently they were in the middle of lunch. The DS sat down. Seats and plates were brought outside for us. And then came the beans and rice. It was delicious, possibly even more so because we were eating with our hands. (Utensils haven’t so much come here.) One of the woman asked me if I knew how to cook. I said yes, but not this food. She promised to teach me tomorrow.

As we were finishing, we saw the Bishop’s wife pull up to her house. She walked over, saw that we had eaten, and asked why we had not eaten lunch at her house. We explained the situation, and then went back with her because we had planned to walk with her to an adult literacy program. Lunch was brought out. Andy started to say that we had already eaten, and we would just let her eat and come back. The look on her face said it all. And then she told us that it is very rude to refuse food in the Acholi culture. So we ate lunch again. Lesson learned.

Later in the afternoon, I was walking back to the computer building from the latrine, when one of the staff on his boda-boda asked me if I knew how to ride. I said no. He asked if I wanted to learn. I said yes. Unfortunately we didn’t get very far because the rain started pouring down. He told me we can continue tomorrow. Really, though, I didn’t make any progress until Andy came out and started explaining things.

In light of the rain and the lack of electricity, we went back to the Guest House to rest again. As it started to get dark, we went for dinner. The Bishop’s living room was lit by a gas lamp. He had traveled to Pader (the district just south of Kitgum) for the day, and so we waited. Dinner was brought out as it became obvious that he was not going to get back at any reasonable hour. At 10pm, when it was really obvious that he would not be back soon, Andy drove his wife to town to run an errand. I stayed behind in the dark guesthouse with my little flashlight. When he came back, we turned out the flashlight and tried to go to sleep. We missed the fan.