Saturday

Saturday we went on a walk through the neighborhood around Matoke Inn (where we are staying). We saw many things: shops, restaurants, wealthy homes, very simple homes, we saw children playing or doing chores, mothers bent over bright colored tubs scrubbing clothes and men playing cards. Everywhere you go in Kampala you see men driving motorcycles for hire to take passengers. They wait at corners, outside stores and along most roads. These motorcycle taxis are called “boda-bodas,” we have yet to venture out on them but whenever you go out you will see the boda-bodas. 

On our walk, Erin and I went out with a woman who works in AIM’s Central Region, named Kathy, and the two guys went together on a different route. Erin, Kathy and I met a woman named Mary and we told her we were new to Uganda and trying to learn about this great place. She invited us up to her house because she wanted to show us her one month old baby boy. We walked through several plantain trees up a hill, ducked under barbed wire and made it to her small, meager home that she shared with her mother, three sisters and now a new baby. These six people lived in a home that was smaller than any bedroom I have ever lived in. I was not so impacted by the size of her home as I was by her genuine desire to welcome us “newcomers” to her home, her community and her country. Her baby was darling. After she introduced us to him we sat and visited for a few minutes before we headed back to the road and continued walking.

On the way home I saw some remains from a butchered chicken. I first saw the intestines, and as I looked closer I could see that they met up with the stomach and then led to an esophagus that gave way to the head. As I walked past it I wondered what else the Lord would show us while we are in Uganda.

We are being introduced to this town called Kampala and trying to take in as much as we can. After our walk we headed back to the office to meet with our language coaches that will help us this next week to start learning Luganda. My language coaches’ name is Rona, she just so happens to go to UCF and has been going there for three years. She has a three and a half year old son named Hamlet who she had right before became a Christian. Today Rona taught me several different greetings and how to respond to them. I look forward to the next week, with Rona’s help, to learn more of Luganda that I can use with friends I hope to make.