Weekend in Kampala!

Last weekend, Nadia and I went to visit a friend of Prof. Haushalters in Kampala. Phoebe was a visiting professor at Pomona last year. To get there, we took a taxi from Jinja. The taxi system is basically just that they squeeze as many people as they can fit into a van and bring everyone to Kampala for only 3500 shillings (less than 3 dollars). The trip took about an hour and a half, and I realized about 45 minutes into it that the shopping bag I had been squashed up against actually contained a live chicken!! That was pretty exciting. Phoebe met us in Kampala where we got off the taxi, and took us to a shopping center that was very western. Almost everyone inside was white, and I felt like I was back in the US. Due to a big traffic jam, we had to take boda bodas (motorcycles) to dinner, which was pretty scary. Although it is more culturally correct for girls to sit on the seat with their legs off to one side, I don't have very good balance so I decided to change into pants and ride the way men do. Also, we were holding our big bags of clothes and gifts for the weekend! The ride took about 20 minutes, and it actually ended up being really fun, although I felt like there were a couple of close calls! We had dinner at a hotel with a group from Phoebe's church. They were very nice and welcoming, and we got to watch their elections of officers, which involved very little actual voting. Phoebe's nephew Peter showed up just in time for dinner, which consisted mainly of Ugandan food. There was also a cake, which was especially exciting because I had been craving desserts all week!
After the dinner, a friend of Peter's picked us up, dropped Phoebe off at her house, and brought us to Peter's house. It turns out that he lives pretty far out of the city, and we had to make a couple of stops along the way. By the time we got to his (really nice) house, we were exhausted! The next morning, Peter prepared us a delicious breakfast of eggs, juice, bread and these crackers called digestives. Then, we went into Kampala, to an area called the African Village to do some souvenir shopping. I'm not very good at negotiating, so Phoebe helped me get some more reasonable prices than those that are usually given to mzungo. Nadia was a pro!
From there, we went to Entebbe to go to the zoo! We saw chimps, zebras, a lion, an otter, snakes, an ostrich, and monkeys running free around the zoo! It turns out that Peter is afraid of most animals, ESPECIALLY monkeys, so that made for some funny moments, like when he dragged me away from the ostrich cage while I was taking a picture because he was afraid it was going to fly over the fence and hurt us! Peter's friends Julius and Eva were also in Entebbe for the day, so they stopped by the zoo and we chatted with them for awhile.
After the zoo, we stopped at Phoebe's brother's house. He is a farmer, and gave us a pineapple and plantains! It was really interesting to talk to him and his wife, they were very welcoming to us. After we left there, we got lost, then we got in a terrible traffic jam. It seems like there are always traffic jams in Kampala. Once we got out, we dropped off Phoebe and were continuing on to Peter's house when the car broke down in the middle of a rotary. It turned into kind of a big disaster, but I kept myself busy by eating almost an entire box of digestive crackers that I found in the backseat. We (finally) got back to Peter's house and Julius and Eva were there, but we were both too tired to stay up any later.
The next morning we went to Phoebe's church. It took place in a tent, and it was really interesting to see how their service went, although I don't have much to compare it with. We had to go up on the stage and introduce ourselves, and there was singing, dancing and a skit! I think I may have raved about the cake on Friday night a little too much, because the woman made us an ENTIRE cake! It was delicious, and she gave us a big chunk to take home. After the English service, while the Lugandan one was going on, we helped Phoebe with Sunday school. The kids were adorable. We had to leave church early to go out to lunch with Pastor Michael, who took us to a restaurant at a golf course, where we had delicious Ugandan food. After lunch, they took us to the Kampala taxi park, which has soo many cars everywhere, I didn't even know where to start looking. Luckily, Phoebe brought us to the taxi to Jinja, and we said goodbye. While we were waiting to leave, people kept leaning in the door and trying to sell us everything from shoes and sunglasses to water and bread! We made it back to Jinja eventually, and although I had a great time, I'm not sure that I could have handled 6 weeks of staying in Kampala, it is too fast paced for me, I was happy to return to the good old Hotel Triangle in Jinja.

Pictures

So, Nadia started a web album, and some of my pictures are up there, too. It seems to be the easiest way to share pictures, given the slow internet speed. So, check it out at
http://picasaweb.google.com/nabuelezam/Uganda2008
I will update soon about our exciting weekend in Kampala!!!