Travel Day 2 Entebbe to Ft. Portal

Arrival at Entebbe, to Ft. Portal

We arrived at Entebbe airport at dawn, just as the sun was rising. We walked directly off the plane down the steps to the runway with excitement – we had finally made it to Africa. There wasn’t much to look at because the airport is outside the city and off by itself, but there was a touch of mountains to the east, and since the sun was literally rising, a few colors began to appear. We took our first group picture and proceeded to the very long customs line. Our flight was the only one that had arrived and it was completely full, so everyone had to go through the same “non-resident and non-East African” lines, similar to the E.U. express line vs. everyone else’s when traveling anywhere in Europe. I was frustrated that we had to wait, but happy that there was an East African line – hopefully a sign that the sub-continent was on the rise and more people were able to travel back and forth between neighboring countries, whether to Kenya or Tanzania.

I was at the very end of the line and didn’t want to stand up with my bags – my backpack now shooting shots of pain through my back after parading around the Heathrow airport. I walked outside and stared at the lone security officer again – my first sight at a Ugandan native, He stood was standing in the middle of the runway with a beret and dark jacket over his arms and shoulders, unimpressed with our arrival. I looked at the large British Airways jet that dominated the runway and wondered if every time the plane landed the locals thought, “the British are coming” again. On one hand I’m sure they were glad we were coming to their country, to offer assistance or simply spend money (Uganda now had a huge tourism industry), but on the other hand, I’m sure when the airport in Entebbe was built, the local people knew their country would never be the same. I read that one of Idi Amin’s famous policies was to expel the Asians and most foreigners in the 1970s, and some of them were slowly trickling back. Although we weren’t British, we certainly were white, and we were definitely coming.

Traveling with 10 people means traveling with at least 20 bags, and of course, there was no way for the luggage to make it from Austin to Chicago to London to Uganda in one trip. After gathering most of our suitcases and piling them on top of carts, our adviser made her way to the “lost and found” baggage counter and began the appeal to find the luggage left behind. We were short 7 bags, and about to be short about an hour and a half on time. Poor Whitney didn’t make it with either one of her bags. She had already been nervous about the trip and definitely wasn’t impressed. I felt so bad for her and thanked God it wasn’t me, I probably would have gone crazy if it had been me.

Since I was lucky to have both my bags with me, I was not as grumpy as the others, and

because I had managed to sleep for most of the entire flight, I was awake and ready to keep myself busy. I laid down to the surprise of the Ugandan airport staff, who walked by me with a disapproving look and even buffed the floor along side me. I didn’t care, all I wanted to do was finish the Time magazine cover story about India I started on the tail end of the flight to Entebbe. After studying China so much last semester I was excited to start learning about India – the other growing super power in the world. I really want to go to India. Hopefully I’ll have the chance next January for the development conference. Ha, I thought. Here I was, on the floor of the airport in Uganda, not even having begun my trip in Africa, and I was already thinking about the next step. “World Traveler” was right.

Finally we were done playing reindeer games with the bags, and were ready to meet the rest of the group who had gone outside to load the bus. Poor Whitney didn’t make it with either of her bags. How awful that would be, I thought. We had to get her clothes asap and debated a trip to “the mall” in Kampala, but decided we would just a few garments in Fort Portal, since the bags would be there by Friday (there’s only one flight to Entebbe from London, and it only leaves Monday, Wednesday, and Friday). We said hello to Father Tom outside and told him the news, then decided to go because the ladies in Fort Portal expected us for a late lunch, and we still needed to go to his house for a rest stop before the long ride to and from Kampala.

We walked outside, and there was Africa. I tried to take in a deep breath, but it wasn’t the “fresh air” I expected. The sky was hazy and the air similar. It smelled like smoke. Rachael and I wondered what the hell was going on – the pictures and the guidebook didn’t say anything about that. We walked to the bus and saw the first evidence of the real Africa – there were monkeys alongside the fence, playing at the foot of the trees. They were small, grey and cute, and I decided that from then on I would embrace the monkeys rather than shying away from them. After all, it was Africa, and where else could you be greeted by monkeys in the parking lot?

We boarded the bus and met Joseph, our driver. It was definitely a hoopty, but surprisingly really spacious – enough room for our bags and a few extra seats to lay our feet on. The best part was it had big open windows for us to look, and hang, outside. I looked outside to the left and saw my first sight of Africa – a field full of United Nations planes with the infamous “UN” letters painted on the sign. Father Tom said it was an airfield to ship aid to southern Sudan. And people say the UN doesn’t do anything.

The drive to Kampala only took about 25 minutes, and it was very interesting. The road was paved but it was complete chaos. People walking, driving, riding motorcycles, scooters, trucks, etc. No one seemed to be paying attention to anything else, yet they managed to swerve at the last minute before crashing into one another. It was wild.

I got scared for a minute when I realized we were driving on the left side of the road. Then I looked up at the front of the bus, and it looked liked Chelsie was driving. Everything was definitely opposite on the this side of the world.

As we got closer to Kampala, it became more crowded. I was amazed at the endless rows of “cottage industries” – neat little shacks next to one another, not anything like American strip malls. It was a small business mecca. Clothing stores, supermarkets, auto repair shops, food huts, and definitely a lot of cell phone units made up the majority of the businesses. My favorite was the Jesus is Lord Mini Supermarket and Grocery. Capitalism was definitely rearing its ugly head – there were billboards and Coca-Cola banners everywhere. My favorite sign was “Drink Fanta, Stay Bamoocha (cool).” Everyone was working. There seemed to be an endless amount of schools. Progress, I thought.

Kampala is the capital and largest city in Uganda, but with only about 700,000 people or so. It is considered an “industrial” city, but I expected more. We didn’t go into the “main” area of town with the government buildings or “mall,” but I’m sure it wasn’t the modern African city I thought it would be. It was divided like a typical city – newly constructed houses and nice British colonial houses on the hills for the rich, and endless small huts crammed together for the poor. Funny though, it wasn’t “the slums” we expected, although we just traveled down the main roads.

The most disappointing thing was the haze. Smoke filled the air and it smelled like burnt wood. We would quickly learn that there’s absolutely no municipal trash system – everyone burns their own and there’s really no schedule or limit. So while we expected beautiful mountains and scenery to greet us, we got a smoky haze that would stay with us for the rest of the trip. It was too bad, because the landscape up close was full of lavish green trees and endless fields.

Our favorite thing to see was, and will probably always be, the children of Uganda. They are a million more ridiculously adorable then anything we expected or have seen on TV or in pictures. When they see us in the giant bus, they immediately stop what they are doing and lock their attention on us. They all scream “Mujungas! Mujungas!” – or white people. Individually, we are “Bujunga” but it sounds like they are saying “Bazoonga” – which is Swahili for white person. We quickly learned our new name, but it wasn’t derogatory. The children ran near the bus if they could, waved profusely and smiled with the brightest glow I have ever seen.

Thank goodness we landed at the Father Tom’s residency, the Holy Cross headquarters for East Africa. It was an amazing compound surrounded by a tall wall. A man looked through a tiny hole in the gate and let us in. We walked through the foyer and I noticed the only two pictures on the wall – Musevani, the president of Uganda, and the Pope.

The inside was immaculately clean. We made our way into the kitchen and found a wonderful breakfast waiting for us – cereal, toast, bananas and tea. I poked around outside, glancing at the 2-stories of rooms for the sisters and brothers, and found the small garden in the back which led to a larger garden next door. What a great spot.

We had a long road ahead of us and so we got back on the bus after only about 30 minutes. I wanted to sleep, but I was having a hard time processing the first hour or so in Africa. My mom had said that although we would be tired we would have big windows and plenty to look at. She was right. I came to Africa with no expectations, yet it was nothing like I thought it would be. Researching and looking about this place in books and magazines is one thing, but being here is certainly another. I didn’t think it was going to be that different, but man, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

The scenery began to be repetitive outside of Kampala, although the natural environment was beautiful. So many banana trees, wide open spaces, and so much green. That is definitely what I thought I’d see, but I never though it would appear so fresh. Africa was ugly but so wonderful at the same time. It was people stuck in time yet moving forward their own way.

I turned on my iPod, since we were definitely “takin’ the long way” around. The Dixie Chicks, however, were better left for the west Texas roads. I turned on Madonna. “Get ready to jump,” she said. I got a few hours of sleep, and surprisingly woke up just before we got to Ft. Portal, Man I have been keeping a good schedule for myself. Good thing, because I’m ready to jump.