Uganda Mission Trip, Day 1: From Europe to Africa

Bright Sunny Day in Kampala

It is 12:00am, less than half an hour before we leave for Uganda, and there is no sign of my roommate Dave. I never doubt that he would be late as I know him well, and my heart was alarming peaceful, not about Dave, but for the trip that were to come. I did my final check-up for my passports and other essential items, while in my mind “looked forward to” the coming epic 22 hours journey to reach our destination. 12:30am, everyone was ready and we sat off. Making the loudest voice by our suitcases’ wheels and hoping that we didn’t wake anybody up, we arrived at the coach station for our coach to Birmingham International Airport.

Our whole trip was marked with a lot of waiting, in terms of hours; and when we looked back now, we realised that it was only the start – waiting at the airport for flights! Fast forward the time of waiting at Brussels and Rwanda, we arrived, safely, at Uganda, at last, at 11:00pm. Guess what the very first thing we did as soon as we collected our luggage and were waiting to be picked up? It was having mosquitoes spray over our arms and legs, which suggested how much we disliked the mosquitoes. Throughout the whole trip, mosquitoes spray, sun cream, anti-bacterial gel and Doxycycline would become our best friends.

There was a bit of a challenge of getting our entire luggage into our minivan. By God’s grace it was all sorted, somehow. After another hour of journey with the girls singing in the background we arrived at our hostel, Novak. It was a really nice place to live if I am honest, for African standard. I was very impressed. A reasonably size room with a lovely two part farmhouse gate as door (if you know what I was talking about); a table and a chair and nice bed with a mosquitoes net hanging on top of it. No bad at all! But it was already 1:00am, so we got changed, brushed our teeth and went straight to bed.

We had a bit of a lie in the next morning. We had a shower (cold one for boys), had some breakfast and waited for the church van to pick us up. On our way to All Saints’ Cathedral, we finally could have a picture of what Uganda was like in the light. The road was all orange in color, millions of people on motorbikes with all kinds of random stuff on the back of the bikes that I could never imagine, I even saw someone having their bed frame on his motor bikes! I mean how could it even possible? I guess it’s all a part of the experience.

We arrived at All Stints’, formally introduced by our Uganda team, being showed around the Cathedral etc. We then attended the mid-week service. It was a very different experience going to church in Uganda where everyone dressed as smart as they possibly could, like going to a wedding. I will tell you more later when we went to Sunday services.

Although I haven’t been to Africa or encountered with many Africans, so far so I didn’t feel much of a culture shock. Yes it’s different, but not shocked, as the very least. Maybe I am so used to going to a different country and experiencing different cultures. And the next day (Day 2), we would go up north of Uganda to a rural town called Gulu for 4 days to do some ministries there. It would become one of our highlights of our trip. Oh yea, and the 8 hours of road journey ahead of us too!

drafted in Kampala, Uganda

written in Oxford
27.03.2013