Culture Lesson

Yesterday Carl came and picked up the kids for a day of fun with their family in Entebbe. They played on their trampoline, went swimming at the local pool and had a great day! Meanwhile, Leo and I had our first official "cultural lesson". We went with Godfrey, one of the nationals who works here at Matoke and went in to Kampala, which is the capital of Uganda. We first went by boda-boda, which is a motorcycle taxi. We each climbed on the back of a bike and rode about 5 minutes to where we could catch a taxi to town. In Kenya, they call these taxis "matatus". Here I think they're just called a taxi, but are a mini-van that are supposed to only hold 14 people... After about a 20-30 minute ride, we arrived at the taxi park in Kampala, which is pictured above. I have no idea how anyone figures out which taxi to get on, but somehow, they do! While we were in town we were shown the grocery stores and were able to look at appliances, since we need to purchase a few before we can move into our house. We also had a yummy meal of matoke (plantain), g-nut sauce (ground nut, or peanut), chicken, pumpkin, sweet potato and chapatis. I wish we would have gotten a picture of the kitchen at the restaurant. We walked through it to get to the public toilets (Leo's suggestion to bring our own toilet paper was very much appreciated!) and all the food was just on the ground in huge pots. I must say, it was surprisingly tasty though and I'm just glad we ate it before we saw where it was prepared!

OK, now I am going to copy in part of an email I sent to my family early this morning, which is the main reason for this blog post... "It was so tough for me to see the street kids in Kampala. There was one little girl about the size of Samuel sitting on the traffic median with cars zooming by going both ways and she was just crying and crying. Leo gave her our bottle of water and I just kind of patted her on her back. I didn't know what else I could do. I was carrying the backpack that we'd brought snacks in on the plane and I told Leo that we should have left the food in there. He said there were still a couple snacks in it. We went into a hardware store. I had to pretend I was interested in the tools and things because I was about to have a break-down. When we came out, there was the little girl and about 5 other little street kids. So, I took my pack off and said I'd give them something. Well, I was mobbed then! I had to tell them to wait and to SHARE. There were little hands trying to reach into the bag and grab stuff out of my hands. We had 2 bags of fruit snacks and 2 packs of those crunchy granola bars. They were so happy. One little girl tried to give me some coins and another thanked me. I felt like I was walking on the clouds when we walked away. My arms were brown from those dirty little hands grabbing me and it was so little that I gave, but I was so thankful God let me give something. I told our kids about it when they were going to bed last night and they all said they wanted to carry food and try to help the street kids. They were talking about different things we could do to help them and toys they wanted to give them and I told them we need to pray and ask God to show us how He wants to use us to show these kids His love. I'm thankful for my kid's sweet hearts."

I know right now I am very sensitive to seeing these kids because we haven't been in Africa for several years. I also know that it is easy to be desensitized and not even give them a second glance and I don't want that to happen. I think the ministry that my children and me will be involved in, will be with children, so we are excited to see what God is going to do. The kids in the picture are not street children, but just cute kids who wanted Leo to take their photo.

"Home" at last. Here I am on the back of the boda-boda that brought me back to Matoke. We were exhausted by the end of the day, but definitely had a cultural experience and now we know a bit about Kampala!