My first week in Uganda

Well hello there my dear readers!

Today I have been traveling for a week and I thought I’d share with you some of the stories on how I traveled from Nairobi to Uganda and so on.

On my first day in Nairobi I changed my original plan and found a bus company to get me to Jinja, Uganda, the same night. All the bus companies I had found online were fully booked, but there was this company I kind of found on the street that I thought might do it. Before I tell you the story about that travel I just want to say that there were people on my way that made this adventure work as well as it did despite the challenges on the way. So before we even got out of Nairobi it started raining, which is nothing special except that the bus leaked! That was quiet inconvenient, but the rain didn’t last long so the ride was ok for a few hours until the bus broke down. Yep! The bus broke down before we got to the boarder in Uganda.

This trip was clearly not challenging enough so life gave me a mosquito bite on my eyelid…

It didn’t take much time for the guys to find a bus that was able to squeeze us in to get us to the boarder. At the boarder we had to change vehicles again to travel around in Uganda. I was the only mzungu on this trip so everyone kind of new I was there and were happy to help me get to the right place. That’s where they dropped me off before we got to Jinja so I wouldn’t have to travel from there back up to Busembatia.

I’m not sure where I was dropped off, but I got in to a Matatu that was suppose to go through Busembatia, which it did, but they forgot to tell me when to jump off so after we passed another town I was able to jump off and take a matatu back. When I finally came to Busembatia after a way to long bus travel (about 15h) I didn’t really know where I was going and I didn’t have a working SIM card. Therefore I walked around the small town for a while to get a SIM card so I could reach Paul, the founder of Our Hearts 4 Africans Uganda, to tell me where to go next. It took me a while to get the card but as soon as I could contact Paul and tell him where I was it didn’t take long until Crish, his father, came to pick me up on a motorcycle. He then dropped me off to the family I’d be staying with the next two weeks.

Everyone at the home were so nice and made me feel very welcome. One cup of tea and a short conversation with Rebecca, Paul’s sister, and Eve later another volunteer arrived, Cris, arrived and then a little later Paul and Lindsey arrived from Jinja. It was a coincidence that the three of us came the same day since Lindsey, from the US, was supposed to be here a week earlier, Cris, from Chile, didn’t plan on coming until the week after and I a day later.

It was nice to finally meet the people I had been in contact with for the past two months and getting the chance to talk to Paul and get more informations about his organisation. Apparently we are the first volunteers to come and volunteer at this project of his called Our Hearts 4 Africans Uganda, which he started last August. We all felt very welcomed and the people here showed us so much gratitude for taking the leap of faith to come here and help out.

The gratitude continued the day after when we first went to the school. They had prepared a ceremony to welcome the first volunteers, us, to the school. The children marched in, sang and danced and the teachers and community members made speeches to welcome us. I was very happy to see how many parents made it to the ceremony to show us how much they care about their children’s future and education. The ceremony went on for a few hours and Paul showed us what he has been working on, like where he planned to build the volunteer house, which fruits he was going to plant on the land and more.

The children singing and dancing during the ceremony.

Teaching is a little hard since the children at the school are very young and most of them barely know any English, but the teachers have been translating what we do for them and seeing what methods we use. The teachers at the school are experienced and are doing an amazing job with the children although they are not qualified. But the school only started in February so it is all very new to both the children and the teachers. The children who attend to the school come from poorer families which could not provide their children proper education.

Since the school is in need for some equipment, Cris and I traveled on a motorbike to Jinja this weekend to buy some school materials like notebooks, pencils, maps and more. We decided to stay one night in Jinja so we went to the Explorers River Camp which has an amazing view over the river Nile. I also used the time there to get some WiFi connection to work on my thesis which I need to turn in next week.

Jinja was great, but it is so good to be back in Busembatia to celebrate Eve’s birthday. We made a little surprise for her where we had bought a slice of cake on our way back and some birthday candles. We went to her with the cake and the burning candles while singing the birthday song. Her reaction was priceless and I am so happy to be here and celebrate with her for the rest of the day.