Random Pictures

These are random pictures of Ugandan life. The 3rd picture down is a huge billboard that says, "Say no to Sugar Daddies." It had a picture of a council man, a student, a sugar daddy and a community member. I guess Uganda has a huge problem with young girls, basically selling themselves to rich men for college fees. The rich men will take care of them during college in exchange for other fees. So much so that they need billboards to promote saying no. We drove by it everyday and it cracked us up every time we saw it.
Every morning we drove straight through the city on our way to Wakiso and every morning we would see huge groups of men standing around. We still dont know what they were doing....maybe it was their job to stand around? I dont know :)

They had a few supermarkets there but they were mostly used by foreigners. The natives used small markets that were every where. You could basically set up a stand in your front yard and sell products. Then of course they had large open markets where people brought their products to sell. All the meat was out in the open. Its not cut as nicely as our meat here :) They just start hacking away at the meat and leave bone and fat on it. So when you eat it, you have to eat around a leg bone, not like ribs here :) It was quite interesting.

The Hill

So the driving in Uganda is indescribable. Chaotic to the point that you think..., "how are we even getting anywhere" or, "how are we even still alive?". Thank the Lord that we had the BEST driver in the universe taking us around everyday. But not only was the driving from one side of the city to the next everyday bad enough, before we got to the house we had to encounter the "Hill". I swear to you this thing was straight up. And Cabugo (probably not how you spell it but it is phonetically correct) was a master at getting the 30 passenger bus up it everyday. I kid you not, there were houses on one side of the hill and a cliff on the other. I swear to you I got saved again every time we drove up it. One time it had rained so much and it was to slippery and muddy to make it up the hill so he had to stop in the middle, let us all out and we walked the rest of the way. The pictures of the hill are us walking down the hill the next morning to get to the bus that they had to park at the college. And yes, that is a road in Uganda.

The house

We stayed at Papa Ron and Mama Shirley's house and it was such a blessing. It was like staying at a Hotel. Curt and I were the only married couple to get our own room. It was such a blessing! Mama Shirley and Esther cooked for us every day. We had fresh coffee waiting for us in the "Starbucks" room every morning at 6:30 am. The "Starbucks" room was the outside porch that we would eat on every meal. It has the most breath taking views of the city and was so peaceful.
The food that they cooked was so amazing!! I think its the first missions trip where a group gained weight instead of losing it. All our food was as American as you could get. They made tacos with homemade flour tortillas, pancakes, cinnamon rolls, Lasagna, huge meatballs with a great sauce over them. It would take me a while to name all of the great food they made. We ate breakfast and dinner at the house and then would have traditional Ugandan food at lunch.
I loved waking up early every morning, going and getting coffee and just sitting and
looking at the beautiful view and talking to the Lord. I wish I could have brought that aspect home with me. I dont quite have the same motivation to get up here at home :)

Curt designed the Courtyard, which is in the back of the house, years ago when he was there. Isnt it BEAUTIFUL! Its not the best picture, but it was such an amazing space. He did such a great job.

Animals

They didn't have very many animals cool in the area of Uganda that we were in. If you saw a dog it was usually running in fear trying to hide somewhere. Goat, chickens, cows were all common. They had these huge birds called Marabou Storks and they are scavengers and HUGE!! They only hang around the city so they can eat garbage. They looked like a cross between a stork and a vulture and look so depressed all of the time. When they flew, they looked like small airplanes in the sky. It was crazy.
The tall dirt pile is a termite mound and they were everywhere and all of them were that huge.
The cow in the first picture; Curt kept mooing at it until if finally mooed back. Its hilairous!