First Day in Uganda

Written April 20th



Arriving in Uganda brought up so many emotions for me. As I looked out the window while the plane was approaching Entebbe, all I could see was green and red, which was pretty much how I imagined the ground to look like. When we landed I could see the trees that are typical of Africa, and for some reason just seeing those trees made me feel emotional. It was like wow, we are actually here in Uganda. After over a year of anticipation and wonder about what this moment of arrival was going to feel like; it was overwhelming to actually be living it. It felt amazing. Though I can’t ignore the fact that I was extremely tired and uncomfortable after having hardly any good sleep on either plane ride; the most I got was probably on the rock hard tile floor at the Heathrow airport. It was just great to finally get to Africa. Once we were through the airport and had collected our bags we went outside to meet the matatus that would take us back to the Banana Village where we would spend the night. It was pouring rain outside, and we watched as about 5 men loaded up our bags into a small pickup truck. The truck looked ridiculous with about 40 pieces of luggage piled in the back. On our ride to the Banana Village we got to check out our surroundings, again, a very surreal experience. The streets were so busy, packed with people, boda bodas, small shacks and stores and one area that looked like the market area which was so busy with people. Children were waving at us as we drove by; they were adorable in their little red uniforms. We got to the Banana Village and were kindly greeted at reception and told which huts we were staying in. Myself, Lesley, Amanjot, and Shayna were in one hut – which actually looked like a hut from the outside; I can’t think of another way to describe it. Later we went out to exchange our money and get our cell phones set up. It was hard not to feel like we were being stared at by the people in town. Obviously we stuck out like sore thumbs, but so far I felt that the people were very friendly. After getting our phones we walked over to the Lake Victoria hotel, which is a very fancy hotel in Entebbe, to have lunch. Most of the rest of the day is somewhat blurry, just because of how exhausted I was. We had a short meeting, got our phones set up, I called home and spent a short amount of time on the internet and around 7:30pm the power cut out and it was pitch black, so I headed to bed (using the light from my laptop to find my way). Now it is around 4am and I can’t sleep because the rain is coming down so hard, and the loudest thunder and lightning storm I have ever heard in my life has struck. I’m not usually afraid of thunder, but this I must say was startling. Now I will attempt to sleep a little more as I have to be up in a couple hours to shower, have breakfast, and get ready to be picked up by Carli for our journey to Kampala.