From Civilization to… Kidepo

So after Soroti we headed down to Kampala for the weekend to fix up the vehicle (for good!) and get it serviced. We were planning on leaving Friday night, but as you could probably have guessed by now, that didn’t work out. Val and I went into town on Thursday to pick some dinner [up]  that part of that phrase is not used around here… you just pick things; you don’t pick them up. (I LOVE this language… it’s SO funny!) When we were trying to leave, the vehicle wouldn’t start and then it began POURING. Anyway… the issues ended up delaying us until Saturday morning, when we drove down to Kampala (without turning the vehicle off so as not to risk getting stuck along the way). We ended up having to wait around in Kampala until Tuesday because it took a while to do the servicing and everything.
But it’s crazy… Kampala is pretty much real civilization! We even got ICE CREAM! Actually it was gelato… I had stracciatella and hazelnut and it was SO good. A real Italian man owned the place… looked and sounded straight from the mafia :-P So that was quite the treat… and we may have gone there multiple times over our three days in the city. We also went to a MALL! Okay, so it wasn’t quite Crossgates (or any other one at home), but it wasn’t so bad. There was a theater and we saw a movie! A real movie too and I think they even play(ed) it in the states… Eat, Pray, Love. The theater was pretty Clifton Park-esque… not the most up-to date, but the seats were actually pretty comfortable and it wasn’t so bad! The only real difference was the fact that the movie turned off about five times during it and it did look a bit like the 1980s or something – not terrible but a little grainy. Came back on every time though! There was also a PIZZA place in the parking garage of the mall. It was called “I Love New York Kitchen” – made by some Mzungu… The pizza was pretty good but I don’t think they knew they were supposed to add some sort of seasoning… I’ve never had to put salt on a pizza before, but it definitely helped. So Kampala was fun :-) Since our vehicle was out of service the whole time, we traveled on Boda-bodas. The ones in Kampala are motorcycles, so you sit sideways behind the driver (if you’re a girl), holding your bags tightly on your lap and trying not to go flying or hit your knees on the cars they are weaving between. A couple of times Val and I squeezed onto the back of one together, which was interesting as I had a gigantic heavy backpack on and only about half of me was actually on the motorcycle… it was fine until going uphill or speeding up… then Val would grab me and make sure I didn’t disappear off the other side. Normally we took two, though, and tried to get them to stay together so we wouldn’t lose each other. We got some very good drivers and even managed to get to all our destinations! Eventually, by Tuesday night, the vehicle was ready and after negotiating down a ridiculously high price to a mostly ridiculously high price (well for here… for home it would have been cheap :-P) we left Kampala to go to Mbale.
Mbale is about five hours from Kampala and is still pretty close to civilization in atmosphere! We were meeting with the rest of the CLIDE team there for a spiritual retreat. Wednesday and Thursday we spent bonding with the others and hearing from a Bishop/Pastor/Reverend. The theme of the time was from the book of Jonah… I’ve never studied it so deeply so it was very interesting. We all really enjoyed the Bishop… God was definitely speaking through him! So we were all very encouraged/challenged by the retreat and I was really able to get to know the other CLIDE members better, which was good :-) We were staying in a place that was like a real hotel while we were there! It was so nice… infinitely nicer than the place we stay in Kampala (with no running water or even walls between the “bathroom” and the actual room… only the best for us :-P It costs a total of $8 per night for both me and Val in a room) But the place in Mbale had a FLUSHING toilet and a pseudo-shower (one of those removable heads that had no mount to hang it on). It even had a refrigerator! We had to leave early… it was supposed to go through Friday, but we had another visitor (a photographer/journalist) coming into Soroti on Friday morning, so we left early that morning to pick her at the ‘airport’. She works with an organization called MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship). They selected an organization that uses their services from each country to use as promotion for both them and for the selected organization. They chose CLIDE and so the journalist (LuAnne) came to visit and we brought her to the peace villages.
Now the peace villages are quite different from real civilization :-P We started at Nakayot (because the road is more reliable) and we stayed in a couple mud huts they built for us. It was a really good time… we did some dancing (jumping) with the villagers in the pitch black night and we checked out the water situation because they are having some issues. They only have one borehole in the area (for 1000 homes) and it has been broken for a while. They are supposed to be getting around five more, but the organization that promised them (about a year ago) hasn’t gotten around to it. So for now the people walk about three or four kilometers to get water from a pool that collects a ways down the mountain from a spring. I went with another CLIDE person to go check it out, and we saw how dirty the water was. There is funny colored algae growing at the bottom of the pool and lots of sediment… it is not safe at all and is one of the reason almost all the kids have really bad worms (to go along with their malnutrition). Despite the walk, the people were so nice… they went and filled our jerricans so we could bathe and cook some tea in the morning. Saturday night we went to the other peace village, Nabwal. They are also having water problems and they have to walk about six miles to get to a working borehole. Life is so tough out there! We stayed in tents near a tree there and on Sunday we went to a makeshift church they have formed there. The pastor (who comes when he can make it down the road on his bicycle… he’s gotten ambushed in the past and almost killed) is absolutely amazing. The people LOVE him and God uses him SO much. He is planning on moving to live in Nabwal (a HUGE sacrifice) with his family, he just needs to get a house built first. So hopefully it’s not so long – it’s really hard for him to get there now. So we had a great time there… they pray in a building that was just completed recently for a school. Nakayot is a year younger than Nabwal and doesn’t have a health clinic or a school yet… it’s 25km away from the main road – in the previous no-man’s land between warring subtribes… so none of the children are able to go to school yet. Nabwal is a bit further along… their school just moved from a UNICEF tent to a real building and they have three volunteer ‘teachers’ from the area for primary years 1-3. The school has no chairs and they have a total of about 6 books – a math primary 2, English primary 3, things like that – references for the teachers to teach from. It’s amazing the effort those men are putting in to help the children learn with SO little, though.
After ‘prayers’ (they never refer to it as church… you ‘go to prayers’… ‘where do you pray from?’... etc) we had a meeting with the Peace Council. I learned how to cook rice and some other things for more than 60 people during the meeting. Had some close encounters with the fire and with messing up the rice by “mingling” it instead of “rotating” it. But all worked out and after the meeting there was a gigantic feast with two goats, some rice and “Irish”, posho and cabbage. The meeting went really really well, too. We haven’t been able to get to Nabwal so much because of the roads (it will be a bit easier now since it’s the dry season), so the people decided they needed to take things into their own hands (which is our goal, so that’s perfect!). They had come up with an ‘action plan’ and presented it to Val regarding how to deal with one village that has been a big contributor to the raiding in the area. I’ll let you know what happens after a couple weeks when they go through with the plan, but basically they’re going to go confront the elders and have some peace talks. They invited us to come along and bring some bulls (somehow… we’re not sure how we’re going to get them yet… so be praying for some provision!). We’re excited to see what happens… it could kind of go either way, but something is going to change because of it. A couple years back someone from this same village killed the main peace builder organizing Nabwal. It was a huge deal and after a pretty long story… an elder ended up giving his own son (who was responsible) to the mercy of the police and allowing the peace to come back. So it will be interesting to see what will happen this time.
After Nabwal, we came back up to Moroto, treated some animals the next morning in Kangole for photos and then LuAnne flew [out] and a couple more visitors (pastors from Oregon) came in to lead a Pastor Training Conference for leaders in Karamoja. Val and I are heading out today to go to Kotido and then Kidepo up in the more northern part of Karamoja, right near Sudan. There is a wildlife park up there so I can’t wait to find some giraffes and other cool things!! :-D It is an eight hour drive on the worst roads in Karamoja, so there probably won’t be anyone else there. Not exactly the best tourist destination. I’ll let you know more about that when we get back! :-P