Arriving in Entebbe Uganda after more than an hour of getting through customs and paying the normal visa fees, I was finally outside near 10:00 P.M. tonight looking for the man, Emmanuel Monychol who would meet me and become my host while in Kampala for the next two days. I was a little nervous leaving the airport with no confirmation that he would be there, but low and behold, there was this tall nice looking man holding a sign with my name on it in bold scrawled letters, Jack Williams. I received a warm hug from the young man as he welcomed me to Uganda. The hug was typical of what I had come to know in Ethiopia, hug on one side, and then the other, and I thought, Yes, I am back in Africa again for sure.
There was a man with him who immediately took my luggage cart and we walked a few hundred yards to his car. I asked Emmanuel where we were going, and he replied that this man was a taxi driver he had arranged who would take us to Kampala. The car, I immediately noticed had the steering wheel on the right—like Zambia all over again. It was quite dark, so there was little to see, and after a long 30 minute drive on mostly narrow, congested roads we were finally in the city of Kampala, the capital of Uganda where I would stay for two nights.
We chatted the entire time on the way into town, while I learned a little more about this lad Emmanuel and what he is about. It was a pleasant time, and I immediately took a liking to him. He said he had a hotel lined up for me, and asked the driver if he knew where it was. He did, and after jutting through a maze of narrow streets in a very old section of the city we were finally there. As we got out and got my baggage and paid the driver (it was only about $20) Emmanuel announced that it was a “bit of climbing” to get to my room. I wondered what he meant, but soon learned as he took two of my bags and headed up a narrow hall entering the building, and started up the stairs. I told him I would be a little slow, and I was as we covered the floors, one after another and finally got to the sixth floor of the building.
Somehow it looked okay after we got there. At the steel bar gated entrance to the top floor (I guess one would call it the “suite” floor) the hallway was clean and each of the four or five rooms that were arranged for had very nicely stained new-looking doors. The room too, was small but clean with a short bed I knew immediately would be too short for me. It even had a balcony that looked out over the city that Emmanuel mentioned was the center of the old part of the town. I could see a little of it, but because of the darkness and heavy cloud overlay, most of what I could see was hills and lights, and a few cars. The hotel is on a hillside itself, so I am sure in the morning, I will have a better view of the city. The other part of the small room was an adjoining toilet and shower with one of the electric shower heaters I had gotten used to in South America and Mozambique. These are the ones the have an electric shower head that sometimes, but not always, works. The East Indian hotel manager assured me that I would have hot water when I wanted it, and that the room was perfectly secure 24 hours a day. That had to be part of the deal, as I would be leaving most of my stuff there for my two-day stay in the city.
Well, enough of that travel-talk. Now a few words about what this is all about. I am really here in Uganda and Sudan to do a preliminary survey of the general area with focus here in Uganda on what materials and equipment might be available to purchase when the program goes ahead in the Apuk Padoc villages in South Sudan. I will also be meeting with some Sudanese students who are going to school here and being sponsored by the Machara Miracle Network. With a few other details I have to accomplish here, I should be leaving on the 6th—two days from now, for the next leg of my trip, Juba, South Sudan.
In Juba I will be doing much of the same as in Kampala, hosted by some ex-villagers from the Apuk Padoc District along with seeing what I can do about getting the company registered in South Sudan. That I am sure will be the challenging process in that town. After two days there one of my Juba hosts will help me get air transportation to Wau, my next two-day stopover in South Sudan before I make way to the villages. In Wau, I have hopes that the man who was called to meet me there would be there and that we would be able to get some transportation out the 165km to the Apuk village complex.
If all the plans come together, about the 8th or 9th of November I will be on my way to Apuk to take care of the last part of my mission. This will be a thorough analysis of the situation there, the logistics of getting things there and accomplishing what needs to be done, speaking to the town leadership and hoping that I can keep their expectations clear and not overblown. I know this will be a challenge, as I have learned from other visits to other developing countries that people expectations simply grow out of the fact that I show up, and they know a little about what I want to do there. It has happened so many times to me, I know I will cautiously weighing every statement I make about the project in such a manner as to keep them from believing that anything I say I want to do is not a promise that we will be able to do it in a reasonable time. Money is the thing that will be the factor controlling what we are able to do. Finding the money from donors who are out there with money. is the hardest part of the program.
That’s enough for this page of my blog. It will continue as I find time and get more data to share with my readers.
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