Departures and Arrivals

On Friday 29th January at six in the morning I flew from Bristol airport to Entebbe airport just outside Kampala in Uganda. Arriving at half past eight in the evening I knew I was in a different country in part thanks to the heat (around twenty degrees in the evenings) and part to the humid smell. Upon entering Uganda I was greeted by a large queue at immigration. After waiting in the queue and collecting bags we left the airport at about nine, meeting two people we already knew called Martin and Fred.

After the treacherous ride home including being guided into a parking space outside a restaurant by a man with a rifle we went onto Jinja.

It is brilliant. I’m staying in the Busoga Trust Guest House on Luboga Rd. I’m with eleven other students who are all planning to teach in nearby schools or to do building work in nearby villages.

On our first day Jennie (a friend I’m travelling with) and I met Martin who teaches Physics at St James’, the school I’m hoping to help at. He took us into Jinja, changed money and showed us where to buy Ugandan SIM cards (Much cheaper than using our UK ones). After that we saw Gerald, a geography teacher at St James’. We chatted for a while, mainly about the temperature, and then he took us back to the Guest house. Went back into Jinja for lunch with our first Ugandan motorcycle taxi ride (Boda boda).

Later on we were invited, quite forcefully, to a graduation party. The graduate, we learnt after an hour, was called Claire. We still aren’t sure who her mother was since about ten different women all called her daughter. We also couldn’t work out what course she finished. After about three and a half hours of speeches we were finally allowed to eat, and then were allowed to dance. The music started with lots and lots of reggae and RnB and finished with gansta rap, we even got some country and western at one point.

Today I went to see Martin’s pub. To call it a pub is a little misleading though. It is more like a shack where people watch football. That’s also a little unfair though, because it should be pointed out that the room was probably about fifteen meters by seven and crammed with rows of spectators packed in tighter than an aeroplane. 
We were watching Man U vs. Arsenal. If I’m honest, I don’t really like football enough to support a team, so I decided on the spot to support Man U... I made the right choice. When we left, Man U were three nil up with about twenty minutes to go.