Adrenaline Surge

We went to Kampala yesterday, to try and secure an air pump and water pump, and identify sources of supply for the coffee shop. It took us ALL day, and we basically learned some things, but purchased nothing. We ate lunch around 2 p.m. in downtown Kampala. We paid to park right in front of the restaurant, sat right there, a guard was there, plus a parking attendant, and somehow, the mirror on our car was stolen. TIA I guess. I have a new phrase to go along with TIA…it is IDC (I DON’T CARE) and I use it at times, such as whenever I tell my children to brush their teeth and they say TIA, I respond IDC. The car ride to Kampala (approximately two hours from Jinja) was great fun. Tim drove, I road shotgun on the wrong side of the road, and kept as vigilant as possible. Driving in Africa isn’t the same as driving in America—trust me, that is an understatement. I have driven around Jinja, and according to the kids and Tim, it should be a Disney ride named Cheri’s Wild Ride…Westin is the only person who wants to ride with me (I guess it’s not right to have a favorite child - but)…come on…I drive just like Tim, only on caffeine. I figure since I have a four wheel drive, why not use it? Potholes can be fun, they launch you! Also, just because I scrape the side of the curb a bit, I haven’t hit anything yet. It is very strange to back up, with a stick shift that is on the wrong side, looking over the wrong shoulder, etc. I think that if we don’t hit anything major, and we get there without too many wrong turns, I have done well. I did get yelled at by a big truck driver whom I had blocked in at the store…TIA I say!

The drive home from Kampala was seriously stressful. We were trying to get home before dark, but we didn’t leave Kampala until almost dark (in part because we also got a replacement mirror for the Land Cruiser…yeah!). Now for whatever reason, people here at night don’t drive with their lights on, and it is all two lane roads, and slow, slow trucks, and people passing them like no tomorrow (which could be true if you’re not careful.) So Tim and I were both VERY vigilant on the drive home. I had a tension headache by the time we reached Jinja. As we turned into our lane, I began to relax a bit, until…(let me give you a background story, two nights ago, three men came to our compound and asked some fishy questions, then the next morning they came again, asking more fishy questions, we suspect they are casing out the joint) a truck came up behind us on our little dirt road with its lights off, and as we turned into our little drive, it cornered us from behind, turned the lights on, and three men with guns jumped out and surrounded our car, while another man with a gun went to our gate and started to try and get in. Talk about adrenaline surge BIG TIME. I was scared beyond words. I thought for sure it was a hold up, and they were going to force us into our compound and hold us for ransom or something. So Tim said, “Should we leave?” and my response was “GET US OUT OF HERE!!!” Thank God for 4-wheel drives, we took off over the grassy hill, squealing away, while a man was running behind us yelling excuse me, excuse me, please don’t leave…once we were past the cornering of the three, Tim stopped to talk to the one man. He was the manager of the guards, our regular guard Fred, was sick, and our new guard didn’t know how to get to our house, so they were dropping him off, and had a truck full of guards they were delivering to their posts—they were trying to be polite and help us into our compound, thus the surrounding of the car. I don’t think they have any idea how much they scared us, they probably only think we are crazy Mzungu’s…which at times I definitely agree with. So, our adrenaline was kicking, but we were safe, and went into the compound and made friends with the new guard. His name is Boniface. I wanted him to be safe, so I told him about the snake that Fred had found. This was his response to me: “M’am, snakes here in Jinja are merciless, as soon as they see you, they will kill you, it is probably a cobra…I will be careful.” I thought a guard was supposed to make you feel better? Boniface didn’t, that’s for sure. So we still haven’t come upon our merciless black snake, but let me tell you, once we do…well…hell hath no fury like a woman afraid of a snake!

Again last night we had no electricity when we got home. In Kampala, we had eaten around 2 p.m., and agreed that I would make some soup when we got home. However, with no electricity, we had no way to prepare food, so we went to bed without dinner. The kids were marginally hungry, and woke up this morning starving, however, we still had no electricity. They ate a granola bar, and it did a bit to tide over their hunger. I shed some tears this morning during my devotions, for my own children who went to bed and woke up hungry, without complaining at all, but even more, for the multitudes of mothers who put their children to bed hungry every night, with no end in sight to the hunger, grateful for perhaps one, under-nourished meal a day. It truly just doesn’t seem right, in this day and age, with the resources and technology that this world has, that people would be starving—and I’m not talking "missing a few meals" starving, I’m talking "skinny, bellies sticking out from malnourishment" starving. Occasionally, I know that I will write things that will make us all feel uncomfortable, hang in there with me please, let yourself have a few moments of feeling uncomfortable, I think that we all need to feel some discomfort, because this is reality my friends. Not our reality, thank God, but the reality of millions of people with whom we share a common sense of humanity. I am reminded of the verse in Proverbs to “Speak up for the people who have no voice, for the rights of all the down-and-outers. Speak out for justice. Stand up for the poor and destitute.” So please don’t leave me if you start to feel uncomfortable, but let it just work in your heart and you can decide what maybe you can do to help make a difference. At a café here in Jinja, I saw a very appropriate quote: “No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.”

Ciao,

Cheri