Monday 23rd OCtober
Today was a day of learning how things run on African time and not as we expect coming from Australia. Edward had arranged for Robert (who is a lovely man, but just happens to have no concept of time keeping what so ever – you’ll see even more evidence of this later on) to pick us up at 8 am from our Hotel to head for Kabale. At 8:15 am Edward rang Robert to see how he was going and said he would call back. At 8:20 am he did indeed call back and said he would be about 20 minutes. That put ETA at 8:40 am I was not too worried – I knew we had a long trip but we could still get there at a reasonable hour. Before we knew it it was 9 am, I must admit I was getting a little frustrated with this African time thing they told me about. eventually Robert arrived at around 9:15 and we finally hit the road.
A shot of us at the Equator on our trip to Kabale:
Our trip again was a showcase of the African way. We stopped many times on the way to do this and that, when all we wanted was to get to Kabale, especially after about 4 hours in the back of a Hilux that was driving on a highway that was almost as bumpy as going off-road, courtesy of large sized potholes. On the last leg of the trip however, with about two hours to go, just after leaving Mbarara things for me go a more exciting, as I got to move out from the cramped back seat into the spacious drivers seat. It was a great experience driving into Kabale – thinking that one day this could be were God leads us to live for an extended period and my first time driving in Uganda was driving into Kabale! It was great, but a challenge to try to miss all the pot holes.
A photo of Robert & Edward as we first came into the Kabale district:
As Edward said we were entering Kabale district, it was amazing. To me everything, except the roads which seemed to get worse, appeared to be so much better. It was like driving into the hinterland on the Sunshine or Gold Coast after driving all day on a boring highway – you just wanted to go slow and look at the scenery. To me the landscape and people were all beautiful! Robert took back over the driving as we came into town and we dropped of Jackson & his sister, Benita who had travelled in the tray back for the entire trip (see photo below). After this we checked into our accommodation for our stay in Kabale ‘Queen’s Hotel’ – definitely not for the Queen but more than adequate.
When were all sorted we went with Robert & Edward back to Edwards place to meet his family and have dinner. As we arrived home three of Edwards four daughters greeted us (one was away at boarding school) they appeared so excited to see their father back home but at the same time a bit weary of meeting the Mazungo (white person). We also met Peace, Edwards wife and Betty his sister. It was great to eat at Edwards place, but I did for the first time in my life have to lead a few songs in worship – lucky that Kathryn was there to help me out a lot. We prayed together and enjoyed another lovely meal, both the food and the fellowship was fantastic. We then went home and let Edward greet his family properly and so we could get some rest after a nice long, bouncy, sore back & but inflicting trip and think a bit about all that was happening.
