Backtrack to jinja- see May 30
| I am going to back track a little here and finish up about our trip to Jinja. This is a continuation of the post I sent on May 30. But before I get started, my husband thinks I should clarify something in that email I wrote. I talked about that sometimes there are hard days and we are all grumpy and irritable and it sounded like I enjoyed them by the way I wrote it. What I enjoy are the days we have now which are mostly good days, not those yucky days which used to be many. Sometimes, my grammer is not the greatest. sorry. Anyway, On to Jinja. [If you haven't read my blog about my previous trip to Jinja, scroll back and do so. It will give you some insight.] We came back to the house after meeting with the attorney for the briefing and gathered our things for our trip and one night stay in Jinja. Jinja is typically a 2 hour trip but is only 80km from Kampala, if the traffic was not heavy. The missionaries here had told us about a good place to stay, so I had called the Kingfisher and made a reservation. The trip to Jinja was pretty much uneventful except that Richard in an effort to miss Kampala traffic took us on some back roads where the potholes were many. We had Isaiah with us and for this trip had borrowed a car seat to put him in. It didn't fit real well in the seat so I still had to hold it back against the seat to keep him from tilting forward. This was sometimes hard as I was bouncing out of my seat also. Believe it or not, but that evening my right arm was very sore from holding his car seat down. Richard's detour took us by an area that was a Sudanese refugee camp. It was amazing! Rows and Rows of very tiny stick,straw and mud houses covered the hillside. Richard told us that the people were only allowed to build mud houses because permenant houses were not allowed. But already, these people had been there 7 years. I didn't think Africa could really have "slums" because there is already so much poverty, but there they were, the poorest of the poor. It was heartbreaking. We continued on our way and the countryside became beautiful with tea and Sugar Cane crops spreading out as far as the eye could see. Nothing eventful happened as we traveled through the forest, such as a monkey or other animal scampering across the road. We did pass an interesting place that I had not seen on my last trip. It was a clay pit. The clay was a grayish tan color which was interesting because the dirt in Africa is very red. In this pit which was flooded with water, were men working and they were covered from head to toe in the mud. These men were harvesting the clay by hand and packing them into molds. Near the road, were two tall brick ovens where I supposed they baked the bricks. Throughout the pit were stacks of already made bricks with palm tree leaves spread out over them to keep them dry. This definitely was a miry pit and gave me a visual of what David speaks about in Psalms. We arrived in Jinja and Duane saw the sign for the Kingfisher Resort as we came into town and had some general directions but Richard wouldn't really listen so decided it must be IN TOWN not outside of it. So, he stopped and asked some Boda Boda Men [motorcycle taxis] where the place might be and they promptly said, you pay us 3000 shillings and we can guide you there. Richard told them they were funny and asked for them to tell us. So they did. Evidently, they didn't give clear ones because a few minutes later, Richard stopped and asked again. We finally found it after going back to the sign we had previously seen in the first place and got settled in. We got Richard to his room and you would have thought we had put him in the Ritz. He had never slept in a hotel before. He was so proud and was beaming from ear to ear. We told him to relax and enjoy himself and order his drinks and food and tell them to charge it to our room. He took off to explore the area and we headed out ourselves to take a walk down to Lake Victoria. While down at LV, we met three tall black men coming off the pier and smiled and said hello. You could tell that they were possibly from the Sudan or Kenya. They stard at us pretty well and curiosity got the best of one of them and he asked me if Isaiah was my baby. I stopped, looked at him with surprise and said,"Yes, he is my baby, don't we look alike?" You could tell they were taken aback as they exclaimed, "That is NOT your baby!" Again, I put Isaiah's face close to mine and said, "Really? Look, do you not think we look like each other?" Duane chipped in,"Look at their eyes, it is their eyes." They began to laugh and shake their heads, and one of them said, "Ma'am, That is not your baby, He is black like me. " "Oh," I said, sounding disappointed. Then I laughed and said, "he is my baby, I am adopting him as my son." At that point, a light bulb looked like it came on with 2 of them but the third just kept mumbling and shaking his head saying, "that is not your baby." One of them thanked us and they moved on. It was really quite funny. We came back to our room, only to find that we couldn't get in it. After both of us struggled with the door for some time we went back to the reception to get some help. It took them a while to find another key but they finally did and we got our room opened. We decided then to get some dinner as it ususally takes at least an hour for it to cook. No FAST FOOD around here! while waiting, Isaiah had a nasty diaper, so I headed back to the room to change him. NASTY is the right word. He did not want to be still and when I went to take off his onesie, ugh!!!!! He had it everywhere. Before I realized it, the bed was covered! He was so wiggly and fussy and I was trying to get him out of the mess but he kept trying to put his hands and feet all in it and before long, that nice white bed on Duane's side was not so white and nice anymore! I finally got him cleaned up and a new pair of clothes on and sat him down on the floor so I could rip off the sheets and request new ones. We went back to the table and dinner had just come. For dinner, Duane had gotten this dish called Ryan's Chips Masala and boy were they tasty! I was thankful that he couldn't eat all of them because it was yummy. My dish was Curried Peanut Chicken and it was wonderful too. So with our bellies full, went to the reception again to ask for another another sheet and they brought a whole bed ensemble. This was a very nice and restful place. The hotwater heater was actually a brick oven behind the little huts and someone kept it stoked with firewood to keep the fire going. After reading the signs on the inside of the door, it appeared that after 11pm the generator would be turned off and there would be no lights. "Please use the lanterns and candles provided" We got Isaiah to sleep finally and went to bed ourselves but at midnight there were still lights everywhere and people hanging out by the pool. Come to find out, they had recently installed electricity. I thought everything would go quiet at 11 wi th no power, but the people partied on til about 2AM. Richard's room was back behind ours, and he told us the next morning that he had never ever slept in a place so quiet. Always, there had been noise all night long and sleep is never good. He loved sleeping in the quiet. I am going to stop here for now and will continue later as there is so much more to tell on this Jinja trip. Blessings, Melissa |
No comments:
Post a Comment