Trip to Kampala

October 29
What a day Monday was. While writing I will use words like “I” and “she”, but I first want to say that God was the one who made the day a success. It usually takes at least three days to process something through the immigration office. To complete the whole thing in one day simply is an act of God and an answer to many of your prayers. All praise and glory to Him!
I woke up at 3:00 a.m. By 3:30 the bus company was at our gate to pick me up so I could catch one of the early buses to Kampala. I thought to myself, “My parents are still in church on Sunday night I am already beginning my Monday.” Strange to consider those things. I found a seat on the bus and settled in. I have not traveled in the dark since last December so it was a little strange, but the bus ride went well. We stopped in many towns along the way to add passengers. By 9:15 I was in Kampala.
After exchanging money I headed to the immigration office. I checked the approval book and found my file number. The officer gave me my file and told me to take it to the cashier. The cashier there does not receive any cash; he just writes the bill for people to take to the bank. The bank is about two miles from the immigration offices, but I was sick of riding so I decided to walk. With the traffic in that part of town I probably only lost 10-15 minutes. I paid my bill at one window and was told to wait at a different window for the receipt. I asked how long it would be. “One hour” was the answer.
I exited the bank and headed back down the street 300 yards to Dominoe’s Pizza. It is different from the American Dominoe’s Pizza, but it still had very good Bacon & pineapple pizza. After eating I went back to the bank to stand in “line” to get my receipt. The line consist of 25-30 people crowding around a little window. I would have sat in a chair, but then would not be able to have heard my name being called. So I stood in that mass of humanity for an hour until they called my name. I stopped a taxi (taxis in Uganda are vans full of people, they are NOT cars you privately hire) and headed back to immigration.
I got there about 20 minutes before the lunch break. The officer was kind but said it would be Wednesday before I could get my passports back. (This was the answer I had expected.) I explained that I wanted to return to Soroti, but he still said he could not have them done before Wednesday. It takes time to get all the files back from the cashier because several offices use the same cashier.
I then went and thanked Kevin for her help. (She was the lady from Soroti who now works in an adjacent office. She was the one who kept checking for me to see if my file had been approved.) She asked if I had finished the process. I explained what the man said. She told me she would talk to him at lunch and see if he could get them done the same day. I should come back at 2:00. At 2:00 she went herself to the cashier’s office to get my file and brought it to the immigration office. She told me to check with the officer at 3:00. At 3:00 it was not done yet. I checked again at 3:30 - not done. I checked again at 4:00 - not done. However, they were working on it so I decided to stay and wait. About 4:15 the officer handed me my passports and said they were finished.
By this time it was getting late so I knew I needed to hustle if I was going to sleep at home. I got a taxi which said he was headed to Mbale (the last major city before Soroti) so I boarded. Riding a taxi is slow-going because they continuously stop for more passengers. After about 90 minutes the van stopped behind another taxi. The driver said I needed to board the next taxi because he wasn’t actually going to Mbale. The second taxi was quite a trip. At one point we had 20 people in a van equipped for 14 (it keeps the fares lower when you overload them.) In our 3-person bench we had 4 people sitting and a 5th person standing bent over at the waste. I would have complained, but it would not have done any good so I bit my tongue and prayed for safety. We continued to make slow progress until we reach the city of Iganga and entered the taxi park. He told me to enter a different taxi, because he wasn’t actually going to Mbale either. By now it was dark and the taxi park was barely controlled chaos. People were yelling at each other and pulling at me. “White man, you come, we go, I take you where you want.” A few of us were trying to get to Mbale so we enter taxi number three. Ten minutes passed before the driver admitted he was going to Mbale, but not right away. Out we went to find taxi number four. By this point I would have paid considerable money to hire a car privately (which is done throughout Africa) but I did not know where to find one and did not dare to walk aimlessly alone considering the environment which I was in. About 5 minutes later we finally pulled out of the taxi park. The rest of the ride to Mbale went quite well. We pulled into town about 2 minutes before the last bus left for Soroti. The price for all that excitement over the 140 miles from Kampala to Mbale: $8.
Buses are not really on a schedule, so it really felt like they were waiting for me. (God at work.) I was their last customer of the day. I climbed on and within 2 minutes we were on the road. When we got to Soroti I hired a motorcycle taxi to take me home. I walked in the house at 11:30, just 20 hours after I’d left. I was tired, hungry (I knew I did not have time for supper if I wanted to reach home), and thirsty. I had a glass of water and washed up. There was no electricity so I just went to bed without supper because I did not want to wake up the kids. I was worn out, but knew it was God who had made my trip a success.
Yesterday (10-28) was Happy Dewali for the Indians (their New Year’s Eve I guess because today they all say Happy New Year to each other.) Some of our friends from OM supermarket invited us to the celebration. We arrived at their store about 7:30 in he evening and immediately went with them to the compound where the Hindu temple is. All the Indians in Soroti had gathered in the courtyard outside the temple to set off fireworks. The police had given them permission to set off fireworks for one hour. They had everything from sparklers to the bonafide fireworks that make everyone go “ahhh, ohm” (Ugandans who gathered on the street to watch reacted the same way Americans do on July 4.)
About ten minutes into the show one of the loud ones tipped over and shot over into the crowd about six feet from where we were sitting. It traumatized our children. Lydia was crying, Grace showed absolutely no emotion. From that point on we sat in the van to watch. It got a little hot, but our girls really enjoyed the show without having to listen to the loud noise.
After the fireworks, they brought out the food. I do not know what it was called, but it was all really good. There were about 10 different things. We got home about 10:00. It was a lot of fun. We felt a little out of place, especially when the conversations were taking place in Hindi, but we still felt privileged that they invited us to come. We pray for our friends. Many of them have received copies of God’s Word. We pray that they will read their new Bibles and believe in Him who is the Light of the world.