Yesterday I got a taste of Uganda, and it's a wonderful place. I saw a lot of it from the back of a "special hire" car (i.e., taxi), as Robert and I went to the Sumadhura well drilling company to discuss the next three wells the Diocese of Missouri will fund in the Diocese of Lui. Sumadhura is in the Port Bell area of Luzira, which seems to be a suburb of Kampala; anyhow Port Bell is right on Lake Victoria and quite beautiful. Kampala in general has lots of flowering trees and vegetation; Nancy and I identified hibiscus, but other than that, we are not so much up on tropical flowers. Houses of the well-off have their own water tanks and are surrounded by decorative but protective fences. The curbs around town are black and white striped, and the roads are anything but straight. A lot of the architecture is brick or stucco with Spanish-tile roofs.
We came back from Port Bell for lunch at the guest house. It was traditional Ugandan food and quite delicious. We had stewed goat or chicken, rice, sweet potatoes (not orange -- white, but with a taste similar to our sweet potatoes), a mix of spinach and some other stewed vegetables, whole plantains, and peanut sauce, which is usually served over mashed plantains. Here they call peanuts 'g-nuts,' which I think is short for groundnuts. We ended up sharing lunch with Emmanuel Sserwadda, who's the TEC partnership officer for Africa, a native of Uganda, who happens to be here too.
After lunch, we went to the Missionary Air Fellowship office to finalize arrangements for the
flight into Sudan, and we went to see their guesthouse, which is lovely. Then we went downtown, where we visited several shops to get a feel for prices in Kampala, and to the bank, where I typed the largest number I have ever put into an ATM -- because $1.00 is a bit less than 2000 Ugandan shillings these days. Eventually we wandered to a hotel for dinner, and I will admit we had pizza, but only as researchers investigating the Ugandan take on this favorite from home! It was pretty good, but the ground meat on the "Foreigner Pizza" needed salt.
Today we are having lunch with Emmanuel and going to the Kampala office of the Episcopal Church of Sudan, then, we hope, to the vendor of grinding mills that the Companion Diocese Committee has been consulting in an effort to implement the grant from UTO. Deb has arrived, as of half an hour ago, and the rest of the mission team should be hanging out in Amsterdam waiting for the last leg of the trip to Kampala. Tomorrow we leave for Lui first thing in the morning -- my next post should actually be from Sudan, if all things technological go well.
We came back from Port Bell for lunch at the guest house. It was traditional Ugandan food and quite delicious. We had stewed goat or chicken, rice, sweet potatoes (not orange -- white, but with a taste similar to our sweet potatoes), a mix of spinach and some other stewed vegetables, whole plantains, and peanut sauce, which is usually served over mashed plantains. Here they call peanuts 'g-nuts,' which I think is short for groundnuts. We ended up sharing lunch with Emmanuel Sserwadda, who's the TEC partnership officer for Africa, a native of Uganda, who happens to be here too.
After lunch, we went to the Missionary Air Fellowship office to finalize arrangements for the
flight into Sudan, and we went to see their guesthouse, which is lovely. Then we went downtown, where we visited several shops to get a feel for prices in Kampala, and to the bank, where I typed the largest number I have ever put into an ATM -- because $1.00 is a bit less than 2000 Ugandan shillings these days. Eventually we wandered to a hotel for dinner, and I will admit we had pizza, but only as researchers investigating the Ugandan take on this favorite from home! It was pretty good, but the ground meat on the "Foreigner Pizza" needed salt.Today we are having lunch with Emmanuel and going to the Kampala office of the Episcopal Church of Sudan, then, we hope, to the vendor of grinding mills that the Companion Diocese Committee has been consulting in an effort to implement the grant from UTO. Deb has arrived, as of half an hour ago, and the rest of the mission team should be hanging out in Amsterdam waiting for the last leg of the trip to Kampala. Tomorrow we leave for Lui first thing in the morning -- my next post should actually be from Sudan, if all things technological go well.
Thanks for the wonderful news andn commentary! I'm hanging on every post.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you are getting a lot done, for which I am grateful.
Much affection to you all.