A whole lot of entries in One Big One.

We have been keeping a log on the computer even if we couldn't upload it, so here they are.

Some of these are out of order, but hey,at least they are dated.

Jan 25th
Hey all

We've been in Uganda for a few days now, staying with our friends Jon and Jenny Davis, who arrived as missionaries in Kampala about 3 months ago. We had 20 hours of travel to recover from, so we've been pretty chill, mostly helping the Davises take care of their 8-week-old baby girl (who is a very cute and most of the time easy-going baby) and doing some shopping, helping around the house,etc. The Davises are in their language-learning year, so they aren't out and about doing "ministry", just focusing on learning the local tribal language (Luganda), speaking it with their neighbors, and settling into their house. That's why Jon and John will be doing handyman stuff today. John of course is happy to assist.


Stepping out of the Entebbe airport, I found the red dirt on my shoes and took in the smell of burning trash and tropical air. It's funny how burning trash brings back memories, good ones, for both of us. For John, it reminds me of Costa Rica and Mexico, and for Ellie, obviously, being here. It's been really humid here so far and our bodies are quite shocked at the sudden change from Michigan winter!

Uganda is an interesting place, full of contradictions. The guard at the shopping mall stands and happily converses with a friend while holding an automatic rifle. Yet the military police have just a cane, and we hide our cameras so they won't confiscate them. (It's illegal to take pictures of police or army) Kampala is a city of 2 million people, but there are only 2 stoplights, and they only work some of the time. Stranger still is that traffic actually flows better when the lights aren't working (which is most of the time).

Tomorrow we leave for Rwanda, if we can catch a bus. We'll be staying with some friends of Jon and Jenny who are World Venture missionaries in Kigali, the Bennetts, then meeting up with Nathan Gasitura then next day.

Feb 2nd

In Kampala

We came back to Kampala on the bus yesterday, which was better and worse than the ride to Kigali. Better because I wasn't about to blow chunks the first 2 hours, and better because the bus wasn't quite as overbooked, worse because we were in the very back which means every bump is bone-jarringly magnified, and the guys right behind us felt like having a yelled conversation pretty much in my ear for 6 of the 9 hours. One of them talked something about himself as "sober", who knows if it meant he was or wasn't sober, but anyone who feels the need to mention that he is obviously isn't acting like it! Anyway, we made it in one piece. Some others did not; we saw on the way home 3 trucks that had tumbled off the road, including a petrol tank.....

We got to have dinner with Nathan Gasitura (our World Vision contact in Rwanda) and two of his 8 children the night before we left at a restaurant, which was nice. It was the last time to have steak for a while, so I seized the opportunity.
We had a great time with the Bennetts, who are World Venture missionaries in Kigali. Mike Score would love the setup they have there. Gary is doing all kinds of agriculture stuff, and it reminded me a lot of Chene street in terms of the innovation and potential. Tire-gardens, self-feeding tilapia tanks, recycling resources like rabbit/goat/chicken manure, etc. Really neat stuff. They have a biblical school for pastors from around Rwanda who have little to no biblical training, so they come in for 3-week sessions of classes. They eat food from the gardens that they have on the school site. Interestingly, for all the wonderful climate of Rwanda, the soil is very acidic so it is very difficult to grow most things. (acidic-loving plants excluded, obviously)



Having slept in till 7:30, we went to the Oweno market today, which is probably the biggest market in Kampala. It is a huge beehive of activity, stretching for several blocks. The quality and variety of goods available was staggering, but it was mostly divided into clothes and food sections. Each vendor would usually specialize in a subset category of clothing, like men's trousers, or women's undergarments, or green leafy vegetables, etc. The vendors ranged in size from 10 square feet with a pile of shirts to a whole area (maybe 600 square feet) with many hawkers yelling out the particular item that they were holding in the their hands, sorting through a gigantic pile of clothes. The crowds surged through the paths between vendors, in some places with cattle-like shoving and pushing to get in the direction you wanted to go. I have never felt comfortable pushing people aside but there was no choice today. I would have lost sight of Conchepta (the Davises house helper) many times over if I had not just shoved my way through. Imagine the way that Ellie was feeling trying to keep up with her linebacker of a husband. The good thing was that I stand out a good bit because of my height, hat, width, and pasty white color in a sea of dark skin. We were glad to have Conchepta with us because it was a gigantic maze, and there is no way to know whether you are getting a good price or getting totally ripped off.(both of which happened. there was one vendor who said to Conchepta's face that she would normally charge less, but because we were with her, the price was almost double and she wasn't going to negotiate.)

We got most of the things that we went there to get. We had intentionally not packed some items with the intent of buying them here, both because they are cheaper here (though not as much we expected) and because they look more local. Value World (our local thrift store) had no cotton skirts on the racks in mid-winter. So Ellie got some skirts, John got some work pants and shirts, and Conchepta got some vegetables to make dinner. Suspenders we could not find. I don't know why I didn't think to bring any of my 4 pairs of suspenders, but oh well.

Defintely an overwhelming experience.

I forgot to mention the luggage situation that we encountered both times we flew. We checked 3 bags, 2 suitcases and my gigantic hiking pack. They have brought the weight limit down to 50 lbs per bag, so we roughly weighed them before we left, and figured that if we were over, we would just pay the $25, because it's worth it. Well, turns out it's $50 because it was an international flight, so we hastily rearranged luggage and our bags were 49.5, 50.3 and 50 lbs respectively. AMAZING. Same story when we left heathrow. 23 kg limit, and had to rearrange two bags to 23.6, 22.9, and 23.3. AMAZING again, because they let us go both times, and because we had bought some stuff in England. When we fly back, we're going to buy another piece of luggage.


About Rwanda

Rwanda, especially Kigali , is so different from Kampala that I (ellie) basically had undergone a new kind of culture shock. Most of this was due to the language barrier that we don't have in Uganda (most of the time) so it was quite scary finding out what to do when virtually no one spoke English. Fortunately, John took 2 semesters of French at EMU and it helped us at least do the basic things like pay for taxis and ask for directions.

To illustrate the difference, here is a taxi park in Kigali, which looks remarkably orderly.



I don't have a picture of a taxi park in Kampala because I was too busy trying to not get run over, and my camera might have been stolen out of my hands.

If you saw the taxi park in Kampala, you would not believe it. It looks like mass chaos with 300 minibuses all jostling for postion, but Jenny assures me that there is an amazing organizatoinal mind behind it all.

Feb 4th.

New Hope Kasana.

Wow it is hot. After more hot and dusty bus travel, we are finally here. It is very good to be here.
We have our own little circular hut to stay in with a private bathroom (a locked stall with a hole in a concrete slab.)

As one of the staff said: "we write our emails on wireless internet, by candlelight."

I (john) immediately felt as soon as we pulled into the compound that we belonged here. It felt good and "right", like a puzzle piece fitting in. That doesn't of course confirm that we are going to be here forever, just that it is very clearly where we are called right now.

Our accomodations are a little more rustic than we're used to, but that is part of the package. We are lucky to have a whole hut to ourselves.

It was really hot when we got here, but it is cooling down some now ( 9 pm ) The only problem is that our hut is made of brick, concrete and mud with a tin peak roof, so it retains the heat pretty well. We only have electricity from 7-10 pm, and 9-12 am.

It has been really great to spend so much time with different missionaries. We got to spend a week with the Davises, then the Bennets, and of course now we'll spend a lot of time at New Hope with the staff here. We have gotten a short and long perspective on what "missionary life" is like; the Davises have been in Uganda for like 4 months, and with a newborn, and Gary Bennet has been in Rwanda for 25 years, and two of his colleagues have been there for around 30.

We have sat in on prayer meetings with the Uganda World Venture folks, and a business meeting for the Rwanda World Venture folks, both of which were great to observe and be a part of. We also got to go to Jon and Jenny's church, Kampala Baptist Church for the Luganda language service and the couples sunday school class, which was wonderful. We hadn't been to church in a long time, because a lot of our travel days had been on sundays. It was edifying to have a good solid conversation about our fellowship with God, and our fellowship in the Body. Ironically, we have not had a lot of fellowship while we've been travelling, so it was a good reminder of something that we already knew and had been feeling internally. Journey class folk, we miss our fellowship time with you!

The Rwandan World Venture Field



Feb 5th

New Hope

Well, we're getting settled in to our place here. Ellie spent a few hours in the primary school here and also graded some papers, and John tried to set up the laptop so we can get Internet and helped start work on the guesthouse. Finishing the guesthouse is the big priority for everyone here who has any kind of construction skills, so I will probably be doing that for at least two weeks until they get some serious work done on it. Right now there is no roof whatsoever, and we spent the afternoon on the ground making trusses for the new additions.They have a group coming on Feb 10th, so we need to get at least part of it covered. It is actually quite similar to what I am used to doing, except there are no power tools, the wood is green and wet, or old and rock hard, and the wood varies in dimension from piece to piece by about 30%. I wish I had my hammer and a few hand tools.

Tomorrow will be the first full day of work, because today in the morning we had a walkaround orientation to the campus. Time to go to bed.