African Speed Bump Avoidance Maneuvers and a Trip to Kampala

This weekend we took a trip to Kampala, Uganda.  The main purpose of our trip was to visit the Baha’i House of Worship there.  We were very wary about another African bus ride after our adventures in Zambia and Malawi but were hopeful given the fact that the Kisumu to Kampala route is supposed to take only 6 hours.  So we have traveled the road from Usenge to Kisumu quite a few times now.  There is forever construction projects on the road, but they are not, as you would think they should be, for the improving and maintenance of the terrible Kenyan roads...no, they are always to add in speed bumps.  And not just gentle rolling bumps then you just drive over slowly and move on with your life. They are these sharp triple speed bumps that are just deadly.  Boom, boom boom!  And heaven forbid any car actually GO OVER any of the speed bumps, be they triple or single or whatever!  Matatus will do everything they possibly can to avoid them, including running over people and animals in the side of the road, crashing into stalls selling fruits and vegetables and falling off a cliff!  No, but seriously, we often laugh (a painful laugh) at the African speed bump avoidance maneuvers and probably get more bruises from the matatus crazy desperate attempts to miss the speed bumps than we would going over even the evil triple speed bumps!  Anyways, we discovered that in Uganda they have quadruple speed bumps, joy!

Enough about speed bumps now...we boarded our bus in Kisumu to head to Uganda.  Upon walking onto the bus Naveed starting yippee-ing and practically jumping up and down.  The seats on the bus were like lazyboy chairs and only 3 in a row...and there were PLUGS!  After living for nearly 2 months with no electricity we found it quite ironic that there was electricity to charge our things on the bus!  The 6.5 hour bus ride passed with much enjoyment.  Uganda is a very beautiful country, so green and hilly.  Kampala also is so beautiful and no one yelled "mzungu!" at us or hassled us at all; it was a nice change.  Naveed says it's his favorite real African city...because otherwise his favorite African city is Cape Town but that doesn't count as "real" Africa.  We spent 4 days in Kampala, visited the beautiful House of Worship and attended Sunday devotions there where the choir sang some lovely songs.  We also wandered a bit around Kampala and bought some souvenirs.  Everyone in Kenya told us to buy things from Uganda because that's where everything is made; everyone in Uganda told us to go back to Kenya and buy things there because that's where they're made.  So our final decision is that everything's actually made in China...  We stayed at a backpacker's place called the Red Chilli, very fun place and VERY good food.  They had pizza night while we were there so my happiness was complete :)  At Red Chilli we had some monkeys for neighbors and a pig the size of a small car.  Back to Kenya and Usenge now to continue with our work with the peer education program and hopefully start on some house-screening kits, more explanation on this will come later.

Love,

The Wandering Three