Weather, Landscape and Surviving on Uganda's Roads!

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Lorna

Well rainy season is definitely here! I have about double the amount of clothes to wash than normal because so many have gotten soaked through when we’ve been forced to travel in storms (something that the locals avoid at all costs). In a way the storms are quite nice because it cools the air temperature noticeably, but I’d rather have hot weather than have to walk anywhere here after a storm. The roads turn either to rivers or to mush because they’re all made out of mud.

You can see from the photo how wet we get when we get caught in the rain! The other photograph is the view from close to our house. Uganda is very green, but in a different way to England. Much of the land seems more natural, whereas a lot of it is cultivated for farming in the UK. We live just outside of Kampala so when we need to travel anywhere we walk about a mile to the taxi stage, catch a taxi and then get off at the closest stage to where we’re going and walk the remainder of the journey. I think the best way to describe a taxi is as an independent bus. They’re similar size to minibusses and the seats along the left hand side fold up to let people through. They have 15 seats but its not uncommon to find around 18 or 19 and we’ve had up to 21. We have to barter for a good price especially as we’re white but we usually do okay. The taxi journey to school every day is usually sh500 each which is around 12 pence. Converting it to sterling often makes us laugh when we realise we just turned down a taxi because they were charging 10 pence more than we would normally pay!
So we’re getting a lot of exercise and in this weather that means getting very very muddy! I’ve worked out which shoes to wear when walking to keep as clean as I can and I carry a pair of flip flops to change into when we reach our destination and a pack of baby wipes to clean my feet and legs.

Everywhere we go we hear a chorus of “mzungu!!” or “see you!” or “how are you?” from the children, and in some areas “give me your number” from some of the men! We’re starting to recognize a lot of the faces that we pass every day, but their excitement at seeing us never decreases.

The walk from our house to the closest taxi stage takes us down a hill – when its light we take a shortcut along a little path through the plants, but if we come home in the dark we go the long way around the road. At the bottom of the hill is a stream which the road goes over, however after heavy rain the stream often floods over the road. It seems to be a favourite location for lots of people to wash their cars. The hill after the stream is one of those which you don’t realise how steep it is until you’ve just gotten to the top and then you cant breath! From here there are more homes and we pass a couple of schools, we take a shortcut through a gap between two buildings and there is a market next to the road which always promises an abundance of different smells as there are lots of different foods being cooked.

Crossing the roads in Uganda is certainly different from the UK. The attitude of drivers towards pedestrians is one which means that you could stand in the middle of the road and cars would just move around you. So to cross the road you pick a moment when there’s a little more of a gap in the approaching traffic and then just walk out without checking the other side of the road (If you waited for the whole road to be clear then, well, you’d never cross!) Then when you reach the middle you look the other way and walk diagonally to reach the other side while avoiding the oncoming vehicle.

Of course, imagining this on an English road is totally different here. Ugandan traffic is crazy! I’m fairly used to it now but I remember when we first arrived wanting to film every journey. I don’t really notice anymore when drivers overtake on the brow of a hill, or cut each other up, or use the horn for more of the journey than they don’t use it. Things like that are totally normal here and I don’t think I’ve ever seen road rage here because the road etiquette is expectant of things like this. Horns are used in greeting, or to warn someone that you’re about to overtake, or to get someone’s attention who is waiting by the side of the road, and for all kinds of other reasons. I’ve never seen anyone stop at a roundabout except when the traffic is in gridlock. It sounds crazy, but somehow it just works!

Well I hope that I’ve given you a bit more of a picture of what my life here is like. This week has been good. The children have been having lots of rehearsals at school for their speech day so we’ve been watching them doing lots of singing and traditional dancing. Andrew has learnt a whole song in Lugandan, whilst on Friday one of the teachers taught me a bit of one of the traditional dances!

One final thing that I really want to mention is a conversation that I had with one of Smile’s volunteers earlier today. He was telling me that he was a sponsored child, and the impact that that had on him. I just really want to encourage anyone who sponsors a child that what you do is such an incredible thing. I really want to encourage you to write to your children – I know that its something that I really don’t do enough, but meeting people who are or have been sponsored really makes you realise how much those letters mean to those kids. Thank you so much for what you do, because it really really does make such a difference.

As always, thank you for all of your support. I really love hearing from you so do keep in touch. I really appreciate your prayers, so this week please pray…

- For the children as they prepare to sit their exams

- For one of Smile’s volunteers who fell ill this week. Praise God that he was able to come home from hospital on Friday

- For the health and safety of the whole team

- That we would continue to recognise God in all that we do and to work and act according to his will.

Thanks! Lots of love,
Lorna x

e i � a e 8�� ؟� d been able to catch a taxi we would have gotten home but not been able to get in as we didn’t have a key and then we would have been stuck in the storm on our own. Also, Brian and Joe were held up in the slum, so if they had left earlier we wouldn’t have seen them and again would have gone home to a locked door.
A bit later on the rest of the team got home, but they had been with someone who had a car so they had a bit of a less eventful journey home! So Thursday was definitely a new experience! I loved it and I don’t think that I will ever forget my first time being caught out in an African storm!

There are so many things that I’d love to tell everyone about, but at this rate my blog would end up being so long that it would take about an hour to read it! So when I have a less eventful week I’ll tell you all about the landscape and the culture and they people that I meet. I’d love to know what kind of things you’re interested in?

As always, thank you so much for your support. I received mail for the first time today and it was so special to get some letters. Of course it was lovely to have a letter from my parents and my grandparents, but it really touched me to receive a letter from a family at Christ Church. It does take a while for mail to make its way through, but it means so much to me to hear from you! Even if its a comment on my blog or an email, it always means a lot and I’m so glad to hear from everyone, so thank you!

Prayer requests for this week…

- Thanksgiving that we’re getting on so well as a team and with the people that we’re meeting and prayer that that would continue.

- Please could you pray that I would be able to get closer to God. Its so easy to forget to have a personal quiet time with so many people around to talk to and so much to do!

- Please pray that we will continue to get better at teaching and that we would continue to enjoy it and to make a difference at school. Please pray for the children – some of them can’t afford to have lunch and many of them need one on one support that just isn’t available.

- Please pray that we would make a difference in all of the work that we do and that more people would be more aware of God’s love.

Love and God bless,

Lorna (Ssuubi) xx