The Long Road to Ntungamo

So lately we have been planning our final week in Africa. Duane will be staying behind in Narok, Kenya to conduct the final HIV seminar. Saturday we hope to do a short safari in the Maasai Mara, which is a national park with plenty of wild beasts of the field and of the air. The Maasai people are probably what you picture when you think of African tribes. Sunday afternoon Beth and I will make the 2-3 hour drive ~60 mile drive to Nairobi. We will stay the night somewhere and catch a 0700 bus to Kampala, Uganda. This trip is approx. 450 miles and is said to take anywhere from 12-22 hours! Traveling is so unpredictable in Africa. We may have an uneventful trip with only a hot, uncomfortable ride lasting 12 hours. Or we may have to change buses two times, get held up while a herd of cattle mosey their way across the road, turn around because the dirt road washed out, or get robbed by bandits, which could last 22 hours. All things we have either experienced or read about people experiencing on trips like this. I am also very curious about the border crossing from Kenya to Uganda and getting our Visas there.

Once in Kampala we will stay at a hostel that we have been to before (we may see a flushing toilet!) for a night and get up early again to catch a bus to Ntungamo. This trip is something like 200 miles and should take "6 hours". Once we get to Ntungamo we can settle in and relax for the night. We will then get up early to catch a ride to Mbarara where we will meet Compassion staff. They will take us the rest of the way to the village where Naturinda Emmanuel lives. We get to tour their child development center and then visit with Emmanuel and his family for about 4 hours. We have already been to a child development center (essentially a school run by Compassion for the neediest children who can then be sponsored) and met many wonderful children in the program, but meeting the little boy that we are actually paying for to go to school and get a full meal every day and receive Christian teaching who otherwise would not be able to have any of that, will be incredible.

We will then head back to Ntungamo, and spend the following day visiting with our friends there. The next morning we get up early and do the trip back to Kenya in reverse. Hopefully we will get to do some shopping in the big Kampala markets. When we get back to Nairobi we have to find Duane, spend the night somewhere and get up early to go to the airport and fly home, via Nigeria.

...its best that we just stay positive about the potential for issues in that week.