Kampala, Kampala, Kampala!

A few days ago, Becca and I went to visit Sali. Not to pick favorites or anything but...she's one of my favorites. haha She's just wonderful. And her little girls Janelle and Charity are the sweetest things. Charity's only three months, but Janelle's 2 years old and has warmed up to me since my first visit and now just comes and sits in my lap and rubs my arm and looks up at my face every once ina while. This time she fell asleep in my lap. I could have held her all day. Not long after we had arrived, Sali's husband George came home from visiting his friend. We had never met him before, and inwardly I think we were both a little worried, 'cause it's almost like most Ugandan men and husbands have a bad rep because of how so many of the women are treated. But George was a breath of fresh air. He spoke great English, and him and Sali are both really young and fun to laugh with and talk to. He was just so in love with both his daughters and had no trouble taking care of baby Charity while Janelle was sleeping on my lap. He let Sali talk when she interrupted him. And then we all ate matoke together. I love them. And it was probably one of my most memorable visits.

Today, Kate and I visited with Jacinta. She has two little boys, that are near the same ages at Sali's daughters. Their names are O'Tim and Patrick (named after Kate's brother)...she made us matoke as well and we just hung out in her house and had a great time. She is very sweet and I love her to death. On the way to her house though, we were walking through Danida and were almost there, when this dog ran after us, growling and he nipped at Kate's ankle and almost got her, but missed by an inch. No exageration. We were kind of panicking, because we don't have our rabi's shots and also it would just suck to get attacked by some random mutt in a Ugandan village. He tried a few more times but the neighbor kids kept grabbing him away. He tried again when we left but failed...which made me happy. Not gonna lie.

Yesterday we went to Kampala to ship necklaces and run a few errands. We left at 6:45 in the morning and got there about three hours later. I just drank madh vani juice and listened to Regina Spektor the whole way...it was bliss, because of how early in the morning it was. No heat. Only the breeze from the drivers open window. We hire a driver when we go to Kampala or Entebbe, and we either take a van, or a car. But there were 5 of us yesterday (Rachel S., Becca, Rachel, Me and Monday), so we ended up taking the van. We were all super impressed and kind of in awe of how nice it was. Though later we decided, in America, it's totally ghetto.

Once we arrived, we took Rachel and Monday to one of the hospitals and dropped them off, so that Rachel could try and get this surgery for Monday's nasal polyps figured out. Still no luck I guess, after spending the entire day in two different hospitals, it almost looked like a dead end, but I guess there's still hope. You'll have to read Rach's blog. :)

We headed to one of the bigger, nicer hotels (that I can't remember the name of), because there's a FedEx inside and that's where we ship from. That didn't take long, but while we were there I needed to use the restroom, so I walked down a flight of stairs and low and behold...a REAL bathroom. Mylanta. Not four peices of canvas tied around sticks and a hole in the ground. We are very blessed to have a real bathroom at home on Magwa. But this was like one back in the States. Happy day. Also, a man from FedEx was surprised when he asked us where we were from and we said America. He said we looked Brazilian. We all three agreed it was a compliment. haha

Afterwards, Becca, Rachel and I went to this amaaazing cafe in the middle of Kampala called 1000 Cups. Again, I felt like I was at home. I had this wonderful African Spiced Tea and Coconut Bread...and then once we were finished eating (and watching CNN! Which was weird), we looked around about a million craft shops...ones that were connected to the cafe, and then about a million more across the street, until Hanza, our driver, came and picked us up in the luxurious ghetto van.

Next we went to this place called Cafe Pap, which is a great resturaunt...Rachel and I ordered American food and it was fantastic. Becca got Mexican. I really liked it there, I'm thinking we'll go back next time we're in Kampala. For sure...and then we headed to this HUGE market, and wondered down this one road until we found the place we were looking for. Which was this specific tailor shop that Herman, one of the Epoh tailors had told us about, so that we could go pick up scraps for the bags they make (sounds easy, right?)...the entire road was nothing but tailor shops. It took us about an hour, of running around and being bombarded by all these Ugandans who wanted us to buy their scraps and most of whom just didn't get what it was we were looking for. Eventually we did, but it was crazy. And we ended up in this multiple story building, which was dark and stuffy and loud and just too...real.

Rachel called and we went and picked her and Monday up on the street of this place called Uganda House, and then headed to a couple market places to pick up seed beads, pliers and colored papers. You seriously have to be on the ball when you walk around down-town Kampala. I mean, you have to be on the ball when you walk around Jinja, but Kampala's about 5 times bigger. haha You might get trampled. Or something. I definitely came this close to getting hit by a matotu...which is a van they use as a taxi here. They're everywhere, and remember I said pedestrians don't have the right of way? So when I say I almost got hit, I mean like, it touched me as it was rounding a corner, and I jumped out of the way and then the driver yelled at me and pointed his finger saying, "Hey you!". I was tempted to stick out my tounge and go, "Hey you!". But I didn't.

Once we were out of the madness of the streets and the market place and the insane matotu drivers and back in the safety of the luxurious ghetto van and our talented driver Hanza, we went to this super market. And when I say super market, I don't mean the ones that are like the little hole-in-the-wall-mom&pop-shops here...I mean it was almost like, a mall. It was in a mall. And they had Christmas trees. CHRISTMAS TREES. And they had Jiff. Like, Jiff. People, real peanutbutter! I defintely bought some.

It took us almost 5 hours to get home...we just laughed and talked and sat in traffic for hours and it was an adventure, to say the least. Yesterday was so much more intense than I probably just let on. But so much fun. So much fun.