(This entry covers the next four posts)

To be honest, our trip was really miserable. I’ve never feared for my life so much, or for such a duration. There were six of traveling, including Mama Santa, “from Gulu,” Mama Grace, “from Sorotie,” and three housemates, Tyler, Ruthie and Anna. Our hope for the weekend was to love these Mamas by really engaging with their lives and submitting to their lifestyles. I realize a little more now the loftiness of these goals. We went north to the border of Sudan and west down the Kenyan border. Our two proposed destinations of Gulu and Sorodi were met, but then expanded upon. In Ugandan, “I live in Gulu” can apparently mean three hours from Gulu, and “outside Sorodie” can mean the same. And transport here is awful. Enough so that unless God makes it unswervingly clear, I will do no more vehicular travel while in Uganda.

Though separated by only a few hundred miles, Santa and Grace’s upbringings were completely different—from each other’s and from ours. We weren’t aware of this and given language barriers and the fact that it’s their normal life, they didn’t know to prepare us. Our first trek was from Jinja to Gulu—a debut exposure to Ugandan buses. Imagine off-roading on a school bus and you’re getting warm. It was about eight hours and we were fortunate to have seats and get hints of a free safari for some miles. The bus “system” here is such that you wait until the vehicle going to your location is filled in every nook and cranny and then it leaves. There’s no time chart, schedule, or numbered capacity. This made me remember my last American transport, leaving from a hotel in D.C. The driver was emphatic about filling only the number of seats he had belted. This was annoying that early morning, as it took two trips before I could get on a shuttle. Today the policies sound amazing. In order to get by here, it’s a survival of the fittest economy. Everything is done to fill every space possible, regardless of the consequence. Anyway, at some point, we pulled over on the dirt, pot-holed road once for a bathroom/bush break. Random stops would offer maize, soda, or meat sticks through the window. When these remains were thrown-out, baboons would willingly charge the bus to retrieve them. At one point something started scratching my foot and I screamed. Turned out it was a live chicken.

We arrived in Gulu about 5pm, tired from sitting and grateful to be safe in Mama Santa’s hometown. We realized at the taxi park, however, that she actually lived “in a village near Gulu” so we’d need to ride another bus. Though similarly bumpy and flirtatious toward tipping, God lent one of the most marvelous sunsets I’ve ever seen. You could actually look at the orange ball dipping into the horizon, as its remnant flares splashed the sky. Some three hours later, we realized how close we were to the Sudanese border. Tyler joked at this point that we were gonna be taken home in body bags. Looking back, the joking no longer seems far off.

Kitgum was a really fascinating village. Its proximity to the northern border has made it greatly affected by Rebel invasions. Soldiers are everywhere and HIV/AIDS is more widespread here than anywhere in Uganda. This is mostly war-related, due to rape, loose blood and unsolicited sex for money and food. We stayed at an IDP Camp, a place for displaced Ugandans due to the war (a Refugee Camp would differ in that its displaced persons from another country). An unexpected, but primary purpose they’ve also been forced toward is coverage for “night travelers.” This includes the millions of children who live in the bush and due to Rebel invasions, were forced to work all day and make what sometimes entailed a ten-mile journey to the Camps to sleep, and then return to work in the morning. The camp we visited was about the size of a tennis court and hosted approximately 2000 children a night.