On the Road Again... again.

We had a great Christmas Eve of teriyaki beef, mashed potatoes and a few little gifts with the kids.  I must say, I was quite pleased that everyone seemed to enjoy the gifts I brought them from Ethiopia !

But we all went to bed quite early, as we had to get up before the crack of dawn to get on the road again!  We packed as much as we could in the car the night before – tons and tons of fruits and vegetables, since we were bringing Christmas gifts to the “real missionaries” that we were going to visit.  They live in a land where there are very few fruits and vegetables available.  Papaya, pineapple, passion fruits, lemons, avocados, onions, tomatoes, peas, green beans, pumpkin… I’m surprised there was any space in the car for the kids!

Anyway, we got everything in the car and were on the road by about 6am in our rugged Toyota Corona.  I just jumped in the car with Grace and only then did I really study the map and realize that we were basically going back to where I had just come from! 

In fact, we were going to a place that the guidebook said, “You will need a reliable 4X4 vehicle…” but hey, we figured the little Corona has 4 wheels – close enough to a 4X4, isn’t it?  Grace’s friends (the “real missionaries”) that we were going to visit assured her, actually, that we would make it just fine in her Corona.  So we set off, confidently into the unknown…

Actually, we made really good time for most of the day.  I think that if you’re going to take a road trip in Uganda, Christmas Day is definitely the day to do it!  There were no trucks on the road, hardly any busses, and very, very few motorcycles or other cars at all!  It was great!  We pretty much had the road to ourselves, meaning we could make lots of miles and stop pretty much anywhere to wild pee (an important consideration when you’re travelling with Grace and two little kids!).

The road was beautiful and paved up to Gl and we were there by about 10am!  We made a pit stop for some soda, snacks and gas, and proceeded to get lost in G-town.  Road signs are not exactly a high priority for Ugandans, apparently.  So we were really just guessing as to what direction we might need to go, and trying to go with “yah, that looks like a main road…”.  We did stop and ask a friendly passerby which way we had to take to go to Ktgm, and he kindly set us on the right track.  It was a beautiful little track, too.  The pavement ends in Gl town, so from then on, we were on dirt and gravel roads like this one:

 And still, there were hardly any people on the roads!  When we got near to a little village or town, there were groups of pedestrians out, dressed in their Christmas finest, coming and going to church, or for visiting relatives and neighbors.  We were amazed at the number of children on the road – big groups of kids with maybe one older kid to herd them all off the road!  But it was fascinating to see folks and see their villages and schools out there.  So different than my usual country!

 

Sometime in the late afternoon, our map started letting us down.  In fact, the roads we were on bore no resemblance whatsoever to the map that we had!  So we made a few wrong turns and turned around a few times.  But people were generally very helpful and kept pointing us in the general direction of the next town that we were aiming for!  The scenery at least was stunning.  I mean, truly beautiful.

I was glad it wasn’t raining, though, as some of the little roads we found ourselves on would have been a bit difficult to navigate in our trusty Corona.  Grace knows her car well, though, and was a very careful pilot, carrying us safely through some rather interesting little patches of road!

Eventually, it started to get a bit dark… and we still weren’t in Kbng – our final destination.  It’s pretty desolate out there, let me tell you.  The road wasn’t great.  It was dark.  The phone network was pretty patchy.  And we really didn’t have much of a clue as to where we were going. 

So, you can imagine our relief when we saw a big Nissan Patrol SUV with the name of our organization painted on the door emerge from the darkness.  Our buddies came out into the night to find us, and we were glad they did!  They knew the headlights they saw in the distance belonged to us – mostly because we didn’t see a single car on the road since we had left Gl about 9 hours before! 

Our friends and their two American visitors had potato soup on the table when we got there, which was a very welcome treat after munching on car snacks the entire day!  Over dinner, our friends were shaking their heads and saying, “I can’t believe you made it in your Corona!”  We were like, “Um, well, YOU were the ones who said the car would be fine!”.  Anyway, we were glad to be there, and enjoyed a very warm welcome!