This is almost like a continuation of the previous post. It’s funny because the weekend seemed so short, yet so much happened in it. In case you were intimidated by the last blog, don’t worry. This one’s going to be much more casual and a whole lot shorter.
After going to the Jinja hospital, we made the trek back to Kingfisher Resort to enjoy a little free time before supper that night. I was more than a little excited, to say the least, because this was going to be my first opportunity in two weeks to wear a pair of jeans. Crazy! My guess is I won’t have the opportunity to wear them again until my next IMME trip, so this was a very big deal for a girl who only ever wears jeans back home.
Then a group of us ventured down to Lake Victoria for a boat ride. When I’d first heard we could go on boat, I’d envisioned this wonderful paddle boat in my head with a lower deck for drinks and an upper deck for watching the beauty unfold around you. Then I remembered I was in Africa…Our boat (pictured here) was basically a large canoe with a tent for shade and the smallest possible pull-start motor in the world. As we climbed in, Michelle (pictured here) and I kept joking we were going to capsize the boat or kill the motor in the middle of the lake and have to paddle back to shore.
We made a stop at an island soon after starting our lake adventure and they man in charge told us to climb out. This seemed a little sketchy and we laughed that he was going to drive off and leave us as soon as we stepped off. Instead, he very kindly showed us a spot in the river that looked similar to a boiling pot of water. This, he claimed, was the source of the Nile River. Interesting, seeing as I’d already seen one source of the Nile that day. Who knows which one was real, but I guess it doesn’t really matter to me. Either way I saw the source of the Nile and that’s pretty cool.
After our quest on Lake Victoria and the Nile River, we headed back to Kingfisher and then it was off to supper. We went to this nice restaurant that served pizza and Indian food. I’d never had Indian food before, so I decided to order some chicken biriyani. It was good at first. Then I tried a piece of someone’s Indian pizza, which had the hottest pepper I’ve ever eaten in my life waiting just for me. I’m pretty sure my lips were numb for a good 10 minutes and after that my food just didn’t taste as good anymore. I do, however, love Indian Naan, which is kind of like a thick tortilla.
Sunday morning we went to a church in Jinja. I was so excited when I realized this was a real African church. Not that the one’s I’ve went to the last couple weeks weren’t real; they just didn’t have that distinctly African feel to them. This service was about 3 hours long, filled with numerous and random times of testimony and worship as well as contained several short sermons along with one long one. One of our IMME was responsible for the major sermon. How intimidating, especially when a translator was being used. But Charles did an amazing job. I was very impressed.
After church, we stopped for a quick bit to eat and headed for home. In a strange, unexpected way, I was actually very excited to be headed back to Mukono. I’d missed spending time with my family…attempting to help them cook and teaching them new card games after supper each night. Getting back was made all that much better when Kevin met us on the road. Her smile was so wide it could have easily stretched right off her face and she gleefully wrapped Cyndi and me both in a giant hug.
What a blessing…to be welcomed home not because you live there, but because you’re wanted there.
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