Beth's Blog: Africa 2009-Part 2

Can you believe that Vista is giving me a real hard time!!! I have now spent about 4 hours uploading these last pictures for part 2, I have done it 4 times, and I hope now that while I do the captions I will not loose everything another time.

Leaving Mbale For Kampala

Then on West to see Edgar's family

This is the begining of the Nile River.

We flagged down the bus in the dark at 4 am, right infront of the hotel, but we didn't make it all the way to Kampala, about an hour out of the city the breaks gave up. There didn't seem to be any danger, as he was always able to stop, and they worked on them several times before they decided that we all had to get off the bus and they called for a city bus to come and pick up up.

But then as fate would have it there was a mix up, and a friend of Hector's was to meet us at the final destination of the bus, but he was at a bus stop, and we ended up getting off the bus on the street, and he wasn't there with a car.

So to get us to the bus terminal, he had to hire a taxi, but he hopped on a budda budda, to go find the taxi, and we had to stand there and wait till he came back with the taxi, so this is our baggage, standing on the street in Kampala Africa, while we stood 15 feet away in the shade of a signpost, everyone just walked around it, and continued as if that was nothing unusual!!!

This lady was at the bus terminl selling her bananas.

Here we are on the bus, and the girl beside me is Halima, she now lives in Columbus Ohio, and was here for a month visiting her mother, she had been shopping in the city and was going back for a few days to say good-bye to her mom and go back to Ohio.

Once on the bus, at one of the stops, we were "rushed" by all these sellers of goodies, at the front you can see "hand carved bamboo skewer sticks" wit goat meat on them, and also there are 2 sellers of "roti" or as they call it "chappati" there were also some selling bottles of "cold" water, others had "pop" and some had "roasted bananas", Halima bought some roasted bananas, and goat meat, and she share the bananas with me, they were actually really good, but I was a little concerned about eating off the street like that, but i survived, and didn't get sick.

A visit to the Pigmies

http://www.africaguide.com/culture/tribes/pygmies.htm

(not in time sequence, this was on Sunday, but it fits best here)

It was about 48 km, from Edgar's home town of Fort Portal, This is one of the great views, the trip was most senic!!!

This was along the way, but it is a scene that is everywhere in Africa, people pushing overloaded bikes with bananas, or some even carry one large bunch over their shoulder. That day we even saw a woman and several children heaading to town each with a big bunch of bananas.

Many trucks packed with people on the back passed us, and I caught this much of one on camera.

This is a view of the Congo in the far distance beyond the river that is gleaming about the center of the picture.

We passed a Nationa Park, and here you can see on the right of the road, a virgin jungle, and on the left, it has all been stripped away, by those needing trees for lumber, or firewood. Amazing what man can do to his enviroment.

the first glimpse of the village behind where we found the Pygmies.

We drove between huts and small houses to get to where the pygmies had their part of the village. They are actually a forest people, but some of them have moved close to villages, where they then "milk" the tourists, to make a living.

Here Hector is handing the "KING" 20,000 shillings, which is 1/2 of what they asked for, but then we only got 1/2 of what they promised as well. We got some pictures, and he showed us his "PALACE" but, they didn't dance for us as they had said they would.

Here is the "KING'S bedroom"

We finally got the king to supposedly pose with his wife. first he said a woman and child was his wife and kid, then she went into the house so when we wanted a picture, this woman came to pose, so who really knows??? but he did try to tell us he only had one wife!!! Ya right!!

At the road where we turned in we saw this sign.

This is supposedly the SDA Church that the "KING" attends weekly. But we don't think it is the one that is advertized at the road, that on is supposedly higher up on the mountian.

About 2.5 of the walls are completed, and part of the roof is on, they say this is where they meet. We gave them money to buy one zinc panel for the roof, but told them that if it would be better to buy a tarp to keep more of the church dry during the up coming rainy season that they should do that instead.

This is the "co-pastor" on the left, and the "Pastor" on the right.

This is the pastor's house. He came from the Congo 4 years ago, he is not paid by conference or mission, he is supported by the 60 church members he now has. they are divided into 4 groups, and each group brings him food each week. they have saved their meager money to buy the zinc sheets for the roof, but have a long way to go to finish it.

Ever since the Serengeti, I wanted a picture of the aunt hills, finally we found one and actually stopped to take this picture.

48 Km on this kind of roads, took us about 2 hours, and it was difficult for 3 to sit in the cab of the truck, we were bumped and jostled around all day, but I give credit to Edgars brother Eric, he is a very good driver, and was a nice person to spend the day with too.

While traveling both directions, we stopped and picked up people who were trying to flag a ride, this was on the way back, when we stopped, I got this picture of them getting out of the truck.