With Allie’s loyal heart, she wanted to visit as many of our Ugandan family and friends while there, so they would know we hadn’t forgotten them. Besides our Mama in Mukono, we have another Mama in a place called Kapchorwa in the mountainous east of Uganda. This family had recently mourned the sudden death of the Papa, and we intended to pay our respects. We took the 5-hour journey by bus and arrived to find the house in a different state than before. There was a rather melancholy, serious atmosphere and the recent events were obviously heavily felt. For Allie, the absence of her host father was prominent as she had previously enjoyed so many discussions with him over late night dinner. Although this time was different than our earlier visit when Papa Wilson was still around, we were happy to make this trip and knew it was very much appreciated.
We enjoyed getting to know Mama Sophie and Papa Wilson's grown up children as they were around for the holidays. Together we had fun sorting, husking, and roasting coffee beans over a charcoal stove, and collecting honey from a bee hive (we mostly stood back and watched). We also had a fun time asking the family's 107ish year old KoKo (grandma) about what things were like “back in her day”.
While visiting Kapchorwa we also visited Koko Ruth, a lady who has also adopted us as her grandchildren. Though she had planned out a whole 3 days for us to visit her even though we could only visit for morning tea, we still had a great time visiting her for what ended up being lunch. Allie also got the surprise of meeting one of Koko Ruth's new grandchildren who was named Allison.
After a lot of photos of little Allison staring at Mzungu Allison in terrified and in tears, we finally managed to snap a photo of the two of them getting along :)
Another unavoidable visit was to the street children of Off Tu, the mission where Allie had done her internship. She had enjoyed a special time with them while living at the home with the children and working at Off Tu in 2013, but now she felt like she would become yet another short-term volunteer who came and went, never to return again. She was anxious to see the children and show them she had not forgotten them. Unfortunately, the children were on holiday, visiting their family or caretaker.
Thankfully we were able to take a trip to the slums and deprived neighborhoods of Kampala to visited a number of the children.
Many were shy and held back, but after talking to them and remembering the ‘good old times’ together, they showed their joy and excitement. A few of the girls Allie was closest with welcomed Allie with a running jump hugs and just wouldn’t stop hugging her! Though it was a short visit, it turns out it was extra special to have us visit them at their homes. We hope it made a deep impression on the children and they will be talking about it a lot when they come back to their community home.
We kept stretching our stay in Uganda, hesitating to go back and leave our family and friends behind. However, the time finally came, and we said our goodbyes to the family. Allie’s sister Jenni took it with difficulty, and tears were streaming down her face. Only God knows when we will see them again. We left again saying we will do our utmost best to come back, though we can make no promises.
Since the trip to Kampala had been quite the tiring bus ride, we decided to split up our journey home. We took a night bus to Kabale, in the southwest of the country. There, we spent a couple days in a beautiful budget resort on an island in stunning Lake Bunyoni, surrounded by terraced hillsides and mountains. We felt we needed some time just together after being guests for a few weeks in fairly close quarters! Lake Bunyonyi was the perfect place. The accommodation was amazing with open huts and balconies overlooking the lake. Not only is there great hiking and canoeing; the island is also teeming with birds, the sunrises and sunsets are amazing and best of all, the lake is free of dreaded hippos, crocs and bilharzia, making it perfect to swim in! Naturally it was hard to leave, but at least we got to enjoy some more scenery and adventure on the canoe and motor-taxi ride back to town.
From Kabale, our trip continued over the Rwandan border through Kigali to Butare, another town Allie had visited during her studies in Uganda. We enjoyed some rest and good food at a local convent, but we had a less-than-pleasant experience at the national museum where the staff were particularly unhelpful and unfriendly. This unfortunately supported opinions of other East Africans we talked to that Rwandan culture is becoming more and more inhospitable (with some wonderful exceptions of course!). We were happy to be on our way to Burundi the next day. From Butare, the trip was quite adventurous and involved a trip in a rickety minibus to the border, a stuffed taxi car, a crazy-driving coaster van whose driver seemed determined to send us to our maker (but didn’t succeed fortunately!) and a ride in a crammed land rover with a group of jolly Burundian journalists. We were happy to arrive home that evening, tired but refreshed by our time in Uganda and ready to get back to the work we came to do!