Long-Awaited Tilapia

Sunday morning began with a 9am Anglican church service down the street. About 2,000 folks crammed into a medium sized space. Familiar tunes were heard -- "Lord I lift your name on high", "Oh Happy Day".

An afternoon boat ride into Lake Victoria...

...left us marooned on a relatively deserted island with no food and no way to return because rainclouds had covered all of Uganda. (good thing the rain let up)

After missing lunch (and unsuccessfully procuring food on the island), we returned to our original harbor and stopped at a locally renown fish restaurant -- and had two ginormous tilapia for dinner. So worth the wait.

Tomorrow is our first day of teaching at Kampala University and Bugema University... wish us luck!

"Muzungu, Bye!"

Kampala city center: We drove through downtown and it is packed with people, bodas (motorcycle taxis), and cars.












African McDonald's: Larry, our guide, told us that this is the African McDonald's. You drive to the side of the road at the designated area and people thrust chicken, bananas, and water bottles into the car.










near Jinja, Uganda: We travelled about 2 hours East of Kampala to the rural towns. All of the kids were waving and saying "Muzungu, hi" and "Muzungu, bye", which means "white person". I guess there aren't so many shades of yellow out here. There's no electricity, but apparently they still support Obama. (Check out his t-shirt) 








Lake Victoria: We are eating dessert made with unrefined sugars to go along with the free-range chicken from African McDonald's. This is raw sugar cane and it is super tasty.

BOS-->LHR-->EBB

Cambridge, MA (in front of our place): Besides our change in travel plans, the journey to Kampala has been very easy. Here's a pic leaving Cambridge.











Tower of London (changing of the guards): We had a layover in London, so ventured into the city for a visit to the Tower of London. The crown jewels were pretty cool as we saw the largest diamond in the world.











Kampala, Uganda (TATS guesthouse): We are in Uganda with an organization called Teach and Tour Sojourners. This is our room for the next two weeks. There is wifi, which is the speed of dial up, but internet nonetheless!

Pre-Peregrination: Packing

Our stuff: 3 shirts, 1 long-sleeve shirt, 2 pants, 1 skirt/shorts, 1 fleece, 6-9 undies, travel dress, sarong, bathing suit, sleep sack, travel towel, LOTS of toiletries, first aid kit, 2 sporks, bowl, wash line, flashlight, alarm clock, journal, camera, netbook (in W's pack)
Our pack: We separately picked out the same backpacks so we're matching, but we are not "that" couple.

T minus 2 days (err I mean 1): This is my second international travel botch up. Turns out if you leave on a red eye flight, you arrive in your destination on the NEXT day. I booked our London-Entebbe flight for the wrong day. Luckily, American Airlines was able to graciously re-book our flights for 1 day earlier without any extra fees. The downside was that Warren has a day less to work on the dissertation and lost a year off his life being married to me.

The first time we missed our flight to New Zealand as I had a little trouble reading military time.

Tentative Itinerary:

Uganda (Aug 26 to Sep 15)
Tanzania (Sept 15 to Sep 23)
Rwanda (Sep 23 to Sep 30)
Uganda (Sep 30 to Oct 3)
UK - London (Oct 3 to Oct. 6)
Spain (Oct. 6 to Oct. 13) - Mel minus Warren plus Jung/Brian
Hawaii (Oct. 13 to Oct. 17) - Mel only
Cali (Oct 17 to Oct 27) - Mel only